GM league right now: https://i.imgur.com/1QQS7G6.png
What’s amazing is that this is the first time Terran has joined Zerg as a dumpster-tier faction. Why now. It’s because the Ghost nerfs made TvZ balanced. Now Zerg and Terran are equal and both suck vs Protoss so they are both lagging 14% behind Protoss.
What about the top 10? Thanks for asking: https://i.imgur.com/BQIYTsD.png. 50% protoss .
What about ESL cups? 42% won by protoss.
What about premier tournaments since the patch? 66%.
Can we finally recognize the reality that Protoss is bonkers OP? Protoss was OP before the latest patch – it was just a matter of waiting for them to win, but the IMbalance counsel became impatient. Are we stuck with this? The game is literally unplayable in a macro game vs protoss. Game 1 of the GSL finals shows this. Toss plays like trash, storms his own probes to death for example, but he maxes, f2 amoves, and wins the final fight with 8:1 trading efficiency despite equal army values. Have we really lowered the bar so low for Protoss that a guy who kills his own workers is now winning late game fights at 8:1 efficiency? I guess so. Who on Earth thought this was a good idea.
It really can’t be understated just how ridiculous balance is right now. They got TvZ right. Now to nerf storms and immortals. Immortals are drastically overpowered vs ultras and storms are drastically overpowered vs hydras. What to do about TvP, though. Here’s an idea: blueflame does +10 damage vs shields. That ought to do the trick. Alternatively, nerf storm and that fixes both PvT and PvZ.
The first mention of the Tal’Darim Protoss was in the Dark Templar Saga books. They were just a bunch of Protoss who had been left behind on Aiur and were being drugged and manipulated by Ulrezaj. Obviously this was based on a version of the SC2 script that got abandoned. When Wings of Liberty came out, the Tal’Darim were Protoss who were separate from the Khalai and Nerazim and were fiercely protecting Xel’Naga artifacts. In lore panels, they had to explain that these were two different Protoss groups who used the same name.
It wasn’t until Legacy of the Void that we got the Tal’Darim we know now with their “Chain of Ascension” and other intricacies.
well, to be fair, protoss IS supposed to be the strongest race in the universe, lorewise speaking. They are far more advanced technologically, intellectually, and in terms of raw psionic power.
Does it make business or ethical sense. Protoss has utterly destroyed my hope for humanity because it made me realize that people will cheat in broad daylight by rigging balance against their competitors and nobody cares. Truly an indictment of the entire esports industry, is it not.
Maphacker: banned.
Rigging tournaments against competitors: celebrated.
Just move chronoboost further down the tech tree, make it available to research at the Nexus, after building a Gateway. That follows Terran and Zerg logic.
Protoss’ early game feels like warp speed compared to the other two. The eco balance feels fair enough in Starcraft 1, I don’t know why they gave Protoss an unfair advantage in 2.
Harstem and by extension the balance council already has the changes in place to smooth out the recent patch. TL:DW, 50% spell damage reduction while under a microbial shroud, evo chamber drops, buffed widow mines, slightly changed energy overcharge, dt blink without an attack cooldown, and a few others. It was obvious to the balance council that energy overcharge was much better in PvZ than in PvT, so these changes are evening out the matchup. I would go a bit further, 5 supply tempests as a nerf and give protoss 5 supply colossus. Tempests promote slow methodical turtle gameplay.
You were correct that the outrage to the patch was unfounded but they did remove all the terran buffs.
Elo ratings for all pro players with at least 30 games & having played at least once in 2025: https://i.imgur.com/nNR9o9x.png
PvZ imbalanced has stretched to a whopping 64.71% (as measured between opponents of equal skill).
PvT has an 54.71% win-rate on average that stretches to a whopping 65% win-rate at Clem’s level.
Why are the lines tilted? Because there is a correlation between skill level & how many games are played & this causes higher skill levels to update their ranking much faster. Over time, the lines should flatten out. If they don’t, that means there is a relationship between skill & balance.
I just had a thought: how funny would it be if Terran started the game with an Orbital Command, and Zerg started with a Queen. That would match Protoss starting with their abilities.
I made a break from this forum with the hope that i would see some new faces here and positive atmosphere. And what have i found after having returned ? Good old Batzy whining here and there about protoss. Is your brain really this deranged that you cannot comprehend that there are other video games out there ? Hello ! Wake up time ! If you can’t beat’em - join’em. If P is OP then start playing them (even if it doesn’t give satisfaction) or better play other video game without protoss (Minecraft, Tibia, CS etc.)
This forum is tired of your antics. Grow up kid and gitgud or gitoutta here.
Actually it would completely kill any protoss macro builds. Toss would be unplayable without cheeses. Look at terran - MULE from the start allows you to 225 mins in the first 2 minutes right - that’s FOUR extra SCV. Imagine how much stuff you can get faster because of this. In RTS video games each economic advantage snowballs over time - one extra worker → extra resources → build new workers faster → get faster infrastructure → get faster army etc.
With zerg it’s even worse - imagine 3 larva from the start - 12 pool would be unbeatable for toss.
Playing protoss is a sleeping aid. Winning is so easy that it has no meaning. The difficulty of a win is what gives it meaning, and protoss has virtually none. You just stare at your base and build pylons. The hardest thing protoss has to do before the 4 base mark is ration the oracle energy. A guy who never learned how to use hotkeys won GSL and that tells you the skill floor to play protoss is at the bottom of the ocean – we could reach in, pull out a random fish, let it flop around on the keyboard, and it would win a GSL. When I am 80 years old, have decrepit hands & brains of mush, I will consider resorting to playing Protoss. Alternatively, make protoss 20% of GM and then I will play it. As is, protoss is a “free win” button that you slap at the start of the game when you are too lazy to play real starcraft.
Yeah, I guess mules and spawn larvae are stronger than chronoboost, and shouldn’t be given at the start. I still think that not giving Protoss Chronoboost until they make a Gateway would be good. Protoss already has a lot of advantages, like workers not being tied to constructing buildings is huge. Toss has so many different ways to play the game, whereas T and Z have a weaker start with rigid build orders.
Another change I’d like to see on Protoss is locking the Stargate behind a Robotics Bay requirement, like Terran. Protoss get flying units out way too quickly. Stopping Roach rushes with a Void Ray looks bad, like they are so ahead on tech.
Another thing with Protoss is that cheese shouldn’t be one of their strongest options. Zealots and Cannons are far too good early. They should be weaker, but upgradable. Of course there’s alot of Protoss in GM, they can just rack up 5 minute wins.
This would be the hacky way that i’d ‘balance’ the game in the SC editor:
Chronoboost definitely needs some kind of nerf because protoss scaling is absolutely insane. Locking it behind cyber core would definitely be a huge nerf to cannon rush styles. Nerfing cannon rush styles would allow zergs to be greedier in the stages before the first overlord sees the protoss’ wall, which means zerg is less behind going into the midgame. As is, toss is ahead in eco until the third starts producing workers, but by that time the toss has leveraged the eco lead into a tech lead. This tech lead is equivalent to complete safety to any and all allins, plus complete scouting information, plus the ability to do eco damage. Toss achieves this before zerg even begins constructing his lair. After the lair, zerg has to build another building to access tier 2 units. By the time that happens, the protoss has tech out that A) hard counters all zerg spellcasters (feedback) and is a splash that melts all forms of tier 2 zerg units for mere energy cost only. Assuming zerg can turtle out of this phase, despite being massively behind, he heads to tier 3. Again, protoss gets there faster and by the time you are making ultras and broods the protoss is already on immortals or tempests. Zerg says OK so I will try to turtle and bank so that I can abuse a fast remax in which case the toss will have to fight 2 zerg armies. Silly zerg, the toss now abuses double recall to massively outpace your brood army and you lose bases while toss is making bases. You get no remax, toss’s peak army strength is drastically higher than yours, he f2 amoves you and you lose your whole army meanwhile he loses maybe 10 supply.
It’s a scaling issue. They either need to nerf templar (with something like a supply increase) or they need to nerf upgrades (cost increase, research time increase). Nerfing upgrades makes toss trade worse in the mid game, but does not affect their peak army strength. Supply increase of templar would keep protoss bonkers OP in the midgame, but would reduce their peak army strength. As is, I will be allining a toss using lair tech and he will be taking a third, chronoboosting +3, have robo, stargate, and twilight, and still defending the allin. It’s absolutely nuts.
Protoss is so flipping far ahead in the early and mid game that he can defend 1 base zerg allins by rushing an oracle. Let’s put this into perspective here. That would be like a zerg rushing a single mutalisk do beat a proxy 4 gate allin. To make it a truly 1:1 comparison, zerg would also need to be able to fully saturate on 2 base at the same time. Congrats, that’s what toss can do with stargate openers while still defending a 1 base allin.
I do like your idea of locking chronoboost behind the cyber core. That’s a very smart way of dealing with cannon rushers. As for the nydus nerf, I am not necessarily against it, it just means you need an overlord as a spotter both for vision and for creep, so not much changes. But, there are lots of problems. One, zerg struggles being aggressive / is too prone to turtling already. Two, zergs winrates aren’t that great so why are we talking about the nydus being OP because it clearly isn’t. Three, the whether the nydus works or not is entirely up to the opponent because the only way it gets off is if they aren’t clearing spotters & aren’t paying attention to the minimap. Zerg has to deal with oracles and adepts zooming through every square millimeter of his base all game long. Toss can watch the minimap on occasion too.
As for stargate requiring robotics bay, I am not sure what this would accomplish. Toss basically wouldn’t get to take a third base. The oracles are necessary for taking a third, and if you have to go robo then robo bay then stargate I guess that means no third, or you take the third using a warp prism. That means a heavier commitment into ground toss units, to take the third, which means they spend the money on sentries and they spend the energy recharge on the sentries, and uses forcefields to defend the third. I think that could work, but I am worried that it would be too severe of a nerf to protoss’ ability to expand. Ravager allins would probably trounce that and that means third base builds wouldn’t be a thing for protoss.
I would be totally fine with making the nydus head require creep IF the nydus were moved to hatchery tech. Hatch tech nydus that can only hit creep means it’s purely defensive before lair, and if you went for it it would delay your lair. The exception being if you do a proxy hatch. Then, in theory, you could maybe use the nydus somehow but what are you going to accomplish with that. Let’s say you did a spine rush off the proxy hatch – what does the nydus contribute? Nothing. Let’s say you did a ravager rush – the nydus just slows it down. Let’s say you did a roach rush – slows it down. There wouldn’t be much offensively that you could do with this except maybe a mass queen ling style and used the nydus to bring queens from the main. Hatch tech nydus would be used mainly for hidden base strategies. You’d hide a base, rush a nydus, and use it to transfer workers. This would come at the cost of slower lair tech, upgrades etc, but there might be scenarios where it’s a good strat. In general hatch tech nydus would simply be used for defense of things like adepts. You’d use the nydus to pop between locations as the adepts shade around.
Realistically speaking, if we ever do get a balance patch, they simply need to make the high templar cost 3 supply and call it good. Maybe lock chronoboost behind a cyber core, too, to hurt the low skill cannon rush abusers. This would keep protoss early/mid game more or less the same in all matchups, but it would mean toss has to be more skilled in how he places the storms for the late game fights / he can’t just spam them willy nilly & blanket the whole enemy army in them regardless.
Quick side not to this. The way pro zergs are working around this is to hit mass ravager ling timings, and they only get lair for the dropalords so they can bring queens as anti-oracle support. Toss is crazy far ahead in tech, and so you can never get tier 2 out on time to allin a protoss. You can’t macro, either, that’s a guaranteed loss, so you have to allin and tier 2 is off the table. So you simply have to use tier 1 units. That’s lair purely for overlord drops for the queens, then some combination of ling/bane/ravager/roach. Slow roaches are trash. Banes are trash. Mass ling is trash. Ravagers are the obvious option. They are the only tier 1 zerg unit that has positive trading efficiency. So mass ravager queen allins is the name of the game for pro level ZvP until the a balance patch reduces the peak strength of a maxed out toss army.
Nydus being Hatchery tech but requiring creep would be fine I think. It’s too expensive for any rush to work.
I guess the Chronoboost nerf would be enough to maybe make the game balanced. The reason I wanted to delay the Stargate is due to Zergs weakness to air. 3 minute Oracles feel a bit too good. I guess it isn’t the end of the world though, especially after a weakened chrono. Also, I made a mistake by saying the Robotics Bay. I meant the Robotics Facility.
The other neat thing about locking Chrono behind Cybercore is that it also hurts Zealot rush, which is hard for Zerg (and even Terran) to deal with.
Yep, the oracle is absolutely bonkers right now. It’s complete scouting, eco damage, total safety to any and all allins. There is not a single downside to it. For strategy to flourish, every action must have downsides. The oracle has none.
in the early game. VS roach speed rushes combined with burrow, oracles can be weak because the oracle doesn’t do much vs the roach flood & the burrow forces toss to waste tons of energy tagging the roaches. Adding burrow pretty much invalidates the oracles.
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