The Future of Protoss

[whitefire]

I wanted to start this thread to discuss how effective people think the protoss are and to talk about possible or needed buffs like the voidray buff Blizz mention in the QnA. I think that Toss air would get a great boost is the Voidray is made into a generalist unit and the terran mass maurauder strats would finally stop. As it is right now however Toss is in some rough shape Because they have been nerfed in every patch and only buffed in one. Now dont get me wrong all of the nerfs actually have a point. Like the warpgate nerf that stopped proxy war in rushes, The radius reduction for storm made HTs more of a support unit. The list goes on. Unfortunatly none of the areas that people think need a buff are left untouched by blizz. The archon for example Needs some work because as it stands now it is easily out numbered and dosnt deal the dps it needs to for its high cost of 100/300 not to mention you have to sacrifice two templar which are infinatly more usefull than the archon ever could be. I also think the zealot could use a buff vs the maurauder because I think its a bit rediculous to have to tech to air to effectivly counter a Tier 1.5 unit.

[DemolitionSquid]

Protoss are pretty solid on the ground, but they are lacking with their air for sure.

My gripes
- No reliable counter to mass Marauder outside very early aggression with Immortals. Chargelots do alright but get eaten alive by cheap Hellion support.

- Limited DT usefulness due to insanely high gas for tech.

- Archons are too weak for their cost, although in concept they are good all around support for those choosing Gateway and Templar tech over Robo/Stargate. They can almost replace the Immortal's tanking, the Colossus' anti-light splash, the Phoenix's anti-Muta, and the Void Rays raw power at the same time. Almost.

- The Phoenix needs to lose its channeling of AG.

- The Carrier is still a luxury item.

- The Arbiter 2.0... I mean Mothership is a joke.

[arthas]

I kinda agree with DS(believe it ) ,all he's points makes sense especially the DT's who are currently costly as hell,And i also note that their attack speed is slower than in sc1 ! I disagree about the carrier though,They can be microwed WAY easy than the useless battlecruisers or the giant ariber...Actually 2 carriers with micro saved the Littleone from a gameending or at least a very heavy hit on his tech buildings....And 2 others took out a whole expansion guarded by stalkers/cannons/sentries...

[imdrunkontea]

Protoss are pretty solid on the ground, but they are lacking with their air for sure.

My gripes
- No reliable counter to mass Marauder outside very early aggression with Immortals. Chargelots do alright but get eaten alive by cheap Hellion support.

- Limited DT usefulness due to insanely high gas for tech.

- Archons are too weak for their cost, although in concept they are good all around support for those choosing Gateway and Templar tech over Robo/Stargate. They can almost replace the Immortal's tanking, the Colossus' anti-light splash, the Phoenix's anti-Muta, and the Void Rays raw power at the same time. Almost.

- The Phoenix needs to lose its channeling of AG.

- The Carrier is still a luxury item.

- The Arbiter 2.0... I mean Mothership is a joke.

- Have you tried a combo of sentries and colossi? Force field to keep marauds from FFing your colossi, then melt them with your range 9 lasers of doom. if you have some marauders as well, the terran player will have to choose which to FF.
- DTs may be a bit expensive, but they are very effective if you catch a terran player off guard. their best use is for raiding expos when you know the terran player's army is somewhere else, since terrans are so damn slow when moving anywhere.
- I agree archons could use some love, but DB thinks that they're just a last-resort unit and are fine as is. *shrug*
- I'm still not sure where I stand on the Phoenix. Some pros can do some wicked things with a flight of them.
- Carrier - expensive, but by far the most useful of the three tier 3 units. A BC may be able to take one in a fight, but nobody builds BCs because they suck vs almost everything else cost-for-cost. Carriers deal huge amounts of damage, are quite mobile, and have crazy range against both ground and air.

[Gifted]

Just a random comment: DemoSquid has a really productive post here. I know this is pretty much spam, but Kudos on that level

[whitefire]

Thanks for the post guys. If archons are supposed to be last resort units they they should be stronger. As it stands right now zealots and sentries cna do a far better job than an archon for less. Toss air requires and generalits go to unit. Pheonix is anti light specialist and the void ray is and anti armor specialist. The problem with these units is that they are easily countered by marines, hydras and vikings. Which almost all terran and zerg strats consist of. The carrier is one of the few saving graces of toss air because they reward good micro. The mother ship can be taken advantage off and that to me is bad unit design. you couldnt take advantage of stasis field like you can vortex. The cloak is a double edged sword and often backfires because ut leaves the very vulnerable mother ship comlpetely exposed to Focus fire. I personally think it should have something akin to the immortals hardened shields but that just me.

DTs are a good unit and the reason why they are so expensive to get is to prevent rushing them because of the zerg detector change. Dts are hellaciously powerful though a few mixed in to your main force and they will own everything they come against. only porblem I have with them is how flimsy they are. you would think that a Teir 3 unit would last longer than a few seconds to focus fire. They do help alot against terrans because they have to waist energy on scans instead of mules and forces them to get ravens in the long run. Unfortunatly ravens are Imo the best spell caster in the game and it could cause alot of problems.

I think that +1 charge lots with sentry and either VR or collosi support could take care of any maurauder heavy army. If you have some really crazy micro and alot of gass you can throw in some Ht to feed back and storm too. Zealots are dangerous they just can catch anything. I also see alot of toss making big blob armies and I think that most players arnt using the massive mobility of the warp prism. Three prisms filled with immortals will wreak havoc on production facilities not to mention you can warp in more guys. I think that prism ambush tactics could be really good in getting the surround on a blob army like M3.

[Norfindel]

I think that if they want to make "units that are really powerfull on the ground, but have no anti-air", that units should be available when there ARE air units. I mean, it's a no-brainer, really. You want air to be the counters for some units, but that units are T1, when there are no air units? What kind of game design is that?

They got the Protoss almost right: the ground-only beasts are the Immortal and the Colossus, T2 and T3. In PvP, if one goes Robotics and the other Stargate, the Stargate guy can win, unless Stalkers make an appearance, which they're likely to do. You could send your own Stalkers, but will get eaten by the Immortals and Colossi.

The solution, i think, isn't in buffing the Void Ray. The Void Ray is a beast against heavy-hp units and buildings. The unit that needs an AtG attack is the Phoenix.

If the Void Ray is made good vs heavy targets and light targets on air and ground, you would only need to build Void Rays, which would be pretty much retarded gameplay.

[DemolitionSquid]

I've been trying a lot of stuff vs Maurauder spam. Chargelots are essential, there's just no other way. HT are a viable choice to feedback any Ghosts and all Terran air support but Vikings, which Chargelots kill when they land anyway. But as I said earlier, the problem becomes damn Hellions. Thankfully you can pick them off with Stalkers usually.

[whitefire]

I've been trying a lot of stuff vs Maurauder spam. Chargelots are essential, there's just no other way. HT are a viable choice to feedback any Ghosts and all Terran air support but Vikings, which Chargelots kill when they land anyway. But as I said earlier, the problem becomes damn Hellions. Thankfully you can pick them off with Stalkers usually.

I think the best thing you can do in that situation is to split up his army with FF. Pin as many raurders in with your lots and blink around to kill the hellions. or you can ff and split up the hellions and just massacar them. Hellions are only good agains lots because they can kite and the dmg bonus with the preigniter upgrade. Same goes with maurauders if you take away their ability to kite then you will most likely win the fight.

[whitefire]

I think that if they want to make "units that are really powerfull on the ground, but have no anti-air", that units should be available when there ARE air units. I mean, it's a no-brainer, really. You want air to be the counters for some units, but that units are T1, when there are no air units? What kind of game design is that?

They got the Protoss almost right: the ground-only beasts are the Immortal and the Colossus, T2 and T3. In PvP, if one goes Robotics and the other Stargate, the Stargate guy can win, unless Stalkers make an appearance, which they're likely to do. You could send your own Stalkers, but will get eaten by the Immortals and Colossi.

The solution, i think, isn't in buffing the Void Ray. The Void Ray is a beast against heavy-hp units and buildings. The unit that needs an AtG attack is the Phoenix.

If the Void Ray is made good vs heavy targets and light targets on air and ground, you would only need to build Void Rays, which would be pretty much retarded gameplay.

you bring up a good point. The carrier is the only unit that has any chance against ground units but its to expensive to tech to right away. There needs to be a change somewhere along the line though because toss air cant deal with light ground and armored air.