[nGenLight]

You don't know how glad I am for a fellow Protoss like yourself to have such a pedigree of education and writing capability. Although you make bring up some good points on the meta-game, Crazerk, you aren't acknolweding that Tom is merely instigating discussion, as opposed to deducing any conclusion.

I've personally have been struggling internally with the Protoss race recently. Never have I had so many "What do I do against this?" trains of thoughts going. Not one to point towards balance as an excuse, I continued to look for answers amongst Protoss players I believe are stronger than myself. One by one they fell, and even those lucky ones (ST_Ace) that did not fall, only managed to scrap by because of the weakness and mistakes of his opponent.

Examples of some of the questions I currently have:

How do I secure a third against Zerg on XNC?
How do I poke/attack a Zerg's 3rd on XNC without them trading for my natural?
How do I fight a Zerg death ball? (Infestor+Hydra+Broodlord)
How do I fight a Terran death ball with +50 supply on you because he doesn't need SCVs anymore? (MMM+Thor+10 Ghosts)
How can I consistently be able to punish a Terran player that does greedy builds such as depot/rax/orbital/CC on a map like Shakuras whereas if we attempted to 15 Nexus we end up being 4-5 rax marine/scv'd or killed by a ghost rush off 2 orbitals.

I am not concluding Protoss is UP by any means, merely that I have never felt so clueless playing Protoss in a very long time and nobody is able to provide me with any answers. =(

Quick Comments

	Tom:	Amen brother
	EveRorschach:	I echo this!
	psygoh:
	EveJeonSa:
	TCPLemminks:

[Tom]

Originally Posted by nGenLight

I've personally have been struggling internally with the Protoss race recently. Never have I had so many "What do I do against this?" trains of thoughts going. Not one to point towards balance as an excuse, I continued to look for answers amongst Protoss players I believe are stronger than myself. One by one they fell, and even those lucky ones (ST_Ace) that did not fall, only managed to scrap by because of the weakness and mistakes of his opponent.(

This is exactly how I feel Ray. The first port of call should always be "what can I change or do better". And like you, I am looking to the professionals for guidance in this respect, but am getting precious little. The solid Protosses in GSL are getting demolished and those that made it through seemed to just rely on gimmicky timing attacks. The fact that those players were essentially gambling may say something about their psychology at the moment.

[deL]

Originally Posted by Tom

This is exactly how I feel Ray. The first port of call should always be "what can I change or do better". And like you, I am looking to the professionals for guidance in this respect, but am getting precious little. The solid Protosses in GSL are getting demolished and those that made it through seemed to just rely on gimmicky timing attacks. The fact that those players were essentially gambling may say something about their psychology at the moment.

Neither of you guys play that much outside of the SEA server so you can't blame your own lack of ideas on an underpowered race when you aren't really looking where the inspiration will be found. VODs aren't always good enough you have to be amongst the players, practice with them so you know why they do what they do. You SHOULDN'T be able to win in this game by copying others' builds - you should just understand the reasoning behind them and come up with your own (or imitate them whichever you prefer).

[dennistoo]

Originally Posted by nGenLight

You don't know how glad I am for a fellow Protoss like yourself to have such a pedigree of education and writing capability. Although you make bring up some good points on the meta-game, Crazerk, you aren't acknolweding that Tom is merely instigating discussion, as opposed to deducing any conclusion.

I've personally have been struggling internally with the Protoss race recently. Never have I had so many "What do I do against this?" trains of thoughts going. Not one to point towards balance as an excuse, I continued to look for answers amongst Protoss players I believe are stronger than myself. One by one they fell, and even those lucky ones (ST_Ace) that did not fall, only managed to scrap by because of the weakness and mistakes of his opponent.

Examples of some of the questions I currently have:

How do I secure a third against Zerg on XNC?
How do I poke/attack a Zerg's 3rd on XNC without them trading for my natural?
How do I fight a Zerg death ball? (Infestor+Hydra+Broodlord)
How do I fight a Terran death ball with +50 supply on you because he doesn't need SCVs anymore? (MMM+Thor+10 Ghosts)
How can I consistently be able to punish a Terran player that does greedy builds such as depot/rax/orbital/CC on a map like Shakuras whereas if we attempted to 15 Nexus we end up being 4-5 rax marine/scv'd or killed by a ghost rush off 2 orbitals.

I am not concluding Protoss is UP by any means, merely that I have never felt so clueless playing Protoss in a very long time and nobody is able to provide me with any answers. =(

Great post. This is exactly how i felt atm. There's no way for toss to expand to 3rd easily when facing zerg especially they have speedlings/muta for map control. And drops are extremely hard to dealt with when deathball cannot be split to defend for drops.

[Apth]

Originally Posted by nGenLight

Examples of some of the questions I currently have:

How do I secure a third against Zerg on XNC?
How do I poke/attack a Zerg's 3rd on XNC without them trading for my natural?
How do I fight a Zerg death ball? (Infestor+Hydra+Broodlord)
How do I fight a Terran death ball with +50 supply on you because he doesn't need SCVs anymore? (MMM+Thor+10 Ghosts)
How can I consistently be able to punish a Terran player that does greedy builds such as depot/rax/orbital/CC on a map like Shakuras whereas if we attempted to 15 Nexus we end up being 4-5 rax marine/scv'd or killed by a ghost rush off 2 orbitals.

These sorts of questions are difficult to answer because of their specificity. It's all well and good to say "Zerg death ball? Well, Carriers.", but there will be plenty of situations where Carriers are a terribad solution.

Light, and anyone else who's asking these questions, I'd suggest you try and simplify what you're trying to elucidate. For example;

How do I secure a third against Z on Xel'Naga Caverns?
- Why is it difficult to secure that third base?
- Maybe they have map control with Speedlings.
- Question becomes 'How do I deny Z map control?'

The revised question is a lot simpler to tackle, and doesn't involve finicky situational reasoning which will inevitably turn into a snowball of counterexamples.

/2c