Serral is a joke LMAO

Hallo-2564 · October 11, 2024, 10:38pm

Zerg builds as fast as possible ling and P sees and has without big commitment → wall+ 1 zealot in time. btw… with many types of cheese zerg must pull worker. toss? nop. worst situation ,delay nexus.

like most aoe/ SB/ air/ SB+ cannon/ immortals. or put pressure on Zerg that he is not max out min8.

2-3xRobo works well. but in most cases attack from several sides.

have fun. it’s not like toss has rapid fire Ht… or sits over cannons/ sb. there’s also a good chance zerg will lose viper regularly.
also good is if toss just goes around spore. your army can only follow difficult. and toss can just use recall and reset if necessary.

Adventurer-16000863 · October 12, 2024, 8:45am

506,849 unique players in the past 30 days. Most of those play a couple games and that’s it. 506,849 x 12 = 6 million. Adjust downward for a safety factor. It has ~5 million players. We’re basically assuming 1 million are recounts from month to month.

Your scouting probe sees it. You go double gateway before cyber. You make 1 zealot, pull 8 probes until the second zealot pops. Once you have 3, there is no way he’s getting through your wall. Cyber finishes, you make adepts and win. With proper micro he simply can’t keep his drones alive vs adept shade. Follow up with a stargate. Get queens out of position w/ shade and run the first oracle in. Optionally, proxy the stargate. He doesn’t have ling speed and you have map control w/ adepts. You can also send the zealots across if you want to. If he takes a gasless third, this just kills him. He can technically stay alive vs the adept/oracle pressure, but you take a third and he’s so far behind that it’s just over.

abs-2628 · October 12, 2024, 2:00pm

Once again, what are you talking about ? I’m positive you must be talking about global player population or something but NOT ladder. Not by any stretch of imagination.

Check global population on sc2pulse/nephest:

https://sc2pulse.nephest.com/sc2/?season=60&queue=LOTV_1V1&team-type=ARRANGED&us=true&eu=true&kr=true&cn=true&bro=true&sil=true&gol=true&pla=true&dia=true&mas=true&gra=true&page=0&type=ladder&ratingAnchor=99999&idAnchor=0&count=1#stats-global

As of october 2024 ladder is played by 126k players.

Okay, so why are all there zergs, ranked 5.5-7k who can beat tosses, not crying like you are ? Because THEY ARE BETTER than you. These zergs were working hard to get good at the game and learned how to adapt to turtle skytoss style, but you on the other hand, instead of watching your own replay, addressing your own mistakes prefer to whine like baby, come to this forum every day creating multiple threads how OP protoss is etc. Only you complain about toss, nobody else. You are disgrace to zerg community. No wonder why even your fellow zergs don’t really like you, because YOU REFUSE TO IMPROVE.

Adventurer-16000863 · October 12, 2024, 2:04pm

No, they are inferior. They lack the courage and mental fortitude to stand up for what is right. The bullying that protoss players engage in, saying that it’s a skill and attitude issue, when the reality is that it’s a game design issue that the protoss themselves profit from, is an open and shut case of corruption and moral bankruptcy, just applied to video games instead of corporations or government. It’s analogous to the people who cheat the system to get job promotions while gaslighting you that you didn’t deserve it because you were inferior, when the real reason they were promoted is because they were intimate with the boss. It’s analogous. These social issues are everywhere so to think SC2’s community is immune would be folly. In fact, since it’s an anonymous competition on the internet, we’d expect these issues to be worse since social issues are generally magnified on the internet. Competitions like these allow morally bankrupt people the opportunity to play out their abusive fantasies where they power trip and manipulate other people to feed their ego at the expense of the well being of other human beings. Some people aren’t strong enough to take a stand and so they suffer the undue burden in every game they play. The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must and the suffering you experience in game is the price you pay for your lack of courage to stand up for a fair and balanced game in the court of public opinion. I am quite proud to say I am not so weak as to take the back of the hand and say “Please sir, I want some more.”

abs-2628 · October 12, 2024, 4:08pm

Let me share a secret, are you ready ?

There are zergs in Top GM with F2 a-move mechanics WITHOUT using control groups. Heromarine was upset that his zerg opponent did not use a single control group and only attacked using F2 button. Unfortunately i don’t know this zerg identity (probably some barcode zerg, otherwise we would already know who it was).

Now if you can get top GM with F2-amove and not a single control group, then zergs should be the last race to complain about mechanics and the very fact that you come here every day crying about this is preposterous, hypocritical and shameful.

Hallo-2564 · October 12, 2024, 7:33pm

doesn’t herO use f2 regularly?
And he won GSL, but still you leave toss as they are. since 2018 ~45%+ in GM.

abs-2628 · October 13, 2024, 12:25am

At least HerO is frequently using control groups.

Try to get Top GM with terran or protoss using F2 a-move mechanics and no control groups.

Adventurer-16000863 · October 13, 2024, 6:22am

Top zergs like dark are allowed to counter skytoss with +2 adrenal lings because protoss refuse to use hotkeys instead of f2 (they f2 the units out of their walls, letting the zerglings in).

Imagine if Terran was allowed to counter mass broodlord by using pure marauders because zergs absolutely refused to stop globing their whole brood army in the wrong spot on the map. There would be no doubt in anyone’s mind that it’s a skill issue. The only reason there is doubt for protoss is because this is how protoss always have been. In fact, it was designed that way, and we really shouldn’t be surprised if/when they can’t win at the highest levels.

The issue is that current management requires toss in the semi finals even if it requires rigging balance to make it happen. They do this because it’s good for esports business in the short term. In the long term, it will be bad for esports because the design issues will cause players to leave the game.

How can we know they want to rig the game? Because they don’t buff high micro units like stalkers. They know that top protoss won’t be able to win without buffing low skill units and that’s an admittance they know it’s a skill issue. What have they buffed recently? Zealots, archons, aka some of the least interesting units in the game. But it all follows the pattern that affirms the theory that they know toss have a skill issue, or else they’d buff high micro units like phoenix or stalkers or disruptors. Stalkers and disruptors have been repeatedly nerfed. It’s obvious their intent is to reduce the skill required for protoss to be in the top 4. They know it’s a skill issue and are going to rig game balance for esports at the cost of literally everyone else outside of the top 4.

It’s not hard to figure out what caused this, either:

https://i.imgur.com/MhvhhWP.png
https://i.imgur.com/UYBwgI9.png

Chronoboost is buffed and toss has never once been less than zerg in grandmaster since then. What’s funny about this buff is that it doesn’t change the peak strength of chronoboost. It only changes the strength of chronoboost for low skill players who don’t have the APM to chronoboost. That’s all it changed. Toss has dominated GM since then.

What we learn from this is that protoss has a stronger baseline economy and that economical strength was gate-kept from most of the masters-league protoss via the apm requirements. This change allowed them access to the full power, revealing how insanely busted it is.

Now we have protoss in the GSL out expanding the zerg. Toss eco is absolutely nuts. Either chronoboost needs nerfs to give toss a weaker eco or the units you can purchase with that eco need to have their strength reduced. Storm for example adjusted downward because the sheer number of templar they can afford is just too darn high.

If they are going to nerf units, nerf the low skill units and do some compensation buffs on the high skill units. That would fix both grandmaster & pro play, assuming of course the toss in the pro scene are actually capable of utilizing the high skill units. They aren’t. And that’s why the current management is obsessed with buffing low skill units & continuing the current balance issues.

Also, since the chronoboost buff that reduced the need to chronoboost by 50%, protoss now score absurdly low in screen movements per minute metrics. It’s obvious why: the toss have to move their screen around less because they have half the chronoboosts to do.

Another interesting thing worth noting is that terran didn’t suffer much from the chronoboost buff. This is likely because widow mine drops are REALLY good at resetting toss’s eco down to a reasonable base line. That was true until recently when they deleted drilling claw mine drop builds, nerfed the splash radius, and made it easier to see targeting. So now terran is struggling vs chronoboost too.

https://i.imgur.com/DmadV7r.png

You can see that in this chart. Zerg has been stationary for the past year while terran has a downward trend. It looks like Zerg and Terran are going to end up pretty close. If I had to guess, I think terran will equalize around 30%, zerg around 23%, and protoss around 45%. The numbers will bounce around but I think this will be the average.

This could be modeled exactly using a Poisson process where you draw a circle on a graph. You place points on the graph randomly according to a normal distribution (one for x, one for y), and count how many times a point lands in the circle. You add three circles for three races and you make the circles overlap to model multi race players. You tune the placement of the circles and the parameters of the axis distributions until the process matches the current ladder charts. That then tells you all the factors involved in creating the differences observed on the ladder. The primary axis (the one with the most variance) would be equivalent to skill. The secondary axis would be game balance. If the center of the circle for protoss is higher on the game balance axis and lower on the skill axis then that tells you balance favors them & that that attracts lower skill players. It’s called a poisson point process.

There are easier approximations, though. We can simply count up from the bottom of Grandmaster for EU how many protoss we’d need to demote in order to equalize protoss to 33% of Grandmaster. That number is 22. The 22’nd worst protoss in GM is “Funk” with 5159 mmr. We take the difference between this and the demotion threshold, which is “muffin” at 4993. That’s how much mmr would have to be subtracted to equalize Protoss in GM from 44% → 33%. That number is 166. So toss need to lose ~150 mmr. If they lost 150 mmr, these 22 protoss would be demoted and GM would be 33% protoss. That’s what this measures. But, what does that mean? We have to look at the mmr algorithm to figure it out:

https://i.imgur.com/y7FSRx0.png

We can see the difference in rankings divided by 568 is 1 standard deviation. If toss have 166 mmr they shouldn’t, that means zerg lost 166 they shouldn’t’ve, which means the difference (r1-r2) is 332. That divided by 568 is a z score of 0.58. What does that mean, though?

If you were an A student in school, graded on a bell curve, which is what Grandmaster essentially is, losing z=0.58 from your grade would be equivalent to turning into a B student. And the balance counsel is confused as to why X vs Protoss feels impossibly hard. PvZ turns grade-B students into grade-A students. Protoss are essentially the lazy kids with rich parents who bought their way into a harvard.

abs-2628 · October 13, 2024, 7:35pm

Okay another TLDR.

Even if there is some imbalance in race representation in GM, then the reason is purely mechanical (APM/multitasking). Protoss is still underpowered in terms of general strength. Fully upgraded zerg late game ball - corruptor, brood, infestor, viper, ultra demolishes protoss army no matter the composition. You can convince me that 5k protosses might be mechanically inferior to zerg or terran players of similar MMR, but you will never convince me that 2 best protosses -HerO and Maxpax are inferior to Serral or any other top progamer and yet HerO has almost no chance of winning premier tournament.

That’s not skill, that’s balance issue. Protoss does not have viable tools to deal with late game T/Z army. Just because on the ladder skytoss abusers can beat noobs like you because you don’t know how to handle it, doesn’t mean protoss is overpowered. Simply it is mechanically easier than zerg.

Look at late game PvT: Bio in the hands of Clem with his insane micro skills and multitasking. What can protoss do about it ? SB can save their butt once, maybe twice but will not defend against any drop or push. At this point it’s unwinnable for them - all they can do is to delay the execution, meahwhile Clem transitions into Ghost/lib/viking and because disruptors don’t work against Clem’s splits and ghosts will emp templars, toss has no way of dealing with kind of army.

PvZ ? Toss is blind the first 4-6 mins. Watch Serral playing against any protoss opponent. All they can do is open stargate and pray oracles kill at least dozen of workers, and even if they do oftentimes it is not enough damage, then zerg transitions into hive with ranged lurkers and ground army evaporates - if they haven’t transitioned into skytoss, it’s game over.

So, your thoughts ? You still believe toss should be nerfed ? Go ahead and then watch toss not winning a single tournament in the next 20 years.

Hallo-2564 · October 13, 2024, 10:35pm

No, if Toss were ‘generally’ underpowered. then they wouldn’t be overrepresented in GM/tournaments.

not true. P is completely viable. Reynor defeated Serral in the late game, off race. Serral’s greatest strength late game ZvP…

is not true. 2-3x Robo, flank attack to + storm.

yes

because whenever he has the chance, he throws it away.

Adventurer-16000863 · October 14, 2024, 2:26am

You are right. They will likely never win a premier tournament. How do we know? They had periods clocking in with 60% win-rates and they still couldn’t win. The deleterious effects of current balance have already greatly harmed the game, so we know they will never buff protoss to go above 60% win-rates. If they can’t do win premiers with a 60/40 win-rate advantage, they will never do it.

The issue is a skill representation issue. That issue is a subset of the shrinking player base – the game isn’t drawing in new talent. In order to increase the skill in the pro scene, the player base needs to grow. Rigging balance to force toss to win premiers greatly hampers the game’s ability to grow. How do we know. Easy:

<tr><th scope="row">2016 season 4 (28) (10/2016)</th><td>34</td><td>30</td><td>35</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">2016 season 5 (29) (11/2016)</th><td>33</td><td>29</td><td>37</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">2016 season 6 (30) (01/2017)</th><td>38</td><td>24</td><td>37</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">2017 season 1 (31) (05/2017)</th><td>32</td><td>29</td><td>38</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">2017 season 2 (32) (07/2017)</th><td>35</td><td>28</td><td>36</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">2017 season 3 (33) (11/2017)</th><td>32</td><td>31</td><td>35</td><td>2</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">2017 season 4 (34) (01/2018)</th><td>27</td><td>32</td><td>39</td><td>2</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">2018 season 1 (35) (05/2018)</th><td>29</td><td>37</td><td>32</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">2018 season 2 (36) (08/2018)</th><td>29</td><td>35</td><td>35</td><td>2</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">2018 season 3 (37) (11/2018)</th><td>29</td><td>35</td><td>35</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">2018 season 4 (38) (01/2019)</th><td>28</td><td>38</td><td>33</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">2019 season 1 (39) (05/2019)</th><td>28</td><td>40</td><td>30</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">2019 season 2 (40) (08/2019)</th><td>32</td><td>36</td><td>31</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">2019 season 3 (41) (11/2019)</th><td>29</td><td>40</td><td>29</td><td>2</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">2019 season 4 (42) (01/2020)</th><td>31</td><td>36</td><td>32</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">2020 season 1 (43) (06/2020)</th><td>29</td><td>37</td><td>33</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">2020 season 2 (44) (09/2020)</th><td>31</td><td>41</td><td>26</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">2020 season 3 (45) (01/2021)</th><td>31</td><td>42</td><td>26</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">2021 season 1 (46) (04/2021)</th><td>31</td><td>42</td><td>25</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">2021 season 2 (47) (07/2021)</th><td>32</td><td>44</td><td>23</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">2021 season 3 (48) (11/2021)</th><td>37</td><td>41</td><td>22</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">2021 season 4 (49) (01/2022)</th><td>32</td><td>40</td><td>27</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">2022 season 1 (50) (04/2022)</th><td>34</td><td>40</td><td>24</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">2022 season 2 (51) (07/2022)</th><td>31</td><td>40</td><td>26</td><td>2</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">2022 season 3 (52) (11/2022)</th><td>35</td><td>37</td><td>26</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">2022 season 4 (53) (01/2023)</th><td>37</td><td>36</td><td>24</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">2023 season 1 (54) (04/2023)</th><td>33</td><td>39</td><td>27</td><td>2</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">2023 season 2 (55) (07/2023)</th><td>34</td><td>38</td><td>26</td><td>2</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">2023 season 3 (56) (11/2023)</th><td>31</td><td>40</td><td>26</td><td>2</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">2023 season 4 (57) (01/2024)</th><td>34</td><td>36</td><td>26</td><td>4</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">2024 season 1 (58) (04/2024)</th><td>29</td><td>41</td><td>28</td><td>2</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">2024 season 2 (59) (07/2024)</th><td>29</td><td>42</td><td>27</td><td>2</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">2024 season 3 (60) (10/2024)</th><td>33</td><td>40</td><td>24</td><td>2</td></tr>

This is the html source for a website that reports GM racial statistics for the past several years. Encoded in it is information we can use to investigate this problem. It’s a chain of data blocks in xml format that encode a point on a graph:

<th scope="row">2024 season 1 (58) (04/2024)</th><td>29</td><td>41</td><td>28</td><td>2</td></tr><tr>

This block tells us the first season of 2024 had 29% terran, 41% protoss, 28% zerg, and 2% random. This will be easy to parse in C using a function called strstr and strtol:

10/2016,34,30,35,
11/2016,33,29,37,
01/2017,38,24,37,
05/2017,32,29,38,
07/2017,35,28,36,
11/2017,32,31,35,
01/2018,27,32,39,
05/2018,29,37,32,
08/2018,29,35,35,
11/2018,29,35,35,
01/2019,28,38,33,
05/2019,28,40,30,
08/2019,32,36,31,
11/2019,29,40,29,
01/2020,31,36,32,
06/2020,29,37,33,
09/2020,31,41,26,
01/2021,31,42,26,
04/2021,31,42,25,
07/2021,32,44,23,
11/2021,37,41,22,
01/2022,32,40,27,
04/2022,34,40,24,
07/2022,31,40,26,
11/2022,35,37,26,
01/2023,37,36,24,
04/2023,33,39,27,
07/2023,34,38,26,
11/2023,31,40,26,
01/2024,34,36,26,
04/2024,29,41,28,
07/2024,29,42,27,
10/2024,33,40,24,

Cool. We now have a spreadsheet compatible data base:

https://i.imgur.com/6x00sq1.png

We now have the historical GM trends. Time to pull the historical racial trends for all leagues (luckily it uses the same formatting, so the parser doesn’t have to be adapted):

https://i.imgur.com/A0jfILW.png

The last missing component is the historical game population trend. I will have to pull this soon because I am out of time for now, so stay tuned. We will calculate the correlation between SC2’s popularity trends & protoss GM dominance. We will see that protoss dominance is correlated with game decline, indicating protoss causes game decline. This will establish that protoss dominance has a deleterious effect on game health & that the game health drives away players, causing reduced talent in the pro scene, causing protoss to be unable to win premier tournaments. But this requires changing the parser and that will take more time than I have for it for now. Maybe here in 8 hours or so I will finish it.

Sentry-2358 · October 14, 2024, 7:31am

Depends on what Generally means but People often overestimate the Impact of pro League Balance on GM representation or General Balance for us Low Level Players

In 2019 zerg was disgustingly broken. Everyone knew and Everyone saw. Harstem for once Had a meltdown explaining why and how z was favored against every Race at every stage. Infested terran that ignored Armor, nydus Spam that loads and unloads in an Instant. They Had everything. Even the Chat switched from Always crying about protoss to pity Them.

But GM representation? Protoss was still leading with seemingly No effect. Zerg still Had 25% or so.

Adventurer-16000863 · October 14, 2024, 9:09am

https://i.imgur.com/H7WZTuH.png

There it is: the correlation between GM representation & game popularity (games played per day). The only race correlated with game popularity is Protoss. Protoss has been overpowered every season since the game went free to play, but most especially during the game’s peak popularity, indicating protoss players terrorized the ladder for free wins. The entire time protoss has been overpowered, the game’s popularity has been declining. It’s obvious what’s happening here:

The players who picked protoss for free wins left as nerfs happened to protoss (cannon rushers, proxy robo players, etc).
Players getting railed by protoss left and never came back.

This shows the danger of having an imbalanced game because it causes BOTH groups to leave the game. The protoss feel they are being discriminated against as they get nerfed, the people who get railed by protoss feel discriminated against as they get railed by protoss. And so you lose BOTH groups. That’s the danger of having an unfair game.

An alternative interpretation is that they buffed the heck out of protoss as a strategy to appeal to the free to play players and, feeling how easy protoss was, most casual players preferred protoss, which effectively feeds into my “protoss is the moba race” argument. It’s probably a bit of both scenarios.

Tamanonymous-1834 · October 14, 2024, 12:06pm

you have this thing called leaving

it’s very effective at demonstrating that you fins the practice beneath you

it would be of great benefit for yoy to exercise it.

because this post is the same drivel you’ve posted a dozen times, and remakns drier and more unappealing than month old berries.

it’s boxers on head levels of incresible.

Adventurer-16000863 · October 14, 2024, 2:51pm

Living up to the stereotype that you are bullies, I see. You guys know exactly what you are doing and I am calling you on it. Years of protoss dominance in grandmaster, esl cups & elsewhere and you thought nobody would notice, or did you think we were cowards and too afraid to say anything. Sorry to disappoint you. Yes, we have eyes, and can read graphs. Yes, we have courage. With love, those who can perceive reality.

abs-2628 · October 14, 2024, 8:47pm

That has nothing to do with general strength, but mechanics. Protoss is mechanically easier (especially turtle skytoss) than zerg, that’s why it is easier to get GM with protoss, but once they reach certain plateau 6.2k, then there are literally 3-4 tosses HerO, Maxpax, Showtime and maybe Zoun capable of even getting close to T/Z best players.

Strengthwise protoss is the weakest race and i say this as terran.

Hallo-2564 · October 14, 2024, 8:59pm

your interpretation of “generally” is funny. The 0.1% or less have problems → toss is weak.
and even here i would say it’s not true. too bad reynor didn’t make the complete switch to toss.

abs-2628 · October 14, 2024, 9:05pm

Has Reynor ever beaten Serral or other top zerg with protoss in premier tournament ? If not then i don’t care that he’s done it on ladder. Ladder is for practice only and they can play, toy or troll their opponents with whatever strats come into play. Serral probably wasn’t even playing 100% to the best of his ability.

Like i said, protoss is mechanically rather easy, that’s why GM is comprised 50% of protoss players, but these players cannot get past certain MMR range where actual skill, multitasking and unit control matters.

And the reason why protoss cannot compete at pro level is general lack of late game potential and tools to deal with late game T/Z armies other than some cheap band-aid buttons like recall or SB overcharge.
Good terran will out-micro protoss.
Good zerg will out-macro protoss.

Miro-11607 · October 14, 2024, 9:16pm

He has taken maps off Serral whilenplaying Protoss, in a tournament setting, yes.

Personally I disagree with this; I think they have the tools, I just think they don’t often use them, at least not to their fullest extent. Things they used to do that consistently won them games are now rare to see.

That isn’t a popblem with protoss, but with the players. Protoss has the potential for mechanical depth if they so choose to use it. They often don’t.

abs-2628 · October 14, 2024, 9:48pm

Any protoss plays against Clem in a good shape - few well landed EMPs renders HT/Archon completely useless (and possibly immortals as well as taking ton of HP from other units) plus excellent splits make disruptors useless, what can protoss do about this ? Against this caliber of player, they can’t really do anything. Beating late game terran army relies how well protoss can use their AOE units. If terran can minimize damage from them, protoss loses no matter what.