The problem from a toss perspective is that we are punished HARD for micro mistakes. While it does take more than 1a to beat a toss ball, as long as you can stim and back up(early game!) You can stop the zealots from getting to you and then wail on the lower dps of the stalkers and the sentries. The problem arises that force fields become a necessity, and if they are not placed right near immediately, the toss army dies. Near the later game it comes down to if toss gets colos or ht. If they go colos, then if your viking force is large enough, just emp the sentries and pack up while the now shieldless and vulnerable colos die to the vikings. If they go ht, just make sure you hit the emp right and its hard to lose since Marine and Marauder with a high medivac count will decimate the gateway ball that is now shieldless since the dps is insane.
I feel the real issues with PvT are the following:
1. Protoss air is expensive and easily countered by cheaper stimmed marines. Even the carriers interceptors melt under that AA, making the stargate largely usless.
2. While ht and colossus are great units, they take an extremely long time to tech to. Beyond the cyber, its 300/450 to get ht, and you only get that unit + the ability to upgrade for charge and blink, and acess to the 2+ ups from the forge. Thats an expesnive upgrade, and if its made when a timing push hits, its game over. While the colossus do provide you with more options(immortals, obs, and warp prism) its still 400/300 to get them, and with both, lots of TIME. Until then, toss has to rely on the unreliable gateway units that once stim hits, are just out dps'ed and need extremely good micto to defend.
3. Both colos and ht are vulnerable to counters. HT become useless if emp'ed, which isn't hard to do. Yes feedback does do damage back, but the aoe allows them to easily pick off multiple ht in one shot. Also, its easy to pick out the high visibility ht from a P ball, since they shimmer and look really different. The problem from the P side is that its hard to see the ghost, and if you do you have to click on its small model. Even then emp outrages feedback, so its very easy for the ht to be out of energy. The colos can get sniped by vikings, and as long as it is scouted(which isn't hard) the viking count can always be high enough to counter the colos in the ball. since they also have 9 range, they can be covered by the the MMM ball or put over terriang that makes it hard for the stalkers to hit them. And if the stalkers aren't doing dps to your ball because they are hunting down your ball then your winning.
4. Protoss need good positioning. The toss player needs his zealots in the front, with his sentiries and stalkers behind, and the colossus in the rear to do well. At all stages of the game, the mispositioned of units can wreak a toss army. Early on, if a toss player misengages, then the zealots die and most retreatinf forces do as well because of the conc shell on the marauders allows them to pick off misplaced units who can't get back to the main force. If the zealots are in the back then the sentries and stalkers die because the zealots cannot tank the damage. Late game if a colossus is misplaced then because of the the stimmed marauders dps against armored they melt even to small numbers, to the point that a few stimmed marauders can run up and snipe colossus if mispositioned. If the T army is misplaced they can stim, outrun everything, then fall back, and get a greater concave. Because of their stimmed speed they will almost always get the better concave and destroy a P ball, again requiring better postioning on the P players behalf.
5. EMP does more damage than storm. This may sound crazy but hear me out. Every toss unit but the zealot and immortal gets half of its health from shields(zealots and immortal shields are half their health). That means that a few well placed emps will effectively HALF the health of the entire toss force. In a large battle it becomes huge. Also, since the sentries are hit, there are less guardian shields and ff make it hard to zone a MMM ball. Now where does this mean it does more damage than storm. Well storm does 80 damage over time, while the emp does 100 damage instantaneously. While units like stalkers only have 80 shields, its still significant and instantaneous. The problem then becomes this. While marines do melt to it because of their low health, under stim the T army is still very mobile, and can move out of the way. Add this to the effectiveness of getting rid of ht energy with the emp makes it hard for the toss force to stay on equal footing with the T player. While not all the time will emp be used, When effectively hit on the toss army in an engagement its pretty much gg at that point.
6. The mobility of the T army to split the toss ball with drops makes it hard to handle engagements with them. While it could happen with toss, the need to keep the robo making immortals or colossus from the robo make is hard to make effective drops, and the fact that the warp prism also doesn't heal its army, making it an ineffective unit over other things from a robo.
This may seem like a lot of whining and one sided argumentation from a toss user, but this is what I feel the issues in PvT are. Now I'm sure many of you T users have arguments against these points, but I feel the toss overall needs more apm and less fuckups to stay alive in the game. The key for the T player is to make early-midgame timing pushes, and never to let those colossus max and the ht to get out. Its extremely hard to bet the timing pushes unless they are scouted perfectly and effectively, which is hard.
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