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United States2095 Posts
Hello,
I'd just like to point out several observations I've had in relation to Zerg in SC1 and SC2.
Choke Points (200/200 Army Fights)
In sc1, it was viable for a 200/200 army of zerg units to go up and attack either a terran or a protoss who was simply defending in their base. This 200/200 Army if it included Defilers would definitely be able to at least stop the terran or protoss from mining or pushing out and attacking except through dropship. With solid micro the attack could possibly destroy their whole 200/200 army of defense.
For those of you not familiar with SC1, Dark swarm allowed all zerg units burrowed underneath the area it was cast on to not take damage.(In ZvT The only thing that could hit them would be Firebats or Irradiate, I'm not talking about ZvP here) They also had an ability called Plague, which would bring every unit it was cast upon (except a few) down to 1 hp. These AoE (Area of Effect) spells allowed Zerg to match up with the Terran and Protoss equally in end game tech.
If there was ever a small choke, think Destination and those 2 little ramps into the natural base,(If you don't know destination, simply think the area leading up into Steppes of War's Natural Expansion) the zerg could defend it very well with lurkers and sunkens, our 2 ranged damage dealers. If you threw in Defilers you could defend or attack from those two little ramps. I'm not going to discuss that you could attack with Guardians, because you can do the same with BroodLords. However in SC2 there is no unit that provides a solid "Choke" fight vs. Protoss or Terran. To explain this point better, if you can fit 10 units across and your 10 units will be fighting the opponents 10 units you will have problems. There is no unit composition of Zerg's that will come out on top with these 10 unit vs. 10 unit fights. I'm considering both sides have equal upgrades and a fairly even level of tech. The reason this is so, is because of the incredible range of both Protoss and Terran.
Zerg's several ranged units are as follows : The Roach (3) The Hydralisk (5-6) The BroodLord (9?) The Infestor (5-9) The Mutalisk (5?) and The Queen (3-6). The main abilities these units can use are simply to attack. Hydralisks have high DPS, roaches have high armor (1 lol), Infestors have a strong AoE bind and a mind control ability, Broodlords have the best ability to constantly produce dps and tank units. With a proper combination of units, Roach Hydralisk BroodLord and Infestor vs. Protoss or Terran you will have a very strong ranged force. If you toss in ultralisks as tanks you will have the strongest zerg army at attacking a fortified position.
Now lets discuss what other races can do, that will enable them to turtle comfortably no matter what you as a zerg throw at them.
Terran : The Wings of Liberty have apparently freed the terran to have a unit to counter each of the zerg's units. They have Marauders with Tanks, Thors, Vikings and Planetary Fortresses to defend. These units when used with any sort of micro (Healing / Sieging / Stim) Will be able to stop a much MUCH larger zerg force. Tanks have such a large range as with vikings that no matter what unit composition you throw at him, he can remain in his position and hold Especially well if your attacking a small choke point. His tanks will deal AoE damage, his Thors will tank all of your damage, along with marauders. (Both of those units can heal faster then a roach burrowed (Think medivacs, scvs)). I havn't even mentioned the Planetary fortress in defending.
While attacking a planetary fortress you will literally need a HUGE army to defeat it. The terran can simply heal it while moving his army to pick off your units as they have concaved around the Planetary. My point here is that against a terran in an equal space their units will almost always have the advantage. Zerg's CANNOT push terran's in a proper choke back!
Protoss : This I don't see as quite as much of a problem as I do with terran. I feel like Protoss doesn't have too strong of a counter to broodlords, ultralisks and hydralisks if properly proportioned. However I will say that with Immortals, Storm, and Collosi they can defend a small choke area Very Very well. So it is possible to push a Protoss player back and do some damage. We can also dropship against protoss. We cannot dropship against terrans, because with several sentry towers the terran will be able to see the drop coming and plan accordingly. I think the match up of ZvP is fairly well balanced and we will have to see how early game works out, and how large armies will fight.
The point of my observations, is that in SC1 Zerg had a viable unit to delay mining and push a terran or protoss player back. The defiler allowed the zerg's army to have almost equal strength or higher strength then that of the Terran or Protoss. I feel that if Zerg doesn't get something that will allow us to both attack and defend small choke points (Broodlords? Yes in ZvP, Not so in ZvT -- Ranged on Vikings is exceptionally long) then the Zerg vs. Terran match up will continue to deteriorate into Zerg's such as myself whining about more things then just choke points.
Thanks for reading, Sheth
For a Replay Showing the Choke Advantage Here's One :
http://www.root-gaming.com/replay/sheth-vs-silentassassin-kulas-revine
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I agree with this. This was somewhat talked about or implied here. This is actually a really important issue because it dictates the style of a Zerg player. In order to play aggressively and harass, you need some kind of fallback defense or else the opposing player can just ignore the harass and roll over you. However, since Zergs don't have that, you get the straightforward 1a style of play everyone is so fond of complaining about. This is only compounded by the extremely short rush distances of most maps in the pool.
Quoting myself from the other thread:
OP brings up a very good point with a lot of implications. One of the implications is that it really hurts play such as overlord doom drops and spamming nydus worms (for all you Terran players who like to whine that Zerg players aren't innovative at all and just 1a a big roach/hydra ball). The reason is that while I'm busying attacking his base with my army, he simply rushes straight into mine and can kill it faster since I have no units like the defiler or the lurker to help delay for my overlords that move slow as sin or my nydus worm that's leisurely pooping out a unit at a time. SO yeah, while Terran is nicely sitting back behind an impenetrable line of tanks and turrets and PFs and is happily dropping his MM ball willy nilly, Zerg is given what, burrowed banelings as replacement lurkers that aren't even relevant past the early game? And they don't even have a chance of seeing defilers or lurkers for another one and a half years? Really? In order to do cutesy drop play, you need some sort of defense mechanism so if he decides to counter you, you don't just fall over and die. All of the races had this in Brood War. So why is Zerg lacking this in SC2, when the drop capabilities the race has are even greater?
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Definitely agree with everything you said. This is what leads to us Zerg players just not pushing into chokes and macroing/expanding until the enemy attacks.
We basically MUST wait until they move out of their choke and confront them in a more open area, but this just gives them ALL the initiative. We can get 200/200 faster, but we can't push the choke, so we must wait for them to push out when they have 200/200, and our 200/200 usually falls. Of course we can rebuild faster, but that doesn't change the fact that we are completely passive, due to our inability to attack through chokes.
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If a Terran is turtling, just mass expand. He will eventually be forced to come out and fight you, which is when you throw everything you have at him, and then use that amazing Zerg macro mechanic to overwhelm him.
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United States90 Posts
i always lose to terran. they make me angry cause when i check my replay, i have more drones to scv more units more everything and they just turtle. the best thing to do is mass expand but when they get 200/200 they are unstoppable. the best thing that i did was become a terran player only recently and now im losing all matches in plat league cause my terran and protoss sucks
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Sad but true, this ends up causing the zerg player to mass expand, all over the place, get a 200/200 army, then wait till he has enough min/gas to replace his entire army then quickly attack/drop lose his entire force, and rebuild it 20 sec latter, and reattack. Only from the almost 400 food he can get from mass larva does he stand a chance at the end game (other then maybe broodlords). Really one of the only ways (other then maybe broodlords) of killing off a good turtling terran that can get 2/3 bases.
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It's a good post, but it's incomplete. The fact that Zerg can't think about attacking the base until he's already won makes every Z player play a totally defensive style of play. T can do all sorts of harass with banshees, hellions, reapers, medivacs, cliff drops, cliffside tanks, etc.
T also gets access to these techs much much earlier. Terran usually builds rax at 12, and a fast factory will go down around 15-16. Zerg usually does 14 pool, and is forced to spend the first 100 gas on ling speed or risk losing for free to reapers or hellions. The point of this is that Terran can get the starport up before Zerg's Lair has finished morphing - he doesn't need to sacrifice anything for this because Zerg has to invest in several anti-harass expenses that he cannot see coming and therefore must expect. Zerg is also expected to sacrifice a couple overlords for an attempt at scouting information (which can be denied with just a couple marines).
Zerg's harass is mutalisks, drops, nydus, and burrow move. This isn't hard - drops are only really good after you kill the Terran army because otherwise he can just run to your base and destroy it before you can destroy his. If you pull back, the overlords are slow enough that you won't get there in time and will lose your natural. Zerg needs a natural to be on par with a 1-base terran, so this is crippling.
Mutalisks are pretty easily answered by missile turrets, marines, or thors. This is effective to make T build a few units he doesn't want to, but with the exception of thors, none of the answers cost gas. Zerg has to invest 200 gas for a spire, and let's say 400 for a minimum of mutalisks to force this mineral investment. Terran's limiting factor in all army compositions are gas, so this really doesn't do anything either.
Nydus is a joke - as long as he spreads his supply depots around, one marauder can get there within 10 seconds and start firing and kill the nydus. I've had SCVs pulled off when the nydus is halfway done and kill it before it finishes. The Nydus gains 10hp a second, which is ridiculously easy to match.
Burrowmove is 100% countered by a single missile turret or raven. Investing a lot into an attack like this only to lose everything because the T player isn't an idiot is enough to discourage most Zerg players from relying on this. Again, 100 minerals counters an attack that costs a huge amount of gas.
Zerg can win this match, but my point is that he HAS to play defensive and react to every move the Terran makes for a chance to beat it. One wrong move and he loses - one wrong move for the Terran and the Zerg simply isn't stopped for now. Zerg cannot win early game against a competent Terran, so the Terran is given many many chances to win before the game finally comes down to an even fight.
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I agree with what is being said here. The only thing that may be able to defend a choke is burrowed banelings and that is a big risk since all good terrans scan before pushing anyway. If no spells are added all heavy choked maps will not favor zerg well in the future of SC2.
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Me and my friend were talking about this issue just last week.
Since Terrans have BC's which are the late game "omgrapetastic" option. In which you can make a few of..
Toss has a solo mothership with super "tech" advantages...
What does zerg have? you could argue broodlords or ultras, but they dont have that "unique" characteristic that seperates them from the other 2 races.
What if the zerg has something to expand their supply? Of course we could debate forever by how much, but lets just say...35?
It feels very swarm like. It would solve alot of issues players have with the roach supply count and such.
The only problem would be to figure out what that something would be. Something air? something unit? some building, like post-hive?
Of course we didn't put TOO much thought into this, but thats what the forums(and you guys) can do for us
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Agreed 100%. The fact that we can rebuild faster has no effect on the game when the battles are taking place at OUR side of the map. It doesn't help that some of our best units are suicide units (baneling). If the game is to be final balanced in this current state, the map pools need to reflect wide open areas in the center where maneuvering can occur. Currently the lack of hydra speed and short roach range, among other things, make zerg very defensive throughout the whole early/mid game aside from baneling busts.
A case in point, i recently played a far lesser terran opponent on Oasis. I far outmacroed him and had a much better army. However, until i got brood lords it was impossible to break his ramp without throwing the game away. He did well to delay the inevitable with drops and such, but it was just a slow slow painful game. A slightly better opponent might have won that game even with my being so far ahead.
I don't mind that the current balance stays this way. It's just that the current maps dictate the style zerg must play to survive. Hopefully after the tournament patch, the pool will eventually get better and/or 3rd party maps will take over in tournaments.
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One could possibly argue the case for muta for stopping mining, but they are so easily countered, you really only ever get one attack with them.
As a zerg player I can say that it's very hard to break choke zones. T can sit and turtle the whole time then just walk his way out, leap frogging tanks as he does.
Burrow is nice trick, but since only 2 units can move while burrowed it doesn't leave a great number of options, and once a single turret has been placed remotely near the choke, all your units have now dug their own graves (literally).
Nydus is one thing that i feel is the most underused of the breaking strategies, and really there's good reason to forgo it, first is the need of sight, not really a huge problem, but when vikings are flying around OL won't get close enough to provide the necessary vision, second issue is the time to spawn a nydus worm, the twenty seconds is more than enough time for almost any small group of units to kill it, and once spawned and that shriek goes off, the enemy knows that a nydus is present and merely has to find it. The final problem i feel is the time it take to unload the units, this isn't a balance issue just an observation that units can get killed just as quick as they exit the nydus.
It feels like Zerg have become a straight forward race, where you can really only attack then rebuild to attack again. Blizzard has said that this is what they wanted Zerg to be, a race that can out rebuild a whole army quickly. I just feel that as being very wrong.
well that was a bit more than i thought i was going to write but I think it sums up my feeling about breaking the choke/turtle of terrans.
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The point is, we can't comfortably engage a turtled position. I had a 40 minute game with a much much worse opponent. I had a runby in his base, which he survived, although I killed quite a number of SCVs. I held back, macroed to 200/200, and attacked his base with my Roach Hydra Ling army. He crushed it. I was on 5 base + Gold, he was on 2 base, and I constantly denied him any expansions. I hit 200/200 again, this time Ultra Ling. Crushed by his turtle. Finally 200/200 again, about 15 Ultralisks finally took him down, and I had to Overlord Drop them in.
Granted, I probably could have ended the game earlier with better tactics, multiple attack fronts, Brood Lords, but it shouldn't be that I can reach 200/200 first and have done economic damage to slow him down, but can't penetrate his defense until I mass max upgraded Tier 3. All he had were Thors and Tanks and he still held off with 2 bases.
Zerg doesn't have attacking units. They have counter attacking units. Our units are fragile, so we require constant army resupply. We can't march up anywhere without taking significant damage if they turtle unless we are terribly ahead. So zerg is passive.
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On August 03 2010 11:00 vica wrote:I had a 40 minute game with a much much worse opponent.
Same here - his first 4 buildings after the wall in were rax with tech labs all pumping reapers. I built 4 mutas and he built 16 missile turrets in response. The game still evolved well into T3 because he was competent enough to spot drops and nydus.
At one point I caught his bio/thor army perfectly with roaches+infestors, and I NP'd 4 thors. It took long enough to kill the marines that all the NPs timed out and he came ahead in that battle.
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I pretty strongly agree with the points made in this thread, although it seems to me that there are deeper design issues for the race as well. Zerg units are pretty damn bland. For a race that has a struggle is straight-up fights, one would expect to see units with diverse abilities that allow for tactics that can annoy/harm the enemy without needing to directly engage. But this is not so. The zerg have one primary caster, the infestor whose abilities do add some variety into the mix. However, aside form that there's only the queen whose abilities are macro oriented) and the overseer (whose abilities are to assist scouting and perhaps delay key buildings a slight amount). The rest of the zerg units are very straightforward attackers.
Terran on the other hand has a huge variety of flexible units. There are the vikings which have huge anti-air range and can land on the ground to reinforce or harass. The banshee is an air-to-ground attacker which is extremely useful if the enemy has no detection because it can cloak. Medivacs are both a dropship and medic in one. Reapers are fast ranged units that can jump over cliffs. Ravens are detectors that can cast powerful support abilities such as auto-turrets and seeker missles. Ghosts can cloak, snipe key units, and call down nuclear strikes. The list goes on but I hope this highlights the ridiculous fact that much of the terran army's vast variability hasn't even been explored because 1a2a can secure victory most of the time. Imagine when further strategies are explored!
Next lets look at the protoss. There are collosi which can fire over huge distances and ignore terran. Dark templar which are permanently cloaked and do huge damage, high templar that can cast huge psionic storms or deplete the enemy energy, phoenixes which can fire while moving and lift ground units into the air (rendering them ineffective for a decent duration), immortals which are great for tanking damage due to hardened shields, sentries which can create force fields to disrupt enemy attacks and block chokes, warp prisms which are both dropships and moving pylons (made even more devastating due to warp gates), stalkers which can blink, and of course the mothership with its mass cloaking and recall abilities.
Now let me reinforce these points with the fact that the zerg army has the fewest attacking units. Yes, the same race that has the least unit abilities and flexibility also has the fewest units that can be used in a fight. This, I think, is why so many zerg player are getting frustrated when people are telling us to "wait for the metagame to develop" and "explor more diverse strategies". The fact of the matter is that we havent been given much to work with in the first place. We are trying to explore more strategies and we are trying to develop new techniques, but it seems to me that our units have very little flexibility to work with and that saddens me. I love the concept of the zerg race but they lack the depth that I think they need to be viable.
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United States2095 Posts
Floop, PLEASE think a bit more before your posts. Your post had NOTHING to do with the OP, and ofc a 200/200 roach / hydra army isn't going to win any 200/200 fights.
Please don't make a baneling army vs. terran.(Obviously do so if hes making a ton of marines) Wasting your supply on banelings vs. tank heavy, thor heavy or even marauder heavy armies is purely bad. Vs P Its even worse, sure its better then just zerglings, but you shouldn't be making zerglings in your best 200/200 army. I didn't even discuss zerglings in my entire OP, because I know there not useful in 200 vs 200 fights.
Floop stop posting zerg advice, you don't even play the race.
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On August 03 2010 12:10 Sheth wrote: Floop, PLEASE think a bit more before your posts. Your post had NOTHING to do with the OP, and ofc a 200/200 roach / hydra army isn't going to win any 200/200 fights.
Please don't make a baneling army vs. terran.(Obviously do so if hes making a ton of marines) Wasting your supply on banelings vs. tank heavy, thor heavy or even marauder heavy armies is purely bad. Vs P Its even worse, sure its better then just zerglings, but you shouldn't be making zerglings in your best 200/200 army. I didn't even discuss zerglings in my entire OP, because I know there not useful in 200 vs 200 fights.
Floop stop posting zerg advice, you don't even play the race.
Ok I'll just edit it out. Clearly you're not very open to discussion so I won't bother.
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United States2095 Posts
I think its just the way you say stuff Floop. You made it sound like my point was stupid because I don't make banelings. I'm always open to discussion, just I don't want people to bash my ideas, with posts that aren't right. Banelings do not help in dealing with choke points. Takes a bazillion banelings to break either a PF, or a Thor or to even reach a tank. I geuss the point isn't about 200/200 combinations in the open, but in a choke. You know?
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I think zerg vs mech would be more even with neural parisite restored and possibly an increase in drone health. As a terran player I think it is pretty unbalanced right now. Infestors make good defenders I think with neural parisite permanant.
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You have to be clever when you attack. You can't 1a with a 200/200 army against an entrenched position doesn't make anything unbalanced. The zerg army is a lot more mobile than terran and non-gateway protoss units. You need to use tactics to your advantage.
I've broke tank lines with burrowed infestors and spam infested terran to splash them to death. Use overlord drops and multi-prong attacks to force slow moving units to be unable to defend.
If you don't use infestors then you're really doing it wrong because a few NP and fungal growths can turn the tide of a battle in a huge way. Especially with ultralisks.
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On August 03 2010 12:18 Sheth wrote: I think its just the way you say stuff Floop. You made it sound like my point was stupid because I don't make banelings. I'm always open to discussion, just I don't want people to bash my ideas, with posts that aren't right. Banelings do not help in dealing with choke points. Takes a bazillion banelings to break either a PF, or a Thor or to even reach a tank. I geuss the point isn't about 200/200 combinations in the open, but in a choke. You know?
Well perhaps I worded it poorly but my point was that banelings are the best choice of unit in a choke since they:
A) don't block each other since they attack and get out of the way =P B) don't take up much room C) are really fast with the speed upgrade D) take up the least supply so you can have, within reason, 120 banelings E) are only really vulnerable to mass tank, since every other composition either is weak to banelings (hellions, bio) or doesn't have splash (thors, air support like BCs or vikings). A few ultras to absorb initial hits also can go a long way into getting banelings in melee range.
Now I completely agree with your post - zerg has no real way to gain area control like lurkers did, or dark swarm did. They don't have that one necessary spell or unit that really says "GET OUT OF THE WAY HERE I AM!"
Now unfortunately the maps right now are largely terran favored, with 1 big attack path (steppes, LT, kulas) and ledges (LT, kulas) and not a lot of positions for flanking. I think we need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Perhaps we should not be balancing the game around the maps, especially since blizzard seems to be pretty set on balance now til the expansions, but instead we should balance the maps around the game. More attack paths, larger more open centers (python anyone?) Less cliffs, more wide ramps.
Hopefully this makes sense to you.
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On August 03 2010 12:28 Phrost wrote: You have to be clever when you attack. You can't 1a with a 200/200 army against an entrenched position doesn't make anything unbalanced. The zerg army is a lot more mobile than terran and non-gateway protoss units. You need to use tactics to your advantage.
I've broke tank lines with burrowed infestors and spam infested terran to splash them to death. Use overlord drops and multi-prong attacks to force slow moving units to be unable to defend.
If you don't use infestors then you're really doing it wrong because a few NP and fungal growths can turn the tide of a battle in a huge way. Especially with ultralisks.
So what about defending choke points?
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On August 03 2010 12:28 Phrost wrote: You have to be clever when you attack. You can't 1a with a 200/200 army against an entrenched position doesn't make anything unbalanced. The zerg army is a lot more mobile than terran and non-gateway protoss units. You need to use tactics to your advantage.
I've broke tank lines with burrowed infestors and spam infested terran to splash them to death. Use overlord drops and multi-prong attacks to force slow moving units to be unable to defend.
If you don't use infestors then you're really doing it wrong because a few NP and fungal growths can turn the tide of a battle in a huge way. Especially with ultralisks. Yeah Sheth. You need to be clever when you attack. You can't just attack head on. You have to be sneaky. Try some drops sometime. Or maybe pop in a nydus worm. Maybe spread some creep tumors and run around his army all day? Send some lings to snipe his expos? Send some mutas to harass his main? Did you ever think about that, Sheth? Did you?
Seriously, posts like these are getting really annoying to read. First, you're telling one of the top North American Zergs how to play the game. Second, you're giving flat out terrible advice. I mean, maybe they haven't heard of something called missile turrets in tank lines Gold League, or maybe that whopping 36 AoE damage to siege tanks is somehow game changing there, but please believe me when I tell you it doesn't matter much. Yes, whenever NP had an infinite duration, mass infestors were really good against mech. But not any more. Third, your post has nothing at all to do with the thread. You just assume the OP is complaining about Terran mech (by the way, there's nothing in the OP that's asking for advice against Terran mech) and you miss the point entirely. He's pointing out a flaw in the game, and it's not something you can fix just by changing up your playstyle. Especially when fixing this flaw in the game can have an enormous impact on Zerg playstyle.
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I know blizzard was keeping an eye on win loss records for each race during beta, but I was wondering if there was anything newer for top diamond and platinum. I got put into top platinum and can't attack/defend without getting super lucky! What is your win loss/record vs terran. Mines probably 3:1 for terran.
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On August 03 2010 12:38 Saracen wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 12:28 Phrost wrote: You have to be clever when you attack. You can't 1a with a 200/200 army against an entrenched position doesn't make anything unbalanced. The zerg army is a lot more mobile than terran and non-gateway protoss units. You need to use tactics to your advantage.
I've broke tank lines with burrowed infestors and spam infested terran to splash them to death. Use overlord drops and multi-prong attacks to force slow moving units to be unable to defend.
If you don't use infestors then you're really doing it wrong because a few NP and fungal growths can turn the tide of a battle in a huge way. Especially with ultralisks. Yeah Sheth. You need to be clever when you attack. You can't just attack head on. You have to be sneaky. Try some drops sometime. Or maybe pop in a nydus worm. Maybe spread some creep tumors and run around his army all day? Send some lings to snipe his expos? Send some mutas to harass his main? Did you ever think about that, Sheth? Did you? Seriously, posts like these are getting really annoying to read. First, you're telling one of the top North American Zergs how to play the game. Second, you're giving flat out terrible advice. I mean, maybe they haven't heard of something called missile turrets in tank lines Gold League, or maybe that whopping 36 AoE damage to siege tanks is somehow game changing there, but please believe me when I tell you it doesn't matter much. Yes, whenever NP had an infinite duration, mass infestors were really good against mech. But not any more. Third, your post has nothing at all to do with the thread. You just assume the OP is complaining about Terran mech (by the way, there's nothing in the OP that's asking for advice against Terran mech) and you miss the point entirely. He's pointing out a flaw in the game, and it's not something you can fix just by changing up your playstyle. Especially when fixing this flaw in the game can have an enormous impact on Zerg playstyle.
I agree, I'm really getting sick of reading advice on things Zerg can do other than 1a. Everything else is so easily beaten that 1a is all zerg has left. Drops dont' work, nydus doesn't work, burrow move doesn't work, base racing doesn't work - all that's left is to meet the army head on.
Reading about things before the game came out it sounded like Zerg had all these sneaky new abilities, but instead Terran got them all because they have a dozen routes to harass and put aggression on Zerg while Zerg gets nothing of the sort.
It's not like the Zerg community never gets around to building Nydus or burrow move or Drops - it's that those tactics just don't work.
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Banelings are fun but they do not have any power to push because they suicide. The best they can do is break a couple supply depots to let zerglings up. They are wonderful at counter-attacking marines but again, that is a counter attack not a way to break through.
The only real unit we have to break through is the broodlord, the issue being that vikings massively outrange anything we have to kill them and consequently can repel broodlords with very little effort (and those broodlords cost a fortune and don't show up for ages).
Protoss can get overwhelmed by a mass of mutas (their hard counter, the phoenix, requires kiting) or ultras or even just enough roach/hydra if they let the Zerg econ get out of hand. Terran on the other hand can sit behind a few tanks thors and vikings and beat any army the zerg player can assemble.
The nydus worm dropping to only 8-10 seconds and unloading units 2 or 3 at a time (or even just at twice or 3 times the speed) would give a good option to get around chokes. This would still be expensive but at least we could reasonably use the worm against a competent player. At a decent level any strategy which relies on surprise to do anything and costs a lot is just not viable. Note that if a Terran player scouted the Nydus Network he could just make a perimeter of siege tanks or marauders but this would be a large investment (especially if the zerg goes mutas which means the Terran then needs towers to defend his other guards).
Giving the Zerg player a solution to get around chokes is really what we need. Given the limited number of units zerg have it is probably better to have an army wide solution rather than just 1 unit (for example improved nydus rather than roach burrow going up cliffs). If only 1 unit got a way to avoid chokes that would become one of the only usable units.
Another idea could be to make the Nydus worm cloaked until it emerges, though this really just forces a few more turrets and has the same issues as roach burrow. Still, either this or a faster build combined with faster spawn from the worm could give zerg a valid attack strategy.
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On August 03 2010 13:06 fdsdfg wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 12:38 Saracen wrote:On August 03 2010 12:28 Phrost wrote: You have to be clever when you attack. You can't 1a with a 200/200 army against an entrenched position doesn't make anything unbalanced. The zerg army is a lot more mobile than terran and non-gateway protoss units. You need to use tactics to your advantage.
I've broke tank lines with burrowed infestors and spam infested terran to splash them to death. Use overlord drops and multi-prong attacks to force slow moving units to be unable to defend.
If you don't use infestors then you're really doing it wrong because a few NP and fungal growths can turn the tide of a battle in a huge way. Especially with ultralisks. Yeah Sheth. You need to be clever when you attack. You can't just attack head on. You have to be sneaky. Try some drops sometime. Or maybe pop in a nydus worm. Maybe spread some creep tumors and run around his army all day? Send some lings to snipe his expos? Send some mutas to harass his main? Did you ever think about that, Sheth? Did you? Seriously, posts like these are getting really annoying to read. First, you're telling one of the top North American Zergs how to play the game. Second, you're giving flat out terrible advice. I mean, maybe they haven't heard of something called missile turrets in tank lines Gold League, or maybe that whopping 36 AoE damage to siege tanks is somehow game changing there, but please believe me when I tell you it doesn't matter much. Yes, whenever NP had an infinite duration, mass infestors were really good against mech. But not any more. Third, your post has nothing at all to do with the thread. You just assume the OP is complaining about Terran mech (by the way, there's nothing in the OP that's asking for advice against Terran mech) and you miss the point entirely. He's pointing out a flaw in the game, and it's not something you can fix just by changing up your playstyle. Especially when fixing this flaw in the game can have an enormous impact on Zerg playstyle. I agree, I'm really getting sick of reading advice on things Zerg can do other than 1a. Everything else is so easily beaten that 1a is all zerg has left. Drops dont' work, nydus doesn't work, burrow move doesn't work, base racing doesn't work - all that's left is to meet the army head on. Reading about things before the game came out it sounded like Zerg had all these sneaky new abilities, but instead Terran got them all because they have a dozen routes to harass and put aggression on Zerg while Zerg gets nothing of the sort. It's not like the Zerg community never gets around to building Nydus or burrow move or Drops - it's that those tactics just don't work.
This.
Theoretically drops with overlords are wonderful and nydus worms seem like zerg just got arbiters. In practice though basic scouting (which is a given at diamond level) negates them, especially as the opponent has better scouting tools (scans and sensor towers are amazing scouting tools). Overlords are good scouts as are zerglings but they tend to tell you everything about the middle of the map and very little about the opponent's base (which is what you actually want to know). Sacrificial overlords do give good information but can be shut down by hunting vikings or marines, scans have the same power but are completely uncounterable.
As for the baneling idea ... yeah well, sure ... 1 Thor has 400 hp so a baneling needs roughly 20 hits on it. Splash is irrelevant given the size of the thor. So that's 1000 minerals 500 gas to kill 300/200 ... and don't get me started on the barracks wall or the banelings that die to siege tanks on the way in. If you want to try this out, make a custom game with a friend, make a lightly defended terran position (3-4 tanks, 3 thors, a few marines or marauders or hellions, 2 barracks as a wall) and send 120 banelings at it. Then think about the relative costs. And for more fun, put a planetary fortress there and throw any number of things at it.
Interestingly in the lower leagues zerg are still interesting because things like the Nydus work (I have a few friends in gold/silver who use a lot of nydus). This is because the Terran player has no scouting whatsoever (even in the corners of his own base). It would be nice to make these a theat even against a decent opponent. Note that I didn't say make it win us games, but just be a threat and force them to adapt just like we have to adapt to their different forms of harass.
On a sidenote, anyone else find that the swarm (other than the zergling and suicidal baneling) is not much of a swarm ? It would be nice to have some form of 1 pop unit :/
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Why don't you try a build that caters to zerg's strengths and stop worrying about BC's Vs Ultras. I don't play zerg, but FE queens wouldn't own terrans that wall off? Roaches have crazy utility burrow/hp regen/cloak (basically but slower).
All I'm trying to say is that I think it's more likely that you are not playing optimally rather than the game developers grossly miscalculated the basics of a game that took 12 years to develop.
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On August 03 2010 13:26 BigHawk187 wrote: Why don't you try a build that caters to zerg's strengths and stop worrying about BC's Vs Ultras. I don't play zerg, but FE queens wouldn't own terrans that wall off? Roaches have crazy utility burrow/hp regen/cloak (basically but slower).
FE with a queen is a requirement to be on par with a 1-base Terran - it's not an answer to anything.
As many people have said many times, burrow move roaches are negated by a single sensor tower. It's not fun to spend 250 gas on tech and 300 gas on units and realize that your opponent spent 100 minerals to make it useless.
And the roach regen is also useless, it got nerfed down to almost nothing.
All I'm trying to say is that I think it's more likely that you are not playing optimally rather than the game developers grossly miscalculated the basics of a game that took 12 years to develop.
When you say 'you', realize you are talking to all Zerg players, even the best ones that were pros in Starcraft 1 and are planning to play sc2 professionally. How conceited is it to tell these people how to play the game with about 5 seconds of theory-crafting and zero testing?
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On August 03 2010 13:26 BigHawk187 wrote: Why don't you try a build that caters to zerg's strengths and stop worrying about BC's Vs Ultras. I don't play zerg, but FE queens wouldn't own terrans that wall off? Roaches have crazy utility burrow/hp regen/cloak (basically but slower).
All I'm trying to say is that I think it's more likely that you are not playing optimally rather than the game developers grossly miscalculated the basics of a game that took 12 years to develop.
Look at the cost of all that roach research, and then think about the odds of being able to take a diamond level player after said research.
Not to mention that when they're "cloaked," they can't attack.
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On August 03 2010 13:37 fdsdfg wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 13:26 BigHawk187 wrote: Why don't you try a build that caters to zerg's strengths and stop worrying about BC's Vs Ultras. I don't play zerg, but FE queens wouldn't own terrans that wall off? Roaches have crazy utility burrow/hp regen/cloak (basically but slower). FE with a queen is a requirement to be on par with a 1-base Terran - it's not an answer to anything. As many people have said many times, burrow move roaches are negated by a single sensor tower. It's not fun to spend 250 gas on tech and 300 gas on units and realize that your opponent spent 100 minerals to make it useless. And the roach regen is also useless, it got nerfed down to almost nothing. Show nested quote +All I'm trying to say is that I think it's more likely that you are not playing optimally rather than the game developers grossly miscalculated the basics of a game that took 12 years to develop. When you say 'you', realize you are talking to all Zerg players, even the best ones that were pros in Starcraft 1 and are planning to play sc2 professionally. How conceited is it to tell these people how to play the game with about 5 seconds of theory-crafting and zero testing?
I believe you mean turret not sensor towers cause they don't detect burrowed units
As a Terran, Zergs need a buff some how. Their scouting seems really weak early game needing to sacrifice 100 minerals to know what the other opponent is doing. We need more balanced maps to help zerg.
BTW, has any zerg tried a quick tech to drops? Maybe using lings and roaches and drop into the Terran's main as early as possible. Medivacs drops are devastating sometimes and i'm just wondering if zerg could pull it off with similar effects.
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On August 03 2010 13:41 rewsky wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 13:26 BigHawk187 wrote: Why don't you try a build that caters to zerg's strengths and stop worrying about BC's Vs Ultras. I don't play zerg, but FE queens wouldn't own terrans that wall off? Roaches have crazy utility burrow/hp regen/cloak (basically but slower).
All I'm trying to say is that I think it's more likely that you are not playing optimally rather than the game developers grossly miscalculated the basics of a game that took 12 years to develop. Look at the cost of all that roach research, and then think about the odds of being able to take a diamond level player after said research. Not to mention that when they're "cloaked," they can't attack.
The micro it provides combined with the macro of zerg should favor the zerg. Right?
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I agree completely, back in broodwar RvZ the second I saw an orange cloud 99% the first thingi thought was "Aaahhh crap, get the he'll out!" but now literally I was sitting right on a LoS blocker. Was unsieged with a midgame sized mech army as in tanks and marine marauder support. I was unsieged on blistering sands heading for the xelnaga tower he got a absolute perfect flank, zerglings roaches and hydras from both sides, I couldn't siege he had a slightly larger army. I won. Got to his base pushed it in.
BUT keep in mind this Is only the first expansion. SCBW would t be balanced without corsairs, lurkers, dark Templar and medics. Next expansion I'm fairly sure is the zergs so if blizzard doesn't at least tweak the numbers to make everything more balanced (which I think would be terribly stupid not to) units will be added and hopefully stuffll balance out.
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I think banelings are kind of bad, their strenght is mostly being really cheap but infestor are much more realiable, I don't really see much use to banelings mid/late game. I think Zerg need maybe a new upgrade for banelings for late game and ultra need to cliff walk!!! (Could send the ultras the other way to flank even if there is a cliff)
Beating a choke is very very hard, usually I find that going broodlords to attack the furthest tank is a great choice then you push w everything and you need some infestor in front to fungal and spawn as many infested terran in the frontal tank and neural the front thor. All in all it is still pretty much impossible to pull off.
Overseer could see a new spell because I find that changeling is largely useless vs good players, anyway just scout with the overseer... contamination is good but I would add another cool spell and remove changeling crap. I don't agree that their scouting is weak early game however. Mass drop is as always very good for zerg, but it's too hard to beat the push and zerg defensively need some boost to fight big balls, the other race have too many strong defensive tactic for zerg to ever be able to push a well positioned defensive army(which will be the case of every good player in the near future).
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On August 03 2010 14:00 Calamity wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 13:37 fdsdfg wrote:On August 03 2010 13:26 BigHawk187 wrote: Why don't you try a build that caters to zerg's strengths and stop worrying about BC's Vs Ultras. I don't play zerg, but FE queens wouldn't own terrans that wall off? Roaches have crazy utility burrow/hp regen/cloak (basically but slower). FE with a queen is a requirement to be on par with a 1-base Terran - it's not an answer to anything. As many people have said many times, burrow move roaches are negated by a single sensor tower. It's not fun to spend 250 gas on tech and 300 gas on units and realize that your opponent spent 100 minerals to make it useless. And the roach regen is also useless, it got nerfed down to almost nothing. All I'm trying to say is that I think it's more likely that you are not playing optimally rather than the game developers grossly miscalculated the basics of a game that took 12 years to develop. When you say 'you', realize you are talking to all Zerg players, even the best ones that were pros in Starcraft 1 and are planning to play sc2 professionally. How conceited is it to tell these people how to play the game with about 5 seconds of theory-crafting and zero testing? I believe you mean turret not sensor towers cause they don't detect burrowed units As a Terran, Zergs need a buff some how. Their scouting seems really weak early game needing to sacrifice 100 minerals to know what the other opponent is doing. We need more balanced maps to help zerg. BTW, has any zerg tried a quick tech to drops? Maybe using lings and roaches and drop into the Terran's main as early as possible. Medivacs drops are devastating sometimes and i'm just wondering if zerg could pull it off with similar effects.
One thing about medivac drops is the medivacs aren't wasted resources at all - it's a 150/100 starport and let's say 400/400 for units that heal the army while they fight - they are a significant part of the battle and they drop the units in a little ball, just as they want to be.
Getting an overlord drop means finishing the lair and then spending 300/300 on the research - which really needs 2 bases. Z has to spend a lot of gas to get here, but I'm just trying to illustrate how late the upgrade can be gotten if an army is sacrificed. Keep in mind that without zergling speed, Zerg is allowing the Terran to get a free win with speed reapers or hellions which have no T1 counter other than speedlings.
Anyway, past all that, the zerg units drop into the enemy base and must navigate all the buildings - exactly what they don't want to do (they want to fight in the open, remember?) Terran completely dictates where the units fight since all of their units outrange all of zerg's units.
When Terran drops, it can choose a nice spot behind the mineral line that has good chokes. When Zerg drops, it can't choose where the fight will happen.
Terran can also answer to this with their own drop (or just plain attack) and force a baserace which T cannot lose. Z has no such option when dropped, he must deal with the drop immediately or lose right there.
That's pretty much the whole theme of the ZvT matchup - there are dozens of things that can happen that can cause the Z player to lose outright if successful, but not cause any significant damage to the T player if failed.
For instance, Z drops and loses the whole army to some well placed siege tanks. T can now counter-attack and gurantee the win.
T drops and loses the whole army to some good fungal and hydras. If Z attacks T, T just has to stick a tank and a couple marines behind the choke and he is immune to a counterattack.
I know that can be said for any harass, but in ZvT T has all the harass options.
On August 03 2010 14:15 Nub4ever wrote: BUT keep in mind this Is only the first expansion. SCBW would t be balanced without corsairs, lurkers, dark Templar and medics. Next expansion I'm fairly sure is the zergs so if blizzard doesn't at least tweak the numbers to make everything more balanced (which I think would be terribly stupid not to) units will be added and hopefully stuffll balance out.
If that's Blizzard's direction (which it seems like it might be), then that's retarded. We don't get a competitive game until 2 years down the road? What is this then?
There are a lot of little game mechanics that really seem to favor Terran above P and Z. Terran gets autocast repair and autocast heal, Terran has siege/unsiege on different hotkeys - same for viking land/lift off. Zerg gets the same hotkey for burrow/unburrow, protoss gets the same one for morph to/from warpgate. Small stuff, yeah, but it's weird playing the campaign and finding all these shortcuts to make life easier that only T gets and exist in multiplayer as well.
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On August 03 2010 14:12 BigHawk187 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 13:41 rewsky wrote:On August 03 2010 13:26 BigHawk187 wrote: Why don't you try a build that caters to zerg's strengths and stop worrying about BC's Vs Ultras. I don't play zerg, but FE queens wouldn't own terrans that wall off? Roaches have crazy utility burrow/hp regen/cloak (basically but slower).
All I'm trying to say is that I think it's more likely that you are not playing optimally rather than the game developers grossly miscalculated the basics of a game that took 12 years to develop. Look at the cost of all that roach research, and then think about the odds of being able to take a diamond level player after said research. Not to mention that when they're "cloaked," they can't attack. The micro it provides combined with the macro of zerg should favor the zerg. Right? No stop theorycrafting. Please.
On August 03 2010 14:15 Nub4ever wrote: BUT keep in mind this Is only the first expansion. SCBW would t be balanced without corsairs, lurkers, dark Templar and medics. Next expansion I'm fairly sure is the zergs so if blizzard doesn't at least tweak the numbers to make everything more balanced (which I think would be terribly stupid not to) units will be added and hopefully stuffll balance out. If this is Blizzard's mentality, then it's terrible. SC2 was meant to be a standalone game. The fact that they're holding off the next expansion for 18 months attests to this. Are we really supposed to wait 18 months before Blizzard starts "tweaking numbers" again?
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Yeah the problem with drops is that it costs you 2 upgrades costing a total of 300/300. This doesn't sound like a lot but in reality when you get tier2 you have to desperately spend that gas on anti-air or you will outright lose the game to air. This is another undiscussed problem with nydus.
I don't think blizzard is planning on not fixing the game until the expansion and I don't know why people think this is the case. However im not sure they understand the problem or the solutions.
I really really dont see the fascination people have with banelings. They are a good strong unit for their purpose and if a player has bad composition or terrible positioning they can win you the game. But its AE power is really no different than the awesome power of pre-igniter hellions or tanks.
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Have to agree with Sheth here, I also want to say the lack of diversity I think is what is going to make me go ahead and change races. It really feels like the only truly reliable build I have is to just "out macro" my opponent and get a large food differential and press that advantage. However due to the unit imbalances stated in this thread and players starting to learn how to abuse these imbalances in defensive positions that window where I can press an advantage seems to be shrinking every game. But all that aside, I want to be able to have more than 1 style of play at my disposal and right now anything but a macro heavy game feels very unstable against equally skilled opponents as a Zerg.
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On August 03 2010 14:30 Saracen wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 14:12 BigHawk187 wrote:On August 03 2010 13:41 rewsky wrote:On August 03 2010 13:26 BigHawk187 wrote: Why don't you try a build that caters to zerg's strengths and stop worrying about BC's Vs Ultras. I don't play zerg, but FE queens wouldn't own terrans that wall off? Roaches have crazy utility burrow/hp regen/cloak (basically but slower).
All I'm trying to say is that I think it's more likely that you are not playing optimally rather than the game developers grossly miscalculated the basics of a game that took 12 years to develop. Look at the cost of all that roach research, and then think about the odds of being able to take a diamond level player after said research. Not to mention that when they're "cloaked," they can't attack. The micro it provides combined with the macro of zerg should favor the zerg. Right? No stop theorycrafting. Please. Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 14:15 Nub4ever wrote: BUT keep in mind this Is only the first expansion. SCBW would t be balanced without corsairs, lurkers, dark Templar and medics. Next expansion I'm fairly sure is the zergs so if blizzard doesn't at least tweak the numbers to make everything more balanced (which I think would be terribly stupid not to) units will be added and hopefully stuffll balance out. If this is Blizzard's mentality, then it's terrible. SC2 was meant to be a standalone game. The fact that they're holding off the next expansion for 18 months attests to this. Are we really supposed to wait 18 months before Blizzard starts "tweaking numbers" again?
well as retarted as it is, it could just b another marketing scheme... all the Zs and Ps will move on and Ts either follow or just TvT all day. Literally forcing you to buy expansions for a balanced game. I really hope not but the community only does so much. Also about hotkeys it seem even more pointing to this retartedness though IMO I find separate hotkeys harder to use >.<
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I'm a lower level zerg player and I frequently find myself losing in macro games where I have the advantage in both economy and army. I can't really prove that I didn't just throw it away with nub tactics, but I figured I would at least throw my testimonial on the pile.
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On August 03 2010 12:38 Saracen wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 12:28 Phrost wrote: You have to be clever when you attack. You can't 1a with a 200/200 army against an entrenched position doesn't make anything unbalanced. The zerg army is a lot more mobile than terran and non-gateway protoss units. You need to use tactics to your advantage.
I've broke tank lines with burrowed infestors and spam infested terran to splash them to death. Use overlord drops and multi-prong attacks to force slow moving units to be unable to defend.
If you don't use infestors then you're really doing it wrong because a few NP and fungal growths can turn the tide of a battle in a huge way. Especially with ultralisks. Yeah Sheth. You need to be clever when you attack. You can't just attack head on. You have to be sneaky. Try some drops sometime. Or maybe pop in a nydus worm. Maybe spread some creep tumors and run around his army all day? Send some lings to snipe his expos? Send some mutas to harass his main? Did you ever think about that, Sheth? Did you? Seriously, posts like these are getting really annoying to read. First, you're telling one of the top North American Zergs how to play the game. Second, you're giving flat out terrible advice. I mean, maybe they haven't heard of something called missile turrets in tank lines Gold League, or maybe that whopping 36 AoE damage to siege tanks is somehow game changing there, but please believe me when I tell you it doesn't matter much. Yes, whenever NP had an infinite duration, mass infestors were really good against mech. But not any more. Third, your post has nothing at all to do with the thread. You just assume the OP is complaining about Terran mech (by the way, there's nothing in the OP that's asking for advice against Terran mech) and you miss the point entirely. He's pointing out a flaw in the game, and it's not something you can fix just by changing up your playstyle. Especially when fixing this flaw in the game can have an enormous impact on Zerg playstyle.
This is one of the most useless posts I have seen in a long time and it was very annoying to read. Sorry to have to say that but the advise given here is not helpfull and everything he says is just a death beat argument and most of the ideas simply dont work in general. Yeah it is great to use burrowed units against siegetanks without detection doahhh .... Yeah sniping undefended expos with cheap lings is good .... I mean is this advise or mockery ? The op raised a valid point in my opinion and he tried to support his ideas and then comes this ? At least try to explain your ideas and dont just tell things that are obvious ...
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On August 03 2010 15:50 Holy_AT wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 12:38 Saracen wrote:On August 03 2010 12:28 Phrost wrote: You have to be clever when you attack. You can't 1a with a 200/200 army against an entrenched position doesn't make anything unbalanced. The zerg army is a lot more mobile than terran and non-gateway protoss units. You need to use tactics to your advantage.
I've broke tank lines with burrowed infestors and spam infested terran to splash them to death. Use overlord drops and multi-prong attacks to force slow moving units to be unable to defend.
If you don't use infestors then you're really doing it wrong because a few NP and fungal growths can turn the tide of a battle in a huge way. Especially with ultralisks. Yeah Sheth. You need to be clever when you attack. You can't just attack head on. You have to be sneaky. Try some drops sometime. Or maybe pop in a nydus worm. Maybe spread some creep tumors and run around his army all day? Send some lings to snipe his expos? Send some mutas to harass his main? Did you ever think about that, Sheth? Did you? Seriously, posts like these are getting really annoying to read. First, you're telling one of the top North American Zergs how to play the game. Second, you're giving flat out terrible advice. I mean, maybe they haven't heard of something called missile turrets in tank lines Gold League, or maybe that whopping 36 AoE damage to siege tanks is somehow game changing there, but please believe me when I tell you it doesn't matter much. Yes, whenever NP had an infinite duration, mass infestors were really good against mech. But not any more. Third, your post has nothing at all to do with the thread. You just assume the OP is complaining about Terran mech (by the way, there's nothing in the OP that's asking for advice against Terran mech) and you miss the point entirely. He's pointing out a flaw in the game, and it's not something you can fix just by changing up your playstyle. Especially when fixing this flaw in the game can have an enormous impact on Zerg playstyle. This is one of the most useless posts I have seen in a long time and it was very annoying to read. Sorry to have to say that but the advise given here is not helpfull and everything he says is just a death beat argument and most of the ideas simply dont work in general. Yeah it is great to use burrowed units against siegetanks without detection doahhh .... Yeah sniping undefended expos with cheap lings is good .... I mean is this advise or mockery ? The op raised a valid point in my opinion and he tried to support his ideas and then comes this ? At least try to explain your ideas and dont just tell things that are obvious ...
Perhaps English isn't your first language. That post was actually defending the OP and not attacking it. I understand that sarcasm can be difficult to detect on the internet, but really?
As for Zerg, I'm trying to stick out the race because I decided to play random, but every game I random Zerg I feel like I'm losing to terribads all the time. And Zerg was my main race in the beta.
I think it's a little silly how hard Zerg players have to work to beat their Terran or Protoss counterparts. I've been playing T/P for an entire two weeks and my skill with them has already surpassed my Zerg skill - I honestly think that playing Zerg is an exercise in masochism.
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Didn't read the entire thread but to op : did you know you could cancel the PF with ur overseer ability ? Dunno if it doesn't work anymore but that was the case in the beta.
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Northern Ireland22201 Posts
My friends, who I always beat, hit gold and silver with terran and protoss, whereas I was put into bronze. Another friend who plays zerg also got put into bronze. It just doesn't make much sense.
My observations are that zerg can usually outbase someone, but that becomes pointless when a big ball of death gets a-moved in. I usually can't replace my units in time and I lose my natural and main. Pretty much, it requires minimal effort from the Protoss/Terran who sit on one or two bases and just makes a lot of units then a-moves in. Against terrans, I only seem to win because I have 5 bases when they were forced to stay on one and I take 10:1 losses trying to push through their main. At least I can replace those units and he can't, but it's the way zerg has to be played. Wait until the enemy's exhausted themselves then go.
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Zerg demolishes a Terran army --> Can't counter because of PF, 1-2 Siegetanks and a Bunker or Wall-In. The only thing that works is a very fast doom drop. Terra demolishes a Z army --> Counter, GG. Thats just how it is... Add in to this that Terran (and Protoss) have about 1000 ways to harrass a Zerg due to Zerg not having any real range unit at T1 and is forced to get T2/Antiair asap.
Dumbest developer decision ever = Putting the Hydralisk, which is the only real "all purpose" Unit Zerg has, which also can get countered whiteout a problem, on T2.
Zerg is forced to: Fast expand and Tech fast to anti air while being prepared to counter XX diffrent harasses/cheeses whiteout being capable of having a *kinda* reliable harass themselves.
The effect? Zerg is boring to play.
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Protoss and Terran have trouble attacking a turtling Terran position as well. I don't quite feel qualified to tell someone like Sheth that they need to change their strategy against T; but there it is... There are posts on TL every day from new players that wonder why their army gets owned every time they try to force the front door. They generally get the same answer... Expand and Take advantage of Terran immobility. I really don't see a different answer for Sheth.
As a Protoss player vs Zerg or other Protoss I can dictate the pace of the game if I like. The same is not true against Terran if they decide to turtle up. I am often frustrated since I like to be agressive, but once they dig in Its no longer up to me.
I agree that Zerg are currently the weakest race in chokes but I don't think this is a problem with the current state of the game. Zergs mobility makes them by far the easiest to position a concave and flank. Creep spreading makes Zerg much better at maintaining map control. Combine that with the ever present threat of quickly outmacroing the other races and the choke issue begins to seem reasonable.
Imagine if Zerg could hold a critical choke with a few key units like Terran, but was still able to expand and macro up as fast as they currently do.
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Yeah, that sounds like it was in SC/BW with Lurkers/Darkswarm... HORRIBLE imagination!
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You know... what if corruption was changed to be something different and positional? Nobody likes corruptors now, and the spell is a joke. I think that's probably the unit that would benefit the most from that kind of revision.
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On August 03 2010 10:19 Sheth wrote:
For those of you not familiar with SC1, Dark swarm allowed all zerg units burrowed underneath the area it was cast on to not take damage.
so... who, specifically, are you saying is unfamiliar with SC1?
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I feel it is that vs T and P I have to do everything right or I get ran over.
I have to walk a fine line between drones and units. I can't stay at T1 for long or I get raped by air. I have to take extreme risks in order to win the game. I have to have superior micro then my opponent in order to at least come out even. I have to spread creep and macro which requires great mechanics to do while maintaining your army. I can not attack at chokes.
What I am saying is that it feels like with Zerg you are always on the edge and against the wall. While if your opponent makes a mistake he can much more easily come back from it while its pretty much gg for you if you make a mistake.
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ZvT is absolutely HORRIBLE. Against a high level diamond Terran, I can't do -anything- against the Terran player. Especially on maps that favors Terran such as Kulas Ravine or Lost Temple. During the early game, I can get hellion rushed, viking rush, getting sieged with a tank on a cliff, banshee rushed and lose a few of my drones. And all I can do is hope his damn supply depots are lowered so my speedlings could run inside and even the game which usually doesnt happen when you're against high level diamond players. Blizzard had made the Zerg a race that -can- rebuild their army quickly, but only IF they dont get constantly harassed in the mineral line and lose half of their drones early/mid game. Blizzard has successfully fucked over ZvT. Congratulations. The only thing I can do against Terran is play defensive until I can get either Ultralisks or Brood Lords out. If I can't I lose, if I can get them out, I still lose half the time.
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I completely agree with Sheth. I am forced to be passive in most of my games because of this. I just macro and spread creep and try my best to counter my opponents push until I overwhelm them in the late game. The options zerg has is just so limited. Muta harass is completely shutdown by a single turret or thor. Terran units seem to do too well against a variety of zerg units. Against a high ranked terran, all I can do is survive and hope my ultras come out before I die.
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Now I didn't play Brood war very much at all, but, iirc, someone said that attacking a 200/200 mech army with your 200/200 zerg army still resulted in a defeat. Can someone confirm or deny this?
But yes, a tier three caster, or other tier three unit, will be needed in the EXPANSION. IMO, Blizzard has new units planned that we don't/won't know about. And then all us Terrans will be calling Zerg OP. XP.
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One suggestion I have for Zerg players (I am a low level Terran player) is to try playing as Terran in 1v1. If Terran are unbeatable and you never lose, then you can go professional, and marry many beautiful wives. If you do lose, you might come up with some new tactics to try against Terran.
I'm not trying to defend imbalance, but why are you playing as a disadvantaged race? It's like picking Sonic in Super Smash Bros Brawl... why would you do that?
I agree with the general sentiment that Terran are probably at an advantage but I do plenty of losing to every race. Balancing is definitely in order. But if you nerf Terran, I'm going to be at the very bottom rung of players for sure. As I probably should be.
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Yeah, thing about Terran is that it's very very close to not being "viable". Bio is all but useless versus Zerg, with Bio Mech fairing slightly better. So any change is likely to nerf Terran into oblivion.
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I agree with your post, zerg can't take advantage of the cliff/choke point in sc2. It's all about brute force in an open space. I hope they add some units fixing this in the 2 next games. The broodlord is a great damage dealer in fights, but it cannot break a terran defense because of the viking's range.
On August 03 2010 10:19 Sheth wrote: The Mutalisk (5?)
It's 3.
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On August 03 2010 14:15 Nub4ever wrote: BUT keep in mind this Is only the first expansion. SCBW would t be balanced without corsairs, lurkers, dark Templar and medics. Next expansion I'm fairly sure is the zergs so if blizzard doesn't at least tweak the numbers to make everything more balanced (which I think would be terribly stupid not to) units will be added and hopefully stuffll balance out.
Pretty sure that's not true. They want to have balanced game RIGHT NOW and not after few years.
I even read that they said that they don't want to add units in expansions cause it's bad for balance. That does not mean they won't add though..
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This is what I have been talking about, or at least talking about. Zerg have lost all their those siege units, aka lurker and defiler. They were very good at keeping terran actually scared to go against zerg army without proper units. Now zerg is just something you roll over when you have enough forces.
Zerg can harass but mutas aren't as strong as they were and with thor they are pretty much useless unless you surprise him. Even turrets are better in sc2. Drops and nydus are ok but it's like have been said. If you manage to catch him in a bad position it's good but terran army still can just roll over your base and lift some of his. Chances of winning terran in a base race is kinda low.
Zerg have kinda lost their scare factor. Now they just try to survive, every single game
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On August 03 2010 21:18 Piski wrote:This is what I have been talking about, or at least talking about. Zerg have lost all their those siege units, aka lurker and defiler. They were very good at keeping terran actually scared to go against zerg army without proper units. Now zerg is just something you roll over when you have enough forces. Zerg can harass but mutas aren't as strong as they were and with thor they are pretty much useless unless you surprise him. Even turrets are better in sc2. Drops and nydus are ok but it's like have been said. If you manage to catch him in a bad position it's good but terran army still can just roll over your base and lift some of his. Chances of winning terran in a base race is kinda low. Zerg have kinda lost their scare factor. Now they just try to survive, every single game I agree. =]
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Zerg seem to be the least forgiving in terms of making a mistake. Lose 4 Zerglings too early? That could be game.
Both Toss and Terran can wall off to a large degree zerg are generally wide open. On top of that their base defenses are laughably easy to deal with/avoid. I am not sure what's wrong with zerg but seems like something is missing.
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On August 03 2010 22:12 BalanceFx wrote: Zerg seem to be the least forgiving in terms of making a mistake. Lose 4 Zerglings too early? That could be game.
Both Toss and Terran can wall off to a large degree zerg are generally wide open. On top of that their base defenses are laughably easy to deal with/avoid. I am not sure what's wrong with zerg but seems like something is missing.
That's their race though. They're wide open. And creep and queens could be argued to be very effective defensively, especially against air.
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On August 03 2010 19:05 luckySe7en wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 10:19 Sheth wrote:
For those of you not familiar with SC1, Dark swarm allowed all zerg units burrowed underneath the area it was cast on to not take damage.
so... who, specifically, are you saying is unfamiliar with SC1?
SC2 is my first RTS, and I had no idea what Dark Swarm was and appreciated Sheth saying what it was because I've seen people talk about it before but really had no idea what it was. I'm sure I'm not the only person who didn't know what it was.
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On August 03 2010 10:29 Saracen wrote: [...]In order to play aggressively and harass, you need some kind of fallback defense or else the opposing player can just ignore the harass and roll over you. [...]
Quoting myself from the other thread: [...] The reason is that while I'm busying attacking his base with my army, he simply rushes straight into mine and can kill it faster since I have no units like the defiler or the lurker to help delay for my overlords that move slow as sin or my nydus worm that's leisurely pooping out a unit at a time.[...]
Saracen, I thought of an idea but I can't really test it since i'm at work. In this context you're describing, couldnt a few infestors (2-3) positioned at your base be able to delay at least reasonably an incoming attack by casting a few fungal growth in quick succession (I'm thinking 2 or 3 well placed Fungal growth, then re-cast after its 6 second duration should delay by 12-18 seconds the bulk of his army)
But... is 12-18 seconds enough
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On August 03 2010 23:10 hottchix.hottchix wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 19:05 luckySe7en wrote:On August 03 2010 10:19 Sheth wrote:
For those of you not familiar with SC1, Dark swarm allowed all zerg units burrowed underneath the area it was cast on to not take damage.
so... who, specifically, are you saying is unfamiliar with SC1? SC2 is my first RTS, and I had no idea what Dark Swarm was and appreciated Sheth saying what it was because I've seen people talk about it before but really had no idea what it was. I'm sure I'm not the only person who didn't know what it was. I think what's pointing is that Sheth's description of Dark Swarm is completely wrong. It blocked all incoming direct damage on units underneath it, I don't know why he said "burrowed" units. However splash damage can still hit, so siege tanks can technically kill things under swarm, Firebats can kill anything under swarm, etc.
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On August 03 2010 23:18 FTemplar wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 10:29 Saracen wrote: [...]In order to play aggressively and harass, you need some kind of fallback defense or else the opposing player can just ignore the harass and roll over you. [...]
Quoting myself from the other thread: [...] The reason is that while I'm busying attacking his base with my army, he simply rushes straight into mine and can kill it faster since I have no units like the defiler or the lurker to help delay for my overlords that move slow as sin or my nydus worm that's leisurely pooping out a unit at a time.[...]
Saracen, I thought of an idea but I can't really test it since i'm at work. In this context you're describing, couldnt a few infestors (2-3) positioned at your base be able to delay at least reasonably an incoming attack by casting a few fungal growth in quick succession (I'm thinking 2 or 3 well placed Fungal growth, then re-cast after its 6 second duration should delay by 12-18 seconds the bulk of his army) But... is 12-18 seconds enough I think TLO, playing as Zerg, did something exactly like this once. It worked rather well.
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On August 03 2010 23:25 MythicalMage wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 23:18 FTemplar wrote:On August 03 2010 10:29 Saracen wrote: [...]In order to play aggressively and harass, you need some kind of fallback defense or else the opposing player can just ignore the harass and roll over you. [...]
Quoting myself from the other thread: [...] The reason is that while I'm busying attacking his base with my army, he simply rushes straight into mine and can kill it faster since I have no units like the defiler or the lurker to help delay for my overlords that move slow as sin or my nydus worm that's leisurely pooping out a unit at a time.[...]
Saracen, I thought of an idea but I can't really test it since i'm at work. In this context you're describing, couldnt a few infestors (2-3) positioned at your base be able to delay at least reasonably an incoming attack by casting a few fungal growth in quick succession (I'm thinking 2 or 3 well placed Fungal growth, then re-cast after its 6 second duration should delay by 12-18 seconds the bulk of his army) But... is 12-18 seconds enough I think TLO, playing as Zerg, did something exactly like this once. It worked rather well.
Oooo. Now i'm feeling all smart and stuff.
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I just have to agree.
I had been playing a lot of TvZ lately, and hellion harrass was a definite weak point in my game. So, I was getting into the habit of 1 basing, getting a couple roaches and then expanding.
I played a game, where I shut down the initial hellion harrass fairly early and I was in good shape. I then expanded and sac'd an ov to see what I was in for. I caught 2 raxes and a factory before my OV was killed. I started my lair and just as it was finishing I get hit with 2 cloaked banshees. It's now impossible to recover.
So, general zerg vs terran play goes like this.
1. drone up. 2. Ling speed or early roach 3. Try to survive reaper, or hellion harrass. 4. Scout 5. worry and prepare for MM timing push 6. worry about banshee harrass 7. deny expansions 8. mass expand 9. wait until he pushes out and hope you can take out his army.
If you make any mistake in 2-7 you lose. Zerg really has no ability to be aggressive. Muta harrass doesn't really count because it's shut down after the initial harrass and it will take much, much longer for muta's to decimate your drone count then 2 banshees. (and we don't have cloak)
Things that I've found that are absolutely essential are
a) having glial reconstitution for roaches and having some 2-3 roaches in every mineral line to fend off hellion harrass at expos b) being ahead in upgrades c) trying to hide any tech that you can. HARD tech switches have been the only reliable way for me to to win this matchup. I generally go muta/speedling in the mid game and then save up a bunch of larvae while I try to harrass / dance around the front door to force a different composition and then switch to heavy mass roach with tunneling claws. If the T scans the switch before he pushes, it's pretty much gg though.
Also, it's interesting that Browder said the Lurker does not fit this game. I believe there was some discussion about it being overpowered because of new unit pathing and the clumping. However, there seems to be no problem with the way hellions completely nullify lings (with preigniter) or the way thors completely nullify muta with their splash damage?
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On August 03 2010 18:46 Pabs wrote: Protoss and Terran have trouble attacking a turtling Terran position as well. I don't quite feel qualified to tell someone like Sheth that they need to change their strategy against T; but there it is... There are posts on TL every day from new players that wonder why their army gets owned every time they try to force the front door. They generally get the same answer... Expand and Take advantage of Terran immobility. I really don't see a different answer for Sheth.
You bring up an interesting point, let me explain.
Terran 1 against Terran 2, Terran 1 is turtled up. Terran 2 now expands more and gets more vikings and tanks. With the viking range he can push back opposing vikings at the top of the cliff, thus denying line of sight to his tanks which are free to bombard. Scans are an obvious delaying tactic from the defender but are limited whereas the viking sight is not due to superior economy.
Terran against Zerg, Terran is turtled up. Zerg now expands like a madman and gets 200/200 army only to discover that he can not push because his opponent outranges him with every unit. He can not drop in or nydus due to a few well placed turrets and a some vikings. He can not rely on broodlords due to vikings as well. He can not kill the vikings because they sit right over siege tanks and thors which also massively outrange any units zerg can bring out. So the Zerg sits on 200/200, accumulates a ton of resources he can not use and waits for the Terran to hit his 200/200 and push out. The zerg then has to hope the Terran player makes a mistake and loses the initial battle (which is already unlikely). Then you need to quickly rebuild the army and hope the terran didn't have a thor and a couple tanks left behind to stop counter attacks.
Terran against protoss, Terran is turtled. The protoss has access to units like the immortal which can actually take a round or two of tank fire, the zealot which with charge is essentially a 3 in one speedling (and when there is a limited front, the 3 in 1 is very important). The Terran player still needs vikings to stop void rays which otherwise will overrun him as badly as broodlords would (with the exception that void rays can fly in fast and get away if needed). If there is any gap a warp prism can be used to deploy protoss troops immediately (much much faster than the Nydus in a late game situation with 10 gates). Stalkers can also just blink up, effectively closing the distance and negating range and high ground advantages. I am not saying that the protoss have an easy time of it, but they have more tools at their disposal than the zerg.
The basic reason is that zerg have fewer units (7 that can attack ground plus infestor and corruptor) and of those 7, we have: -a basic flyer (with the shortest range for a flyer) -3 basic melee attackers (roaches are essentially melee, range 5-6 is required to get a good concave from the bottom of a ramp) -one suicidal unit that is only good against a couple of the opponent's (marines, zealots, hellions if they are silly enough to be in range) -one generic all purposed ranged attacker with no special ability -the broodlord, which is horrendously expensive and only attacks ground
So there are a few things to note from that list: -Zerg have 2 units with interesting abilities (infestor and broodlord) which can be used to spawn more units and seem swarmy. Compare this to concussive shell, cliff jumping, sieging, thor guns, ravens, viking changes, repairing on all mechanical, orbital commands ... -Zerg have the most melee units in the game as well as the fewest units overall. In fact we have fully 2 units that can attack air and ground (compared to 4 for Terran and 4 for protoss). -Zerg have the shortest range in the game with their units that can attack air or both (hydras and corruptors get beaten by carriers, vikings and thors and tied with most others, mutas are just bottom of the pile). -Zerg is the only race with no tier 3 that can attack air (compared to 2 for Terran and 1 for protoss).
The overall conclusion being that Zerg have both the fewest units and the least versatile ones, which leads to Zerg wins invariably being a lot of macro and 1a2a3a which is boring to play with or against. The fact is you can't micro zerglings or hydras like you can micro with stim or blink.
Another thing to note is that Zerg players have explored all of their units (and in some detail). If Terran or Toss have a problem there are still units with unexplored potential like the Carrier or BC (as KOTB showed). On the other hand Zerg just have one more unit that attacks ground well, gets choked up and gets owned by some common unit in the Terran arsenal.
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Ugh. I wish there was some sort of upgrades for zerglings around hive tech other than adrenal glands. Making Adrenal glands lair tech then adding a hive tech upgrade like:
Brood Flesh Armor: Reduces damage of splash attacks by 80% Hp is increased by 10. Multiplies HP regen when burrowed by 2.
This will force a terran to not rely on splash damage as much, you'll be able to actually threaten him in a head on fight, and zerglings will then be more effective mid game and late game. This doesn't effect protoss as much, because the splash units they have are...well...Archons! The collossi's lazer wouldn't effect the Armor on the zerglings, and the HP increase would let the zerglings get into range. Also, burrowing zerglings during a fight would regen health extremely quickly, and give zerg a CHANCE to micro and use their skills to overcome their opponent.
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On August 03 2010 23:57 TLOBrian wrote: Ugh. I wish there was some sort of upgrades for zerglings around hive tech other than adrenal glands. Making Adrenal glands lair tech then adding a hive tech upgrade like:
Brood Flesh Armor: Reduces damage of splash attacks by 80% Hp is increased by 10. Multiplies HP regen when burrowed by 2.
This will force a terran to not rely on splash damage as much, you'll be able to actually threaten him in a head on fight, and zerglings will then be more effective mid game and late game. This doesn't effect protoss as much, because the splash units they have are...well...Archons! The collossi's lazer wouldn't effect the Armor on the zerglings, and the HP increase would let the zerglings get into range. Also, burrowing zerglings during a fight would regen health extremely quickly, and give zerg a CHANCE to micro and use their skills to overcome their opponent. That would still only help late game. It's the early and mid game that are the real problem imo.
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United States2095 Posts
On August 03 2010 23:24 floor exercise wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 23:10 hottchix.hottchix wrote:On August 03 2010 19:05 luckySe7en wrote:On August 03 2010 10:19 Sheth wrote:
For those of you not familiar with SC1, Dark swarm allowed all zerg units burrowed underneath the area it was cast on to not take damage.
so... who, specifically, are you saying is unfamiliar with SC1? SC2 is my first RTS, and I had no idea what Dark Swarm was and appreciated Sheth saying what it was because I've seen people talk about it before but really had no idea what it was. I'm sure I'm not the only person who didn't know what it was. I think what's pointing is that Sheth's description of Dark Swarm is completely wrong. It blocked all incoming direct damage on units underneath it, I don't know why he said "burrowed" units. However splash damage can still hit, so siege tanks can technically kill things under swarm, Firebats can kill anything under swarm, etc.
Sorry, I just gave a basic definition of what it was. If you want to be completely correct it blocks all ranged damage to units underneath the "swarm" except for splash damage from say tanks or firebats. Melee units will still be able to attack underneath it. However with many zerglings and lurkers it was often impossible for melee units to get in range to attack these ranged lurkers. Also the splash damage wouldn't affect any unit that was burrowed if it was under the swarm. Then you would need a spell such as Irradiate or a melee unit to hit the lurkers in their burrowed state. Hope thats a bit more correct for ya!
Anyway for all of the people telling me that I should just turtle up and expand, theres a major problem with this. As you can see from some of my games vs. Morrow and QXC they can just slowly take a whole side of the map. If a T takes 4/5 bases and a Z takes 4/5 bases and they simply wait for the minerals to run out the T will always win, because his units are more economical and I could only attack in a choke. That's why I feel like its important we have an ability to push forward a little bit with an attack and at the least be able to stop mining.
Overseer's do not stop PF's anymore.
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On August 03 2010 23:25 MythicalMage wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 23:18 FTemplar wrote:On August 03 2010 10:29 Saracen wrote: [...]In order to play aggressively and harass, you need some kind of fallback defense or else the opposing player can just ignore the harass and roll over you. [...]
Quoting myself from the other thread: [...] The reason is that while I'm busying attacking his base with my army, he simply rushes straight into mine and can kill it faster since I have no units like the defiler or the lurker to help delay for my overlords that move slow as sin or my nydus worm that's leisurely pooping out a unit at a time.[...]
Saracen, I thought of an idea but I can't really test it since i'm at work. In this context you're describing, couldnt a few infestors (2-3) positioned at your base be able to delay at least reasonably an incoming attack by casting a few fungal growth in quick succession (I'm thinking 2 or 3 well placed Fungal growth, then re-cast after its 6 second duration should delay by 12-18 seconds the bulk of his army) But... is 12-18 seconds enough I think TLO, playing as Zerg, did something exactly like this once. It worked rather well. The thing is, TLO did use it to delay, but he wasn't harassing with his army or anything, he had his army camped at his expo, and he was fungal growthing the T's stuff to weaken it before the fight really.
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On August 04 2010 00:14 Chriamon wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 23:25 MythicalMage wrote:On August 03 2010 23:18 FTemplar wrote:On August 03 2010 10:29 Saracen wrote: [...]In order to play aggressively and harass, you need some kind of fallback defense or else the opposing player can just ignore the harass and roll over you. [...]
Quoting myself from the other thread: [...] The reason is that while I'm busying attacking his base with my army, he simply rushes straight into mine and can kill it faster since I have no units like the defiler or the lurker to help delay for my overlords that move slow as sin or my nydus worm that's leisurely pooping out a unit at a time.[...]
Saracen, I thought of an idea but I can't really test it since i'm at work. In this context you're describing, couldnt a few infestors (2-3) positioned at your base be able to delay at least reasonably an incoming attack by casting a few fungal growth in quick succession (I'm thinking 2 or 3 well placed Fungal growth, then re-cast after its 6 second duration should delay by 12-18 seconds the bulk of his army) But... is 12-18 seconds enough I think TLO, playing as Zerg, did something exactly like this once. It worked rather well. The thing is, TLO did use it to delay, but he wasn't harassing with his army or anything, he had his army camped at his expo, and he was fungal growthing the T's stuff to weaken it before the fight really. It's still really cool! XDD
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On August 03 2010 23:29 FTemplar wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 23:25 MythicalMage wrote:On August 03 2010 23:18 FTemplar wrote:On August 03 2010 10:29 Saracen wrote: [...]In order to play aggressively and harass, you need some kind of fallback defense or else the opposing player can just ignore the harass and roll over you. [...]
Quoting myself from the other thread: [...] The reason is that while I'm busying attacking his base with my army, he simply rushes straight into mine and can kill it faster since I have no units like the defiler or the lurker to help delay for my overlords that move slow as sin or my nydus worm that's leisurely pooping out a unit at a time.[...]
Saracen, I thought of an idea but I can't really test it since i'm at work. In this context you're describing, couldnt a few infestors (2-3) positioned at your base be able to delay at least reasonably an incoming attack by casting a few fungal growth in quick succession (I'm thinking 2 or 3 well placed Fungal growth, then re-cast after its 6 second duration should delay by 12-18 seconds the bulk of his army) But... is 12-18 seconds enough I think TLO, playing as Zerg, did something exactly like this once. It worked rather well. Oooo. Now i'm feeling all smart and stuff. This can be easily stopped by a few ghosts (2-3) positioned in front of the army to snipe the infestors. In all seriousness, spending so much gas (300-450) to delay a small portion of his army (think fungal AoE in comparison to terran unit size) for a few seconds isn't going to do much and will only weaken your standing army.
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Yeah, iirc, in the position TLO was in, he had the infestors, but his army was elsewhere or something and he was stalling. It's not a part of standard play, but it's another option, I guess.
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I think this is a very valid point for OP. And even fdsfdg whom I otherwise think post quite whiny threads.
Terran just have so many options to end the game throughout the early and mid game, and if it fails, Like 2 banshees built that killed 1-2 drones only, they still haven't lost by a long shot, they will get their 2nd and turtle to 200 food. When the final battle comes Z is still at a disadvantage in that fight. If T can get some marauders into our expansion like I watched a replay between mardow vs and3ad and snipe a vital tech or a hatch during the big fight then Z will have a hard hard time getting back into the game.
But Im still only lower diamond I do not expect to know more then most ppl here.
Z did win the KOTB. So Z has the potential. But it isn't that fun having to wait the entire game for opponent to attack and then hope you come out on top or that you can rebuild quick enough. I DO think that sheth or someone else that has more insight should post a detailed well analyzed post on blizz forums to get attention to this. I'm not saying nerf T or P or buff Z. But a few changes would be welcome so that we can somehow have the option to assault our opponents base. Either by giving us better defense or better ability to fight in chokes.
I'm not talking about early game cause obviously we need to be on the defensive here and we have our macro advantage and should be punished for using this to much and P and T should be able to punish us in many different ways. But once we reach late mid game and early end game drone production is almost irrelevant. At this point we need to be able to defend as the other races are, we need to be able to attack as the other races are. And BL and ultra is not good enough in this aspect. They are good enough to make that end 200/200 battle even though. But thats not my concern. We should be able to assault T or Ps base when we reach 200/200 having had superior macro whole game, but if we do this we give away the win. We must fight in the open or at our base / creep to win.
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I really have to wonder, though... against a really good Terran player who scouts actively and is reactive to your responses, how viable are Zerg options?
For example, one option is mutalisk harassment in an effort to contain the Terran to his natural. That's 200/200 for a spire which takes more than a minute to build, and then a hefty amount of gas -- they better do a lot of damage considering that, as a poster said above me, Terran can respond and fend them off using only minerals if he wants.
Burrowed roaches take a lot of resources as well -- movement speed upgrade, tunneling claws upgrade, the burrow upgrade itself... those are 3 different upgrades, at a total cost of 350/350, ostensibly to counter the siege mode upgrade of 100/100. That's a much bigger investment.
The same is probably true of using drops on the tank line (100/100 for speed, 200/200 for transport). Even if the cost of employing multiple options wasn't so prohibitive, most of these upgrades can't be done simultaneously. You're probably not on 3 bases yet, so you need to decide whether your hatcheries are researching burrow, making queens or overlord upgrades. Your roach warren can't get speed and burrow-move at the same time, so you need to prepare and choose your response far, far in advance.
You really only have the resources to employ one without slowing down your T3 and your third/fourth expansion. I've been using mutalisks for ease of use, but they're ultimately the least reliable because they fold to marines, turrets and thors. You can attack his economy but not his army.
Burrowed roaches can contain him until he gets a raven. Assuming he doesn't already have the tech for it, that might make the contain longer -- and roaches are useful as a main army unit too. However, it's risky -- one lucky scan and you're boned. Also, you can't harass him with it, so you can't slow down his economy. It's effectively the opposite of a muta opening.
I'd say the most reliable counter is banelings/roaches with overlord drops. It'll force him to build vikings, I guess? I've never had much success with it (again, I usually open mutalisk), but theoretically you could hit his army and his economy with it, so it could be a bigger threat.
If I've missed anything, let me know. I'm always open to expanding my toolbox, especially when it comes to countering mech.
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The problem with zerg is not that they cant push through terrans choke, and sc1 is irrelevant. Protoss could not do it in sc1 either and not only vs terran but vs zerg as well and they lived somehow. The fact that something is different from sc1 doesn't make it automatically bad or imbalanced.
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On August 04 2010 03:14 Cheerio wrote: The problem with zerg is not that they cant push through terrans choke, and sc1 is irrelevant. Protoss could not do it in sc1 either and not only vs terran but vs zerg as well and they lived somehow. The fact that something is different from sc1 doesn't make it automatically bad or imbalanced.
Protoss couldn't do it in sc1 and the matchup was even. Zerg COULD do it in sc1 and the matchup was even. Now Zerg can't do it. SC1 trends don't mean anything to SC2, but the comparison is there if you don't want to get into the detailed mechanics of why zerg can't do it now and what it means for the game. Fortunately the OP provided both the comparison and details of what it means to not be able to break a choke.
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Bah I get so annoying when people say "abuse immobility of the tech army". What immobility? On most maps the Terran player can defend 1-2 expansions and barely move his army. Actually attacking is just a few steps away..
I feel like half the imbalance is the map design. Open maps with larger distances to the expansions would make harassing much easier with a mobile army.
Another really annoying thing is how expensive it is to go for several tactics. If I want OL drop with banelings + burrow roaches + ling speed I will use forever to make an army to actually use it with. The curse of Zerg seems to be that they can make several units at a time, thus the tech is very expensive making the race inflexible.
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Sorry this post is a bit whiny but I just got so frustrated after watching day9s daily 157.
Another aspect i think is interesting is that if Z looses his army once its pretty much GG. But if terran or toss loose their attack once then they are still in the game cause they have their hard counters so if Z fails to adapt a 2nd time he might loose cause of this. T and P dictate the game so hard and Z has to adapt even if he is in a huge lead. T can get away with just having the wrong units since their defense is so good.
I think day9s latest daily is a perfect example of the arguments that are going around in this and defenders advantage thread.
Z has perfect unit composition to win the first battle. Marine, tank, medivac vs roach, baneling, muta. If it was the other way around T having perfect unit combo it would be GG. If T has such a simple unit mix I honestly think that the intended counters (to both marines and tanks - being roaches) should win much harder then it did this game. Now Z can adapt better and rebuild quicker so that is fair in a way. But what happens next is interesting Z is in a huge lead 4 (one gold) vs 2 bases. Not long after T takes his 3rd Z decides its time to act (cause he is 200/200) Again he has a good unit composition vs tanks and marines, ultras, lings roaches and a few few banelings. He managed to kill Ts 3rd (p fortress btw) but Z looses his entire army. In response T can just walk out and easily kill of Zs gold expo. Z tried to punish him for it but cause T walled of with engineering bays and creating a very narrow choke it punishes Z just as bad.
One could say that Z could have researched drop and speed but I do no think he would have ultras that early if he did and it wouldn't have mattered on the outcome cause the ultras did really help.
Day9s says what about nydus and BL and Z doesnt adapt. How does T adapt during all this - he doesnt he just turtles and does add some vikings? It just works anyway. T already have a reactor starport going - not fun for BL as we can see just a couple minutes later. Drops, nydus with a properly scouted defended base? NO chance. You can see Zs drop fails big. A nydus would have failed with units popping out 1 by 1. Maybe with multi dropping, multi nydus etc. But what would Z win on dropping the main that was mined out? Nothing.. Theres a choke to the natural, theres a choke to the 3rd, theres a choke to the 4th. Even if he could kill one base of (as he does more then once) it doesn't win him the game. The chokes just punish him way to hard.
What happens next? Funny. T can't move out cause he looses if Z attacks in open. Z can't attack cause he looses if he attacks. Z breaks in again, T kills off the attack and turtles again.
Z goes broke cause he wasted so many recourses trying to force his way in. T is left on 1 base. Z finally breaks this base with 1 ultra and queen transfuse.
Game goes on for 1 more hour. Why? Cause T flies off his base and Z cant reach it.
So it ends up being a draw......
How is this a good MU?
Z managed a draw after 2 hours. Wheres T has 20 different ways of winning before 10min.
I agree this game between morrow and inuh is epic. Its epicly shows how few options Z has and how hard it can be to end the game vs turtling T. Z playing really good busting in several times only manages a draw? I'm very skeptical that dropping earlier or nydus more would have helped. If you are of another opinion (like day9) please make a daily of that or post a replay of that where T turtles hard and slowly expands where Z manages to break T.
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Another aspect i think is interesting is that if Z looses his army once its pretty much GG. But if terran or toss loose their attack once then they are still in the game cause they have their hard counters so if Z fails to adapt a 2nd time he might loose cause of this. T and P dictate the game so hard and Z has to adapt even if he is in a huge lead. T can get away with just having the wrong units since their defense is so good.
This. If zerg lose their army then its usually gg. There is no sim city to run home to.
Zerg is very unforgiving.
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Yes that game was painfull to watch.
And in the end, even if it's balanced how is it "fun" in any way at all.
If I am laddering and I go up against a Terran who isn't terrible then either I lose very quickly to some early push or (see next paragraph)
And the games that I do win always, but always evolve into those really long games where I have had the advantage for ages but I just cannot break in. And I just have to go on for ages and if I screw up once for example desert oasis denying him an expo while he is dropping my main with like 4 medivacs he could even come back or draw the game out even longer.
And if I do something like a big doom-drop to early, and lose to much he just counterpushes and I lose, again..
And don't get me wrong, I like long drawn out macro-games, but then I would like it to be an actual game, not a game for 15mins, with another 15mins of the T just trying to hold on.
I even met this Terran on the ladder who was completely abusing this against Zerg, talked with him a bit, and his only gameplan was, make MMM with medivacs and tanks.
His whole plan was to just stay on one base, constantly do these big MMM drops while just putting tons of siege tanks up, then he would expand, get more siege tanks and MMM untill the zerg (wich happens a lot on the plat level) screwed up, wasted his army trying to break up and then he would just do one big push to end it. And yes this is lower-level play, but I bet that there is a progamer out there who does a similar style in some way, but less counterable, for example expo'ing a bit faster or doing a more traditional play with drops, but the same gameplan.
And I'm kinda glad that I'm not the only one who has this problem, because I had a ton of games where even after teching to ultra's I scout his army, and I just think, that is just impossible to break in any way, I'll just loose everything and he will counter, and then I just sat there scratching my head thinking of what on earth I could do except for waiting. (in the sense that it is a zerg problem and not just me sucking completely to find no way to break in)
And yes I have tried OL drops and nydus worms, in fact I use them in every game that goes past midgame, but because of all the forementioned problems (defense mechanism) and nydus just being easily countered, vikings and sensor towers, it's hard to make much happen with those.
And no I don't think that T should be nerfed, but Zerg should get some changes on what the OP mentioned imo.
Altough I guess the BL is supposed to fill that role, but it's again T3 and more then likely it will require a lot of gas into support corruptors against his vikings. (about the breaking in part)
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Each race plays differently.
If you don't like the way Zerg plays but like the way Terrans work, switch it up.
If you want aggressive rushes, play protoss. If you want to turtle up, play terran. If you want to macro, play zerg.
Edit: To point, complaining that one race isn't able to do X that another race can, is a lot like complaining that your Pepsi doesn't taste like Mountain Dew.
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On August 04 2010 04:22 chair wrote: Each race plays differently.
If you don't like the way Zerg plays but like the way Terrans work, switch it up.
If you want aggressive rushes, play protoss. If you want to turtle up, play terran. If you want to macro, play zerg.
Edit: To point, complaining that one race isn't able to do X that another race can, is a lot like complaining that your Pepsi doesn't taste like Mountain Dew.
But what do you do after you macro up? Sit and wait for P or T to move out? And if they dont then what?
As stated before Z had ways to break in in BW. But in Sc2 those options are very limited and pretty easy to counter. Especially for T
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Well they'll run out of resources eventually if they are true turtling.
If not, get creative?
Baneling bust, drops, nydus, etc.
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Well with that mindset, look at the last day 9 daily.
Do you really want to have most TvZ games to turn out like that?
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On August 04 2010 04:35 chair wrote: Well they'll run out of resources eventually if they are true turtling.
If not, get creative?
Baneling bust, drops, nydus, etc.
Look at that day9 daily then. There is drops, BLs, busting in and killing off expos.
T does run out of resources he got from his 4 bases eventually. (note that he only really had 2 bases at the time most of the game, but he managed to move his army and turtle a new base after loosing the old ones)
But so does Z that had 6 bases and 2 of them where gold. As it costed him so much to to break the T, Z ran out of resources about the same time.
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On August 04 2010 04:36 Icx wrote: Well with that mindset, look at the last day 9 daily.
Do you really want to have most TvZ games to turn out like that? Do I want games which are dynamic, interesting and more than just 200 army vs 200 army? Yes, I do.
However I'd also point out that the zerg player made some huge mistakes with his armies that made it take way longer than it should have.
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On August 04 2010 04:44 chair wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2010 04:36 Icx wrote: Well with that mindset, look at the last day 9 daily.
Do you really want to have most TvZ games to turn out like that? Do I want games which are dynamic, interesting and more than just 200 army vs 200 army? Yes, I do. However I'd also point out that the zerg player made some huge mistakes with his armies that made it take way longer than it should have.
Like what?
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On August 03 2010 20:33 RickDeckard wrote: One suggestion I have for Zerg players (I am a low level Terran player) is to try playing as Terran in 1v1. If Terran are unbeatable and you never lose, then you can go professional, and marry many beautiful wives. If you do lose, you might come up with some new tactics to try against Terran.
I'm not trying to defend imbalance, but why are you playing as a disadvantaged race? It's like picking Sonic in Super Smash Bros Brawl... why would you do that?
I agree with the general sentiment that Terran are probably at an advantage but I do plenty of losing to every race. Balancing is definitely in order. But if you nerf Terran, I'm going to be at the very bottom rung of players for sure. As I probably should be.
Because the Swarm has my Kerrigan and is forcing me to play Z. Jks aside, why does anybody do anything? It's cause they like a challenge, (at least i do). I mean, why on earth would you climb mt. Everest? you risk dying and can't exactly be fun. But ppls do it for bragging rights, blah blah blah.
In all honesty, I play Z cause I played SC:BW when I was 10 with "black sheep wall" on. Creep Tumours in sc2 and overlord placement and cheap lings in SC:BW gives me that feeling of security. That and did i mention the Swarm has my kerrigan? =D
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In my experience, missile turrets are the bane of Zerg harass. Effectively placed turrets (which are strictly mineral based) can deter all of the Zerg harass options, since they act as sight (nydus), anti-air (muta) and detectors (burrowed units). I often find that a Terran will put up excessive missile turrets after I begin my muta harass, which is perfectly fine for me. That means, that much fewer marines; however, turrets are only 1.5 the cost of marines, and they are MUCH better as AA than marines.
I think that the current state of ZvT is not as easy as "exploiting immobility" as commentators like Day9 suggest.
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On August 04 2010 04:45 Izzachar wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2010 04:44 chair wrote:On August 04 2010 04:36 Icx wrote: Well with that mindset, look at the last day 9 daily.
Do you really want to have most TvZ games to turn out like that? Do I want games which are dynamic, interesting and more than just 200 army vs 200 army? Yes, I do. However I'd also point out that the zerg player made some huge mistakes with his armies that made it take way longer than it should have. Like what?
Well if you watch the daily yourself Sean points many of them out during the cast himself.
One in particular i'd point out was at the 17-19 minute engagement. He sends a 2 prong attack blind at his opponent, with 2 ultras and zerglings at 5 tanks, and 3 ultras at a marine ball with medivacs. He then proceeds to attack the marineball instead of the siege tanks with the ultras, even the ones that proceeded towards the siege tanks in the first place.
Had he sent that force the other way around, 3 ultras towards the tanks and 2 ultras + banelings/zerglings at the bioball, he would have completely rolled that army with ultras to spare.
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On August 03 2010 10:47 zomgtossrush wrote:Me and my friend were talking about this issue just last week. Since Terrans have BC's which are the late game "omgrapetastic" option. In which you can make a few of.. Toss has a solo mothership with super "tech" advantages... What does zerg have? you could argue broodlords or ultras, but they dont have that "unique" characteristic that seperates them from the other 2 races. What if the zerg has something to expand their supply? Of course we could debate forever by how much, but lets just say...35? It feels very swarm like. It would solve alot of issues players have with the roach supply count and such. The only problem would be to figure out what that something would be. Something air? something unit? some building, like post-hive? Of course we didn't put TOO much thought into this, but thats what the forums(and you guys) can do for us
My problem is not exactly the comparison of Broodlords/Ultras to thier late game units. BL and Ultras are good at what they are made for.
The problem with the Zerg T3 though... is that they are required to have 1 or the other to successfully match the enemy armies, but they get their hive tech units LATER than the other races. Not only does the time to tech that far take longer, but we have to make a much larger and varied army which takes away from the resources that go in to teching. Even if we mass expand, it still takes longer because we have to saturate those expansions before it gives a substantial enough profit to make an army that could defend until ur T3 units and be able to afford enough of them to be effective. (which is related to how the OP mentions we have no defensive unit - we have to make an entire higher population, higher resource value, varied/researched/upgraded army to defend rather than a few key defensive units/structures to hold off the enemy long enough.
So long story short, we NEED our late game units to even put up a decent fight against their mid-to-late game army compositions, but have the hardest road to get there. Which kind of sucks, because it's not like Zerg surviving that long ensures an advantage - it only allows us to compete. If we're going to be at a disadvantage for a substantial timing period of the game, we should at least be at some sort of advantage if we survive long enough.
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On August 04 2010 04:52 chair wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2010 04:45 Izzachar wrote:On August 04 2010 04:44 chair wrote:On August 04 2010 04:36 Icx wrote: Well with that mindset, look at the last day 9 daily.
Do you really want to have most TvZ games to turn out like that? Do I want games which are dynamic, interesting and more than just 200 army vs 200 army? Yes, I do. However I'd also point out that the zerg player made some huge mistakes with his armies that made it take way longer than it should have. Like what? Well if you watch the daily yourself Sean points many of them out during the cast himself. One in particular i'd point out was at the 17-19 minute engagement. He sends a 2 prong attack blind at his opponent, with 2 ultras and zerglings at 5 tanks, and 3 ultras at a marine ball with medivacs. He then proceeds to attack the marineball instead of the siege tanks with the ultras, even the ones that proceeded towards the siege tanks in the first place. Had he sent that force the other way around, 3 ultras towards the tanks and 2 ultras + banelings/zerglings at the bioball, he would have completely rolled that army with ultras to spare.
so thats one micro misstake on Zs part for 5sec attacking the not optimal unit. I wouldn't call it "huge". He could have downed the tanks slightly faster but would also have killed less marines, maybe trading armies completely isntead. But the T could also had just built one more engineering bay there and moved tanks in range (just slightly more down) to attack units in range of the bays. He could also have plopped down 1 or 2 in front of his tanks making the attack from that angle even less effective. So that was a minor tweak T could have done as well simply turtling even more safely.
Care to give a few examples of huge mistakes the Z did?
Day9 says drop sooner. But either he had to drop without ultras then or wait a long time before being able to have both techs running. Its a lot of gas. I'm not sure he could have dropped efficiently that much sooner then he did.
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I am also getting very annoyed at the state of zerg. We spelled out the problems when we were in beta, but all they saw was the win/loss records apparently, and figured everything was fine and dandy.
When playing zerg right now, unless you baneling bust, everything feels like a delaying action/gamble. The entire game you get the least defence possible while macroing as hardcore as you can. The reason for this is that you are pretty much gauranteed to never be able to damage a good P or T going a standard build until very late game. Until you reach that 200/200 with 3-5k resources and 40+ larva sitting in wait, you don't want to engage, because you'll just lose. The other races though, have all sorts of timing windows, where they can power units and bust an unsuspecting zerg's defences. If the zerg player sees the timing push, he can get together the troops and has a 'decent' chance of fighting it off at an advantage. But if the zerg doesn't scout it he loses. If the zerg preps for a timing push that the other player isn't doing, then he is far behind where he needs to be in macro, and loses to the push that comes a bit later.
As the game gets more and more figured out I predict zerg win rates will decline more and more. P and T will find all of the different timing windows and ways they can punish zergs, that playing zerg will be a crapshoot where you need to make 5+ 50-50 choices correctly in a row or you lose.
The removal of lurkers + darkswarm + plague have caused zerg's defencive ability to be next to 0, which as stated extensively in the first page of this post, means zerg cannot be aggressive with their harass units, instead needing to mass up enough units to just survive.
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On August 04 2010 05:19 Izzachar wrote: Day9 says drop sooner. But either he had to drop without ultras then or wait a long time before being able to have both techs running. Its a lot of gas. I'm not sure he could have dropped efficiently that much sooner then he did.
Day9 said a lot of things that make no sense in that match. He said that Zerg needs to get more ranged units since all his units have range 3 or less (muta, roach, zerglings, ultra) - but that leaves Hydralisk and Broodlord.
The Zerg player DID build broodlords, but they're beaten so so easily by vikings that they didn't do nearly enough. Hydras would have melted to siege tanks and even marines as we all know. A hydra has the survivability of a marine with the maneuverability of a thor, it's retarded.
The Zerg also did a drop that was quickly spotted and punsihed, and Day9 said that if it were a nydus then it would have probably killed the terran. Drops are much much faster than nydus - if it was a nydus instead of a drop then Zerg would have lost the worm before it popped. That was a really stupid suggestion.
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Adding to the discussion on why zerg can't do anything substantial until the late or mid game is in part because of the creep mechanic. Creep is required to chase/retreat, if it isn't halfway to your opponents door step it's extremely hard to put on any pressure especially against a Terran player who has a defensive tank line.
Speedlings/Mutas are the only real options since nydus networks and OV drops cut into your army so much. Also, if a nydus network pops into your enemies base and dumps half your army into it and the nydus worm gets sniped by anything you automatically lose half your army. Overlord drops are extremely expensive and if the terran opponent has units in the right place at the right time most of your army is going to get sniped and you will probably be supply blocked. Speedlings are inexpensive money wise but to have a substantial amount of lings you will be spending excessive amounts of larvae. Mutalisks are the opposite, they are extremely expensive in tech and per muta when considering how effective mutas are against most units (they are very good at messing up stray vikings and banshees though).
Zerglings are too weak for anything besides run by's and its effectiveness is based mostly on luck. Roaches are decent but it's not that hard to out micro them due to their speed, range and susceptibility to +dmg to armored units (stalker, immortal, marauder etc) and air units. Hydras would be good hit and run units if creep covered the entire map but creep highways take time to build and can be stopped with detection if the opponent really wants to.
Personal Ramblings Inc.
The only time i've had effective early game harass is with almost all-in play on blistering sands when the opponent either tries to tech fast or spends money on static D. If they do either i can exploit the back door, the catch is if they want to do this to me it's a little more effective because i have to burn queen energy on creeping up my base or burning money on an extra queen and even then they can abuse front door back door switches to force fights at chokes where they have a decent advantage.
This can be fixed through maps but it doesn't help zergs bland unit compositions, I personally would love to have scourge patrolling my cliffs to snipe medivacs and banshees. Lurkers would also be useful in anti-cliffing because (hopefully) their spines can reach the entire cliff and nullify marines so I could come in with muta/scourge to fuck up the tank.
I really hate when terran use cliff abuse on LT because they can have a solid D while destroying my chances of getting a decent economy. Two medivacs One Tank and a 6+ marines with stim is very hard to break and have decent enough army to defend other attacks that usually follow.
I'm a mid-high diamond player and my games usually end with me sending Ultra/Ling to the slaughter (enemies choke) then rebuilding and repeating until I can break their D. Otherwise I tech broodlords and try to bait a fight in which my broodlords can fire from some semblance of safety.
Right now I like ZvP(love colossus immortal vs infester and fodder/dps fights), suck at ZvZ and grind ZvT (while down voting Kulas Ravine and praying for no LT).
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Great post, especially coming from someone as respected as Sheth.
Makes me wonder if T players know this... I see a lot pushing against me before 200/200 when they have sufficient turtle to just sit there.
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On August 04 2010 04:22 chair wrote: Each race plays differently.
If you don't like the way Zerg plays but like the way Terrans work, switch it up.
If you want aggressive rushes, play protoss. If you want to turtle up, play terran. If you want to macro, play zerg.
Edit: To point, complaining that one race isn't able to do X that another race can, is a lot like complaining that your Pepsi doesn't taste like Mountain Dew.
Mountain Dew is bottled and produced by Pepsi Co. International.
Same thing. Bad Analogy.
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my ZvT-mech games usually go like this:
I see they're playing terran, better FE and get some Zerglings with speed upgrade to counter helions, 2+ queens per base in case of banshee
I see they're going mech, i switch production to mass muta/ling forgoing everything else, once i have 20-30 muta (I know its a lot) I go in for the SOLE reason of killing his tanks + wall if i can, sacrificing the mutas
I run in the new hole with zerglings and try to surround his army concentrating on helions -> marines -> marauders -> thors
If I win the fight: go for SCVs wait for "gg" enjoy a sip of diet dr. pepper If I lose the fight before the mutas kills the tanks and make the hole: Grab another expansion, upgrade my air attack/speed rebuild and cry because it doesn't work the second time either.. If I lose the fight during the zergling phase: switch tech to broodlords/hydras, laugh when I go to their base again and see 3x the number of thors and marines enjoy a sip of diet dr. pepper because I don't need two hands to micro the battle
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I wonder, how do you not die in meanwhile? Since getting 20-30 muta takes a good amount of time.
And how do you actually manage to beat a composition of some marines/turrets/+-3 thors (since I guess that's about how many he would have if you wait for that amount of muta's).
I can't really see how your muta's would survive for a reasonable amount of time and getting counterpushed or just getting pushed while you are getting your muta's.
(and yes I'm sceptical, not going to say it's stupid, i'm asking these questions because I'm generally interested how this would work if terran scouts that (wich he will if he isn't terrible)).
Reps would be welcome.
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I actually play a similar style to what CowFu described. I am running high plat/low diamond so take the experience for what it's worth (so not quite top tier but some decent play, running around 90-100 useful APM if that matters).
Usually open with the 13-14 gas into 12-13 pool. Make drones until 14 or 15 again then 1 overlord before pool, get speed as pool pops and a queen shortly followed by 3 sets of lings. Note this is a baneling bust opening if I scout an easy bust on a small map.
After that, if it isn't steppes against a poor player, I make drones, take an expand and get my baneling nest late and a lair. Keep enough speedlings to stop hellion/reaper (6-10 is all) and if a bunch of marines show up, turn them into banelings and make some more lings.
When lair pops, spire and a bunch more lings (I do make drones throughout, this is a vague build order). Now the spire pops at about the time where the opponent could have banshees, so not worried about that either.
And here is the somewhat more clever part. As the enemy by now is either massing a bioball or teching (he loses if he goes air so let's say teching for thors and tanks) I have a rather flimsy army but the combination of banelings on creep (usually with burrow or speed) defending and muta harass tends to keep the enemy busy and avoid a perfect bioball timing (with the first few medivacs/vikings). If he does go 1 base bioball, I will often trade my expand for his main SCVs, this is because my banelings at the top of the ramp slow him down a lot and the 6-10 mutas in his base will annihilate any SCVs. This means that I win the game on macro a little later.
If the enemy is doing anything but a perfect bioball timing, I will hit him with harass and a baneling bust simultaneously. Usually the harass brings marines away from the wall while the banelings blow up the front. This bust is not meant to kill but it will usually supply lock and can delay some tech and hurt the econ. It also tends to prevent an expansion.
Around the time of that attack I go for my third (the second is somewhat saturated) far away from the opponent (in a 4 player map usually another main).
Now this is what I do and it has some success, the main problems being a player hard turtling and getting to thors a little earlier than my attack. At that point I need to switch (though I usually still get some economic damage in).
The basis of this plan is to use banelings to counter the early bioball and use a delayed baneling bust to get up their ramp (one advantage of a delayed baneling bust is that you can take 12-14 banelings if needed and break through a factory/barracks wall, though I prefer not to have to).
Another key here is to get supply depots as well as SCVs. Terrans often leave them on edges to gain sight or in their wall or behind the mineral line, so if the mutas take out 1 on the way in (or even just pop 2 rounds of attacks into a mineral line one) and the banelings/zerglings take out 2-3 more the opponent is usually badly supply blocked. This means you can spam out units for a quick follow up knowing he can't rebuild all his units fast and can't get all his SCVs back (another nice target is the tech lab for the same reason).
Anyways, I still think we have a problem, and that's the best I have been able to do. Not sure what it's worth at a higher level (it may die to better anti baneling micro or a better executed timing attack).
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Sheth, I agree in many ways but i think you should reconsider the ultralisk. I will try and find a replay of 10 ultralisks spanking 2 armies of gateway units and some robo units in a 2v2 that turned into a 2v1. Granted they were gateway units, but the Ultralisk's aoe damage effect in a wide ramp can be absolutely devastating.
Overall, an awesome analysis. thanks.
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I wouldn't say the ZvT matchup is imbalanced. It's just balanced weirdly.
Zerg has mobility and macro advantage (faster expansion, base saturation, and army production time), while Terran has better "blob-unit" strength and turtling ability, as well as more harassment options.
Because of this, it's a game of Terran harassing and building up the "death-ball" vs zerg expanding and teching to tier 3 quickly.
Terran has the advantage early game, but is forced to harass to contain the expanding zerg In the midgame it's pretty even as far as who has better aggressive capability. If either race loses their army without destroying the opposing army, he loses In the lategame, zerg has the advantage due to superior macro and mass broodlords/corrupters. Terran can't produce enough vikings to take air control, and even if he does zerg can just switch to mass roaches and win. The time cost of zerg rebuilding/tech switching is nil, while for Terran it's massive
Is zerg weak? No. Watch how Idra dominated TLO and QXC in the KotB tournament (both very solid terran players. I would've loved to see Idra vs IntoTheRainbow in the finals too).
Is the matchup boring for zerg? Yes. But that's just the flavor of the race: macro macro macro, win in tier 3. I do think zerg still has harassment options. Baneling bombing or doom dropping. Mutalisks are also devastating as a containment unit, not a harassing unit.
Stopping terran harass is relatively simple. Roaches counter both hellions and reapers, while 2 queens at each base stop any air threat. Once you get mutalisks, terran can't harass at all, but instead has to make riskier timing pushes.
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On August 03 2010 14:00 Calamity wrote: BTW, has any zerg tried a quick tech to drops? Maybe using lings and roaches and drop into the Terran's main as early as possible. Medivacs drops are devastating sometimes and i'm just wondering if zerg could pull it off with similar effects.
Medivacs don't cost gas and are right in the middle of the techpath.
Investing in drops, costs 300/300 and quite a long time of research (even longer if you only have one hatch). Thats a lot of money in the early game (spire and a muta, 6 hydras or 12 roaches worth of gas) to spend in transportation. Once you have the carriers, you lack the army to drop.
Zerling drops are a good harrass to a open mineral line, but by no means are a way to break an entrenched position.
And if you get attacked while you are 300gas worth of army behind, against a terran with sieged tanks, you have no way to break it. And if they come with a bioball with medivacs, is the same, because after the clash of armies, they heal. And even then, with their mobile army, your drops are even less effective.
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I am a low-level Zerg player, and I lost a game to a friend when he was Terran (his second-best). Afterward, I noticed that I had more workers, a few expansions over him, but couldn't do anything. Missile Turrets nullified ninja-roach plays, he had his supply depots spread out to spot Nydus and Vikings to snipe any Overlords when they tried to scout. I had no clue what he was doing and he could scan at will. His tanks stopped any push. I was maxed-out long before him, but couldn't do anything. I had to wait for him to leave his base. Long story short, Forced to play passively and got roflstomped when I was a few seconds to late on the push.
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It's been months since all top Zergs player and the Zerg community are pointing the obvious imbalance and problems the race have. 3 months beta and the answer we got is that the match making system will allow you to get a 50/50 ratio against all match ups, it's coded for it.
We don't want a 50/50 ratio, we want to stand the same chances in a equal lvl game, and specially have equally hard and taxing macro mechanics. In tournaments no one cares about the 50/50 ratio in match making. Same goes when a terran with 50 less food can decimate you'r 200 food army ..
I'm really pissed at Zerg as a race, specially because i love the race. Right now the ZvZ match up is like playing coin flips. Never played something so boring, and so disgusting as this match up in the actual state of the game. Each time my opponent is a zerg, i just lose all will to play and go for the obliged ''baneling bust'' into muta brain dead cookie cutter strat. Sometimes i go roach or something innovative, and it fails to a baneling bust and i just get pissed and tell to myself stop trying to do something else, banelings works the best, keep at it, even if it's retarded and stupid.
I really hope the race get a fix ...
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I just wish ppl stop comparing SC2 to SC1
tanks, archons, storms, reavers, firebats... AOE worked different while zerg was swarm race
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On August 04 2010 05:19 Izzachar wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2010 04:52 chair wrote:On August 04 2010 04:45 Izzachar wrote:On August 04 2010 04:44 chair wrote:On August 04 2010 04:36 Icx wrote: Well with that mindset, look at the last day 9 daily.
Do you really want to have most TvZ games to turn out like that? Do I want games which are dynamic, interesting and more than just 200 army vs 200 army? Yes, I do. However I'd also point out that the zerg player made some huge mistakes with his armies that made it take way longer than it should have. Like what? Well if you watch the daily yourself Sean points many of them out during the cast himself. One in particular i'd point out was at the 17-19 minute engagement. He sends a 2 prong attack blind at his opponent, with 2 ultras and zerglings at 5 tanks, and 3 ultras at a marine ball with medivacs. He then proceeds to attack the marineball instead of the siege tanks with the ultras, even the ones that proceeded towards the siege tanks in the first place. Had he sent that force the other way around, 3 ultras towards the tanks and 2 ultras + banelings/zerglings at the bioball, he would have completely rolled that army with ultras to spare. so thats one micro misstake on Zs part for 5sec attacking the not optimal unit. I wouldn't call it "huge". He could have downed the tanks slightly faster but would also have killed less marines, maybe trading armies completely isntead. But the T could also had just built one more engineering bay there and moved tanks in range (just slightly more down) to attack units in range of the bays. He could also have plopped down 1 or 2 in front of his tanks making the attack from that angle even less effective. So that was a minor tweak T could have done as well simply turtling even more safely. Care to give a few examples of huge mistakes the Z did? .
Games can be won or lost on one small micro mistake. I remember pointing this out to a protoss player in 1v1 when he turned around at the last second to his ramp to snipe a low hp unit of mine... and I was able to FF him out of his base. That very small mistake cost him the game.
This, however, is not a small mistake. Choosing not to target armored units when they are right next to your armor killing unit is not a small mistake, it's a lapse in attention. Hitting those marines cost his ultra's 50% dps, or more considering they were being healed by medivacs. Sending him banelings into the middle of a siege storm cost them to be incinerated - complete waste of units.
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On August 03 2010 14:30 Saracen wrote: If this is Blizzard's mentality, then it's terrible. SC2 was meant to be a standalone game. The fact that they're holding off the next expansion for 18 months attests to this. Are we really supposed to wait 18 months before Blizzard starts "tweaking numbers" again?
i'm pretty sure they said there'd be at least a couple balance patches most likely between now and the expansion.
it's obviously not blizzard's mentality to release an uncompetitive game and wait 2 years or 4 years to make it the real thing out of spite or whatever, and i don't think anyone is trying to argue that. it just helps to keep some perspective on the state of sc1 at this stage in its life.
i actually totally agree with most of what's being said in here about zerg - we have a serious handicap against terran right now. some of it might be adaptable with strategies and tactics but zerg is definitely the reactive one in that match-up. i don't feel nearly as bullied playing against p or z.
but hey look at it this way - if you can win your matches with a handicap you're just that much more of a bad ass.
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[QUOTE]On August 04 2010 06:18 gREIFOCs wrote: [QUOTE]On August 03 2010 14:00 Calamity wrote: BTW, has any zerg tried a quick tech to drops? Maybe using lings and roaches and drop into the Terran's main as early as possible. Medivacs drops are devastating sometimes and i'm just wondering if zerg could pull it off with similar effects.[/QUOTE]
Medivacs don't cost gas and are right in the middle of the techpath. .[/QUOTE
Come again? They cost 100/100
[QUOTE] Investing in drops, costs 300/300 and quite a long time of research (even longer if you only have one hatch). Thats a lot of money in the early game (spire and a muta, 6 hydras or 12 roaches worth of gas) to spend in transportation. Once you have the carriers, you lack the army to drop.
.[/QUOTE]
300/300 to transform all my supply depots into dropships, I don't really mind
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Still, Sensor Towers and Terran's ability to win base races make doom drops not viable.
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On August 04 2010 07:23 chair wrote: .
Games can be won or lost on one small micro mistake. I remember pointing this out to a protoss player in 1v1 when he turned around at the last second to his ramp to snipe a low hp unit of mine... and I was able to FF him out of his base. That very small mistake cost him the game.
This, however, is not a small mistake. Choosing not to target armored units when they are right next to your armor killing unit is not a small mistake, it's a lapse in attention. Hitting those marines cost his ultra's 50% dps, or more considering they were being healed by medivacs. Sending him banelings into the middle of a siege storm cost them to be incinerated - complete waste of units. [/QUOTE]
Well the banes got owned cause they tried engaging a T in defensive position which is what this whole thread is about.
Considering all the small changes T could have done to his play that I mentioned that would stop the aggression at that point in the game even harder. The T could also had his marines surround his tanks as a meat shield. A small micro difference there that would have made the outcome the same.
The Z could have targeted those tanks a little bit sooner, but the T could also had his marines act as meat shields for his tanks. He could have split his marines up to reduce the ultras dps etc etc. A lot of ifs and buts. The T made a lot of sloppy mistakes himself, like the things I mentioned and like having his tanks clumped up so if ultras had gone into range they would all die at the same time. But it still didn't cost him the game. Your argument here so far consist about 1-2 ultras focusing the wrong unit for 5 sec in a 2 hour game as something that could have ended the game differently.
I'm sorry but is that all you got? Does Z winning or loosing games against a turtling opponent come down to flawless micro on Zs part in order to be able to win? One mistake should turn that 2 hour effort into nothing? While T can sit there and wait for Z to do his perfect assault on his base.
Comparing that to FFing a ramp is not nearly the same. You can make yourself vulnerable to that way ahead in time by planning not to simply have a fight against P at your choke if he is sentry heavy. If you have a 2 gold base advantage over opponent a FF at a choke wont exactly win you the game.
While micro should be important. Requiring zerg to drop at the same time as they nydus at the same time as they feint attack the front at the same time as they should make all their units target their proper targets seems simply ridiculous. It can be done but compare it to the effort T has to make, tanks even have smart firing, no micro needed there. I'm not even saying that the MU is unbalanced. I'm saying its uninteresting and its very challenging for a Z to break a turtle T. Wheres turtling is much easier. And you get these games where no one wants to make a move.
A better question is why Z attacked at all? I think that was his biggest mistake. He could have just sat and wait for the T to move out. But the T would never as that would mean he would die. And it would result in a stalemate and thats why the MU is broken. Not that the turtle cannot be broken under very good circumstances and under very good micro or that its unbalanced. It promotes not being aggressive. I cant see that as something positive for either player or for spectators.
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cracklings+ultras absolutely devastate any army composition on open ground. I know that's not the issue at hand but I'm sure we'd see terrans saying zerg is op if every map had less chokes. As for attacking chokes, ultras wreck marauders and siege tanks and thors in most cases. Obviously if you send one up the terran's ramp at a time you'll lose badly but if you support about 4-5 of them with hydras and lings and maybe an infestor to immobilize the terran army your 200/200 group will probably win. Both TLO and Idra have proven this to be true.
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On August 04 2010 06:18 gREIFOCs wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 14:00 Calamity wrote: BTW, has any zerg tried a quick tech to drops? Maybe using lings and roaches and drop into the Terran's main as early as possible. Medivacs drops are devastating sometimes and i'm just wondering if zerg could pull it off with similar effects. Medivacs don't cost gas and are right in the middle of the techpath. Investing in drops, costs 300/300 and quite a long time of research (even longer if you only have one hatch). Thats a lot of money in the early game (spire and a muta, 6 hydras or 12 roaches worth of gas) to spend in transportation. Once you have the carriers, you lack the army to drop. Zerling drops are a good harrass to a open mineral line, but by no means are a way to break an entrenched position. And if you get attacked while you are 300gas worth of army behind, against a terran with sieged tanks, you have no way to break it. And if they come with a bioball with medivacs, is the same, because after the clash of armies, they heal. And even then, with their mobile army, your drops are even less effective.
Medivacs cost 100/100.
So for the cost of 3 medivacs you get probably ~10+ dropships and any additional dropships that z makes for supplies anyways don't cost gas.
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Where's the creep at in this replay? During the first major encounter (20 minutes in), there's no creep anywhere to help retreat and defend.
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The problem is that Zerg's advantage just doesn't exist. This idea of "quick reinforcement" is just null except for in 40 minute games.
In the rest of the games, that take 10-20 minutes, my units cost money just like yours. Being able to make more of them at once isn't an advantage when you're bottlenecked by resources, not larva.
To all of the Terran and Toss players that say 'try this tech or this tech.' We don't have the luxury of being able to block our choke for the first 10 minutes of the game. We are wide open. If you get scouted it's over. We don't get a Sentry that can just pause the game for 5 minutes. Or a supply depot that gates the choke.
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On August 04 2010 03:20 fdsdfg wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2010 03:14 Cheerio wrote: The problem with zerg is not that they cant push through terrans choke, and sc1 is irrelevant. Protoss could not do it in sc1 either and not only vs terran but vs zerg as well and they lived somehow. The fact that something is different from sc1 doesn't make it automatically bad or imbalanced. Protoss couldn't do it in sc1 and the matchup was even. Zerg COULD do it in sc1 and the matchup was even. Now Zerg can't do it. SC1 trends don't mean anything to SC2, but the comparison is there if you don't want to get into the detailed mechanics of why zerg can't do it now and what it means for the game. Fortunately the OP provided both the comparison and details of what it means to not be able to break a choke. Thats absolutly wrong. Protoss could push into a terran so i have no idea what your talking about.
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On August 04 2010 05:48 Icx wrote: I wonder, how do you not die in meanwhile? Since getting 20-30 muta takes a good amount of time.
And how do you actually manage to beat a composition of some marines/turrets/+-3 thors (since I guess that's about how many he would have if you wait for that amount of muta's).
I can't really see how your muta's would survive for a reasonable amount of time and getting counterpushed or just getting pushed while you are getting your muta's.
(and yes I'm sceptical, not going to say it's stupid, i'm asking these questions because I'm generally interested how this would work if terran scouts that (wich he will if he isn't terrible)).
Reps would be welcome.
sorry I couldn't reply sooner Icx, 20-30 mutas are there only to take out the tanks, they are a sacrifice and they will die. they should be able to kill the tanks though (they can't run away fast enough), and without the tanks the army is about 1/3 the usefulness against zerglings that it should be easy-stuff in cleanup. Try to attack the tanks furthest from the thors first.
the easiest way to not be scouted is to put your spire away from your main base (because that will be scanned), and put the rally point for the mutas off the edge of the map.
its not a perfect strat by any means, but its the only thing i've found that CAN crack the terran turtle.
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A lot of people keep saying, exploit immobility, Baneling, worms, drops, bust etc. etc.. All those points have been nullified. In my opinion we have to find practice partners and create the atmosphere and try something it works. I am going to theory craft right now I think this might be viable but I'm not sure. Okay so this is the setting you are on 4 bases he is on one or two walled off. You've reached 200 supply, at this point the Zerg should get every tech building and get a unit composition that has a hard counter. Make a few more hatches and a few more queens, power all your hatches to their max number of larva which is 20 I believe, around 8 hatcheries 8 x 20 = 160 larva, Now you attack with your unit composition be it mass Roach, Muta Ling bling, mass ling bling etc. etc. with all your extra tech structures you can quickly remake your army but remake it with a completely different composition and they should be moving out since you wasted your army, if not your primary army should have done some damage and your second also. Now just keep spawning larva at all times with your queens and remaking your army. With your attacks you could attack all their vikings with hydras, all their turrets with a drop busted their wall, now you just adapt to the damage you've done. With 3 bases fully saturated you have about 120 drones, so you might have to send them to their death and actually get a 200/200 army.
As for the people saying, the Zerg has to out macro their opponent or that's their game style. It might be but it shouldn't be the only thing that is viable, and the enemy shouldn't be able to make us play a certain style because it's the only one that works. In reality I'm in between feelings, because it's like any game if you give a game 5 years to evolve with no changes in balance it will become a different game, most likely 10 times harder for the person who hasn't played for 5 years. So I don't want to say it's balanced bad so much as I want to say it's ahead of it's time or Zerg is lagging behind.
Now I've been thinking about skill that may make the zerg more swarmy, some may be OP some might be UP but it's just off the top of my head.
A Hive tech research that makes Drones cost 0 food,
A Hive tech research that gives the Infestor or Overseer able to infest large amounts of units under 15-20% hp into inferior versions that:
a) On death turn into broodlings
b) get moved to your main cluster to heal, and you are able to extract primitive more dumbed downed units of that type at your hive. In theory you're larva will be able to -morph into changelings that can morph into the primitive version of the captured units, Overseers can still drop changelings that can scout or become the primitive units.
c) infest other units to become slower, or infested like them or a variety of other things.
d) move 20-50 infested units into a building such as a barracks, essentially making it a ticking time bomb once it hit's the right amount of infested units.
A Hive tech research that make Hydras and roaches become 1 food and a lot weaker but, on death they become 1-3 broodlings, or on death their blood forms a small pool of regeneration that slowly becomes creep, also heals your units standing over it, or a form of moon well.
A Hive tech that enables all units to move while burrowed.
-Laggy
p.s sorry about the long post , trying to pass time while the 2 hour game daily finishes buffering
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On August 04 2010 07:46 Pokedude1013 wrote: Come again? They cost 100/100
My bad.
On August 04 2010 07:46 Pokedude1013 wrote:300/300 to transform all my supply depots into dropships, I don't really mind
I think you are really used to being walled of with a few tanks defending. Zerg doesn't have that sense of security.
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Just a comment on the Day9 daily 157.
The zerg player should have busted earlier, he really didn't gain anything by waiting. Also, there is no good reason to use corruptors against vikings rather than mutas that I can see. The 20-25 corruptors he had could have been mutas and would have destroyed the vikings but then been able to kill siege tanks as well.
In that game the zerg player just needed to be more aggressive I think, I did notice a few supply depots off on the edges of the base (for LOS) that could have been picked off. Also, having a bunch of mutas means you can split them in half and, usually, a Terran will move most of his marines as a bunch so he will only be in 1 place (and you retreat from that place while doing damage in another). Turrets become less of an issue if you are running bunches of 15+ mutas (just kill them off in a hit or two). If you force thors that usually means less expanding, thors have big problems with surrounds and the Terran player can't spread out the tanks like he did in that game while using thors for anti air (because unlike vikings the thors can't respond to protect the other end of a tank like like the vikings do).
Note that mutas limiting line of sight (by killing off anything isolated and forcing the Terran to stack everything on his Thors/vikings) should theoretically make nydus more viable, but I have yet to make that work, so it's really just theory for now.
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On August 04 2010 10:19 crucial99 wrote: The problem is that Zerg's advantage just doesn't exist. This idea of "quick reinforcement" is just null except for in 40 minute games.
In the rest of the games, that take 10-20 minutes, my units cost money just like yours. Being able to make more of them at once isn't an advantage when you're bottlenecked by resources, not larva.
Actually I have found that in base hatch(es) and spamming zerglings does allow this reinforcement to work to our advantage. The one thing I found over beta was that speedlings will kill almost anything cost for cost, especially with a couple banelings to break walls. I also found that constant pressure drives Terran and Toss players nuts because they aren't used to being reactive.
This doesn't solve the problem but might be something to explore a little more (I have seen very little to do with in base hatcheries or mass zerglings in pro games). Notably given the 2 pop cost of roaches, those 20 early roaches could be 80 zerglings ready to run in which leaves way more gas for tech and gas heavy units (mutas, ultras, broodlords, infestors).
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On August 04 2010 12:42 Sixes wrote:
Actually I have found that in base hatch(es) and spamming zerglings does allow this reinforcement to work to our advantage. The one thing I found over beta was that speedlings will kill almost anything cost for cost, especially with a couple banelings to break walls. I also found that constant pressure drives Terran and Toss players nuts because they aren't used to being reactive.
This doesn't solve the problem but might be something to explore a little more (I have seen very little to do with in base hatcheries or mass zerglings in pro games). Notably given the 2 pop cost of roaches, those 20 early roaches could be 80 zerglings ready to run in which leaves way more gas for tech and gas heavy units (mutas, ultras, broodlords, infestors).
This is something I thought of last night after a loosing streak of like 10 games.
But why do we want/need to make a in base hatch when going mass zerglings?
For your zerglings to be the most effective they need a surround and if opponent pushes to your choke then its less then ideal circumstance to attack his army. Even with a few spines there both P and T can drop them quickly and you can't engage him in the choke cause a surround there is impossible. If they then get into your base its very easy to hug a wall and go for the mineral line again surround is not gonna happen.
His army having a perfect concave killing off your 1-2 spines at nat is on the other hand exactly what you want when attacking with zerglings, he is perfectly spread out at that point.
So getting that hatch at your natural simply seems to be a better solution.
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On August 04 2010 19:12 Izzachar wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2010 12:42 Sixes wrote:
Actually I have found that in base hatch(es) and spamming zerglings does allow this reinforcement to work to our advantage. The one thing I found over beta was that speedlings will kill almost anything cost for cost, especially with a couple banelings to break walls. I also found that constant pressure drives Terran and Toss players nuts because they aren't used to being reactive.
This doesn't solve the problem but might be something to explore a little more (I have seen very little to do with in base hatcheries or mass zerglings in pro games). Notably given the 2 pop cost of roaches, those 20 early roaches could be 80 zerglings ready to run in which leaves way more gas for tech and gas heavy units (mutas, ultras, broodlords, infestors). This is something I thought of last night after a loosing streak of like 10 games. But why do we want/need to make a in base hatch when going mass zerglings? For your zerglings to be the most effective they need a surround and if opponent pushes to your choke then its less then ideal circumstance to attack his army. Even with a few spines there both P and T can drop them quickly and you can't engage him in the choke cause a surround there is impossible. If they then get into your base its very easy to hug a wall and go for the mineral line again surround is not gonna happen. His army having a perfect concave killing off your 1-2 spines at nat is on the other hand exactly what you want when attacking with zerglings, he is perfectly spread out at that point. So getting that hatch at your natural simply seems to be a better solution.
Actually I meant in base hatch(es) as well as expands.
It could be my macro (I do occasionally miss a spawn larva timing) but I find when going for mass ling, 2-3 hatches for 2-3 expands just isn't enough. So I throw down a hatch or two extra. If you already run an extra couple queens (generally a good idea) you can start spamming larvae on the new hatch as well.
The main reason why I do this though is not because of my macro but because if I see thors/tank coming, I can choose to make my next 1000 minerals either 10 mutas or 40 lings (and keep the gas for later) to fix my composition on the fly.
Being able to build and rebuild mass ling on short notice just requires more larvae per resources than any other unit so I add one or two in base hatches on top of my normal expanding pattern. The timing of the in base hatch is usually just when I make mass muta and can't seem to get rid of minerals fast enough. I often end up dropping a third and an in base hatch in the main (while building up a ton of mutas).
Mass mutas take care of vikings very nicely, speedlings do take care of thors for cost (the thing is people rarely have the 120 zerglings for 6 thors) and banelings are the lovely rolly pollies of death against marines. In sufficient numbers zerglings also do decently against almost anything Terran has on the ground. Look at some pro replays (the most shocking example being the day9 daily 157) and just think "how many lings banelings and mutas could that be?". In that daily the player has 20 ish corruptors (that's 20 mutas and 40 zerglings), 6 ultras (12 more mutas and 24 more zerglings) 30 roaches (that's 30 banelings and 30 zerglings) 4 infestors (another 6 mutas) and some lings.
Now imagine for a second a spread out Terran (because he has 4 bases) and you sitting on 38 mutas. The guy's infrastructure and econ would just get ended. He needs 4 thors or 30 marines to stop your mutas, and you move massively faster than he does. The clever part is that pushing the zerg base, while generally a good idea, means running into the 94 lings and 30 banelings (with mutas in support quite quickly).
My point being that defending the counter can be done in the middle of the map rather than the home choke and lings are amazingly cost effective against anything Terran that isn't entrenched.
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Thats a fair point but investing in another hatchery and queen is 500minerals. Having 2 extra is 1k minerals you cant spend on army.
I do love speedlings and when you upgrade melee attack they melt things like crazy.
I'm loosing all games lately anyway so might as well experiment with this
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On August 04 2010 21:17 Izzachar wrote: Thats a fair point but investing in another hatchery and queen is 500minerals. Having 2 extra is 1k minerals you cant spend on army.
I do love speedlings and when you upgrade melee attack they melt things like crazy.
I'm loosing all games lately anyway so might as well experiment with this
Actually just 300, I usually have an extra queen or two around for anti air and creep, by this point they can go back to spawning.
Test it at some point if you like, very few things survive a giant swarm of lings (and the few things that do, like well positioned staggered siege tanks and mass hellions get destroyed by mutas). The other nice thing about mass muta is that you can break wall ins with them, when you hit 20-30 mutas they will eat through any front door in seconds letting the lings swarm in (and while you are there get any siege tanks present). The Terran player usually reacts to muta by putting up turrets and mass marines and the like so probably does not have 2-3 bunkers on the front door.
edit:edited previous post in a big way.
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Ah I see what you mean now.
Lets see if I can manage through the early game to actually test this out in full =)
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As an option to break the 200/200 issues, has anyone ever tried using spine crawlers as supplementary late game army... zero food. 200 hp... sounds like a cheap decent tank to me
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this is very true. I play X all the time in SC2, and I never EVER attack a fully defended terran base. I just scout macro and expand the creep. I always wait for a terran to unseige, or a protoss to take his collosi off of the high ground, before doing any aggressive move. However, with superior flanks, nice positioning, and some nice neural parasites, I can take down an enemies force in seconds with extremely minimal losses. While zerg can't push late game, they can counter any push.
...Until planetary fortresses can be lifted off.(never? I certainly hope so...)
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On August 04 2010 21:52 Trainrunnef wrote: As an option to break the 200/200 issues, has anyone ever tried using spine crawlers as supplementary late game army... zero food. 200 hp... sounds like a cheap decent tank to me
It worked good untill they nerfed the time they need to bury.
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On August 04 2010 22:06 Batch wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2010 21:52 Trainrunnef wrote: As an option to break the 200/200 issues, has anyone ever tried using spine crawlers as supplementary late game army... zero food. 200 hp... sounds like a cheap decent tank to me
It worked good untill they nerfed the time they need to bury.
Yeah ^^this. The spine crawlers will die before they can get buried, or they'll get buried and won't be in range of anything. Plus you're sacrificing economy to build spine crawlers from drones, so it's more than just 100 minerals.
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well if you can do a few 5-6 spine crawlers they really take the attention away from the rest of your army yeah they will probably die quickly but they will also give you maybe 5 to 10 secs of free damage. I haven't tested it at all, went from toss to random and havent gotten zerg yet.
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On August 04 2010 22:14 Trainrunnef wrote: well if you can do a few 5-6 spine crawlers they really take the attention away from the rest of your army yeah they will probably die quickly but they will also give you maybe 5 to 10 secs of free damage. I haven't tested it at all, went from toss to random and havent gotten zerg yet. Instead of those 5-6 spine crawlers you could have 30-36 zerglings to make some damage. If at 200 then I still believe that suiciding 30 zerglings into an enemy expansion and then quickly rebuild them does more damage than the free damage recieved when the 5-6 spine crawlers are taking some damage. If resourced where unlimited then it might be a good idea to go offensive with mass spine crawlers.
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On August 04 2010 22:14 Trainrunnef wrote: well if you can do a few 5-6 spine crawlers they really take the attention away from the rest of your army yeah they will probably die quickly but they will also give you maybe 5 to 10 secs of free damage. I haven't tested it at all, went from toss to random and havent gotten zerg yet.
Instead of those 5-6 spine crawlers you could have 30-36 zerglings to make some damage. If at 200 then I still believe that suiciding 30 zerglings into an enemy expansion and then quickly rebuild them does more damage than the free damage recieved when the 5-6 spine crawlers are taking some damage. If resourced where unlimited then it might be a good idea to go offensive with mass spine crawlers.
your forgetting that this is happening at 200 food so 30 more zerglings are impossible
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Spine Crawlers work only on creep and take 12 seconds to burrow. Now before coming up with weird strats, take a moment and imagine how much damage those 6+ Collosi would be able to do in 12 seconds...
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Spine Crawlers work only on creep and take 12 seconds to burrow. Now before coming up with weird strats, take a moment and imagine how much damage those 6+ Collosi would be able to do in 12 seconds...
again its not about the crawlers doing damage its about them forcing the enemy to pay attention to something other than your broodlords and hydras while they take down your spine crawlers you can at the very least take down one of those collosi at no damage to your real army. cause lets face it. that spine crawler you built 3 mins into the game to fend off a rush really isn't doing anything useful 20 mins later... might as well make it work.
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If Terran turtles and I'm Protoss my only option is to harass or expand as well(or eventually go carriers). In fact I think it is harder to bust a 200/200 turtle with Protoss than with Zerg. At least Zerg has ultralisks and can do some tricky things with infestors. Colossus can't do much if vikings are around and HT melt to tank fire before they can do much in a choke battle.
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I find it a bit odd that in the "Massable, Swarm army" only 1 unit costs exactly 1 supply. The Drone.
Lings/blings = 0.5 supply Everything else 2+ supply.
I too am struggling as zerg.
I honestly don't know how IdrA does it to be honest. Props to him doing so well so consistently.
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2 units cost less than 1 supply though so that fits massable. I play mostly team games and the zerg players almost always have the most units made every game, they are still the mass race.
IdrA does it because he really understands the race while most people don't. They just have a higher skill cap.
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IdrA does it because he is an extremely good player with an extreme practice and polish to his game. Him winning KotB has nothing to do with Zerg as a race and everything to do to the fact that he is an excelent player.
Put two 70apm scrubs like me in a TvZ and the Zerg will get roflstomped
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I envision the Zerg as being something that starts out small and weak and eventually builds itself up into a huge and massive flood of organic death. The beginning and mid game seems to reflect that pretty well but the end game can leave something to be desired. I think that special super unit would help to round out the Zerg.
Ultralisks are very useful but they only serve to fill a gap in the Zerg's offensive capabilities (tanking damage). Roaches did serve that role as early tank in the beta before they were nerfed into oblivion. Nothing else really accomplishes that role as well as the Ultralisk but since they cannot respond to air units it is difficult to counter air superiority challenges.
Brood Lords are great glass cannons but their usefulness takes far too long to mature. They also don't really give a great sense of "OMG WHAT IS THAT?!" similar to BCs, Carriers or Motherships. Maybe if they were as fast as Corruptors... Wishful thinking I know. And once again, they cannot attack air units like BCs, Carriers and Motherships can.
I also think that Zerg's upgrades are lack luster. Here is a race that's whole existence hinges upon evolution and yet their evolutionary upgrades don't help much at all within a timely manner. Personally, I think that the good majority of zerg units should start out weak and become more useful and dangerous as they evolve throughout the game. Cheap units...expensive but useful upgrades....upgrades that give utility...not just DPS or Speed...at the right time in the game! Roaches have some nifty upgrades which exemplify this but their upgrades come too little too late. Burrow should be Tier 1 for example so Burrow-move can be researched immediately after the Lair comes out. Why don't we have more units with upgrades like that? Hydras get one upgrade for range. Why not give them a Tier 3 upgrade for something as well? What about Mutalisks? They can't morph into things anymore so why don't they get a Tier 3 side-grade?
Fewer units should have more utility. Gives us more upgrades! I'll pay the minerals/gas dangit!
Sorry this was so long...I guess I got carried away...
A turtling Terran or Protoss should be punished for waiting to kill a Zerg player. A Zerg army at 200/200 should be absolutely, ridiculously powerful (if fully upgraded). That's my take on it...
*sigh*
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yes but if you would go that way you would get these matchups where it is like:
Terran kills Zerg very easily early game, and zerg has a lot of trouble with it. But the zerg if he manages to hold on he totally runs over the terran.
How would that be a good idea? The terran is annoyed because he has no other option then to go all-in and try to win early because zerg would get to strong later on.
And then you would have zerg being annoyed that they die so easily every game in the early game and then just roflstomp over everything if they manage to survive.
hell, if you think about it, this is actually a bit how the matchup plays out a bit atm, with the difference that if the zerg manages to hold he doesn't automatically stomps all over the T, but can now start to really fight back instead of trying to survive.
I'd rather have less then that, altough there is always gonna be some points in the game where race X has an advantage over race Y, but from a balanced game I would expect that both races have roughly the same fighting strength troughout the game.
And more upgrades? no thanks, let us take a rough game.
Zerg already has so many expensive upgrades, ling speed, roach speed, hydra range, bling speed, burrow, overlord speed, overlord drop, melee attack, ground armor, ranged attack, the 2 flyer upgrades, nydus worms, roach burrow movement, ultra armor, etc.
I'm already very happy that there is no longer a roach carapace and ultra speed upgrade, but already troughout the game you have to make big choices and watch out with them, because for example overlord drop while getting roach speed and +1 is already a rather large investment in tech imo.
Or maybe there is place for more upgrades, but the problem is, troughout the game your so trying to hang on and trying to push out units to not die immediatly while trying to stay ahead in dronecount that it's sometimes hard to find good places to fit in those critical upgrades.
Because for example, that 300/300 in overlord drop could have been a good amount of roaches/banelings to keep me alive against that MMM push that is coming for my base,
or he went banshee's I had to get out a hydra den and some hydra's for his air and a detector. (since in my experience if you don't react to the first banshee he will just mass like 4-6 and rape you, queens are only enough to try to stall). But now I spent all that gas into that and I have to cut an upgrade or delay my burrow and roach burrow movement.
Maybe if zerg had better defense mechanism that I would change my opinion on this, but in the current state of zerg more upgrades is not a good idea imo.
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Perhaps upgrades isn't the best term. I'm thinking of ability upgrades which diversify a unit and allow greater flexibility during play. For example, when you change a zergling into a speedling you suddenly have a unit with greater capabilities than you did before. Yes, they are the same unit but now the utility is greater.
When roaches learn speed and burrowed movement they are a new unit of sorts. They have new viability and flexibility in battle.
Zerglings into Banelings is another great example. Hydras into Lurkers in SC1 was a great example. It gave utility to units that were useful for one portion of the game but need to change to keep up in later portions of the game.
This is what I mean by "upgrades". Change the unit without changing the concept of the unit. Why couldn't they do something like that for Hydras and Mutalisks as well?
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2 changes I'd make
Make the spawning pool optional i.e. allow zerg to build all the tier 1 buildings and the queen right off the bat. Exceptions being the baneling (nest as obviously you need lings for that) and spore crawlers (evo chamber) Give banelings an upgrade that will allow us to do more damage to armored units. "Corrosive goo" reduce armor by 1 (non-stacking)
Its armored units that ruin us. (IMO)
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I play P and I definitely agree with all that you've said about ZvT. I actually feel that perhaps ZvP may be a bit imbalanced (favoring P) because a P army with 2 robos pumping immortals/collossi feels pretty hard to deal with. It seems like Z has to do much more to conduct a successful attack and do some serious damage as opposed to the other two races.
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The Lair should have an ability to call down that pod of creep tumors and units like in the campaign.
But really, I just feel like against any diamond Terran it is their game to lose the whole time. They sit back behind a wall producing enough minerals to come at me with 5 different effective methods of harass while I am struggling to survive. Only to find out at 12 minutes that all of that harass really didn't cost them anything and they have an equal food count army to me composed of units that are straight up better than mine.
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On August 04 2010 23:07 Kronologic wrote: I find it a bit odd that in the "Massable, Swarm army" only 1 unit costs exactly 1 supply. The Drone.
Lings/blings = 0.5 supply Everything else 2+ supply.
I too am struggling as zerg.
I honestly don't know how IdrA does it to be honest. Props to him doing so well so consistently.
Check Idra vs Silver games and see how consistent his ZvT is. Not taking anything away from Silver though - he's a solid player. Idra didn't exactly get to play a lot of ZvT's in the KotB.
http://www.sc2rep.com/replays/show/id/150 http://www.sc2rep.com/replays/show/id/149
Zerg just seems really map/position dependant atm. On same maps you just don't get to play zerg "how it's meant to be played". Reaching the point in the game where you can afford constant dropping / Nydusing / massive tech switches doesn't happen too often.
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On August 05 2010 02:54 Kronologic wrote: 2 changes I'd make
Make the spawning pool optional i.e. allow zerg to build all the tier 1 buildings and the queen right off the bat. Exceptions being the baneling (nest as obviously you need lings for that) and spore crawlers (evo chamber) Give banelings an upgrade that will allow us to do more damage to armored units. "Corrosive goo" reduce armor by 1 (non-stacking)
Its armored units that ruin us. (IMO)
This would hardly change anything. We need Zerglings to deal with early harass. And 6 Roach Warren rushing someone might be overpowered.
Reducing armor by 1 hardly does anything. What are you trying to accomplish with these changes?
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You are aware that as a zerg player, defending is supposed to be your weak point right? You can produce units the quickest as well as produce the quickest units, you have the adaptability and ability to rebuild your forces of a 4 gate protoss player, you are the only race who can take an expansion at the beginning of the game and still hold off a rush. As for 10 of your units not being able to beat 10 enemy units of similar tech level. Four Lings 100m2s Zealot 100m2s 2 Marines100m2s Roach: 75m25g2s Stalker 125m50g2s Marauder 100m25g2s
10 roaches shouldn't beat 10 stalkers or 10 marauders, both of whom have a bonus against armored units given the cost difference.
4 zerglings will beat a zealot or 2 marines any day of the week, plus they have a speed upgrade that makes them amazing backstab units.
As for area effect, you have banelings and infestors. Both of which can devastate a group of units crammed together on a ramp.
Bottom line, if you are playing zerg, you shouldn't have to be playing defensively.
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I think old zerg from BW just with new queen would be much eazier and more fun to play. I am mid-top level diamond zerg player and I have just only one working build against every race and it's starting to be quite boring. And against terran I am forced going fast mutas every game before expansion not to preasure him like in BW but just to survive and not get killed by mass helions, mass reapers, 2-3 banchees or some sort of MM rush or tank with bunkers rush. It's so sick how many possibilities have terran. And I with my only one working build when I win around half games against top terrans just waiting when they find out counter for it. Actualy some of them already did...
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I just remember the good ol' days when nydus worms popped in 10 seconds, infestors came with neural parasite and it was indefinite, roaches had 2 armor, and both burrow and overlord movement upgrades were only 50/50.
Back in those days, we had options. Like i can see why neural parasite is no longer indefinite, but why the research upgrade? I think it'd also be safe to give roaches 2 armor again since they are now 2 supply, and the nydus worm popping faster would be huge for zerg.
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On August 05 2010 03:36 bobcat wrote: You are aware that as a zerg player, defending is supposed to be your weak point right? You can produce units the quickest as well as produce the quickest units, you have the adaptability and ability to rebuild your forces of a 4 gate protoss player, you are the only race who can take an expansion at the beginning of the game and still hold off a rush. As for 10 of your units not being able to beat 10 enemy units of similar tech level. Four Lings 100m2s Zealot 100m2s 2 Marines100m2s Roach: 75m25g2s Stalker 125m50g2s Marauder 100m25g2s
10 roaches shouldn't beat 10 stalkers or 10 marauders, both of whom have a bonus against armored units given the cost difference.
4 zerglings will beat a zealot or 2 marines any day of the week, plus they have a speed upgrade that makes them amazing backstab units.
As for area effect, you have banelings and infestors. Both of which can devastate a group of units crammed together on a ramp.
Bottom line, if you are playing zerg, you shouldn't have to be playing defensively.
Is that why both terran and protoss have better options for early pressure? Is that why so many people are talking about delaying the terran mid game so you can get to tier 3? I wouldn't call zerg a very aggressive race atm.
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On August 05 2010 01:48 General-Gouda wrote: I envision the Zerg as being something that starts out small and weak and eventually builds itself up into a huge and massive flood of organic death. The beginning and mid game seems to reflect that pretty well but the end game can leave something to be desired.
The race you are thinking of is called the protoss. Zerg are very strong early start that winds down as the game progresses due to increasing difficulty to micro manage as well as a lack of efficiency versus powerful late game protoss and terran units like siege tanks, colossuses, phoenixes and vikings. To compensate for this shortcoming in the common case that the zerg come up against a turtle, you are capable of expanding and fortifying expansions far more quickly than your opponents. Thus, with a constant resource advantage if you are able to keep your unspent resources low, you shouldn't have much trouble having more forces than your opponent, if you can position them well so that you aren't running head first into a wall of bullets and lazers you can take out a terran ball or a protoss force.
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On August 05 2010 03:58 bobcat wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2010 01:48 General-Gouda wrote: I envision the Zerg as being something that starts out small and weak and eventually builds itself up into a huge and massive flood of organic death. The beginning and mid game seems to reflect that pretty well but the end game can leave something to be desired.
The race you are thinking of is called the protoss. Zerg are very strong early start that winds down as the game progresses due to increasing difficulty to micro manage as well as a lack of efficiency versus powerful late game protoss and terran units like siege tanks, colossuses, phoenixes and vikings. To compensate for this shortcoming in the common case that the zerg come up against a turtle, you are capable of expanding and fortifying expansions far more quickly than your opponents. Thus, with a constant resource advantage if you are able to keep your unspent resources low, you shouldn't have much trouble having more forces than your opponent, if you can position them well so that you aren't running head first into a wall of bullets and lazers you can take out a terran ball or a protoss force.
A lack of a wall in for Zerg makes them weaker in my opinion. The need for Zerg to expand quickly makes them weaker in my opinion. Since you can't 1 base as long like Terran or Protoss can it means that the Zerg need to be aggressive in their expanding and Macro just to keep up.
That, coupled with a lack of diversity in their early harassment opportunities, makes Zerg weaker in the early game.
This is NOT to say that Zerg cannot defend themselves. Well placed spine crawlers and a ton of speedlings will crush just about anything. But the fact that the Zerg MUST put down static defense just to defend properly is where I take issue. Protoss and Terran can put down useful buildings that build units or that give supply and successfully defend against an attack. Zerg must sacrifice a drone to put down a building which does nothing but attack within a localized radius.
Now, if there was an easy way for the Zerg to wall in I'd reconsider but as of right now it costs too much and takes too much time for not that much gain. Zerg NEEDS to expand so walling in isn't that much of an option right now anyways.
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On August 05 2010 03 Whole wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2010 02:54 Kronologic wrote: 2 changes I'd make
Make the spawning pool optional i.e. allow zerg to build all the tier 1 buildings and the queen right off the bat. Exceptions being the baneling (nest as obviously you need lings for that) and spore crawlers (evo chamber) Give banelings an upgrade that will allow us to do more damage to armored units. "Corrosive goo" reduce armor by 1 (non-stacking)
Its armored units that ruin us. (IMO)
This would hardly change anything. We need Zerglings to deal with early harass. And 6 Roach Warren rushing someone might be overpowered. Reducing armor by 1 hardly does anything. What are you trying to accomplish with these changes? It would allow you to get your economy up faster, creep out further, static defenses out sooner. Roaches out sooner (to deal with Zealot rushes) It would give you more flexibility.
Roaches need gas so I can't see a 6 warren being that effective.
If I said "Removes all armor" then some one would say "omg imba"
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As a Zerg player, I was doing great countering mech until they nerfed infestors hard right after they nerfed roaches.. Hey, Zerg has 2 good counters to mech, lets nerf both. Screw that, take away having to upgrade for Neural parasite and everything can go back to being fair.
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On August 05 2010 03:58 bobcat wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2010 01:48 General-Gouda wrote: I envision the Zerg as being something that starts out small and weak and eventually builds itself up into a huge and massive flood of organic death. The beginning and mid game seems to reflect that pretty well but the end game can leave something to be desired.
The race you are thinking of is called the protoss. Zerg are very strong early start that winds down as the game progresses due to increasing difficulty to micro manage as well as a lack of efficiency versus powerful late game protoss and terran units like siege tanks, colossuses, phoenixes and vikings. To compensate for this shortcoming in the common case that the zerg come up against a turtle, you are capable of expanding and fortifying expansions far more quickly than your opponents. Thus, with a constant resource advantage if you are able to keep your unspent resources low, you shouldn't have much trouble having more forces than your opponent, if you can position them well so that you aren't running head first into a wall of bullets and lazers you can take out a terran ball or a protoss force. The race Bobcat is thinking about is Zerg, but the race he must be playing is... something else.
Zerg at the moment is really weak in terms of early game pressure if not going an all in build, think about how easy right now it is to wall in as Terran or throw down a Force Field.
Yes Zerg right now to compensate CAN indeed expand and aim for map control. But eventually you're going to have to push towards an enemy base. In my games in 200 vs 200 supply fights I BARELY come out on top. Consider this, if you're already capped on food, what good is an expansion?
Zerg right now also is riddled with a supply problem in my mind. They are forced to expand to keep up with enemy Fighter Production. But they must also pump out drones which continues to take up supply. Also consider that Zerg has only one 1 supply Fighter unit ( Lings.)
I agree with the OP's posts, Zerg seems to be missing some offensive utilities.
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This will probably come off as arrogant, but there are a few things I would change if I had a magical wand.
1.) Bring scourge back. They were excellent AA and they felt "swarmy," in true Zerg style. Half a dozen of those patrolling a base would be strong defensive deterrent against banshee or VR harass. 2.) Return Hydralisks to their former place of glory as a teir 1.5 tech. Both other races have a viable AA attacker below tech 2 (marines for T, stalkers for P), but Zerg has queen? That's hardly a comparison, as the queen is almost a defensive structure tied to the creep. 3.) in response to change #2, make roaches a viable teir 2 option. They are supposedly zerg "tanks," so make them an intermediary b/w zergling and ultra. Increase health, in-game cross-section (make them bigger), and buff attack against armor and/or buildings. As it stands, the ideal zerg answer to armor is the teir 3 ultra, which only applies in late game. The roach swap and buff to teir 2 would provide a legitimate mid-game answer. 4.) Another spellcaster, as Piski noted earlier. Preferably, one ability would be to spawn a small swarm of units and incite panic within the terran ball. Infested terrans don't match up to, say, two or three dozen bloodlings. 5.) Another creep tumor option. Instead of spawning an additional creep tumor, the creep tumor could hearken back to its days of creep colonies and transform into a defensive structure. I imagine it would be a one-tile thing with the attack and range of a hydralisk. Good to stop harasses and stall advancing enemies. This transformation would preclude another creep tumor forming, and could not be used if a creep tumor had been placed by it. 6.) Return Ensnare to queen. She could then slow down the harrassers that Zerg must spend so much time and effort to repel.
Okay, rant over. But that was needed to explain my zerg observations. The zerg appear to be the least adaptable race of the three. This is why many zerg builds end with, "And then see what the terrans do." Returning to point number 2 above, if the enemy decides to fast tech to air, both T and P already have a small mass of units to deal with the problem at the start of mid-game (marines and stalkers). The zerg, on the other hand, had better tech to hydras or mutas when the initial attack is blocked by a wall. The tech may not come in time.
When it comes to breaking a terran wall, the other two races have a tremoundous array of options. Terrans and protoss can actually attack while invisible, unlike burrowed units. The baneling can only do this defensively, and zerg are supposedly the aggressive race. The other species can surmount cliffs with reapers or blink, whereas zerg has no wallclimbing unit. We have drops and nydus, but the other races have drops too. Protoss have have warpgate/warp-prism, which is incredibly faster than nydus. Terran has no alternative to drop like nydus, but their air has the range to clear a path, however short lived. We have established that vs Z, no path needs to be cleared, as there is no legitimate static D.
Their ground units also have the range to attack without actually entering a base or using a ramp. This applies to terran marines, marauders, ghosts, reapers, vikings, siege, thor, BC, and banshees, while protoss has stalker, HT, Immortal, Collossus, VR, Carrier. Zerg has only Hydras and brood lords for this, as the short range of roach and muta is laughable as a melee substitute.
Overall, I think it needs to be said that NO ONE RACE SHOULD BE ADVANTAGED/DISADVANTAGED IN ANY OF EARLY, MID, OR LATE GAME. To summarize the last two pages, zerg is UP in early and mid-game.
Addressing Zerg mobility, that is a joke. The zerg have lings and mutas. As zerg, I constantly have to wait for the remainder of my forces to catch up to the zerglings. An army can only move as fast as its slowest member. Creep covering the attack route is not plausible until the lair. Another problem is that so many units are not viable until they have been upgraded. Who uses zerglings instead of speedlings? Banelings have little hope of breaking a tank wall without their speed upgrade either. If roaches are designed around burrow regeneration, why is burrow such a late tech? The units are not complete units without these upgrades.
Tech switching is also very difficult for the zerg. If a terran's reaper harass has failed, he has already teched to marauders. If his hellion harass is over, that's fine. It was "part of his regularly scheduled tech tree." If the banshee harass doesn't work out, it's okay, he's finished the tech tree. The protoss are not as easy to tech switch as the terrans, but better than the zerg. A robo facility opens three possibilities with no other buildings. The cyber core adds two to the gateway and is part of the regularly scheduled tech tree. For the zerg, they basically have a different tech building for every unit. They have to choose which direction they want to adapt, because vespene and time is too valuable to waste. If they choose wrong, they lose because the other race's units are so adaptable. Failed to scout that wall on the ramp? That's okay, the protoss mixed force can take the wall head-on, use HT and sentry abilities while blinking and collussus cliffwalking past the wall. If immortals are included, as is standard, the tanks can be killed easily. If T doesn't have detectors ready, DT will make short work of an unprepared force. The terrans can set up seige tanks or the ultimate wallbreaker, the Thor's 250mm ability. BC yamato's can take out buildings in a hit-and-run style, and cloaked banshees can be more destructive than even the DT. A ghost can nuke the d*** wall, and the MMM ball can brutalize the wall through equality of supply-force. (That is, the amount of punch you get at 200/200.)
For being so mobile and so "swarmy," the zerg units cost a lot of supply and don't have many options when faced with the unexpected. Scourge, noted above, address the supply issue somewhat, and the roach/hydra switch would go a long way into making zerg more adaptable between ground and air. Almost every P and T unit has a special ability, but most zerg attack units lack this (zergling, hydra, muta, ultra, even the roach's burrow-move must be researched). The ability to transform was a given considering SCBW and only serves to slow down the zerg force, having to take two steps to reach its usable composition.
As a final note, there should never be an iron-solid strat that cannot be beaten. I.e, if T goes tanks, P knows to go immortals or air. If P goes VR, T knows to mass marines or vikings. If T decides to wall up, there should be strategies for Zerg to break through if conducted coherently, as opposed to perfectly. Outmacroing by four times for even match is not legitimate balance. Zerg is UP.
So I lied, the rant was not over.
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On August 05 2010 03:58 bobcat wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2010 01:48 General-Gouda wrote: I envision the Zerg as being something that starts out small and weak and eventually builds itself up into a huge and massive flood of organic death. The beginning and mid game seems to reflect that pretty well but the end game can leave something to be desired.
The race you are thinking of is called the protoss. Zerg are very strong early start that winds down as the game progresses due to increasing difficulty to micro manage as well as a lack of efficiency versus powerful late game protoss and terran units like siege tanks, colossuses, phoenixes and vikings. To compensate for this shortcoming in the common case that the zerg come up against a turtle, you are capable of expanding and fortifying expansions far more quickly than your opponents. Thus, with a constant resource advantage if you are able to keep your unspent resources low, you shouldn't have much trouble having more forces than your opponent, if you can position them well so that you aren't running head first into a wall of bullets and lazers you can take out a terran ball or a protoss force.
This thread is full of shit.
Seriously what game are you playing?
Z strong early?
Lack efficiency late game?
Z has trouble mid game and needs a early macro advantage early game to handle that.
If we get to t3 its often all good thanks to ultra
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Heh I'm pretty sure the matchmaker only wants me to play Terran. Thats all I get. And its getting worse and worse. I think in the end I miss swarm the most, even back in SC1 it was killer for breaking a Terran turtle and pretty much essential for stopping a terran ball. I don't know it just feels like somethings missing in the match up... ZvZ is the same shit but different units (zerglings/muta/scourge sc1 to the roach/hydra spam of sc2)
ZvP is pretty much a one trick pony for me, survive the early aggression and counter with tons of mutas while pushing into the base with lings... where as in SC1 ZvP was one of the craziest mash up of units ever. Lings, Hydras, Mutas, Scourge, Ultras, Defilers, Lurkers.... like every important zerg unit, and toss was the same thing, tons and tons of varied units.
I pretty much gave up vs T in the beta after the nydus worm nerf, like that thing needed any nerf. its loud as shit and terrans and toss were already putting depots/pylons all over their base... why did they nerf it again? I feel like my best success vs Terran has been stopping their early aggression (which is already difficult, hard enough to scout their shit with your overlord showing up just in time to get merc'd by a marine) and then wait for them to move out and sandwich their army with a huge mix of units. I think hydra speed would help a lot, maybe a bonus to their defense vs splash damage.
Hopefully some pro is like here's how its done and we can just copy him.
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All would be solved with Dark Swarm
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On August 05 2010 04:47 Izzachar wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2010 03:58 bobcat wrote:On August 05 2010 01:48 General-Gouda wrote: I envision the Zerg as being something that starts out small and weak and eventually builds itself up into a huge and massive flood of organic death. The beginning and mid game seems to reflect that pretty well but the end game can leave something to be desired.
The race you are thinking of is called the protoss. Zerg are very strong early start that winds down as the game progresses due to increasing difficulty to micro manage as well as a lack of efficiency versus powerful late game protoss and terran units like siege tanks, colossuses, phoenixes and vikings. To compensate for this shortcoming in the common case that the zerg come up against a turtle, you are capable of expanding and fortifying expansions far more quickly than your opponents. Thus, with a constant resource advantage if you are able to keep your unspent resources low, you shouldn't have much trouble having more forces than your opponent, if you can position them well so that you aren't running head first into a wall of bullets and lazers you can take out a terran ball or a protoss force. This thread is full of shit. Seriously what game are you playing? Z strong early? Lack efficiency late game? Z has trouble mid game and needs a early macro advantage early game to handle that. If we get to t3 its often all good thanks to ultra
i lol'd but this man speaks the truth
I don't know how any competent zerg player can think Z is strong early game and weak late game.
Maybe you are playing agianst noobs who fall for bling bust every game, that is m only explanation
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On August 03 2010 12:00 Clockwerk wrote:+ Show Spoiler +I pretty strongly agree with the points made in this thread, although it seems to me that there are deeper design issues for the race as well. Zerg units are pretty damn bland. For a race that has a struggle is straight-up fights, one would expect to see units with diverse abilities that allow for tactics that can annoy/harm the enemy without needing to directly engage. But this is not so. The zerg have one primary caster, the infestor whose abilities do add some variety into the mix. However, aside form that there's only the queen whose abilities are macro oriented) and the overseer (whose abilities are to assist scouting and perhaps delay key buildings a slight amount). The rest of the zerg units are very straightforward attackers.
Terran on the other hand has a huge variety of flexible units. There are the vikings which have huge anti-air range and can land on the ground to reinforce or harass. The banshee is an air-to-ground attacker which is extremely useful if the enemy has no detection because it can cloak. Medivacs are both a dropship and medic in one. Reapers are fast ranged units that can jump over cliffs. Ravens are detectors that can cast powerful support abilities such as auto-turrets and seeker missles. Ghosts can cloak, snipe key units, and call down nuclear strikes. The list goes on but I hope this highlights the ridiculous fact that much of the terran army's vast variability hasn't even been explored because 1a2a can secure victory most of the time. Imagine when further strategies are explored!
Next lets look at the protoss. There are collosi which can fire over huge distances and ignore terran. Dark templar which are permanently cloaked and do huge damage, high templar that can cast huge psionic storms or deplete the enemy energy, phoenixes which can fire while moving and lift ground units into the air (rendering them ineffective for a decent duration), immortals which are great for tanking damage due to hardened shields, sentries which can create force fields to disrupt enemy attacks and block chokes, warp prisms which are both dropships and moving pylons (made even more devastating due to warp gates), stalkers which can blink, and of course the mothership with its mass cloaking and recall abilities.
Now let me reinforce these points with the fact that the zerg army has the fewest attacking units. Yes, the same race that has the least unit abilities and flexibility also has the fewest units that can be used in a fight. This, I think, is why so many zerg player are getting frustrated when people are telling us to "wait for the metagame to develop" and "explor more diverse strategies". The fact of the matter is that we havent been given much to work with in the first place. We are trying to explore more strategies and we are trying to develop new techniques, but it seems to me that our units have very little flexibility to work with and that saddens me. I love the concept of the zerg race but they lack the depth that I think they need to be viable.
I couldnt agree more!
This is exactly what I think. Just about 3-4 days after the beta startet and I played some games with every race I just wrote in another forum that I feel zerg isnt nearly finished yet.
And back there people acted like they do now "wait for the metagame to develop" and "explor more diverse strategies". Look where we are now... same discussion different day.
And this will hold on at least till the expansion comes out or a patch will bring a bunch of new stuff for the zergs what will never happen because blizzard had to admit that they where very lazy (or leaked in ideas, had no more time or whatever) in the zerg design process.
And to all the people saying "just play terran or protoss then" I realy considered this but I just like my little slimy monsters to much even though they make me loosing more then I should...
Keep those complaint posts coming so hopefully blizzard will hear us! (even though I think they are very aware of the fact zerg isnt nearly where they are suposed to be but cant/wont admit)
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Broodlords work out pretty well for defending tight areas, for example naturals on Lost Temple. You just need a decent number of Zerglings to deter any blinking stalkers in ZvP and you can easily afford to drop his main/harass knowing your bases are safe. Harassing gold minerals expoes with them on LT/scrap station is pretty nice too in ZvP. Although in ZvT I never usually fall back, instead I'm just competing for map control all game with muta/ling/baneling
Though these definitely aren't failsafe ways to defend tight chokes, I'd love to see some new defense mechanics introduced :D
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Look at the OgreEli vs XLorD replay from EPS qualifier. I think it was 200supply vs 200supply at the end battle. I won't spoil it for you but look what happens at the end battle. RAPE.
If you don't care about spoiler:
+ Show Spoiler +Xel'Naga caverns is pretty "spacey" map for battles so units with some micro can reach stuff more easily but still rape happened. There was a big unit mix by P. Some zealots, lots of stalkers, about 8 Immortals and 4 colossi. Zerg had about 11 Ultras and quite a number of Hydras. Maybe some zerglings. P army obliterated Z in 5 seconds. Immortals raped Ultras so bad that I was like "waaaaa" and colossi raped everything else. P lost like few units and Z all. Game over 2 minutes after. Now I am no pro so I won't speak what Eli could have done better, I am merely pointing out the last battle and how Ultras got raped vs a unit that isn't exactly end-game unit and still does tons of vs armored damage + in the hands of a player who will know how to do a proper focus fire. Maybe I'm wrong, but I never seen Ultras get raped so badly until this replay and I watch a lot of Zerg replays. So, Ultras? Just make lot of Immortals, shield them with meat wall and Ultras go to dust.
Another thing. Look here: http://rts-sanctuary.com/index.php?portal=SC2&showforum=331
Check out how many replays involves Zerg players.
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I think we can all agree that the amount of complaints from the Zerg players can not just simply be tucked under the "L2P Rug" and forgot about. If even players like IdrA and Sheth state that zerg has problems, I believe everyone should listen and try to get the message across.
Butthurt Terrans who come into threads like this and tell Z players to use more Nydus and other crap should not make claims that they fully understand the works of a race they did not have the time to master. Theorycrafting is nice, but at the end of the day the players with the most practice in the matter should have the last word.
I believe Team Liquid is doing a great job at making visible the valid concern of pro players and its in our best interest that their voices are heard and that the issues with the Zerg race are shown to Blizzard as fast as possible.
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I agree with Sheth, i'm at the point now where my zerg has to be X much better vs a terran and sometimes protoss just to give them a run for their money, so i have switched to random just cause i think zerg is underpowered.
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On August 05 2010 15:16 Spikeworld wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 12:00 Clockwerk wrote:+ Show Spoiler +I pretty strongly agree with the points made in this thread, although it seems to me that there are deeper design issues for the race as well. Zerg units are pretty damn bland. For a race that has a struggle is straight-up fights, one would expect to see units with diverse abilities that allow for tactics that can annoy/harm the enemy without needing to directly engage. But this is not so. The zerg have one primary caster, the infestor whose abilities do add some variety into the mix. However, aside form that there's only the queen whose abilities are macro oriented) and the overseer (whose abilities are to assist scouting and perhaps delay key buildings a slight amount). The rest of the zerg units are very straightforward attackers.
Terran on the other hand has a huge variety of flexible units. There are the vikings which have huge anti-air range and can land on the ground to reinforce or harass. The banshee is an air-to-ground attacker which is extremely useful if the enemy has no detection because it can cloak. Medivacs are both a dropship and medic in one. Reapers are fast ranged units that can jump over cliffs. Ravens are detectors that can cast powerful support abilities such as auto-turrets and seeker missles. Ghosts can cloak, snipe key units, and call down nuclear strikes. The list goes on but I hope this highlights the ridiculous fact that much of the terran army's vast variability hasn't even been explored because 1a2a can secure victory most of the time. Imagine when further strategies are explored!
Next lets look at the protoss. There are collosi which can fire over huge distances and ignore terran. Dark templar which are permanently cloaked and do huge damage, high templar that can cast huge psionic storms or deplete the enemy energy, phoenixes which can fire while moving and lift ground units into the air (rendering them ineffective for a decent duration), immortals which are great for tanking damage due to hardened shields, sentries which can create force fields to disrupt enemy attacks and block chokes, warp prisms which are both dropships and moving pylons (made even more devastating due to warp gates), stalkers which can blink, and of course the mothership with its mass cloaking and recall abilities.
Now let me reinforce these points with the fact that the zerg army has the fewest attacking units. Yes, the same race that has the least unit abilities and flexibility also has the fewest units that can be used in a fight. This, I think, is why so many zerg player are getting frustrated when people are telling us to "wait for the metagame to develop" and "explor more diverse strategies". The fact of the matter is that we havent been given much to work with in the first place. We are trying to explore more strategies and we are trying to develop new techniques, but it seems to me that our units have very little flexibility to work with and that saddens me. I love the concept of the zerg race but they lack the depth that I think they need to be viable. I couldnt agree more! This is exactly what I think. Just about 3-4 days after the beta startet and I played some games with every race I just wrote in another forum that I feel zerg isnt nearly finished yet. And back there people acted like they do now "wait for the metagame to develop" and "explor more diverse strategies". Look where we are now... same discussion different day. And this will hold on at least till the expansion comes out or a patch will bring a bunch of new stuff for the zergs what will never happen because blizzard had to admit that they where very lazy (or leaked in ideas, had no more time or whatever) in the zerg design process. And to all the people saying "just play terran or protoss then" I realy considered this but I just like my little slimy monsters to much even though they make me loosing more then I should... Keep those complaint posts coming so hopefully blizzard will hear us! (even though I think they are very aware of the fact zerg isnt nearly where they are suposed to be but cant/wont admit)
Both of these posts are very good - and I also want to express a lot of frustration Zerg players have had with creative strategies.
Zerg players got early roaches with burrow to sneak in and do heavy damage - burrowing to regen and popping up to attack. Roach burrowed movement speed was nerfed, regen heavily nerfed, armor nerfed. So that's not viable anymore. Remember battlereport 2 with the zerg in the Terran mineral line? No longer possible.
Infestors would engage and turn the tide of the battle with choice NPs. It was sometimes smart to build a bunch of infestors and NP a LOT of units to just chase away the rest of the opponent's units. Then NP was made 15 second duration and this was now completely unviable.
Zerg would sometimes surprise opponents with a nydus, but nydus got an extra 10 seconds to the build time.
Zerg loves to expand creep everywhere. Some folks started using overlord creep to help spread creep tumors faster, so the timer to create a new creep tumor was increased to make this impossible.
Zerg came up with a pretty creative strat where he moves forward with a bunch of queens to assist in battle - or cancelling a hatch to leave some creep, laying a tumor there, and putting spine crawlers outside the opponent's base. In response, Queens' movement speed was made absolute garbage off creep so this was no longer doable.
It takes the longest and most investment for Zerg to get drops, so anything you do to prepare for it vs T or P you don't need to do as well to prepare against Z.
Mutalisk harass was popular, especially with a corruptor to lock down static D, but then T got thor + missile turret buffs and P got phoenix buffs. Corruptor had its ability removed.
My point is that Zerg HAS been trying to do creative play, we've been trying it since day one - it's not like all the zerg players are idiots. We just never had many options to begin with, and the options we've had have been plucked from our hands while nobody else has lost a single harass/attack option. It's not hard to feel neglected.
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I just did some math, and I can definitely see some imba in these numbers. The following are the figures for fastest time to reach max tech for each race, that is, when all units become available on one base/command center. This model assumes infinite resources.
Terran: 235 seconds (rax+fac+star+fusion) Protoss: 290 seconds (pylon+gate+cyber+twilight+dark shrine (DT is the longest thing to tech to, surprisingly)) Zerg: 425 seconds (pool+lair+infest pit+hive+transport)
For the zerg model, add 100 more for burrow and 60 for pneumatized, bringing the one-base tech time to a whopping 585 seconds! The zerg have twice the tech time of the other two races, not to mention the difficulties in tech switching due to every tech building only allowing one or two new units to be built. Also, the zerg must conserve their very valuable gas for speed upgrades and waste 50 seconds producing a queen on the first base. This adds minutes onto the tech time of the zerg in-game. I cry imba!
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On August 05 2010 20:43 argie wrote:Look at the OgreEli vs XLorD replay from EPS qualifier. I think it was 200supply vs 200supply at the end battle. I won't spoil it for you but look what happens at the end battle. RAPE. If you don't care about spoiler: + Show Spoiler +Xel'Naga caverns is pretty "spacey" map for battles so units with some micro can reach stuff more easily but still rape happened. There was a big unit mix by P. Some zealots, lots of stalkers, about 8 Immortals and 4 colossi. Zerg had about 11 Ultras and quite a number of Hydras. Maybe some zerglings. P army obliterated Z in 5 seconds. Immortals raped Ultras so bad that I was like "waaaaa" and colossi raped everything else. P lost like few units and Z all. Game over 2 minutes after. Now I am no pro so I won't speak what Eli could have done better, I am merely pointing out the last battle and how Ultras got raped vs a unit that isn't exactly end-game unit and still does tons of vs armored damage + in the hands of a player who will know how to do a proper focus fire. Maybe I'm wrong, but I never seen Ultras get raped so badly until this replay and I watch a lot of Zerg replays. So, Ultras? Just make lot of Immortals, shield them with meat wall and Ultras go to dust. Another thing. Look here: http://rts-sanctuary.com/index.php?portal=SC2&showforum=331Check out how many replays involves Zerg players.
Eli lost that game cause he refused to tech switch out of ultras, even after he saw huge numbers of immortals he still went for it and even attacked. Immortals are supposed to hard counter ultras and they do that very nicely. And thats what you saw in this game and a Z failing to adapt.
A 200/200 investment in a spire, or 350/350 in greater spire is not much at all that late in the game and is way more worth it then 1 new ultra.
I'm not saying I'm better myself but it doesn't exactly take an expert to see what went wrong in that game
I feel ZvP is a very balanced and fun MU
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Did some more math, Zerg definitely got the short end of the stick in SC2. The same formulas applied in SC1:
T: 330 (rax+fac+star+science+phys lab) P: 280 (pylon+gate+cyber+stargate+fleet) Z: 520 (pool+lair+Q nest+hive+ventral)
If the zerg time was scaled down in proportion to the new terran tech time, the 425 number two posts up should actually be 370, or 340 if you discount transport research (520/330 *235 =370 or 480/330 *235 =340, subtracted 40 numerator for the difference b/w ventral and greater spire). Relatively speaking, the Zerg must hold out much longer than they used to against the other two races before reaching maximum tech.
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On August 06 2010 03:30 fdsdfg wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2010 15:16 Spikeworld wrote:On August 03 2010 12:00 Clockwerk wrote:+ Show Spoiler +I pretty strongly agree with the points made in this thread, although it seems to me that there are deeper design issues for the race as well. Zerg units are pretty damn bland. For a race that has a struggle is straight-up fights, one would expect to see units with diverse abilities that allow for tactics that can annoy/harm the enemy without needing to directly engage. But this is not so. The zerg have one primary caster, the infestor whose abilities do add some variety into the mix. However, aside form that there's only the queen whose abilities are macro oriented) and the overseer (whose abilities are to assist scouting and perhaps delay key buildings a slight amount). The rest of the zerg units are very straightforward attackers.
Terran on the other hand has a huge variety of flexible units. There are the vikings which have huge anti-air range and can land on the ground to reinforce or harass. The banshee is an air-to-ground attacker which is extremely useful if the enemy has no detection because it can cloak. Medivacs are both a dropship and medic in one. Reapers are fast ranged units that can jump over cliffs. Ravens are detectors that can cast powerful support abilities such as auto-turrets and seeker missles. Ghosts can cloak, snipe key units, and call down nuclear strikes. The list goes on but I hope this highlights the ridiculous fact that much of the terran army's vast variability hasn't even been explored because 1a2a can secure victory most of the time. Imagine when further strategies are explored!
Next lets look at the protoss. There are collosi which can fire over huge distances and ignore terran. Dark templar which are permanently cloaked and do huge damage, high templar that can cast huge psionic storms or deplete the enemy energy, phoenixes which can fire while moving and lift ground units into the air (rendering them ineffective for a decent duration), immortals which are great for tanking damage due to hardened shields, sentries which can create force fields to disrupt enemy attacks and block chokes, warp prisms which are both dropships and moving pylons (made even more devastating due to warp gates), stalkers which can blink, and of course the mothership with its mass cloaking and recall abilities.
Now let me reinforce these points with the fact that the zerg army has the fewest attacking units. Yes, the same race that has the least unit abilities and flexibility also has the fewest units that can be used in a fight. This, I think, is why so many zerg player are getting frustrated when people are telling us to "wait for the metagame to develop" and "explor more diverse strategies". The fact of the matter is that we havent been given much to work with in the first place. We are trying to explore more strategies and we are trying to develop new techniques, but it seems to me that our units have very little flexibility to work with and that saddens me. I love the concept of the zerg race but they lack the depth that I think they need to be viable. I couldnt agree more! This is exactly what I think. Just about 3-4 days after the beta startet and I played some games with every race I just wrote in another forum that I feel zerg isnt nearly finished yet. And back there people acted like they do now "wait for the metagame to develop" and "explor more diverse strategies". Look where we are now... same discussion different day. And this will hold on at least till the expansion comes out or a patch will bring a bunch of new stuff for the zergs what will never happen because blizzard had to admit that they where very lazy (or leaked in ideas, had no more time or whatever) in the zerg design process. And to all the people saying "just play terran or protoss then" I realy considered this but I just like my little slimy monsters to much even though they make me loosing more then I should... Keep those complaint posts coming so hopefully blizzard will hear us! (even though I think they are very aware of the fact zerg isnt nearly where they are suposed to be but cant/wont admit) Both of these posts are very good - and I also want to express a lot of frustration Zerg players have had with creative strategies. Zerg players got early roaches with burrow to sneak in and do heavy damage - burrowing to regen and popping up to attack. Roach burrowed movement speed was nerfed, regen heavily nerfed, armor nerfed. So that's not viable anymore. Remember battlereport 2 with the zerg in the Terran mineral line? No longer possible. Infestors would engage and turn the tide of the battle with choice NPs. It was sometimes smart to build a bunch of infestors and NP a LOT of units to just chase away the rest of the opponent's units. Then NP was made 15 second duration and this was now completely unviable. Zerg would sometimes surprise opponents with a nydus, but nydus got an extra 10 seconds to the build time. Zerg loves to expand creep everywhere. Some folks started using overlord creep to help spread creep tumors faster, so the timer to create a new creep tumor was increased to make this impossible. Zerg came up with a pretty creative strat where he moves forward with a bunch of queens to assist in battle - or cancelling a hatch to leave some creep, laying a tumor there, and putting spine crawlers outside the opponent's base. In response, Queens' movement speed was made absolute garbage off creep so this was no longer doable. It takes the longest and most investment for Zerg to get drops, so anything you do to prepare for it vs T or P you don't need to do as well to prepare against Z. Mutalisk harass was popular, especially with a corruptor to lock down static D, but then T got thor + missile turret buffs and P got phoenix buffs. Corruptor had its ability removed. My point is that Zerg HAS been trying to do creative play, we've been trying it since day one - it's not like all the zerg players are idiots. We just never had many options to begin with, and the options we've had have been plucked from our hands while nobody else has lost a single harass/attack option. It's not hard to feel neglected.
This is pretty dead on. ONE zealot can kill a Nydus before it can spit anything out. So can ~10 workers even if you drop the nydus at the far end of the base. All P and Z have to do is build some pylons / depots around to counter it really and pay attention of course. I've still had success with the Nydus but it's pretty ridiculous in its current state.
Revamped Nydus (back to 10sec) and NP (~30sec) would help immensely at this point. Infestors are fragile enough as it is to warrant such a short NP timer.
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I'd actually go as far as to say that Blizzard had Zerg being optimal in BW, and the new units broke it. It seems to me they are desperately trying to make Roaches, Banelings, and Infestors viable and useful, but the problem is that the existence of these units have caused stability issues for Zerg. These two units existing means that they can't give us lurkers (fulfill similar role), can't give us hydras (roaches and banelings need to be Tier 1 apparently?), and can't give us defilers (infestors to replace defilers).
I'd think everyone in the Zerg community would be happy to just give us BW Zerg back (plus Queen macro mechanic), as I don't think Zerg can ever be perfectly balanced with these new units
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Do not worry fellow zerg players, in the end all will be good. I have faith in Blizzard straightening up the situation (mainly the maps)
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I kind of liked when neural parasite was insta-cast (not channeled) and only 50 energy. I could build a few infestors and spam it across a supporting army and kill the big units easily, then finish up as NP wore off.
As it is, another problem with NP is the "tentacle insertion time" or cast time... half the time my infestors die from the unit it's NPing while the tentacle is moving. It'd be a much cooler animation + much more easy to use if the tentacle "snapped" into units.
In terms of the "tech time" arguments, while I agree that it takes much longer to "get" to Ultras/Brood Lords, you'd never one-base that shit. That's not how Zerg works. Hatcheries are 100 minerals less than the other races' stuff for a reason. And... considering that you have another hatchery to research stuff at, you can't really take into account stuff like overlord drop, queens, and burrow. I do agree that Lair/Hive tech times should be looked at though... 80 seconds for Lair and 100 seconds for Hive seems excessive.
Zerg has seen some pretty excessive nerfing as well. The Nydus nerf was needed, but doubling the time was a little over the top. I'd say a nice happy medium of 15 seconds would be fair and people would have plenty of time to see+kill it. Also... I'd really love the ability to cancel the damn thing. The increase in cost to burrow, overlord transport, and overlord speed also hurt a lot. I do laugh at how ridiculously strong roaches used to be though... and even after all the nerfs, they still hold up pretty well.
We'll just have to wait a bit for some real balance stuff... I still win plenty as Zerg in Diamond, so it's not impossible. It just is a little hard compared to 1a terran.
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On August 07 2010 01:46 TheSambassador wrote: I kind of liked when neural parasite was insta-cast (not channeled) and only 50 energy. I could build a few infestors and spam it across a supporting army and kill the big units easily, then finish up as NP wore off.
As it is, another problem with NP is the "tentacle insertion time" or cast time... half the time my infestors die from the unit it's NPing while the tentacle is moving. It'd be a much cooler animation + much more easy to use if the tentacle "snapped" into units.
In terms of the "tech time" arguments, while I agree that it takes much longer to "get" to Ultras/Brood Lords, you'd never one-base that shit. That's not how Zerg works. Hatcheries are 100 minerals less than the other races' stuff for a reason. And... considering that you have another hatchery to research stuff at, you can't really take into account stuff like overlord drop, queens, and burrow. I do agree that Lair/Hive tech times should be looked at though... 80 seconds for Lair and 100 seconds for Hive seems excessive.
Zerg has seen some pretty excessive nerfing as well. The Nydus nerf was needed, but doubling the time was a little over the top. I'd say a nice happy medium of 15 seconds would be fair and people would have plenty of time to see+kill it. Also... I'd really love the ability to cancel the damn thing. The increase in cost to burrow, overlord transport, and overlord speed also hurt a lot. I do laugh at how ridiculously strong roaches used to be though... and even after all the nerfs, they still hold up pretty well.
We'll just have to wait a bit for some real balance stuff... I still win plenty as Zerg in Diamond, so it's not impossible. It just is a little hard compared to 1a terran.
At the very least though you have: spawning pool (more expensive than the gateway or barracks in fact, so a little slower already) + queen (it's suicide to go lair before 1st queen) + lair + t2 building for tier 2 units. Compare this to barracks => factory => tech lab swap (so 5 secs max) and getting siege tanks ...
Thors, which are tier 3, come out before zerg tier 2 can and with about the same gas cost in tech (lair+100 for hydra or 200 for muta compared to 225 for a thor with factory armory tech lab). The problem is not so much that 1 unit but the fact that Terran can, by the time we get one of our tier 2 units, have access to any unit except the battlecruiser giving them 12 options to our 4-5. Add to that that they can wall off and spend 200 minerals on defense then scan with orbital while denying most scouting and it makes the matchup extremely difficult in the midgame.
Furthermore it is somewhat difficult for zerg to hide tech, between the relatively open ramps, the fact that we have to build on creep (though this can be put to the side) but more importantly that the Terran can scan the same building every time to know what tier we are at. If a Terran scans a lair, he knows damn well he doesn't have to deal with ultras or broodlords for a long time still.
A change I think would be sensible would be Nydus time to be diminished again or for Nydus to be burrowed until it pops (so cannons or turrets may work but supply depots and pylons would not). It is coming up so why not have it burrowed then it pops, if they have observers, ravens or well placed turrets they can see it, otherwise they get surprised. This also would somewhat allow zerg to force turrets even without a spire.
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For me, one of the biggest problems of zerg is their inability to scout effectively. This leaves zerg players anticipating all kinds of push/harass options, and makes it very difficult to deal with all of them.
The second problem I see are the costly overlord upgrades for speed, and the ability to become drop ships (especially this one) 200/200 is just too much. These upgrades are useful, and effective yet much more powerful tier 1 upgrades as stim and concussive shells are so much cheaper.
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On August 07 2010 00:49 AdonaiMSRT wrote: Did some more math, Zerg definitely got the short end of the stick in SC2. The same formulas applied in SC1:
T: 330 (rax+fac+star+science+phys lab) P: 280 (pylon+gate+cyber+stargate+fleet) Z: 520 (pool+lair+Q nest+hive+ventral)
If the zerg time was scaled down in proportion to the new terran tech time, the 425 number two posts up should actually be 370, or 340 if you discount transport research (520/330 *235 =370 or 480/330 *235 =340, subtracted 40 numerator for the difference b/w ventral and greater spire). Relatively speaking, the Zerg must hold out much longer than they used to against the other two races before reaching maximum tech.
I always thought that the only problem of Zerg in any matchup was that they're just teching waaaayyyy too slow. If you could actually get some Ultras out when the Terran does his T3 timing push it would be reasonably easy to counter these strats. It would also be way easier to defend those stupid Protoss 1-base-5gate cheeses if you could get to hydras just a little faster. At the moment it's basically always a fight of getting the perfect amount of spine crawlers out and a few lings to delay his push.
the problem is that the other races have many units available with one building, while we have buildings for each specific unit. and even then, we have to tech our main building (hatch/hive) just to enable these buildings. imo the building time of these should be made shorter to compensate.
Also, the ling speed upgrade needs way too long imo. We have to go special gas->pool builds before expanding just to be able to defend against reapers/hellions in time.
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On August 07 2010 02:56 heishe wrote: the problem is that the other races have many units available with one building, while we have buildings for each specific unit. and even then, we have to tech our main building (hatch/hive) just to enable these buildings. imo the building time of these should be made shorter to compensate.
I feel this too. If Terran gets a Rax with a Techlab, they unlock Reapers which rule over Light units, and Marauders which beat Armored.
Factory with a techlab, Siege tanks for armored, hellions for light, thors for mutalisks.
Zerg has heavy cost for all single-unit techs, plus they each have a neccesary upgrade that's never cheap. Roaches just need the speed for 100/100, Hydras need the 150/150 range, Ultras need the 150/150 armor, Zerglings need the 100/100 speed, Banelings pretty much need the 150/150 speed...
Protoss definitely feels this as well - with the exception of Cy Core and Stargate, each building only unlocks one army unit - and some things like Charge (needed to keep the unit viable) and Psi storm (needed in general) are just no-brainer upgrades that are 200/200.
Terran upgrades that are neccesary are reaper packs, conc shells (50/50), siege mode and stim (100/100). They also have the cheapest tech structures that unlock the most units each... so they get their entire pool of units (minus BC) accessible while Z and P decide which T2 unit they should pick. This ends up making T the best at switching tech and production to react to their opponent's composition. They just don't need that on top of having the best defensive options (and best harass... and best anti-harass).
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To play further off of what Day9 has been talking about, let's look at the "busting units" that allow you to punch through your opponents choke. I am only a platinum 1v1 player, but I spend a lot of time looking at a wide variety of analysis of high level play.
Protoss have the largest variety of options. During the early-mid game, Immortals allow you to do an insane amount of damage while tanking a fair bit of damage. It's a tier 2 unit that can be made very quickly and meshes very nicely with just about any composition. Void Rays, while normally used to attack the mineral line, also provide excellent support if your opponent has heavily fortified ground defenses at the expense of air defense. Like the immortal, it's pretty pricey, but it is a tier 2 unit that can be brought in to help before your opponent has assembled a massive force.
Moving into the late game, colossus really add some flexibility at t3 with their insane range and manuverability and carriers/mothership while not really used at the higher levels, are more than capable of serving in this capacity and we may see them incorporated into more and more builds as strategy evolves.
Terrans strength lies in their insane amount of splash damage. Tanks often make an early appearance at t2 and they can effectively shut down just about any ground force short of t3 aside from immortals if you have a fair amount of them. Missile turrets are the most effective base defense in terms of dps/mineral and the range upgrade lets them take out any air unit pretty effectively aside from brood lords and carriers. Adding some vikings or a thor or two into this mix can effectively eliminate the threat presented by any air unit due to their large range keeping them safe from ground forces.
The Zerg, however, only have Ultras/brood lords which are t3 units requiring an immense amount of time and resources to produce. Zerg have other options to run around these defenses in the early game, but the OP has done a great job of pointing out the weaknesses in these strategies. The fact that a zerg cannot truly take advantage of his larger resources to penetrate a well-defended base until the late game plays a huge part in the frustration felt by Zerg players in what feels like an uphill battle. Our inability to wall off means that the Zerg need to take initiative in order to control where the attack happens but our inability to attack our opponents' main allows them to dictate the pace of the game.
Giving the Zerg some type of terrain abuse (alla reapers or collossus) or some type of t2 threat (perhaps a later upgrade that allows banelings bonus damage to structures) could go a long way to balancing the game. Right now it is just too difficult to capitalize on immobility when a skeleton crew can be left to hold a base long enough for your opponents' main force to return.
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I don't understand why there aren't any pro-level players tinkering around with Nydus Network tactics. I've seen less than a handful of Diamond-level players even try to abuse them, but in all cases, the Zerg mobility (notably the unpredictable hit and run tactics) was too overwhelming to keep up with. My point is that the Nydus Network is a highly underutilized tool that should be explored a little deeper.
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On August 07 2010 16:12 OhJesusWOW wrote: I don't understand why there aren't any pro-level players tinkering around with Nydus Network tactics. I've seen less than a handful of Diamond-level players even try to abuse them, but in all cases, the Zerg mobility (notably the unpredictable hit and run tactics) was too overwhelming to keep up with. My point is that the Nydus Network is a highly underutilized tool that should be explored a little deeper.
It has been explored plenty deep - it has three serious issues:
1) Good opponents will keep pylons or supply depots on every edge of their base. Once a nydus starts, they have twenty seconds to do 200 damage to it. They can wait until it's halfway through and then send a single marauder on it, or pull 5 SCVs off mining to attack it, or maybe it'll get popped by a nearby siege tank immediately.
2) It takes 200 gas to build and 100 gas to build a worm. That's 300 gas on the gamble that your opponent is clueless enough to not do the above.
3) Units pour through one at a time. It seems like defensive nydus might be a good idea to bring troops across the map quickly, but in most cases it's slower than just walking. If it's in the opponent's base you just can't transport zerglings - they come out way too slowly.
It's not like pro players haven't explored it, they explored it and decided it wasn't very good - then it was nerfed.
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completely agree with Phrost. you don't have to attack through the choke point to kill them. there are just MANY MANY ways to harrass someone when they make a chokepoint and defend that chokepoint. that's why in pro games, yes they do block choke points, but they also really don't do it as much. if someone defends chokepoint, you can get multiple expos and that leads to mass broodlord/corruptors/infestors and that kills workers, messes with unit production, and many more~
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On August 07 2010 16:51 nahk4r wrote: completely agree with Phrost. you don't have to attack through the choke point to kill them. there are just MANY MANY ways to harrass someone when they make a chokepoint and defend that chokepoint. that's why in pro games, yes they do block choke points, but they also really don't do it as much. if someone defends chokepoint, you can get multiple expos and that leads to mass broodlord/corruptors/infestors and that kills workers, messes with unit production, and many more~
Read the OP
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ZvT was fine in the beta but then..the NP nerf.. In my opinion that's the main reason
Infestor isn't being used at all FG is nice against bio infested terrans are nice for harrass but that alone isn't worth the gas
Just my 2cent
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On August 07 2010 16:24 fdsdfg wrote: It has been explored plenty deep - it has three serious issues:
1) Good opponents will keep pylons or supply depots on every edge of their base. Once a nydus starts, they have twenty seconds to do 200 damage to it. They can wait until it's halfway through and then send a single marauder on it, or pull 5 SCVs off mining to attack it, or maybe it'll get popped by a nearby siege tank immediately.
2) It takes 200 gas to build and 100 gas to build a worm. That's 300 gas on the gamble that your opponent is clueless enough to not do the above.
3) Units pour through one at a time. It seems like defensive nydus might be a good idea to bring troops across the map quickly, but in most cases it's slower than just walking. If it's in the opponent's base you just can't transport zerglings - they come out way too slowly.
It's not like pro players haven't explored it, they explored it and decided it wasn't very good - then it was nerfed.
That is true. I actually meant utilizing the Nydus Network outside of the opponent's base as a means to quickly dodge and dip between expansions without compromising resources lost on units - 300 gas won't seem so bad if it offers your army they safety net. I've seen them used successfully like this way a few times (these are the matches I was referring to in my previous post), where the Zerg had his Network all over the map in random places. He was impressive. He used the network to transfer drones to his expos in seconds, likewise, he could evacuate his expansions just as fast when danger or loss was eminent. And most impressive, was the little things he would do with his queens, sending them in and out of the networks in between larva spawning to drop down creep tumors and slather the entire map with creep. I'm referring to one match in particular, and the entire thing seemed improvised, but it was still pretty damaging.
Anyways, I understand some of the set back and concerns are involved with worms, and I wish their build time was treated more like burrow (as in, a detector would be needed to see it until it sprouted), but alas, I hope someone finds a way to utilize them creatively.
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On August 03 2010 10:42 obsid wrote: Sad but true, this ends up causing the zerg player to mass expand, all over the place, get a 200/200 army, then wait till he has enough min/gas to replace his entire army then quickly attack/drop lose his entire force, and rebuild it 20 sec latter, and reattack. Only from the almost 400 food he can get from mass larva does he stand a chance at the end game (other then maybe broodlords). Really one of the only ways (other then maybe broodlords) of killing off a good turtling terran that can get 2/3 bases.
It's like you're saying exploiting weakness is not how you should win a game. There has to be an easy way to beat someone who turtles and is highly immobile instead of expanding, right?
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Is it really that bad? I mean I've read about this since beta, and I am a Terran player so I've been thinking a lot "bah, just overcome it, you probably haven't figured out the right way yet." But it seems it's still 'unbeatable' with a little skill to add.
I'm not going to try to play Zerg because I hate slime, but I have trouble understanding still why you couldn't bust Mech prior to it becoming 200/200.
I'm currently experementing with bio vs Zerg due to the instawin I get once I show a thor (Zerg players tend to get nervous and make loads of misstakes once you guys have realized I went Mech).
I feel that if I get interrupted while moving my army as Mech I get steamrolled by roaches that are burrowed smart even IF I have a raven, since lings/ultra/hydra or broodlord will attack me from another front.
I can't wait for the Koreans to start countering mech - it's not fun to jsut do hellion - thor - tank every TvZ I get :b
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Ah i finally read the OP from the beginning to the end word for word.
but my point still stands that... (well i haven't played zerg since sc1 but...) no zerg really harasses me until they get out a large large force on my choke point... i see that as a problem for the zerg not only because well zerg's units are much cheaper, and because once terran or protoss has a variety of units well.. it's much harder for zerg to kill them off.
also massive zerglings with their two upgrades in spawning pool is very very very strong
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On August 07 2010 19:05 mikkelinen wrote: Is it really that bad? I mean I've read about this since beta, and I am a Terran player so I've been thinking a lot "bah, just overcome it, you probably haven't figured out the right way yet." But it seems it's still 'unbeatable' with a little skill to add.
I'm not going to try to play Zerg because I hate slime, but I have trouble understanding still why you couldn't bust Mech prior to it becoming 200/200.
I'm currently experementing with bio vs Zerg due to the instawin I get once I show a thor (Zerg players tend to get nervous and make loads of misstakes once you guys have realized I went Mech).
I feel that if I get interrupted while moving my army as Mech I get steamrolled by roaches that are burrowed smart even IF I have a raven, since lings/ultra/hydra or broodlord will attack me from another front.
I can't wait for the Koreans to start countering mech - it's not fun to just do hellion - thor - tank every TvZ I get :b
Just had a ZvT that I actually won when the opponent went mech. I was on 4-5 bases to his 2 and still had to wait for him to move out for a third (I was sitting on 200/200 for 5 minutes knowing damn well that attacking would lose me the game). When he moved out I lost my 200/200 to kill most of his army (he had 4-5 tanks left) and won because I could remake 11 ultras and 60 zerglings instantly where he was locked to 2 bases and only remade a relatively small army.
Note that I still lost 7 of the second wave of ultras before getting through because he had a base full of buildings with siege tanks in the back (and surrounded by turrets so mutas weren't an option).
What it came down to at the end is that I had 6000 more resources lost, 9000 more gathered and a 3000 larger army when he gged with almost nothing left.
Note that in this game I did hit him with a delayed baneling bust and completely shut down his harassment (I think he dropped one of my bases and traded 2 medivacs and everyone in there for a hatch and 5-6 drones). I had him out-upgraded (I was 3-1-3 I believe to his 1 mech attack).
So using a theoretical counter (roach ling ultra vs thor/tank with a few marines hellions and marauders) in a relatively open space (open natural on Delta Quadrant, he was trying to expand to his natural as a 3rd, I had ultras from the right and left with ling and burrowed roaches hitting the front) with a much larger army, I still took 2 to 1 losses. In the meantime the turrets and wall in buildings (he had a wall 3 layers deep after my baneling bust) cost him no population. In fact where our turrets cost us 150 minerals and a larva, his cost 75 minerals and do extremely well against mutas.
Earlier I had an opponent apologize ... apparently his first Terran game (mid-diamond level toss player, I checked afterwards), he had just gone straight up thors on Xel Naga caverns, I had him contained, ran in 50 zerglings to the expansion and 10-15 mutas to the main (I was running 2 bases getting a 3rd up). I killed all (every single one) of his scvs. He took his thor/marine marauder medivac mix, hit 1a and annihilated every troop I had and my main and natural. The marines died to banelings, the marauders tanked a lot of lings and the thors just killed everything. He was still getting reinforcements because he had accidentally let his macro slip (first time Terran) and just made 4-5 mules and what scvs he could to keep up his econ.
I honestly have no idea what zerg can do against 4+thors together with minimal support. They seem to cost efficiently destroy everything except broodlords (and maybe ultras if the tank marauder count is low and they are out of position) and by the time broodlords pop they have viking support.
Maybe a Terran player can give us a solution that involves "I hope he doesn't scan my roach/ultra" or "I hope he just forgot to make vikings or attack before the late game".
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I had an hour long ZvT match today on that Xel'naga caverns map. I got the lead by getting a fairly quick expo while holding off his initial MM push, then got a 3rd up. I pushed on his natural when I just put down my 4th, with a ling hydra muta mix, but he had a PF, tanks and an ungodly amount of turrets. So naturally I mass expand and eventually take every other expo. I contain him until I tech up to Brood Lords. I then find out that it is just impossible to break a hard turtling Terran as Zerg. Brood Lords have 9.5 range while Vikings have 10 and Thors have 10 with splash. I even out numbered him with corrupters vs. vikings but they are only range 6 and turrets are 7 so he would just fall back to behind all his turrets while picking off the BL(which are so damn slow you can't pull the back fast enough), I then try pushing with roach/ultra and they just melt to the tanks when they are behind buildings and on cliffs where you cannot get to them...
I eventually won after an hour of denying him expansions (he only had 3 bases, 2 for most of the game), and each time I pushed I almost lost because he would just push back with whatever was left and take out an expo or two before I could stop him. Truth be told if he didn't suck I probably would have lost. He eventually made one final counter push that I barely held of and said "well im out of money gg". So the morale of the story is the turtling Terrans decide when the game is over.
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On August 07 2010 19:05 mikkelinen wrote: Is it really that bad? I mean I've read about this since beta, and I am a Terran player so I've been thinking a lot "bah, just overcome it, you probably haven't figured out the right way yet." But it seems it's still 'unbeatable' with a little skill to add.
I'm not going to try to play Zerg because I hate slime, but I have trouble understanding still why you couldn't bust Mech prior to it becoming 200/200.
I'm currently experementing with bio vs Zerg due to the instawin I get once I show a thor (Zerg players tend to get nervous and make loads of misstakes once you guys have realized I went Mech).
I feel that if I get interrupted while moving my army as Mech I get steamrolled by roaches that are burrowed smart even IF I have a raven, since lings/ultra/hydra or broodlord will attack me from another front.
I can't wait for the Koreans to start countering mech - it's not fun to jsut do hellion - thor - tank every TvZ I get :b
So you assert that you personally cannot see anything wrong with ZvT as a matchup, whilst also saying that ZvT is boring because all you do is make mech and its instawin. Excellent.
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I haven't played a whole lot of 1v1's so maybe I shouldn't comment, but I'm a mid-plat zerg player and vs T so far(4-5 games) I've basically stuck with lings all game and the second he moves, swarmed him. Even while tanks are sieged, with mech support, the lings can make it to the tanks while he's on the move(spread out a little). I send in my BLs/mutas to draw mech fire then send in the lings right after, making sure they swarm everything. I keep seeing hydras mentioned in this thread and personally I don't see the reason for hydras vs an all-ground army.
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I agree almost completely with the OP, but one question remain:
In a game where Idra defeated TLO in a ZvT where TLO was on 4 bases with a 5th going up at the crucial moment, Idra managed to literally outmicro the terran with corrupter/ broodlords. Now, of course, Vikings have insane range, but during that replay it seemed you can kind of go toe to toe. Perhaps idra is just too good, but it shows some possibility of breaking T mech with mass air. I'm sure there are reasons why this might not actually work as well as that match implied, can you explain this, Sheth?
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In my experience, the issue isn't so much when you've got 4-5 bases up and running and hive tech. To some extent, you can break a turtle by throwing waves of units (ultra + ling, BL + corrupter) at it, dropping on top of the tanks at a choke, etc.
It's just that you have to survive up to that point for a chance to win the game.
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from my experiance in the ZvT matchup, i only beat terran mech when i severely 'outplay' my opponent. whenever i have played terran players who scan my base seeing a spire then pushing because its safe to assume im saving minerals and gas for muta harass. whilst make two turrets at their base to completely protect them unless i have like 10 mutas (1k minrals and gas right there ah no thanks) then steam rolling my base with A move.
alot of T players in complete ignorance at this problem would simply say "use mobility suround burrow and kill me" the problem is how? when your army is attacking MY choke with your insane tank range lack of back door options and the risk of losing the game right there the only thing i have left to do is a move into your army and hope for the best. Burrowed roaches work once in a game, and only once against a competant player. and require two LENGTHY upgrades to make viable, and since i spent gas on mutas its likely i wont have the gas to get those upgrades when i need it. resulting with the zerg player gging and moving on to hopefully another game with out T mech.
although i have had success with delayed baneling busts. not so much all ins but enough to wipe out most the mid game army to give me more time to tech, although however when the mid game push comes i still find my self having to drop banelings on their army whilst moving roaches under their army, surrounding with zerglings and setting up baneling traps. honestly it all seems a little over the top for me to use EVERYTHING i have invested so far in the game to just HALT your mid game push. and after the fight if i win, i have actually lost. even when zerg beats that push, we have lost almost all our units and have to rebuild it where you can take your expo safetly cause your lovely ability to turtle up.
last i recalled the way things should run is, if i hold off your push i can expo, yet atm its zerg going, shit hold this off rebuild army then expo. terran just goes, a move then expo, if i lose just turtle till im ready again. and since there is a lack of units from zerg that can break a turtling terrans line (bar what one unit thats t3 and doesnt comeout till its pretty much near the end of the game?) terran is not worried in the slightest, just move the line to the expo and bam lets have a smoke.
i apologise it it seems a bit to QQ rage whiny, i find ZvT an extreme uphill battle for zerg unless your obviously the better player, or the terran goes bio. in which case i yell THANK FKING GOD!!!
although i disagree that the matchup is a lost cause, though there does have to be a change to one of the following.
either larger wide maps just to help zergs cause, nothing extreme but with the current choke gameplay style maps atm, its terrans that are profiting to much.
a slight terran nerf for thor, not so much the AA, i have no problem against thor beating mutas, its just the fact that thors beat mutas AND does 60 damage over two volleys against ground, when the immortal a PURELY ANTI ARMOURED unit does 50 to armoured units. perhaps a reduction to 20 damage a shot for thors, 40 damage a volley is still a bit, and it would allow my roaches just a slightly bit more survive ability. and that way it wont be anti everything but rather support, again im not preaching this change just suggestions.
OR a slight change to zerg, such as increase the cost to build a nydus at base by say 50 minrals and gas, BUT let it cost nothing to pop up somewhere, that way its not a huge investment to have it shut down by scvs or 1 maruader OR the ability to make it spawn SEVERAL mouths, each costing 50 more minerals and gas then the predecessor. just suggestions dont flame me for my ideas T.T
i dont know, something has to be changed, even just something slight. RAAAAAAGE over.
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Someone mentioned that the Hatch was only 300, except its 300+ 50 for drone + the opportunity cost of that drone mining. Which depending how far you have to send it, its not really an advantage at all. Oh I forgot you also have to sacrifice a larva which has an opportunity cost of making any other unit.
I've been playing Z all beta and now live. And my biggest beef has to be the tech times. As the 'swarming' race, it feels like I should be able to pop out my spawning pool faster than a gateway or a rax, and start swarming. Because my units don't have range, don't have shields and I need 2x as many of them to kill anything.
Of course the classic example is the Spire. 100 second build time is a joke. After forcing you to wait for Lair. Compared to the 50 second build time of a Starport down a completely linear build path.
And if you want to get Brood Lords, well you need a greater spire. And not only does that require Hive, money, and a lot more time. But if you lose your greater spire, you lose the ability to produce every air unit. And if you dare to rebuild it, you now need to live for 3:20 with what you had or can now make. And just hope to god your current strat didn't revolve around that tech to much. Compared to if a Terran loses a starport or a starports tech lab, he can just swap with another buildings tech lab or pop up another starport in 50 seconds and then tech lab swap.
I agree with the OP. And a lot of whats said. But I just don't feel swarmy with the amount of time it takes to tech. Oh and the fact that Zerg have less offensive units than any other race is ridiculous. Zerg are THE aggressor race. Lore backs that up.
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@ topic: 100% signed.
lets just hope that blizzard will hear us
i think, the thousands of roach nerfs let us end up like this. cause for now, there is nothing you can to from midgame on to push into the terran, you will just die. well, that is sth the roache was reated for....
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I don't see why ppl say zerg can train units fast. We can train a lot at the same time, but the actual unit times are nothing to be proud of.
<30s: T(3), Z(2), P(0) 31-45s: 5 all races 46-60s: T(3), Z(2), P(5) 61+: T(1), Z(2), P(4)
Banelings pop fast, but you have to include the cost of the zergling as well. I don't mind the spawning pool time. That's where it needs to be to account for ling rush. But the rest of Zerg tech takes way too long and is way too inflexible. Adaptability goes a long way in a game, and as for lore, the Zerg are the epitome of adaptation. As it stands, the Terrans have the adaptability advantage. And Terrans are hardly immobile. They can move their whole base if they so choose.
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I think an important change that needs to be made is "Mules need to cost Money + Energy"
I had a ZvT on Metalopolis the other day. He went mass marines I went ling bling
We attacked out bases more or less at the same time I baneling busted him and took out all of his defensive marines, scvs and supply depots. He lifted off his rax and CC.
At my base I lost my natural and almost all my drones (I think 3 survived). But I kept most of my main.
I sent the remainder of my lings round to where he landed his rax and attacked them, whilst killing off Marines as they popped. I realised I was not going to be able to keep this up for long as every marine pumped was killing off a ling or 2 and he had 4-5 rax. I didn't know how much money he had left so I pulled back and focused on Macro for a bit (It turned out he had 44 minerals when I pulled back)
What he did next was land his CC at the Gold and threw out about 5 Mules. Built a SCV and started building supply depots.
He managed to build up a marine force and put pressure on me again. Eventually I won the game... But I feel the game went on way longer than it should have due to the fact he was able to call down Mules when he had no income. If Protoss or Zerg lost all of their workers and had no money its GG.
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I just read this thread thrue and i can't understand why so many of you keep on whining so much on about how broken the TvZ is. I am a mediocre platinum player and yes i play Terran. The way i see my games vs zerg opponents is: Most of them are unwilling to change their strategy and either try to win the game with a cheese or and all in lategame attack of 200 vs 200 armies like many of you have also stated here in this topic. Question is why? Lots of topics like this have been made by now and in each of them i see same problems with eventually same answers. Where is usse of Nydaus network? Where are the Doom Droops? Where is creep all over the map? The answer is, there is none or very litle percentage. Like only about 5% of zergs i played against by now that were spread thrue from like silver to low diamond league have made a usse of any of the written mechanics and mostly beat me. Then there are tech switches that you can abuse so much more easily that any terran or toss. I know someone wrote tech need long time to finish, units make long time to build but you can make lots of them at same time. Well the last thing is the thing that counts. If you build only one tech that isn't scouted at the appropriate timing it can be gg very soon for your opponent. Terrans can make a building faster yea, but what about units? You switch a tech lab on starport and suddenly you make a raven or a banshee, and if you have 2 starports then you can make 2 banshees at same time. What about you Zerg fellas? Have anyone ever thought the pover of sudden tech switch when suddenly you have 10 mutas on the map? I know most of time you will be scouted but even then the sheer production capabilities of your larva is just amazing, abuse it more.
This is beggining to become a wall of text which really wasn't my intention in the first place, but for the end, take a look at this high level game from Korean server between Skidayo and PainKiller. http://www.replayladder.com/site/replay/319
Take a look and maybe you will get few ideas on how to beat good Terran opponents.
good day, svizcy
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On August 10 2010 00:44 Kronologic wrote: I think an important change that needs to be made is "Mules need to cost Money + Energy"
I had a ZvT on Metalopolis the other day. He went mass marines I went ling bling
We attacked out bases more or less at the same time I baneling busted him and took out all of his defensive marines, scvs and supply depots. He lifted off his rax and CC.
At my base I lost my natural and almost all my drones (I think 3 survived). But I kept most of my main.
I sent the remainder of my lings round to where he landed his rax and attacked them, whilst killing off Marines as they popped. I realised I was not going to be able to keep this up for long as every marine pumped was killing off a ling or 2 and he had 4-5 rax. I didn't know how much money he had left so I pulled back and focused on Macro for a bit (It turned out he had 44 minerals when I pulled back)
What he did next was land his CC at the Gold and threw out about 5 Mules. Built a SCV and started building supply depots.
He managed to build up a marine force and put pressure on me again. Eventually I won the game... But I feel the game went on way longer than it should have due to the fact he was able to call down Mules when he had no income. If Protoss or Zerg lost all of their workers and had no money its GG.
This is just a symptom of the race though.
It's no secret that people will play the campaign and immediately go to play Terran - so their race is by far the most forgiving.
Forget about your macro mechanic for a few minutes? No problem. In a base-race? Lift-off and you win Supply blocked at a crucial point? OC for instant supply Didn't build detectors and now there's DTs in the base? Never sent a scout? Built bunkers you don't need? Don't feel like breaking down rocks?
Terran is the only one that has an answer for any of these, and it has a near-zero cost for all of them - it's just a matter of making the race easy to play. It doesn't give too much advantage in competitive SC because it is smarter to build a missile turret than rely on scan, and smarter to mule when you have the energy rather than wait - it's just something the beginner doesn't need to worry about.
On August 10 2010 01:14 Svizcy wrote:I just read this thread thrue and i can't understand why so many of you keep on whining so much on about how broken the TvZ is. I am a mediocre platinum player and yes i play Terran. The way i see my games vs zerg opponents is: Most of them are unwilling to change their strategy and either try to win the game with a cheese or and all in lategame attack of 200 vs 200 armies like many of you have also stated here in this topic. Question is why? Lots of topics like this have been made by now and in each of them i see same problems with eventually same answers. Where is usse of Nydaus network? Where are the Doom Droops? Where is creep all over the map? The answer is, there is none or very litle percentage. Like only about 5% of zergs i played against by now that were spread thrue from like silver to low diamond league have made a usse of any of the written mechanics and mostly beat me. Then there are tech switches that you can abuse so much more easily that any terran or toss. I know someone wrote tech need long time to finish, units make long time to build but you can make lots of them at same time. Well the last thing is the thing that counts. If you build only one tech that isn't scouted at the appropriate timing it can be gg very soon for your opponent. Terrans can make a building faster yea, but what about units? You switch a tech lab on starport and suddenly you make a raven or a banshee, and if you have 2 starports then you can make 2 banshees at same time. What about you Zerg fellas? Have anyone ever thought the pover of sudden tech switch when suddenly you have 10 mutas on the map? I know most of time you will be scouted but even then the sheer production capabilities of your larva is just amazing, abuse it more. This is beggining to become a wall of text which really wasn't my intention in the first place, but for the end, take a look at this high level game from Korean server between Skidayo and PainKiller. http://www.replayladder.com/site/replay/319Take a look and maybe you will get few ideas on how to beat good Terran opponents. good day, svizcy
Look, there are a LOT of posts of "it's not the race's fault, it's just that all pro zerg players have no idea how to play starcraft. I never tried zerg but here's how you do it....."
If you can't see the absurdity in that, then just take these few points:
-Nydus and Doom drops are very easily countered at much less investment than the tactic itself. -Tech switches aren't very useful when you have a total of four useful army units to build in the midgame (roaches, mutas, zerglings, hydras), and three of those will die to less than 1/4 their cost in the proper unit (muta/thor, zergling/hellion, hydra/tank). -If the terran player is competent enough to prevent nydus and drops, then you have three avenues for aggression: 1) baneling bust before siege tanks are down 2) muta harass 3) throw crap at the choke
Since siege tanks comes out pretty quickly and muta harass is pretty easily repelled for only minerals, that just leaves #3.
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just bring back a swarm like spell researched via quick hive
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On August 04 2010 05:24 Shiladie wrote: I am also getting very annoyed at the state of zerg. We spelled out the problems when we were in beta, but all they saw was the win/loss records apparently, and figured everything was fine and dandy.
When playing zerg right now, unless you baneling bust, everything feels like a delaying action/gamble. The entire game you get the least defence possible while macroing as hardcore as you can. The reason for this is that you are pretty much gauranteed to never be able to damage a good P or T going a standard build until very late game. Until you reach that 200/200 with 3-5k resources and 40+ larva sitting in wait, you don't want to engage, because you'll just lose. The other races though, have all sorts of timing windows, where they can power units and bust an unsuspecting zerg's defences. If the zerg player sees the timing push, he can get together the troops and has a 'decent' chance of fighting it off at an advantage. But if the zerg doesn't scout it he loses. If the zerg preps for a timing push that the other player isn't doing, then he is far behind where he needs to be in macro, and loses to the push that comes a bit later.
As the game gets more and more figured out I predict zerg win rates will decline more and more. P and T will find all of the different timing windows and ways they can punish zergs, that playing zerg will be a crapshoot where you need to make 5+ 50-50 choices correctly in a row or you lose.
The removal of lurkers + darkswarm + plague have caused zerg's defencive ability to be next to 0, which as stated extensively in the first page of this post, means zerg cannot be aggressive with their harass units, instead needing to mass up enough units to just survive.
Haha, this right here man. I bolded it cuz that's how I feel I play right now. Even though I suicide an overlord or two at different times, it matters little. All I'm gona see is the typical 1/1/1 if I'm even lucky enough to see anything which he can go wherever with anyway. In the end, I have little idea of what units are going to come barrelling out of that choke point. And once I see it coming, if I need spines to help, they'll never be done in time.
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On August 10 2010 01:14 fdsdfg wrote:
Look, there are a LOT of posts of "it's not the race's fault, it's just that all pro zerg players have no idea how to play starcraft. I never tried zerg but here's how you do it....."
If you can't see the absurdity in that, then just take these few points:
-Nydus and Doom drops are very easily countered at much less investment than the tactic itself. -Tech switches aren't very useful when you have a total of four useful army units to build in the midgame (roaches, mutas, zerglings, hydras), and three of those will die to less than 1/4 their cost in the proper unit (muta/thor, zergling/hellion, hydra/tank). -If the terran player is competent enough to prevent nydus and drops, then you have three avenues for aggression: 1) baneling bust before siege tanks are down 2) muta harass 3) throw crap at the choke
Since siege tanks comes out pretty quickly and muta harass is pretty easily repelled for only minerals, that just leaves #3.
I havent said that Pro players dont know how to use Zerg. If you see such statement in my post plese show it to me casue i cant see it.
Also, what do you want to point out here by saying that Nydaus is to expensive to use? It is a tunel that gives you acces to terrans or any other base and you can dodge the chocke where the most army of opponent is. Ofc if i see it i will kill it, but if i dont see it then it's gg most of the time. I think it is a risk you should be willing to take. Bassicly what your saying about Nydaus and Doom Drops is same as i would say "Medivacs are bad becasue opponent shoots them down if he see them" i mean, really?!!
good day, svizcy
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On August 10 2010 03:13 Svizcy wrote: Ofc if i see it i will kill it, but if i dont see it then it's gg most of the time. I think it is a risk you should be willing to take.
If the player is good, then he will see it and he will kill it.
The risk you are talking about is "I'm going to spend 300/300... if my opponent is bad, then I'll win right now!' That's not a good deal in high-level play because if your opponent is bad, then you will win anyway.
Don't put words in my mouth, your analogy makes no sense. A better one would be saying that nydus is analagous to nuking the enemy's army as it idles. Sure, if they make a huge mistake or aren't paying attention then you might get away with killing them for an easy win. But if they're paying any sort of attention, then it's a waste of resources. Also keep in mind that ghost academy + ghost + nuke is the same cost as nydus + worm. Why not make the same expectation of Terran to 'just nuke the enemy's army'?
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On August 10 2010 03:13 Svizcy wrote:Show nested quote +On August 10 2010 01:14 fdsdfg wrote:
Look, there are a LOT of posts of "it's not the race's fault, it's just that all pro zerg players have no idea how to play starcraft. I never tried zerg but here's how you do it....."
If you can't see the absurdity in that, then just take these few points:
-Nydus and Doom drops are very easily countered at much less investment than the tactic itself. -Tech switches aren't very useful when you have a total of four useful army units to build in the midgame (roaches, mutas, zerglings, hydras), and three of those will die to less than 1/4 their cost in the proper unit (muta/thor, zergling/hellion, hydra/tank). -If the terran player is competent enough to prevent nydus and drops, then you have three avenues for aggression: 1) baneling bust before siege tanks are down 2) muta harass 3) throw crap at the choke
Since siege tanks comes out pretty quickly and muta harass is pretty easily repelled for only minerals, that just leaves #3. I havent said that Pro players dont know how to use Zerg. If you see such statement in my post plese show it to me casue i cant see it. Also, what do you want to point out here by saying that Nydaus is to expensive to use? It is a tunel that gives you acces to terrans or any other base and you can dodge the chocke where the most army of opponent is. Ofc if i see it i will kill it, but if i dont see it then it's gg most of the time. I think it is a risk you should be willing to take. Bassicly what your saying about Nydaus and Doom Drops is same as i would say "Medivacs are bad becasue opponent shoots them down if he see them" i mean, really?!! good day, svizcy
just go play terran and quit trying to 'help' because you're really not. youre spelling is terrible too, if english isnt your first language then fine, if it is then christ our schools fail.
how conceited do you have to be to tell a group of zerg players to doom drop or nydus? do you think we are all retarded? you obviously didnt take the time to read this thread, you were like hey a bunch of qq zerg. let me tell them what they are doing wrong.
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Becasue 1 nuke doesnt teleport all your army over the whole map behind the back of the opponent. Opponents dont need to be bad so you can use Nydaus or Doom drops vs them. I seen SEN do it, i seen Dimaga do it. In replay i provided you can also see how to deal with Thors with muta herras and win like that.
I'm traying to say you have viable options, that you just aren't ready to use the way your talking or at least that is what i understand from your post. So the conclusion would be that there is nothing wrong except the fact that you and many others are just unwilling to adapt.
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On August 10 2010 03:37 Svizcy wrote: Becasue 1 nuke doesnt teleport all your army over the whole map behind the back of the opponent.
That's not my point, my point is that it wins the game instantly if the opponent is an idiot.
Opponents dont need to be bad so you can use Nydaus or Doom drops vs them. I seen SEN do it, i seen Dimaga do it. In replay i provided you can also see how to deal with Thors with muta herras and win like that.
Drops, yes, but only useful when you have already destroyed the opponent's army - otherwise the opponent can attack and force you to go back to your main to defend or else lose the base race.
I never said anything about Thors in muta harass.
I'm traying to say you have viable options, that you just aren't ready to use the way your talking or at least that is what i understand from your post. So the conclusion would be that there is nothing wrong except the fact that you and many others are just unwilling to adapt.
Yeah I know what you're trying to say - you're still wrong. Just because someone thinks you're wrong doesn't mean they don't understand what you're trying to say.
How many SC2 matches have you played as Zerg? I'm sure mine is over 500, and I've explored many many avenues of creative attacks. In fact, I summarized them on a post in page 9. All that's left is:
-burrow move (beaten by spending 100m at a choke) -nydus (beaten by spreading out supply depots for vision -drops (see above) -baneling bust (beaten by thick wall, or a couple siege tanks at the choke) -mutas (marines, missile turrets, thors if needed) -throw crap at the choke
Nydus and mid-game baneling busts are out, drops have the failure I stated above, and burrow move is a huge gamble on the opponent making a huge mistake.
So we have mutas and throwing crap at the choke. It's not surprising why Zerg players don't get creative.
Also, work on your spelling - even if English isn't your first language it's not hard to avoid sounding like a retard.
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On August 10 2010 03:44 fdsdfg wrote: Drops, yes, but only useful when you have already destroyed the opponent's army - otherwise the opponent can attack and force you to go back to your main to defend or else lose the base race.
what about using doom drops in order to make opponent's nat or 3rd base empty and go destroy it with your HALF splitted army? If you do well, you kill main nexus + some probes + nat/3rd base
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I think Drops are something that every Zerg player should come to use more and more now, actually. Baneling Drops + Roach unburrow is one of the few ways Zerg has to deal with an entrenched Terran army. And drops in the main can be used to force the Terran back to his base, after which you can just load up all your troops and pull back. There are several problems with this, though. Drop harassment is shut down by proper use of Sensor Towers (something which a lot of T pros don't seem to be using), and by a few Vikings. Still, it's the best we've got.
Nydus Worms, however, are really really bad. Especially when used for offense. Unlike Drop tech, you need to pay in gas every time you create a worm. Plus the cost of the Nydus Network itself. All that would be fine if the Worm would be created sooner and if units would exit it faster. As it is, it takes 20 seconds to build, and only 2 units can exit it per second. Considering how little damage it takes to kill it, and how many units Zerg usually has, you really shouldn't be surprised how few Zerg use it. That's not to say they have no uses. I use them often to expand to island locations (and provide an exit route for my drones), as well as to harass expansions on the more open maps like Metalopolis. But building a Worm in the main of a competent opponent is doomed to failure.
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Zerg have the short end of it right now. They only have a handful of viable units, only one or two of which are that much different from each other. They have most pain in the butt macro mechanic which is not just a simple economy or production boost like T and P have, it is vital to just getting up to equal production, and it also scales in difficulty worse than the other two. Zerg has the least effective AoE in the game, no plague or dark swarm like in BW, no lurkers, just banelings (which are expensive in time and are suicide units), fungus, and ultras. Zerg are also outranged by T in almost all categories.
The advantages Zerg had in the original of swift production (hampered by micro intensive queen use), ease of switching builds (hampered just by lack of real effective units), and powerful and vital spells (fungus is cool for anti-micro and if the T is bad with his vikings and lets them get close but that's pretty much it) are gone and the only thing new that's come in to try and replace them is the roach.
I was a Z player in BW but I'm going to wait a patch or two before I try playing much ladder Z. I just miss how Zerg used to be played, right now it doesn't seem like there's much to do besides 1a then go make sure you spawned larvae.
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On August 10 2010 03:37 Svizcy wrote: Becasue 1 nuke doesnt teleport all your army over the whole map behind the back of the opponent. Opponents dont need to be bad so you can use Nydaus or Doom drops vs them. I seen SEN do it, i seen Dimaga do it. In replay i provided you can also see how to deal with Thors with muta herras and win like that.
I'm traying to say you have viable options, that you just aren't ready to use the way your talking or at least that is what i understand from your post. So the conclusion would be that there is nothing wrong except the fact that you and many others are just unwilling to adapt.
Sigh. It's not helping that terran players think they have the solution to everything while never attempting any of their solutions themselves. Nothing is viable. Like it's been said over and over again, 3 tanks at a choke, 3 missile turrets in main, supply depots scattered, etc, etc, will just be gg for any zerg mid game. The fact that we NEED to tech T3 makes this match up ridiculous, along with the fact that we have to spend a ridiculous amount of time or resources to get upgrades (eg. burrow roach) that will only have the chance to be effective one time. Also, how you plan on "doom" dropping with a full mech make up? A base trade will lose you the game no doubt. Lurkers/defiliers made a 200-200 match up fair. It shouldn't require 400 supply to beat 10ish tank/thors
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As Zerg, I would seriously consider a doom drop an all-in attack. That same wall I was trying to break into is also keeping me inside the base. If the terran has an amazingly concealed expo in a remote corner of the map (I do this all the time as any race), then he would have few qualms about exporting his army to annihilate all four or five zerg bases, all guaranteed to have insufficient resistance. A skeleton crew of a few tanks and marines could hold off maybe a few dozen units, depending on Z's army composition and quirks of the map. It is then reduced to who can find all the bases fastest. And we decided that drops were a good strat, right? If I scouted ahead no turrets on a corner of a base, I might consider dropping while a distraction was going on at the wall.
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I would ocnsider a drop of a bunch of banelings+ultras+roaches right on top of the Terran mech army.. with enough thors and splash though, you could eat some losses, but OLs die really really slow to Thors so I think it'd be okay. Probably bring in a couple corruptors to corrupt the thors and take hits from the thors and vikings - totally sacrificial.
This is only really late-game though - midgame is still zerg trying to survive and outmacro while teching up and not even considering the idea of an offense.
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On August 10 2010 04:39 fdsdfg wrote: I would ocnsider a drop of a bunch of banelings+ultras+roaches right on top of the Terran mech army.. with enough thors and splash though, you could eat some losses, but OLs die really really slow to Thors so I think it'd be okay. This is my usual strategy to hold off mid-game pushes, but I once faced a player who had about 4-5 Vikings mixed in with his death ball, and those REALLY tear through your drop with their huge a-a range. Plus it's not like he wasted the money he put into making them, he was using Vikings to snipe my Overlords all game.
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Honestly id be happy if they gave us swarm. Dont really need anything else. Add dark swarm and the game will be much more even.
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On August 10 2010 03:30 Vaporized wrote:Show nested quote +On August 10 2010 03:13 Svizcy wrote:On August 10 2010 01:14 fdsdfg wrote:
Look, there are a LOT of posts of "it's not the race's fault, it's just that all pro zerg players have no idea how to play starcraft. I never tried zerg but here's how you do it....."
If you can't see the absurdity in that, then just take these few points:
-Nydus and Doom drops are very easily countered at much less investment than the tactic itself. -Tech switches aren't very useful when you have a total of four useful army units to build in the midgame (roaches, mutas, zerglings, hydras), and three of those will die to less than 1/4 their cost in the proper unit (muta/thor, zergling/hellion, hydra/tank). -If the terran player is competent enough to prevent nydus and drops, then you have three avenues for aggression: 1) baneling bust before siege tanks are down 2) muta harass 3) throw crap at the choke
Since siege tanks comes out pretty quickly and muta harass is pretty easily repelled for only minerals, that just leaves #3. I havent said that Pro players dont know how to use Zerg. If you see such statement in my post plese show it to me casue i cant see it. Also, what do you want to point out here by saying that Nydaus is to expensive to use? It is a tunel that gives you acces to terrans or any other base and you can dodge the chocke where the most army of opponent is. Ofc if i see it i will kill it, but if i dont see it then it's gg most of the time. I think it is a risk you should be willing to take. Bassicly what your saying about Nydaus and Doom Drops is same as i would say "Medivacs are bad becasue opponent shoots them down if he see them" i mean, really?!! good day, svizcy just go play terran and quit trying to 'help' because you're really not. youre spelling is terrible too, if english isnt your first language then fine, if it is then christ our schools fail. how conceited do you have to be to tell a group of zerg players to doom drop or nydus? do you think we are all retarded? you obviously didnt take the time to read this thread, you were like hey a bunch of qq zerg. let me tell them what they are doing wrong.
And you obviously don't know what a capital letter nor an apostrophe are. Your post doesn't help the discussion, it just vents some of the frustration all Zerg players have against Terran at the moment.
That being said, I agree with your Doom Drop and Nydus sentiment. The Nydus dies quick and poops out units much too slowly. The Doom Drop is beyond nullified with a Sensor Tower (which is another thing that Terrans that I play have yet to abuse, but is easily something that might be realized in the future.)
Zerg players are focused down just a couple of paths that are easily countered with only a few units or buildings that the Terran most likely already has (or in the case of Mutas, will get very shortly after scanning/floating rax/walking in the front door).
On August 10 2010 03:57 ProTosS4EveR wrote:Show nested quote +On August 10 2010 03:44 fdsdfg wrote: Drops, yes, but only useful when you have already destroyed the opponent's army - otherwise the opponent can attack and force you to go back to your main to defend or else lose the base race.
what about using doom drops in order to make opponent's nat or 3rd base empty and go destroy it with your HALF splitted army? If you do well, you kill main nexus + some probes + nat/3rd base
Well, mainly because that half an army gets nullified by a Planetary Fortress, unless said half all Mutas, in which case he'll also have a ton of Turrets sitting around to 6 shot your Mutas.
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On August 10 2010 04:53 archon256 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 10 2010 04:39 fdsdfg wrote: I would ocnsider a drop of a bunch of banelings+ultras+roaches right on top of the Terran mech army.. with enough thors and splash though, you could eat some losses, but OLs die really really slow to Thors so I think it'd be okay. This is my usual strategy to hold off mid-game pushes, but I once faced a player who had about 4-5 Vikings mixed in with his death ball, and those REALLY tear through your drop with their huge a-a range. Plus it's not like he wasted the money he put into making them, he was using Vikings to snipe my Overlords all game.
That's why I'd like to save it until lategame where it's not a big deal to send in 10 empty overlords in front. Also since ultralisks allow the overlord to empty immediately - instead of having to wait for each roach you get all your DPS working from the beginning instead of your roaches blowing up almost as fast as they unload. Banelings are great because they are guranteed to do their damage - plus the splash of a friendly tank shot.
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I'd only like to address what I like to call the "Terran Campaign Argument." It comes in different flavors.
"There are so many Terrans out there because they're the race you learn in the campaign, not because they're easy but effective."
This doesn't make any sense to me. Let's just get a basic framework for an argument here. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that: 1. All races are balanced and equal. 2. Since #1 above is true, the only determinant for league placement is skill and skill alone. 3. Besides talent, RTS skill comes mainly from practice and experience (I'm sure nobody here will argue this!)
So, given those 3, one can draw the conclusion that Terrans should make up the majority of the lower leagues (new players flock to this race). One can also inference that the race distribution would become more balanced as you progressed up in leagues (the more experienced players from the beta and the more talented players would progress higher, but as RTS veterans, would not necessarily be playing the "newbie" race). However, Terran (and then Protoss to an extent) players outnumber Zerg players disproportionately in the top 1000 and diamond leagues overall.
Why is that? It has nothing to do with the Terran campaign. Perhaps Zerg is harder? Perhaps Zerg wasn't cool enough to capture most players' attention when they were picking a race? While we can't ever completely rule out single player influence on those decisions, I don't think it has anything to do with Terran being the "newbie" campaign race.
"The Terran macro is the easiest because it's the race in the campaign -- it's designed to be more straightforward for newer players."
Besides the inherent admission of imbalance here, I find this reasoning to make no sense. Why would Blizzard intentionally make one race "easier" to play with all their investment on eSports, which hinges on balance between all three races?
This argument gains merit when you look at old censuses from the beta where Zerg would be less than expected -- around 20% -- because their macro was probably too confusing for newer players. But if Terran macro was so easy and designed for newer players, then why are there so many Protoss players? Even back in the beta, Protoss outnumbered Zerg and Terran. Why would Blizzard make Protoss so straightforward and easy for new players (back in the beta, when the game was completely new) when their intention was for Terran to fill this niche?
BOTTOM LINE: The race featured in the campaign has NOTHING to do with multiplayer balance / imbalance. Please stop bringing it to these discussions.
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Actually, I think campaign and lore have a significant bit to do with Zerg not having enough cool stuff. The folks at Blizzard just had so much fun coming up with stuff to obliterate the evil zerg swarms that they forgot to let zerg have a chance to be awesome. I think that for this reason, Blizzard will come to its senses in developing Heart of the Swarm when they realize playing Z isn't as fun as it should be. But we shouldn't have to wait that long.
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On August 10 2010 06:06 AdonaiMSRT wrote: Actually, I think campaign and lore have a significant bit to do with Zerg not having enough cool stuff. The folks at Blizzard just had so much fun coming up with stuff to obliterate the evil zerg swarms that they forgot to let zerg have a chance to be awesome. I think that for this reason, Blizzard will come to its senses in developing Heart of the Swarm when they realize playing Z isn't as fun as it should be. But we shouldn't have to wait that long.
I also think T is most polished cause of it being their campaign.
I hope when heart of the swarm arrives that they will polish up Z a great bit.
But keep in mind that there has been lurkers at one point in the game along with other units. They just couldnt balance them in MP or they didnt fit in.
I also hope that when heart of the swarm arrives that T gets something like maroach that is kinda like the marine and marauder, But it has range 3, cant shoot up and is cheaper then marauder but more expensive then a marine. smth like 75min 25gas myb?
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On August 10 2010 06:15 Izzachar wrote:Show nested quote +On August 10 2010 06:06 AdonaiMSRT wrote: Actually, I think campaign and lore have a significant bit to do with Zerg not having enough cool stuff. The folks at Blizzard just had so much fun coming up with stuff to obliterate the evil zerg swarms that they forgot to let zerg have a chance to be awesome. I think that for this reason, Blizzard will come to its senses in developing Heart of the Swarm when they realize playing Z isn't as fun as it should be. But we shouldn't have to wait that long. I also think T is most polished cause of it being their campaign. I hope when heart of the swarm arrives that they will polish up Z a great bit. But keep in mind that there has been lurkers at one point in the game along with other units. They just couldnt balance them in MP or they didnt fit in. I also hope that when heart of the swarm arrives that T gets something like maroach that is kinda like the marine and marauder, But it has range 3, cant shoot up and is cheaper then marauder but more expensive then a marine. smth like 75min 25gas myb?
You want T to get a roach clone? ...why? Why would anyone build it over a Marauder? 25 more minerals for range 6, more dps, double damage vs armor, conc shells and stim - unless you want it to burrow and regen and stuff, in which case you're crazy
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A side rant from me, not related to the current discussion (but was mentioned earlier), but why does everyone suggest that you should mass expand against a turtling Terran? It only takes a few takes for a Terran to turtle. Short of that, the Terran have the most mobile army of any race thanks to medivacs and vikings. Zerg must have creep to get from one area to another in any reasonable time, and the nydus worm makes a big RAAAWWRRRR letting everyone in the world know it's coming. On most maps, mass expanding simply isn't an option. I'm a Protoss player, but I feel for my Zerg brethren.
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The Zerg have a different play style than toss and terran. You HAVE to mass units to win, it's expected. But to play it to its best you dont mass those units in your opponents front door. A good zerg player needs great micro. Splitting your attack, massing from all angles, freaking your opponent out, that's the way to win. Yes Terran can hard coutner all your units, but he can't react fast enough if you hit him in 3 or 4 different areas at once, which is the advantage of your mass units.
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I want to add one thing, that haven't been mentioned so far as I recall. Zerg also has no other mineral dumper then Zerglings. The problem with Zerglings is not just the tremendous hunger for larva, which you can't afford on a low base count. Furthermore they are damn fragile if the game progresses into late game. Although Zerglings are great to harass minerals lines all game long. On the contrary you got Marines and Zealots, which are still very useful in 200/200 clashes. Roaches pre two supply patch filled that niche half-way with costs of just 25 gas. But now the two supply really hurts on 200vs200 battles where you also need tones of drones to keep up in harvesting to replenish your army. For the moment that is how Zerg wins versus Terran: just throw supply on them and hope they can't replenish their army as fast as Zerg can do.
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On August 10 2010 06:46 fdsdfg wrote:Show nested quote +On August 10 2010 06:15 Izzachar wrote:On August 10 2010 06:06 AdonaiMSRT wrote: Actually, I think campaign and lore have a significant bit to do with Zerg not having enough cool stuff. The folks at Blizzard just had so much fun coming up with stuff to obliterate the evil zerg swarms that they forgot to let zerg have a chance to be awesome. I think that for this reason, Blizzard will come to its senses in developing Heart of the Swarm when they realize playing Z isn't as fun as it should be. But we shouldn't have to wait that long. I also think T is most polished cause of it being their campaign. I hope when heart of the swarm arrives that they will polish up Z a great bit. But keep in mind that there has been lurkers at one point in the game along with other units. They just couldnt balance them in MP or they didnt fit in. I also hope that when heart of the swarm arrives that T gets something like maroach that is kinda like the marine and marauder, But it has range 3, cant shoot up and is cheaper then marauder but more expensive then a marine. smth like 75min 25gas myb? You want T to get a roach clone? ...why? Why would anyone build it over a Marauder? 25 more minerals for range 6, more dps, double damage vs armor, conc shells and stim - unless you want it to burrow and regen and stuff, in which case you're crazy
lol. Cause I wanted to emphasize how bland Zs units are. I wasn't serious.
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It would be absolutely effing ridiculous to wait until next expansion (2-3 years?) before getting this crap fixed.
By far the most annoying thing about Zerg is so very few choices. Let's do it together. Count up all Terran units, their damage bonuses, and abilities: stim, snipe, emp, viking transformation, cloaking, etc, etc. It is literally more than double of Zerg stuff. Yeah, great choices.
And don't even make me laugh at suggesting borrow, the most pathetic ability given how easy it is to counter that for any brain-dead Terran (TLO fell for it versus Madfrog, though, oh well ). Yeah, you can kill noobs with that but once you get into Platinum/Diamond, that will never happen.
So, yep, you sit there as Zerg, macro like crazy, and then pick from 3/4 choices, and hope to god that your opponent is a noob who will let you get t3. Any decent Terran player will stomp you to death at 100-130is food, leaving you staring at that cute t3 tech that never had a chance.
To be honest, I have no idea what the hell Blizzard can do to fix this crap, because it is so utterly broken. Zerg would need a ton of new abilities to fix it up. Just adding one or two overpowered spells/units, will just imba Zerg instead.
And let's be honest, Blizzard would never nerf Terran given their past "balancing" choices. The best that we can hope for is maybe getting Roach at 1 supply but then ZvZ is screwy again. Sigh . . .
Damn it, I wish I didn't love Zerg so much, so that I could switch and play another race. Oh, well.
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tbh, I do believe that keeping up with the whining is the best solution to get something changed. Add to that some pro players race switching from zerg and maybe Blizzard will deal with this stuff.
Sadly, in the meantime, as Zergs have about 50% win rate and reprezentation, I doubt stuff will be changed because hard facts like statistics weigh more than the opinions of some overzealous forumers.
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On August 10 2010 19:43 Oleksandr wrote: So, yep, you sit there as Zerg, macro like crazy, and then pick from 3/4 choices, and hope to god that your opponent is a noob who will let you get t3.
So I'm not the only one using this "strategy" I thought it was just because I wasn't playing very well.
The game that's recently become popular between IdrA and Drewbie kinda summed up how frustrating a turtling terran is for Zerg. I mean, I know people dislike BM and all, but while watching that replay I really couldn't blame Idra for being frustrated. The sheer amount of things a Terran can throw at you, while still falling back to their choke points is really rage inducing, and stuff like planetary fortresses just add insult to injury.
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The real question is who has faith in blizzard to change things?
I mean really, there really are a good deal of unused mechanics with zerg. Many of them are unused because there is not much use in them (burrow), but others (nydus worm) have not seen much play due to both small maps and high cost when compared with alternatives (overlord drop).
I really wish there was some sign things were getting better, though the ultralisk changes were a good indicator. Well... the last of the changes at least. Frenzy should have never happened.
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On August 10 2010 21:53 Bair wrote: The real question is who has faith in blizzard to change things?
I mean really, there really are a good deal of unused mechanics with zerg. Many of them are unused because there is not much use in them (burrow), but others (nydus worm) have not seen much play due to both small maps and high cost when compared with alternatives (overlord drop).
I really wish there was some sign things were getting better, though the ultralisk changes were a good indicator. Well... the last of the changes at least. Frenzy should have never happened.
I think Blizzard will do it, they are just very wary (and rightly so) of changing things fast in a released game. Unfortunately the last changes in beta were mostly in the same direction (roach nerf thor buff and NP timer) which was not tested enough and messed things up.
The last day9daily was interesting ... I had not yet seen that TLO game and I need to try out the infestor first idea.
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Its all about the chokes, in my opinion. Zergs cant get past the chokes of a terran, and to a lesser degree protoss, until T3.Versus a terran you can use broodlords in t3 to attack anywhere(ingoring the chokes) and vs protoss you can use ultras(that can deal with the forcefields).
A zerg cant be agressive at the chokepoints, so all fights have to take place once the opponent moves out of their base. That places the initiative in their hands, thus making zerg feel defensive, unforgiving and a bit boring.
Solution? Change the maps or bring back some kind of darkswarm/sight obscure spell.
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On August 10 2010 22:08 Sixes wrote:Show nested quote +On August 10 2010 21:53 Bair wrote: The real question is who has faith in blizzard to change things?
I mean really, there really are a good deal of unused mechanics with zerg. Many of them are unused because there is not much use in them (burrow), but others (nydus worm) have not seen much play due to both small maps and high cost when compared with alternatives (overlord drop).
I really wish there was some sign things were getting better, though the ultralisk changes were a good indicator. Well... the last of the changes at least. Frenzy should have never happened. I think Blizzard will do it, they are just very wary (and rightly so) of changing things fast in a released game. Unfortunately the last changes in beta were mostly in the same direction (roach nerf thor buff and NP timer) which was not tested enough and messed things up. The last day9daily was interesting ... I had not yet seen that TLO game and I need to try out the infestor first idea.
The roach nerf was still in phase 1 though. I think that was terrible. Imo give them their armor back. And make burrow T1. And their regen. Leave em 2 supply and slap on another 25 minerals. Make them scary again instead of a minor obstacle.
And the NP change was equally stupid. I find it amusing that blizzard actually reverted this change in one of its challenge maps and made it infinite again because the challenge is impossible with a 12 NP.
But I digress. Is this Day[9]tv up on youtube yet? I am not entirely sure which you mean. It sounds pretty interesting since infestors are pretty underutilized across the board. Hell, with good micro it seems like hydra/infestor would stomp all protoss. Colossi and HTs even.
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On August 10 2010 22:51 Bair wrote:Show nested quote +On August 10 2010 22:08 Sixes wrote:On August 10 2010 21:53 Bair wrote: The real question is who has faith in blizzard to change things?
I mean really, there really are a good deal of unused mechanics with zerg. Many of them are unused because there is not much use in them (burrow), but others (nydus worm) have not seen much play due to both small maps and high cost when compared with alternatives (overlord drop).
I really wish there was some sign things were getting better, though the ultralisk changes were a good indicator. Well... the last of the changes at least. Frenzy should have never happened. I think Blizzard will do it, they are just very wary (and rightly so) of changing things fast in a released game. Unfortunately the last changes in beta were mostly in the same direction (roach nerf thor buff and NP timer) which was not tested enough and messed things up. The last day9daily was interesting ... I had not yet seen that TLO game and I need to try out the infestor first idea. And the NP change was equally stupid. I find it amusing that blizzard actually reverted this change in one of its challenge maps and made it infinite again because the challenge is impossible with a 12 NP.
It feels like the entire race was designed around their role in the campaign so people playing single player can just throw siege tanks in a choke and happily watch zerg forces evaporate. Now in multiplayer we have to play with mechanics that were designed to lose to terran.
Really Terran has an answer to everything Zerg could possibly do and they don't have to divert their tech path to get that answer, while Zerg is just given a whole bunch of square pegs and round holes.
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On August 03 2010 10:47 zomgtossrush wrote:Me and my friend were talking about this issue just last week. Since Terrans have BC's which are the late game "omgrapetastic" option. In which you can make a few of.. Toss has a solo mothership with super "tech" advantages... What does zerg have? you could argue broodlords or ultras, but they dont have that "unique" characteristic that seperates them from the other 2 races. What if the zerg has something to expand their supply? Of course we could debate forever by how much, but lets just say...35? It feels very swarm like. It would solve alot of issues players have with the roach supply count and such. The only problem would be to figure out what that something would be. Something air? something unit? some building, like post-hive? Of course we didn't put TOO much thought into this, but thats what the forums(and you guys) can do for us
I was thinking of this last night as well... If having lair tech boosts max supply by 25, and hive another 25, zerg could potentially stand up to late game pressure. It still doesn't really solve the defensive style of play that zerg is FORCED into, but it does relieve some pressure on the late game such that Terran (and protoss to some extent) can't sit in their base until they're maxed out.
It also helps mitigate the fact that zerg usually needs +1 expansion to stay on par with protoss & terran. Let me re-phrase that: one saturated expansion. Which means about 30 drones that are not combat units. An additional 50 supply (the actual number isn't the point of the discussion, just the mechanic) for Hive tech would help curb the excessive drone count for Zerg players.
I think the biggest problem about ZvT/P is the creep mechanic, to be honest. While it might seem amazing for Zerg players, it really just hinders them and forces them to play passively. Hydralisks and roaches (to some extent) are slow as sin off creep. This discourages aggressive styles of play against other races. It also discourages the opponent to attack the Zerg who is actively spreading creep because hydralisks and roaches are out of control on the creep. This type of stale-mate position is innately built into the ZvP matchups. The zerg merrily sits on their creep, massing hydras and roaches, and waits for the Protoss to attack. If the zerg moves off the creep in an attempt to make a move against Protoss, colossus or high templar murder hydralisks, not to mention sentry FF's.
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Quote: It feels like the entire race was designed around their role in the campaign so people playing single player can just throw siege tanks in a choke and happily watch zerg forces evaporate. Now in multiplayer we have to play with mechanics that were designed to lose to terran.
Really Terran has an answer to everything Zerg could possibly do and they don't have to divert their tech path to get that answer, while Zerg is just given a whole bunch of square pegs and round holes. Endquote (I didn't want the nesting)
I totally agree. It's just like I said above, Blizz was so happy about destroying the evil Zerg, and now we have to pay for it in multiplayer.
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On August 11 2010 00:01 junemermaid wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 10:47 zomgtossrush wrote:Me and my friend were talking about this issue just last week. Since Terrans have BC's which are the late game "omgrapetastic" option. In which you can make a few of.. Toss has a solo mothership with super "tech" advantages... What does zerg have? you could argue broodlords or ultras, but they dont have that "unique" characteristic that seperates them from the other 2 races. What if the zerg has something to expand their supply? Of course we could debate forever by how much, but lets just say...35? It feels very swarm like. It would solve alot of issues players have with the roach supply count and such. The only problem would be to figure out what that something would be. Something air? something unit? some building, like post-hive? Of course we didn't put TOO much thought into this, but thats what the forums(and you guys) can do for us I was thinking of this last night as well... If having lair tech boosts max supply by 25, and hive another 25, zerg could potentially stand up to late game pressure. It still doesn't really solve the defensive style of play that zerg is FORCED into, but it does relieve some pressure on the late game such that Terran (and protoss to some extent) can't sit in their base until they're maxed out. It also helps mitigate the fact that zerg usually needs +1 expansion to stay on par with protoss & terran. Let me re-phrase that: one saturated expansion. Which means about 30 drones that are not combat units. An additional 50 supply (the actual number isn't the point of the discussion, just the mechanic) for Hive tech would help curb the excessive drone count for Zerg players. I think the biggest problem about ZvT/P is the creep mechanic, to be honest. While it might seem amazing for Zerg players, it really just hinders them and forces them to play passively. Hydralisks and roaches (to some extent) are slow as sin off creep. This discourages aggressive styles of play against other races. It also discourages the opponent to attack the Zerg who is actively spreading creep because hydralisks and roaches are out of control on the creep. This type of stale-mate position is innately built into the ZvP matchups. The zerg merrily sits on their creep, massing hydras and roaches, and waits for the Protoss to attack. If the zerg moves off the creep in an attempt to make a move against Protoss, colossus or high templar murder hydralisks, not to mention sentry FF's.
I think the creep mechanic works well, especially lore-wise. The slowly advancing unstoppable zerg. Of course slowly advancing unstoppable force sounds like siege tanks, but still, you get the idea. Zerg is not as bad off as people think. It is hard for them to get to tier 3, but then the get the best unit in the game:
The ultralisk.
Honestly, a fully upgraded ultraling force is nigh unstoppable by toss and terran. Terran straight up has no answer except banshees, which get murdered by a muta or 3, and the only decent unit toss has is the archon, which is even *more* expensive than an ultralisk. Factor in that you should be outmacroing them as zerg and GG.
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On August 11 2010 00:31 Bair wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2010 00:01 junemermaid wrote:On August 03 2010 10:47 zomgtossrush wrote:Me and my friend were talking about this issue just last week. Since Terrans have BC's which are the late game "omgrapetastic" option. In which you can make a few of.. Toss has a solo mothership with super "tech" advantages... What does zerg have? you could argue broodlords or ultras, but they dont have that "unique" characteristic that seperates them from the other 2 races. What if the zerg has something to expand their supply? Of course we could debate forever by how much, but lets just say...35? It feels very swarm like. It would solve alot of issues players have with the roach supply count and such. The only problem would be to figure out what that something would be. Something air? something unit? some building, like post-hive? Of course we didn't put TOO much thought into this, but thats what the forums(and you guys) can do for us I was thinking of this last night as well... If having lair tech boosts max supply by 25, and hive another 25, zerg could potentially stand up to late game pressure. It still doesn't really solve the defensive style of play that zerg is FORCED into, but it does relieve some pressure on the late game such that Terran (and protoss to some extent) can't sit in their base until they're maxed out. It also helps mitigate the fact that zerg usually needs +1 expansion to stay on par with protoss & terran. Let me re-phrase that: one saturated expansion. Which means about 30 drones that are not combat units. An additional 50 supply (the actual number isn't the point of the discussion, just the mechanic) for Hive tech would help curb the excessive drone count for Zerg players. I think the biggest problem about ZvT/P is the creep mechanic, to be honest. While it might seem amazing for Zerg players, it really just hinders them and forces them to play passively. Hydralisks and roaches (to some extent) are slow as sin off creep. This discourages aggressive styles of play against other races. It also discourages the opponent to attack the Zerg who is actively spreading creep because hydralisks and roaches are out of control on the creep. This type of stale-mate position is innately built into the ZvP matchups. The zerg merrily sits on their creep, massing hydras and roaches, and waits for the Protoss to attack. If the zerg moves off the creep in an attempt to make a move against Protoss, colossus or high templar murder hydralisks, not to mention sentry FF's. I think the creep mechanic works well, especially lore-wise. The slowly advancing unstoppable zerg. Of course slowly advancing unstoppable force sounds like siege tanks, but still, you get the idea. Zerg is not as bad off as people think. It is hard for them to get to tier 3, but then the get the best unit in the game: The ultralisk. Honestly, a fully upgraded ultraling force is nigh unstoppable by toss and terran. Terran straight up has no answer except banshees, which get murdered by a muta or 3, and the only decent unit toss has is the archon, which is even *more* expensive than an ultralisk. Factor in that you should be outmacroing them as zerg and GG.
Thors/Hellions can beat Ultra/ling pretty easily.
P has immortals and zealots, both of which destroy ultras.
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On August 10 2010 19:43 Oleksandr wrote:Damn it, I wish I didn't love Zerg so much, so that I could switch and play another race. Oh, well.
Same here. I used to play zerg in BW because it was the swarm. An incredible attack force. Wave after wave of pounding.
But, now I don't have that feeling and even worse, I have no choices when it comes to units to react to the oponent build.
I honestly don't know why I still play zerg, I need more APM, more focus, more bases. better micro AND better macro to win.
The terran just needs 2 bases, air superiority and leap froging tanks.
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Terran turtling is hard to deal with as any race. Defeating it requires innovation, but I find that playing the macro game and taking all of the bases around him is really the best way. There are many ways to defeat a turtling Terran, but sending 200/200 food army at his turtle repeatedly is not the way. I've noticed a lot of posts where people say "I sent 200/200 at his tanks and all my stuff died. I did it again and it happened again!"
That's never the way to deal with turtling Terrans. Seeing those posts.. Hurts me inside a little.
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On August 11 2010 00:31 Bair wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2010 00:01 junemermaid wrote:On August 03 2010 10:47 zomgtossrush wrote:Me and my friend were talking about this issue just last week. Since Terrans have BC's which are the late game "omgrapetastic" option. In which you can make a few of.. Toss has a solo mothership with super "tech" advantages... What does zerg have? you could argue broodlords or ultras, but they dont have that "unique" characteristic that seperates them from the other 2 races. What if the zerg has something to expand their supply? Of course we could debate forever by how much, but lets just say...35? It feels very swarm like. It would solve alot of issues players have with the roach supply count and such. The only problem would be to figure out what that something would be. Something air? something unit? some building, like post-hive? Of course we didn't put TOO much thought into this, but thats what the forums(and you guys) can do for us I was thinking of this last night as well... If having lair tech boosts max supply by 25, and hive another 25, zerg could potentially stand up to late game pressure. It still doesn't really solve the defensive style of play that zerg is FORCED into, but it does relieve some pressure on the late game such that Terran (and protoss to some extent) can't sit in their base until they're maxed out. It also helps mitigate the fact that zerg usually needs +1 expansion to stay on par with protoss & terran. Let me re-phrase that: one saturated expansion. Which means about 30 drones that are not combat units. An additional 50 supply (the actual number isn't the point of the discussion, just the mechanic) for Hive tech would help curb the excessive drone count for Zerg players. I think the biggest problem about ZvT/P is the creep mechanic, to be honest. While it might seem amazing for Zerg players, it really just hinders them and forces them to play passively. Hydralisks and roaches (to some extent) are slow as sin off creep. This discourages aggressive styles of play against other races. It also discourages the opponent to attack the Zerg who is actively spreading creep because hydralisks and roaches are out of control on the creep. This type of stale-mate position is innately built into the ZvP matchups. The zerg merrily sits on their creep, massing hydras and roaches, and waits for the Protoss to attack. If the zerg moves off the creep in an attempt to make a move against Protoss, colossus or high templar murder hydralisks, not to mention sentry FF's. I think the creep mechanic works well, especially lore-wise. The slowly advancing unstoppable zerg. Of course slowly advancing unstoppable force sounds like siege tanks, but still, you get the idea. Zerg is not as bad off as people think. It is hard for them to get to tier 3, but then the get the best unit in the game: The ultralisk. Honestly, a fully upgraded ultraling force is nigh unstoppable by toss and terran. Terran straight up has no answer except banshees, which get murdered by a muta or 3, and the only decent unit toss has is the archon, which is even *more* expensive than an ultralisk. Factor in that you should be outmacroing them as zerg and GG.
I mean, zerg units are Okay off creep, but why would you push out off the creep, intentionally gimping your units? You have to be absolutely certain that you're winning the engagement as retreat is a very hard option because of the fast units Terran has (hellion, stimmed bio) or Protoss (stalkers + blink, chargelots) compared to the hydra, which has the same speed as a sentry off-creep.
No, its much more safe to play on the creep where zerg can get quick arcs and retreat effectively rather than play a risky aggressive style in which a bad battle turns into an instant loss. Making creep highways is one way to play aggressively, but the overlords are oh-so vulnerable. Spreading creep tumors basically is how Zerg slowly regains map control after early game. Speedlings & blings only work up to a certain point for map control, but eventually it gets conceded to competent Terran / Protoss players. This is pretty evident in the tons of high level zerg replays (idra, Sen) where the scope of their army is limited to where the creep is. Hell, why should zerg move out of their comfort zone and intentionally reduce mobility? Given, high level zerg players are good at spreading creep, but once those creep tumors start to fall cuz of obs, the mobility of the zerg player is cut down considerably.
Just my two cents on seeing the army-movement trends in ZvX
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On August 11 2010 00:40 fdsdfg wrote: Thors/Hellions can beat Ultra/ling pretty easily.
P has immortals and zealots, both of which destroy ultras.
This. Not that Ultralisks aren't amazing, as they certainly are, but they aren't the end-all to ZvT and ZvP play. They just force T out of tank mech and P out of Stalker Colossus.
Something I've noticed is that once Z gets proper Hive tech up, they can start dictating play by Nydusing immobile Terrans, switching between air and ground (BL/Muta versus Ultraling) to mess up Protoss, sending Speedlings everywhere, and so on. No, Zerg can't simply 1a into a guarded choke, but little backdoor strategies become much more potent once your opponent is forced to expand outward or risk starving to death.
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Lately I've been rolling with a aggressive opener that stops most early standard T pushes.
Here is a replay that shows what I do exactly. Starts with some early roach, transitions to muta/ling/infestor
Diamond Level replay, not pro level.
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This thread is a violation of rule #2 of the "Starcraft 2 Strategy" forum
- Nothing is imba. If you found something imba, it's most likely not. Find a counter. This is no place for balance discussion.
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On August 11 2010 01:03 Macabre wrote:Lately I've been rolling with a aggressive opener that stops most early standard T pushes. Here is a replay that shows what I do exactly. Starts with some early roach, transitions to muta/ling/infestor Diamond Level replay, not pro level.
I'm trying the same.. more 1 base, expand around 35 strats. They seem to be working well (high plat lvl). I usually open with bling bust (which may or may not end the game) then transition to roaches whilst expanding. Works pretty solid to defend off pushes after bling bust. Also may force him to go the MM route in order to fend off bling, in which case muta are then effective. Aggressiveness is key. I've been very successfull with aggressive openings.
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On August 11 2010 00:58 Acritter wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2010 00:40 fdsdfg wrote: Thors/Hellions can beat Ultra/ling pretty easily.
P has immortals and zealots, both of which destroy ultras. This. Not that Ultralisks aren't amazing, as they certainly are, but they aren't the end-all to ZvT and ZvP play. They just force T out of tank mech and P out of Stalker Colossus. Something I've noticed is that once Z gets proper Hive tech up, they can start dictating play by Nydusing immobile Terrans, switching between air and ground (BL/Muta versus Ultraling) to mess up Protoss, sending Speedlings everywhere, and so on. No, Zerg can't simply 1a into a guarded choke, but little backdoor strategies become much more potent once your opponent is forced to expand outward or risk starving to death.
No the Terran has already dictated play from the beginning of the match by turtling up and waiting for the swarm.
I swear to god I have played against some Terrans who have made their army and gone off to make their dinner...
Actually you think I'm joking this happened in a 3v3 game. Both myself and my 2v2 partner died to opponent attacks our Terran buddy weathered the storm but lost 3v1. After the game we were like "WTF where were you we messaged and messaged and pinged the screen like mad" his response was "I went to get my dinner out of the Oven".
No Joke.
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On August 11 2010 00:58 Acritter wrote: Something I've noticed is that once Z gets proper Hive tech up, they can start dictating play by Nydusing immobile Terrans, switching between air and ground (BL/Muta versus Ultraling) to mess up Protoss, sending Speedlings everywhere, and so on. No, Zerg can't simply 1a into a guarded choke, but little backdoor strategies become much more potent once your opponent is forced to expand outward or risk starving to death.
Actually, Zerg is much more mobile than the other races in every stage of the game. Early it's Zerglings. And once Lair kicks in and you have enough queens, creep spreads like cancer.
Also Nydus worms are Lair tech.
And don't forget that you can get an instant fleet of fast drop ships for the flat price of 300/300. And overlord speed and ventral sacs can be done in parallel when you have an expansion, which you should always have anyway.
Doom drops is not the only thing you can do with Overlords and ventral sacs. You can drop in more places at once than any terran could possibly defend, even with sensor towers (and seeing that those spreading out overlords are actually going for a lot of small drops is all but impossible until it's too late).
Protoss at least can warp in, but that has it's drawbacks too.
And no need to say what 8 zerglings or 4 banelings/roaches/hydras can do to a mineral line if unchecked.
But why stop there? Fill a queen and 4 drones and give him a nasty surprise on a cliff behind a mineral line. 4 spines and a queen with transfuse and air defense. And if he has more air, make 1 or 2 spores instead. Only costs minerals, and is very bothersome to deal with, and terran or protoss usually doesn't expect to be cliff dropped like that from zerg.
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On August 11 2010 00:57 junemermaid wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2010 00:31 Bair wrote:On August 11 2010 00:01 junemermaid wrote:On August 03 2010 10:47 zomgtossrush wrote:Me and my friend were talking about this issue just last week. Since Terrans have BC's which are the late game "omgrapetastic" option. In which you can make a few of.. Toss has a solo mothership with super "tech" advantages... What does zerg have? you could argue broodlords or ultras, but they dont have that "unique" characteristic that seperates them from the other 2 races. What if the zerg has something to expand their supply? Of course we could debate forever by how much, but lets just say...35? It feels very swarm like. It would solve alot of issues players have with the roach supply count and such. The only problem would be to figure out what that something would be. Something air? something unit? some building, like post-hive? Of course we didn't put TOO much thought into this, but thats what the forums(and you guys) can do for us I was thinking of this last night as well... If having lair tech boosts max supply by 25, and hive another 25, zerg could potentially stand up to late game pressure. It still doesn't really solve the defensive style of play that zerg is FORCED into, but it does relieve some pressure on the late game such that Terran (and protoss to some extent) can't sit in their base until they're maxed out. It also helps mitigate the fact that zerg usually needs +1 expansion to stay on par with protoss & terran. Let me re-phrase that: one saturated expansion. Which means about 30 drones that are not combat units. An additional 50 supply (the actual number isn't the point of the discussion, just the mechanic) for Hive tech would help curb the excessive drone count for Zerg players. I think the biggest problem about ZvT/P is the creep mechanic, to be honest. While it might seem amazing for Zerg players, it really just hinders them and forces them to play passively. Hydralisks and roaches (to some extent) are slow as sin off creep. This discourages aggressive styles of play against other races. It also discourages the opponent to attack the Zerg who is actively spreading creep because hydralisks and roaches are out of control on the creep. This type of stale-mate position is innately built into the ZvP matchups. The zerg merrily sits on their creep, massing hydras and roaches, and waits for the Protoss to attack. If the zerg moves off the creep in an attempt to make a move against Protoss, colossus or high templar murder hydralisks, not to mention sentry FF's. I think the creep mechanic works well, especially lore-wise. The slowly advancing unstoppable zerg. Of course slowly advancing unstoppable force sounds like siege tanks, but still, you get the idea. Zerg is not as bad off as people think. It is hard for them to get to tier 3, but then the get the best unit in the game: The ultralisk. Honestly, a fully upgraded ultraling force is nigh unstoppable by toss and terran. Terran straight up has no answer except banshees, which get murdered by a muta or 3, and the only decent unit toss has is the archon, which is even *more* expensive than an ultralisk. Factor in that you should be outmacroing them as zerg and GG. I mean, zerg units are Okay off creep, but why would you push out off the creep, intentionally gimping your units? You have to be absolutely certain that you're winning the engagement as retreat is a very hard option because of the fast units Terran has (hellion, stimmed bio) or Protoss (stalkers + blink, chargelots) compared to the hydra, which has the same speed as a sentry off-creep. No, its much more safe to play on the creep where zerg can get quick arcs and retreat effectively rather than play a risky aggressive style in which a bad battle turns into an instant loss. Making creep highways is one way to play aggressively, but the overlords are oh-so vulnerable. Spreading creep tumors basically is how Zerg slowly regains map control after early game. Speedlings & blings only work up to a certain point for map control, but eventually it gets conceded to competent Terran / Protoss players. This is pretty evident in the tons of high level zerg replays (idra, Sen) where the scope of their army is limited to where the creep is. Hell, why should zerg move out of their comfort zone and intentionally reduce mobility? Given, high level zerg players are good at spreading creep, but once those creep tumors start to fall cuz of obs, the mobility of the zerg player is cut down considerably. Just my two cents on seeing the army-movement trends in ZvX
You should be able to cover most of the map with creep before a mid game push, or at least I try to. I usually get a second queen at my main and use it exclusively for tumors until I can support to injects worth of larva onstantly.
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On August 11 2010 00:53 Wolf wrote: Terran turtling is hard to deal with as any race. Defeating it requires innovation, but I find that playing the macro game and taking all of the bases around him is really the best way. There are many ways to defeat a turtling Terran, but sending 200/200 food army at his turtle repeatedly is not the way. I've noticed a lot of posts where people say "I sent 200/200 at his tanks and all my stuff died. I did it again and it happened again!"
That's never the way to deal with turtling Terrans. Seeing those posts.. Hurts me inside a little.
Totally agree with you, but what else can Zerg do, let the Terran tech even higher up? Wait till you have 60 larvae waiting around doing nothing till you free up some psy? The only viable harass options you have as zerg are burrow and muta's, both are countered pretty easily by scan and Thor. So, the only thing left for Zerg to do is take all possible expo's on the map and spread creep to the opponent's frontdoor and do ninja sniping tactics by attacking and retreating, attacking and retreating, abusing the creep. But that takes so much effort and risk, while the Terran can basically just sit back and tech up to max upgrades, and move out with his unstoppable force, all the while Zerg pulls his hairs out of frustration, because there are so limited options to do something about it. The most succesful way I've used is to use Overlorddrops by the weak points of his base, where he has least vision, but this does make my own base vulnerable to attacks when the drop fails, it's basically gg.
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On August 11 2010 04:09 Cajun2k1 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2010 00:53 Wolf wrote: Terran turtling is hard to deal with as any race. Defeating it requires innovation, but I find that playing the macro game and taking all of the bases around him is really the best way. There are many ways to defeat a turtling Terran, but sending 200/200 food army at his turtle repeatedly is not the way. I've noticed a lot of posts where people say "I sent 200/200 at his tanks and all my stuff died. I did it again and it happened again!"
That's never the way to deal with turtling Terrans. Seeing those posts.. Hurts me inside a little. Totally agree with you, but what else can Zerg do, let the Terran tech even higher up? Wait till you have 60 larvae waiting around doing nothing till you free up some psy? The only viable harass options you have as zerg are burrow and muta's, both are countered pretty easily by scan and Thor. So, the only thing left for Zerg to do is take all possible expo's on the map and spread creep to the opponent's frontdoor and do ninja sniping tactics by attacking and retreating, attacking and retreating, abusing the creep. But that takes so much effort and risk, while the Terran can basically just sit back and tech up to max upgrades, and move out with his unstoppable force, all the while Zerg pulls his hairs out of frustration, because there are so limited options to do something about it. The most succesful way I've used is to use Overlorddrops by the weak points of his base, where he has least vision, but this does make my own base vulnerable to attacks when the drop fails, it's basically gg.
This is the root of it - if all else fails for terran, he always can fall back on his impenetrable defense. This means the only win condition for Zerg in ZvT against a competent Terran is a 40 minute long game in which every base gets mined.
It's very frustrating!
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One thing I'd like to see tried is transfused ultras using queens in overlords to help in big battles. Of course it wouldn't help with early game issues but it could be interesting.
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I'm a diamond zerg player, and I really dont feel they are underpowered. People are not playing them to their full potential. Zerg is the harass race. The FAST race. They aren't the MASS race any more. They are sneaky, very fast, but very weak. Most of your attacks should be hit and runs until you are sure you are far enough ahead to do a full on assault.
I say it all the time, and will continue to do so: The Nydus Network is the BEST ability in the game. I dont think people realize how much their opponent is limited once he knows you have a nydus. You have the power to be everywhere at once, and your units are faster than theirs by a LOT. Exploit this!
As for the OP's point that you can not break a properly defended Terran choke - you dont HAVE to! Just go around.
Also - why does everyone discredit Infested Terrans or not even mention them as an ability? I used 5 infestors to spawn 40 ITs to break a terran choke just the other day. His tanks were effectively used against him as their splash demolished his own wall. Many of the ITs died immediately, but the damage was effective and I didn't lose a single unit. I followed that with a quick nydus by their minerals with nothing but sling/bling and it was GG.
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On August 11 2010 06:23 Jadix wrote: I'm a diamond zerg player, and I really dont feel they are underpowered. People are not playing them to their full potential. Zerg is the harass race. The FAST race. They aren't the MASS race any more. They are sneaky, very fast, but very weak. Most of your attacks should be hit and runs until you are sure you are far enough ahead to do a full on assault.
I say it all the time, and will continue to do so: The Nydus Network is the BEST ability in the game. I dont think people realize how much their opponent is limited once he knows you have a nydus. You have the power to be everywhere at once, and your units are faster than theirs by a LOT. Exploit this!
I don't think you realize how quickly a good Terran player can power down a Nydus once he sees it. Since T doesn't have a demanding macro mechanic like spawn larvae or spreading creep , they can keep an eye on the minimap pretty easily. Once you see the big red square, send over a marauder or a siege tank or a couple marines or a few SCVs. He can divert less cost in units than the 100/100 you spend on the worm alone.
You also probably lose the overlord / overseer who got you sight into the base.
Also, saying zerg is the harass race is a joke. What harass options are available to Zerg and Terran in ZvT?
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On August 11 2010 06:31 fdsdfg wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2010 06:23 Jadix wrote: I'm a diamond zerg player, and I really dont feel they are underpowered. People are not playing them to their full potential. Zerg is the harass race. The FAST race. They aren't the MASS race any more. They are sneaky, very fast, but very weak. Most of your attacks should be hit and runs until you are sure you are far enough ahead to do a full on assault.
I say it all the time, and will continue to do so: The Nydus Network is the BEST ability in the game. I dont think people realize how much their opponent is limited once he knows you have a nydus. You have the power to be everywhere at once, and your units are faster than theirs by a LOT. Exploit this!
I don't think you realize how quickly a good Terran player can power down a Nydus once he sees it. Since T doesn't have a demanding macro mechanic like spawn larvae or spreading creep , they can keep an eye on the minimap pretty easily. Once you see the big red square, send over a marauder or a siege tank or a couple marines or a few SCVs. He can divert less cost in units than the 100/100 you spend on the worm alone. You also probably lose the overlord / overseer who got you sight into the base. Also, saying zerg is the harass race is a joke. What harass options are available to Zerg and Terran in ZvT?
So you're saying you shouldn't use the Nydus Worm? Late game you have tons of minerals. You can make more than one Nydus and choose where you will come up. A good Terran player may be able to cancel one Nydus, but how about 3 or 4? And more, Zerg will not risk his army doing this, it is not like dropping in multiple places.
I still have hope for the swarm. We just need to adapt to its new style.
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When i look at nydus with harassment in mind, i see a lot of problems as follows:
-Units do not deploy to field instantly, and not nearly fast enough for my tastes -Naturally you'll have to divide up your forces -Opens you up for a direct counter if you over commit -T bases generally pretty snug, there aren't too many places to actually nydus -How much damage can you really do before T gets back home to put you down?
With the way nydus worm is right now, i dont think any competent, alert T will let you actually deal damage.
Going off of zerg harass, ZvT harass was super effective when you could maintain a high level of DPS with a small force of units, usually cracklings. You maintained DPS becuase you had Dark Swarm to cover your ass. So late game, good Zs would run around with a couple defiler strike forces to really mess up Terran and Protoss players. But without DS, the idea of small scale commando lings even with nydus worms seems much less effective to me.
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On August 11 2010 07:09 CommanderFluffy wrote: When i look at nydus with harassment in mind, i see a lot of problems as follows:
-Units do not deploy to field instantly, and not nearly fast enough for my tastes -Naturally you'll have to divide up your forces -Opens you up for a direct counter if you over commit -T bases generally pretty snug, there aren't too many places to actually nydus -How much damage can you really do before T gets back home to put you down?
With the way nydus worm is right now, i dont think any competent, alert T will let you actually deal damage.
Going off of zerg harass, ZvT harass was super effective when you could maintain a high level of DPS with a small force of units, usually cracklings. You maintained DPS becuase you had Dark Swarm to cover your ass. So late game, good Zs would run around with a couple defiler strike forces to really mess up Terran and Protoss players. But without DS, the idea of small scale commando lings even with nydus worms seems much less effective to me.
This is essential... the toned down lings are something that really hurt the Zerg threat all game long. Right now lings die to zealots in the early game and become very weak later on...
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On August 11 2010 06:45 J7S wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2010 06:31 fdsdfg wrote:On August 11 2010 06:23 Jadix wrote: I'm a diamond zerg player, and I really dont feel they are underpowered. People are not playing them to their full potential. Zerg is the harass race. The FAST race. They aren't the MASS race any more. They are sneaky, very fast, but very weak. Most of your attacks should be hit and runs until you are sure you are far enough ahead to do a full on assault.
I say it all the time, and will continue to do so: The Nydus Network is the BEST ability in the game. I dont think people realize how much their opponent is limited once he knows you have a nydus. You have the power to be everywhere at once, and your units are faster than theirs by a LOT. Exploit this!
I don't think you realize how quickly a good Terran player can power down a Nydus once he sees it. Since T doesn't have a demanding macro mechanic like spawn larvae or spreading creep , they can keep an eye on the minimap pretty easily. Once you see the big red square, send over a marauder or a siege tank or a couple marines or a few SCVs. He can divert less cost in units than the 100/100 you spend on the worm alone. You also probably lose the overlord / overseer who got you sight into the base. Also, saying zerg is the harass race is a joke. What harass options are available to Zerg and Terran in ZvT? So you're saying you shouldn't use the Nydus Worm? Late game you have tons of minerals. You can make more than one Nydus and choose where you will come up. A good Terran player may be able to cancel one Nydus, but how about 3 or 4? And more, Zerg will not risk his army doing this, it is not like dropping in multiple places. I still have hope for the swarm. We just need to adapt to its new style.
I don't really care about the minerals, I care a lot about the gas. Spending 200 gas per nydus network and 100 per worm adds up REALLY fast. How about 3 or 4? How about 18-24 hydralisks that aren't being built? How about 4-6 ultralisks?
All on a gamble that your opponent won't send one marauder to each of them within 10 seconds of spotting it.
This is essential... the toned down lings are something that really hurt the Zerg threat all game long. Right now lings die to zealots in the early game and become very weak later on...
I hate how the zerg reveal trailer notes that the zerg have evolved since their last engagement.. and yet three very crucial units were deleted and every other one got a nerf. All for what, being able to build a queen instead of an in-base hatchery?
I'm not complaining about balance because the races are pretty evenly balanced IMO, but P and T got SO much fun stuff - Z got a bit too, but all through the beta it was nerfed into oblivion until the only thing left to do is throw Generic Attack Units 1-5 at the opponent at the same time. Zerg was just made really bland for what feels like no reason.
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Going off of fdsdfg's post,
Let's say you get your shit through the worm. All that work, gas, minerals, is it going to really bend the game in your favor? Are you going to get enough of the T's infrastructure to change the tides?
One may put the Terran army off position for a short period of time, but one must commit a sizable amount of infantry to do so, you won't be able to take advantage of the positional opportunity anyway.
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On August 11 2010 07:16 fdsdfg wrote: I'm not complaining about balance because the races are pretty evenly balanced IMO, but P and T got SO much fun stuff - Z got a bit too, but all through the beta it was nerfed into oblivion until the only thing left to do is throw Generic Attack Units 1-5 at the opponent at the same time. Zerg was just made really bland for what feels like no reason.
This is how I feel as well. I have been thinking about switching to protoss for awhile even though I've been a zerg player since BW release.
Also the OP is a great observation. I really do not like the Roach. When I first got into beta they were over the top good but boring. Armor got nerfed. Then supply. Now they are just boring. They are only "tough" because every other zerg unit up until hive tech has the HP of an earthworm. Their gimmicky upgrade is severely diminished simply by using detection (compared to blink, charge, concussive shells which are all worth it all the time). They are "good" against Thors because they are the only pre-hive unit that doesn't disintegrate under its guns. And they have the most pitiful range. Frankly I wish they had not ever made the Roach. It's just a boring unit that has to be balanced around an ability that is easily "countered".
I don't mean to make this a zerg cry. I like hive tech a lot. I like infestors. I don't like the NP nerf (at least there was one other direct response to Thors), but whatever. I also realize that all races are not created equal, but zerg just are not really appealing. It's clear that they can stand up to the other races by watching pros play, but the "macro, creep everywhere, and have far superior positioning/numbers against terran/protoss armies (or avoid them altogether)" playstyle is getting dull. It seems more exciting to be able to 4 gate push or do a tank push or thor push or ANYTHING push.
I'm sure the grass is greener.
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It's true what you said about evolving. Who would give up Defilers for Infestors? I mean really? All the other races got to keep their coolest spells. Irradiate was removed but so were Lurkers. EMP is there (even though it wasn't that used in BW it was still a good spell). Psistorm is there. Plague? Dark Swarm? The spells that made Zerg equal to T and P?
Overseers have abilities that are just lol, I really hope they aren't considered the second zerg caster.
The thing is, Plague and DS were GOOD spells. They had good mechanics, they were extremely useful, they are interesting and affected gameplay. Spawning a marine that lasts for 10 seconds is not really interesting compared to that.
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On August 10 2010 01:14 Svizcy wrote: Then there are tech switches that you can abuse so much more easily that any terran or toss.
I don't know who started the whole "zerg has awesome tech switches thing" but I hate them for it. We do not have the ability to tech switch easily. When I put down a tech building I know it's is going to take forever to build and will be mighty expensive, so when it finally pops I better put it to good use. (which is why I LOVE that a few thors or turrets negates my investment in a spire) It's not like I can look at the enemy composition and say "oh I should build hydras now" and then boom get tons of hydras. Hell no. Not only do I have to wait for the hydra den to morph, I also need to get the range research because the range is pitiful. Same thing goes for roaches where I need to research burrow, speed or claws for them to be flexible. Same thing for lings where I have to research speed for them to outrun a reaper or hellion.
This leads into my next point. Terran are the best race at tech switching hands down. You know why? They can literally switch their buildings around to get new tech. If you want to go from producing 2x hellions off a reactor to thors then all you gotta do is pick up the factory and put it next to a tech lab. Instant tech switch. Now try to tell me that zerg's can start producing high tech units that fast. And not only that, but the tech reactor on your factory unlocks multiple units, not only one. The same goes for any terran production structure.
/rant Please, PLEASE stop telling me to abuse "fast tech switches". They are a myth.
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I don't know if it's been said but zerg harassment usually requires a lot of investment. Nydus is 150/200 + another 100/100 to place the worm (and you probably need to drop 2 to make sure they go through). Burrow move is 100/100 and then another 150/150 for roaches. These are all things that aren't very useful outside of harassment (I guess the roach stuff is good, but nydus is definitely not as useful).
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Ultras are good at breaking a tank line if they are supported by healing queens. Make transfusion into both a targeted ability like now for ultras/BL's, and also the option to slam down an AoE heal (suggested size FF/Storm/FG ish) so that roaches really can be used to tank damage and to some extent to help lings earlier game (they'll get oneshotted by the time terran is hard turtled but at that point you are going for ultras anyway). It would not solve a lot of problems the thread adresses (Nydus being shit, added macro/micro awkwardness -just to keep up- et cetera) but it would help zerg in the earlier game, and you wouldn't be punished to make queens as support units/casters and not just larva poopers. The extra queens well fit in with the extra creep spread and the extra defense zerg needs. Queens feel super underutilized except for just keeping up, it would be nice if they could be used to gain an edge, and making them not only the macro MUST for zerg but another support caster (which they need sorely) would help a bit. Maybe even make the heal apply a short temporary buff that reduces incoming damage, so that pre-casted even late game lings could have a reasonable shot at penetrating a tank line at least somewhat.
Add this with small tweaks to Nydus, tank smart targetting, maybe slow down their firing a bit to make it easier but still punishing to approach a sieged position, tweak some small number changes in damage or bonus damage and we'd be a bit closer to a more entertaining TvZ without breaking ZvP or TvP.
In the end, ZvT imbalances does not lie in numbercrunching but in size of toolbox and playstyle requirements. A terran can easily slam up a bio ball with a few tanks for support against protoss without having to scout what I have and perform reasonably well, and they can go mech against zerg without trouble as we've seen many times. A protoss player needs to decide to get colossi and get sniped by vikings or HT's and get sniped by ghosts (with the added EMP to boot) and a zerg player needs to desperately stay alive with a 4:1 base ratio advantage to -maybe- break the terran late game with a triple expenditure of resources.
Hopefully Blizzard does something drastic (they are usually reluctant to do so however, regardless of what the community says, just look at WoW) before HotS, and if not, hopefully by then. The matchup does not need small nerfs/buffs (even though it might help), it needs a serious overhaul without waiting for new metagame. The metagame has been tested for six months and constantly gotten worse - in the beta roaches were the be-all end-all zerg build and it got nerfed. Now mech is the be-all end-all terran build and nothing is being made. The main disagreement is not whether or not something is wrong with the matchup, but instead small disagreements about -what- is wrong. Nobody sees a realistic meta game change that will fix the matchup, if all options were not all tried and tested already I would commend Blizzard for holding out on any changes but it can't go on any further.
This is from a gold level protoss player who is -VERY- tired of PvT and PvP. I've played 25 ladder games. Only 2 against zerg, lost one and won one. "50% win rate, MU is balanced". Bollocks. I fucked up when I lost and when I won I won decisively. Zerg is too hard to play, Terran is too easy to play and PvP always erupts into gateway zerging until one side buckles. I tend to enjoy laddering but it's very, very samey. Fix plz. I very much feel the zerg players pain and I hope I get to see more of them soon, but it would not be because of changed metagame.
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Spending 200 gas per nydus network and 100 per worm adds up REALLY fast.
what do you mean per nydus network? you just have to build one..
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On August 11 2010 07:20 CommanderFluffy wrote: Going off of fdsdfg's post,
Let's say you get your shit through the worm. All that work, gas, minerals, is it going to really bend the game in your favor? Are you going to get enough of the T's infrastructure to change the tides?
One may put the Terran army off position for a short period of time, but one must commit a sizable amount of infantry to do so, you won't be able to take advantage of the positional opportunity anyway.
Yes, it definitely bends the game in your favor... plus you can usually retreat most of your forces and hardly lose a thing except the cost of the worm.
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On August 11 2010 11:29 Prdors wrote: I don't know if it's been said but zerg harassment usually requires a lot of investment. Nydus is 150/200 + another 100/100 to place the worm (and you probably need to drop 2 to make sure they go through). Burrow move is 100/100 and then another 150/150 for roaches. These are all things that aren't very useful outside of harassment (I guess the roach stuff is good, but nydus is definitely not as useful).
100/100 is not a lot of cost to put some sling/bling in their mineral line. 250/300 is not a lot to make them worry about a nydus worm.
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On August 11 2010 13:22 Jadix wrote:what do you mean per nydus network? you just have to build one..
If you only have one Nydus Network, then you can only build one worm at a time.
This was a ninja nerf a while back...
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Nydus needs to be burrowed until it pops. Require detection. And it must spit out units faster to be good offense.
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On August 11 2010 13:24 Jadix wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2010 07:20 CommanderFluffy wrote: Going off of fdsdfg's post,
Let's say you get your shit through the worm. All that work, gas, minerals, is it going to really bend the game in your favor? Are you going to get enough of the T's infrastructure to change the tides?
One may put the Terran army off position for a short period of time, but one must commit a sizable amount of infantry to do so, you won't be able to take advantage of the positional opportunity anyway. Yes, it definitely bends the game in your favor... plus you can usually retreat most of your forces and hardly lose a thing except the cost of the worm.
Replay?
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On August 03 2010 18:46 Pabs wrote: Protoss and Terran have trouble attacking a turtling Terran position as well. I don't quite feel qualified to tell someone like Sheth that they need to change their strategy against T; but there it is... There are posts on TL every day from new players that wonder why their army gets owned every time they try to force the front door. They generally get the same answer... Expand and Take advantage of Terran immobility. I really don't see a different answer for Sheth.
Yep.
I play random, and while I definitely get frustrated blowing huge amounts of units on some terran with 3 thors and random crap when I play zerg, or seeing him turtle, while I'm taking 4 bases, and then watch him inch his way across the map even though I completely outmacro and out-mine him, I don't find it any easier to stop this as P or T.
I honestly think that terran is the problem here, not zerg.
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On August 11 2010 11:20 Clockwerk wrote:Show nested quote +On August 10 2010 01:14 Svizcy wrote: Then there are tech switches that you can abuse so much more easily that any terran or toss.
I don't know who started the whole "zerg has awesome tech switches thing" but I hate them for it. We do not have the ability to tech switch easily. When I put down a tech building I know it's is going to take forever to build and will be mighty expensive, so when it finally pops I better put it to good use. (which is why I LOVE that a few thors or turrets negates my investment in a spire) It's not like I can look at the enemy composition and say "oh I should build hydras now" and then boom get tons of hydras. Hell no. Not only do I have to wait for the hydra den to morph, I also need to get the range research because the range is pitiful. Same thing goes for roaches where I need to research burrow, speed or claws for them to be flexible. Same thing for lings where I have to research speed for them to outrun a reaper or hellion. ... Please, PLEASE stop telling me to abuse "fast tech switches". They are a myth.
Rofl, no wonder you can't tech switch, you're doing it completely wrong. Please learn to play before coming out and declaring it impossible. You DON'T tech switch by scouting the enemy comp, or losing an army, and THEN putting down your tech structure and starting your upgrades. You plan for a tech switch ahead of time, and only produce the units that are needed at the moment. As you progress through the game, you decide what units are useful, and place the necessary tech structures. You don't use them until they are necessary. Suppose you attack with mass roach, his response is to increase his armies composition of marauder. Since you already have a pool, you switch to zerglings (which you already have speed for). He adds hellions to his mix, now you make muta with your next larvae batch. He makes marines... but you already have a baneling nest and you run your mutas away, baneling the marines, and then put them back in. The terran will be tearing his hair out trying to figure out what you are going. It's the zergs who sit around picking 1 unit composition for the entire game and predictably just go higher in tech that get compltely farmed. Zerg have the capability to have an entirely different wave, in every single attack. This means the opponent has to literally be able to counter everything, and you can exploit the fact that his army isn't specialized. Thor/tank/hellion/marine might be crazy deadly to fight, but there are clearly some units that are better in this situation from others. Every time you make your opponent build non-optimal units (say marines vs your roaches), you gain.
Quite frequently I'll alternate waves of muta and ling vs protoss. He spams stalkers, I throw lings at him. He makes zealots, I throw mutas at him. He gets phoenix, I pump hydra. THIS is the tech switch. Rapidly changing your composition to confound your enemy's counters. It has nothing to do with the actual production of the tech structure.
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I'm a high Platinum zerg player (never done a 1v1 with any other race in SC2), and while I think the races are fairly balanced when they're in the hands of pros, I don't see that as the main problem here.
I'm okay with losing to people who are better than me and people who are as good at me. I lose my share of vZ, vT, and vP because the other guy out microed, out macroed, or had a better strategy than I did, and that's okay.
What's not okay is when a Terran who is *clearly worse* than me beats me because of the options his race has. As someone said further up in the thread, we Zerg need to be "x" better than the opposing Terran in order to win, at the platinum level. This is the problem.
There seems to be a lot of talk about what Zerg players could do differently / better in order to beat Terran, and many of these strategies are probably viable. The question is WHY should zerg be forced to pull out all the stops to beat a meching terran?
Here's my issue. Zerg has to go quick speedlings to stop reapers/hellions, has to fast expand and balance drones/units to stop midgame push, and has to mass expand and tech while still macroing well (creep, queens) and scouting, all the while carefully balancing units because the terran decides when the fight happens, and THEN he has to micro quite well even to win the final fight (I can't think of a Zerg unit comp that can 1a over a terran mech comp, EVER).
While Zerg is pushing his apm (platinum-level, remember) to the max to pull all this off, what is the terran doing? Where is the equal skill requirement?
It's not that Terran beats Zerg when both players are perfect. It's that terran beats zerg when both players are equally imperfect that bothers me.
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On August 12 2010 03:14 ToxNub wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2010 11:20 Clockwerk wrote:On August 10 2010 01:14 Svizcy wrote: Then there are tech switches that you can abuse so much more easily that any terran or toss.
I don't know who started the whole "zerg has awesome tech switches thing" but I hate them for it. We do not have the ability to tech switch easily. When I put down a tech building I know it's is going to take forever to build and will be mighty expensive, so when it finally pops I better put it to good use. (which is why I LOVE that a few thors or turrets negates my investment in a spire) It's not like I can look at the enemy composition and say "oh I should build hydras now" and then boom get tons of hydras. Hell no. Not only do I have to wait for the hydra den to morph, I also need to get the range research because the range is pitiful. Same thing goes for roaches where I need to research burrow, speed or claws for them to be flexible. Same thing for lings where I have to research speed for them to outrun a reaper or hellion. ... Please, PLEASE stop telling me to abuse "fast tech switches". They are a myth. Rofl, no wonder you can't tech switch, you're doing it completely wrong. Please learn to play before coming out and declaring it impossible. You DON'T tech switch by scouting the enemy comp, or losing an army, and THEN putting down your tech structure and starting your upgrades. You plan for a tech switch ahead of time, and only produce the units that are needed at the moment. As you progress through the game, you decide what units are useful, and place the necessary tech structures. You don't use them until they are necessary. Suppose you attack with mass roach, his response is to increase his armies composition of marauder. Since you already have a pool, you switch to zerglings (which you already have speed for). He adds hellions to his mix, now you make muta with your next larvae batch. He makes marines... but you already have a baneling nest and you run your mutas away, baneling the marines, and then put them back in. The terran will be tearing his hair out trying to figure out what you are going. It's the zergs who sit around picking 1 unit composition for the entire game and predictably just go higher in tech that get compltely farmed. Zerg have the capability to have an entirely different wave, in every single attack. This means the opponent has to literally be able to counter everything, and you can exploit the fact that his army isn't specialized. Thor/tank/hellion/marine might be crazy deadly to fight, but there are clearly some units that are better in this situation from others. Every time you make your opponent build non-optimal units (say marines vs your roaches), you gain. Quite frequently I'll alternate waves of muta and ling vs protoss. He spams stalkers, I throw lings at him. He makes zealots, I throw mutas at him. He gets phoenix, I pump hydra. THIS is the tech switch. Rapidly changing your composition to confound your enemy's counters. It has nothing to do with the actual production of the tech structure. The ZvP tech switch is by far easier than a ZvT tech switch, and even then transitioning against a P going phoenix into expand into colossi is a pain. Well, far from unwinnable, so nothing horrid.
However, the ZvT example that you suggests only goes so far. Against a T that isn't engaging losing fights with you and simply keeping his macro up, you'll eventually have to face tanks. Unfortunately, there is no easy solution against tanks. Not to cry op or anything, but against a certain level of terran firepower, the only way you can beat that army heads on is through pure mass. Thors and tanks are strong enough on their own that you can really take advantage of it by any of the cute tech switch stuff, and would need to start abusing drops/nydus/runbys instead.
What you seem to be assuming is that T will be making something just to counter you, and they will, to a degree, but it won't really work that nicely. Marine against roach won't work that nicely, but just the presence of two tanks in that group of marines has rendered your roaches that much more ineffective, and 2 tanks isn't that easy to counter. People joked about TLO's style being making a few of every units, but it works.
That said, I think tech switch is definitely a potent force, but I honestly think that other than lings, our only real option in ZvT is mutes and roaches, and both of those take ample hate. Barring a terran grossly misjudging a situation, it is really hard to take advantage of switches when options available to us are minimal.
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Bosnia-Herzegovina114 Posts
I must say I've not yet played a game of StarCraft II, but I've watched countless commentaries and read loads of threads on official Blizzard forums. Here are my impressions: Terran is both awesomely powerful and unbelievably cool. Every Terran unit and building has some kind of special cap(ability), can do something interesting. Where's the equivalent for, say, Overlords? Why can't they do something, anything comparable to what Terran has other than serenely float through space while being slaughtered? Terrans can cast EMP and Nukes, while a Zerg caster has ... Fungal Growth?! Can the name be any lamer? I guess it can - if it were Fungal Overgrowth. Oh, and 'Fungal' as in Mushrooms. Terran chucks Nukes at a Zerg, he responds with Mushrooms. +_+
It's a real shame Zerg became so boring, since they were always my favorite race (surprised? :D), but Terran is where creative play is at (for me). Someone noticed in this thread, 'Zerg are for masochists only'. I agree wholeheartedly, and when I eventually start playing, I will play Terran exclusively.
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I wonder if Ultras/lings having no pathing collision with each other would be neat
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I can see that choke points right now are too easily defended against a Zerg, and that given how the buildings work for Terran it's hard to confidently determine what they're actually building until you actually see the unit, in which it can be hard to respond to.
I believe most of these problems of 'turtling' Terrans come from the actual map designs itself. The smaller maps that have a lot of cliffs and tight choke points will favor Protoss/Terran as they become hard to push (Lost Temple, Steppes of War). However I think when new maps come out, the issue will solve itself as it opens more doors for Zerg to be more aggressive. With now some of the newer maps have wider natural and longer rush distances (Xel Naga Caverns).
Yes I can see that with small maps, narrow chokes and small rush distances, a less mobile army that has just shear power will be at an advantage, but as the maps progress in a fashion similar to Xel Naga Caverns, it will be harder for say Terran to push out without the fear of getting harass or needing to defend.
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WOW, yeah, that replay really drives it home. That's absolutely ridiculous. Now i see what higher lvl zergs are saying about the imbalance. It really seems like there was nothing you could have done.
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On August 12 2010 03:14 ToxNub wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2010 11:20 Clockwerk wrote:On August 10 2010 01:14 Svizcy wrote: Then there are tech switches that you can abuse so much more easily that any terran or toss.
I don't know who started the whole "zerg has awesome tech switches thing" but I hate them for it. We do not have the ability to tech switch easily. When I put down a tech building I know it's is going to take forever to build and will be mighty expensive, so when it finally pops I better put it to good use. (which is why I LOVE that a few thors or turrets negates my investment in a spire) It's not like I can look at the enemy composition and say "oh I should build hydras now" and then boom get tons of hydras. Hell no. Not only do I have to wait for the hydra den to morph, I also need to get the range research because the range is pitiful. Same thing goes for roaches where I need to research burrow, speed or claws for them to be flexible. Same thing for lings where I have to research speed for them to outrun a reaper or hellion. ... Please, PLEASE stop telling me to abuse "fast tech switches". They are a myth. Rofl, no wonder you can't tech switch, you're doing it completely wrong. Please learn to play before coming out and declaring it impossible. You DON'T tech switch by scouting the enemy comp, or losing an army, and THEN putting down your tech structure and starting your upgrades. You plan for a tech switch ahead of time, and only produce the units that are needed at the moment. As you progress through the game, you decide what units are useful, and place the necessary tech structures. You don't use them until they are necessary. Suppose you attack with mass roach, his response is to increase his armies composition of marauder. Since you already have a pool, you switch to zerglings (which you already have speed for). He adds hellions to his mix, now you make muta with your next larvae batch. He makes marines... but you already have a baneling nest and you run your mutas away, baneling the marines, and then put them back in. The terran will be tearing his hair out trying to figure out what you are going. It's the zergs who sit around picking 1 unit composition for the entire game and predictably just go higher in tech that get compltely farmed. Zerg have the capability to have an entirely different wave, in every single attack. This means the opponent has to literally be able to counter everything, and you can exploit the fact that his army isn't specialized. Thor/tank/hellion/marine might be crazy deadly to fight, but there are clearly some units that are better in this situation from others. Every time you make your opponent build non-optimal units (say marines vs your roaches), you gain. Quite frequently I'll alternate waves of muta and ling vs protoss. He spams stalkers, I throw lings at him. He makes zealots, I throw mutas at him. He gets phoenix, I pump hydra. THIS is the tech switch. Rapidly changing your composition to confound your enemy's counters. It has nothing to do with the actual production of the tech structure.
Yea that's the theory, but how do u beat a T mech with Blue flamedHelions/Tanks/Thors? In the Mid game. Or even Marine/Marauders/Ghosts/Thors? See the Problem? T can make any unit comp, and it's usually able to counter most units Z builds. Obv, during the late game, where we have most of the tech structure already with multiple mining bases, then sure, tech switches are okay. But it's the mid-game with limited resources, and early game harass that gets the Z. Not to mention upgrade paths for Z concentrates on Melee/Ground or Air. Protoss has Ground/Air. I don't even think you play Z, come to think of it. There is no way you can invest in all of those Tech structures right after getting lair, and your on 2 bases, w/o just rolling over and die to any mid-game pushes. Your example of Protoss only alternating b/n stalkers/zlots is stupid. If you have access to mutas, then the protoss for sure has access to t2. Your also not taking into account, how his micro'd phoenixes will kill all your mutas, and thus the leftover phoenixes is able to kill off w/e muta wave you push out next.
I'm very interested in seeing some of these reps of you confundling these T and P players with your insane tech switches forcing them to a gg. I personally don't have a problem with Zv P/T balances at my mid-level diamond league, but if I can learn these techniques of yours, i'm sure i'll be able to rise to the top v.quickly. Btw, are you actually idra/dimaga(insert pro-zerg player) using a different alias?
TLDR: I believe your a T/P player trying to troll the Zergs. Quick tech switches like you describe are only possible off multiple mining bases during the mid-late game. You will not be able to have all these structures available during early-mid game w/o severely cutting into your army size/efficiency. Also, T and P army usually have a good enough unit comp to at least hold-out when you Tech switch until reinforcement arrives.
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I am sick and tired of hearing about "just tech switch, Zerg!"
What the hell are we supposed to tech switch to and from? Zerg has the least amount of combat units of all 3 races, and after all the early harassment, it costs an arm and a leg to get all tech buildings up. Zerg is not some freaking Terran who gets every single unit in the game from 3 base structures with cutesy add-on bunny hopping.
Yes, once Zerg has 4-5 bases, we can start fooling around with that, until then we can barely produce enough just to feed your damn reapers, hellions, tanks, and whatever else that is thrown at us.
How about a mouth-switch instead?
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Zerg has the least amount of combat units of all 3 races, and after all the early harassment, it costs an arm and a leg to get all tech buildings up. Zerg is not some freaking Terran who gets every single unit in the game from 3 base structures with cutesy add-on bunny hopping.
Zerg has the same number of combat units as Terran. Zerg also spends less on their tech than Terran does. Zerg gets every unit from 1 base structure without bunny hopping.
Zerg might very well be underpowered against Terran but certainly not in the area of tech switching. Having said all that the choke thing isn't a problem with Zerg, it is a problem with Terran. When I play Protoss vs Terran and I attack a choke I'm going to die. When I play Terran vs Terran and I attack a fortified choke I'm going to die. Zerg has the best chance of the bunch if they can get to brood lords or Ultralisks.
Range 13 tanks with smart AI are just too powerful to attack directly in a choke for any race.
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Well I think, if the point hasn't been made now, we should also re-evaluate the zerg's "rebuilding an army advantage".
I know I had to in my last game against my friend who was protoss. I massed roaches and infestors hoping to send IT all over his base, destroying his gateways, and have my roaches fight his zealots, sentries, and stalkers. His army, needless to say, won. I go "okay, luckily, I have 2 expos where he has one, and my queen made larvae while I was fighting". I had the resources for about 12-14 roaches, 1 infestor, and some zerglings. He just attacked my expo, had half way down before my army got there, killed my army, then killed the expo. So, I rebuild all my larvae into roaches again, which he just kills because his army isn't going away, he kills my first expo, game over.
So, while rebuilding an army fast is great if they don't plan on sieging more after they won the fight, if they do, it's hardly to much of an advantage on appose to the Terran who sit there with 3 tanks, 6 air turrets, and a ground army of thors and marines, at home base, impenetrable by any amount of hydras, mutas, roaches, zerglings, etc. And banelings reach critical mass.
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On August 16 2010 00:35 EnderCN wrote:Show nested quote +Zerg has the least amount of combat units of all 3 races, and after all the early harassment, it costs an arm and a leg to get all tech buildings up. Zerg is not some freaking Terran who gets every single unit in the game from 3 base structures with cutesy add-on bunny hopping. Zerg has the same number of combat units as Terran. Zerg also spends less on their tech than Terran does. Zerg gets every unit from 1 base structure without bunny hopping.
Ling baneling roach hydra muta corruptor broodlord ultra Marine marauder reaper ghost hellion siege tank thor viking banshee battlecruiser
barracks 150/0 factory 150/100 starport 150/100, tech lab 50/25
spawning pool 250/0, roach warren 200/0, lair 150/100, hydra 150/100, spire 250/200, greater spire hive 200/150, greater spire 150/200, ultra den 250/200
not to mention the terran necessary upgrades are all 100/100 or 50/50, while zerg are all 150/150 or 100/100, and we have a necessary upgrade for almost EVERY unit while terran has, what, 3?
Please don't say such stupid things.
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On August 16 2010 01:45 fdsdfg wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2010 00:35 EnderCN wrote:Zerg has the least amount of combat units of all 3 races, and after all the early harassment, it costs an arm and a leg to get all tech buildings up. Zerg is not some freaking Terran who gets every single unit in the game from 3 base structures with cutesy add-on bunny hopping. Zerg has the same number of combat units as Terran. Zerg also spends less on their tech than Terran does. Zerg gets every unit from 1 base structure without bunny hopping. Ling baneling roach hydra muta corruptor broodlord ultra Marine marauder reaper ghost hellion siege tank thor viking banshee battlecruiser barracks 150/0 factory 150/100 starport 150/100, tech lab 50/25 spawning pool 250/0, roach warren 200/0, lair 150/100, hydra 150/100, spire 250/200, greater spire hive 200/150, greater spire 150/200, ultra den 250/200 not to mention the terran necessary upgrades are all 100/100 or 50/50, while zerg are all 150/150 or 100/100, and we have a necessary upgrade for almost EVERY unit while terran has, what, 3? Please don't say such stupid things.
You forgot Queen and infestor and you should be counting overseer, overlord and medivac as they are combat support units as well.
You count lair and hive and greater spire but don't include armory(100/65) and fusion core(150/150) which are required to build certain units. You also need a tech lab or reactor(50/50) on every building and you need multiple copies of each building. In the end zerg does not pay more for their tech/buildings than Terran. When a Terran player has 12 unit buildings down supporting their 3 bases late game come and tell me they cost less on their tech/military buildings. Remember a hatchery doesn't cost more than a command center to begin with and the queen it needs doesn't cost more than an orbital.
As for upgrades you are only looking at a few of them apparently. Every Terran unit has at least 1 upgrade you need if you are going to use them long term. Zerg gets 12 upgrades outside of the shared + 1 ranged attack type that is the same for everyone. Terran gets 18 upgrades outside of the shared +1 att/armor upgrades. Some of the Terran ones are cheaper but not all of them.
Insulting someone else when you don't even get the facts right probably is a very smart thing to do.
Again I'm not saying Terran is balanced, just saying you are looking in the wrong place for the source if you think it is in tech switching or tech cost because Zerg is not falling behind in those areas.
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On August 16 2010 03:24 EnderCN wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2010 01:45 fdsdfg wrote:On August 16 2010 00:35 EnderCN wrote:Zerg has the least amount of combat units of all 3 races, and after all the early harassment, it costs an arm and a leg to get all tech buildings up. Zerg is not some freaking Terran who gets every single unit in the game from 3 base structures with cutesy add-on bunny hopping. Zerg has the same number of combat units as Terran. Zerg also spends less on their tech than Terran does. Zerg gets every unit from 1 base structure without bunny hopping. Ling baneling roach hydra muta corruptor broodlord ultra Marine marauder reaper ghost hellion siege tank thor viking banshee battlecruiser barracks 150/0 factory 150/100 starport 150/100, tech lab 50/25 spawning pool 250/0, roach warren 200/0, lair 150/100, hydra 150/100, spire 250/200, greater spire hive 200/150, greater spire 150/200, ultra den 250/200 not to mention the terran necessary upgrades are all 100/100 or 50/50, while zerg are all 150/150 or 100/100, and we have a necessary upgrade for almost EVERY unit while terran has, what, 3? Please don't say such stupid things. You forgot Queen and infestor and you should be counting overseer, overlord and medivac as they are combat support units as well. You count lair and hive and greater spire but don't include armory(100/65) and fusion core(150/150) which are required to build certain units. You also need a tech lab or reactor(50/50) on every building and you need multiple copies of each building. In the end zerg does not pay more for their tech/buildings than Terran. When a Terran player has 12 unit buildings down supporting their 3 bases late game come and tell me they cost less on their tech/military buildings. Remember a hatchery doesn't cost more than a command center to begin with and the queen it needs doesn't cost more than an orbital. As for upgrades you are only looking at a few of them apparently. Every Terran unit has at least 1 upgrade you need if you are going to use them long term. Zerg gets 12 upgrades outside of the shared + 1 ranged attack type that is the same for everyone. Terran gets 18 upgrades outside of the shared +1 att/armor upgrades. Some of the Terran ones are cheaper but not all of them. Insulting someone else when you don't even get the facts right probably is a very smart thing to do. Again I'm not saying Terran is balanced, just saying you are looking in the wrong place for the source if you think it is in tech switching or tech cost because Zerg is not falling behind in those areas.
My facts were right. Calling the overlord a 'combat unit'? That's not accurate.
Fusion core and Armory unlock two units, ghost academy one. Still much cheaper than Zerg tech.
CC doesn't cost more than a hatchery, it's not complicated.
Hatchery: 300 + drone, 2 supply. Overlord 100, 8 supply CC: 400, 10 supply.
Yes Zerg gets production out of it, that is an advantage of theirs. That is also totally irrelevant to the point I was debating. I didn't say Zerg has no advantages, I said that the person is stupid if he thinks Terran tech is more expensive than Zerg tech. I stand by that.
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I never said CC cost more than hatchery, I said they were the same. Terran spends as much or more on buildings and upgrades than Zerg does long term. It is easier for Zerg to switch from one unit type to another than it is for Terran and that was the original point.
Yes the overlord is a combat unit, it is a combat transport and can win quite a few games when used as such. Terran gets 12 combat units, Zerg gets 12 combat units (11 if you want to count overseer+overlord as 1 which I could understand) and Protoss gets 14.
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this is the reason kulas is so bad for zerg late game. EVERYWHERE is cramped. I realized just how cramped recently when I watched Idra v Drewbie, and it was insane. Idra barely won, and lost nearly 2x as much resources of units to drewbie, because he went for an ultra/infestor/ling build. Eventually he won, but he needed 3 more bases, which is why you shouldn't do a melee composition on tight maps :I
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I think the problem lies with terran having superior upgrades and zerg needing to wait until tier2 or higher until they can harass a terran.
EARLY GAME
1) stim 100/100 is a way more efficient upgrade early game compared to speed zerglings because terran can just block them off
Suggestion: decrease the attack speed of stim slightly
2) concusive shells - only 50/50 making it impossible for roaches to get away
Sugestion: return roach 5 hp/sec above ground as a upgrade for 50/50
3) marine combat shield - 100/100 (I think) -boosts the effectiveness of a basic race unit creating good timing attacks early game
Sugestion: make burrow a tier1 upgrade so that lings/roach/bane can counter attack, harass and delay terran early game as they do their push
MID-GAME to LATE-GAME
1) hellion pre-ignitor - adds 10 donus damage to light making them super effective vs lings and hydras, also keeping speed advantage on hydras
Sugestion: remove zergling adrenal gland (its the most worthless upgrade in the game) and either add a upgrade to give zerglings more health (comparable to combat shield 10-15 hp) or put in a hydralisk movement speed upgrade
2) Thor AA splash - makes mutalisk harass in the early mid game extremely difficult
Suggestion: make thor air splash a upgrade for about 200/200, without upgrade only dealing damage to single target
OR
Decrease effectiveness of missle turrets vs mutalisk so that the mobility of thors can be easier made use of.
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I totally agree with you. ZvT is such a broken match up in this game!
Oh btw I saw the game where you played Trump last night in the ladders as terran. That was a really good one not gonna lie. You totally had him thrown off his game lol
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On August 16 2010 04:04 EnderCN wrote: Yes the overlord is a combat unit, it is a combat transport and can win quite a few games when used as such.
No wonder you don't play Zerg; yeah, let me try to win some games by attacking the enemy with overlords and overseers. OH! and changelings are combat units as well.
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On August 16 2010 04:39 Linden wrote: I think the problem lies with terran having superior upgrades and zerg needing to wait until tier2 or higher until they can harass a terran.
EARLY GAME
1) stim 100/100 is a way more efficient upgrade early game compared to speed zerglings because terran can just block them off
Suggestion: decrease the attack speed of stim slightly
2) concusive shells - only 50/50 making it impossible for roaches to get away
Sugestion: return roach 5 hp/sec above ground as a upgrade for 50/50
3) marine combat shield - 100/100 (I think) -boosts the effectiveness of a basic race unit creating good timing attacks early game
Sugestion: make burrow a tier1 upgrade so that lings/roach/bane can counter attack, harass and delay terran early game as they do their push
MID-GAME to LATE-GAME
1) hellion pre-ignitor - adds 10 donus damage to light making them super effective vs lings and hydras, also keeping speed advantage on hydras
Sugestion: remove zergling adrenal gland (its the most worthless upgrade in the game) and either add a upgrade to give zerglings more health (comparable to combat shield 10-15 hp) or put in a hydralisk movement speed upgrade
2) Thor AA splash - makes mutalisk harass in the early mid game extremely difficult
Suggestion: make thor air splash a upgrade for about 200/200, without upgrade only dealing damage to single target
OR
Decrease effectiveness of missle turrets vs mutalisk so that the mobility of thors can be easier made use of.
Very much agree with hydralisk and zergling upgrade.
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I very very very much disagree that an Overlord and or an Overseer are "combat units". Overlords are after all, the source of food for zerg.
Combat to me means either one who dishes damage out, or one who heals. I wouldn't count a transport unit, especially one that's primarily for food, "combat".
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On August 16 2010 04:04 EnderCN wrote: It is easier for Zerg to switch from one unit type to another than it is for Terran and that was the original point.
Which is wrong. In Tier 3 when zerg has every tech building, sure, but in early-mid game T just has to go down the 'standard' build and he unlocks all his units minus the ghost+BC.
About the same time T finishes the starport and as access to, what, 12 units or so, Zerg is deciding which T2 building to build that will unlock their third or fourth unit type.
That's the point. You can't tech switch when you have no tech, and early on Zerg has no tech and Terran has finishes the tech tree.
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I really struggle with viking harass late game at time, putting a cast time on their liftoff would help a lot I think. Don't know if viking harass is a huge problem at higher levels of play though
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totally agree. I play a Terran friend of mine. I usually crush him because he's not as good as I am, yet. But he complains, with good reason, that i NEVER attack him. I always just defend and wait till he pushes out or until I've creeped the whole map, taken every expansion.
Then I suicide my army into his impenetrable defense, switch to corrupters, lords and hope to win. That's it. God save me when he gets better.
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If they gave ultralisks a smaller unit radius it would change the entire battle. Either that or make it so they cost an extra 50 minerals and can morph into an overlord type unit then drop themselves into enemy lines. - i find to use them correctly you have to drop them everywhere because you cant get up choke points with them. But putting them into an overlord that has 100 health and gets killed the ultralisk dies it is very frustrating to have to have double the amount of overlords you need to doom drop properly so your transporting units do not die. And a slight increase to the damage that fungal growth does - race fixed.
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Also i think a zergling upgrade to replace adrenaline glands at tier 3 that costs 300minerals and 300 gas is to make zerglings be able to cliff jump. Its very expensive but would be so much fun. Even it makes the zerglings cost 50 minerals and 10gas to produce after the upgrade.
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Talking about observations... does anyone notice the irony of the situation wrt to the campaign storyline?
In SC2, zerg's only high command is Kerrigan, the rest are just part of the unimportant swarm. And the most important event is Kerrigan turning back into human (terran). Kinda like how only the best of the best are really doing well with zerg, and how people feel like quittin' Zerg.
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On August 03 2010 10:33 NeverLing wrote: Definitely agree with everything you said. This is what leads to us Zerg players just not pushing into chokes and macroing/expanding until the enemy attacks.
We basically MUST wait until they move out of their choke and confront them in a more open area, but this just gives them ALL the initiative. We can get 200/200 faster, but we can't push the choke, so we must wait for them to push out when they have 200/200, and our 200/200 usually falls. Of course we can rebuild faster, but that doesn't change the fact that we are completely passive, due to our inability to attack through chokes.
And then when it's a 55 minute long game on Delta Quadrant and you have every base except for 4 around Terrans main you can't do shit! You're maxed on everything, have 8K resources and terran has a shitload of planetary fortress', tanks/thors/marauders/vikings......... then decides to push out and you lose! You can't counter his expos cuz he spammed turrets/PF's and you can't attack his army... well because you'll just get raped!!!
It seems that a lot of zergs who actually took time to think about the problem come to the same conclusion...
If I look around I'll find a few posts of mine that talk about almost exactly the same problems Sheth talked in OP.
Also THIS is an epic thread. (B.net forum).
*Sighs, I mean honestly... could you win a 20-25 minute long ZvT in BW without defilers??? Wtf are we supposed to do in SC2?
People love to talk about nydus worms, etc... but they're really not that effective... drops get shot down pretty hard as well...
-I think Marauders should have less HP.
-Thors should be more like Goliaths... maybe 1 thor = 2x Goliaths... (splash = research?)
-Tanks should deal less damage due to the improved AI doing all the work. They should also deal *explosive* damage (or whatever it was in BW) where they do like 20% to light, 50% to medium and 100% to large units... (Don't remember the exact BW stats and it would have to be adjusted according to SC2 stats anyway... so whatever)
-Banshees should deal less damage (3 shot workers instead of 2 at least, unless you get +1 air early)... I mean annoying shit like 2 port wraiths could catch the zerg off guard in BW... but it definitely didn't clean up the mineral line in the matter of seconds...
-Hellions... I mean seriously??? Take away pre-igniter imo... Harassing should be a little challenging not spam move, "S", a lot of toasted drones... I mean I can't do it vs terran (especially if he has PF later in the game)
-Turrets do 24 dmg to mutas??? I mean wtf??? Can terran feel any safer??? We already gotta worry about stimmed rines/thors... once there are 3+ turrets your mutas are as good as banelings... SUICIDAL!
The whole creep mechanic is just retarded... I mean it's a good idea to reward a zerg with a speed boost when he spreads creep all over the map.... but is it a good idea to render zerg completely useless OFF CREEP??? I mean it's nearly impossible to spread creep all the way to your enemy's base unless he's a careless moron that never bothers to scan/doesn't have detection and doesn't have siege tanks that will still kill a creep tumor when shooting your units...
Imo in future, all zerg units should be almost as fast off creep as they are on creep now and even faster on creep (excluding zerglings). That way it's a bonus to spread creep, not a necessity! Make creep tumors cost 50 energy and call it a day! If it stays the same then creep tumors should be invincible! Otherwise it's just another shit zerg has to do with little reward (since it dies to siege tanks/hellion fire when your army is on it.)
There are just sooo many little things that need to be fixed it's retarded... I think Terrans are so spoiled right now that any change that would make ZvT a little more challenging for T will cause an uproar!!! But fuck that, you have to try hard!!! All these D level terrans with 65% win-rate (75% vs Z) is absurd imo...
On August 12 2010 03:14 ToxNub wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2010 11:20 Clockwerk wrote:On August 10 2010 01:14 Svizcy wrote: Then there are tech switches that you can abuse so much more easily that any terran or toss.
I don't know who started the whole "zerg has awesome tech switches thing" but I hate them for it. We do not have the ability to tech switch easily. When I put down a tech building I know it's is going to take forever to build and will be mighty expensive, so when it finally pops I better put it to good use. (which is why I LOVE that a few thors or turrets negates my investment in a spire) It's not like I can look at the enemy composition and say "oh I should build hydras now" and then boom get tons of hydras. Hell no. Not only do I have to wait for the hydra den to morph, I also need to get the range research because the range is pitiful. Same thing goes for roaches where I need to research burrow, speed or claws for them to be flexible. Same thing for lings where I have to research speed for them to outrun a reaper or hellion. ... Please, PLEASE stop telling me to abuse "fast tech switches". They are a myth. Rofl, no wonder you can't tech switch, you're doing it completely wrong. Please learn to play before coming out and declaring it impossible. You DON'T tech switch by scouting the enemy comp, or losing an army, and THEN putting down your tech structure and starting your upgrades. You plan for a tech switch ahead of time, and only produce the units that are needed at the moment. As you progress through the game, you decide what units are useful, and place the necessary tech structures. You don't use them until they are necessary. Suppose you attack with mass roach, his response is to increase his armies composition of marauder. Since you already have a pool, you switch to zerglings (which you already have speed for). He adds hellions to his mix, now you make muta with your next larvae batch. He makes marines... but you already have a baneling nest and you run your mutas away, baneling the marines, and then put them back in. The terran will be tearing his hair out trying to figure out what you are going. It's the zergs who sit around picking 1 unit composition for the entire game and predictably just go higher in tech that get compltely farmed. Zerg have the capability to have an entirely different wave, in every single attack. This means the opponent has to literally be able to counter everything, and you can exploit the fact that his army isn't specialized. Thor/tank/hellion/marine might be crazy deadly to fight, but there are clearly some units that are better in this situation from others. Every time you make your opponent build non-optimal units (say marines vs your roaches), you gain. Quite frequently I'll alternate waves of muta and ling vs protoss. He spams stalkers, I throw lings at him. He makes zealots, I throw mutas at him. He gets phoenix, I pump hydra. THIS is the tech switch. Rapidly changing your composition to confound your enemy's counters. It has nothing to do with the actual production of the tech structure.
You know what would be awesome? If zerg units hard countered Terran units as well as you think... Shitload of marauders will shit on a shitload of zerglings or kill so many that the remaining once won't be enough to threaten your opponent... that's if someone ever goes pure marauders... Marines are pretty safe from banelings behind marauders and with stim/decent amount kill banelings before they get within splash range... Banelings also suicide so once both armies are dead, both players have to rebuild them... Terran rebuilds almost as fast as zerg with all of the reactors, etc. And as it was mentioned before... small terran army >>>>> small zerg army!
PS: I think everyone who likes to argue... please provide your league/rank and also ICCup rank, if applicable... it's hard to judge whether someone just trolls or has something useful to say if we don't know who we're talking to...
I have very little trouble believing Sheth, Idra, Artosis, Dimaga, etc... they're PRO-gamers... I have a much harder time listening to unknown ass players who could be a Silver League trolls, afaik...
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Part of the frustration IS seeing how spoiled terran is in a lot of ways.
Easier macro mechanic, only one with autocasts (two), easiest early game (never have to worry about early aggression), easiest scouting, easiest counter-scouting, hardest counters..
Then they also have all the fun stuff. Vikings that transform, cloaked fliers, EMP against casters, nuke... every unit has a special ability of some sort.
So then if Terran gets all the fun and easy stuff, and Zerg relies on very heavy precision, high APM, much more importance on scouting... then where's the payoff? Once you put pro players together who CAN do all this stuff.. T is still ahead.
It's not that Zerg players haven't explored things to the degree that Terran has - it's that there's nothing to explore in Z. We have like 5 different units up until lategame, only one of which has special abilities (infestor) which have been nerfed to all hell.
T still has a lot to explore, too. I remember seeing a TvT won by a ghost using nukes on the tank line to force them to move. Hellion drops at 3 expansions simultaneously... things we see on the same level as pro BW.
This matches the trend on that korean voting page: http://img375.imageshack.us/img375/8291/koreastats.jpg
where Z is falling even further behind.
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On August 17 2010 16:50 fdsdfg wrote: Part of the frustration IS seeing how spoiled terran is in a lot of ways.
I think this is an excellent point. I would like to look at it in terms of harassment units.
In BW zerg had the best harass in the game, and Harassing was the bread and butter of zerg play until you could hit hive. By harassing, you would gain MAP CONTROL while forcing a terran to stay on his one or 2 bases. This would allow you to macro up and expand until you could hit Hive tech and get defilers.
Now look at the three races harass ability- Zerg has Banelings- While baneling drops are fun they are a poor excuse for lurker drops. Muta's- They are much less effective in Sc2 Infestor's- Whil a nice idea, a good player will have a turret or two to prevent drops and to be able to see burrowed units.
Toss- Protoss has 2 excellent harassment units, the Dark Templar and the phoenix (lifting workers or queens), however, both of these require a heavy investment and if scouted can be countered easily.
Terran- Reapers- As fast as slow lings off creep, can easily kite lings and zealots and kill an incredible amount of workers and units while taking very little damage, are also effective against buildings. Hellions- Fast units that roast workers and light units. Banshees- 2 shot workers and can cloak though even without cloak they can be hard to deal with. Drops- By making the dropship a medic, the terran now doesn't have to waste any slots with medics, and can therefore fill the ship with combat units.
Because of the less effective muta's (a staple of BW zerg play) and the popularity of the 1/1/1 build, terran has gained the biggest advantage zerg used to have in BW, map control. Also, by being able to swap addon's quickly and easily, there is no penalty to producing a few harassing units compared to protoss, who has to spend a lot of resources.
So because terran now has the advantage in harassment, they also have the advantage in gaining map control. This coupled with the fact that a terran can easily defend his main(and all his unit producing structures) with a nigh impenetrable wall, and have a massive advantage on the current map poll(chokes) is what is leading to what I feel are the problems in ZvT.
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On August 17 2010 16:18 Darkn3ss wrote: All these D level terrans with 65% win-rate (75% vs Z) is absurd imo...
^this is truly absurd
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Here's a quick idea on how to fix Zerg, or at least help:
Instead of having Creep grant a movement bonus, give that bonus naturally to Zerg and just have Creep give a slight HP regen bonus. (Zerg's non-Roach HP regen is pretty slight)
Just a quick idea. It still encourages creep because you can heal better on it but you don't need it to assault the enemy base.
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On August 18 2010 00:47 mecra wrote: Here's a quick idea on how to fix Zerg, or at least help:
Instead of having Creep grant a movement bonus, give that bonus naturally to Zerg and just have Creep give a slight HP regen bonus. (Zerg's non-Roach HP regen is pretty slight)
Just a quick idea. It still encourages creep because you can heal better on it but you don't need it to assault the enemy base.
One of Zerg's biggest problems is that there's no way to attack a defensive position until late late game.
This is a buff, but it doesn't do anything to fix Zerg's problems.
Anyone could come up with a million ways to buff Zerg, and at the risk of sounding like an asshole, there's literally nothing gained by suggesting some arbitrary buff.
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On August 18 2010 01:49 fdsdfg wrote: One of Zerg's biggest problems is that there's no way to attack a defensive position until late late game.
This is a buff, but it doesn't do anything to fix Zerg's problems.
Anyone could come up with a million ways to buff Zerg, and at the risk of sounding like an asshole, there's literally nothing gained by suggesting some arbitrary buff. At the same time, it would be very unlikely from Blizzard to actually change anything design-wise.
I'm willing to bet that the only knobs they're willing to toy with are basic, quantifiable things like range, damage, build times, cooldowns and costs.
For example they could cut 10,15 or even 20sec from Lair and Hive morphing in order to allow Zerg to tech faster. Considering Protoss can use Stalkers by adding a 50sec Cyber Core while Zerg has to wait for that 80sec Lair AND 40sec Den, that would definitely be the kind of things I would be looking at if I was in their shoes.
I also wish there was an upgrade to allow queens to run faster late game, that way they could be used more easily during pushes as healers instead of having to rely on drops/creep. Offensive use of queens is rather unintuitive at this moment, but games could be more fun if it wasn't the case.
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On August 18 2010 02:18 Phrencys wrote:Show nested quote +On August 18 2010 01:49 fdsdfg wrote: One of Zerg's biggest problems is that there's no way to attack a defensive position until late late game.
This is a buff, but it doesn't do anything to fix Zerg's problems.
Anyone could come up with a million ways to buff Zerg, and at the risk of sounding like an asshole, there's literally nothing gained by suggesting some arbitrary buff. At the same time, it would be very unlikely from Blizzard to actually change anything design-wise. I'm willing to bet that the only knobs they're willing to toy with are basic, quantifiable things like range, damage, build times, cooldowns and costs. For example they could cut 10,15 or even 20sec from Lair and Hive morphing in order to allow Zerg to tech faster. Considering Protoss can use Stalkers by adding a 50sec Cyber Core while Zerg has to wait for that 80sec Lair AND 40sec Den, that would definitely be the kind of things I would be looking at if I was in their shoes. I also wish there was an upgrade to allow queens to run faster late game, that way they could be used more easily during pushes as healers instead of having to rely on drops/creep. Offensive use of queens is rather unintuitive at this moment, but games could be more fun if it wasn't the case.
Stalker vs Hydra isn't a realistic comparison for tech tree level - Stalker vs Roaches is more reasonable. Both require the basic building (pool/gateway), plus an additional tech (cy core / roach warren).
A better Hydra comparison is the Colossus, both require a gas tech structure (robo / lair), then an additional gas tech structure (hydra / support bay), and then the unit. The difference is that the support bay is more gas-heavy, but other than that, 4 hydras is about the same as a colossus.
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Stalker vs Hydra isn't a realistic comparison for tech tree level - Stalker vs Roaches is more reasonable. Both require the basic building (pool/gateway), plus an additional tech (cy core / roach warren).
A better Hydra comparison is the Colossus, both require a gas tech structure (robo / lair), then an additional gas tech structure (hydra / support bay), and then the unit. The difference is that the support bay is more gas-heavy, but other than that, 4 hydras is about the same as a colossus.
But that comparison would just highlight the sheer imbalance of it all since stalkers kite roaches all day and collosus vs. hydra is just rape. Same with zealots and lings. It's because of this that zerg needs to stay ahead on tech, but for some reason, we need to stay ahead on bases as well...
Oh, and army size too.
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On August 18 2010 05:50 Caelestis wrote:Show nested quote +Stalker vs Hydra isn't a realistic comparison for tech tree level - Stalker vs Roaches is more reasonable. Both require the basic building (pool/gateway), plus an additional tech (cy core / roach warren).
A better Hydra comparison is the Colossus, both require a gas tech structure (robo / lair), then an additional gas tech structure (hydra / support bay), and then the unit. The difference is that the support bay is more gas-heavy, but other than that, 4 hydras is about the same as a colossus. But that comparison would just highlight the sheer imbalance of it all since stalkers kite roaches all day and collosus vs. hydra is just rape. Same with zealots and lings. It's because of this that zerg needs to stay ahead on tech, but for some reason, we need to stay ahead on bases as well... Oh, and army size too.
Well what it points out more than anything is that for the same effort it takes Zerg to get 1 t2 unit Protoss or Terran can get a tier 3 unit and at least one tier 1.5 and one tier 2 unit on the way (stalker, immortal, observer are on the way and happen to complement each other well).
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On August 18 2010 07:38 Sixes wrote:Show nested quote +On August 18 2010 05:50 Caelestis wrote:Stalker vs Hydra isn't a realistic comparison for tech tree level - Stalker vs Roaches is more reasonable. Both require the basic building (pool/gateway), plus an additional tech (cy core / roach warren).
A better Hydra comparison is the Colossus, both require a gas tech structure (robo / lair), then an additional gas tech structure (hydra / support bay), and then the unit. The difference is that the support bay is more gas-heavy, but other than that, 4 hydras is about the same as a colossus. But that comparison would just highlight the sheer imbalance of it all since stalkers kite roaches all day and collosus vs. hydra is just rape. Same with zealots and lings. It's because of this that zerg needs to stay ahead on tech, but for some reason, we need to stay ahead on bases as well... Oh, and army size too. Well what it points out more than anything is that for the same effort it takes Zerg to get 1 t2 unit Protoss or Terran can get a tier 3 unit and at least one tier 1.5 and one tier 2 unit on the way (stalker, immortal, observer are on the way and happen to complement each other well).
Well, it's not fair to compare P vs T either. To get a T3 unit P has to go
Gate -> Core -> Robo -> Support (or the other 2 t2 choices).
Terran just has to go Rax -> Factory -> Starport and it gets everything but 3 units. It can build Armory alongside Starport to get Thors, Ghost academy anywhere to get Ghosts, and Fusion core is the ONLY one that requires a fourth number in the sequence to get BC's.
So in the time it takes Protoss to get one T2 building, Terran already has unlocked everything but BCs. This is before Zerg has finished morphing the lair -_-
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i think that enemy light units should move slower on creep, its getting pretty lame that mass reapers can out-micro everything you have at the start
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On August 18 2010 17:04 Linden wrote: i think that enemy light units should move slower on creep, its getting pretty lame that mass reapers can out-micro everything you have at the start
Exactly what I was thinking, if you think about it, creeps looks all gooey and slimy. I can't help but wonder how a marine can even run as fast on the stuff as off. Or how helion tires don't just get bogged in it. It would be sweet to see a speed reduction to all units on creep like say -50% to light (or something) and maybe 5-10% to anything else.
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On August 25 2010 01:56 Keltanokka wrote:Show nested quote +On August 18 2010 17:04 Linden wrote: i think that enemy light units should move slower on creep, its getting pretty lame that mass reapers can out-micro everything you have at the start Exactly what I was thinking, if you think about it, creeps looks all gooey and slimy. I can't help but wonder how a marine can even run as fast on the stuff as off. Or how helion tires don't just get bogged in it. It would be sweet to see a speed reduction to all units on creep like say -50% to light (or something) and maybe 5-10% to anything else.
I don't know when creep turned from a buff to a nerf. Zerg needs creep - in SC1 an unupgraded hydra was Zerg's slowest unit, and still the speed of a marine. Now without creep, entire zerg armies can be kited by both races. Zerg just needs creep in order to fight - and creep is a fragile fragile thing.
It's not that zerg units move faster on creep, it's that they move slower off creep. It's like saying Protoss units deal half damage while not in pylon power - it's an outright nerf.
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all this talk about change this change that diverts attention from what i feel is the absolute biggest issue:
zerg is simply not a fun race to play.
i could detail the reasons why i feel this way but i think anyone who has used zerg for any length of time will understand the feeling.
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Dark Swarm ability somewhat got stolen by the Raven in the form of PDD
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I think zerg is a blast to play. I don't understand where this sentiment comes from.
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Zergs should be able to make queens while teching to Lair, this wouldn't be that much op(?) and would give a better balance at multitasking... my 2 cents.
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On August 25 2010 10:15 Bull-Demon wrote: I think zerg is a blast to play. I don't understand where this sentiment comes from. what league are you in?
User was warned for this post
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I dunno why zerg feel the urge to go against the wall and attack planetary fortresses and sieged positions while they can 1. move elsewhere and attack weak spots 2. nydus 3. drop. Consider the fact that in 90% of games zerg goes FE which is pretty huge commitment and leave terran no other option than going all-in attack/reapers/hellions. Its pretty silly that players would like to do FE and then be aggresive/have map control -- am I the only one who thinks that its broken?
Muta harras is annoying as hell. It forces you to make turrets(and mutas can kill those 1 by 1 if you dont have good positions and numbers of turrets) and then thors to get rid of it. And thats also good -- if muta harras was any better then terran would be hardly able to get out of base and zerg could on the other hand fuel his macro machine to insane level.
The point is that even after decent reaper opening the game indeed is 50:50. Baneling/zergling/muta is decent vs. bio + some thors, tanks are slow and must get into position, so heavy mech play means zerg can just tech and expand... Also when you get thors and bio you dont have much resources to get many tanks. So in the end its bio+ tanks/thors/medivac and maybe ghost vs. zergling/baneling/muta/ultra and maybe broodlords. That can be pretty crappy vs terran, but if you get infestors then its even and battle has unpredictable outcome, where positioning matters alot. But infestors rape both marines and thors/BC, so 1. get right units/ 2. dont attack heavily fortified positions but bypass your opponent and dont fekin whine!
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I think alot of valid points are made here, and I hope because of OP's rankings people would listen. He's not attacking terran players... Zerg gets to a point its not fun when every match is the same even when your trying different ideas. Numbers back it up, few want to play zerg and whats sad is if your a WoW player and read about it you here Blizzard say things like this alot (specially about the next expansion) "We want every high end talent to be desirable, because we want to make players make a choice"... "We want <blank> to be desirable, because we want the player to match thier playstyle or have to make a choice on how they want to play." I don't feel like thats the case both from my experience and what I read on the forums.
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I am a very new player, and have this problem a lot. Bronze league is basically Terran turtle and void ray turtle, and the occasional fellow Zerg. Breaking any kind of defense is harder than it needs to be as Zerg. I am not saying I play perfectly, far from it, but it is harder to play Zerg in general than the other two races. I believe that this itself is an imbalance.
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On August 25 2010 16:55 Naumo wrote: I dunno why zerg feel the urge to go against the wall and attack planetary fortresses and sieged positions while they can 1. move elsewhere and attack weak spots 2. nydus 3. drop. Consider the fact that in 90% of games zerg goes FE which is pretty huge commitment and leave terran no other option than going all-in attack/reapers/hellions. Its pretty silly that players would like to do FE and then be aggresive/have map control -- am I the only one who thinks that its broken?
There are a few answers here:
1) There's just no other options other than attacking a fortified positions. Good players know there are very explotable holes in Drops and Nydus. It's not like pro players haven't thought of using these, it's just never a better decision than attacking the choke. Attacking the choke sucks, but at least it can work.
2) Zerg NEEDS to FE in order to keep up economically. Remember that we can't build 4 production buildings off 1 base, and small, useful units like zerglings eat up a lot of drones. Since zerglings are the only thing we have to deal with many of Terran's threats, we need those larvae.
Also, we don't have anything to make up for mule on a saturated base, so to keep up economically we need that second base. We have to spend a lot more money on tech and our units are less cost-efficient. 1-base Zerg has become a total all-in, and is only really used to create opportunity for an expansion.
3) Remember that map control never refers to where your army is. It's not like we can contain you and keep your army from moving out to attack. Once that army exists, we have to cut all harass and engage you only with our full army.
Muta harras is annoying as hell. It forces you to make turrets(and mutas can kill those 1 by 1 if you dont have good positions and numbers of turrets) and then thors to get rid of it. And thats also good -- if muta harras was any better then terran would be hardly able to get out of base and zerg could on the other hand fuel his macro machine to insane level.
Muta harass is Zerg's best tool against T right now - they're like expensive, late reapers with more hp and less damage.
The most annoying thing is that T can fend off mutas with no gas investment. If I'm harassing with enough mutas to take down a turret safely (6), then I have spent 800/800 on mutas - you can fend it off with 1000/0 in turrets and marines.
The point is that even after decent reaper opening the game indeed is 50:50. Baneling/zergling/muta is decent vs. bio + some thors, tanks are slow and must get into position, so heavy mech play means zerg can just tech and expand... Also when you get thors and bio you dont have much resources to get many tanks. So in the end its bio+ tanks/thors/medivac and maybe ghost vs. zergling/baneling/muta/ultra and maybe broodlords. That can be pretty crappy vs terran, but if you get infestors then its even and battle has unpredictable outcome, where positioning matters alot. But infestors rape both marines and thors/BC, so 1. get right units/ 2. dont attack heavily fortified positions but bypass your opponent and dont fekin whine!
Well you're not making much sense here.
-Zerg teching and expanding doesn't mean much when our only unit that doesn't die for free to a well-rounded army is the Ultralisk - and thors beat ultralisks at cost.
-Infestors' NP is really a joke - if you just focus fire the infestors with the Tanks (they won't waste shots) then do you know how many resources you invalidate? Four infestors + NP tech is a huge investment for Z - being able to nullify that investment in about 2 roach volleys is a joke.
-Infestors do not rape thors/BC.
-Also, as said, there's no choice but to attack heavily fortified positions.
-Positioning matters, but on some maps there is no way to get an advantageous position (cough kulas)
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On August 25 2010 16:55 Naumo wrote: I dunno why zerg feel the urge to go against the wall and attack planetary fortresses and sieged positions while they can 1. move elsewhere and attack weak spots 2. nydus 3. drop. Consider the fact that in 90% of games zerg goes FE which is pretty huge commitment and leave terran no other option than going all-in attack/reapers/hellions. Its pretty silly that players would like to do FE and then be aggresive/have map control -- am I the only one who thinks that its broken?
Muta harras is annoying as hell. It forces you to make turrets(and mutas can kill those 1 by 1 if you dont have good positions and numbers of turrets) and then thors to get rid of it. And thats also good -- if muta harras was any better then terran would be hardly able to get out of base and zerg could on the other hand fuel his macro machine to insane level.
The point is that even after decent reaper opening the game indeed is 50:50. Baneling/zergling/muta is decent vs. bio + some thors, tanks are slow and must get into position, so heavy mech play means zerg can just tech and expand... Also when you get thors and bio you dont have much resources to get many tanks. So in the end its bio+ tanks/thors/medivac and maybe ghost vs. zergling/baneling/muta/ultra and maybe broodlords. That can be pretty crappy vs terran, but if you get infestors then its even and battle has unpredictable outcome, where positioning matters alot. But infestors rape both marines and thors/BC, so 1. get right units/ 2. dont attack heavily fortified positions but bypass your opponent and dont fekin whine!
I'm sorry, but are you sure you play SC2?
1. Move elsewhere. Where??? You CANNOT move with ground forces, simply because current mappool features mostly a single path into a base, mostly through some choke so small, ultras cant fit thru there most of the time. Air is the only option. Oh wait, we only have 2 air units, one of which takes around 100 minutes to tech up to and costs almost as much as a BC, yet has less than 50% of those hitpoints and has no AA capabilities. Yeah.
2. Nydus. Dont get me started on this, everyone has tried it out, it is simply USELESS (unless you get cannon rushed I guess)
3. Drops? Sure, you drop your ground units and they get stuck in between the labyrinths of terran structures which also happen to have huge hitpoint pools. Sure, you can use ranged units. Oh snap, we only have 1 decent ranged unit, which gets owned cause of the hax 80hp. Sure, you can drop on some sneaky location and pick some workers off. Well guess what, hydras move ridiculously slow, by the time you manage to drop anything off any critical units such as workers will have made it across the map and your units will be dying.
Reapers/Hellions are not really an all-in strategy.
Zerg can macro and expand, whilst the terran is confined on 2 bases you say. Well, a fully upgraded mech ball is ridiculous. You can throw all your 200/200 armies (of which 100 are workers + queens anyhow) at it all day long and you will get owned. Broodlords are supposed to help break enemy formations, well, even friggin thors can rock them all day long, even their range is larger. And what about Battlecruisers, they are really rarely seen, but come on, 6 armor flyer with massive damage (57,7dps vs ground, 40 vs air, compared to our corruptors staggering 13,6dps vs armored... yeah)
And how does precisely an infestor own a BC?
Truth is we dont really have cost effective units vs terran, other than banelings and very situationally zerglings..
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I feel that the roach being made 2 food also had a large impact upon the mid/late game zerg play, as well as the roach rushes which I believe the nerf was aimed at controlling. Suddenly the same cost of army was just reduced dramatically in size and damage. Your 200/200 force shrank during the time it took to download the patch. I can't help but feel that this was overly heavy-handed. Personally I hardly ever use roaches these days and, when I do use them, they feel totally ineffective and I curse myself for deciding to make them. The swarm feels to me, well, not very much like a swarm now.
Also I agree that the nydus worm should unload much more quickly. I think that it is a great addition to the game and deserves to be used much more frequently, however as it is at the moment it feels like my zerglings take at least two weeks to empty out of there.
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No one's really talking about ZvP, but it was in the OP. Ultras and brood lords do quite well in a choke against P. If Z can get to T3, they're more or less even (or advantaged) facing P anywhere on the field.
As for ZvT....yeah, there's no good way to Z to drive T back to deny a well-executed slow expanding strategy. I'd say developing a big economic advantage and then dropping ultras all ove the place is the best bet....and that's insanely expensive. Of course, P has to out-resource T to win as well, and P really lacks good harassment options.
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Can somebody explain to me why Zerg's pretty much ONLY decent unit against Stimmed MMM is a SUICIDAL unit??? I really cannot understand the logic of this. I hold off waves and waves of enemies with my banelings only to notice that when I defeat his push all my units have suicided and he has another force massing at his door.
I mean, how can I punish the Terran (and protoss for that matter) for failing their pushes? He can run his stimmed stuff and snipe my expo hatch or just pretty much sacrifice his army and even if I kill it, I am left with lings, who cant do shit.
This is game design at its worst. Pretty much if I suscessfully beat his push I have no army to push him back so we are equal, if his push succeeds he wins. How is that fun?
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On August 28 2010 02:37 okrane wrote: Can somebody explain to me why Zerg's pretty much ONLY decent unit against Stimmed MMM is a SUICIDAL unit??? I really cannot understand the logic of this. I hold off waves and waves of enemies with my banelings only to notice that when I defeat his push all my units have suicided and he has another force massing at his door.
I mean, how can I punish the Terran (and protoss for that matter) for failing their pushes? He can run his stimmed stuff and snipe my expo hatch or just pretty much sacrifice his army and even if I kill it, I am left with lings, who cant do shit.
This is game design at its worst. Pretty much if I suscessfully beat his push I have no army to push him back so we are equal, if his push succeeds he wins. How is that fun?
Well infestors are also good against stimmed MMM, and 5 infestors can take down an expansion in seconds.
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Infestors are good at FG-ing the army so that BANELINGS can move in and kill them w/o the kiting. Going Infestor-Ling is extremely risky as one single miss-micro can make you lose all your infestors to the super-speed stimmed marrauders.
Plus, infestors come way too late to be able to stop the first MM push with stim
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I personally feel that ZvP 4 gate openers needs much more attention than terran..
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On August 28 2010 08:33 okrane wrote: Infestors are good at FG-ing the army so that BANELINGS can move in and kill them w/o the kiting. Going Infestor-Ling is extremely risky as one single miss-micro can make you lose all your infestors to the super-speed stimmed marrauders.
Plus, infestors come way too late to be able to stop the first MM push with stim
I was talking more about counter harass opportunities, if your opponent loses his army infestors can take down undefended expos so easily, esp with burrow, 2-3 with full energy can either take down the OC or kill all the repairers (Iterrans)
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On August 28 2010 08:46 Skarra wrote: I personally feel that ZvP 4 gate openers needs much more attention than terran..
Dunno, I sincerely think ZvP is much more balanced than terran... Tho I think I did read somewhere that Koreans are complaining about zvp, so maybe theres some truth to it.
On August 28 2010 09:10 Immersion_ wrote: I was talking more about counter harass opportunities, if your opponent loses his army infestors can take down undefended expos so easily, esp with burrow, 2-3 with full energy can either take down the OC or kill all the repairers (Iterrans)
Undefended? Burrow? There will always be at least one turret out there in my experience, and most probably a sieged tank. Infestors cost way too much imo, and really need near full energy to be useful.
B ut yeah, if he loses his army whilst you still have such expensive units, I sure as hell hope you can take down anything :p
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I read up through pages 1-5 so please forgive me if this was covered in pages 6-17.
i'm am also a low ranking platnum who only plays as zerg
Since blizzard is patching with the nerfed siege tank, slower zealots creation, reaper/bunker combo fix I think zerg will have an easier time in the beginning.
The main concern is the choke issue. I think this can be solved by one teir 3 tech solution that is VERY swarm like. If you have let a zerg player last long enough you should feel like your about to get overrun .. well lets make a hive tech upgrade called "cliff walk" that says zerglings, roaches, and ultras can climb cliffs; leaving hydras and infestors to walk around. Essentially this will give the units "cliff walk" ability and allow them, in a late game, to bypass chokes (will also allow a burrow move roach research to mean more).
This will effectivly turn the terrans warm little bunker into open ground that the zerg can swarm. It would also make the terran be more proactive. Because who wants the zerg to get to teir 3 now. Lets get the MF before he macros so well i get overrun.
Anyway, just a thought. Maybe it'll catch momentum.
side-notes: i think the zerg should have a way to "burrow" enemy units. in otherwords, pull an enemy unit underground. I think a zergling should be able to yank a marine underground, but the marine will still get to shoot back; maybe with less accuracy.
I also wouldn't mind doing away with the roaches ability to burrow move. I'd rather a separate unit that can make tunnels for any units to pass through (maybe restructure of the nydus worm). Basically there would be a trail behind this unit that any burrowed units can move in. eventually a cave in will occur restoring the land. Any units left there would just be a normal burrowed unit.
If you like the "pulling units under" concept, then this tunneling unit could make weak points in the tunnels and cause heavier units (tanks, thors, colossi) to fall down temporarily (maybe with damage). and should you happen to have attacking units nearby they could do damage to the units that fell in the hole. this area could be considered a "cliff"ed in region until the side collapse restoring the playing field.
but those last parts are just for fun .. that would require blizzard to program additional content, whereas granting "cliff walk" to certain ground units in a teir 3 fashion would be the change I think the zerg is looking for and restore the essence of the race.
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I can't offer any easy solutions to the late game issue of Zerg simply being wiped out by other races when choked up - This is partially map design and partially unit design, and I think on the whole it's such a complicated problem that striking the right balance is going to be really tricky.
I'm not convinced the Reaper/Zealot changes in the upcoming patch are the right thing to do. I do think early game Zerg needs better ways to defend against early harass, and by that I mean more effective "static" defense. Spine Crawlers are quite weak, and the burrow time is a joke when you look at Terran buildings which can (a) raise/lower essentially instantly, (b) lift off essentially instantly, and fly forever, or (c) be salvaged for their full cost in 5 seconds. Queens are pretty good at fending off air harass but if focused down Zerg are in a deep deficit, losing both their anti-air defense and a good chunk of their production in one blow.
The question is how to make Zerg be able to effectively produce [worthwhile] static defense without (a) crippling their early game economy by sacrificing too many drones, and (b) being exploitable to perform unstoppable early tower rushes. I personally think this problem could be solved if Spine/Spore crawlers were trained from the Hatchery like the Queen. This makes it so that any Spine crawlers attempting to perform a rush would need to cross the map (or be trained from a completed proxy Hatchery, both increasing the time to execute). Consequently, Spine Crawlers could have their burrow/unburrow time reduced back to reasonable levels, and they would not compete with Drones & Army Units in early game production.
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Main zerg problem is that you need to be a better player to play them. There are so many reasons why, for me mostly its that you need to have better macro to handle everything going on in many bases and also that you can't really go with any unit unless you know what ur opponent has.
bad composition - you get obliterated small micro miss step - you get obliterated and so on...
For example, terran can just happy build up his mmm ball and dont really care what he is against. If he go mara heavy and face mutas? No problem, he gets rines from already built up tech structure. Protoss? Same thing. Gateway units give you whatever you need.
Its different with zerg. Defo not for noobs, hence I am loosing so much xDDD
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