IF YOU ARE NOT GOING TO READ THE OP OR THE COMMENTS IN THE THREAD DON'T REPLY EASY AS THAT
Now keep in mind this is coming from somebody who has not played iCCup or starcraft seriously in a long time (At least 6 months) so this should be taken with about a teaspoon of salt.
I don't really have a lot of content to put into this as I am also curious if this has been done in pro-sc before though I think it'd be unlikely and for this I apologize.
Lately there have been much more mech TvZ which makes this idea less effective as far as I can see but I watch the ret stream all the time and since he loves his bio (which is my favorite TvZ build to watch) the defilers cause lots of problems.
Basically in TvZ late game we consistently see zerg with their defilers running amok swarming over here and plaguing over there or the dreaded swarm plague on top of each other from a 250 energy defiler. The typical terran counter to this is to irradiate defilers as they see them and this is effective but often times the zerg simply drops 2 swarms and lets it die or even ignores the irradiate entirely and runs in dropping a plague or a swarm.
Zerg under normal circumstances usually keep their defilers close to their army and when attacking they wait for the swarm, plague or both and the terran is usually forced to run away but what if the terran were to EMP that defiler before it could get off those swarms and plagues with the irradiate it forces the defiler to act faster but the EMP rather than kill it off it means they have to consume more units before they can even attack the terran's ball which gives a window of time where you are free to attack the zerg's army without worrying about swarms/plagues and you can snipe the defiler with a few marines while it's consuming.
That's all simply theory but I feel as though EMP is at the very least worth the money spent upgrading (which seems to be the main reason not to upgrade it) especially once defilers are sliding around all over the place.
Any opinions or feedback?
Okay so apparently only a few people read through the whole thread before commenting, again I'm not saying this is something you do while your vessels are just flying around trying to irradiate, nor am I suggesting this as a replacement it irradiate what I'm suggesting is starting use EMP when the zerg is already on the move towards your army because you would stall them from attacking and either force them to back off or if they're not paying a ton of attention to their army and instead being a macro zerg your M&M will eat their army alive if they lack swarm.
In the same situation an irradiate would kill that defiler but not before they swarm and potentially plague your army as opposed to EMP which would act instantly and force the zerg to retreat or scramble to consume their lings which would probably be either ahead of the army or being eaten alive by your stimmed marines.
You need the energy for Irradiating the damned defilers and lurkers, maybe if you had like 100 vessels, but the energy is better spent killing the defilers.
Also, it's easy to get your vessels plagued and scourged when you move them to EMP
On July 19 2009 07:01 FreeDoM[YA] wrote: You need the energy for Irradiating the damned defilers and lurkers, maybe if you had like 100 vessels, but the energy is better spent killing the defilers
Yes but the way I see quite frequently when that zerg attack is being launched on the ball terran start irradiating the units when I feel it would be more useful to use at least 1 emp on a defiler before they got the swarm/plague off and even if you were too late you can simply use it on an irradiate I feel as though there's no reason not to research EMP as it could prove quite helpful.
I must admit, I feel that i sympathize with FreeDoM[YA]s line of arguments. By using EMP you loose energy that could otherwise be used to kill a strong unit. I aint worth it bro, dont do it!!1
On July 19 2009 07:01 FreeDoM[YA] wrote: You need the energy for Irradiating the damned defilers and lurkers, maybe if you had like 100 vessels, but the energy is better spent killing the defilers
Yes but the way I see quite frequently when that zerg attack is being launched on the ball terran start irradiating the units when I feel it would be more useful to use at least 1 emp on a defiler before they got the swarm/plague off and even if you were too late you can simply use it on an irradiate I feel as though there's no reason not to research EMP as it could prove quite helpful.
no but I'm not talking about long before the battle even starts I mean when you see the zerg charging towards you be it because you're going out to irradiate raid or simply scanning his position, it sems as though dropping an EMP on the defiler(s) would pretty much nullify their push because how hard is it to fight a zerg with no swarms or plagues?
It would at the very least force the zerg to stop and eat some more units before continuing which gives you a chance to irra with the rest of your vessels.
There is a reason why this doesn't work. I will challenge the fact that "the zergs drops 2 swarms and simply lets it die", because you are underestimating the ammount of work a zerg has to do to counter irradiate. You are robbing the z of gas and minerals when you kill it, and the few seconds you would gain using EMP is not enough. Just like you pull back ur armies, so can the z. But the z can also consume lings very quickly and throw storms anyway.
Fact: the timing window is too small, and too easily avoidable by the z. Fact: irradiate forces the z to spend resources on a new defiler, and given the time it takes for a defiler to move (slow bastards) thats' also a tremendeous gain compared to emp.
I know Nada's done it before in his game against GoRush where he EMP'd Gorush's defilers. After thinking about what you've said, If there was a mass of 4-5 defilers at a rally point 1 EMP would work out efficiently, you just gotta be careful.
Actually this does sound smart, because if you can pull it off, then you can irradiate other stuff. However it is very situational.
kinda related and kinda not but i think it could SLIGHTLY work but irradiate is just so much better and you are not wasting 200/200 for emp and also defilers got consume so its a waste in some way with emp on defilers
On July 19 2009 07:10 Timangi99 wrote: There is a reason why this doesn't work. I will challenge the fact that "the zergs drops 2 swarms and simply lets it die", because you are underestimating the ammount of work a zerg has to do to counter irradiate. You are robbing the z of gas and minerals when you kill it, and the few seconds you would gain using EMP is not enough. Just like you pull back ur armies, so can the z. But the z can also consume lings very quickly and throw storms anyway.
Fact: the timing window is too small, and too easily avoidable by the z. Fact: irradiate forces the z to spend resources on a new defiler, and given the time it takes for a defiler to move (slow bastards) thats' also a tremendeous gain compared to emp.
I'm not saying you would stop using irradiate not in the least I'm simply saying you would research EMP because I'm sure it could save your life more than once when you go out for that irra raid to get a few lurkers/defilers/ultras and see the Z coming towards you because using 1 of your irradiates to stop the zerg from pushing at that moment will not hurt you overall because you should have more than 1 vessel and you can irradiate it with another which forces them to rush to consume and then swarm/plague if they want to continue the push or they have to fall back all together.
On July 19 2009 07:16 TwoStep wrote: Um, the defiler still lives? Which means that he can just consume 2 of his 20 or so lings and keep pushing into your army?
I gotta stop giving advice in teh strategy forums I forgot that defilers have consume xD.
But I think that if the zerg attacks right away with 4-5 defilers attacking at once, then a well-placed EMP could make the difference in the game.
as others said, you can just consume 2 more lings and you'll be good to go again rather when an irradiate makes sure that he wont be able to be 'good to go' again
But the irradiate means they are still good to go at that exact moment consuming 2 lings slows you down and gives the terran time to reposition or get the vessels out of there or throw down some irradiates etc etc.
Basically for the cost of 200/200 you increase your effectiveness for delaying the zerg at pushing.
you have to upgrade emp separately too, whereas irradiate also works against ultras and lurkers. emp also costs more energy to use than irradiate and is only useful against the defiler. even then it is debatable whether irradiate vs emp is more effective on the defiler, while irradiate has all the other uses and costs less energy. irradiate could also be used to rape min lines and emp'ing a moving target is not that easy.
Again I'm not trying to rule out irradiate I'm just saying once you've upgraded irradiate why not upgrade EMP for that 200/200 you can stop a push completely for another 5-15 seconds which as we all know can mean the world in starcraft.
yeah.. i guess if there werent consume ability, but there is. the benefits do not justify the cost, if you dont kill the defiler he'll just have more defilers later waiting for you, or spend the money on something else..
its not tvp where the radius of the spell affects not just an arbiter for example, which dont have an ability like consume as well, but the goons and zealots that possibly were around it..
definitely cool/cute to emp though, can throw off their swarm/attack timing off cuz theyd have to consume another 2 lings.. i know for sure that if i wasnt keeping an eye on my units and went back to macroing after issuing move/burrow/a orders, a lot of my units would die..
I'm well aware of consume but I don't see how you can state that the "the benefits do not justify the cost" when for 200/200 you can delay the zerg whenever they try to push because think about it as long as every time you go on a irradiate raid you don't use EVERY vessel you should have that 100 energy when the zerg finally decides to attack meaning you can repeatedly stop them from attacking with swarm + plague.
On July 19 2009 08:00 nebulak187 wrote: after the emp the zerg will just consume 2 zerlings again and swarm. and the defiler surivives which means his defilers will grow in numbers. making it impossible for u to prevent them from plagues and swarms
Please read the thread before posting as I've already answered this.
after the emp the zerg will just consume 2 zerlings again and swarm. and the defiler surivives which means his defilers will grow in numbers. making it impossible for u to prevent them from plagues and swarms
I think it would work if the Zerg already initiated his attack and the defiler is running to get the Dark Swarm off. The zerg would have to back off and consume units again to initiate the Terran army