**** Original Starcraft 2 Thread ****

Well, the best strategy against any build is to deny them doing it in first place. But Stephano seems to do what he wants no matter what :/ I feel sad when I watch him play Protoss, especially somebody lovable like Grubby or WhiteRa.
 
Well, the best strategy against any build is to deny them doing it in first place. But Stephano seems to do what he wants no matter what :/ I feel sad when I watch him play Protoss, especially somebody lovable like Grubby or WhiteRa.

It's a gamble on whether you can stop them or not. Not always feasible.
 
Of course forcefields (and storms later on) are quite basic micro in the grand scheme of things, and I'm sure people who don't play Protoss will tell me they're OP or whatever ("you try hitting a good EMP", "you try splitting marines"), but they are absolutely key to surviving against most of the builds used against Protoss these days. It's simply botching of engagements that's costing me, whereas I don't really see what bit of mis-micro the mass-roach player, or a terran with a big MMM ball, can do to screw up an engagement on a similar scale, other than the act of deciding whether the engage or not in the first place. When you get to a higher level there are obviously ways in which players will do to get more out of their roaches than just try to hug my army, and there will be terran players who don't simply stim and a-move their ball into mine and generally hope for the best, but trust me when I say these builds are being quite effectively used at my level without the need for much micro ability whatsoever. Played about 15 games against terran in the past couple of days and I don't think there's been even a single attempt at a drop in my base.

FWIW I'm Plat, although hovering quite low at the moment after losing more than I've won in the past couple of days.

Can't speak for Zerg as I'm a Terran player, but let me say that the micro burden (and penalty for mis-microing) is hardest on the Terran in most matchups. For example the MMM ball which you mentioned... I have to stim then kite backwards against zealots. This alone is harder than any micro the protoss has to do, plus it requires constant clicking so I can't macro in the meantime. Add in EMPs and/or focus-firing vikings. If I don't do any one of these things, or mess it up, then I will lose, all other things being equal. Another example would be running marines out from storms. If I delay for even a second, or run in the wrong direction I'll lose ~20 marines instantly.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Toss is EZ-mode - each race has it's own challenges, and depending on army composition, the other races may well have to micro harder. What I'm saying is that in the majority of engagements, using the most common compositions, the Terran has to micro WAY harder than the other races.

If you are losing to an a-moving MMM ball as toss, then you either have a really bad army composition, you engage at terrible angles, or you are being outmacroed. Hell, a-moving chargelot archon rapes MMM silly. What you really want though is a good mix of HT, colossi and sentries (the gas-heavy units) and then the rest of your army mainly chargelots, with a handful of stalkers thrown in to clean up the medivacs. If you go pure colossi chargelot and he has no vikings you literally have to a-click once to win. However the composition I listed before would be a more general comp for PvT, just tweak the proportion of each unit depending on what the enemy is doing. Regarding engagement angles, you need to be pretty careful. If the terran gets his army in a really nice concave while yours is coming through a choke, this makes a HUGE difference to the outcome.
 
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Can't speak for Zerg as I'm a Terran player, but let me say that the micro burden (and penalty for mis-microing) is hardest on the Terran in most matchups. For example the MMM ball which you mentioned... I have to stim then kite backwards against zealots. This alone is harder than any micro the protoss has to do, plus it requires constant clicking so I can't macro in the meantime. Add in EMPs and/or focus-firing vikings. If I don't do any one of these things, or mess it up, then I will lose, all other things being equal. Another example would be running marines out from storms. If I delay for even a second, or run in the wrong direction I'll lose ~20 marines instantly.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Toss is EZ-mode - each race has it's own challenges, and depending on army composition, the other races may well have to micro harder. What I'm saying is that in the majority of engagements, using the most common compositions, the Terran has to micro WAY harder than the other races.

If you are losing to an a-moving MMM ball as toss, then you either have a really bad army composition, you engage at terrible angles, or you are being outmacroed. Hell, a-moving chargelot archon rapes MMM silly. What you really want though is a good mix of HT, colossi and sentries (the gas-heavy units) and then the rest of your army mainly chargelots, with a handful of stalkers thrown in to clean up the medivacs. If you go pure colossi chargelot and he has no vikings you literally have to a-click once to win. However the composition I listed before would be a more general comp for PvT, just tweak the proportion of each unit depending on what the enemy is doing. Regarding engagement angles, you need to be pretty careful. If the terran gets his army in a really nice concave while yours is coming through a choke, this makes a HUGE difference to the outcome.

Another disagreement we have Sheep. Just stop doing this to our relationship.
 
To add to my above post (#11143) here's an example http://drop.sc/148683. The big engagement is at 20:25 or so. I had superior macro and production so even if I'd lost the engagement I'd still have easily won, but disregarding that our armies were comparable (although admittedly I was 3/3 while he was 2/2/0). The thing I'm trying to demonstrate is the horrible choke which he engaged through. It gave me a huge surround and I just slaughtered his army completely. I knew at the time it was gonna be rape which is why I didn't even bother to micro lol.

Another disagreement we have Sheep. Just stop doing this to our relationship.

:D. It's EZ-mode late game sure, but we have the easier time early game. Also like 60% of my last couple of dozen games have been TvP so I've had a ton of practice at the matchup. As a result I don't have such a hard time as I used to with it and so my anti-protoss rage has subsided somewhat. Think my worst matchup now is TvT. I seem to go through phases.
 
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Can't speak for Zerg as I'm a Terran player, but let me say that the micro burden (and penalty for mis-microing) is hardest on the Terran in most matchups. For example the MMM ball which you mentioned... I have to stim then kite backwards against zealots. This alone is harder than any micro the protoss has to do, plus it requires constant clicking so I can't macro in the meantime. Add in EMPs and/or focus-firing vikings. If I don't do any one of these things, or mess it up, then I will lose, all other things being equal. Another example would be running marines out from storms. If I delay for even a second, or run in the wrong direction I'll lose ~20 marines instantly.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Toss is EZ-mode - each race has it's own challenges, and depending on army composition, the other races may well have to micro harder. What I'm saying is that in the majority of engagements, using the most common compositions, the Terran has to micro WAY harder than the other races.

If you are losing to an a-moving MMM ball as toss, then you either have a really bad army composition, you engage at terrible angles, or you are being outmacroed. Hell, a-moving chargelot archon rapes MMM silly. What you really want though is a good mix of HT, colossi and sentries (the gas-heavy units) and then the rest of your army mainly chargelots, with a handful of stalkers thrown in to clean up the medivacs. If you go pure colossi chargelot and he has no vikings you literally have to a-click once to win. However the composition I listed before would be a more general comp for PvT, just tweak the proportion of each unit depending on what the enemy is doing. Regarding engagement angles, you need to be pretty careful. If the terran gets his army in a really nice concave while yours is coming through a choke, this makes a HUGE difference to the outcome.

Maybe I wasn't being clear. I never said that Terran is a less micro-intensive race than Protoss. I was saying that a Protoss army in an early game / mid-game engagement with either an MMM ball or a mass-roach army absolutely 100% will lose the engagement if he does not at least pull off average-to-good force-fields. On the other hand, a Terran does not have to stim & kite and/or split his MMM ball to win an engagement, and obviously the Roach player just has to click towards where he wants to go and press A. As the level of play gets higher of course there are ways to improve your handling of an engagement, and I don't deny that at the very highest level Terran probably has the biggest learning curve in terms of how to maximise micro, but simple stim + A-move most definitely does work, and will likely win an even-supply battle if the Protoss player simply botches his force-fields. If I don't micro and the Terran doesn't micro, the Terran wins.

And the MMM-ball will almost always engage at least once long before I have a chargelot / archon army, or the death-ball with colossi, which are late-game compositions (and my post wasn't really referring to the late game), so your comments on kiting, vikings and A-move chargelots are irrelevant.

Can you try not to sound so condescending with your next response? Telling a player of a different race to the one you play what unit compositions he should get, or speculating that he must simply suck if he's losing to a certain build / strategy, isn't really the right way to debate a point. I was making observations from my perspective of the game, not asking for tips.
 
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On the other hand, a Terran does not have to stim & kite and/or split his MMM ball to win an engagement, and obviously the Roach player just has to click towards where he wants to go and press A.

If I don't micro and the Terran doesn't micro, the Terran wins.

You are, quite simply, wrong. Ever tried fighting zealots without kiting?

And the MMM-ball will almost always engage at least once long before I have a chargelot / archon army, or the death-ball with colossi, which are late-game compositions (and my post wasn't really referring to the late game), so your comments on kiting, vikings and A-move chargelots are irrelevant.

Fair enough.

Can you try not to sound so condescending with your next response? Telling a player of a different race to the one you play what unit compositions he should get, or speculating that he must simply suck if he's losing to a certain build / strategy, isn't really the right way to debate a point.

You're platinum. I'm high diamond. I know that I myself am not a better protoss player than you, but my opponents on the ladder definitely are. I figured I'd tell you what they do against me to win. And I never said you suck, in fact I never insulted you once. You are putting words in my mouth. Apologies if I came across as condescending but that wasn't my intention.

I was making observations from my perspective of the game, not asking for tips.

You were saying that there is far less capacity for mis-micro from a terran player. I was correcting this extremely incorrect statement. Fair enough if you didn't want tips, but I assumed that's why you are here in this thread. My bad.
 
Sheep. Stop being condescending. JK <3

Being in Masters with both T and P I can tell you P is much easier. P has to survive the first 10mins and if he does then it's usually a win against anyone who makes mistakes.
 
Just got called Ridiculous on a ladder match TvZ.

Came in with a 3tank marine push with just a few medivacs. It got wiped by ling bling.

Did a doom drop hoping to catch up. Killed all his tech except his Lair and all his mutas as he obviously didn't get the memo about Marines being imba. He cleaned it up with ling bling again.

Few minutes later I came in with 15 medivacs full of tanks and marines. He thought i'd drop in the same place as before so he moved all his units there. I drop off on the lower ground near his units. He got raped with splash damage and he ragequits after BM'ing XD
 
For example, most zerg players I play seem to mass roach, either going for an early bust or simply trying to get up 3 bases and hit me with 200/200, and I'm guessing they do so because it works against all the other Protoss players they come up against. A mass roach army is essentially A-move, with either running away or burrowing being the only other things the zerg will ever have to do, so it's not really a strategy that requires much skill to pull off when it comes to engaging. If I A-move a similar sized Protoss army (which it wouldn't be anyway, as my units are more expensive and I have to spend more on tech, so naturally I'm behind in supply if we haven't traded off and are on a similar macro level), I will be crushed.
As a zerg player, I will agree that A-move is mostly what you have to do. However, we are disadvantaged in other ways. For one, a straight A-move is actually usually a bad idea. Roaches have little range, and no abilities to compensate. For a zerg to win a Protoss ball, we have to have a strategic advantage. IE, surrounding the ball. Otherwise you'll almost certainly lose. To get that surround though is very difficult.

The other thing is that zerg have a very unforgiving economy. Essentially everything we do costs drones. If we want a building or a military unit, we have to sacrifice a drone/larvae. And lord have mercy if the expansion goes down, as your production capabilties are immediately halved.
 

Yeah, mostly Zergs have to try and get good surrounds and engage from several angles at the same time (lings in the front and banelings roll in from behind, for example). I like how each race takes positional advantages in different ways, it's really good game design and makes the matchups fun :)


Just got called Ridiculous on a ladder match TvZ.

Came in with a 3tank marine push with just a few medivacs. It got wiped by ling bling.

Did a doom drop hoping to catch up. Killed all his tech except his Lair and all his mutas as he obviously didn't get the memo about Marines being imba. He cleaned it up with ling bling again.

Few minutes later I came in with 15 medivacs full of tanks and marines. He thought i'd drop in the same place as before so he moved all his units there. I drop off on the lower ground near his units. He got raped with splash damage and he ragequits after BM'ing XD

Nice lol. I had a guy BM me saying "stupid EZ mode race gtfo" before he quit. Basically he went mass roach against my marine tank army and expected to win. Idiot. There was also another game where I found my opponents ball of ~30 mutas idle on the map, so I moved my marines under then stimmed before he noticed. Not a single muta survived :D
 
Think my worst matchup now is TvT. I seem to go through phases.

When your weakest match up is the mirror match up, that's when you know your race is OP

;)

Also, I don't see how stim and kite is harder than FF placement... FFs you have to place them very quickly - often too quickly to see how your FF wall is going along... kiting seems to be click s click s click s... I'm willing to be corrected by someone who plays terran though
 
When your weakest match up is the mirror match up, that's when you know your race is OP

;)

Also, I don't see how stim and kite is harder than FF placement... FFs you have to place them very quickly - often too quickly to see how your FF wall is going along... kiting seems to be click s click s click s... I'm willing to be corrected by someone who plays terran though

Kiting requires very tight timing otherwise your units will miss some shots in between movements. Also it requires constant clicking so macro is impossible while doing it unless you're insanely fast. Forcefields take a second or two to do and then you can forget about the sentries. Kiting needs to be done continuously through the whole battle, while also attempting to do the other things which need to be done (EMPs/snipes unless you manage to do them before the engagement, microing vikings etc).

Force fields aren't hard. Neither are storms, or EMPs or fungals too. As long as you know the right places to put them and don't have your casters too far back then it's easy.

Basically it can be summed up as: Both players have to micro their casters and special units, and this has similar difficulty, however the terran ALSO has to micro the main meat of their army, constantly, while the meat of the protoss army is basically a-move. The cause is a) chargelots and b) the damage-over-time nature of storms. Neither are OP but are hard to deal with because the terran is so constricted with unit choice, due to feedback countering all tier 3 (the things which would actually be good against chargelots or storms).
 
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Kiting requires very tight timing otherwise your units will miss some shots in between movements. Also it requires constant clicking so macro is impossible while doing it unless you're insanely fast. Forcefields take a second or two to do and then you can forget about the sentries. Kiting needs to be done continuously through the whole battle, while also attempting to do the other things which need to be done (EMPs/snipes unless you manage to do them before the engagement, microing vikings etc).

Force fields aren't hard. Neither are storms, or EMPs or fungals too. As long as you know the right places to put them and don't have your casters too far back then it's easy.

Basically it can be summed up as: Both players have to micro their casters and special units, and this has similar difficulty, however the terran ALSO has to micro the main meat of their army, constantly, while the meat of the protoss army is basically a-move. The cause is a) chargelots and b) the damage-over-time nature of storms. Neither are OP but are hard to deal with because the terran is so constricted with unit choice, due to feedback countering all tier 3 (the things which would actually be good against chargelots or storms).

Ok ok these are all late game things...

Force fields aren't hard, yet even some of the best protoss players regularly make a dogs ear out of them? FFs are far harder to get right than snipe, feedback, EMP, fungal or storm, and early game, a slightly missed forcefield can easily end the game - I have lost many games by having a slight hole in a FF wall. Mis-kiting has relatively little effect unless you are absolutely terrible.

I admit that if protoss gets multiple collosus, chargelots, archons, HT with storm then its easier for the protoss to win a battle but then FFs would just block zealots so are barely used in those battles
 
Ok ok these are all late game things...

Force fields aren't hard, yet even some of the best protoss players regularly make a dogs ear out of them? FFs are far harder to get right than snipe, feedback, EMP, fungal or storm, and early game, a slightly missed forcefield can easily end the game - I have lost many games by having a slight hole in a FF wall. Mis-kiting has relatively little effect unless you are absolutely terrible.

I admit that if protoss gets multiple collosus, chargelots, archons, HT with storm then its easier for the protoss to win a battle but then FFs would just block zealots so are barely used in those battles

Everyone thinks that the race they play is the hardest.

All I will say is Toss imba.
 
Everyone thinks that the race they play is the hardest.

All I will say is Toss imba.

No... overall I don't think Protoss is hardest, but early game fail force fields are far more likely to lose a toss the game than any lack of kiting skill, and are very difficult to do perfectly. That's what the debate was about... Nothing about balance whining until your needless comment. If you actually took notice of what I said, I conceded that if I terran lets toss get the perfect late game composition, it is more difficult for terran.
 
No... overall I don't think Protoss is hardest, but early game fail force fields are far more likely to lose a toss the game than any lack of kiting skill, and are very difficult to do perfectly. That's what the debate was about... Nothing about balance whining until your needless comment. If you actually took notice of what I said, I conceded that if I terran lets toss get the perfect late game composition, it is more difficult for terran.

Actually I wasn't whining I was just joking about the fact that Toss is imba.

Force fields are simple especially early game. It's mid to late game against Zerg that a Toss has to place them properly so they can't get a surround with lings. Anything before that is only hard if your map awareness is lacking and you greedily don't get enough sentrys.

There is also a difference between stutter stepping and kiting. Stutter stepping is so that zealots don't get a surround and it makes it harder for storms to be placed in the best places.
 
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