I’m going to say yes, even though I know you’re going to say that I’m a hypocrite afterward with some absolute nonsensical ad-hockery.
The issue is even, and in what ways you define even. If players actually picked all races equally, and players of all skill levels were evenly distributed across races - both things that we know are not true, but things I would argue are necessary for things to be even - then we would see a ~33% distribution of each race for each league and a very idealized 4-23-23-23-23-4 percent split between the Leagues.
Please dont try to gaslight me into going back to building ht. I played ht for idk 6 years straight because i just cant stand the weak colossus. But since i switched to colossi i noticed how incredibly good it feels to have reliable splash. Colossus is weak, yes, but at least there is no counter a la looking at the screen and put a single spell anywhere and boom all energy of hts is gone. The buff for emp should never have existed in the first place because it was always strong. Plus how unreliable, micro intensive and risky it is to put hts into a prism and storm drop. Its pretty cool and pretty strong and ive done it for multiple years but there is a reason why colossi is the go to strat and thus the raven push was seen like everytime in tvp. Obviously you can add ht later on but putting all your splash into the ht basket in rather early game stage is a very bad idea.
Yeah obviously but there is nothing wrong with mmm spam. He directly said:
“In bronze - gold you can spam MMM to win, but that will not work in plat and above.”
Yes…yes ofc it does. Yes ofc it will work in plat and above. Spamming mmm is the go to for any terran in the world. Denying that would be lying.
For reference:
youtu.be/Vmh_IhcK1qY?t=4865
Harstem, lambo and scarlett ranking units. Marine is the best S tier unit. This is pretty much what everyone knows. The marine is the single best unit. Together with medivac and marauder as A tier units it draws a very clear picture.
Spamming mmm is not bad. Its a must. It is not the reason you will fail in plat or above its the reason you will advance.
Yesterday on reddit we finally had a topic about not the widow mine but the marine:
I just cant wrap around my head why anyone would think mmm is anyhow considered bad or the reason they are losing.
Yeah obviously. It would be equally false to claim that hence i posted this:
This is equally false. Obviously the core unit composition still works.
But still i just cant get over saying that its supposed to be a terran specific problem, since mmm is like the strongest core possible especially for lower level people.
I actually never stated that you can do it with mmm alone. Initially i stated:
Which is pretty much true. Ghost as a refinement of the staple works wonders against all protoss units and all zerg units. Specifically: EMP counters everything p related and snipe would be good against also everything but especially ultra, broods, lurker and infestor and obviously the bonus dmg vs light is pretty cool against lings and hydra
he THEN switched to:
Like its worth noting that you will build some extra support units…every race does this. This is not a terran only issue.
In short, that was my issue with his argument. He basically said: its a terran only related problem that you cant advance with a core unit composition like mmm. Which is false. Every race needs to add some key units in order to refine their army. I just basically made the additional point of terran mmm also being the strongest staple of all 3 races. Which is true. To make ling bane viable vs bio you addtionally need good creep spread. To counter mmm as protoss addtionally you need splash. And obviously…i made the argument that you need to work the hardest mechanically do pull it off. In other words, it has the highest skill ceiling/potential. This is basically what for example bourne is saying, no? There is a reason why terran always trades so effectively…but they also have to trade effectively. To achieve that, you really need to work mechnically. I dont think this is a controversial statement at all.
I was just literally thinking about adding the classy protoss noob move into my wall of text.
HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT I AM THINKING?
But yeah. Actually…if it was about protoss and abs would be saying: Protoss noob players cant advance because builiding cannons at nat into void ray is suuuuuch an iconic noob move. You wont really advance with it but its a It’s a Simple Spell But Quite Unbreakable at this level.
Very true btw. Thats why i wont do this. Im a protoss. Like i care about micro LMAO.
Im just glad i can finally watch parting again and just look at all the things i simply cant pull off because i dont have the micro. Now im a beta cuck colossi chargelot enjoyer
Yeah this is a big issue actually. Dont tell that anyone but my 2v2 unranked is bugged (grinding for 1000 wins z,t,p,r) so i play A LOT of 2v2s against silver scrubs. The amount of terrans that still dont get the orbital ASAP is astonishing. The game is out for 13 years and silver scrubs dont even know that 0o And bourne is pretending its because of terran is hard. Hahahahahahah.
I actually find it harder to micro with toss than it is to macro, and for terran the opposite. The most difficult thing about Protoss macro is keeping your warp prism alive. Rapid fire and not needing to hit as many beats makes it EZ.
I’m not trying to do that at all; so far as I can recall - obviously not being a Protoss main myself - HTs were almost always added on as supplementary damage with the exception of Chargelot Archon era where Chargelots did +8 damage on contact.
Eh, this does come down to counter-micro and reaction to some extent though; protecting your HTs with prisms, or simply being fast enough to cast storm before EMP hits (again, EMP is an admittedly fast projectile). Having said that, that’s hard enough to do as it is, especially for most protoss players below masters.
Yeah, I don’t disagree with it. I actually was against it when it was proposed initially. With the EMP buff, it definitely negated much of the Protoss army. Now you have to be a lot more focused with your EMP targeting.
I think the difference here is that he’s referring to Marine Marauder Medivac, and you’re referring to Marine Medivac Mine. It’s hard to tell though.
I kinda agree with both sides; on the one hand, if your macro is good enough you can make only Marine Marauder Medivac work without issue up to gold, probably even low plat. But as splash starts coming out, that definitely doesn’t work anywhere nearly as well without then having to supplement it.
On the other hand the 4M strategy, or even Marine Medivac Mine works even at pro level, albeit having a timed life if you’re not transitioning to later-game units. But it’s strong enough and versatile enough that it can be made to work with extremely good mechanics, I agree.
It is if you’re not mechanically good enough, to be fair, but I get your point.
Again though, different races are different.
Yeah I don’t get that either.
This I disagree with; I’d actually argue that Ling Bane is the strongest core for gold and below because of the easy access to splash damage that requires nothing more than an a-move command. Players of that calibre are also completely incapable of splitting and in high gold are barely learning the concept of stutter-stepping, so MMM typically stands and fights at that level… and dies, even off creep, as a result.
Nah, the problem with adding ghosts into the mix is that most players, across all races, below diamond struggle using casters as it is. Throwing ghosts in there makes that army a lot more difficult to control, especially given how ghosts work with steady targeting. You’re honestly going to be better off with liberators for Zone control (and mines, of course).
To be fair, when I read your initial point, it sounded like you didn’t even need to do anything other than use the core composition, without supplementing the army. At least, that was the way I interpreted it.
Nah i still mean marine marauder medivac. I just said mmm (marine medivac mine) to bournes because he wanted to use widow mines vs zealots.
Yeah now you maybe understand how it feels like playing ht (especially storm drop). Its like with ghosts…but much much much much worse…and your life actually depends on it.
Yeah but it was about above gold. And there you need creep spread. Its still the strongest core composition but you addtionally need creep to make it work.
I would call that being terran biased. EMP is still very very big and it already has so much more advantages than ht. You said it comes down to counter micro. I would say its about as correct as saying the guy that came to the gunfight with a knife has a fighting chance…Yeah he does but its pretty one-sided. I mean cmon. And the funny thing is: a terran could actually do the same with ghosts! They could just protect it with a medivac. Why dont they do it? Because they dont need to because its pretty obvious who wins the fight of emp vs feedback.
The interactions did nearly not change at all. Protoss still cant fight terran and need to throw balls until either side fails the dance. Cool matchup. Much thank you. Its boring af for both players on high level. The lategame i mean. I think the matchup is fun for both players before the ghost disruptor stalemate.
The recent patch notes are a spit in the face of protoss and zerg players. Zerg players got an unneccesary nerf and protoss wasnt helped at all. Just some homeopathic changes to make protoss feel good. But hey at least terrans got a new toy to play with. At least its much stronger vs zerg than it is vs protoss (in macro but the all ins with cyclones are nasty, again, thank you very much).
Yeah but the point is about going for it as the main source of splash damage. Since colossi are pretty bad and often times dont get even build after the 2 initial colossi you could just use ht as your main source of splash. its incredibly strong if it connects. But its risky as hell and very hard to play (hero lost the game with it which was practically won. But 4 hts down the drain and it was gg). Obviously adding storm later on is a good thing to do but then you could just go disruptor.
But yeah this was exactly my point. The skill ceiling with mmm is incredible. But you need to improve your micro and macro pretty hard or you just can go mech if you arent able to do so^^
So its rather about gold players not spamming mmm hard enough to advance. There is a reason why there are mutliple guides on how to improve basically tell you to max out as quickly as possible. Obviously you can do the lazy terran macro and queue mm with all your rax, but this isnt efficient. Having a flawless macro is an crazy effort compared to sprinkle in your 1 or 2 extra units like siege tank or liberator. And you need to keep up your flawless macro while you are in a fight and splitting/presplitting, dropping and going for the one two punch at the third or fourth. This is the actual hard part. And not the “dont do mmm alone, you need to build like a siege tank or a liberator”…gosh…
Except you can’t, because unlike with ghosts, warp prism has 5 pickup range, and doesn’t have energy that can be drained through feedback, both of which means that protecting the ghost both inside the medivac, and through hot-pickup, is much riskier than with prisms (especially speed prism which has a 5.26 move speed)
It’s the same size as storm. 1.5 radius.
It applies its damage immediately, which I’ll grant is the advantage; however it also only damages shields, and energy. The former means you’re only ever going to have at maximum 50% of the opponent’s (rapidly recoverable) health pool, with one or two exceptions.
Feedback and storm are both instant cast, the former immediately drains 100% of your energy and can be rapid-fired, while storm is also instant-cast and good for both damage and zoning.
Ultimately, different units are different, even if some serve similar rolls.
Protoss Late-game wasn’t ever really the issue previously though - at least from what I could tell at pro level - it was always before that late-game that they really struggled.
??? I assume you mean Lurkers, in which I’d vehmently disagree.
I do think Protoss could have had more done with it though, and I do think that the cyclone changes were completely unnecessary.
Not planning to call you names. Just wanted to establish a simplifying assumption.
So, if Terran players “should” be of even MMR, all things being even: then the only way for them to be below the average MMR, is for them to be “below even.” Or, in other words, the average Terran player is below the average Terran and Protoss player.
The mode average (most common representative) should line up pretty much no matter what. If memory serves, the most probable league for all races is silver because the ladder remained bottom-weighted despite the intent of the adjusted leagues.
The mean average, or ‘pick a hundred players out of a hat’ idea, should line up - if and only if the skill levels of the populations are evenly distributed. That’s a very vital part of all things being even. Similarly is true of the median average (The number nearest to the middle when the list is ordered).
Ergo: If and only if things are actually even, then all races should demonstrate equal values on all three averages.
Therefore, I find the sentence self contradictory. If things are truly even, then it should be impossible for the averages to not line up. And riddle sentences are always unfair.
IF the races were all exactly even in skill requirements at all levels (impossible, I know–it’s a simplifying assumption) and Terran players were on average lower MMR, then does that not mean that Terran players are, in some way, inferior players?
Yeah, if you get that far divorced from reality then that sentence is probably true.
Edit: Let me be specific and clear, actually, so this will take a while
In order for the conclusion Terran players are on worse players to be true, you need to know that it’s not just that bad players like to pick Terran; which is possible even if the skill requirements are the same because of some feature the race possesses or that the other races lack.
While there’s not really a clear way to demonstrate this for StarCraft, it’s observed and published for League of Legends that some things just appeal more to bad players than they do to good ones - It’s not that that character/race is weak, or that it’s easily countered or anything; but it’s specifically that there’s an overpopulation of players who are bad at that character playing them because I like this. is more important to them than winning. I do this in every game I play, for example - if I can’t have fun doing the thing I want to do because the thing I don’t like is too much stronger / the game expects too much of me, I just abandon the game because I’d rather lose doing things I like than win.
Ofc you can. Pickup a ghost offscreen (like protoss would do it with ht, also comparing like 8 medivacs (that cant be killed by feedback alone even with max energy) with possible a few possible ghosts vs literally 1 super high targetable squishy warp prism…cmooon). A stormdrop is simply a few hts loaded in a warpprism some time ago. I dont know why you act like you can save hts with prism pickup micro when this is like barely seen ever 0o
Its pretty obvious that dropping ghosts to emp isnt done because hitting emp is really a nonissue. Ive seen more other units that got dropped in a fight (cyclone, widowmine, tank) than a ghost.
yeah. its an upgrade thats only really available in lategame since going for the upgrade means bay and that tech heavy. A medivac however is even faster with the boost and it doesnt even need an upgrade (5.95 with boost). Thats why hotpickups of tanks or evacuating the whole army on zerg creep while you get overrun is often seen.
Meaning very big for a spell that nearly instantly hits and does all its dmg instantly when it hits.
Also its aoe 0o. feedback is not aoe. you would have a point if feedback also was aoe.
Doesnt matter because you will lose the fight if you engange. Meaning you have to retreat only to get blasted again. And since the army of protoss is much more clumped and less moveable than terran, you nearly will always get 100% of the army. Storm actually only gets 50% of the healthpool of the enemy too because they rarely tend to stay in storm…and terran healthpool is also rapidily recoverable because of medivac. I would trade storm for a spell that instantly kills 50% (and not more) of the whole terran army any day since then you can just blast them even with the weak colossus.
They dont do it tho. Because there are too many targets and hitting a target with not much energy is pretty bad.
Yes thats true. But i said the design was godawful. nobody wants to see unlimited balls exchange until 1 guy fails…and obviously since the matchup is t favored you will fight an uphill battle.
Bane health?
This is the most discussed and most unexpected nerf outside of the cyclone rework. Both things got a lot of questionmarks from the community.
Yeah exactly. Why bother with protoss struggleing when we just can make terran even more annoying. Thank you spirit for insisting on this rework that took like 95% of the time and concentration of the balance council and the community. At least they didnt throw in the first version of the cyclone that actually beat everything. It was a warhound 2.0.
I quote:
“Make Protoss more stable on a professional level in the early game vs Raven pushes and more able to fight Terran mid-late game armies without solely relying on Disruptors.”
Raven push is still a thing and if they tried to make protoss early game vs t more stable in general they failed big time with it since it became less stable. Its obvious why for example maxpax says the patch was another nerf for protoss.
I mean i can accept further beating of protoss just for the sake of it. Its kinda funny. But beating protoss when you tell them you gonna help is just next level. Maybe its actually even funnier, now that i think about it.
And both were, frankly, deserved IMO; it hasn’t really stopped Zerg players from winning tournaments either, all it’s done really is bring them back into line with the rest of the races. Or at least with T.
Protoss at a pro level specifically has other issues though, not just related to balance. In particular that the player who is arguably your best player refuses to play offline. As said with HerO being extremely inconsistent (as he’s kinda always been an off-meta champion), You’re mostly looking at Classic to take you to the finals, or MaxPax, who straight up doesn’t compete offline but can and does regularly beat anyone and everyone online. The former fell to Dark last time, after beating Maru, and the latter keeps forcing the team he’s on to cop fines because he doesn’t want to play (I frankly don’t understand why MaxPax does this).
They weren’t trying to make them not a thing though; they were simply trying to delay the timing somewhat to give Protoss players more time to be more stable, which, to be fair, they did actually do by making IM a research. It could be longer though, I’ll grant you that.
Because MaxPax relied heavily on Disruptors which got a supply nerf (weird considering what the patch was supposed to do, but okay I guess). Frankly speaking pretty much everything Protoss players hated facing got nerfed at least somewhat, except Mines which were supposed to at least be made more obvious on what they were targeting, but I guess they gave up on that for some reason?
I suspect we’ll see the patch revisited after Katowice to see if it’s done what it needed to (it kinda has, but not really).
Yeah. It doesnt surprise me that a terran will always claim that nerfs for other races are justified or if terran is standing strong, other races are struggleing somehow not being related to balance.
2 things: Prior to latest patch everyone and their mother agreed that protoss needs help. After the patch everyone and their mother said the patch didnt actually do what it supposed to do…like you actually noticed a couple of times too. So yeah, SOME things might be better but this is not nearly enough. Ofc you as a terran will say “hey let the meta settle” even though its crystal clear that protoss isnt looking good. And its not even about protoss not winning anything big in 2023. Its about all the years protoss didnt really win something. Solar pretty much proved with gsl victory that you dont need to be an S level player to win gsl, so quality of p players aside they eventually will win something.
I know that you try to claim that its only because of maxpax not going to offline or that somehow hero is soooooo inconsistent or nearly every kr protoss pro is in military or whatnot but the truth is protoss is lacking wins for multiple years straight. 1 GSL win in how many years? 6? Even when the top protoss players were still playing they didnt achieve as much as compared to t or z.
Also its not like maxpax is dominating other players. He has a fair chance. Nothing more, nothing less. He might be number 1 or 2 or protoss but dont overhype him only to make protoss look good.
Meanwhile we have freaking heromarine clapping reynor 2:0. Hes not an S tier player but still he won with cyclone hellion despite getting caught hard in second game vs reynor, yet he still won rather easily only to be clapped by skillous of all players…
Yeah…the push is now delayed by like what? 5 seconds if in both cases the push gets played perfectly? Such wow. The uprade costs next to nothing and has a research time of 57 sec while the raven needs 34 seconds to build leaving us 23 seconds where the raven needs to travel around the map to the enemy base while not having the upgrade ready. Wow That pvt stability.
Plus, like ive said, the early game became more unstable due to cyclone.
WHOOOPSIE. They didnt do it too. ggwp balance council. I almost forgot that.
So yeah. Basically every big goal they tried to accomplish with that patch failed. Cool. Yet you sit there and pretend like the game is fine while the reddit forums are on fire and no protoss has a fair chance even in ro8.
I mean honestly look at the initial text for the balance patch:
"
Make Protoss more stable on a professional level in the early game vs Raven pushes and more able to fight Terran mid-late game armies without solely relying on Disruptors.
Increase the variety in the mid game and late game army compositions by reducing the strength of massed Ghosts, Banelings, and Disruptors.
Make over specialized units (Cyclones, Mothership, and Infestors) viable throughout more stages of the game.
Bgrin more visual clarity to important units on the minimap, as well as relevant abilities like Widow Mine targeting, and Disruptor’s cooldown indicator.
Promote more interaction in late game scenarios, by making units such as Tempest, Mothership, and Brood Lord more maneuverable."
→ Make Protoss more stable on a professional level in the early game vs Raven pushes and more able to fight Terran mid-late game armies without solely relying on Disruptors.
They didnt make pvt more stable, instead they added a new annoying cyclone which further instabalises the matchup. Then they nerved disruptors but not giving anything in return. How is that supposed to have the effect of “more able to fight Terran mid-late game armies without solely relying on Disruptors.” ??? Meaning this point went full 180 degrees.
Increase the variety in the mid game and late game army compositions by reducing the strength of massed Ghosts, Banelings, and Disruptors.
Make over specialized units (Cyclones, Mothership, and Infestors) viable throughout more stages of the game.
Definetly did that for terran. Now we have a low micro highly spammable mass destruction unit of cyclone viable vs zerg while none of the other units got more viable or buffed in any other meaningful way…they were like…nerfed, lol. At least i can enjoy that terrans are kinda frustrated because of cyclone drop in tvt shredding scvs. Now they start to feel how its like for other races. Heromarine actually went for double drop cyclone. Dont know yet if its viable or if he did it because he wanted to have some fun. But cyclone drop in tvt is the new way to play.
Bring more visual clarity to important units on the minimap, as well as relevant abilities like Widow Mine targeting, and Disruptor’s cooldown indicator.
yeah we had that. “WHOOPSIE we cannot do that because of…reasons”.
Promote more interaction in late game scenarios, by making units such as Tempest, Mothership, and Brood Lord more maneuverable."
This they did Cool. So out of 5 points they actually managed to do only a single one despite having so much time and reflection from the community. But spirit was like: give me my darn cyclone! Ok then. Seems like this was much more important than to fix the miserable state of protoss.
this is a big issue actually. Dont tell that anyone but my 2v2 unranked is bugged (grinding for 1000 wins z,t,p,r) so i play A LOT of 2v2s against silver scrubs. The amount of terrans that still dont get the orbital ASAP is astonishing. The game is out for 13 years and silver scrubs dont even know that 0o And bourne is pretending its because of terran is hard. Hahahahahahah.