[Kyfoid]

I would like to share my story of how I had a startling revelation about protoss when I was trying make adjustments to zerg so that they could fight marine/marauder/tank with the proper counter, roach/ultralisk.

I've always felt like something which was very problematic in this game is what the intended counter against Marine/Marauder/Tank was suppose to be for zerg.

There are actually 3 general options that zerg has which come at different times, and I would like to lay those out from earliest to latest.

Earliest: Roach, Infestor

Middle: Roach + Ultralisk

Late: Broodlord

Now, why do I keep saying Roach instead of Zergling?

Reason A: Because Zerg is suppose to match what terran gets in marines with roaches.

Reason B: Zerg is trying to spend their extra minerals on drones to keep their macro going.

With zerg having to match terran's marine force with roach force, it makes it very difficult to get armored ultralisk to counter the tank/marauder in return. But the scenario should end up being zerg with Roach + Ultralisk, and then Terran countering this with Banshees.

The zergling is more of an outsider unit like the Reaper.

So I made a map with some experimental changes.

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Expiramental Changes:

Roach Warren Cost: 200/100 (0, +100)
Cybernetics Core: 150/50 (0, +50)
Roach Cost: 100/0 (+25, -25)
Stalker Cost: 125/25 (0, -25)

As you can see, I lopped 25 gas costs off the stalker and the Roach, added 25 minerals to the cost of roach (Considered adding 50), and added 50 gas costs to the Cyber Core and 100 gas to the Roach Warren.

Why?

I've felt it to be kind of strange that Zerg and Protoss were able to unlock their secondary tech unit across all hatcheries and all gateways with out having to pay a dime in gas, while terran had to pay gas for each individual barrack to unlock their secondary tech unit.

With roaches not costing gas, Terran still handles them perfectly fine, the problem occurs between Zerg and Protoss as roach does well against both Zealots and Stalkers.

That's why I added a 50 gas cost to the Cybernetics core, and took away 25 gas cost on the stalker.

Keep in mind that Protoss are not deviating from the main branch of their tech when they go stalker, where as Zerg and Terran must deviate from their main tech branch in order to access Roach and Marauder...

This could be one of the smaller reasons why Zealot + Stalker do not aggression well against ling/roach and marine/marauder.

But at this point, I had a startling revelation about protoss....
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The Startling Revelation of Protoss:

Even though the balance changes seemed to work fine, I realized that when Zerg and Terran deviate from the main branch of their tech tree from the start, they access units Bane/Roach and Marauder, whereas, when Protoss deviates from the main branch of the tech tree at the start of the game, they make forge and macro with photon cannons..... Defense....

Now, everyone claims that a very real and standard approach to fighting zerg with protoss is the Forge/Cannon FE.

I've always wondered how this makes sense when considering the traditional wisdom of strategy gaming, "The best defense is a good offense"

Sure, it might be viable play, but I think that starting out with defense, regardless of getting more income, is kind of damning against good zerg players who play aggression with the bare minimum of offense.

Idea:

What if, included with the other changes that I mentioned above, that when protoss make a forge, it unlocks the ability to "Transform" their probes in to some kind of slow fighter unit that costs gas?

Something hardier then a queen obviously but...

You see, currently, there is this concept of offensive proxy with Protoss when they make forge... But this is cheese...

I'm saying that, I think protoss should be able to fulfill this concept of proxy, but it should be in a more viable fashion, something with out cheese....

So Just as how when Terran and Protoss Deviate from their main branch tech path with a Roach warren that now costs gas and roaches that do not, and terran with their tech labs...

When protoss deviates from the main branch using the forge, protoss must mine gas to make this new unit which transforms out of the probe, which is slow enough that in order to be offensive you need to proxy it, but mobile enough that it keeps protoss expanding and protecting those expansions.

There is still the option to go cannons, and their perk is that they don't cost gas....

Can anyone see the potential light of what I'm talking about here?

This might be a huge hole that could be filled in the protoss design.....
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The Reason Why the Infestor is Problematic

So we're all sitting here after a good deal of balances changes so far, only to stare at a potential nerf to fungal, infested terran or both, from the words of Dustin Browder?

What could be the reason for this?

From the start, I've always found it strange that....

-Khaydarin Amulet was removed
-Pathogen Gland Remained
-Infestor Unlocks both fungal and infested marine with no research.

-Last, but not least, zerg unlocks their spell caster with out having to deviate from the main branch of the tech tree.


With that said, it's probably pretty obvious why everything funnels down to a problem with the infestor.

Now, if the gas cost was removed from the roach and the roach now costs 100-125 minerals, they would have to do a few things that would make it balanced.

A.) Roach Warren has a 100 gas cost, at the very least. (Gas cost added to cyber core, compare to terran tech labs)
B.) Infestors now have to research their destructive spells for a damn cost like how other spell casters have always had to do so, and continue to do so in sc2.
C.) Add back Khaydarin amulet?

It's outrageous, really.... to go from a mid-game spell casting queen that must research its spells for a cost, one of which is actually destructive... to this?

And you could say that zerg had the lurker.... but technically the roach is more effective for macro purposes and co-harmonizes in cost with their spell caster better then queen/lurker.

Look, the root problem of the game, as I said, comes back to the fact that protoss are missing some type of defensive unit unlocked by the forge that costs gas, and built, transformed, or morphed in the same duration it takes for a pylon and a cannon to complete, so that no pylon is sacrificed which limits the proxy approach as cheese....

Once this is corrected, the mineral only roach with a gas cost added to the roach warren, and proper research time/upgrades can be added to the infestor....

A gas cost can be put on the cyber core, the gas cost of the stalker can be reduced...

The zealot and terran can be buffed back to normal...

And then we can all sit around the fire singing songs about how amazing starcraft 2 is...

Then finally, zerg can properly combat Marine/Marauder/Tank with roach/ultralisk instead of having to over shoot with broodlords, or undershoot with roach/infestor.

Quick Comments

TABiggun:

Do you even play Starcraft 2? Because whatever game your playing is really different to mine lol