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Any many of you know, Zergs in sc2 have been complaining heavily about the imbalance in the PvZ matchup. If we look at how PvZ is played in BW compared to SC2, we can see a lot of the differences between the state of the match ups.
Here are the facts about the matchup that are true in both of the games:
Maxed protoss army will beat a maxed zerg army (clarification: Archon/Dt/Reaver/Dark Archon/HT/Dragoon support maxed toss army).
Zergs need to rely on a heavy economy if they want to beat a protoss in a head to head fight by keep ramming units into it and trying to disrupt the unit composition
Zergs need to keep the number of protoss's expansions lower than their own.
I think focusing on the late game aspects of the game would be more relevant because most of SC2 zergs are complaining about the deathball.
In bw lategame, a zerg's main goal is to deny the protoss from expanding and trying to destroy the 3rd base of the protoss (which is most likely to be up and running). In most cases, zergs try not to engage the protoss in a full-on head-to-head assault because their army will be crushed by the reaver/ht/dragoon mix. Because the toss's army is only efficient when it's in a large ball (much like sc2's toss army). The zerg will attack in multiple areas and engage in many micro battles where the zergling/defiler mix is potent at killing a small group of units. Also, zergs will drop onto expansions and use the swarm ability to nullify the cannons and lings will be used to snipe nexuses. They will also drop into the main to buy time as the main army of the protoss will need to defend the main before moving out. This will give time for the zerg to either expand or set up another attack.
The protoss's late game plan is to maintain the number of reavers/hts/dragoons and have a solid economy for the late game. Toss's main goal is to obtain 4 bases or even 5 and push out with the deathball while harassing with ht drops and dts. Toss will try to maintain the map control to deny counterattack routes and to pressure the zerg into fighting the army head-on. Toss needs to always be careful of the zerg switching tech into mass mutas at almost all points of the game try not to get caught off-guard.
the goals of the races are the same in both games. The difference is in the units/maps.
Because the maps in sc2 are smaller compared to BW, the protoss has a easier time defending 3rd bases. Also the warp-in mechanic allows the protoss to warp-in zealots to deal with zerglings trying to snipe a nexus. In many maps, the 3rd base is easily defended with cannons and forcefields. This makes it difficult for the zerg to try and kill a protoss's 3rd base because even if they force their way into the 3rd and destroy the nexus, they will most likely be greeted with a huge protoss army with another set of forcefields ready to cut the army in half. If a zerg loses most of their units in the early/mid game stage, it has a critical impact because they will need to make more units instead of drones (their mid/late game suffers). Also, zerglings are tremendously weaker compared to zerglings in bw that zerglings have a hard time killing even cannons. It takes a very long time to even kill the nexsus. The adrenal glands don't help much either and zealots are basically hard counters to a zergling in sc2 while bw adrenal zerglings were the most powerful unit in the game. Drops to the 3rd/4th base of the protoss are pretty ineffective due to the warp-in and the proximity of the bases. Also, size of the maps make it very difficult for the zerg to be able to drop into the main and do much critical damage or buy a bit of time because the protoss is easily able to defend. Also, playstyles of the protoss and the maps allow the protoss to sit back and mass up the death units such as the coll/void ray because they don't need to worry about having map control to deter attack routes for the zerg. Also, the zerg needs to invest heavily into drops into a main of the protoss because the lings do too little damage and just warp-in zealots could take them out with ease. Zergs need to drop using roachs and hydras but they consume a lot of resources and food and compared to a crackling/defiler drop in bw, they are not as cost efficient.
Thread's Thoughts
Zergs don't have early game pressure units. Roaches require lair for speed and without it, they are vulernable to the quicker moving stalkers and forcefields.
Hydras don't have mobility.
Zergs don't have the time buying mechanics such as swarm/lurkers/observer sniping with scourge
Zerg staple units cost 2 food and drone saturation requirement of each base makes zerg even more food hungry.
Zerg on 4 base need 24 drones on gas alone... in BW, you would only need 12. Those 12 drones could have been mining minerals.
TLDR: in bw, lings are actually good units to use to destroy bases because they do a great amount of dps and they go so well with defilers. lings are great against any unit in bw (except reaver duh)
In sc2, lings are crap in late game. Period. Lings don't have any spellcaster to compliment their low hp/high dps unit function such as defiler. Only reason people get them is because they don't have gas to make roaches.
Protosses have warp-in which make drops less effective. Also, drops are costly to zerg because u need to use roach/hydra for it to do any damage (since ling so crap).
Protoss don't need to maintain map control to deny zerg attack routes and they don't really need to bait the zerg into a frontal confrontation because lack of units such as lurker/defiler. Also, toss can force engagements in sc2 easily and protoss can control the terrain using forcefield.
Zergs can't deny 3rd bases because of the risk of losing all their units even if they kill the 3rd, and cannons/forcefields/warp-in make it even more difficult.
Personal Conclusion
Since it's wasted effort in complaining about the units themselves... What needs to be focused on is the way the units you're given are used. Even though drops are not as good in SC2 as in BW, it's still a valid tactic. Just because scourges existed, it didn't stop people from developing dropship plays and Science Vessel heavy SK terran because they made up for it by unit management. Also, where would the modern day bw pvz be if there isn't a corsair/scourge dynamic? I think we need to discover these dynamics between units that initially seem one sided but are actually "dynamic". Although lings aren't as good for destroying buildings and fighting units, lings still need to be used and they just need to avoiding fighting when there are AOE units around. Like the ling defiler/plague vs zealot/dragoons in bw, lings should fight in micro battles around the map and force the protoss to divide the army. Current build orders and unit compositions don't really need to be changed to change Zerg, I think we just need to change the way the matchup is approached and see how that goes.
EDIT: infestor buff doesn't really help out the zerg too much because their role doesn't really fit into the way zerg should be played imo.
Current strategies in sc2 seem to focus on getting a heavier economy and then getting a zerg deathball to deal with the protoss deathball.
 
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Concerning longer games, that's pretty much the issue.
One might argue Zergs have creep now for map awareness and injects for maximizing a hatchery's effectiveness. But that doesn't cut it.
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Once toss does any kind of push, creep spread is pretty much dead though. It's really hard to maintain the creep spread when they just push and kill all the tumors.
I'd also add that unit such as the hydra should be more of a weak/mobile/cheap force than a dps monster. In sc2, hydras are only good because their dps... but zergs shouldn't really be fighting toss army head to head all the time.
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Phrased badly ^.^
That aside, the difficulty with the ZvP matchup in SC2 as opposed to BW, is that in SC2, zerg hive tech is a lot worst than it was in BW, also their staple mid game units, aka roach ^.^, are fine, but their effectiveness diminishes exponentially as P builds up his death ball, compounded by the fact that Z maxes far too fast, limiting the Z to different unit compositions. Eventually the zerg will have to engage the protoss in order to free up supply, but getting a different effective composition as Z, basically broodlords, since arguably ultras suck vs P general army comp, takes far too long, whereas the P reinforces on the fly.
The matchup is pretty complex and it's hard to say how to "solve" whatever problem there is, because as I've noticed, Z has the power to absolutely surpass the protoss in terms of eco, and max out extremely fast, yet their mid game units are pretty shit. In BW ling/hydra/lurk could fight almost any P ball, although eventually you mix in ultra/defiler, in SC2 it just doesn't work that way, because there is no unit that can properly compliment the existing mid game army, ultras blow, and broodlords take way too long to build.
My short version of my own opinion, even if I don't play Z SC2 ^.^
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Yea, I agree it was the same dynamic as it is now. Protoss max army > Zerg max army, so Zerg has to kinda be everywhere and slow chip away at it, drop etc. The only difference is, like you said, Zerg tools were way more powerful for wearing away at a Protoss army. 3/3 cracklings were just ridiculous. Swarm + lurker offered amazing defensive options so you could actually expand and drop without dieing cause ur army was elsewhere, and I don't need to touch on how amazing plague was compared to fungal.
Also, another 1:
Ultra / ling combo. This was just RIDICULOUSLY cost effective in BW on top of being incredibly mobile.
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besides zergling damage, another big difference you didn't talk about is Z's hive tech options. BW dark swarm and lings are scary, but perhaps SC2 fungal+ultra on stalker/colo clumps is quite dangerous as well, plus baneling drops?? (of course this is ridiculously gas intensive, but hey we're talking lategame here when Z could be mining off 5 bases of gas)
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3 Lions
United States3705 Posts
zerg needs a spellcaster so that their melee units are complemented better. it makes for more fun and entertainment
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well, when the zerg is maxed in bw, if it was an even game throughout, toss will have that archon/reaver/ht/dragoon mix.
In the end it's that the zerg design in sc2 doesn't fair well against how the protoss was designed...
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On April 27 2011 04:23 palanq wrote:
besides zergling damage, another big difference you didn't talk about is Z's hive tech options. BW dark swarm and lings are scary, but perhaps SC2 fungal+ultra on stalker/colo clumps is quite dangerous as well, plus baneling drops?? (of course this is ridiculously gas intensive, but hey we're talking lategame here when Z could be mining off 5 bases of gas)
That could work but those situations don't come up that often. Also, the voidray makes it so that anything involving ultra has a major downside. Also, it doesn't fair well with the general game plan that zergs should have because toss will adapt to ultra/baneling/infestor (if it gets mainstream), then zergs will have the same issues again.
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Netherlands45349 Posts
A problem with PvZ is that in BW a Zerg has agressive options, which are the result of the Hydralisk, the hydralisk in BW deals explosive damage(good against goons and buildings)), is ranged(and as thus can be microed to kill zealots), it is cheap(75min/25gas) and when upgraded fast it is a very good unit. In fact it is so good that Protoss can only move out once he has high templars out on the field usually(Except if you are Bisu ofcourse).
In SC2 the zerg his aggressive options are limited, in SC2 you need speed on roaches which only come with lair tech and even then Roaches are not as strong against stalkers as hydralisks are against Dragoons. Not to mention that a roach is more of a tanky unit and not a damage unit, the zerg has no real damage dealer early on save for lings, who also don't deal that much damage and are ''countered'' by force fields. This coupled with the fac that Zerg needs to get more expo's/drones(as their army is less efficient) leads to lack of an incentive to be aggresive, because a true SC2 aggressive Zerg in the PvZ matchup is usually allin(Think drops). Idra has also stated that one of the problems of the Zerg right now is the lack of an aggresive early threat.
Z has no threat in early to mid game save for an allin.
Ow yea, lategame Z indeed does not engage the Protoss ball headon usually, only when clearly ahead. For example the Snow vs Jaedong series(INSANE SERIES) ultimately forced Jaedong to do drops on the Protoss his expansions and sacrificing a expo on his own for that.
The thing is, as there is little defensive advantage with which you can stall your opponent(Dark swarm/Lurkers) in SC2 if you do not engage the deathball headon, you will die. He will A-move(oke thats a bit condescending) his deathball into your base, if he did this in BW, then you would be able to stall for a very long time with Dark swarm/lurkers, sure he would bust it in the end. But by then you have killed a numerous amount of Protoss Expansions and have decreased the size of the deathball, leading to the downfall of the Protoss in the end as he will be severly outmacroed.
Another to thing consider is the warpgate advantage, although you won't see it often in ZvP due to creep spread, in BW your forces could be picked off apart from your deathball during their ''run'' to the deathball, in SCBW you can reinforce instantly anywhere on the map(this incidentely also makes it harder for Zerg to harass effectivly) this once again nullefies the defenders advantage that Zerg has while in fact increasing the defenders advantage that Protoss has.
On top of this due to the power of the deathball and the Zerg its inefficiency there is no real incentive for Protoss to move out either, I know that it might be a nitpicked example but Idra vs Cruncher was an excellent example, in SCBW you don't let a zerg go up to 6 bases if you are on 3 (ARE YOU MAD?YOU WILL GET OVERRUN), in SC2 you can sit back and macro up a deathball strong enough to destroy basically anything, the incentive to attack is low. Why risk your not competed 200/200 deathball to do some damage while you can just sit back and get 200/200.
Here is to hope HoTS brings some Zerg defensive options  .
Edit: Added sum more stuff.
Pelipodas his point btw is pretty good. The amount of workers to saturate a base is also very important.(Zerg gets 80 drones most of the time or something, leaving them with little army with roaches costing 2 supply)
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Another very important thing that I don't think has been mentioned is the greater number of workers required to saturate bases in Starcraft 2. This means that Zerg is not fully able to take advantage of their potential for a more powerful economy then protoss, and thus is not able to outmacro Protoss no matter how many bases they take once Protoss is on 3 bases. This is probably the greatest problem with Starcraft 2 at the moment and leads to the efficiency of so called death balls.
Anyways, I think the meta game has shifted significantly, and in the very near future we will see a Zerg favored ZvP meta game. With better usage of infestors, and banelings.
Edit: missed a word.
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On April 27 2011 04:34 Kipsate wrote:A problem with PvZ is that in BW a Zerg has agressive options, which are the result of the Hydralisk, the hydralisk in BW deals explosive damage(good against goons and buildings)), is ranged(and as thus can be microed to kill zealots), it is cheap(75min/25gas) and when upgraded fast it is a very good unit. In fact it is so good that Protoss can only move out once he has high templars out on the field usually(Except if you are Bisu ofcourse). In SC2 the zerg his aggressive options are limited, in SC2 you need speed on roaches which only come with lair tech and even then Roaches are not as strong against stalkers as hydralisks are against Dragoons. Not to mention that a roach is more of a tanky unit and not a damage unit, the zerg has no real damage dealer early on save for lings, who also don't deal that much damage and are ''countered'' by force fields. This coupled with the fac that Zerg needs to get more expo's/drones(as their army is less efficient) leads to lack of an incentive to be aggresive, because a true SC2 aggressive Zerg in the PvZ matchup is usually allin(Think drops). Idra has also stated that one of the problems of the Zerg right now is the lack of an aggresive early threat. Z has no threat in early to mid game save for an allin. Ow yea, lategame Z indeed does not engage the Protoss ball headon usually, only when clearly ahead. For example the Snow vs Jaedong series(INSANE SERIES) ultimately forced Jaedong to do drops on the Protoss his expansions and sacrificing a expo on his own for that. The thing is, as there is little defensive advantage with which you can stall your opponent(Dark swarm/Lurkers) in SC2 if you do not engage the deathball headon, you will die. He will A-move(oke thats a bit condescending) his deathball into your base, if he did this in BW, then you would be able to stall for a very long time with Dark swarm/lurkers, sure he would bust it in the end. But by then you have killed a numerous amount of Protoss Expansions and have decreased the size of the deathball, leading to the downfall of the Protoss in the end as he will be severly outmacroed. Here is to hope HoTS brings some Zerg defensive options .
Hydras are definitely something that should be looked into by blizzard.
It's not that zerg is such a terrible race... it's just that the design of the protoss makes a lot of the zerg's units seem terrible/useless. In zvt, at least there are some dynamics. Just a matter of time before terrans use ghost and helions in all their unit comp though  and zerg tears shall fill the teamliquid forums once again.
When i think pvz and these zerg units... this pops into my head
Ultra - blink stalker/immortal
Broodlord - blink stalker/voidray
Ling/bane - forcefield/coll
Hydra - forcefield/ht/coll
Roach - immortal/coll/blink stalker
Baneling drops are indeed terrifying... but honestly, they're not too cost effective. They're so expensive!
Zergs definitely need something that allows them to buy some time... Extend that hour glass!!!
On April 27 2011 04:35 Pelopidas wrote:
Another very important thing that I don't think has been mentioned is the greater number of workers required to saturate bases in Starcraft 2. This means that Zerg is not fully able to take advantage of their potential for a more powerful economy then protoss, and thus is not able to outmacro Protoss no matter how many bases they take once Protoss is on 3 bases. This is probably the greatest problem with Starcraft 2 at the moment and leads to the efficiency of so called.
Anyways, I think the meta game has shifted significantly, and in the very near future we will see a Zerg favored ZvP meta game. With better usage of infestors, and banelings.
I think this could do a lot of the map design. In bw, it was pretty safe for the zerg to take a natural of another main base and then expand onto the main later on in the game. it was pretty safe because the naturals in bw maps had decent chokes where u can place buildings to wall and sunken colonies to defend with. Also, your units are all mobile units so defending the 3rd was not a painful task. with 4 bases, they can have that drone saturation on the gas with just 3 drones too. 4 bases = 12 workers on gas. In sc2, 4 bases = 24 workers on gas... 12 drones wasted on gas that could be just used for minerals!
Map design and core game design is another negative effect on the zerg...
Doesn't help that roach/hydra are both 2 food units. Maybe we can see 1.5 food units in the future. I really think that hydras need to be 1 food unit that costs 75/25... have better mobility. Just try being the bw hydra or something.
Playing with the gameplan of not engaging the toss army until you have a good lead should remedy the food problem a bit but still, hive tech units are still pretty bad. Also, in bw, while doing harassment, zergs often chipped away at the toss army. How can this be done in sc2... question of the year...?
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Norway28614 Posts
On April 27 2011 04:35 Pelopidas wrote:
Another very important thing that I don't think has been mentioned is the greater number of workers required to saturate bases in Starcraft 2. This means that Zerg is not fully able to take advantage of their potential for a more powerful economy then protoss, and thus is not able to outmacro Protoss no matter how many bases they take once Protoss is on 3 bases. This is probably the greatest problem with Starcraft 2 at the moment and leads to the efficiency of so called.
this is really true
combine it with the roach being the staple zerg unit and being a 2 supply unit and you have covered some of the reason why late game zerg basically sucks with the exception of brood lords.
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Russian Federation3631 Posts
Sorry, but generally speaking maxed zerg > max protoss in bw, perhaps only late late game where you find archon/reaver/ht armies, etc. However the typical mid to late game P max isn't as strong as the Z max.
Yep. At any point but the late late game (where the portoss is on more than 4 base with reavers / archon / ht all in production), letting a zerg have more supply than you usually spells trouble.
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Norway28614 Posts
maxed vs maxed would lead to protoss winning if he had a decent unit composition in bw, but maxed vs maxed would also very often mean that zerg was actually in the lead, because it was possible for zerg to defend with lurker+swarm, use plague to wittle down army while dropping main/killing exps etc.
actually it mainly depended on who attacked. zerg attacking into a protoss ball in bw generally lead to zerg losing his units, protoss attacking into a defense including lots of lurkers would generally lead to protoss losing his units.
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On April 27 2011 04:55 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On April 27 2011 04:35 Pelopidas wrote:
Another very important thing that I don't think has been mentioned is the greater number of workers required to saturate bases in Starcraft 2. This means that Zerg is not fully able to take advantage of their potential for a more powerful economy then protoss, and thus is not able to outmacro Protoss no matter how many bases they take once Protoss is on 3 bases. This is probably the greatest problem with Starcraft 2 at the moment and leads to the efficiency of so called.
this is really true combine it with the roach being the staple zerg unit and being a 2 supply unit and you have covered some of the reason why late game zerg basically sucks with the exception of brood lords.
Also keep in mind that zerg rarely saturate their bases in BW. Since they are the most gas heavy race, they tend to expand a lot, put three guys on gas per base, and just have a few mining minerals.
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On April 27 2011 04:35 Pelopidas wrote:
Another very important thing that I don't think has been mentioned is the greater number of workers required to saturate bases in Starcraft 2. This means that Zerg is not fully able to take advantage of their potential for a more powerful economy then protoss, and thus is not able to outmacro Protoss no matter how many bases they take once Protoss is on 3 bases. This is probably the greatest problem with Starcraft 2 at the moment and leads to the efficiency of so called.
Anyways, I think the meta game has shifted significantly, and in the very near future we will see a Zerg favored ZvP meta game. With better usage of infestors, and banelings.
People would do less drone saturation on the minerals and have more bases for the gas if the zerg was able to get a faster 4th base but it's pretty dangerous for the zerg to expand so much because you will have to deal with the protoss attacking the expansion. Your choices would be to either try to fight head-on with the protoss army (which would be superior to yours because you've just expanded and you'd probably only have roaches) or do a counter attack. Since zergs like taking close proximity bases, the 3rd is probably exposed if the zerg decides to do a counter attack.
Most zergs tend to stick to 3base play until later in the game and i think that's hurting the zerg's options but zergs can't do much about it imo.
Doesn't help that gas saturation takes 6 drones instead of 3 T_T
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Great thread so far, personally after reading most of the stuff in this thread. Wouldn't something like making it that you only need 2 workers per patch mabey make all the problems with 3 max bases go away and players be more proned to go for the sweet spot at 4-5 bases ? Just a thought.(not trying to derail just hit me while reading trough it all)
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On April 27 2011 05:34 Buffy wrote:
Great thread so far, personally after reading most of the stuff in this thread. Wouldn't something like making it that you only need 2 drones per patch mabey make all the problems with 3 max bases go away and players be more proned to go for the sweet spot at 4-5 bases ? Just a thought.(not trying to derail just hit me while reading trough it all)
well, you still need to make drones for the economy but it's just that most of the time, it's almost impossible to get a 4th base in the mid stages of the game to get use of the gas. People do the 2drones per mineral patch but that's still 8x2 + 6. 22 drones per base. 88 drones are needed to fully saturate 4bases. Protoss with 3 bases most of the time produces a better army than the zerg with 4 anyway. it's pointless to get a 5th base fully saturated because you can't get a decent army size with that many drones.
In bw, zerg can survive with small # of units because they can buy time and wither away the toss army and they can actually retreat from a fight. Imagine sc2 hydra running away from a toss army. You can't. Forcefields don't help also. If you fight, you fight to the death in most cases. burrowed roaches are great time buyers but zerg doesn't have anything realistic to snipe observers to buy time.
Zergs really need something to snipe observers so that the toss can't push out. They should just get like 4 corruptors to 1 shot obs or something... cut away with immortal/coll build time too since they'll have to make obs! but is it something they can afford to do...?
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Netherlands45349 Posts
On April 27 2011 05:34 Buffy wrote:
Great thread so far, personally after reading most of the stuff in this thread. Wouldn't something like making it that you only need 2 workers per patch mabey make all the problems with 3 max bases go away and players be more proned to go for the sweet spot at 4-5 bases ? Just a thought.(not trying to derail just hit me while reading trough it all)
The problems run much deeper then that sadly, The Zerg which we know from BW will most likely never come back and perhaps we should accept that, however The Zerg does need something to make up for the losses which came from SC2. I always wondered why Blizzard decided to go from 1 gas to 2 gas a base, do you have any idea how many drones you need on gas on 6 bases ?36, compared to 18 in BW. Ofcourse 6 bases is a overexgerated thing but yes it costs you alot of drones.
Something more subtle would be to increase the the amount of minerals you lose get when you mine with 3 workers on a mineral patch(therefore increasing the incentive to expo, as you will not mine effectivly, at all. But even then the problem also lies with the 2roach food and more units neccesary in general.
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EPT
