Source
r/AllThingsTerran•
Egobeliever

Beasty talks about Katowice

https://youtu.be/1gqZ96LBpkY

I thought it was some great insight touches on the reasons why Terrans had a poor showing at IEM recently.

At the end of the video Alex mentions some things about balance that I would like to touch on.

TvP, is protoss favored. It's no secret. Is it un-winnable? No. But as he said in the video, we are not inno or maru. And we are also not playing against stats, parting etc.

As someone who dips in and out of Diamond 1, I want put some of my personal experiences and feelings out there in the tvp matchup. I'm pretty religious about viewing my replays to see why I lost.

As I watch replays from protoss view it is clear that many protoss I face simply should not be at the mmr they are at. Just very very sloppy gameplay overall. This isnt science. This is just my opinion.

Why should I be losing to players who seem like they are D3 at best as I am aiming to make it to masters? ( TvP is murdering that goal ) As I watch replays of myself literally toying with 4100 mmr terrans and zerg, and then struggling to find an army comp that doesnt disentigrate against a 3900 protoss who has the micro of a dolphin and the hotkey setup of a blind orangutan.

But then again why should I care? I'm still playing and improving ( ? ) as a player overall. The frustration isnt that I need perfect balance. It's hard to balance 3 races. To me the greatest frustration is losing to players who are clearly lesser players.

Thoughts?

Posted Mar 12, 2019, 3:28 PM UTC

529
Bockelypse•

It sounds to me like you have a bad matchup (TvP) and you've allowed the loudest opinion on this sub (TvP is unwinnable for T at an even skill level) to convince you that you're only losing vs P because P is so heavily favored. More likely there is a gap in your understanding of TvP that keeps you from winning games or understanding how your games could be won in the replays.

As a counter piece of anecdotal evidence, I was struggling in ZvT for a while and at the same time dominating ZvZ and ZvP on ladder. Eventually I figured out where I was making my biggest mistakes in ZvT and my mmr shot up until I started getting destroyed in ZvZ. Obviously T didn't get weaker and Z got stronger suddenly, I just improved my weakest matchup until another matchup took its place.

7
EgobelieverOP•

Like I said in my OP, i dont think TvP is unwinnable. I will say that most of my TvP wins come from pretty unorthodox strategies.

When I do play standard my best results are against stargate opening with 2 base tank bio all in, Protoss doesnt have the tech on the ground they need. If they open robo or twilight I'm almost scared to make bio.

1
Bockelypse•

If you can, I'd say find someone in Masters with T or P to coach you a bit and try to find what mistakes you're making in TvP then.

2
thekwas•

Keep trying heterodox strats then.

I find that when I was only playing the meta strats, I often got fustrated because I would lose and think things like "I was doing a real build and was controlling it well and this idiot did bullshit and won. Imba!", but I was making a lot of bad decisions because I was trying to copy the decision tree decisions of streamers rather than figure them out myself and truly understand them.

When I started playing more unorthodox, I had to figure out all the branches of the decision tree myself which made me a more critical player overall and actually improved my decision making when I went back to meta builds.

Additionally, doing unorthodox builds is useful for just throwing your opponent off his game.

1
EgobelieverOP•

This is literally the only way I win TvP. I open up to look like a 2 base tank push. Hope to god he makes a robotics bay and then I pump BC. Works sometimes lol

1
lukdigis•

Toss main here, your mentality is bad and is probably holding you back. I dont care how good you think you are in analyzing your own play, saying stuff like "his play is very sloppy" and "he plays like d3" is rather toxic and also gives the impression that you're playing perfect, which I'm sure is not true. I'm at your mmr, and I know that zerg isnt overpowered, I just suck against it and cant punish its mistakes effectivelly. You probably face some bad tosses, but you are also bad when not punishing its mistakes and letting them get away with it. If they play that bad and still wreck you, surprise, it's on you, not on the matchup. There's the relevant discussion regarding PvT (I believe it applies around Masters 1) and then there's this one, sadly the majority which makes terrans get known as whiners

7
EgobelieverOP•

As I am barely able to stay in d1 I can assure you my play is far from perfect.

Did you watch the video? Bk alex basically says the exact same thing you did, and I opened this thread saying I agree with him.

1
lukdigis•

I didnt watch the video yet but I usually agree (for the most part) with his opinions. Having that said, "your touch" on the matchup sounded really whiny and nothing like what he said. Like, "this guy points out reasonable stuff but imo THIS is the truth!" (proceeds to whine). There's conflicting messages there.

Or you were just venting like me after every pvz, in that case my bad.

1
EgobelieverOP•

Well i didnt mean it to come off as "I was speaking the truth." Thats why i specifically said, this is not science...this is just my observation.

1
Yellow__Sn0w•

Saying that your opponent doesn't deserve to be at the MMR that they are at is a hugely toxic and unhelpful mindset to have. Mechanical skill is only one aspect of this very complex game. It is entirely possible that your opponent has a better grasp on unit interaction and strategy than you do, and this makes up for their "lackluster" mechanics. You should always have respect for your opponent, because if you don't it is very unlikely you will learn from your losses against them. Look at what your opponent does that works well against you rather than trying to find an excuse for why they shouldn't have won.

4
EgobelieverOP•

Compared to the mechanics I witness from my terran and zerg opponents, many protoss opponents are noticably sub par. Just my observation.

2
Yellow__Sn0w•

My point was that mechanical skill is not the only skill that is rewarded in SC2. I would agree that protoss is less mechanically demanding than Zerg and Terran, but in a game with 3 different races, one race is bound to have one aspect that is easier than the other races. It doesn't mean that your protoss opponents should not be at their current MMR or that they are worse at the game than you. It just means that protoss rewards different skills than Terran does, just like Zerg rewards different skills than Terran does.

2
kill619•

I don't see why anyone has to pretend that all 'skills' are equally respectable. The whole schtick of why Starcraft is so impressive is mechanical difficulty, it's why we still to this hold Brood War to a higher regard than sc2 even if people don't follow it. Having good, clean mechanics in a game with so much to do requires a lot more effort, work, and discipline than someone "smart" enough to abuse whatever flavor of the month all-in/cheese/comp to get bo1 wins that mean less than nothing and are executed so poorly that they're effectively gimmicks.

Every other game acknowledges this sort of phenomenon. CS respecting Lan performances over online tournaments, fighting games recognizing strategies and characters that only really work online where there's some amount more lag, etc. We're the only game that tries to push this bullshit idea everybody has to respect everything in the game and if you lose then you were suppose to be better and not lose. And it doesn't even make sense because we have no problems looking back and acknowledging how dumb shit was, nobody looks back on BL+infestor or gomTvT like it made any sense.

1
Yellow__Sn0w•

Utilizing strategy in a strategy game is not the same as taking advantage of lag or abusing some blatantly overpowered unit/composition. You can keep thinking that the skills your race promotes are more important/honorable/impressive/difficult/whatever, but at the end of the day this is an asymmetrical real time strategy game with many different paths to victory. If you want to make yourself feel better by saying your opponents don't have to put in as much effort as you, or they are less skilled than you, then go on ahead. But the only place that will get you is on an online forum whining about how you are sooooo much better than these plebs who keep beating you.

2
HighVoltLowWatt•

I agree. I feel like most Terrans would do a lot better if they practiced ghost, liberator, and raven play. If the toss is just using colossus you can use one raven and shut down 4 collosi then steamroll the gateway heavy army with bio. A second raven with seeker missle will make the bio trade even better. So will having a few libs. Terran has the tools to dominate Protoss ground armies but if there’s a mismatch in army comps between equal players, you’ll probably lose. You need to adapt to the game your playing.

Mech particularly cyclone hellion is incredibly punishing and much easier to use than the best counter which is the disruptor and maybe colossus which again can get shut down by a few ravens. Storm requires ghosts. Libs force tempest. If you can push your comp advantage before the tech switch or make an equally powerful tech switch like bc from cyclone hellion you’ll win.

Blizzard is nerfing Protoss upgrades because it will help Terran reach the point of the game they can get the right counters out. There’s little counter play to “my units are just better than yours statically” and blizzard is reducing the effectiveness of that play style. Tempest are slower, carrier tech isn’t as good. Cyclones melt everything toss can field before like 6 min in the game including shit like oracle harass. Terran have a disadvantage it seems a bit with economy by especially with upgrades since mech and bio ideally you want to mix at certain points but toss has their entire ground army on the same upgrade path giving a clear advantage in the mid game.

I think people will be surprised how well this slight nerf improves the matchups. Because it will flatten out that mid game advantage and let Terran tech more safely.

1
Szardz•

I sense a trend from you here. The main reason is likely that you are getting tilted and so losing more easily and more often against P. Watch a TvP loss from YOUR perspective, and you will a very large number of mistakes as well.

​

Another issue may very well be a lack of a good build order, or poor execution of the build.

3
EgobelieverOP•

I primarily watch replays in oberserver mode, taking note of gaps in production, idle time, resources etc.

True we were discussing balance, but when the entire community is discussing it and content creators are making videos about it ( esp TvP ) I dont think it's a bad time to have this talk.

1
Myredditnameisunique•

Cry more?

2†
EgobelieverOP•

You mother must be proud of you

-6
indigo_zen•

Not sure if I'm brave enough to agree, but I have, sadly, a similar experience of my own: when I roll protoss as random, I'm usually pretty glad because I can relax my wrists a bit and get creative while still racking up wins. This is 4100 mmr as well,mind you, so please, no "protoss is hard in GM" - I bet everything is hard in GM.

My protoss is the least played race and I struggle with T and Z the most at this mmr. Most exhaution, least margin for mistakes.

1
MinosAristos•

This is my experience as well. I play all races at D3 level but it's very obvious to me that the level of gamesense, macro, and micro mechanics required to be in my league is significantly lower for Protoss. I didn't need to study any guides, learn any builds, do any of that. Just survive the early game then spam CIA to win.

1
HighVoltLowWatt•

Not sure why you were downvoted Protoss does really well in A move situations. At D3 micro is just starting to matter. Assuming you macro correctly and both bio and like chargelot archon immortal A move eachother or even Thor Hellbat the CIA player will probably win lol.

This game isn’t balanced around a moving.

1
FourEffFerdinand•

This will come across as a dumb reply but so it goes:

In chess you'll play someone rated 200 or more ELO below you. They play the opening sloppily and get away with it because there isn't a direct way to punish it. Throughout the midgame you're winning/ahead and you reach a favourable endgame - then you fuck up one move and they win. As it's been said: Chess is hard

"Lesser" players beat their "Superiors" in more unforgiving games like chess and SC2 because you only have to make one mistake to be the Loser.

Son cosas de la vida.

1
EgobelieverOP•

I'm failing to see the dumb reply part of that reply

1
FourEffFerdinand•

I'm kinda new to SC2 and the community in general. Was waiting to be told "FaLSe EqUiVaLenCy!!" Thanks for the gracious attitude I'm also new to reddit, seems there's lower ratio of twattery to reasonable discussion compared to elsewhere. Cheers pal :)

1
HighVoltLowWatt•

Not sure what you mean exactly but being good enough to recognize and capitalize on your opponents mistakes is a skill in and of itself.

It just also be said there’s physical limitations to what you can do at any point in a game. Certain openings in Starcraft can punish other openings some cannot. If I’m just a bit more greedy than you, we’ve both opened greedy, neither of us will beable to punish each other but I’ll get ahead. If your not in a position to punish bad play, is it really bad play?

If we’re 200mmr different, not everyone is at the mmr they are at for the same reasons. I maybe 200mmr lower because I’m disgustingly bad at two out of three matchups, but my matchup against you is like 200 mmr above yours or our different strengths misalign into one persons favor..

1
HighVoltLowWatt•

I think he’s missing one thing here and that it seemed like against Protoss most Terrans felt the need to all in at Katowice. Terran has the tools to beat toss ground armies. It seems like pro Terrans feel it’s too hard on maps that aren’t like year zero to get out the right tech to deal with storm collosi immortal and twilight upgraded ground units. Once they have the tech Terran is scar AF.

Maybe the nerfs to upgrades will really help Terran get the time to squeeze out the libs or ghosts or ravens they need to shut down Protoss tech and the prism bounced robo units will be easier to deal with for both Z and T. It feels like z and t have to overcome those mid game pushes with just inferior tech and it’s scary how many roaches two immortals can massacre with a warprism and Zergs nonexistent anti air in mid game or how much bio microed colossus can melt.

1
EgobelieverOP•

Terran feeling compelled to all in has been the pro meta for 2 years. They are professionals, they all in because they believe it is their best hope in winning. Remember that winning these games are their paycheck

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