Ever think that Terran Tier 1 units, especially Bio, are Over Powered? If you do you have a lot of company in that opinion.
But Day9, <3 Day9, doesn't agree with Imbalance talk. I don't either, there are certainly difference trade offs between the races, which fits the meaning of Imbalance as it is used in Chess (ie one side might trade material for position), but that is more of a Yin/Yang balance than one side being Over Powered.
Strong play comes from how you combine various elements (units, economy, upgrades, spells, timing, position, space, etc) of the game together. Just like good cooking, you need to know what your making, say a cake or bread, so you can assemble the correct ingredients in the proper amounts. Also with skill, comes the ability to improvise.
Beginners try to make just the right single unit to win, which is like trying to make Cookies with just flour, yuck! As players gain skill they start combining units, eggs/flour/sugar/butter mmm good cookies! Sometime after that they start to realize benefit of economy, upgrades, positioning, and timing, I could continue the cooking idea but I think the cookies are done (I wonder if Artosis will read this?).
The next level beyond that is realizing that your opening or play style will affect what your opponent will do during the entire game, if they are good. And you start to take advantage of that element of gaming. So if you feed them pretzels or nuts, they are going to drink more Beer!
Embedded VOD is an excellent old cast (BETA!) by Day9 that illustrates this. Link to part 2 or whole episode on Day's Blip Channel Pt1 & Pt2, my thoughts and comments are below the VOD:
What actually makes Bio strong is a Tier 3 unit, the Medivac!
How strong would stimmed bio be without Medivacs? Every Stim costs Marines 10 HP and costs Maruaders 20 HP!
I think Terran is an easier Race to figure out good, strong unit compositions, and Bio + Medivac is a great example of this. Terrans drop more than Protoss & Zerg combined. Despite have the most expensive Transport unit! In other words a Terran losing a Medivac loses more than a Toss losing a Warp Prism or Zerg losing an Overlord.
We all know that gas is a lot harder to get in SC2 than minerals, but how do you compare the cost of a 100 mineral/100 gas Medivac to a 200 mineral/0 gas Warp Prism? I like to look at the mining rate of a base, ignoring mules, a saturated base will pull in ~750 minerals a minutes and ~230-240 gas a minutes.
So in rough terms (rounding gas to 250/minute) 1 unit of gas is worth 3 units of minerals, nerds/geeks like Artosis & Crota should like this metric. That means a 100 mineral/100 gas Medivac=400 minerals, but it is really worth more than that of course, because there is far less gas on any map than minerals.
So economically they should be dropping the least! But Cliff, you moron, the Medivac is a Tier 3 unit and heals in addition to being a Transport, that is part of what makes Terran drops strong. It is also a Force Multiplier, which means adding a Medivac multiplies the Combat Power of a Bio Army, rather than adding to the combat power.
A basic principle of combat, and SC2 is a war game, is to attack the enemies weakness, not their strength.
Couple of the reasons why it is a basic principle are, it is more likely to succeed (ie Good Odds), & you can use less Combat Strength, so maybe you can attack more than one place at a time, since your only using a little of my force. Also since attacking a weak point requires less force, it can be done faster!
So how do you apply this, well a tactical or unit composition focused player might say lets make a Starport before Robo, and harass with Phoenix. Or make Starport at same time as Robo Support bay and start pumping Phoenix to snipe Medivacs. Or get HT to feedback all the Medivacs. I think those are good ideas, and I plan to cover them in the future.
But I want you to consider some other ideas. Besides Medivacs what are the main units that Terran use to combat a standard Protoss Deathball, once the Toss player gets a deathball? Right! Vikings!
So what about crippling Medivac and Viking production before it even gets started?
How? Focus down Reactors and Refineries, with Drops!
Get Warp Prism Speed upgrade, either before or after Thermal lance. Thundertoss likes to point out that almost all Protoss let one or more Nexus (Nexi?) get to 100% Chrono energy by 10-11 minutes. So use Chorno on both these upgrades, as well as the forge upgrades. That is one of the major Race Imbalances, in the Yin/Yang sense, that they have. USE IT! Toss should be able to get faster upgrades than Terran or Zerg.
While a Reactor only has 400 HP, and a Refinery 500 HP. It would be nice to kill Starports, but they have 1300 HP, which would take way to long to kill with a drop.
So if your tempted to do Immortal drops, focus on the Reactor or Refinery first.
You can use zealots on Refineries, there is usually more surface area for Zealots on Refineries than there is on Reactors. Or Zealot + Immortal will be strong and fast at killing either.
I like Zealot drops, that way your only risking Minerals on your Drops. Plus with this approach your risking only Mineral units, to limit the production of gas heavy units.
Even better IMO, and my favorite, is to combine DT's either on the ground or from another Warp prism with the Zealot drops. DT's with +1 attack upgrade, will 4 shot a Reactor (okay it will have 8 HP left because of armor but it will be burning, and who sends SCV's towarads DT to repair?), they will 5 shot a Refinery (Okay 10 HP left with armor).
I prefer some kind of DT openings in general, not always DT rush, because it forces Terran into a different game plan. And if they don't have enough flexibility in their standard game play, it will actually throw off their timings. Which create more weakness you can exploit.
Just like WhiteRa's build, showcased by Day9 in the VOD above, where he goes fast Voidray to force marines. I go DT to force detection, in addition to throwing Terran's timings off, it weakens their army vs Protoss Deathball. Resources spent on Detection can't be spent on fighting units.
If you follow through with the plan to focus down Reactors and Refineries with drops and harassing Expos, they will never be able to get many Medivacs or Vikings.
Though not many people realize it yet, DT's are actually very strong in the entire game. In the beginning enemy needs detection in a hurry, or they auto lose to DT.
After that phase, were many people think DT are weak, they are actually still quite strong. Just in indirect ways, they let you delay making Observers since they scouted when they attacked. They also deny enemy control of Xel Naga Towers, unless they burn a scan or use a Raven. They also slow down or raise the cost of the enemy scouting you, since DT 1 shot scouting Marines or SCV. Kinda forces a scan for scouting or flying Factory.
Also every Scan that is used for detection or saved for detection is worth ~270 minerals. So if initial DT harass forces them to burn one Scan and save a 2nd one till they get turrets up, you have cost them ~540 minerals they were expecting really quickly with those fast mining mules.
Combined with the delayed expansions, expos have to wait for detection, DT's actually hurt enemy ecnomoy a lot. Because of that, you need to be prepared for an all in attack as a response to your initial DT attack.
Later on when you can afford 5-8 DT's you can use them to snipe Buildings very quickly.
5 DT with +1 Attack will two shot Refineries! So 5 DT hits quad can easily snipe refineries at an Expo, even if it is a PF. It will take 3 shots for PF to kill DT and shields will take the first two, something to remember for PvT on Xel Naga Caverns! 6 DT with +1 Attack will 5 shot a Orbital or PF. Orbitals that lift can't scan either.
A stimmed Marauder has a DPS vs Armored units (including buildings) of 20DPS. A +1 Attack DT has 29.6 DPS. Remember Stimm is an upgrade, same price as Toss +1 Attack, but stim takes 10 more seconds to finish. So for killing buildings +1 Attack 3 DT>4 Stimmed Maruaders 88.8 vs 80. So the 6 DT mentioned above for sniping Orbitals or PF is like 8.88 (ie almost 9!) Stimmed Marauders.
Remember what I said about how the more elements you combine the stronger your play will be?
Well I am suggesting using DT to limit production of Medivacs & Vikings, while simultaneously forcing the opponent to spend money on an Ebay + Turrets and/or a Raven, plus have to burn or save at least 1 or 2 Scans that would normally be 270 minerals each from mules.
I will also use those DT to delay enemy scouting and defend against pokes.
The attack upgrades that you need for the Deathball will also greatly increase the power of the DT's, plus not only are the DT a Gateway unit, so they can be warped in quickly to remax, but they are the highest DPS unit Protoss has, especially at +3 attack (35.6 DPS!), they are also perhaps the best Protoss unit to use in small numbers or unsupported by other units.
So combined with Warp Prisms, that you have been using all game long, they allow for backstab attacks almost instantly after trading armies. Also the Vikings that Terran needs to deal with Colossus, generally speaking, will be almost worthless against them. DT are also very good at defending Terran drops, they one shot Marines & 3 Shot Marauders. A Marauder needs 12+ shots to kill a DT. Remember Units unload at 1 per second from Transports, so a pair of DT can kill units about as fast as they drop.
Now this does require a bit more active play style than many Protoss are used to, your cutting a few of the Zealots and Sentries to make the DT. So you need to be attacking Terran, not baiting them to attack and Force Fielding them for the Zealots to kill. But it is actually safer to mess up an attack than a defense, because if an attack fails, you just trade units. If a defense fails you take real damage.
Also note, not relying on the DT to win. I am not even looking at making that many, 2-3 early in the game (keep them alive if possible), then add 3-5 more later on, for a total of 5-8 DT (though may make more late game say after trading Armies). But I think DT's provide an option that is harder for Terran to counter than Colossus (herp derp Vikings) or HT (hmm lets Spam EMP). I also want to point out that you DON'T want to make Archons! Archons/Immortal/Zealot can be okay vs some Toss builds, if they don't respond correctly. And 1 or 2 Archons are okay against Protoss to break Forcefields. Archons added to Zealots are very good vs Zerglings. But they are absolutely horrible vs any ranged unit, because their own range is so short.
So there are some thoughts for you.
Certainly needs work and polish. But Protoss have been having so much problems lately I thought they might consider trying something new. Who knows it might even work. :D
GL HF
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