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What race should a newbie pick?
 

Was doing some thinking and came to this conclusion - If you are a newbie starting off in Starcraft 2 and have absolutely no preference for race and just want to start playing the game, pick PROTOSS.

A brief examination of the different races shows why Protoss is the easiest race for a new player to pick up. This is NOT the same as saying that Protoss is the easiest race to play - at the highest level, it's really quite different, and there are differing opinions as to which race is the so-called 'easiest' to play. But I'm talking about at the newbie level, at the basic level - Protoss is the easiest.

Let's first look at what I believe is the most difficult race : Zerg.

Why is Zerg the most difficult to pick up? In most scenarios, if you were to play a proper drawn out game (no cheese, all-ins), a Zerg player needs to go a fast -expand build to sustain his (weaker) army (weaker in terms of supply-wise - e.g. 200 vs 200 army) and economy. It is very macro heavy which may be hard for newbies to pick up.
In addition, getting a fast-expansion will mean learning HOW to defend it, which poses additional difficulties.
Most of all, it requires a delicate understanding of when to get Drones, and when to get an army. It also has the most crucial 'economy mechanic' of Inject Larva - If you miss it too often, you can't get a good economy AND army up. (I'll explain why it's not so crucial for the other races below)
On top of a more difficult macro style to master, zerg engagements require good flanking and positioning, whereas the other 2 races generally can engage in a ball (of course, avoiding chokes etc, is impt)
Of course, this does not even include other mechanics like spreading Creep Tumors, when to get Overlords, etc (since it takes up larva too)


How about Terran? Well, as mentioned before, its economy mechanic of MULE/Scans are much easier to handle than Zerg - even if you miss a few MULEs, you can always drop 3-4 at once, or even use the energy for scans. It doesn't help you get more resources (just FASTER minerals) and is probably only crucial in clutch situations (perhaps after losing a base, and trying to catch up) so having some energy stocked up is good (for scanning cloaked units, for instance)
Why I deem it harder than Protoss is because it has much more different production buildings - 3 types in total for a typical game (e.g. a newbie friendly build like MMM), whereas Protoss typically only uses 2 (warpgates and stargate/robo)
(Be clear that I'm talking for new players here - of course higher level players mix up their units more)

In addition, the whole 'queuing' up of units is something that new players will struggle with - It is common knowledge to more experienced players that you shouldn't queue up too many units at once, and while Toss don't face this problem with Warpgates, Terran have to handle multiple Barracks/Factories/Starports well.
Also, choice of addons? How many to get? Which addons? Protoss have no such headaches.

And while Terran armies generally can fight in a ball, there are many occasions where you'll WANT to spread out your army in an engagement, such as against Banelings, Colussus, etc, which are very very typical responses against a Terran army. This requires more micro and more skill and harder to learn too. (Which drives players to do a mech build which is newbie friendly but very gas intensive and needs multiple bases to handle, etc)


Now let's look at Protoss and their 'economy mechanic' of Chronoboost. You generally shouldn't miss too many chronoboosts in the early game even if you're new as there's nothing much happening- thus you will get your harvestors up and easily outnumber other races since you can produce them faster at the start.
As the game drags on, even if you miss them it's ok, you can use them to chronoboost out units and upgrades! Which is what you WILL be using them for in the mid-late game anyway.

Production? Warpgates make production easy as pie. There's no need to even rally units, just warp warp warp warp. At the bronze-silver levels, I can easily win all games with just gateway-robo units. No problems at all.
Micro? Just move in a tight ball, and engage as such (of course general rules like Zealots in front, sentries away from fire, should be adhered to as much as possible, but this isn't that hard to manage) And with Sentries, you can just spam Forcefields to cut the other army in half at chokes, etc. Not that hard to learn, but crazily effective.

It's so easy to play Protoss! Gosh. I still love my Zerg though.

Not convinced? Leave a comment

Re: What race should a newbie pick?
 

exactly! protoss is really easy to pick up cause u dont really need strong mechanic skills as compared to the other races, and new players generally dont have strong mechanics unless they are seasoned rts players

Re: What race should a newbie pick?
 

wow nirvana agrees with me. hahaha. don't know how this blog thing works but help rate 5 stars!

anyway, ty for your input!

Re: What race should a newbie pick?
 

A great blog, and I agree 100%.
I just really hope people don't look at this and take it the wrong way, because at a high level, each individual Protoss unit is much more unforgiving if lost without an equivalent return of damage >.<

I'm only Zerg because I came from twitch shooters and needed something that would keep me FrAnTiC

Re: What race should a newbie pick?
 

thanks elimzke

Re: What race should a newbie pick?
 

I dunno I always thought Terran macro was more forgiving than Protoss macro. If a Protoss forgets to chrono and hits 100/100 energy they may or may not be able to use it all efficiently. Terran can easily spam mule or scan.

Terrans also get to wait to 200/200 rather than 100/100 so I'm not too sure about that side of things.

Also, I find it easier to rally barracks/factory/starport than warp-ins around the map.

As far as I can tell, T is easier than P for mechanics, but P has a lot more 'cheesy straight-up win' builds.

Re: What race should a newbie pick?
 

maybe u can view things from a different point of view?
im a terran player and i agree zerg is the hardest race to play, but can is the strongest race when played properly.
eg u can easily switch tech by adding a spire ultra cavern etc. u can build a certain type of unit with ALL ur lavae once u have the structure. but for terran u have to add 2 factories to switch from bio to mech. and once u have done that, what are u gonna do now with multip,e raxes? same goes for toss.

queueing units for terran can come to an advantage, think about it. u wont miss a round. therefore u will have more units. for eg if u have 800 minerals u can queue ur units. but for toss u wont be able to do anythinh about it, cuz u have to wait til warpin finishes. yeah u might say u can build more gateways with the remainder of ur minerals. ok so now ur on 1 base with 6 gateways, u just cant afford to use all of them. i am ofcourse talking in terms of lower skill levels and it is just an example. the same thing can apply even when ur on 2 3 bases.

and ur warp in point? it is actually really fustrating to macro when ur in a battle if ur toss. cuz u simply have to SEE a pylon and warp in units there. what if u dont have a pylon on ur screen atn? u will have to click on the minimap and look for a pylon. then warp in units. while terran and zerg can just queue or just press the hatch/rax hotkey and make units.

and in terms of scouting wise? just to add a point
terran - free scouting - send in one viking or medivac and mire importantly scans
toss - easy scouting - observers or hallucinate pheonix or just simple pheonix!
zerg - nothing - early game drone - gets killed easily
overlords - slow and easily sniped plus risking getting supply block.

i think zerg is definately the hardest race to play.
while terran is more micro orientated and toss is more macro orientated.

terran - marine split, spread units, multiple drops etc
toss - holdon til u get a death ball.
zerg - hold on til u bank tons of minerals with 200 food.

also, while people think mules are op, think about it this way.

terran - mules
toss - chrono boost probes therefore more minerals
zerg - can mass a bunch of drones at once.

each of them has pros and cons though.
pros
more minerals, duh
cons
risk not scanning for infos at opponents base or detection
risk getting things slower
risk not having units to atk or defend.


thats about it
soz for all the typos as im typing with a playbook. friken hard to type.
cheers