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StarCraft 2 is still very much a new game, in both its balance and design. There are still two expansion packs yet to come out, which will fundamentally change both of the aforementioned attributes. Blizzard has shown it's not afraid to consider pulling a unit out of the game and replacing it with something (supposedly) better in an upcoming expansion if it will help fix glaring problems. Both the Thor and the Carrier sit on the chopping block, at least in terms of their current design in SC2.
The unit I'm going to be talking about is neither of those, however, and yet I feel it should be the most prominent on the list of units that need to see a timely removal from competitive play. That unit is the baneling. In this rambling, I am going to try to explain why the baneling's presence ruins the game for both non-Zerg and Zerg players alike.
The Design Concept
Everyone knows how the baneling works. It waddles -- or rolls -- around the map looking cute until it explodes, (hopefully) taking plenty down with it. This concept isn't new to StarCraft, where we saw the Swarm utilize both the scourge and infested Terran in Brood War, both of which were a unit that did damage by suiciding into things. "What's the problem, then?" you may ask.
![[image loading]](http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/1/14434/1454888-baneling_sc2_devrend3_large.jpg) The problem is this little guy is a game-breaking devil.
The scourge was a flying unit, only able to deal damage to fellow air units. It also came from the spire, a second tier tech building.
The infested Terran, while a ground unit like the baneling, was almost never seen in competitive play, due to the excruciating difficulty it took to actually infest a Terran opponent's Command Center. They weren't the absolute cheapest, either, sitting at a cool 100 minerals, 50 vespene a pop. That's the same price as a Hydralisk in SC2, for a unit you could only use once. To top it all off, its splash damage injured ally and enemy alike, making them very dangerous to simply dump in with your main army.
Compare either of those with the baneling, a unit you can simply 1-a with the rest of your army to wipe your opponent's forces off the map, with no negative repercussions such as friendly fire. You never saw players like Jaedong make over 100 scourge and simply win the game shortly after, because the unit's design didn't allow for it. Yet here we are in SC2, with players like NesTea doing that very thing with the baneling to win important tournament matches.
![[image loading]](http://images.memegenerator.net/images/300x/68999.jpg) Oh, you wiped the map clean by a-moving your banelings and took another base? You must be so skillful.
No matter how you slice it, the baneling is little more than an overpowered Brood War infested Terran, made far more easily accessible -- it's first tech tier, for God's sake! You couldn't even get scourge or infested Terrans until the second tech tier, and infested Terrans took a lot of additional leg work to even start producing them. While there are many reasons people consider Brood War to be a wonderfully designed and balanced game, I can tell you right now one of them is because the infested Terran wasn't competitively viable.
Why Should Zerg Players Also Care?
If you've read up until now and are thinking to yourself, "This guy is just a whiner that probably has bad marine splitting," bear with me for a little longer. The baneling hurts you guys too.
Now that I've covered how the baneling is little more than an imbalanced Brood War port, I am going to go into specific cases where the Baneling breaks SC2 -- to both the detriment of Zerg and non-Zerg players. To start, let's talk about every Zerg's favourite matchup.
ZvZ, AKA The High-speed Knife Fight
All right, Zergs, raise your hands. How many of you really detest your mirror? I can tell you what the problem is right now: the baneling. ZvZ feels like a knife fight because almost every game revolves around keeping your zerglings alive against your opponent's banelings while trying to get a good baneling hit off of your own. Given how fast speedlings are, it's a lot to handle, and a single slip can see you losing your entire zergling force, with no danger to your opponent's zerglings (no friendly splash damage, remember).
Assuming you and your opponent both manage to avoid dying (a very rare thing in comparison), then the matchup evolves into something more entertaining. Roach/infestor seems to be the composition of choice, but we have seen muta-based builds as well. We could even see something more amazing, if only nearly every ZvZ didn't end before they really get started. As a result, anything past early game is essentially experimental territory -- much like PvP past the 4gate (but that's a rant for another time).
Never Lose A Game Again -- Make Banelings
Zerg likes to expand. It's like a fetish that you can't help but indulge in. There's just one problem: Protoss and Terran don't like Zerg expanding. They come in with their armies and try to take down the Swarm. If only those armies simply didn't exist… I know! Wipe them off the map with a tonne of banelings, then you're free to expand as much as you want; they won't be pressuring you any time soon.
This is actually one of the silliest things I've every had the displeasure to watch in professional tournaments. Get a fast second base, make a large amount of banelings, a-move through the opponent's army, expand, drone, repeat.
Never Lose A Game Again? Stupid Banelings.
The complete opposite of the above, there's nothing more annoying to a Zerg when it's simply impossible to make those banelings connect. It's a do-or-die kind of thing, where if you do, you win the game, and if you don't, you lose the game. This isn't the same as the more vague, "Well, if you lose your army without doing damage, you should lose the game, right?". That makes sense, banelings don't.
Why don't banelings make sense? There's no micro to them. You attack, cross your fingers, and hope for the best, because that baneling is dying one way or another. The only question is if other things die with it. There's no such thing as saving a baneling with sick baneling micro -- we leave that sort of thing to the baneling's targets, such as marines with their marine splitting.
The baneling leaves the Zerg with either a sense of relief or helplessness, depending on how much of the opponent's army remains after your sick 1a skills. That sounds like I'm insulting the skill of Zergs everywhere, but it's actually just the more depressing truth that there's nothing else you can do. The utility of the baneling ends at an excruciatingly low skill cap.
What Could Have Been -- The Death Of The Lurker
Hey guys, remember that awesome positional unit in Brood War that you could use to zone out portions of the map and protect chokes, and even had some awesome micro tricks? Yeah, sorry, it was eventually scrapped from the development of SC2, with the cited reason being its "role" overlapped with another unit.
What other unit? The baneling, of course.
That's right Zergs, you can thank the baneling for the lack of lurkers. Really, though, when you look at the baneling as it is, there's no way a true zoning unit like the lurker could exist in the Zerg arsenal as long as the baneling's there. Seriously, how would anyone be able to touch a Zerg, ever? Air units? Whoops, sorry, hydralisks are already on the field, since they're what morphs into the lurker. That's what we call a blind hard counter. It simply wouldn't work, which is why Blizzard ultimately had to scrap one -- except they scrapped the wrong unit, in my opinion.
The Lurker's Replacement -- The Swarm Host
Ah yes, the new unit revealed in the Heart of the Swarm preview, meant to fill the gap left behind by the lurker, and unfillable as long as the baneling is around. I call this gap unfillable despite the swarm host's presence, because seriously, if you think the swarm host is a real zoning unit, I have to pray for you.
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/images2/1/18/Swarm_Host.jpg) Hey guys! I make a pair of locusts in 25 second intervals! Aren't I useful?
The swarm host is nothing more than a lower-tier, ground-based, impotent brood lord. It is a mediocre sieging unit, not a zoning unit, plain and simple. If a Terran wants to break through a line of swarm hosts with only a bunch of marines and a scan, he will do that without even having to worry about casualties. All the swarm host provides is a way of forcing a clock on a turtling player to come out and play, or his defenses will slowly get eroded. That is not a solution to Zerg's map zoning issues.
Do What Needs To Be Done
Blizzard needs to scrap the baneling and revamp the swarm host into a zoning unit that can truely replace the lurker. I can sympathize with Blizzard's desire to not simply cop out and hand us the lurker again. They already did that in Brood War, and asking for money to receive the exact same thing in 3D feels pretty cheap. Nevertheless, Heart of the Swarm needs to see that zoning unit for Zerg, and it's just not going to happen until the Baneling is gone.
In conclusion, there are too many aspects of SC2 that get seriously messed up because of how the baneling works, and its continued presence also prevents the inclusion of units to properly fill the gaps in the overall Zerg design. As far as I'm aware, there are only positives in removing the baneling from competitive play, including the possibility for far more entertaining and skillful professional ZvX matches in ESPORTS.
ADDENDUM: What about "SOOOO MANY BANELINGS!"?
I say, if your only reason for keeping the baneling lay with preserving the novelty of a cute one-liner popularized by a professional SC2 caster, please reconsider. I'm sure Artosis wouldn't mind either, if it means he gets to cast better games in the future.
  
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The one thing I'd like to see the baneling do is at least cause a baneling "impotent explosion" reaction to one hex over. It would discourage clumps of banelings by killing one of them in a group to make the other half impotent as well as keep 100 banelings from being able to clean the face of any ground army in seconds. Screw friendly fire (even as a terran player) because ling/bling has to go hand in hand (or ling/infestor...beside the point) especially to keep early terran marine rushes from destroying a zerg because no zerg tier one/two really handles marines cost effectively. (Roaches sorta, hydras get lol'd at DPS to cost, and mutas also are worse dps for cost with even less HP, lings are so larva inefficient that a good stutter stepper will make you starved for larva while killing your drones).
That's just my opinion, so take it or leave it. Banes are powerful but very crucial to early defenses in ZvT otherwise every game would be a marine allin by T and require a balance change to happen.
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Good Read!
Especially as a zerg player who is currently in the process of switching to Terran..
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On February 29 2012 16:51 TG Manny wrote:
The one thing I'd like to see the baneling do is at least cause a baneling "impotent explosion" reaction to one hex over. It would discourage clumps of banelings by killing one of them in a group to make the other half impotent as well as keep 100 banelings from being able to clean the face of any ground army in seconds. Screw friendly fire (even as a terran player) because ling/bling has to go hand in hand (or ling/infestor...beside the point) especially to keep early terran marine rushes from destroying a zerg because no zerg tier one/two really handles marines cost effectively. (Roaches sorta, hydras get lol'd at DPS to cost, and mutas also are worse dps for cost with even less HP, lings are so larva inefficient that a good stutter stepper will make you starved for larva while killing your drones).
That's just my opinion, so take it or leave it. Banes are powerful but very crucial to early defenses in ZvT otherwise every game would be a marine allin by T and require a balance change to happen.
Naturally, when speaking of the removal of a unit, especially such an early tier unit, we're talking big changes to a race's design. The Heart of the Swarm expansion creates a unique opportunity for Blizzard to try out a lot of wild things, and I wouldn't expect them to simply pull out the baneling without creating an adequate way to still defend against things like early bio pushes, whether that answer would lie in something like reverting hydralisk/roach tiers and costs (where hydras were T1 and 75/25 like in Brood War, while roaches were T2 and more expensive), or with the inclusion of a new unit -- or even a different solution entirely.
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It's fine to remove banelings ... if you also remove medivacs and or marines.
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On February 29 2012 17:04 aebriol wrote:
It's fine to remove banelings ... if you also remove medivacs and or marines.
A true zoning unit solves that issue, much like the lurker did against marine/medic in Brood War. You did read the whole OP, yes?
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I actually like it. Sure there are sucky moments where so many banelings syndrome can ruin a game, but it's a good and early zone control unit.
I feel like the lurker would have a place in the Zerg arsenal alongside it given more time than it had.
OP, Do you really think Roach/Infestor is better ZvZ than the action packed ling/bling?
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hmmm. i'm all for losing the baneling in TvZ or TvP given other AOE alternatives, but ZvZ ling baneling wars are the only reason i enjoy zvz at all. i'd much rather lose roaches than lose banelings in ZvZ.
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On February 29 2012 17:10 Cyber_Cheese wrote:
I actually like it. Sure there are sucky moments where so many banelings syndrome can ruin a game, but it's a good and early zone control unit.
I feel like the lurker would have a place in the Zerg arsenal alongside it given more time than it had.
OP, Do you really think Roach/Infestor is better ZvZ than the action packed ling/bling?
I don't necessarily think roach/infestor is superior to watch, if you can even grade them on a scale, but rather I feel roach/infestor is the result of a largely unexplored later-game ZvZ, caused by ling/bane ending ZvZ matches before they really get to kick off. In the OP I was more trying to make the point that we start to see some diversity in ZvZ in the rare occurrence it gets past ling/bane, which leads me to believe there's potential there for ZvZ to be really entertaining if the knife fight syndrome could be fixed.
I compare ZvZ a lot with PvP, albeit less coin-flippy. I think they're both potentially great match ups that get absolutely wrecked by a flawed design concept. In ZvZ it's the baneling that ends things early, while in PvP it's the ability to warp in via pylons.
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On February 29 2012 17:25 Fishgle wrote:
hmmm. i'm all for losing the baneling in TvZ or TvP given other AOE alternatives, but ZvZ ling baneling wars are the only reason i enjoy zvz at all. i'd much rather lose roaches than lose banelings in ZvZ.
I don't really like the idea of focusing the discussion on only the removal of the baneling, i.e. imagining scenarios where Zerg design is identical to its current state, sans baneling. Half of my blog talks up adding a true positional unit to the Zerg arsenal, and doesn't touch on other changes coming to Zerg in Heart of the Swarm.
Making my point, you discuss ZvZ in its current state (ling/bane into mass roaches), but I argue ZvZ would look fundamentally different if you had a lurker-type unit in place of the baneling, on top of some of the new changes coming down the pipeline that Blizzard has teased. However, as long as the baneling remains, I'm willing to bet the majority of ZvZ matches won't change in HotS, since ling/bane will still dominate and end the match before any of the new toys can be played with, so to speak. It's the same as why even current ZvZ is so under-developed in the mid and late game, to the point where simply massing roaches with some infestor support seems like the "best" strategy to do.
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I mostly agree with this. I am terran though so Banelings are the well..Well bane of my existance.
Have them able to burrow move in HoTS will be a complete nightmare of epic proportions.
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Hmmm, can't really make an indepth argument in my part, sadly.
But I do wan't to know; you mention we need a zoning unit that truly took the role of the lurker, which I agree. But what is your suggestion for this? i.e. for the Swarm Host; Increased locusts? Faster producing locus and decreasing its attack? Or a whole new different unit
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On February 29 2012 17:50 RogerX wrote:
Hmmm, can't really make an indepth argument in my part, sadly.
But I do wan't to know; you mention we need a zoning unit that truly took the role of the lurker, which I agree. But what is your suggestion for this? i.e. for the Swarm Host; Increased locusts? Faster producing locus and decreasing its attack? Or a whole new different unit
I really don't like the concept of the swarm host. It's just taking the idea behind the Brood Lord and applying it to another unit. If all Blizzard is going to do is half ass it and clone something like that, they may as well just clone how the lurker works.
At the end of the day, it's about giving a Zerg a unit that can not only effectively deal with bio (like the lurker and baneling), but also has versatility in holding positions against many different ground-based compositions (which the baneling doesn't do -- it's more like an eraser, where you hope to erase everything before you run out). It's that later portion that's missing from Zerg design, and where Blizzard is missing the mark with the swarm host.
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I'm sorry, but this is just silly. The baneling isn't a problem in the game. I'm sorry if you or other people lose because your micro is shit or w/e, but you should never lose your whole army to banelings if you know what your doing. To look at your points:
ZvZ: I don't hate my mirror, because hardly ever do you lose to banelings. If a guy wants to go offensive banelings, I'm going to go defensive banelings and get a few more drones. You're not going to lose to banelings unless you control very poorly or he transitions from an early pool and you had poor scouting.
A-move through the army: Ok, how do you amove banelings through an army? What race are we talking about? Protoss should never lose to banelings on the ground, and if you do your forcefields are bad. If it's a terran you're being greedy and sieging too late or keeping everything into a ball and not splitting. You shouldn't lose to this kind of thing if you're a competent player at all. I understand if you're a lower level player it's frustrating when you lose to banelings because you're not fast enough, but the're not a problem to people who know how to play.
All or nothing - Yeah, it's hard to make banelings connect versus someone who knows what they're doing, but it's nowhere as bad as you're making it out. IF you amove into a siege line from one angle, yeah, you're probably pretty bad and deserve to lose the game. You shouldn't be putting all your eggs into the baneling basket, that's why banelings are used with infestors or mutas/lings/ultras.
Would I rather have a lurker? Of course, but I don't. If they want to give me a lurker, great, if not the baneling is fine. The baneling works very well in the game, and while it's probably pretty frustrating to low level players, it's a fine unit at higher levels of play.
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I do have one counter argument for you.... Baneling Drops and Baneling landmines.
I do agree with you for the most part that the presence of the baneling especially as a tier 1.5 unit stagnates what tech could possibly be added to the Zerg arsenal, but to oversimplify them as an a-move unit is simply not 100% true.
Your point about ZvZ though I could not agree with more, but unfortunately with the notable exception of TvT the mirrors suffer because of units or tech that are vital in other match ups, the other prime suspect being Warp Tech.
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StarCraft 2 is still very much a new game, in both its balance and design.
We've been playing it for 2 years. I don't think it's really that new (but certainly not that old). Also considering the tiny changes in the last balance patch and the figures currently it's pretty damn well balanced. Banelings also have nothing to do with this.
Compare either of those with the baneling, a unit you can simply 1-a with the rest of your army to wipe your opponent's forces off the map, with no negative repercussions such as friendly fire. You never saw players like Jaedong make over 100 scourge and simply win the game shortly after, because the unit's design didn't allow for it. Yet here we are in SC2, with players like NesTea doing that very thing with the baneling to win important tournament matches.
If you 1a your banes they all run into a tank or thor inefficiently and you deal fuck all damage. Good job. Really good zergs position their banes so they don't get splatted by 1 tank round and split them up mid fight to engage separate clumps of marines. It's really fucking hard you don't know what you're talking about.
The nestea vs NaDa video is Nestea punishing Nada for having no tanks and poorly spread thors. If a bane splashes on 3-4 things (even thors) then it lived a good life.
No matter how you slice it, the baneling is little more than an overpowered Brood War infested Terran, made far more easily accessible -- it's first tech tier, for God's sake! You couldn't even get scourge or infested Terrans until the second tech tier, and infested Terrans took a lot of additional leg work to even start producing them. While there are many reasons people consider Brood War to be a wonderfully designed and balanced game, I can tell you right now one of them is because the infested Terran wasn't competitively viable.
Referencing the infested Terran is silly because the damn thing was only used like once (some ZvP on that map which had a neutral CC in the middle). The unit may as well have never existed in the first place, it was incredibly difficult to obtain and use effectively. It's an extremely poorly designed aspect of Broodwar, and a comparison to the baneling is laughable. Banelings are useful, banelings are exciting, banelings are balanced.
ZvZ
Plenty of ZvZ's get past the baneling stage, but they more struggle with the basic Rock paper scissors game of 15 hatch > 10pool > 14/14 > 15 hatch (with 6 pool thrown in there too for jollies) and weird things involving speed timings, spines, queens and all sorts of little niggly bits. A good zerg can deal with banes.
ling/bane wars in ZvZ are extremely challenging for both players and the better player gets to win them. Isn't this something a Broodwar fan would like? Shit have you seen quality zergs split their drones vs banes?
gosu Leenock split
Never Lose A Game Again -- Make Banelings
Zerg likes to expand. It's like a fetish that you can't help but indulge in. There's just one problem: Protoss and Terran don't like Zerg expanding. They come in with their armies and try to take down the Swarm. If only those armies simply didn't exist… I know! Wipe them off the map with a tonne of banelings, then you're free to expand as much as you want; they won't be pressuring you any time soon.
This is actually one of the silliest things I've every had the displeasure to watch in professional tournaments. Get a fast second base, make a large amount of banelings, a-move through the opponent's army, expand, drone, repeat.
... What point is this making? Baneling timings are usually shitty and rely on your opponent being too greedy or just plain awful. They provide a good way for Zerg to punish sloppy opponents and crucially banelings are something zerg has that has a chance of getting through a wall. Do you even play this game?
God I can't be bothered going through the rest of this. It's so poorly thought out and the point the op is trying to make is confusing. Banelings are overpowered! Banelings are underpowered! Banelings require no skill to use! SC2 is totally not BW!
Banelings are a great part of the game. They're exciting (he's fucking downplaying this video for fucks sake, this), they create a wondrous tension with an instant explosive payoff and they reward players who have better mechanics (ZvZ) and who can position and control well during fights. We can't remove this unit because it would make Zerg far too weak early game and why would we anyway?
Conversly, banelings increase the skill required for the other player. Explain to me how this has no place in the game. Splitting marines, focusing tank fire, dodging burrowed banes and maintaining map awareness so these little shits don't blow up my whole army. Goddamn sounds challenging, sounds well designed, sounds fun.
Try and convince anyone that a trio of burrowed banes in SC2 aren't as exciting as hold position lurkers in BW.
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@roger
Yeah, you're not going to have just banelings. They're strong, no doubt, but they're manageable. What would I do versus ling/bane/muta? Slow push with tank/marine and keep my stuff spread or turtle and move out with a big army. Why do you think almost every zerg is going infestor/ling instead of muta/ling right now? Do you think it's because muta ling is wrecking people left and right and zergs just decided, fuck it we don't want to use this style that wins all the time? No, it's becuase people can deal with that style so well in most cases that it's prompting pro players to move to a different style.
Iaguz post was well put as well.
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One does not simply a-move banelings.
You have to right click them behind the terrans retreating bio, or they'll explode on tanks and you'll lose the game 20s later when a stimmed marine ball rapes the expansion behind the fight.
Same in ZvZ, you're right clicking into mineral lines and have 3-4 control groups worth of blings so they don't explode on queens after they arrive.
tldr you state there is no baneling micro and it's pure a-move, not true at all.
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On February 29 2012 18:33 Gryffes wrote:
One does not simply a-move banelings.
Amoving banelings is like walking into mordor.
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EPT
