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The more I play SC2, the more I wish that banelings had inherent burrow.
I mean, the reason that lurkers were so awesome and viable and constantly useful was not only area damage (banelings) but also the element of SURPRIZE, especially hold-lurker. I never really understood why more pro players didn't abuse hold-lurker more (seriously, hide those damn things EVERYWHERE, surprise them multiple times per game, etc.; they have to scan anyways, why not milk the lurkers for all they're worth?), but I guess you can't spare the APM to a-move or something.
But annnnnyways, the element of surprise is REALLY awesome for stuff like banelings (2 banelings == gg marines no re  ), but it's just really frustrating to be like "YES I HAVE...stuffs that explode once they've slowly crawled over". I mean, yes, pure baneling is bad, ling/muta/bling is good, yada yada, but I want something I can SURPRISE people with - not with an allin baneling bust, not with a delayed super baneling bust, not with a late-game 60 million baneling lolololol base wreck, but something like constant pressure and map control with hidden banelings. And even with optimal almost-lair => bling nest and burrow timings, I just feel rather....exposed.
The reason I don't like resorting to muta/bling is the fact that it feels too much like muta/ling in BW - it's like meatshield into death by lings. It's more of the "Oh shit I don't have enough MMM in a ball" moment than a "Oh shit, I just got duped" moment.
Yes, I'm whining about SC2. But a guy can dream . It's just that banelings could be so much cooler if they could be produced for a viable midgame map control unit without having all these BOs that are like "allin == if rax-fact wall-off => gg out".
(Yes, I ignored banshees for this discussion. Sue me. Too lazy to think about stuff like wall-off into fast tech on 1 base.)
  
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thats another odd thing. even tho scans werent used for muling it seemed that u could pressure terran into having to save energy while in SC2 they always have scan even while muling.
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The primary value of lurkers didn't lie in surprise/hold lurker, but simply being able to dish out the hurt on mnm. Is there really a problem with banelings that require them to burrow? How would still banelings encourage more map control than ones that are exploding terran walls and mm balls upfront? Sure.. terran gets one raven and the inherent burrow is quite worthless.
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Well the reason you didn't stop lurker much was that it only worked until vessels came out and even then, a lot of terran players had sense to scan places where there would likely be lurkers. And usually, the timings were different. See, if terrans did a mm push without a vessel, it would be at a time where there were mutaling. When terran pushed out later with a vessel, they had mm and about 3 tanks. Against toss, a few amount of lurkers don't do signifiant damage and observers come out pretty fast
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I never really understood why more pro players didn't abuse hold-lurker more (seriously, hide those damn things EVERYWHERE, surprise them multiple times per game, etc.; they have to scan anyways, why not milk the lurkers for all they're worth?), but I guess you can't spare the APM to a-move or something.
Once science vessels come out, you really can't afford to have lurkers spread out everywhere. They will be seen, and you have to defend against the big push with lurkers under dark swarm until you can break out, preferably with ultralisks.
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United States24805 Posts
You can still burrow them after researching... I think the fact that you can't burrow automatically makes for a BETTER surprise when you actually do it!
Same thing with bw early game vZ actually...
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Yeah vOddy pretty much hits the nail on the head. If you do a lurker opening in bw, then hold lurkers are amazing. However most of the time the zerg is busy securing a third expansion, so the initial lurkers were more for defense so the position wouldn't allow for offensive hold lurkers.
The trick with getting banelings to do a ton of damage is to get them to the target without getting exploded. But even if they die, they still draw fire away from other key units like infestors or overseers. This can help you greatly.
Muta/bling is a very good unit composition zvt on paper. I'm only low diamond, and it works well for me, but I haven't seen any pros use it so I'm not going to comment on its merits.
Are you getting +1 Carapace upgrades early on with your bling openings? It helps them get a lot closer to the mmm ball without dying.
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On September 14 2010 12:34 Gogleion wrote:
Are you getting +1 Carapace upgrades early on with your bling openings? It helps them get a lot closer to the mmm ball without dying.
Yeah, that would be great, thanks
And that was pretty dumb of me to not think about the standard vessel into push before hive. But as for map control, it'd still be pretty good midgame-ish to have stationary hidden units so that your opponent can't go places without needing to be extra careful.
I do like your suggestion though, micronesia, about the whole burrow thing - it's like games in BW ZvP where your opponent just has no idea of what's coming, especially if they tried to do a gateway-first opening.
Is muta/bling the only successful non-allin bling-based build though?
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Burrowed baneling is more the BW spider mine with no auto-attack. Setting up like this would be slow though, considering most matches I saw finishes quite fast.
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EPT
