[Tom]

UPDATED WITH LATEST DATA FOR JULY/AUGUST - SEE PAGE 9




Introduction

The worm has turned. It began almost impercetibly. Protoss players such as myself started questioning whether the balance complaints of other races were really justified in light of the results we were seeing at high level play.

I have previously said it would be unwise to jump to conclusions based on the results of a couple of high profile games or one tournament. I am still of that view. What I would like to discuss is the emergence of an apparent trend in poor protoss results in high level play. I say "apparent" trend because I think it is still too early to conclude that what we are seeing is actually a "trend".

Conscious of not jumping to a premature conclusion, it seems to me that the emerging data raises a legitimate question: is protoss currently underpowered in high level play?

Disclaimer

As a protoss player I have an interest in this debate. I will try to keep this to a minimum, but I am conscious that the very fact that I am raising it as a topic of discussion demonstrates an inherent bias on my part. I hope you will forgive me!

Some definitions

First, my discussion is limited to high level play. By "high level play", I mean top tournaments such as GSL, and Grandmasters league, with particular emphasis on the leagues in Korea, NA and Europe, which I suggest are the most competitive.

Second, I have carefully and deliberately used the word underpowered. By underpowered, I do not mean "unplayable" or "uncompetitive". Strong players will continue to perform well because their inherent skill allows them to overcome possible shortcomings with their race. Underpowered also involves questions of degree - it may be very slight, such that the effect on lower level players is low or almost negligible, but enough to have a significant effect at higher levels.

Third, the expression underpowered in high level play is important. It may also be legitimate to ask "is protoss overpowered in low level play?", having regard to the race's arguably simpler mechanics (I'll leave this for others to decide).

Why it is important to look at data

In any non-mirror match up, it seems to me there are three key variables that affect the outcome of the game. The first, and probably most significant, is the player (or more correctly, players). The second variable is race. The third is map. In examining the relative "power" of a race, we are trying to eliminate the "noise" that is created as a result of differences in player skill and different maps.

For this reason, I suggest (although you may disagree) it is virtually useless to examine anecdotal experience - ie a player's personal experience of the race and their recent games. This is because the key variable here is the player, not the map or race. But, when we look at the results of hundreds (or thousands) of games, the significance of the "player" diminishes drastically, whereas the importance of "race" (and "map") dramatically increases.

I acknowledge that the following data does not attempt to isolate "map" as a factor, and that this is a significant limitation. I apologise in that the data is simply not available.

Recent tournament results [SPOILERS]

In early May, an author on TeamLiquid performed an analysis of global and Korean tournament results. The thread is here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...opic_id=218558

In summary, what those results showed was that in global tournaments, the win rate for all match ups had begun to approach 50% (although I would be interested to see the current results more than one month (and 1 patch) later). However, the results showed Protoss was been getting absolutely murdered in recent Korean tournaments, with win rates of 33% of ZvT and 30% of ZvP. I said at the time I would be interested to see whether this was the start of an emerging trend (Korea tends to lead the field in all things Starcraft).

The results of the current GSL "Super Tournament" have been, if anything even more dramatic. 16 protoss players qualified for the round of 64. This represents 25% of the field, despite the fact that Protoss players make up approximately 35% of active 1v1 players in Korean. Of these, 6 advanced to the round of 32 (two of whom advanced in mirror match ups). Three Protoss players have so far played in the round of 32 (Genius, HongUn and Trickster) and all have been knocked out. I pray that at least one of the remaining three advances to the top 16, so that there is at least someone I can watch to pick up some tips on how to play the race at the moment. But I think there is a real risk at the moment that we will have a quarter final (or even round of 16) with not a single protoss player.

I note in passing that the number of Korean protoss players complaining about balance has (as of yesterday), overtaken zerg players for the first time in many months (see http://www.playxp.com/sc2/jingjing/ - red = zerg, green = terran, blue = protoss, purple = nothing). Of course, all this demonstrates is "sentiment" (what people think about balance) rather than an actual indicator of balance.

Grandmasters League statistics

The number of Protoss players in the Korean Grandmasters League has remained the same as when I last examined the data. 32% of Korean Grandmasters play protoss, compared to around 35% of all players. They remain slightly underrepresented amongst Grandmasters. (It should also be remembered that random is dramatically underrepresented in GMs League, and as a result (statistically at least) Zerg and Terran are both significantly overrepresented. Zerg is the most overrepresented. There is a similar trend in SEA: see my earlier thread at http://www.sc2sea.com/archive/index.php/t-1242.html).

There continues to be very few Protoss players in the top 10 of any of the regions. Based on my search this morning, of the top 10 players in each of the major regions, NA has 1 Protoss, EU has 0 Protoss, Korea has 2 Protoss and SEA has 1 Protoss. By contrast:

- 5 of the NA top 10 are Terran and 4 are Zerg;
- 6 of the EU top 10 are Terran and 4 are Zerg;
- 7 of the Korean top 10 are Terran and 1 is Zerg; and
- 3 of the SEA top 10 are Terran and 6 are Zerg.

Discussion

These results hardly provide a definitive answer to the question I have asked. But, I think, the data legitimately entitles me to ask the question: is Protoss currently underpowered in high level play?

I am very curious to see what Blizzard's overall data shows, and really wish they would release this (as they have done in the past). The most problematic scenario, I think, is one in which the data shows Protoss is overperforming in lower level play (whether that be overperformance in bronze, silver, gold, platinum, or overperformance all the way up to high Masters). At the moment I don't have any data and could only speculate on the position below Grandmasters. If this were the case, would raise the question, as many have already suggested, of who it is that Blizzard should be balancing the game for - professionals or the average player? Personally, I tend to think it should be balanced for high level play and everyone else should try and catch up by looking at what the professionals do. However, at the moment we do not have data to suggest any underperformance by Protoss below the parameters I have identified.

On a sad note, it will be difficult for me to pick up much to "imitate" from the GSL super tournament. Unfortunately, most of the Protoss games have been terribly one-sided and not really worth watching (for my part, it is starting to look brutal and somewhat bleak out there for the pros). However, I remain optimistic that one of the remaining Protoss players will show us something new and spectactular to stop the rot. My hopes are now pinned on SlayerS_Alicia (who, for those of you who don't know, more or less gave us the aggressive 3gate expand which revolutionised PvT a few months ago).

Tom please add at least one picture to your articles so it has a thumbnail!

Image Credit: http://sanggene.blogspot.com/

Quick Comments

	nirvAnA:
	Apth:
	EveRorschach:
	TCPLemminks:
	EveJeonSa:
	TAScarecrow:
	duanloves:
	Digby:

[ETL.Santi]

No, most people just have self respect and play another race. Also there are no good Protoss in high level play.

Quick Comments

	Tom:	LOL
	QuestionMark:	i remember this quote used back in the days where people were referring it the terran players instead of toss. ^^
	PapaBigBelly:	FF OP! protoss have it so easy, they make the engagement and map theirs with FF. FF has the ability of altering MAPS!
	holyforker:

[crAzerk]

I really liked your writeup Tom, looks like a piece of academic writing that I am familiar with from school - a breath of fresh air in this forum settings

I just want to point out a possible faulty deduction before addressing the issue of whether Blizzard should balance for high levels/casuals.


Faulty Deduction?
Your argument is as such:

Premise 1: Protoss (players) have not been performing well in high level tournaments (Lowest Win Rate)
Premise 2: Protoss are underrepresented in the GM leagues in the world.
----
Conclusion : Protoss is underpowered in high level play.

While your first 2 premises are facts (As you have nicely presented with data) so they cannot be debated, the conclusion is questionable.

Does having a lower win rate equate to a race being underpowered?
I beg to differ.

While you have nicely pointed out 3 variables that determine a match outcome (player, map, race), I would like to suggest that the 3rd variable of race is incompletely portrayed. I mean, how does a person's race affect a match outcome? Does it matter whether he's producing SCVs or producing Drones (that's what race means)
I think a more accurate and complete description of that variable is this: Current Race Metagame. And with this description we'll see a possible answer as to why the results you have pointed out is occurring.

Current Race Metagame means how a particular race is currently handling matchups against other races. This can interact with the variable Map as well, for example, in the past TvZ on Lost Temple was just them abusing cliffs and Zergs losing terribly.
Over time of course, the metagame shifted with Zergs knowing how to handle this with OL/Spine placements, etc.
An example of it being an independent variable is the TvZ bunker rush - Zergs were losing to it when it was first popularized, but the metagame shifted back when they learnt how to handle it.

Thus, it would seem that the reason for Premises 1 and 2 is simply this - Current Zerg/Terran top player's Current Race Metagame is simply better than Protoss' Current Race Metagame. They know how to handle the different strategies Toss can throw at them, and know how to beat them effectively.

Does this mean Protoss is 'underpowered'? Not at all! It simply means Protoss player now has to figure out how to adapt to how Z/T are playing them now, and work out a new approach to beating them.


Issue of balancing
There has been endless debate about this already so I'll just provide my opinion on this issue.

Yes, Blizzard needs to balance the game for the high level players. But can they do this at the expense of the average players? No! There is a huge player pool that they will lose if they let the game fall into imbalance at the average level.

I think the key thing about how Blizzard is balancing things is just to ensure there's no strategy that the average player using a particular race can pull off to consistently beat others (e.g. 4gate) simply because that build is too strong.

And as for higher level play, they have to look at WHAT is causing the Protoss to lose. You cannot just average out the population as you would for a statistical analysis - you have to actually look at each game and find out WHY they are losing.
Is there some strategy/tactic that is just too difficult to hold off as Protoss? Is there some unfair advantage that another race gains over Protoss which the Protoss cannot make up for?
(E.g. Protoss usually gets more Probes than other races in the early stages, but they CAN make up for this with MULEs and fast Drone production later on)

As I don't have a proper conclusion,
-The End-

Quick Comments

ToRRedemption:

NICE POINTS!

[Meatex]

At higher levels most balance problems are minor and its more differences between players
Zerg is flawed in design so they are always on the back foot, at least in early game. Call it QQ but the game was made too fast without zerg being able to adapt to what the opponent is doing equally as fast
However was have seen players like nestea get around this problem well
What crAzerk says is wrong though as the game is horridly imbalanced at lower levels and blizzard isn't intending to do anything about it. If they balance for the lower levels (even diamond) then it would break the game for higher level play

All I can say is look at Inka - how the hell did he get into the code S finals?

[PiG]

Originally Posted by Meatex

At higher levels most balance problems are minor and its more differences between players
Zerg is flawed in design so they are always on the back foot, at least in early game. Call it QQ but the game was made too fast without zerg being able to adapt to what the opponent is doing equally as fast
However was have seen players like nestea get around this problem well
What crAzerk says is wrong though as the game is horridly imbalanced at lower levels and blizzard isn't intending to do anything about it. If they balance for the lower levels (even diamond) then it would break the game for higher level play

All I can say is look at Inka - how the hell did he get into the code S finals?

PvP and cheese lol

Crazerk said: "If you can actually point out a strategy that a race has that is ridiculously easy to execute yet ridiculously difficult to defend as another race, please do tell."

Uh, 2rax, 4gate, roach-ling all-in, etc etc.

All races have these sort of hard to hold, easy to execute rushes where the onus is on the macro player to defend. What this means is that macro players trying to play the game the "right way" and actually improve in the long run need to get better to withstand the cheese on ladder. Simple really, to get better you need to play better... Some players will have success with easy to execute all-in strategies but they will never go beyond a certain level and are usually prone to dieing to all-ins themselves.

In regard to what Meatex said in the first place:
The only way you can say the races are imbalanced at the lower level is because players are emulating different ways of playing from their favourite pro players. In general (and not as common as it was 4+ months ago) T and P lower players tend to emulate easy to execute rushes whilst the zergs try to emulate idra/nestea economic macro style without actually understanding the specifics or improving enough at the game to execute them versus poorly executed all-ins and harass. Basically theres players at the lower levels trying to execute builds which take practice, game knowledge and more practice! They often die to harass or all-ins and then say zerg is weak in the early game. THIS is NOT true. The truth is zergies are trying to do really hard macro oriented builds which they can't handle, and are usually just raging when they lose rather than seeking to actually perfect these difficult to learn styles.

I recomend these type of players should all-in on a regular basis themselves, bane busts, roach-ling all-ins and early-midgame timings are simpler to execute whilst still demanding many of the challenges and excitement of Starcraft. In no way are these forms of cheese or timings weaker then the T or P equivalents. It's just zerg players at the top don't use them quite as often and so their noobier brethren think they suck.

Cheese more zergies! And actually learn how to do it properly. So many zergs decide 1 day to try all-inning and they just suck so bad at it cos they're used to playing defensively. This is understandable. What really cheeses me off (see what I did there? :P) is that these players then say zerg cheese is worthless. It's noT!

Quick Comments

nirvAnA:

[nirvAnA]

There continues to be very few Protoss players in the top 10 of any of the regions. Based on my search this morning, of the top 10 players in each of the major regions, NA has 1 Protoss, EU has 0 Protoss, Korea has 2 Protoss and SEA has 1 Protoss. By contrast:

- 5 of the NA top 10 are Terran and 4 are Zerg;
- 6 of the EU top 10 are Terran and 4 are Zerg;
- 7 of the Korean top 10 are Terran and 1 is Zerg; and
- 3 of the SEA top 10 are Terran and 6 are Zerg.

this is really scary. imo both protoss and zerg are slightly weaker than terran atm but the results although a small sample seem to indicate protoss is the absolute worse. hmm!

[NvPinder]

Originally Posted by nirvAnA

this is really scary. imo both protoss and zerg are slightly weaker than terran atm but the results although a small sample seem to indicate protoss is the absolute worse. hmm!

I think it's pretty important to say protoss players in general are struggling, not that 'protoss is the worst race'. No one can make that call accurately, and especially so no set of statistics can make that claim.

Remembering that 3 months ago protoss players were sky high raping the tits off everyone, MC looked unstoppable and (personally) everyone i played with gave me shit for playing the strongest race, i find it hard to believe that 1 tiny balance patch later, it has changed enough that we are now 100% the worst race and cannot compete with terran and zerg.

Once again, not to get my argument confused, I'm not saying posts like this are bad and I'm not saying these statistics are completely meaningless, they obviously hold value in that terran and zerg players are doing a lot better than protoss players are doing right now in ladder. But it does NOT represent that protoss is the weakest race.

what is probably causing this, and what these statistics probably represent is a significant metagame shift since 3 months ago when i last played, or, that zerg and terran just got more and more efficient whilst protoss players were 'content' with their mechanics/builds and didnt work to tweak them up further, allowing the terran and zergs to catch up that way.

If you're wondering what makes me pretty confident this is the case, dispite not even building a probe/scv/drone in the last 3 months, this IS starcraft 2, so it's pretty important to look at the lessons that sc:bw taught us, a good example is PvZ in broodwar was pretty commonly thought of as broken in zergs favour for a LONG time, until around the 2006ish point of Bisu showing us forge FE into corsair DT in his MSL (think GSL) final against savior which, long story short, caused zergs a lot of trouble for a long time and practically shifted the balance of the matchup into protoss' favour, until around the point where july came up with 3 hat spire into 5 hat hydra and crushed BeSt in an important OSL final, once again shifting the sway of the matchup back into zerg's favour in general, until protoss started coming up with forge FE into earlier and earlier zealot pressures to punish the zerg for droning too hard early, to which zerg started responding by sim citying their ass off, again making it hard for protoss.

Those changes by NO MEANS came overnight, we're talking anywhere between 2months-a year of one particular race having a lower winrate in the matchup until a player came up with a 'solution' to the problem his race was having the matchup to overcome the bad winrate... To which every player of the race immediatly puts the new build into their arsenal, all the way down to the C ranks on iCCup, causing a HUGE shift across the board in winrates in the matchup. From what i remember the TvZ story of this sort of balance in BW is probably an even better example, but since I played protoss in BW I can't remember the dynamic shifts very well (iirc, there was actually an AWESOME teamliquid article about the shifts in winrates in TvZ that backs this point much better than i do, but unfortunately i cant find it, if anyone can post it ).

TL/DR:

+ Show +

One time when i was younger, i played super mario 64 and it took me like 20 hours of play time to finish, now people can do it in 6 minutes, not even kidding man, SIX MINUTES. its insane.

also - I get to reinstall sc2 in like 3 weeks, wooo.

Quick Comments

	nirvAnA:	hahaha at the tldr
	TAavanar:	winning!

[FaDeBadger]

I agree with crAzerk. It's simply a matter of T and Z having figured out how to beat the way P is playing right now. We saw it not too long ago that people thought ZvP was unwinnable.

P just needs to figure out why they are losing, and a way to combat that.

Quick Comments

PapaBigBelly:

[porkchop]

Originally Posted by BadgerWatch

I agree with crAzerk. It's simply a matter of T and Z having figured out how to beat the way P is playing right now. We saw it not too long ago that people thought ZvP was unwinnable.

P just needs to figure out why they are losing, and a way to combat that.

i agree ... i thought for a while , from beta to early stages of s1 , toss was unbeatable , with the void rushes and the warping , plus the blink stalkers. it was imba until they figured out how to win against toss, i dont think any match up is imba,, i think the key is to create an early game push for toss, similar to terrans marine all in and roach all in..


we recently had the arcon range added, and it is considered a massive unit.

if we could like have the mother used as the weapon it should it be ,

[Tom]

crAzerk, you raise two good points, although permit me some clarification. My conclusion can basically be stated as "the data is consistent with Protoss being underpowered at high level play". As you rightly point out, the data is also consistent with poor adaptation to the current metagame, and this could be the possible explanation. A further explanation it that the poor performance is purely coincidence. That is why I have been careful not to give a strong answer to the question I posed.

This is also why it is important not just to look at snapshots, but to seek to identify trends. I suppose I am saying that the apparent trend I began to observe 1-2 months ago has continued, with the result that the hypothesis that Protoss is underpowered has become more plausible (but by no means proven).

Your second point is also a good one:

Originally Posted by crAzerk

And as for higher level play, they have to look at WHAT is causing the Protoss to lose. You cannot just average out the population as you would for a statistical analysis - you have to actually look at each game and find out WHY they are losing.

I agree, but there are in my view two distinct stages. The first is to use statistics to determine if there is a problem. The second step is, having determined that there is a problem, to examine particular games and strategies, make alterations, and then observe the effect this has on the data (ie repeat step 1).

But there is no point starting at step 2 - pointing out all the things that you observe seem to be wrong with a race, seems to me to be irrelevant if on the whole the race is still performing well. The variables in SC2 seem to me to be so complicated that the only way you can really observe the way all the strengths and weaknesses of a race "come together" is in the proverbial real-time laboratory.

[cruxBsK]

lol wut... Perhaps at high level they are certainly well represented at the lower levels IMO

[dennistoo]

What can i say? Look at the recent tournaments. Protoss just got whip left right up down. If you noticed, the PvZ is probably the weakest if you see zerg playing with banelings, mass roaches, speedlings and couples of infestor. It totally crush the deadball so easy.

The rebuilding of 200 food (save lots of larvas) for zerg is bloody easy as compared to protoss with higher tier units like colo & immortal.

Roaches needs a tweak. 75/25 cost for that unit is ridiculous.

Look at today's Week 8-2 incontrol vs july, July just crushed incontrol purely with mass roaches everything incontrol loses his deadball.

Quick Comments

TAScarecrow:

how the hell is incontrol losing to julyzerg a sign of ZvP imbalance?

[Harmonik]

Originally Posted by Tom

The most problematic scenario, I think, is one in which the data shows Protoss is overperforming in lower level play (whether that be overperformance in bronze, silver, gold, platinum, or overperformance all the way up to high Masters).

I feel this is probably true (I'm silver). I think that possibly Protoss is broken in the sense that it doesnt scale from low level play to high level play (or vice versa hehe)
The only way I can see a major enough change happening to fix this is with the new HoTS units and rebalance that can occur then.

[crAzerk]

Originally Posted by Meatex

What crAzerk says is wrong though as the game is horridly imbalanced at lower levels and blizzard isn't intending to do anything about it

Care to elaborate?
No wait, don't bother. A lower level player complaining about game balance is like a newbie basketball player who can't throw the ball into the hoop going 'This game is unfair! Make the hoop bigger!' There has already been much said about this elsewhere so I won't say more.


Ok @ Tom,

As you rightly point out, the data is also consistent with poor adaptation to the current metagame, and this could be the possible explanation

Hmm, I wouldn't quite say that the data is consistent with either of those. Making such a statement is a logical fallacy of begging the question, where you assume what you're setting out to prove.
(E.g. You're trying to show that Protoss is underpowered because Protoss are losing. And then you say Protoss are losing and this seems consistent with them being underpowered)

What is more accurate which you also did mention, is that 'Protoss being underpowered' is a plausible explanation for "Protoss losing', just as 'Protoss having a poorer Current Race Metagame' is a plausible explanation for 'Protoss losing'.


Regarding your second portion, I had an interesting thought -
Would it still be possible for a race to be performing well even though there is something wrong with the race?

If you think about it, it IS possible, if the other races haven't found a way to exploit it.
E.g. When Spanishiwa first brought his build out, he was dominating everyone with it, along with everyone else who hopped on to use his build. But there was a clear inherent flaw in it that it lacked map control and had 0 means of pressure in the early game, allowing others to double expand, etc. Did other races figure it out immediately ? No. Thus the Spanishiwa-bandwagon 'performed well' for a period of time, abusing the solid Zerg mechanic of Queen/Spine defence which seemed OP at that moment.

Which led me to think - if a race can perform well both when there is something wrong with it and when there's nothing wrong with it - is it then relevant to look at its current performance to use as an indicator of its balance?
Or should we be focusing on the reasons for its current performance (poor Current Race Metagame) instead?

[Eldrid]

Originally Posted by crAzerk

If you can actually point out a strategy that a race has that is ridiculously easy to execute yet ridiculously difficult to defend as another race, please do tell.

5 (or 4) gate nexus cancel all in vs. zerg.

lol, it's redonkulous ... You could scout it and still not hold it off. You basically need to have units up (more than a few lings!) pre nexus-cancel, scout it straight away, and pump units .. even then if they get good ramp forcefields, you may not hold!
Edit: I hope this isnt seen as QQ or what-not lol -_-;, legit issue i think the game has with it. I cant think of anything else as overwhelmingly "garrrrrghh" as this.

[crAzerk]

I'm breaking up into 2 posts because it was getting long.

@dennistoo If you could, read my points as well, but if you can't it's alright, I'll try to answer you but it would be better if you have had context

The rebuilding of 200 food (save lots of larvas) for zerg is bloody easy as compared to protoss with higher tier units like colo & immortal.

There's no question here. Zerg has the quickest way of replenishing their lost army. You are right.
But have you taken into consideration this fact as well - A typical 200 Zerg army is generally significantly weaker as compared to a typical 200 Protoss/Terran army?
And thus perhaps this is WHY Zergs NEED that quick way of replenishing?
Think about it.

Roaches needs a tweak. 75/25 cost for that unit is ridiculous.

Yea, they should make it gas free!
Haha ok well I have nothing to say about this, besides maybe pointing out other 'imbalances ' - 1 immortal can kill 3/4 roaches (slightly higher cost on Immortal, but lower food count too), 1 Thor can kill probably 20 queens, etc.

Look at today's Week 8-2 incontrol vs july, July just crushed incontrol purely with mass roaches everything incontrol loses his deadball.

There was a period of time where the Protoss deathball (did you spell it as 'deadball' on purpose? It's pretty funny though if it was on purpose.. like it just dies to anything haha) basically killed everything, and Zergs were the one complaining about imbalance.
But as I've said in previous posts, Zergs have learnt how to deal with this, and adapted their Current Race Metagame. That's why they're beating it.

[PapaBigBelly]

Crazerk Thank you for being on this thread and pointing out the most valueble points


I wanted to give you another rep point but the forum doesnt allow me to just yet :P






According to the graphs on TL, Protoss has a positive win rate ration longer than Zerg. Just to note.

Protoss have Forcefields which can

1.Stop reinforcements coming down the ramp
2. Trun a wide open space into a small choke
3. Use to delay rushes
4. trap units for storm
5. block the widest ramps of the 3rd expansion of xelnaga
6. Prevent anything from getting them surrounded

FFs cost too little energy and they have to be nerfed abit
without FF i do agree the toss will die miserably.

But at any wide open space a zerg engages such as in outside the bases of shaukuras plateau, the toss can just FF the entire whole area with 20 FORCE FIELDS! Most of them stacking up on each other but still enough to create choke just like at the backdoor entrance of xelnaga caverns.

FF are too big and cost too little energy.

Protoss underpowered? NO!


FORCE FIELDS OVER POWERED!

btw i play random on NA and I have not lost as Protoss yet.
Its just so easy to warp in units and attack.
Or just sit up on 3 base(especially taldarim) and mass up a death ball (while harrasing with voids/DT) against Zerg or Terran.

Quick Comments

	deL:	Stupid. Have you even seen PvT lately? Not one sentry required.
	TAScarecrow:	if forcefields are so strong then where is Tom pulling these stats from? diamonds shouldnt be commenting on game balance

[Next_rim]

Agreed with crazek, it is metagame.

There are 3 heavily underused units in the game right now - warp prism, carrier and mothership. If you don't use some of your race tools, how can you claim you are underpowered? High level players are starting to realize that. We even saw a mommaship in GSL.

There are good situational units that are designed to do very specific things, like phoenix. Phoenix is successfully used for it's purpose when the game goes a particular way, which is fine. Voidray is fine, DT is fine. But having NOBODY EVER use 3 units out of 15? 20% of potential right down the drain.

What concerns me is terran though. All they need to win is a marauder-medivac ball with optional ghosts and vikings. Never see BC, ravens. Occasional nuke to harass 6-th expansion 40 minutes into the game is not a good metagame for a game of starcraft magnitude.

[Interdiction]

Originally Posted by Next_rim

Agreed with crazek, it is metagame.

There are 3 heavily underused units in the game right now - warp prism, carrier and mothership. If you don't use some of your race tools, how can you claim you are underpowered? High level players are starting to realize that. We even saw a mommaship in GSL.

There are good situational units that are designed to do very specific things, like phoenix. Phoenix is successfully used for it's purpose when the game goes a particular way, which is fine. Voidray is fine, DT is fine. But having NOBODY EVER use 3 units out of 15? 20% of potential right down the drain.

What concerns me is terran though. All they need to win is a marauder-medivac ball with optional ghosts and vikings. Never see BC, ravens. Occasional nuke to harass 6-th expansion 40 minutes into the game is not a good metagame for a game of starcraft magnitude.

You are absoulutly right! How can protoss attempt to win if they only use 75% of their arsenal? (( Im a protoss player =) ))

Also tom, I think you should take some mroe time ( your analysis is good ) and delve into facts a little more. With the gate tech being pushed back, protoss are finding that AGRESSIVE openings are no longer possible against CERTAIN builds from other races!

I think a lot of protoss players ( including myself and I think I saw it mentioned before) Need to figure out some new builds and tactics instead of holding onto " the old ways ". Mothership/carrier/warp prism all need to be used a lot more in conjunction with other stratagys. And I agree maps most certainly count in this factor, but maybe its up to the protoss player to realise he needs to be DEFENSIVE early game? A.K.A build a few sentries and relax =)

In anycase im not saying anyones right or wrong but i think there are a few more things to consider before people start crying UNBALANCED =)

[Interdiction]

Originally Posted by Next_rim

Agreed with crazek, it is metagame.

There are 3 heavily underused units in the game right now - warp prism, carrier and mothership. If you don't use some of your race tools, how can you claim you are underpowered? High level players are starting to realize that. We even saw a mommaship in GSL.

There are good situational units that are designed to do very specific things, like phoenix. Phoenix is successfully used for it's purpose when the game goes a particular way, which is fine. Voidray is fine, DT is fine. But having NOBODY EVER use 3 units out of 15? 20% of potential right down the drain.

What concerns me is terran though. All they need to win is a marauder-medivac ball with optional ghosts and vikings. Never see BC, ravens. Occasional nuke to harass 6-th expansion 40 minutes into the game is not a good metagame for a game of starcraft magnitude.

You are absoulutly right! How can protoss attempt to win if they only use 75% of their arsenal? (( Im a protoss player =) ))

Also tom, I think you should take some mroe time ( your analysis is good ) and delve into facts a little more. With the gate tech being pushed back, protoss are finding that AGRESSIVE openings are no longer possible against CERTAIN builds from other races!

I think a lot of protoss players ( including myself and I think I saw it mentioned before) Need to figure out some new builds and tactics instead of holding onto " the old ways ". Mothership/carrier/warp prism all need to be used a lot more in conjunction with other stratagys. And I agree maps most certainly count in this factor, but maybe its up to the protoss player to realise he needs to be DEFENSIVE early game? A.K.A build a few sentries and relax =)

In anycase im not saying anyones right or wrong but i think there are a few more things to consider before people start crying UNBALANCED =)

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TAScarecrow:

painfully ignorant