Protoss had it coming!

General Discussion
1

Long time Terran player here and glad to see Protoss getting some much needed nerfs.
It’s about time we nerfed the all army hotkey a move race.

Inflammatory jokes aside, the race needs some compensation to make up for the loss of warp gate. These changes would negatively effective Protoss vs Zerg and Terran at nearly every single level of the game. Protoss at the highest levels might not be able to win any major tournaments, the changes are that drastic.

I’ll outline my thoughts as a former low to mid diamond Terran/Random player.

The Good:

These changes are coming from a good place. Changing the game is good, updates are good. Improving the fun factor is important. Warp gate can be frustrating to play against even in PvP and it’s nice to see the devs being creative.

I haven’t formed an opinion on the worker start yet, my gut sense is that it will make the game more fun but it’s too early to tell.

Concerns:

Protoss has non warp-gate option but the loss/restriction of the new warp gate pigeon holes them quite a bit. Stargate and Robo openers are reasonable alternatives but the change makes Protoss much more predictable.

Most Stargate units outside the Oracle and all Robo units are pretty much all in pressure to be effective. You have to do damage or the game is over. The warp gate changes are a big nerf to early warp prism play as well.

Examples:

Proxy Void Ray
3 Gate Robo
Proxy 2 Gate
Cannon Rush
Proxy Tempest
Proxy DT with Warp Prism

Unless you do damage you’re going to lose the game to an equally skilled opponent.

Proxy Oracle and Proxying a single Gateway while committing leave you with options, where you can still play from behind. Oracles have utility in stopping ling runbys, detection, and just general game value and Proxy gateways can give you a lot of map control/help counter greedy play against Terran and Zerg. Removing early warp gate means Protoss has reduced gateway options + oracles for non committal aggression. The gateway options are also significantly easier to scout since they will require more commitment to get out, will arrive later and won’t have the same follow up pressure as the previous warp gate options.

Terran and Zerg by comparison have many non-committal pressure builds and options vs Protoss. Reapers, widow mine drops, proxy hellions, cyclone pressure, 1-1-1, early pools, fast ling speed, roach ravager, any number of lair pressure builds, +1/+1 timings for bio ect… .

Worse Defensive Tools:

Losing early warp gate also reduces your defensive tools. Early ling, Ravager, 3rax pressure are much harder to hold. It also makes even weaker cheese like banshees or hellion reaper much more dangerous. Your sentries come out later which directly hurts hallucination scouting as well. Almost everything is defensively worse since slow warp ins are not as big a factor for trying to hold an all in. Your weaknesses for early map presence also makes it harder to hold marine tank all ins.

Hurts an already weak early game economy:

The reduced worker start is also a soft nerf to the Protoss early game. Protoss is generally the weakest race in mutual low eco situations. Their early game is also gas heavy and the reduced worker start means gas mining starts later and all tech progression is delayed.

Matchup Concerns:

The likely shift will be having to play either aggressive all ins in PvT or turtling and the non-viability of Protoss in the tournament scene in PvZ. Serral is already almost unbeatable in PvZ series and he’s not the only Zerg with very high PvZ win rates.

This change might also break the rock, paper scissors dynamic between gateway, robotics bay and stargate. Stargate might just be the best choice in PvP since you get detection and mobility. The warp gate hurts stalkers and blink stalkers the most.

Possible Fixes:

Protoss needs something to make up for the new early game weakness. It could be a buff to chrono on probe production, maybe more line of sight for gateway units, a cost reduction to the robotics bay ect… , maybe change stalkers so that 3 can one shot workers but they need options and teeth to avoid build order losses. Back during Wings and HoTs they had faster worker production.

We should also consider a late game buff to a core gateway unit like stalkers, sentries, or high templar. The nerf to warp gates in the late game also hits your army size.

My thoughts for potential buffs:

Buff HT to 125 50 from 150 50
Add a +20 shield upgrade for stalkers for 50/50
Reduce gas cost of sentry to 75 gas
Nexus Chrono Boost increases energy regen by chrono boost
Robotics bay cost reduction to 150 100
Reduce Oracle energy cost for stasis trap
Reduce Warp gate cost on gateways to 25/25

I don’t know what the right answer is I’ve never been better than mid-diamond and could barely beat a low masters player on my best days. But race balance is essential to the health of the game. Obviously all of these changes would be bad but they need something to be more viable.

TLDR:

This is a 3 race game and Protoss will be decimated if this PTR goes through in current form.
New changes are interesting, Protoss needs some new buffs/options or will lose viability at the highest levels and will suffer at all ranks.

2

Yeah this patch is utter nonsense and I will quit if it goes through. Not buying skins or anything else.

1 Like
3

I, as a Protoss player, dislike the Warp Gate changes very much, feels like it’s a big change to a very unique core mechanic of the race because a player of another race asked for, take balance asside for a bit, Warp Gate is the mechanic that made me play Protoss in the first place, I thought it was such a very unique, original and very cool design to see a string of units materializing like that, it was aesthetic design that got my attention, and for a lot of players, not just for me, when we make a decision on a game we tend to make it based on aesthetic and fun first and then we optimize to make it work later. This update encourages to play Gateway instead which is, in my Protoss player opinion, not as fun.

Now, for the balance part, Protoss units are (usually) NOT cost effective, they are expensive, slow, hard to replenish and also they used to hit much harder, we had years of Protoss dps nerfs, Zealot, Immortal, Storm, Disruptors etc… not gonna say they weren’t deserved but they were nerfs that were taking in consideration that Protoss could materialize mid fight very aggressively and their slowness could be mitigated by this mechanic. If you just take away the core mechanic you’ll be condemning Protoss to years of deserved nerfs because of WG to undeserved nerfs.

Now, for the build diversity, I really don’t see anything new from the WG changes, only things taken away, I don’t see how early Adepts all ins will be even possible anymore, Adept will be like Reaper, only there to give vision without any good builds around it. We are losing early Zealots all ins and, maybe I’ll be wrong on this, but if any new builds are coming from this partch it only makes sense to attribute to the 8 workers start instead of WG changes, maybe like… proxy gateway? geez.

Yeah I don’t like it, let a Protoss warp in bro.

1 Like
4

My experience has been they’re actually kind of insane because 18 seconds is not a well balanced build time for the Zealot if it gets going. You build-order lose a lot harder, though.

I do not disagree with your actual point but there is an important nuance tick to remember in this list:

Protoss ground units are either fast or have a good cost efficiency. Late-game Zealots are extremely fast but don’t do something unique and melee is a big weakness, Stalkers have poor damage performance, where HT are explosively strong… but scarcely mobile.

yeah this

I do think warp-in is not a mechanic that is like… that well balanced, but it is a mechanic that screams loud its fun factor. Having these things in MP makes me actually have fun with 1v1s because these sorts of “fun” type mechanics don’t get much limelight in “COMPETITIVE ONE VERSUS ONE HARDCORE EXPERIENCE” type games, because they’re. well.

fun over intuitive how to balance.

For what it’s worth, though, the gateway swap itself comes with advantages, it’s just… not enough advantage in my opinion to justify the lack of warp-in strategic benefit as a choice; but the 50 gas cost per warp gate morph is oppressive for a decent chunk of time, since Protoss is a little more gas-rate limited than the other two races.

If the per-Warp Gate transform didn’t cost gas, it’d be one thing. Warp-in is that powerful and flexible, so I respect it costing gas, but it feels so terrible to play with relatively.

1 Like
5

At least Clem seems to be doing fine with protoss on the new PTR Patch.

6

Everybody is complaining because now you actually have to put more effort into macro, when before, let’s be honest, Protoss Macro was much easier compared to Zerg and Terran Macro.

1 Like
7

I am not a pro player, but what if instead of making it paid for at every warp gate; why not keep it at the cyber core and just make it more expensive, like 250/250.

8

When they insert abilities like Energy Recharge, this balance council looks more incompetent than years before 2024. no wonder the current patch is also a mess.

9

At the expense of the fun factor of having Gateway units that scale well with fun bread-and-butter micro in comparison to, for instance, Terran Bio.

In Brood War, Warp Gates would necessitate changes to Protoss’ bread-and-butter Dragoons (and possibly to Zealots) to make the positional advantages Warp Gates provide balanced.

In SC2, Warp Gates mean that Gateway units need to have less scalable damage output so as to not run over the opponent with reinforcements that don’t require travel from a base to the front lines (in other words, not Dragoons). So early Gateway units fall into these four roles:

  • Sentries for using Forcefield to allow Protoss to engage smaller parts of early/midgame opposing armies, to avoid standing and engaging an equal force head-on (an equally expensive Terran Bio or Roach- or Speedling-based force that is often either more cost-efficient, supply-efficient, or both).
  • Adepts as largely a keep-away harassment tool and anti-harassment tool for gaining economic advantage without standing and engaging an equal force head-on.
  • Stalkers as an attrition unit that relies on winning over time by taking advantage of vulnerable targets, tactically retreating, and slowly wearing down the opposing army at its edges without having to actually stand and engage an equal force head-on.
  • Zealots that can overwhelm an opponent by being a consistently larger force on the front lines because of Warp Gate reducing/eliminating travel time for reinforcement, allowing them to overwhelm the opponent by being an unequally large force at moments when opposing reinforcements have to travel to get to the front lines and the current Zealot wave has not yet been eliminated by kiting if the Protoss plays well.

All of this ultimately meaning that SC2 Protoss cannot have a ranged Gateway unit like the Dragoon that can stand and fight an equal army with bread-and-butter micro techniques, because Warp Gate makes that kind of unit too strong (both offensively and defensively).

If Warp Gate is sufficiently nerfed, that reduction of reinforcement time is no longer a restriction against Gateway units being designed to stand and fight against an equal force with fun bread-and-butter micro whilst remaining balanced.

With all that said, a Warp Gate nerf without corresponding changes to Gateway units means that the current state of the patch is half-baked, in my view. Gateway units need changes that are less “avoid engaging equal forces” and more “allow for defeating of equal forces head-on with better bread-and-butter micro, which is the most fun kind of micro.” Without that, I don’t see a lot of benefit in nerfing Warp Gate.

2 Likes
10

Crazy how everyone thinks Protoss is getting nerfed on the PTR. It only took me a couple of hours to realize that they are busted OP. Hint: scout, play reactively, depending on situation, make zealots, make gateways, make nexuses, make a forge, make cannons, research warp gate, spam stuff.

11

Last I read it, they would have a slower opening before they become even more brokenly op.

12

People lose against adept rushes?

13

Adept timing attack and even all in is a thing vs zerg.

14

Oh, against Zerg, nevermind