I had an ~80% zvp winrate at a rank 50ish in gm and thought it was unbearable so I can’t imagine how annoyed you feel right now. I got tired of tryharding to the maximum to barely beat dudes who F2-right-click 5 carriers to their death through a spore forest or rally their first colossus into you for free. The skill difference and effort disparity was bad enough but then the protoss gms were BM and saying zerg is OP and telling me that zerg needs nerfs, calling me “cementhead” and various other names. These clowns need a big slice of humble pie and if not then they can enjoy playing PvP to eternity. Dealing with the ridiculous balance issues is hard enough without having to deal with the players themselves.
The guy who called me cementhead did an attack with 2 carriers and 3 voids. He doesn’t scout jack, attacks the third and looks away. I run under and kill all of it for free with a hydra pounce. I barely won the game. The balance issues are creating a cultural rot in the player base. Bad players propped up by years of imbalance can’t solve in game problems without bullying everyone into capitulating to their asinine balance demands. It’s literally the only way they know how to win.
There is no way Protoss win-rate doesn’t go up after this patch. What the PTR storm was to live is an absolute joke, it was meant to be a nerf, but it’s an insane buff. Disruptor got a decent buff, Energy Recharge got a slap on the wrist. What did Zerg get? A tiny buff to Spire lol, which wasn’t used anyway, so great.
It’s not that simple. APM spammers in the pro scene will cry because they analyze balance under the lens of “how do I defend my third with my usual build order after the storm change?” when what they ought to be asking is “what new build orders and playstyles can I create that maximize the disadvantages of storm?”. Storm will now suck against burrowed roach, for example. The healing of burrow, the movement speed of roaches, the durability of roaches, it’s all a nexus point of new storm weaknesses. Combine that with the new microbial shroud and I bet running 12 speed roaches into his natural and then pressuring his third is just GG.
2 base lair off a 15/15 opener might also be viable with ling queen infestor. You rush out an infestation pit. You make queens constantly except to make a lair. Drop a creep highway and send 5 queens and three infestors across. Pump lings like crazy. Queens invalidate oracles, lings and microbial will flatten the protoss.
There’s options here, I can’t say if it’s protoss favored or not.
I would agree if the change was the one we originally read, 10 to 5 damage, but they changed it and now it’s almost the same damage, with bigger radius and longer duration.
Microbial shroud could be interesting, but I don’t think I have the micro for it lol. I don’t think it affects Storm anyway.
Yeah, if that’s the case then I wait. That’s why I won’t play for a couple more weeks. Let the intern figure out that toss is still busted and adjust it downward. I won’t waste time playing a patch if it could be rigged for zerg to auto lose.
Patch amendments have made TvP better. It’s no longer a net buff for toss, and it’s well in Terrans power to outplay toss with 8 range stormers. 2 supply ghosts means split pushing bio ghost is back on the menu.
It’s around a 60% sizable damage increase, over an area that’s about 75% larger, but for a duration that’s about twice as long, resulting in about a 12.5% dps nerf.
Overall, it’s a buff due to the significantly increased damage and radius.
Prior to the patch, banes without the bonus 5hp would survive storm on 1hp. Post buff, banes with the bonus 5hp survive on 1 hitpoint. It’s not a significant change, but it’s definitely stronger.
It’s not a complaint, merely a statement; dealing with the Protoss deathball takes significantly more work on one-side than it does on the other.
Yes, there are definitely instances where there it’s more difficult for each race to deal with the other - such as widow mine drops being more difficult to deal with than execute - but it’s also pretty dry-cut that, these days, for the most part, Protoss ability to deal with things from other races is significantly more forgiving than the opposite due to Recall, warp-gate and Energy Recharge.
I mean it’s a direct buff overall for units that can’t escape storm as quickly such as siege tanks and liberators, and slow moving units like thors and hellbats.
Which is hilarious considering how over-countered mech is. They also removed the double damage buff to the cyclone. Terran is definitely getting raked over the coals on this patch (when it was protoss that needed to be). They are also nerfing liberators. The intern saw Gumiho beat Showtime with liberators and decided showtime actually deserved the win. In that situation, a Protoss went 7 minutes without making a phoenix when he should’ve had one out before / in anticipation of the liberator harass. Basically they are telling protoss players that they don’t need to actually worry about unit comps / adapting production waves for future needs.
It’s really looking like a straight up protoss buff patch. People need to realize sc2 is being designed irrespective of balance and for the specific purpose of making good esports content. It is not a fair competitive ladder game any more. It’s more akin to a cooking show where they pre-pick the winners based on what will get the most viewership.
A girl I know is a professional chef and she was on one of these cooking shows. They decided she was good for drama, but that she was to be the villain. So they find every little clip they can to spin the narrative of good vs evil, in the kitchen, with her playing as Satan. She is actually a very nice woman and it’s amazing the show was able to make her look so mean. That’s basically what’s happening here. They need protoss in the top 4 of EWC and they don’t care what they have to do to get there. Even if they have to buff protoss to where unit comps don’t matter any more, it’s fine as long as showtime etc is in the finals.
If it does turn out to be a protoss buff patch, the best thing people can do is just walk away. It’s been 6 weeks since I last played. Blizzard can design the game however they want, but that doesn’t mean anyone has to stick around.
I recommend checking out Timberborne and Starbirds. Both are strategy games and have outstanding reviews on Steam.
SC2 can be the king of a dying genre, and who cares? To quote Metallica, “Where’s your crown, King Nothing?”.
Siege Tanks, Liberators, and Widow Mines all tend to be in Storm for its full duration, when it is actually used on them, and with the higher damage it definitely will be used on them more often.
Thors and Hellbats “can” get out of Storm to some degree, but with their slow speed and the wider radius they will take more damage than they use to.
Frankly, the Storm and Microbial Shroud changes should never have gone through.
I’ve been doing some thinking, and changed my mind a bit on the spells. Both Storm and Microbial Shroud require a fair bit of tech to get to. Yes, they are powerful spells. They are also going to get more people playing the game. They are fun, and impactful. All the hype in SC1 was people yelling “Stooormmm!!”
Against an aggressive opponent, I don’t think it is trivial to get these spells. It’s a significant cost and time investment, and the spells require micro to use.
Siege Tanks in particular take almost half the damage from Storm before they can even start moving; and you are losing a lot of damage if you have to do this during a fight.