Protoss tools simply cant handle Terran in the current meta!

General Discussion
1

Hi!

Fair warning; long rant!

As mentioned in my title the protoss tool kit in the current meta does not match up with what terran’s can do in any way shape or form.
First the obvious issues the mine and ghost; protoss simply does not have a counter unit or counter play to them. Mines either can delete an entire worker line; winning you the game instantly right there and then cuz ur opponent didnt pay attention to his minimap for more than 2 seconds (literally btw). The most poorly designed unit in the game for this reason. I do not consider not pulling my probes from the mines to be “counter play” to be clear!
The Templar VS Ghost fight isnt a fight as much as the ghost just deleting ur templar. Why? Well the feedback nerf was unneeded and removed all tools protoss had to fight back and make this a fair fight instead of a overwhelming victory for the ghost. The other issue with templar nerf is medivacs just flying in the back of ur base and once again just instantly winning them the game without you even being able to fight back.

The battery is just the worst thing to be added to the protoss arsenal because we had to trade it for the mothership core which was a good and fun unit and was actually helpful to defend against terran drops unlike; “well lets hope my battery is at the right base VS the most mobile race in the game btw” type of deal.
What terran would want to make 2-3 bunkers next to each of their bases? Not even counting the units here just the cost of the bunkers its just bad design overal.

Liberators simply do not have counter play from the protoss end. This is why even at the pro level the moment this unit is on the battlefield the protoss just gets bullied to where the terran wants to fight. It’s way more expensive and less convenient for protoss to go air tech when Terran naturally flows there anyway cuz of the medivacs. And what matters way more than this is the terran flying units simply are superior to the protoss ones; even their (lowest tier flying unit) vikings > our carriers which cost way more take way longer to build and then get owned. If u try to make a tempest might as well GG right there with how useless that unit is in any actual straight up battle (too low of a fire rate ect).

The balance council who seem to have confused sc1 and sc2 and they’re trying to force protoss to make gateway units and as previously explained the one thing you dont wanna do as toss is build gateway units they just lose.
The terran bio ball which simply does significantly more damage than the protoss gateway gateway units; protoss units lose the fight pretty much always if there is no AoE on their side and terran blocks all of AoE options other than disruptors.
Which leads me into the next problem disruptors; this unit is effectively a baneling except it costs way more than group of banelings and yet is less effective and dies just as quick; at least the banelin is meant and build to die… the disruptor is not and dies anyway. They’re slow always lag behind the army and their balls are WAY too easy too dodge. And as a protoss depending on easily dodged balls to win ur game just feels bad to play. Would love for this unit to get removed entirely and the colossus nerfs to get reverted back! Way better for toss and the opponents.

Terran econ is too damn resilient; you kill 16 workers of a protoss mineral line and its pretty much ggs right there… you kill 40 workers of terran they’re still in the game. Giving the most resilient econ to the race that has the best harassment tools in the game is just like what’s going on here…

Long rant I know but these are the issues of playing protoss in the current meta. If I forget anything fellow protoss gamers let me know!

To the terrans that are gonna complain to this post; your race is broken protoss practically does not exist anymore in this game at the pro level; Tourney results for the past 7 years have put protoss at a 12% win rate this isnt even HALF of what it should be so; sit down and shut up!

1 Like
2

Pretty much the only legitimate complaint you have in this entire thread, and there have been a few different fixes propositioned in the past - such as lowering the damage against workers specificially.

Feedback is instant-cast and 10 range while EMP is a (quick) projectile cast and 10 range. We have, quite literally, gone back to pre-EMP buff times, back when the relationship between Feedback and EMP was a micro battle.

Feedback still completely removes your ability to heal the units inside the drop and drastically limits their staying potential + warp-gate’s ability to instant warp units in to counter a drop as well makes this entirely a non-issue.

What a surprise, a Protoss player who is advocating for the return of one of the most universally hated units in the game from players of every single race. It was a bandaid at best, and literally meant that Protoss players didn’t have to use units to defend. Instead, you got to use pylons. It was absurd and stupid and should never have been in the game. For a while, they didn’t even have to have units to defend a full 3 bases either, back when overcharge was on the nexus instead and had 13 range - literally as much as a siege tank. Both versions of overcharge were absolute travesties, and neither of them should have been implemented into the game.

Shield Battery (and overcharge) is fine as it is, though I could see an argument for making Battery overcharge marginally better, either through reducing the potential downtime of it or making it castable individually rather than having a global CD.

Firstly, not an accurate comparison given each bunker is at minimum 300 minerals (100 for the bunker, 200 for each marine inside. You have to count the cost of the units inside because Terran doesn’t have ground-based Static Defense that attacks on its own outside of Planetary fortresses.

Secondly, given that every terran entering that phase of the game puts bunkers at their third base onwards, along with multiple supply depots, or uses a planetary (or even multiple planetaries) to lock-down a location and make it harder to bust, your complaint falls flat.

They absolutely do - that’s complete rubbish and you know it.

Prior to their range upgrade and +2 ship weapons, Liberators can be dealt with fairly reasonably by blink stalkers.

So? Protoss opens Stargate against Terran half the time anyway; they already have the tech, having a 2nd Stargate down and producing is hardly a problem by the time ranged Libs are hitting the field. Terrans have to make vikings against colossus, why shouldn’t Protoss players have to supplement their army to counter Liberators?

Vikings are supposed to be an anti-armoured unit, so yes, they’re supposed to counter carriers. You know what though? The relationship between carriers and Vikings is rarely that simple because Vikings have no armour and Carriers have a lot of DPS. Between that and Storm, they’re fine.

Ultimately, it comes down to control, but we both know you don’t want to have to do basic micro.

They’re siege units. You use them to displace liberators and shell your opponent. Ideally you don’t have to fight straight up with them, you poke at them from afar and force them to engage into you, where and when you want them to engage. Carriers can do something similar, but the far superior range here wins hands down. You don’t need many to do that job.

That said, Tempests should have a supply reduction because they’re to much supply currently. 4 supply would be better for them.

Like with any army, you want to be supplementing your units. Gateway units are mostly sacrificial at that late-game stage, aside from HTs. Zealots and Stalkers are there to keep your higher tier units alive, while DTs should be used to kill bases very quickly and then get out. That players have stopped using DTs to do that in late-game is… weird, given how effective they are at doing so, even with their expense. Blink in, 2 shot and get out.

Terran Econ has never been their Achilles Heel, it’s always been their production. Once late-game hits - and especially once the iron bank has been built - workers can be sacrificed or bled off. It’s why Nydus worms are so devastating in TvZ - a nydus in the right place forces the entire terran army to retreat, often at little cost to the Zerg player.

Same thing for a warp prism. A warp in on the production rips them apart.

Ultimately, late-game has never really been the issue for PvT. It’s always been the mid-game timings that they have.

Also the race that’s the slowest to expand and build - they desperately need to keep both Protoss and Zerg econ in check or they get overwhelmed very easily.

It’s not.

I legitimately cannot think of a single Protoss player who has deserved to make it through tournaments where a player of a different race, regardless of who that player was or what that race was, advanced instead.

No offense to Showtime, but he’s closer to HeroMarine than to Reynor or Clem or Serral, so while he’s good, he’s not the best as the other players I’ve mentioned are.

HerO, who is arguably the best Protoss player currently outside of MaxPax - who, by the way, refuses to compete offline (his presence alone could drastically alter win percentages given his success in online formats against Clem, Reynor, Maru, Dark etc), made such mind-bogglingly monumental screwups against Dark in Katowice it legitimately made me question how he progressed that far in the first place. And he does things like that regularly - he is, unequivocally the most flip-floppy player in pro-play currently. He can be amazing one game and then absolutely useless in another, with decision making so absurdly dumb that there are times he legitimately makes me think that if you replaced him with a Diamond player, the game wouldn’t have looked any different. Perfect example in the thread here:

Classic, who is the other offline protoss currently that has sometimes made deep runs, didn’t qualify for the most recent tournament, and while he is good, he really hasn’t captured that former form that he had previously. Stats is in much the same boat.

Astrea is much like Showtime in that he’s good, but he’s not great.

Not one Protoss player wows in the same way that any of the tip top tier players of other races do; and that has nothing to do with Protoss as a whole, and everything to do with the players themselves.

I feel I should point out that I would say the same thing for any other player of any other race were they in a similar position - TY, Gumiho for example - while both are amazing players, they’re not comparatively the best of the best.

3 Likes
3

Protoss tools simply cant handle Terran in the current meta!

https://i.imgur.com/wpOiKMQ.png
and
https://i.imgur.com/68UZ6qj.png
and
https://i.imgur.com/3gEIN6z.png
and
https://i.imgur.com/duTKOnM.png

The data speaks for itself. The way to beat terran is clear: Do more complex and faster unit maneuvers by exerting higher APM and using more hotkeys; keep your spending low by hitting production and upgrade timings as precisely as possible. You can’t expect to win while playing bad. The problem with protoss at high levels is a skill issue, not a balance issue.

1 Like
4

Use what ever cope you like; been 7 years and your argument basically boils down to; “Well all protoss pros have been bad for 7 years straight”
If this is what you choose to believe thats on you; has very little to do with reality tho.

Your other argument is “both sides have tools” so balance is fine; Are you even trying to make an argument or are you just typing random nonsense? Yes both sides have tools true and real Terran tools however >>>> protoss tools. It’s that simple.
If stats of tourneys of the last 7 years arent enough to convince you then logic and reason is wasted on you so im not even going to bother trying cuz you will find an other coping mechanism to deny the reality of these stats. \

nice try tho? ggs

1 Like
5

Every single one of you rebuttals is beyond stupid; lets address one cuz u got too many that are just brain dead points that are being made by a non-protoss player.

Stalkers do NOT in any universe counter Libs… the fact you brought this up as an argument show just how blatantly ignorant you truly are about this game! It’s painfully obvious you are only bringing up arguments from the side of terran. Your logic; “unit shoot up = counter” my god your comprehension of the situation is so non existent that you dare to bring this up as a counter… truly hilarious.

My message to you Mr Terran player; play some actual toss so at least it looks like you have a clue what you’re talking about. Right now this has an “I’m a terran that doesn’t agree with my race being broken as fock” arguments written all over every single thing u said.
We all have to cope with reality some times and stats of the past 7 years are hard to argue against unless you start lying to yourself and you convince yourself “just no good Protosses are around anymore, surely it doesnt have anything to do with balance”.
If that’s where you are at than there is no point in me arguing with you because what ever evidence is brought you will just claim its “protoss is just bad” which happens to be every single one of ur arguments. Nothing of substance at all what so ever just; “protoss bad, my terran race totally not broken btw” ohh and stalker counter libs btw… I’m just laughing at this point over and over again!

Have a good one tho!

1 Like
6

The performance of Zerg and Protoss has traded places in the past 7 years. 7 years ago Protoss was the least common in grandmaster and the least played race yet they were capable of winning premier tournaments. Now Zerg is in that exact same position. They’ve complained in both instances so it’s clear that it’s an impossible feat to satisfy the angry mob. Personally I just want the team to fast track the new map pool before tournaments get in the way.

I don’t think you would want to play the toss from 7 years ago. Liberators 2 shot stalkers from the getgo and don’t think about opening twilight because WMs have cloak by default (No armoury necessary). We also had the current tanks and could delete armies with seeker missile. You mention tempests are worthless? Now watch as PDD cancels all their shots. XD

4 Likes
7

What you’re looking for is a hard-counter, not a soft counter, and you’re right; Stalkers do not hard-counter Libs. They are a stop-gap measure that is used when libs are in low numbers to snipe them down and keep them in low numbers until a proper late-game counter can be acquired.

Denying that as you do is silly.

No, if that was my logic I’d be telling you sentries counter libs, which we both know is absurd.

Given you’ve failed to even attempt to explain why any part of my rebuttal was wrong (it’s not, by the way), and instead have chosen the age old comeback of “I’m right and you’re wrong because I said so!” You immediately lost the already minimal respect you might have had from anyone reading this thread.

Congratulations, you played yourself.

Oh I have, that’s why I’m comfortable using those counters near my level. Obviously my Protoss isn’t as good as my main race, but I’ve played enough, know enough, and watch enough to be able to say any of this.

Frankly speaking, it’s a combination of both.

Stats, Classic, Trap and HerO who were all previously the best of the best protoss players each went to military. Two of those haven’t come back to their previous form, one of them hasn’t finished (though is due to soon, I believe, if he even comes back at all), and the other - HerO - did come back and won a GSL, but swings so wildly from amazing to utter rubbish and then back again literally in the space of one game that it’s impossible to actually predict or say one way or another where he is until he’s playing.

That game from the thread I linked where he played Dark in Katowice?

He saw the drop. He knew the overlord was a dropperlord. He knew banes were on the field. He warped in 2 units and then didn’t bother pulling probes away, or at the bare minimum splitting them to mitigate damage from the drop (which, by the way, is MUCH slower than a medivac drop), instead trying to save a doomed 3rd base which he also knew was unsalvagable. That situation, with that awareness and knowledge? It’s literally a situation in which you put any other player even a diamond level player and they would have reacted differently to that specific situation. Obviously, before you say something stupid, I’m not suggesting that a Diamond level player is going to beat Dark. But they certainly would have had a better, and more consistent reaction to the drop that HerO knew happening.

Other games HerO looks like an absolute god - I’ve seen him micro a warp prism and four colossus against a viking fleet and keep all of them alive while killing the bio army with the colossus, killing almost every viking with his ground units in the process and subsequently winning the game off the back of that. Things that frankly no other Protoss player except maybe MaxPax could do.

But again, he’s so, so inconsistent about it that you can’t rightly say that he’s on the level of Dark, Serral, Clem, Maru at any point in time because of that inconsistency. Sometimes HerO looks like he’s on top of the world, above all of them. Other times he looks so bad that you wonder how he even managed to make it there.

And again, the only other player at the moment who is even remotely close - MaxPax -who consistently beats Clem, Reynor, Dark, and even Maru when he plays in large online tournaments… Straight up refuses to play offline. His presence in any of these tournaments would drastically change stats, even if he doesn’t win the tournament, chances are he still takes games off, or knocks out big name players.

I’m not denying Protoss is in a bad spot - they really are (and frankly to fix it they’d need a complete redesign from the ground up IMO, though I do believe there are some things that can be done to help) - but to deny that they also don’t have the same calibre of players who are as consistent as the ones I’ve named above is folly.

You literally didn’t bring any evidence! Your exact response to me was “You’re wrong because I said so”. That’s not evidence, that’s a petulant child screaming when they don’t get their way.

3 Likes
8

The anti scientific tropes in balance whiner logic are rather eye-roll provoking. The mechanical skills are by far the most important skills in RTS games, this is a universally accepted fact across all experts & is supported by mountains of evidence. There are metrics that measure these skills & protoss score lower in them for the same performance level. This is simply cut and dry proof that it takes less skill to achieve the same performance level with toss. The data meets the bradford-hill criteria for causality; it’s simply a fact that balance favors toss.

The ability to do complex unit management is so universally accepted that researchers are using SC2 to study the human brain, and they’ve identified differences in brain structure for people who are good with complex unit control. The effect at play here is so large you can literally scan someones brain and predict if they will be good at rts or not. Platinum protoss whiners will still deny that the mechanical skills, apm etc, are even relevant to winning at SC2. They are the SC2 equivalent of flat-earthers.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-25099-0

The way to win at SC2 is very easy: 1) use more hotkeys, 2) react faster, 3) do more actions, 4) move your screen more (which indicates how complex your unit positioning/maneuvers are). It’s that easy. Playing toss, it takes less actions, fewer hotkeys, fewer screen movements, etc. It’s just easier, and that’s a fact. If it’s easier to achieve the same performance level, that’s the definition of imbalanced.

1 Like
9

Automated Vespene Gas upgrade for Protoss … Requires a nexus upgrade (and a close Nexus, similar to Zeratul’s COOP), and 150 per vespene (3 workers cost, 1 supply for automated remote pilot), similar to campaign.

This makes them less prone to workers harass requiring 6 less workers but the same ammount of money …

10

Honestly wouldn’t hate this if it was locked away behind say warp-gate requirement or something - after all, you’re “warping” the Vespene gas aboard some off-world ship, so logically that would make sense. At that point you’re not really pulling probes off gas or anything anyway, so you’re not really effecting any timings, generally making it more of a late-game upgrade. If you’re on 3 bases, that’s 18 workers you no longer need, giving you an extra 9 stalkers, or 3 colossus, which is a pretty decent increase in army size itself.

11

I would ask for Gateway research and then a research at the nexus … and then every single vespene gayser needs to pay 150 minerals / 1 supply (while it has gas), and be close to a nexus (so you cant just grab gaysers on all the map)…

And it would free some supply for zealot runbys and stuff…

And the airtoss deathball wouldnt get any bigger, as at that point all is already mined, and youve killed most workers to make supply room already

Any of you can go see what i mean if you go play Zeratul COOP. Yes the geysers are automatically constructed but there is also a button on the nexus as well when the geysers been destroyed, immagine a research then the same button but costing 150 mins /1 supply.

The main benefit would be making Protoss a bit less vulnerable to runbys, requiring 6 less physical workers. 6 less destroyed with runbys, etc… And of course it has the drawback that if an expansion is destroyed completely, you lost a bigger investment (if you could have just pulled all probes before an expansion, would have lost only the nexus)

12

I mean, yeah it would have to be within nexus range to facilitate, but I don’t think you have to upgrade each gas geyser. That would be paying 225 minerals in total per gas, which is absurd and unnecessary. The 1 supply seems weird to add too since it would be the only building in the game that has supply with the exception of a filled bunker.

1 Like
13

Thats what you pay each time, 75 for the gas, and 150 for the workers … those 150 are the 3 workers cost. It’d be OP otherwise, affecting minerals for other timmings

14

No I understood that, I just don’t think 225 is necessary. Instead any current ones should be automatically upgraded, and any new ones to be built should cost 100 or 150 minerals instead.

I do get that it could effect timings though, but locking it behind an upgrade and requiring a research of its own (100/100? 150/150? 75sec?) Would be enough because that money would otherwise be going into a faster blink, or charge, or Dark Shine, stargate W/E

15

upgrade should be 100/100

And you can choose not to do it and have them operate as usual… (more flexibility, maybe you prefer that over the idle workers)

16

Nah, you’re probably going to see this upgrade every game, but most likely after the tech of choice or timing of choice hits. It’s a pretty good upgrade to have if it was ever implemented. It’d be silly not to have it.

17

This makes worker harass in TvP more effective against protoss, not less.

18

This is the most delusional response from a zerg apologist who clearly does not understand balance issues at pro level.

Do you seriously believe that HerO who is the best protoss player atm is worse than all those terrans and zergs ? What about period prior to many protoss players leaving the game : Zest, Trap, Stats being in good shape etc. they still struggled to win premier tournaments.

Zerg has been imbalanced at pro level the entirety of LOTV ladder, (maybe only having small problems at the beginning of LOTV due to things like tankivacs for example), and this was never changed. Yet zerg apologists like you keep screaming “It’s only Serral !”.

But frankly what do you expect if game is balanced by warcraft 3 team (a.k.a. “Town hall guy”). Keep throwing some pseudo-statistical tools at me - your’re not gonna convince anyone with half a brain. People watch pro scene and they take conclusions.

1 Like
19

Anyone with eyes can see it. Top protoss will have such poor multitasking that they will use 1 hotkey and lose 4 oracles in a single game. Imagine if a zerg rushed out 4 mutas for the same timings, and lost all 4 mutas. Zerg, doing that, would have a 0.0% win-rate. Protoss are able to punch deep in tournaments, with terrible play, because Protoss is imbalanced. It’s really quite simple.

Initially the balance counsel thought they could buff protoss to where it could beat serral, and also fix the balance issues associated with protoss, but top protoss have shown that what happens in the pro scene is 100% a skill issue. Balance favors protoss and these protoss search high and low to find a way to lose, and that’s not something that can be fixed with a balance patch. They have an 11% winrate lead in PvZ in grandmaster, 40% of GM slots, and roughly 40% of all tournament wins; let serral have his premier wins, he clearly deserves them, and fix protoss on the ladder (for crying out loud).

20

I realise you’re not talking to me specifically, but I’m answering anyway. Honestly speaking, yes I do, purely off the basis that HerO, even as good as he is, is so drastically inconsistent that he can’t be considered as good as Serral/Maru/Reynor/Clem/Dark. You even agreed with the sentiment in the thread I linked earlier.
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/sc2/t/katowice-the-protoss-just-plain-suck/28035/4

2 Likes