From what I can tell, TvT is a matchup with some boring potential, PvP is rock-paper-scissors, and zvz is rock-rock-rock.

 
 RodrigoX   August 14 2010 04:19. Posts 243 Profile #  
I am currently a 730 point Diamond Protoss. I got into ro16 or however many players it was in the PN open, beating 2 very good Ts, In HasHe And ajtls.
 
Now I am going to explain PvP and tell you why its so stupid and try to go as in depth as I can.

Now the colossus dictates every single major ground engagement. At the point of 3 or 4 colossi every battle is dictated by that unit. If you have 2 more colossi than your opponent, and you have decent(ish) support, you will win the engagement hands down no problem. If you fall behind on colossi numbers you lose, if you get ahead you win. Every colossi is absolutely critical to your success.
 
I am okay with this. It somewhat makes it stale, but I dont see how much different it is than TvT BW. I get tanks, and more tanks, and still more tanks. Its still not as good as TvT BW, with all the dropship positioning the mass scanning and the very subtle positioning of the tanks and the lategame possibility of BC transitioning. But I think PvP Sc2 reflects BW TvT midgame.
 
With that being said, the colossus dictating every ground battle, you have one thing in mind, and that is to get as many colossi as you can as fast as you can. Im going to call this the optimal rush. Now this is where stupid things start to happen in the match up. Any 4gate, will beat the optimal rush. You basically have to not get colossi as quick to survive any 4gate push. This starts to generate problems, because say I did an opening, that could survive 4gates, and then got colossi eventually. But against a player who optimally rushes , you are going to lose, or at least be severely behind because every colossi you get is just so critical.
 
In the early game, you want colossi, because you get more colossi you win the game, but you cant really do it with 4gates around. So you end up with this rock paper scissorish type of thing, where you do something that survives a 4gate and you hope to god your opponent doesnt optimal rush.
 
And then the voidray. The voidray is a unit that can rape optimal rushes. But scouted it will crash and burn into amillion pieces. Thats why I am not a fan of voidray rushes with the first voidray because a player can react easily and end up killing your voids and then raping your ground army with his delayed colossus. But unscouted Voidrays are damn near impossible to stop for the optimal rush. Which again makes you want to do something that will survive 4gates because generally that will survive voidrays as well. And then the same thing happens. Voidrays lategame are also really good, because sure you dont have enough colossi but your voidrays charge up and kill like 14 colossi and then you win. What I am saying is that if you scout voids you win, if you dont you generally lose as a colossus player.
 
The solution in my opinion, should be scouting to all these problems. But then more problems start occurring again.
 
You cant adequately scout a 4gate. A warpgate when the core finishes does not dictate a 4gate by any means whatsoever. Its actually a very common way to go robotics popularized by HuK. A stalker can get out and kill your probe before the gateways go down reasonably. You can survive a 4gate by pure assumptions on the timing of his gateway and how much chrono he has, but in general if he has above 18 probes its extremely hard if the P plays it right to tell 4gates. And even if he does do a 4gate korean style everything leading up to the optimal rush isnt very good against the optimal rush.
 
You want to scout your opponent if hes going voidrays at any time of the game. A reasonable solution early is an observer. And thats fine you can get observers but then problems occur when people get smart and snipe enemy obs. And you really dont want to get more obs because you need that time on the robo for colossi, because if you get behind you die. And then 100 gas means half a colossi so you dont want to do that either. And then colossi and stalkers with their range makes it impossible to get a probe in there to scout. You can try to get a warprism to scout and harass but again, 200 minerals more time on the robo, more money warping things in you need for colossi so you just dont fall behind.
 
And then optimal rush vs optimal rush just depends on who micros and orders it better in the early game which is pretty fun. Then it gets stupid again because he could get another robo before you, or get 3 robos and just pump nothing but colossi and then you lose, because you cant keep up with the numbers.
 
1 gameplay thing and 1 balance thing I think that could help PvP. The gameplay, would be to get hallucination, and then scout with that in the mid to lategame. I know its 100 gas and a sentry, but I think its far better than robo time and a frail observer that could get easily sniped and then you have to get another one. And then for balance, have a unit thats worth transitioning out of colossi for. Because currently voidrays just seem like glass cannon that you spot them you win. you dont you lose. Very gimmicky in that sense.
 
One thing I have seen PvP, that made my eyes go big was a Voidray, Immortal Midgame. Voidrays own the colossi, immortals take out the stalkers. I am not exactly sure how well it would do against 4gates, because your just low on units because your getting such pricey shit, but I played 2games on the ladder against it and it seemed pretty solid against the optimal rush.
 
Oh and phoenixes are a non factor in battles. They do like no damage vs Colossi, and you can only really harass with them, but then 3 stalkers shuts that down, and you have 3 colossi with some support and he cant compete with your ground army because he doesnt have enough money for colossi, and he cant really transition into voids because your already making stalkers and that will get owned. 4gate seems a bit more even with it. Although the Korean style 4gate would seem to annihilate a phoenix kind of opening