3. Which Race Is The Strongest?

For a totally new player with minimal or no RTS experience, I think the best advice is to pick the race that you like most or seems the coolest and play it until you get the feel of the game, you will enjoy the game more if you’re playing the way YOU like. Don’t worry about which is the ‘Strongest’ race, Because in the end Blizzard will make the game as humanly possible. Or so we can hope :)

Say you don’t care how the race looks right? You’re more of a performance type of guy or gal. I can give you some advice in that case too. If you’ve played some RTS games, I think the race that would feel most familiar to you would be Terran, because they have a sort of typical playstyle when compared to other games on the market that would make sense to you. Many consider terran the most versatile race because ALL of their units are viable in high level play. If you’ve played games like DoTA, Warcraft 3, HoN (games that are more about micro managing units and not too heavy on macro) you may feel comfortable with Protoss. Protoss armies rely heavily on spell placement and micro management. If you like ‘Massing’ in RTS games, Zerg may be for you. Zerg typically has the easiest time securing additional bases on most maps than any race, they are the most macro intensive of the 3 races taking a lot of APM (actions per minute) to manage their bases. Zerg units die quickly but are easily replenished.

Protoss (Aggression, Powerful spells) 
+ Have shields that quickly regenerate
+Observers are a great scout once you get them
+Forcefields and Storms when well placed and especially when your army is in a good position in relation to your enemies are devestating
+Warpgates allow units to be warped in anywhere there is a pylon or warp prism.
+Chrono boost allows for the player to speed up unit production and upgrades (Often used for aggressive timing pushes)
+Gateway units are very powerful (cost for cost vs other tier one units)
+Buildings warp themselves into play allowing the probe to do other tasks during it’s construction

-hard to scout early game (terran gets scan, zerg gets overlord)
-lack of versatility outside of gateway builds
-Units are expensive
-Extremely weak to EMP

Zerg (Highly Mobile, Overwhelming) 
+Reactionary macro- able to devote all production to one type of unit if need be making them very adaptable when responding to enemy compositions. Because all units come from the hatch and hatcherys can build many units at once
+ Highly mobile, especially with creep tumors spread, nydus worm and deathdrop options
+Units are easily replenished
+”Masses” the quickest of the three
+ Spine Crawlers are able to uproot and change positions
+Land units have the ability to burrow underground becoming invisible
+Units heal slowly on creep and gain 30% movement speed on creep

-proxy strategy or hiding tech is difficult
-drones lost when creating buildings
-units are fragile and die quite easily
-diffucult to defend against air without static defense because hydralisk is a tier 2 unit

Terran (Defensive Prowess, Versatility) 
+Can build structures anywhere
+Can repair vehicles and buildings with SCVs
+Buildings can lift off the ground
+Supply Depots can submerge under ground
+MULES are the easiest of the new ‘Macro Skills’ to use
+ALL of their units are viable In high level play
+Bunkers can be salvaged for their full worth
+Two separate VIABLE ground tech paths MMM ball and Mech
+A siege tank “death push” is almost impossible to beat head on

-Buildings burn to the ground if low health
-Siege tank compositions (Arguably Terrans bread and butter unit) makes their armies fairly immobile
-MMM balls are weak to any form of AOE
-Difficult to use both Factory (Mech) and Barracks (MM) Units effectively, many times Terrans will overuse their versatility and leave themselves a little weak in one area. 

For all of you saying to yourselves "This post was a rip off, I want to know what the strongest race is!" I would Again Strongly suggest you to play the race you LIKE. That being said.. If I had to pick one.. I'd say Terran is currently the most Overpowered Race. I know I'm going to get a lot of shit for this but remember I said 'If I had to pick one'. Honestly imbalance can only be decided at the highest level after months of programmers testing it out. 

Many extremely high level SC2 players have also hinted at Terran being OP

Tester "Terran is the Strongest Race"  (6:50)- Tester is often regarded as the best player in the world currently.  This video is fairly old (2 months) and there has been a mech nerf since then. I haven't of him changing his stance on any of the sites I've visited.

Idra "I might switch to Terran, Just because they're so good" (Start watching @ :50 til around 2:30)- Idra is widely regarded as the best Zerg playing SC2 currently.

There have been numerous posts on Teamliquid.net regarding Terran being OP. Here's One such poll off the top of my head.

[Poll] Racial Matchup Balance in SC2

Starcraft 2 Ladder Rankings - You might argue that many of the top players are Protoss and Zerg on ladder, but I would remind you that ladder isn't the highest level of play. Most of that happens in tournament LANs.


BTW: You guys HAVE to check out this new Iron Maiden video.. It's the title song off their new upcoming album The Final Frontier. I had to post it because it has kind of a Sci Fi theme to it and the song is just plain awesome!
THE FINAL FRONTIER

7/26/2010