Protoss balance problem?

And seriously, it's been quite a few posts since there was QQ in this thread and I'm bored to look back to see if there was any trash talk... Seems like you visited a few similar threads in other forums, then saw the title and thought "Balance trash! Let's scold them for trash talking a bit", lol

But yes, I agree too that the "Race A is imba and takes no skill, race B sucks and you need to be pro to play it" argument is as junk as it gets, but I also don't see why people shouldn't discuss balance either...
Granted that most ideas from players are bound to be ****ty in a grade, since players offer ideas based on their own experiences and mistakes(If you look up my own posts on this thread here you'll find quite a few of them ****ty ideas) and are not considering the impact of a change across all matchups and from both sides, but why not discuss such stuff?

 

I've played (and lost) 6 games with the Protoss and can't seem to figure out why other than a balance issue.

I macro well. I've got 5 -6 drones on minerals and 2-4 on gas, mass zealots, stalkers and later immortals but then I ALWAYS get rushed...Forget cost, I think toss units take too long to show up.

 

I saw a fired up reply from my side to some post, and since I didn't remember which post I had replied to in such a manner I visited the previous page to see...

Now that I think of it again, brave sir Robin, aren't you the one who makes it a habbit of making such a trashtalk/qq thread every 4-5 days or so?
Just saying...

 

Mate, you need 24 probes on minerals and 6 on gas: anything less is hurting your economy.

Because your economy is bad, therefore you earn money slow so your production buildings and army come in play slow, so almost any attack should seem like a rush to you...

Anyway, I'm pretty sure you need to work heavily on your basics... I've made a post for another guy sometime ago in the forum linking videos with tutorials, tips and advice on how to improve, which I believe will benefit you greatly... Here's the link:
http://www.starcraft2forum.org/forums/showthread.php?p=393339#post393339

 

And for terran its 26 scvs? If calling mules down?

 

Mules can mine over scvs, so an scv and a mule can mine from the same patch. 2 mules can't mine from the same patch as can't 2 scvs at the same time, but the rule is that mules don't count towards saturation, they go over it...

 

There are two kinds of imbalance arguments that can be made.
1. Statistical arguments
2. Theoretical arguments

And when I say statistical argument, I mean a /real/ statistical argument. And the same goes for theoretical arguments. They have to be backed by logic, not intuition and guesswork.

I don't think a good statistical argument could be made right now. Strategy has been changing a lot, not many maps have been played enough times, there aren't enough top level games out there, etc. And a good theoretical argument is no where to be found so far.

For Diamond levels there is this:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/939643-/57059001

 

I kinda agree with you. Ever since i got promoted to silver league, I have been lonsg 90% of my matches to terran players, and that screwed up my win/loss quite a lot. I tried everything - Colossus rush which got countered by vikings. void ray rush which got screwed by marines, zealot / immortal which got screwed by MM with stim, zealot, stalker, sentry +1-2 immortals will just get raped by normal terran MMM and maybe 1 or 2 ghosts. And Marauders are seriously Overpowered. Even with charge, zealots are useless against marauders if it has stim and concussive shell. Didn't Blizzard say zealots are effective against marauders? Try blocking their way with force field and your sentrys will get killed before you can do that. And the stalker. 125 mineral, 50 gas, that gets raped by 1 marauder with concussive shell? WTF? And seriosuly, as long as terrans have medivacs there is no point of getting colossus or any air units, because of vikings/marines. And no point getting templars cause ghosts can screw both high and dark templar. And ur gateway units get screwed by bioballs. So basically, I don't see any way a protoss player can win a terran player with these kinds of weak units except for cheesing/zealot rushing. Seriously, blizzard needs to strengthen protoss. And the recent updates. Whats the point of giving void rays 20% extra damage against massive units if it is the small light infantries that it gets raped by? Psionic storm research time shortened, not much use if the enemy has ghosts. Seriously, why did blizzard make protoss so weak? They are only expensive, not powerful.

 

ddjj, wtf. STOP RUSHING WITH SUCH A TERRIBLE UNIT COMPOSITION.
man when i go against terran,
i make sure i get out colossi and dt fast, head for ht, if i got too much gas, get a few archons, get some void rays and phoenixes and wait for mah mothership YO. and a few immortals along the way

 

ddjj, everything has its counter. That is, you can't name a unit without a weakness. That's the core of Starcraft. If you don't like it then instead of waiting for the developers to give up everything they've built in the last 12 years you'd be better off giving up playing it. But thanks for supporting the team with your purchase

 

Sounds like someone doesn't like Blink Stalkers...

 

In PvT you need to not commit to something too much...
For example, let's say you tech colossus: Get a few out and start researching psi storm. If the T responds with vikings you'll have templar ready to punish him... If he doesn't then you just win, lol

Also sentries: Guardian shield is too awesome to describe... Force fields too, but that's more common knowledge...

On zealot vs marauder: A rauder takes 16 hits to kill a zealot. You can have a stalker behind the zealot to deal the damage while the zealot attacks runs after the rauder(in the early 2-3 unit pushes)... sentries also survive the same amount of hits as stalkers vs marauders, and they also have guardian shield...
Also try having part of your zealots hidden somewhere and when the push comes flank the enemy.... If you sandwitch the MM ball with zealots they're so dead that I can't describe it. It's like having zealots charge on force fielded MM ball but the force fields also do 16 damage per hit

Also positioning: protoss needs to fight close to ledges to maximise FF effectiveness. When it only needs like 4 FFs to cut a slice of the enemy forces then you're at a very good advantage. Also on FFs remember if you have too many zealots to pull them back when they clear the sliced part since after killing the small piece you cut off from the rest your zealots become blocked by FFs...

Upgrades: Try getting some armor upgrades against MM balls and combine them with guardian shield.

A zealot with +1 armor and guardian shield takes 2 damage per hit from a marine: that means it can tank 59 total hits from it! or 23 from marauders, or any combination of the two... Having a few zealots followed by some stalkers and a couple of sentries you'll be fine against a MM ball...

Ghost EMP: it's quite OP against protoss, you have to spread your army well, especially your casters... Sentries and Templars, which are like the strongest P gateway units are as good as dead when they get EMPed...

Also Immortals: A few of them are very good in an army mix: They deal a crapload of damage to rauders and tank a good amount of damage. Again you need sentries and FFs to block the MM retreat and have them sliced by zealots...

Also stargates: You can get a few phoenixes out and protect your colossi from vikings... If you get air superiority with phoenixes then you will force the terran to go marines to beat your air. Or thors. Marines will melt against colossi and since that's what the phoenixes will be guarding you'll only need to worry about thors which means that if you do a colossus/phoenix build the only thing you need to worry about is thor play(or battlecruisers ) so make use of the production buildings you have: pop out a couple VRs or immortals(if your colossus count is good then you can use your robo to get immortals, if you got some sniped and need to restock then use your stargates to make VRs).
In any encounter of a gateway army supported by colossi and phoenixes against MMM+Vikings if you win(your unit composition allows you to) you will either lose lost of colossi or lots of phoenixes(depending if the vikings target fire the colossi or auto-attack and get tanked by the phoenixes so depending on what you need to restock use the other production to make what you will need against what is pretty much the only threat)...

VRs are also awsome, don't underestimate them. With zealots below them to tank damage the VRs will get tons of kills each. And if they try to target-fire them they'll fall on a zealot wall and take tons of dmg while you micro the VRs back(and will prolly lose a couple but your zealots will deal tons of damage though since they will not be kited by have the MM even more pressed against their blades...


Just some random thoughts that came of it...

If you have some rep you wish to discuss, upload it here, but I don't think that protoss really has a problem with terran on most cases...

Also personally I'm more afraid of terran mech play as toss...
Thors are extremely strong against pretty much everything in the protoss army but for immortals/VRs and carriers(vrs with the recent buff slice through them like butter though - a charged up VR does 20dmg/0.6 second to a massive unit, 28 if it's upgraded by +3! That's faster attack than a stimmed marine or a crackling!)

 

The only issue is that void rays are terrible against vikings. I wouldn't even attempt them against thors. And thors can just strike cannon immortals anyway.

I think templar tech is the way to go. Zealot/Archon/Stalker/Immortal/Sentry/Templar. The templars take care of the bio while the zealots take care of the mech. The stalkers, immortals, sentries, and archons are there to strengthen and balance out the army. Terran mech is tough. I don't think its full potential has yet been reached. I think Protoss will be able to handle it though. I think it'll end up being a lot more like it was in brood war. Protoss will need to really work hard to beat the Terran army down, but in the end they should be able to do it.

And if Terran is going bio then colossus is fine. So basically what I'm saying is...2gate robo into expand = solid PvT play.

 

Ok, I am far from being as good as most of you guys - and I am not going to read through all 73 pages to see if anyone have commented anything similar (so sorry if this is far off or too newbie..). However as I am playing mostly 3v3's and 4v4's I very often encounter massrines(with or without mauraders) vs mass stalkers. What I usually do (which I guess most of you are doing already, but thought I should mentoin it..) is wait for the mm's to line up, then flank them by blinking to one side of the line and picking them off. Then further delaying marines to line up again by using forcefield.

 

Generally, sentries and zealots are extremely awsome against lots of marines. Guardian shield helps mitigate tons of damage, while force fields prevent them from kiting with stim, so zealots can get in range and slice them up...

Becaues sentries are so core to the protoss army early enough, you wanna get some sentries out early, so you'd better go for some fast double gas and use sentries to help you survive early pushes by blocking the ramp and taking out enemies from afar... Having like 6-7 sentries up early will allow them to have enough energy for later on for many FFs and GS's... Also armor upgrades are colossal against terran bio... It's been said before too, that a zealot with +1 armor and guardian shield from a sentry needs 50 marine hits(yes 50!) to burn thorough his life, without even counting the plasma shield in... That's really quite amazing... A sentry can also survive 20 marine hits on it's hull dmg when with +1 armor and guardian shield up, so both units become extremely effective against early terran pushes. Also marauders don't do much damage to either zealots or sentries so you don't ahve to worry about them either.


Btw, yeah, what you're doing, denying the concave, is a good way to avoid damage and reduces the effectiveness of marines a great deal...

 

. I know exactly what you mean, but if you can rush a second expansion as Protoss, you can make a decent amount of warp gates in time for an enemies first assualt. The last game I played, I had 16 warp gates and over 150 supply by 16 minutes, and could pump out quite a few stalkers quickly. It seems as though to me, that Protoss do have the advantage to build units anywhere, and if toucan manage to sneak a warp prism into a base, or build a nearby pylon, their base is easily destroyed.

 

Having that many warpgates is quite risky because it's money invested that are neither economy or army or tech and their only use is things like mass prism drops. But yeah, if you do manage to survive and expand enough while getting that many gates and a couple prisms then you can be quite deadly if you can handly multi-pronged attacks. A counter-attack could be deadly in that situation though since the money you spent making warpgates and spreading your lesser army across the map, your enemy spent teching or making an army so he's stronger as a whole and an attack straight into your base can wipe you out before you can rally your forces back. Plus small platoons are easier to take out than a big bulk of army, so you will have to first rally and then defend, which will cause more dmg to your base...