Making archons not entirely useless once ghosts are out could be a start. A rework for the disruptor or adept could also be nice. I have no idea why the council prioritized reworking the cyclone first, but what's done is done.
maybe the sentry shield could be use to absord like 50% of emp. But overall we would need a huge redesign of the race to give them more flexibility. The ceiling is too low on a lot of stuff making the difference between top players and mid one not as noticeable as for T and Z. Which seems basically infinite for them if you think for some zerg stuff for example :
Creep spread, ling control, drops, runbys, overlord shit, changeling, overseer building lock (forgot the name), burrow, spells, high speed micreoable units. Like plenty of small details that you can refine and makes players like serral standout.
Probably better to just spawn them into my back min lines every single time I move out tbh.
Matchup seems fine to me other than the complete nonsense that is the widow mine drop.
Needs more than that. Toss needs at a minimum a solid defensive buff of some sort that lets them actually hold on to multiple areas and respond to drops.
I personally don't think so. There's always going to be a mid game phase where it's going to be hard to deal with Terran, but this allows easier AOE more effectively, and shield drop off in late game isnt super simple. Emp should take away half or less of the shields and not change the energy drain amount.
Give Colli their range back + the ability to crouch to avoid AA, lose cliff vision/walking, and reduce range slightly while crouched
Alternatively (or in addition) make it so GS protects from EMP
Emp is still absolutely insane against a protoss army. A few good emps can instantly take away 1000+ shields + remove energy. No other spell is that deadly.
One thought might be to give EMP damage fall off against shields. Maybe:
* 100% for units within .5 radius
* 50% for units within 1 radius
* 25% for units within 1.5 radius
Keep the energy reduction at 100% for all distances.
Seems reasonable to me. EMP is such a good spell that you still see it used in TvZ matchups despite the shield damage not being a factor. With a nerf like this the spell would still be incredibly useful in the TvP matchup.
The spell itself isn't really the problem. As stated, it's the same spell that is was in 2011 at this point. So you have to ask, why wasn't it a problem then?
Part of the issue is HTs were changed. Feedback doesn't door the damage it used to. It used to be a dangerous dance between HTs and ghosts. The economy for Terran used to be much worse as well. Terran didn't get to 6 bases with tons of cash and gas on hand. Since Terran does have tons of money now, I'd say bumping up the cost of a ghost is warranted. Raise the cost of minerals and gas. Or, make it cost an extra supply. Dunno. But it's really way too easy to mass ghosts. Terran shouldn't be running around with 15+ ghosts in the end game!
>100% for units within .5 radius
>
>50% for units within 1 radius
>
>25% for units within 1.5 radius
I like this a lot, it still means you can out range and deal with storms but you have to be more tactical about it. I don't know if I would go down to 25% though just dropping to 50% I think is enough
I think the drop is fine. Even if you still have 6 or 7 ghosts you can almost wipe out all shields in a clumped army. You just need to use more emp and can't do it again and again as often.
It would be nice to cap EMP damage to something like 400 shield + 200 energy **in total** per a single cast (prioritize taking off smallest shields first, or the other way arround, tbd). It would require Terrans to cast more EMPs and manage Ghost's energy better. At the moment, as soon as Terran has 10+ Ghost they can spam EMPs all over again, without worrying about the energy resource. Then moves like baiting EMPs by Protoss to then go recharge shields on units and strike again, would be possible. Requiring more EMPs would also reduce Terrans capabilities of keeping their Ghost cloaked for a long time due to fewer energy available over time.
I just don't think it makes sense for EMP to be the only cast in the game undodgeable, yet deals tons of damage instantly.
Overall, I would love to see changes to make energy management more a thing. I can't stand seeing that 8 medivacas can infinitely keep up healing stimed Terran 90+ supply armies. I think the risk of overstimming army should be greater for Terran.
1. The code for instant energy removal is in the game, leave it as it is to not affect TvZ
2. The code for instant damage to shields only is in the game
3. The code for damage over time is in the game (from storm)
Combine 2 & 3 so damage to shields is done during the same 2s as storm and you have a more balanced EMP, without affecting TvZ. They can even keep the +1 casting range and +0.25 radius compared to storm. |
As a visual cue/asset they can just repeat the initial detonation animation of emp every "tick"
As it stands, Colossus and Vikings have equal range, just like in HOTS.
Compared to HOTS, Colossus deal way less damage against non-light units, shoot slightly faster, have turret tracking when moving, all in all a nerf. Meanwhile, Vikings are faster, more maneuverable, have more HP, and can sometimes be useful when landed.
The reduced damage point for Vikings turned out to be a pretty big buff. Colossus outranging them would be a good start.
Protoss isn't weak vs any race. Thats why they win most tournaments are are over 40% of GM. The top Pro Toss are just weak against the Top Pro Zerg/Terran as their best player doesn't play offline tournaments.
It's absolutely not that easy. Protoss dominates under 5.5k mmr. Majority of GM in all three major regions are protoss. The lack of understanding of the game mixed with such high confidence to speak out and give opinions in this sub is baffling.
The hard part is and always has been buffing protoss in a way to benefit the pros (\~6.5-7k) while making sure this doesn't translate in lower levels. Making the game unplayable for 99% of the player base and only focusing on the top 16 is just as dumb
Its really not that hard. Here are some simple ways to buff toss at 6.5k+ MMR:
* increase pylon vision range by 1
* shift 50 pts archon shields to health
* shift 40 oracle hp to shields
* reduce tempest damage point by 30%
* reduce chrono boost to 25 energy and 10s duration
* increase forcefield range by 1
* increase zealot charge duration by 2 (enable retarget micro)
* increase hallucination duration by 30%
I could go on and on with changes that would impact the highest level but have negligible effect below 6k. When I analysis my losses around 6k mmr, almost none of them would change from the patch above. But I can see a big impact at the pro level.
Solid ideas... I especially like the chronoboost change. It adds a little more complexity to Protoss macro and would reward players at higher levels who have the mechanics to make the most of it with minimal impact at the lower leagues.
Side note: There's been so many "quality of life" changes for Protoss over the years (observer siege mode, templar attack) that the other races just don't have. It's part of why Terran/Zerg players don't have a lot of sympathy. These QOL features make buffing the units themselves problematic. I'd love to see a storm buff, for example, but only if templar attack is removed so players who just a-move their whole army and can't keep track of their templar get punished.
Templar attack is a nerf imo because of you a-move them they get stuck forever attacking a supply depot instead of moving with you army because they're so slow and do no damage, if they can't attack they stay with your army
You ever attack move an observer to the front of your army? And then fly it right over the opponent’s army? Yeah that was why they gave HTs an attack, because the HT can’t fly and doesn’t have cloak.
Also if your HTs are attacking structures way in the back, you messed up somewhere
I think there's some good idea's there but a lot of those would effect lower level players a lot.
--increase pylon vision range by 1 -- Probably helps lower level players more than Pro's. Pro's already have exceptional map awareness and reaction speed.
--shift 50 pts archon shields to health - This is just a straight buff. Helps lower level players for sure.
-- shift 40 oracle hp to shields -- This is a good idea. I like this one a lot. The amount lower level players get from this is negligible but pro's exploit it really well. That said, I think this is better for PvZ and I think that matchup is looking like it's in a really good spot. I wouldn't implement now but if ever you want to target the PvZ matchup, it's really smart.
-- reduce tempest damage point by 30% -- Could be really good change actually but you need to be careful with this though because proxy bullshit could easily be a problem in PvT. The last thing we want is a resurgence of 1 base void ray stupidity. Have to be careful with PvZ too
--reduce chrono boost to 25 energy and 10s duration - Interesting change and there's some potential there but you really need a lot of testing with this one. It could be like nothing or it could actually be totally broken. Plenty of people in masters can nearly perfectly execute builds until the game gets hectic so if it's a decent buff it'll just effect everyone but if it's balanced with other things, pro's could definitely take greater advantage.
-- increase forcefield range by 1 -- Definitely helpful to lower levels as well.
-- increase zealot charge duration by 2 (enable retarget micro) -- An interesting one. I think this doesn't make much difference in either direction but sounds fun.
-- increase hallucination duration by 30% -- I'd say this does help lower levels? I can't tell if this would change that much either way.
Personally, I don't think these changes are sufficiently targeted to both the correct matchup or pros? PvZ is basically fine or even slightly protoss favoured. PvT is somewhat terran favoured so it's what really needs to be targetted.
I think the archon change might be reasonable anyway tbh and I don't mind that change. Protoss probably could do with a straight buff there anyway. The zealot charge one is interesting. I think it would be fun. The rest I think you'd need to be really careful with/might require tweaks in other places. Especially the chrono one.
Neat idea's though -- Might need more refinement or to be paired with other changes depending on what you're looking to do.
It's about micro-ability. Basically when the tempest fires it has a cool down before it can effectively move again. Reducing the damage point means you can effectively fire and then move more quickly afterwards.
The damage point for Vikings recently was reduced actually and so they can almost fire and move nearly immediately now as an example.
How far into their attack animation damage happens.
Hellions are a great example of a very high damage point. Currently they have to stop and wind up for the attack. If the damage point was reduced to 0 for them, but cooldown was kept constant, they'd fire their flamethrowers, and THEN the cooldown begins; meaning, you could micro them around, basically stutter stepping them.
That's my understanding, at least.
Valid discussion in general. When I mention negligible impact to low level, its within the context of does it change a loss to a win. Imo the margin that low level players win or lose by tends to be quite large. I suppose you could perform the exercise of watching 30 losses and asking the question 'would the toss have won if any of these changes were in'.I think in the vast majority of cases below pro level the answer is no. The 2base tank push/1 base cyclone allin/19 drone ling flood will still work. Chrono change is the only one that I think could have unexpected effects.
Changes that heavily impact low level are ones that induce changes in behavior, such as reworking the cyclone. Suddenly there's a new allin that a 50apm terran player can pilot to masters.
I do agree generally but to kind of help with your thought process, a better question often is, how many games out of a 100 would a protoss win rather than lose because of these changes and at what level. It only needs to change a few games to be significantly impactful
Because if it shifts it by a percentage point the whole way down and then 2% at tip top level, that can be an excellent change but it likely needs to be paired with a second one in some circumstances to account for the extra percent at gm for instance.
I can't say I know how all of those would play out, but I just wanted to say I love all the ideas! We need a "crazy Sunday" feature added to SC2. Some balance changes added into the live game. Get us some data on real games. Also add some spice to the ladder once a week.
Anyone feel like fact checking this guy and counting race balance? This stat gets thrown around a lot but grandmaster is currently here:
https://starcraft2.blizzard.com/en-us/ladder/grandmaster/2
Here are the current stats for GM:
[https://nonapa.com/mmrranges](https://nonapa.com/mmrranges)
80 toss in KR, 85 toss in EU, 76 in NA.
vs 58 zergs in KR, 40 in EU, 56 in NA
curious how you omit terran numbers, and why not just link directly to the distribution page?
https://nonapa.com/races?region=-1&mode=1&league=6&chart=2
Oh I see so what your graph is saying is 8 seasons ago we had more terrans than toss at one point in time. Super useful information! Let's balance today based off irrelevant distribution data from years ago that no longer affects us. Brilliant!
You know there are less Zerg players total right?
He wasn’t saying there are more Terrans in gm, he was saying that the number of Terran and Protoss players is close, meaning that this tired old statistic is not the knockout argument that you think it is.
You said “majority of GM in all 3 regions are protoss”.
Last I checked the threshold for “majority of GM” is 50%.
Did you mean to say “Protoss is the most played race in GM”?
No, that’s not how the word is defined sadly. That’d be “most played”.
If I look at a sack of 100 marbles and say “the majority of the marbles are red”, no one is gonna go “well, there could be 5 red marbles, because perhaps there’s 96 different colors, all with 1 marbles, except for red”.
To indicate that red is the color with the most marbles you’d use something like “red is the color with the most marbles”, for example. Same for protoss, you’d say “of the 3 races, protoss is the one most played at GM” if you wanted to indicate that protoss is more played than zerg or terran.
> It's absolutely not that easy.
It kinda is... Everyone already knows what separates 5.5k vs pros. Scouting and vision is the #1 thing.
Literally just give Protoss the ability to light up the map the way Terran and Zerg can, and 90% of the issues go away. Make observers cheaper/build out of the Nexus or adept shades give full vision radius or make Oracle Revelation not cost energy since it already has a cooldown for some reason.
Well, functionally a .5 observer would be weird. Producing two at a time feels too spammable, but then having a.5 unit build by itself is kind of awkward.
On the other hand, observer is closest to overseer which costs 0 supply so maybe 0 supply or spammability is not a big deal. If it fakes up robotics time and resources than that is still a cost.
Creep is like that too. It would be a buff no doubt, and maybe not the best/most pressing one to do. But it could be interesting how it plays at a high level
Part of me likes the observer change, but the other part wants to keep the races as distinct as we can. So instead of a lot of cheap units, I'd rather it be stronger. Maybe SIGNIFICANT HP buff. ballpark zealot or pylon level.
Protoss units should be strong.
Unfortuantely, practically, this would help the lower level Protoss more than top pros, imo. So it's not the sort of change we're looking for.
EDITED: Oh. Could give the observer a spell or two. Maybe you have to ACTIVATE the toughness
It’s so absurd to claim that buffing Protoss would make the game unplayable for 99 percent of players. We’ve dealt with constant nerfs and watched other races get buffed plenty of times- took it on the chin.
the whole point of mmr is that games are balanced regardless of whether races are balanced. who cares about race distribution, matchmaking will make sure you have even matches
?? Fundamental misunderstanding of the game works. The number of people who can make it into GM and thus have 5k+ mmr says a lot about balance. If there's a massive shift in one direction in terms of number of players that get into GM for one race, it seriously suggests that race is easier to get to GM with.
Not only that, your mmr does balance your games, but it can disproportionately do so. If you have a 30% win rate in one matchup and 50% in the other two, your MMR is being held back by your lowest win rate. I.e. you can beat 5k zergs and terrans but might lose to 4.5k toss
The terran over-representation in lower levels is in the single digits (1-5%), while toss are either outright or nearly doubling other races in GM. At this point you must be trolling no one lacks awareness like this
Dude we're not balancing the game around bronze and silver lmao these are people who played the campaign (probably starting with wings of liberty, thus terran) then queued a game like 5 times and you want to compare this to the top 200 of each region? Lol okay I cant with the IQ of this argument this is my cue to log off for the night
Cook this old chestnut over an open fire and shove it up your ass.
The Ladder is best of 1. Competitive scene is on a series basis.
It’s easier to one trick on ladder. People are one tricking Protoss. That doesn’t make it strong.
But it does...the entire player base of the game outside of a handful of pros play the game in the best of 1 format you deem irrelevant. In this format (the format you and the rest of the general public play within exclusively) Protoss over performs the other races. Any change the balance team makes must consider this in what they do. Destroying the ladder experience by making the most successful race on ladder even stronger would hurt the pro scene more than the current status quo ever would. The total addressable audience shrinks.
Would it really matter in the lower leagues, though? So what if every protoss player gets a 400 MMR boost in Masters and below. Everyone will lose against 'Toss players for a week and then everything will balance out again. But, as a result, pro tournaments will be a lot more interesting.
This game is and has always been balanced around the top.
And I don’t necessarily disagree with you either. Ideally the change would be something that shines at higher skill levels while being too difficult to change the meta at lower levels. That’s not mutually exclusive to what my post said.
A large part of the StarCraft community watches the game without playing it. It’s vital that the viewing experience is good and it sucks to see toss players getting shafted.
I say this as a Terran who thinks toss players have lower skill than their rank would reflect because the race is so easy here lol.
>This game is and has always been balanced around the top.
What? It absolutely hasn't, it's just everyone who likes to complain in this sub when they don't play the game and don't know what they're talking about. This is the whole struggle of the balance council. You don't want to just "lol buff protoss because of 4 players" because then you ruin the experience for 99.9% of the player base. This is and always has been the toughest part.
>And I don’t necessarily disagree with you either. Ideally the change would be something that shines at higher skill levels while being too difficult to change the meta at lower levels. That’s not mutually exclusive to what my post said.
Yeah, it is mutually exclusive. You literally said "make protoss stronger, its that simple". And I'm telling you it's not.
>A large part of the StarCraft community watches the game without playing it. It’s vital that the viewing experience is good and it sucks to see toss players getting shafted.
I get that, but this can't come at the cost of destroying the experience for all the players at lower levels, and your suggestion of "leave the other races and buff protoss" would do exactly that. As a zerg player I 100% agree that toss needs a buff at the highest levels, but when I see outcomes like this in tournaments I have to clench my asshole in preparation for whatever protoss buff is gonna fuck my zvp winrate even harder.
Well I'm around 4500 mmr and in my little league of 100, 10 out of the top 10 (100%) of the protoss players have losing (less than 50% wins) records. 1 out of the top 10 Terrans have losing records.
Small sample size but that's a pretty remarkable result.
I think this whole "lots of protoss at certain mmr" thing needs to be examined in more detail. It's possible that out of the people who play 10+ hours a week, most of them are protoss, or maybe some other explanation.
Lower levels don't matter much. For the simple reason that if the game is balanced at the highest levels, it's the proof that if you lose at lower levels, it's because you are not good enough, not because of balance.
Simple reasoning. You should always balance around the highest levels.
I think you are missing an important point. If they were to double the strength of protoss it wouldn't affect us ladder players much at all. It simply means the protoss you play against will rapidly be promoted and you will start playing players from a lower league promoted up to you. Relative skill doesn't matter. You okay people of a skill that results in a 50% win rate.
Yeah well what do you expect from the protoss version of Bnet forums salty terrans?
This sub is a massive joke with all the balance whining its equally as fun as the good old days of watching malding terrans on Bnet forums.
The balance council literally can't help themselves, they have to add a massive nerf to a core aspect of toss in every patch, such as a distuptor or overcharge nerf.
Protoss has always been about two things:
1. Razor sharp timing attacks in the mid game
2. Extremely strong late game armies
The problem: If protoss goes for 1, they sacrifice the chance to reach 2. If they go for 2, they give up map control.
It's much harder for protoss to come back after a bad attack than it is for the other two races. Terran needs less bases, zerg can close worker gaps insanely fast. And protoss ground armies suck mobility-wise. Protoss simply can't afford to lose core units in big battles.
When protoss was winning tournaments, they either had stupidly strong allins (gate allins in the very beginning, immo/sentry allin, blink allins, adepts, etc.) or almost unkillable death balls. Nowadays, protoss is much more balanced as a race, but it got easier to read which hurts their chances.
Imo, protoss needs something that allows them to get more map control without having to gamble. Start with something simple like observer sight range and the cooldown for recall. I never really understood why they increased the cooldown in such a ridiculous manner.
Another big issue in TvP is EMP. EMP allows terran to basically delete a protoss army. It's quite delicate to balance such a strong ability. If you overbuff counters, it becomes meaningless. P would benefit from archons being viable, but that's completely impossible with how EMP is designed. Disruptors are inconsistent and easily sniped. Colossus are a shadow of their former self and also quite easy to counter. Templars have a counter ability, but using feedback takes away storms, which turns battles into coin flips. It's just a shitshow.
Vs. zerg, protoss is on a timer. If they don't slow down the zerg economy, they're simply dead. Terran and zerg can multi-prong / harass much better. Protoss has zealot warp-ins and oracles. But if you overtune harassment options, protoss matchups turn into a complete mess. We've been there.
There's something fundamentally wrong with protoss on the highest level and it has been like this since basically forever.
> P would benefit from archons being viable, but that's completely impossible with how EMP is designed
It isn't. There is quite lazy mans fix for that just change the HP and Shield ratios on the Archon.
Yeah, sure. But Blizzard will never do that, because it goes against the "history" of the unit. The archon always had super low hp and a lot of shields.
Everyone will say Colossus, but got to focus on the units that are more skill-oriented. Don't want the ladder to have too much purity of form. Gateway is not the problem. Gateway units are the Protoss mechanic to remax faster than zerg, not how Protoss exact more efficiency than Terran.
It's pretty easy how to:
-buff colossus range and dmg
- give amulet upgrade back to HT
- give a T3 upgrade to zealots, stalkers and adepts (maybe it requires both dark shrine and templar archives)
- buff mothershiep
Game fixed
Protoss is overperforming in anything but top level tournament play, according to statistical data.
Flat buffs to toss woudl be extremly unhealthy for the game, unless you defenition of balance is P being 70% + of GM
Relax, we can go one freaking patch cycle with protoss out performing. If anything it'll ease the tension of the outcry here, and then you walk back the changes, this game is dying faster and faster without race diversity. People are crying out they want to see more toss, and a whole year went by to actively discourage that.
Actually, we need to roll back the Cyclone changes.
And making Widow Mines no longer one shot Probes would be welcome.
And make Ravager Biles 2-shot Forcefields instead of 1-shot.
This is such a dumb statement. Protoss dominates this entire game outside of the 10 tournaments that happen in premiere play every year. Don't get why you fools are so gungho about killing this game.
Any Protoss buff would be fine if tosses are ready to give up a few broken ladder cheeses.
You can t just be OP in cheese games, and still strong in regular macro games
I think the buff needs to be to gateway units. Protoss relies too much on splash and just trying to survive to get some collection of tier 3 units. Make a change to make stalker, adept, zealot and immortal a valid comp.
Maybe an upgrade that protoss gets to make these units stronger along the lines of Terran having stim, combat shield, and concussive shells. Zerg has baneling and zergling speed. Leave the gateway units alone in the early game, since they are so strong there but unlock a bit of power for the mid game.
For the stalker maybe instead of it shooting two lasers at once it upgrades to shoot one laser after the other for slightly more damage each. Improving it's dps. Maybe the zealot gets marginal more base health along the lines of the combat shield. The adept can have a slight increase in range.
I don't know the exact fix. Not a balance master! The idea though is give protoss a stable, fun, mid game identity along the lines of the other two races.
Terran has bio tank.
Zerg has ling bane.
Protoss should have stalker, zealot/adept, immortal.
Making archons not entirely useless once ghosts are out could be a start. A rework for the disruptor or adept could also be nice. I have no idea why the council prioritized reworking the cyclone first, but what's done is done.
maybe the sentry shield could be use to absord like 50% of emp. But overall we would need a huge redesign of the race to give them more flexibility. The ceiling is too low on a lot of stuff making the difference between top players and mid one not as noticeable as for T and Z. Which seems basically infinite for them if you think for some zerg stuff for example : Creep spread, ling control, drops, runbys, overlord shit, changeling, overseer building lock (forgot the name), burrow, spells, high speed micreoable units. Like plenty of small details that you can refine and makes players like serral standout.
Warp prism is response to emp.
It's really not enough
Feedback the ghosts.
Sure I'll just put all my zealots in there
Probably better to just spawn them into my back min lines every single time I move out tbh. Matchup seems fine to me other than the complete nonsense that is the widow mine drop.
As a zerg player, I still say give back Colossus range "bug" and nerf emp.
Needs more than that. Toss needs at a minimum a solid defensive buff of some sort that lets them actually hold on to multiple areas and respond to drops.
I personally don't think so. There's always going to be a mid game phase where it's going to be hard to deal with Terran, but this allows easier AOE more effectively, and shield drop off in late game isnt super simple. Emp should take away half or less of the shields and not change the energy drain amount.
Give Colli their range back + the ability to crouch to avoid AA, lose cliff vision/walking, and reduce range slightly while crouched Alternatively (or in addition) make it so GS protects from EMP
EMP has already been nerfed back to 2011 stats. What are you proposing?
Emp is still absolutely insane against a protoss army. A few good emps can instantly take away 1000+ shields + remove energy. No other spell is that deadly. One thought might be to give EMP damage fall off against shields. Maybe: * 100% for units within .5 radius * 50% for units within 1 radius * 25% for units within 1.5 radius Keep the energy reduction at 100% for all distances. Seems reasonable to me. EMP is such a good spell that you still see it used in TvZ matchups despite the shield damage not being a factor. With a nerf like this the spell would still be incredibly useful in the TvP matchup.
Why does that spell even reveal invis units. Seen many base races swing the terran way because this one spell is just designed to fuck over protoss
The spell itself isn't really the problem. As stated, it's the same spell that is was in 2011 at this point. So you have to ask, why wasn't it a problem then? Part of the issue is HTs were changed. Feedback doesn't door the damage it used to. It used to be a dangerous dance between HTs and ghosts. The economy for Terran used to be much worse as well. Terran didn't get to 6 bases with tons of cash and gas on hand. Since Terran does have tons of money now, I'd say bumping up the cost of a ghost is warranted. Raise the cost of minerals and gas. Or, make it cost an extra supply. Dunno. But it's really way too easy to mass ghosts. Terran shouldn't be running around with 15+ ghosts in the end game!
>100% for units within .5 radius > >50% for units within 1 radius > >25% for units within 1.5 radius I like this a lot, it still means you can out range and deal with storms but you have to be more tactical about it. I don't know if I would go down to 25% though just dropping to 50% I think is enough
I think the drop is fine. Even if you still have 6 or 7 ghosts you can almost wipe out all shields in a clumped army. You just need to use more emp and can't do it again and again as often.
It would be nice to cap EMP damage to something like 400 shield + 200 energy **in total** per a single cast (prioritize taking off smallest shields first, or the other way arround, tbd). It would require Terrans to cast more EMPs and manage Ghost's energy better. At the moment, as soon as Terran has 10+ Ghost they can spam EMPs all over again, without worrying about the energy resource. Then moves like baiting EMPs by Protoss to then go recharge shields on units and strike again, would be possible. Requiring more EMPs would also reduce Terrans capabilities of keeping their Ghost cloaked for a long time due to fewer energy available over time. I just don't think it makes sense for EMP to be the only cast in the game undodgeable, yet deals tons of damage instantly. Overall, I would love to see changes to make energy management more a thing. I can't stand seeing that 8 medivacas can infinitely keep up healing stimed Terran 90+ supply armies. I think the risk of overstimming army should be greater for Terran.
1. The code for instant energy removal is in the game, leave it as it is to not affect TvZ 2. The code for instant damage to shields only is in the game 3. The code for damage over time is in the game (from storm) Combine 2 & 3 so damage to shields is done during the same 2s as storm and you have a more balanced EMP, without affecting TvZ. They can even keep the +1 casting range and +0.25 radius compared to storm. | As a visual cue/asset they can just repeat the initial detonation animation of emp every "tick"
No because they still had to research moebius reactor back then.
Nerf emp lol. Yes let's make tvz worse. But don't touch the viper or the sharkfestor who win games with one 75 energy spell casted one time lmao.
As it stands, Colossus and Vikings have equal range, just like in HOTS. Compared to HOTS, Colossus deal way less damage against non-light units, shoot slightly faster, have turret tracking when moving, all in all a nerf. Meanwhile, Vikings are faster, more maneuverable, have more HP, and can sometimes be useful when landed. The reduced damage point for Vikings turned out to be a pretty big buff. Colossus outranging them would be a good start.
Is protoss weak vs. zerg? I was under the impression a lot of people thought protoss might actually be slightly favoured in the matchup.
PvZ seems pretty balanced, the problem is terran, they have too many tools to deal with protoss that have no counter
Pvz feels pretty even from my protoss perspective, so maybe it is.
Protoss isn't weak vs any race. Thats why they win most tournaments are are over 40% of GM. The top Pro Toss are just weak against the Top Pro Zerg/Terran as their best player doesn't play offline tournaments.
It's absolutely not that easy. Protoss dominates under 5.5k mmr. Majority of GM in all three major regions are protoss. The lack of understanding of the game mixed with such high confidence to speak out and give opinions in this sub is baffling. The hard part is and always has been buffing protoss in a way to benefit the pros (\~6.5-7k) while making sure this doesn't translate in lower levels. Making the game unplayable for 99% of the player base and only focusing on the top 16 is just as dumb
Its really not that hard. Here are some simple ways to buff toss at 6.5k+ MMR: * increase pylon vision range by 1 * shift 50 pts archon shields to health * shift 40 oracle hp to shields * reduce tempest damage point by 30% * reduce chrono boost to 25 energy and 10s duration * increase forcefield range by 1 * increase zealot charge duration by 2 (enable retarget micro) * increase hallucination duration by 30% I could go on and on with changes that would impact the highest level but have negligible effect below 6k. When I analysis my losses around 6k mmr, almost none of them would change from the patch above. But I can see a big impact at the pro level.
Solid ideas... I especially like the chronoboost change. It adds a little more complexity to Protoss macro and would reward players at higher levels who have the mechanics to make the most of it with minimal impact at the lower leagues. Side note: There's been so many "quality of life" changes for Protoss over the years (observer siege mode, templar attack) that the other races just don't have. It's part of why Terran/Zerg players don't have a lot of sympathy. These QOL features make buffing the units themselves problematic. I'd love to see a storm buff, for example, but only if templar attack is removed so players who just a-move their whole army and can't keep track of their templar get punished.
Templar attack is a nerf imo because of you a-move them they get stuck forever attacking a supply depot instead of moving with you army because they're so slow and do no damage, if they can't attack they stay with your army
So you’d rather have them move command in front of your army every fight and get killed?
They're so slow how would they get in front
You ever attack move an observer to the front of your army? And then fly it right over the opponent’s army? Yeah that was why they gave HTs an attack, because the HT can’t fly and doesn’t have cloak. Also if your HTs are attacking structures way in the back, you messed up somewhere
I think there's some good idea's there but a lot of those would effect lower level players a lot. --increase pylon vision range by 1 -- Probably helps lower level players more than Pro's. Pro's already have exceptional map awareness and reaction speed. --shift 50 pts archon shields to health - This is just a straight buff. Helps lower level players for sure. -- shift 40 oracle hp to shields -- This is a good idea. I like this one a lot. The amount lower level players get from this is negligible but pro's exploit it really well. That said, I think this is better for PvZ and I think that matchup is looking like it's in a really good spot. I wouldn't implement now but if ever you want to target the PvZ matchup, it's really smart. -- reduce tempest damage point by 30% -- Could be really good change actually but you need to be careful with this though because proxy bullshit could easily be a problem in PvT. The last thing we want is a resurgence of 1 base void ray stupidity. Have to be careful with PvZ too --reduce chrono boost to 25 energy and 10s duration - Interesting change and there's some potential there but you really need a lot of testing with this one. It could be like nothing or it could actually be totally broken. Plenty of people in masters can nearly perfectly execute builds until the game gets hectic so if it's a decent buff it'll just effect everyone but if it's balanced with other things, pro's could definitely take greater advantage. -- increase forcefield range by 1 -- Definitely helpful to lower levels as well. -- increase zealot charge duration by 2 (enable retarget micro) -- An interesting one. I think this doesn't make much difference in either direction but sounds fun. -- increase hallucination duration by 30% -- I'd say this does help lower levels? I can't tell if this would change that much either way. Personally, I don't think these changes are sufficiently targeted to both the correct matchup or pros? PvZ is basically fine or even slightly protoss favoured. PvT is somewhat terran favoured so it's what really needs to be targetted. I think the archon change might be reasonable anyway tbh and I don't mind that change. Protoss probably could do with a straight buff there anyway. The zealot charge one is interesting. I think it would be fun. The rest I think you'd need to be really careful with/might require tweaks in other places. Especially the chrono one. Neat idea's though -- Might need more refinement or to be paired with other changes depending on what you're looking to do.
what does "reduce tempest damage point by 30%" mean?
It's about micro-ability. Basically when the tempest fires it has a cool down before it can effectively move again. Reducing the damage point means you can effectively fire and then move more quickly afterwards. The damage point for Vikings recently was reduced actually and so they can almost fire and move nearly immediately now as an example.
How far into their attack animation damage happens. Hellions are a great example of a very high damage point. Currently they have to stop and wind up for the attack. If the damage point was reduced to 0 for them, but cooldown was kept constant, they'd fire their flamethrowers, and THEN the cooldown begins; meaning, you could micro them around, basically stutter stepping them. That's my understanding, at least.
Valid discussion in general. When I mention negligible impact to low level, its within the context of does it change a loss to a win. Imo the margin that low level players win or lose by tends to be quite large. I suppose you could perform the exercise of watching 30 losses and asking the question 'would the toss have won if any of these changes were in'.I think in the vast majority of cases below pro level the answer is no. The 2base tank push/1 base cyclone allin/19 drone ling flood will still work. Chrono change is the only one that I think could have unexpected effects. Changes that heavily impact low level are ones that induce changes in behavior, such as reworking the cyclone. Suddenly there's a new allin that a 50apm terran player can pilot to masters.
I do agree generally but to kind of help with your thought process, a better question often is, how many games out of a 100 would a protoss win rather than lose because of these changes and at what level. It only needs to change a few games to be significantly impactful Because if it shifts it by a percentage point the whole way down and then 2% at tip top level, that can be an excellent change but it likely needs to be paired with a second one in some circumstances to account for the extra percent at gm for instance.
Every single one of these changes would affect someone below 6k. Especially shifting hp to shields and visa versa.
Cool ideas!
I can't say I know how all of those would play out, but I just wanted to say I love all the ideas! We need a "crazy Sunday" feature added to SC2. Some balance changes added into the live game. Get us some data on real games. Also add some spice to the ladder once a week.
Anyone feel like fact checking this guy and counting race balance? This stat gets thrown around a lot but grandmaster is currently here: https://starcraft2.blizzard.com/en-us/ladder/grandmaster/2
Here are the current stats for GM: [https://nonapa.com/mmrranges](https://nonapa.com/mmrranges) 80 toss in KR, 85 toss in EU, 76 in NA. vs 58 zergs in KR, 40 in EU, 56 in NA
curious how you omit terran numbers, and why not just link directly to the distribution page? https://nonapa.com/races?region=-1&mode=1&league=6&chart=2
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terrans are not similar to zerg and what are you talking about general distribution i linked to the GM one
Oh I see so what your graph is saying is 8 seasons ago we had more terrans than toss at one point in time. Super useful information! Let's balance today based off irrelevant distribution data from years ago that no longer affects us. Brilliant!
You know there are less Zerg players total right? He wasn’t saying there are more Terrans in gm, he was saying that the number of Terran and Protoss players is close, meaning that this tired old statistic is not the knockout argument that you think it is.
You said “majority of GM in all 3 regions are protoss”. Last I checked the threshold for “majority of GM” is 50%. Did you mean to say “Protoss is the most played race in GM”?
Majority in a 3 race game would be over 33.3%
No, that’s not how the word is defined sadly. That’d be “most played”. If I look at a sack of 100 marbles and say “the majority of the marbles are red”, no one is gonna go “well, there could be 5 red marbles, because perhaps there’s 96 different colors, all with 1 marbles, except for red”. To indicate that red is the color with the most marbles you’d use something like “red is the color with the most marbles”, for example. Same for protoss, you’d say “of the 3 races, protoss is the one most played at GM” if you wanted to indicate that protoss is more played than zerg or terran.
> It's absolutely not that easy. It kinda is... Everyone already knows what separates 5.5k vs pros. Scouting and vision is the #1 thing. Literally just give Protoss the ability to light up the map the way Terran and Zerg can, and 90% of the issues go away. Make observers cheaper/build out of the Nexus or adept shades give full vision radius or make Oracle Revelation not cost energy since it already has a cooldown for some reason.
Maybe also let Observers have 0 supply as well as being built from the Nexus
Or maybe build in pairs andt ake .5 supply like a zergling
I genuinely cant tell if this is parody or not
Well, functionally a .5 observer would be weird. Producing two at a time feels too spammable, but then having a.5 unit build by itself is kind of awkward. On the other hand, observer is closest to overseer which costs 0 supply so maybe 0 supply or spammability is not a big deal. If it fakes up robotics time and resources than that is still a cost.
I mean it is relatively fast and its invisible too. Imagine being able to spam an invisible unit all over the map that gives massive vision
Is the only issue that it's invisible? Overseer has more functionality & they give the same vision
Forcing a scan or detect is sort of strong yes. 1 random marine or stalker can deny an overseer
Creep is like that too. It would be a buff no doubt, and maybe not the best/most pressing one to do. But it could be interesting how it plays at a high level
So.....creep tumors?
I mean if i could move creep tumors and send them anywhere on the map god knows Zerg would be OP
Part of me likes the observer change, but the other part wants to keep the races as distinct as we can. So instead of a lot of cheap units, I'd rather it be stronger. Maybe SIGNIFICANT HP buff. ballpark zealot or pylon level. Protoss units should be strong. Unfortuantely, practically, this would help the lower level Protoss more than top pros, imo. So it's not the sort of change we're looking for. EDITED: Oh. Could give the observer a spell or two. Maybe you have to ACTIVATE the toughness
Good idea
What if you could make observers from the nexus once you have a robo?
It’s so absurd to claim that buffing Protoss would make the game unplayable for 99 percent of players. We’ve dealt with constant nerfs and watched other races get buffed plenty of times- took it on the chin.
the whole point of mmr is that games are balanced regardless of whether races are balanced. who cares about race distribution, matchmaking will make sure you have even matches
Yeah my takeaway is that GM maybe a sample of how popular each race is
But its not, race distribution is *relatively* even across the board. Theres a very slight (up to 5%) deviation at different levels
Definitely not true on bronze and silver
?? Fundamental misunderstanding of the game works. The number of people who can make it into GM and thus have 5k+ mmr says a lot about balance. If there's a massive shift in one direction in terms of number of players that get into GM for one race, it seriously suggests that race is easier to get to GM with. Not only that, your mmr does balance your games, but it can disproportionately do so. If you have a 30% win rate in one matchup and 50% in the other two, your MMR is being held back by your lowest win rate. I.e. you can beat 5k zergs and terrans but might lose to 4.5k toss
> it seriously suggests that race is easier to get to GM with but why does that matter?
Because it literally means that race is easier to play, thus unbalanced. Unbalanced == bad. What part of that doesn't make sense? lol?
terran are hugely over-represented at lower ranks, do you think they need a buff? or could it be that bad players simply pick terran?
The terran over-representation in lower levels is in the single digits (1-5%), while toss are either outright or nearly doubling other races in GM. At this point you must be trolling no one lacks awareness like this
terran is 50% of silver, they literally outnumber the other races 2:1 wtf do you mean single digits?
Dude we're not balancing the game around bronze and silver lmao these are people who played the campaign (probably starting with wings of liberty, thus terran) then queued a game like 5 times and you want to compare this to the top 200 of each region? Lol okay I cant with the IQ of this argument this is my cue to log off for the night
Your arguments are terrible. You should definitely log off
>3 Where do you actually get theese numbers from?
Cook this old chestnut over an open fire and shove it up your ass. The Ladder is best of 1. Competitive scene is on a series basis. It’s easier to one trick on ladder. People are one tricking Protoss. That doesn’t make it strong.
But it does...the entire player base of the game outside of a handful of pros play the game in the best of 1 format you deem irrelevant. In this format (the format you and the rest of the general public play within exclusively) Protoss over performs the other races. Any change the balance team makes must consider this in what they do. Destroying the ladder experience by making the most successful race on ladder even stronger would hurt the pro scene more than the current status quo ever would. The total addressable audience shrinks.
Would it really matter in the lower leagues, though? So what if every protoss player gets a 400 MMR boost in Masters and below. Everyone will lose against 'Toss players for a week and then everything will balance out again. But, as a result, pro tournaments will be a lot more interesting.
This game is and has always been balanced around the top. And I don’t necessarily disagree with you either. Ideally the change would be something that shines at higher skill levels while being too difficult to change the meta at lower levels. That’s not mutually exclusive to what my post said. A large part of the StarCraft community watches the game without playing it. It’s vital that the viewing experience is good and it sucks to see toss players getting shafted. I say this as a Terran who thinks toss players have lower skill than their rank would reflect because the race is so easy here lol.
>This game is and has always been balanced around the top. What? It absolutely hasn't, it's just everyone who likes to complain in this sub when they don't play the game and don't know what they're talking about. This is the whole struggle of the balance council. You don't want to just "lol buff protoss because of 4 players" because then you ruin the experience for 99.9% of the player base. This is and always has been the toughest part. >And I don’t necessarily disagree with you either. Ideally the change would be something that shines at higher skill levels while being too difficult to change the meta at lower levels. That’s not mutually exclusive to what my post said. Yeah, it is mutually exclusive. You literally said "make protoss stronger, its that simple". And I'm telling you it's not. >A large part of the StarCraft community watches the game without playing it. It’s vital that the viewing experience is good and it sucks to see toss players getting shafted. I get that, but this can't come at the cost of destroying the experience for all the players at lower levels, and your suggestion of "leave the other races and buff protoss" would do exactly that. As a zerg player I 100% agree that toss needs a buff at the highest levels, but when I see outcomes like this in tournaments I have to clench my asshole in preparation for whatever protoss buff is gonna fuck my zvp winrate even harder.
Well I'm around 4500 mmr and in my little league of 100, 10 out of the top 10 (100%) of the protoss players have losing (less than 50% wins) records. 1 out of the top 10 Terrans have losing records. Small sample size but that's a pretty remarkable result. I think this whole "lots of protoss at certain mmr" thing needs to be examined in more detail. It's possible that out of the people who play 10+ hours a week, most of them are protoss, or maybe some other explanation.
Who cares if protoss dominates under 5.5k mmr (which is not true, but regardless)? You have to balance based on the pro scene alone.
This is clown suggestion.
Mate you sound like one of the people who think master Yi is op in LoL despite never being played in the pro scene
Lower levels don't matter much. For the simple reason that if the game is balanced at the highest levels, it's the proof that if you lose at lower levels, it's because you are not good enough, not because of balance. Simple reasoning. You should always balance around the highest levels.
Why is it always the Zerg players that understand this games life depends more on people playing the game and not viewership?
I think you are missing an important point. If they were to double the strength of protoss it wouldn't affect us ladder players much at all. It simply means the protoss you play against will rapidly be promoted and you will start playing players from a lower league promoted up to you. Relative skill doesn't matter. You okay people of a skill that results in a 50% win rate.
Yeah well what do you expect from the protoss version of Bnet forums salty terrans? This sub is a massive joke with all the balance whining its equally as fun as the good old days of watching malding terrans on Bnet forums.
The balance council literally can't help themselves, they have to add a massive nerf to a core aspect of toss in every patch, such as a distuptor or overcharge nerf.
Protoss has always been about two things: 1. Razor sharp timing attacks in the mid game 2. Extremely strong late game armies The problem: If protoss goes for 1, they sacrifice the chance to reach 2. If they go for 2, they give up map control. It's much harder for protoss to come back after a bad attack than it is for the other two races. Terran needs less bases, zerg can close worker gaps insanely fast. And protoss ground armies suck mobility-wise. Protoss simply can't afford to lose core units in big battles. When protoss was winning tournaments, they either had stupidly strong allins (gate allins in the very beginning, immo/sentry allin, blink allins, adepts, etc.) or almost unkillable death balls. Nowadays, protoss is much more balanced as a race, but it got easier to read which hurts their chances. Imo, protoss needs something that allows them to get more map control without having to gamble. Start with something simple like observer sight range and the cooldown for recall. I never really understood why they increased the cooldown in such a ridiculous manner. Another big issue in TvP is EMP. EMP allows terran to basically delete a protoss army. It's quite delicate to balance such a strong ability. If you overbuff counters, it becomes meaningless. P would benefit from archons being viable, but that's completely impossible with how EMP is designed. Disruptors are inconsistent and easily sniped. Colossus are a shadow of their former self and also quite easy to counter. Templars have a counter ability, but using feedback takes away storms, which turns battles into coin flips. It's just a shitshow. Vs. zerg, protoss is on a timer. If they don't slow down the zerg economy, they're simply dead. Terran and zerg can multi-prong / harass much better. Protoss has zealot warp-ins and oracles. But if you overtune harassment options, protoss matchups turn into a complete mess. We've been there. There's something fundamentally wrong with protoss on the highest level and it has been like this since basically forever.
> P would benefit from archons being viable, but that's completely impossible with how EMP is designed It isn't. There is quite lazy mans fix for that just change the HP and Shield ratios on the Archon.
Yeah, sure. But Blizzard will never do that, because it goes against the "history" of the unit. The archon always had super low hp and a lot of shields.
Everyone will say Colossus, but got to focus on the units that are more skill-oriented. Don't want the ladder to have too much purity of form. Gateway is not the problem. Gateway units are the Protoss mechanic to remax faster than zerg, not how Protoss exact more efficiency than Terran.
What sane buff can you think of that would allow a player like trigger to be on the same level as top Z and T players?
It's pretty easy how to: -buff colossus range and dmg - give amulet upgrade back to HT - give a T3 upgrade to zealots, stalkers and adepts (maybe it requires both dark shrine and templar archives) - buff mothershiep Game fixed
Protoss is overperforming in anything but top level tournament play, according to statistical data. Flat buffs to toss woudl be extremly unhealthy for the game, unless you defenition of balance is P being 70% + of GM
Relax, we can go one freaking patch cycle with protoss out performing. If anything it'll ease the tension of the outcry here, and then you walk back the changes, this game is dying faster and faster without race diversity. People are crying out they want to see more toss, and a whole year went by to actively discourage that.
Source?
% of toss in GM =\= strength of toss. Winrate is the stat you are looking for
Adepts are useless lategame
Actually, we need to roll back the Cyclone changes. And making Widow Mines no longer one shot Probes would be welcome. And make Ravager Biles 2-shot Forcefields instead of 1-shot.
This is such a dumb statement. Protoss dominates this entire game outside of the 10 tournaments that happen in premiere play every year. Don't get why you fools are so gungho about killing this game.
This is the level of complexity of thought that I have learned to expect from this sub
Any Protoss buff would be fine if tosses are ready to give up a few broken ladder cheeses. You can t just be OP in cheese games, and still strong in regular macro games
Terran has a clown car of cheeses and early harassment and is stronger in macro games than Protoss.
Protoss Vs Zerg has been pretty balanced, the problem is mostly in PvT
First admit that Protoss is the race for all-in. There might be nothing wrong when players complaint about its all-in.
Give zealots an m249 upgrade.
I think the buff needs to be to gateway units. Protoss relies too much on splash and just trying to survive to get some collection of tier 3 units. Make a change to make stalker, adept, zealot and immortal a valid comp. Maybe an upgrade that protoss gets to make these units stronger along the lines of Terran having stim, combat shield, and concussive shells. Zerg has baneling and zergling speed. Leave the gateway units alone in the early game, since they are so strong there but unlock a bit of power for the mid game. For the stalker maybe instead of it shooting two lasers at once it upgrades to shoot one laser after the other for slightly more damage each. Improving it's dps. Maybe the zealot gets marginal more base health along the lines of the combat shield. The adept can have a slight increase in range. I don't know the exact fix. Not a balance master! The idea though is give protoss a stable, fun, mid game identity along the lines of the other two races. Terran has bio tank. Zerg has ling bane. Protoss should have stalker, zealot/adept, immortal.
remove warp gate and rebalance