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So, a few months back, Blizzard made their major nerf to the Infestor. Reducing fungal damage to a flat 30/40 and reducing neural range from 9 to 7.
Pretty much everybody agrees that something had to be done about mass infestors throwing out fungal growth all over everything, and nobody is really arguing that the fungal change was a bad thing. The Neural nerf, on the other hand, is starting to reverberate through ZvP again as colossus have been making a comeback in a big way.
This post is to detail why that is a bad thing in general.
In order to understand the problems with the current state of Neural Parasite, you have to take a long, hard, honest look at the Colossus and the role it plays in PvZ.
Due to the generally low range of most Zerg units and the fact that Colossi essentially remove hydralisks from being viable, Colossus might as well act like walking siege tanks in siege mode as far as the match is concerned. The Protoss army itself need not be aggressive, the goal is simply to sit on your colossus while you siege down your opponent. Possibly employing blink or force field as needed/possible to prolong the life of the Colossus.
From the Zerg perspective, there is no viable counter to the Colossus. I see the constant argument of "CORRUPTORS!" but seriously... look at the unit. A Corruptor does 19 damage (1 base armor) to a colossus every 1.9 seconds. For reference, a Stalker does 13 damage every 1.44 seconds. So immediately every Protoss should ask themselves "If I want to counter Colossus, do I go for stalkers?" Because that is essentially what you are arguing, only my Corruptors aren't as fast, don't have blink, can't shoot down, and cost 2x as much gas (and you thought Stalkers cost a lot of gas).
The reason Infestors became such a big deal was the fact that they acted as a generalist unit, which Zerg is lacking otherwise. Infestors provide mass DPS vs large groups of small units, can mind control big units, provide cloaked harassment on the opponents mineral line, and are one of the best units to have for defense. This past nerf was aimed at not so much removing the Infestor from those roles, but to make it slightly worse at them... well... the infestor is not "slightly worse" at dealing with Colossi, it has simply ceased to be able to.
With the lack of a viable Corruptor, that puts Zerg back in the position of "What do I do about Colossi?"
I, personally, have moved toward a lot of baneling bombs. It is somewhat counter-intuitive, but given how things work, it tends to do ok. Baneling bombs still don't counter the colossus themselves, and that can often be somewhat problematic. But they DO allow me to clear out the ground army quickly enough and without an army to protect them, colossi drop quickly. This however, is a haphazard solution. Banelings are only really good against clumped up Zealots, Stalkers, and Sentries. If the Protoss player includes a large amount of Immortals, Archons, or spreads his units out in general, the Banelings lose their effectiveness very quickly. So then we're back to "what do I do about the god damn Colossus itself?"
Well... nothing... I honestly can't think of any tools Zerg has in their toolbox at this point in time to specifically target the Colossus and deal with them. Either Corruptors or Infestors need to be addressed in some fashion, or Zerg will continue losing ground in the ZvP MU (not that losing ground up to this point has been a bad thing for the MU in general, just that to continue the free-fall will end up moving the MU into an equally bad position).
Of course I have plenty of possible solutions that could be employed, but that is irrelevant. The point of this thread is not to argue all the specific fixes to the problem. I am simply trying to point out that a problem exists. Specifically to those who want to say "it's fine, learn to play." I work on my play constantly, and that is exactly why I can see that it is NOT fine. So my next move is to raise community awareness of this coming problem.
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Italy12247 Posts
Honestly, the way to kind of "counter" the colossus is going mutas. Yes on paper your army is stronger, but by the time you push out either he will baserace you do death because his expos are spread out, or he zerg will have hive tech ready to deal with blink stalker/colossus and no mothership support.
I personally never ever ever EVER go blind colossus anymore, i open fast blink and only get the robo bay when i confirm hydras/infestors and no spire.
It's kind of like pvp where 1base colossus is an awful opening these days because a good blink player will just expand faster than you and outmacro you, and you have no way of punishing him for it.
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To clarify a bit further, I am not saying blind colossus is imba or anything like that.
Mutalisks as a strategy works fine through the mid-game, but the fact remains that they fail to deal with the colossus in a direct manner. Nobody says: "Damn, he's got 3 colossus, if I get X mutalisks, I should be able to engage him and win that fight." Unless of course, that X is something in the range of 40-50. And for those who consider 40-50 mutalisks to be a reasonable counter to the colossus... really?
The reason Mutalisks are becoming so prevalent is not because they are imba, but because Zerg has no mechanic that allows them to deal with the Colossus head-on, and Mutalisks therefore become the best way to not-die once Colossus production becomes viable.
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I'm just curious -- why do you think that Z is free-falling in ZvP right now? Are there statistics to back this claim or is it just opinion?
Also, as a Z player, I feel corruptors work fine against colossus. Your comparison of corruptors to stalkers is a bit silly -- blink stalkers do well against colossus (in smaller numbers) in PvP, stalkers can't morph into brood lords, stalkers don't fly, stalkers get owned by immortals and the colossus themselves, etc. There is a lot more to a unit than just its base DPS. Not to mention that in corruptor v. colossus you should be corrupting the colossus so your corruptors will be doing 22.8 damage a shot (which is pretty damn good).
I will say that the neural nerf is quite troublesome. I feel like they should've tried reducing the range by 1 before reducing the range by 2, but w/e. Ling/infestor was way too strong before the nerf, so I'm okay with it.
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I think the comparison of corrupters to stalkers is stupid frankly. Corrupters can also use corruption, stack easily, allowing you to potentially 1-shot colossus, they are also great at taking down motherships, they can intercept harassing warp prisms, don't have priority so they don't even die quickly, they morph in to broodlords (this is pretty huge...), etc. Apples and oranges.
I think the 9-7 neural range decrease was a little bit excessive though, I'd have preferred something like 8 seeing as how they are pretty much top priority in the zerg army. That shit dies fast even if you do manage to get a neural or two on a colossus.
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The free-fall is both in the monthly statistics as well as the general feel of the MU. If you go back and look at ZvP from 2 months ago, not only were Zergs winning 70% of the time, they were winning in dominating fashion. If you look at the evolution of the MU since then, Protoss now feel safe makng Colossus deathballs again, Protoss has learned how to deal with mass muta play, and Archon Toilets are now > BLs. I don't think Protoss has taken control of the MU just yet, but the pendulum is swinging in full force and I don't see it abuptly stopping at the 50% mark.
As far as the comparison between Corruptors and Stalkers, its supposed to be an unfair comparison in order to show the absurdity of the Corruptor itself. The Stalker is not a situational unit. It is the staple unit of the entire Protoss army. The irony is in the fact that the Protoss generalist unit kills Colossi about as quickly as the Zerg specialist "Colossus Killer". Your argument in favor of Corruption has already been made and debunked. To keep things simple, let's just round the cast time of Corruption to 2 attacks-worth of time (don't worry, its close). In order for Corruption to NOT be a DPS loss vs Colossi, one would need upwards of 14 Corruptors. At which point you begin one-shotting them, which further removes corruption from the pool of viable Colossus-countering abilities.
If you want a fair comparison for the Corruptor, look at the viking. 25% more damage, 25% less cost, 50% more range AND the ability to be useful once the Colossi are eliminated. All this comes at the cost of 2 armor and a few HP...
Again, I am not saying infestors weren't imba before, but I'm not sure NP needed to be addressed at all. If it needed to be addressed, they have definitely done so in the wrong way.
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The ability to morph into broodlords is not a valid justification for the cost of the unit. Any expense that Broodlords require can easily be implemented during the morph or in a tech requirement.
That would be like arguing that Marines should cost 50 gas because Medivacs can heal them.
Corruptors aren't bad because Broodlords are expensive. Corruptors are bad because they fail to fulfill their designated role.
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I generally agree.
I'd also like to add that the nerf was unnecessay, or perhaps its the wrong one. Maybe the spell time should have been adjusted instead. And this might be a reason why most zergs just go crazy mass muta vs P no matter what.
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I stopped trying to deal with Colossi. A few days ago DRG and Nestea themselves talked about how strong Protoss are now that even they can't figure it out (anyway Nestea keeps beating Protoss here and there, but he's Nestea  ).
I simply throw a 2base roach-ling all-in around min 6.30
Otherwise, trying to deal with colossi using corruptors and hopping to survive to reach hive tech and make broodlords from them (and have enough army to keep blords alive) is just too hard by now.
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It is because zergs depend on on tier 1 and 2 units. Broodlords are about the same cost as colossus and they very much even out the fight in a colossus stalker sentry ball. They do take a long time to get but zerg can make a lot at one time.
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On January 25 2012 00:29 Jermstuddog wrote:
The free-fall is both in the monthly statistics as well as the general feel of the MU. If you go back and look at ZvP from 2 months ago, not only were Zergs winning 70% of the time, they were winning in dominating fashion. If you look at the evolution of the MU since then, Protoss now feel safe makng Colossus deathballs again, Protoss has learned how to deal with mass muta play, and Archon Toilets are now > BLs. I don't think Protoss has taken control of the MU just yet, but the pendulum is swinging in full force and I don't see it abuptly stopping at the 50% mark.
As far as the comparison between Corruptors and Stalkers, its supposed to be an unfair comparison in order to show the absurdity of the Corruptor itself. The Stalker is not a situational unit. It is the staple unit of the entire Protoss army. The irony is in the fact that the Protoss generalist unit kills Colossi about as quickly as the Zerg specialist "Colossus Killer". Your argument in favor of Corruption has already been made and debunked. To keep things simple, let's just round the cast time of Corruption to 2 attacks-worth of time (don't worry, its close). In order for Corruption to NOT be a DPS loss vs Colossi, one would need upwards of 14 Corruptors. At which point you begin one-shotting them, which further removes corruption from the pool of viable Colossus-countering abilities.
If you want a fair comparison for the Corruptor, look at the viking. 25% more damage, 25% less cost, 50% more range AND the ability to be useful once the Colossi are eliminated. All this comes at the cost of 2 armor and a few HP...
Again, I am not saying infestors weren't imba before, but I'm not sure NP needed to be addressed at all. If it needed to be addressed, they have definitely done so in the wrong way.
I think you're just taking a defeatist attitude that doesn't make a lot of sense. The statistics are still favoring Zerg (last I checked, at the pro level at least), and just because the matchup isn't ridiculously in Z's favor anymore doesn't mean that it'll do a 180 and become super P-favored. At my mid-masters level, I find ZvP is quite balanced.
Also -- your math about the effectiveness of corruption does not make any sense. Even if corruption takes two attacks-worth of time (which I simply don't believe, corruptors attack really slowly, I'd like to see some proof of that), it would still be effective at reducing the number of attacks necessary to kill the colossus. Because it reduces the number of corruptor attacks to kill a colossus by more than 2, then it doesn't matter how many corruptors you have, you're still decreasing the amount of time necessary to kill it. You say that my argument has been made and debunked -- but I tried doing a search for any mathematical analysis of corruption, and I can't find one.
Also, you really shouldn't directly compare Z and T units (e.g. corruptor v. viking). The races are fundamentally different, and Z's units tend to be less cost-efficient. You can make 10 corruptors all at once, you can morph those corruptors later into brood lords (you dismiss the ability to morph, but I don't agree with you there).
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