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They aren't "weak" as a caster, it's just that they play a very specialized role, sort of like the ghost or dark archon.
In ZvZ it is actually the queen that shuts down mutas in the late game, just we don't see that much because late game ZvZ is rare. In ZvT queens play an important role in breaking mech, but mech sort of comes and goes as a fashion. In ZvP queens are good for sniping HTs.
See Zero's games for some of the best queen usage.
Of course queens could probably be utilized more than they are, but it takes time to become good with implementing a caster into your game and most players feel more confident using other methods to get the same job done. Also, there's some potential I think for using ensnare in combination with swarm against bionic or Protoss death balls, but you don't really see this because it requires too much control to handle these different types of casters along with your army. A strategy like this was bravely tried by Eriador against NaDa (at Blizzcon?) but it failed because Eriador needed four hands to do everything and we humans only have two, you see?
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On May 15 2011 00:39 AsianEcksDragon wrote:
I really doubt that Queens would become standard. Jaedong used them effectively a few years ago but decided that it just wasnt worth all the apm allocation. There are still many ways to deal with mech terran and if it becomes useful then people will just use bio which has always been the standard TvZ strat.
It looks to me like queens are the standard response to mech switches in TvZ now. I don't see why a unit has to be used in every situation to be called standard. True, maybe Terrans will get tired of it and stop doing mech switches so often, but that doesn't mean queens haven't been proven to be a very strong, very normal response. I think something can be called standard as soon as you no longer have to be a weird, creative player who uses it once in a blue moon.
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Queens should be used against bio because ensnare greatly decreases the stimmed marines' dps.
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Queens have historically not been used for a few reasons:
1) gas cost. Mid-game, queens are competing for gas with mutalisks and lurkers. Late-game, they compete for gas with defilers. Especially vs. the defilers part, once defilers get consume, defilers are much better because they can be useful as soon as they hatch, but you have to protect your queens until they build up energy. Mid-game, getting just a single queen plus ensnare costs 200/200 i think (or maybe it's more?) AND you have to wait for your queen to build up 100 energy, and before that it's useless. Most players would rather get 2 mutas, which can be useful right away.
2) Queens require so much apm. Like, more than even progamers can handle, especially since they also have to micro their mutas, defilers, etc. at the same time. Although some progamers are starting to incorporate queens into their play now.
3) Queens vs protoss: Spawn broodling hardly works on anything worthwhile. (Reavers and archons can't be spawned. HT have so little HP that other units can pick them off easily, without having to wait until 150 energy. Using mutalisks to snipe HTs was quite a popular strategy at one point).
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Russian Federation4405 Posts
Queens can be used vs mass corsairs and SHOULD be imho, because after a certain amount of sairs Zerg air starts sucking hopelessly vs. them.
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Also Ruby vs Action on Bloody Ridge.
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On May 16 2011 03:25 thenexusp wrote:
Mid-game, getting just a single queen plus ensnare costs 200/200 i think (or maybe it's more?)
That's a pretty deceptive way of stating it. A queen is 100/100, ensnare research is 100/100. If you invest in queens you will not be getting just 1. By the same logic, "getting just a single defiler with consume costs 150/250", "getting a single lurker costs 325/325", and "getting a single marine with stim and range costs 300/250".
The point is that if you want won't research ensnare for a single queen, you will be getting a group of them for ensnaring and broodlings.
On May 16 2011 03:14 anvilface wrote:
Queens should be used against bio because ensnare greatly decreases the stimmed marines' dps.
Yes, but at the same time, against bio getting fast queens slows down teching to defilers, and swarms + plague are much more crucial. Once you have the defilers, a plague is more effective against a bio ball than ensnare (and you no longer have to worry about saving up / running out of energy).
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On May 14 2011 23:58 aimaimaim wrote:Show nested quote +On May 14 2011 23:50 FlaShFTW wrote:
PvZ: Most commonly pulled off by ZerO (god he wants EVERY EXCUSE to make queens) when the Toss heavily invests in HT. Broodling and rush in with mass hydras to cripple army.
Also, if you saw that Ace match between bisu and zero, Ensaring units can lessen the mobility of the roaming zealots. Oh come on the Queens were purely a gimmick, typical Zeroish troll, amusingly employed even before his win was expectable. purely for adding insult to injury :p
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The reasons why we don't see ensnare vs bio are that:
1.) Queen + defiler is very difficult to micro correctly.
2.) Given a choice between ensnare or swarm + plague (with consume for replenishing energy), the defiler is the obvious choice.
3.) The timing of when you can initially use the queens is a bit slower than you might think since even after getting the queens you need to save energy for a few seconds... and....
4.) Going with #3, a single dark swarm can hold off an entire Terran army from breaking a choke, but ensnare is more of an offensive spell that you use to attack the Terran's army... and...
5.) Going with #3 and #4, you'll need multiple ensnares to completely capture the Terran's army, so if you are trying to use it defensively you're going to find it difficult.
Of course, ensnare is an underrated spell, but as I said earlier, it takes time to master the use of a unit, incorporating it into your game play with coordinated micro + correct timings. Until recently, there wasn't a lot of room for queens in progamer level play, and ironically that room has come into the picture from using broodlings (either on tanks or HTs) more than ensnare, which was only really prominent in ZvZ.
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Queens are in vogue.
Someone needs to make a Queens highlight reel with a Don't Stop Me Now soundtrack.
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I think it's too early to say whether queens are merely in vogue or whether we are seeing a shift in the metagame. While as a player I am a total noob, I have spent the past six months catching up on the pro scene and have now watched about ten Starleagues in their entirety, keeping a record of every game. (OCD has its privileges.) At the moment I'm watching the 2009 Batoo OSL, and I can't help but notice that Zerg walling vs Protoss has apparently not been "invented" yet. The scare quotes here are just to suggest that of course Zerg walling had to have been invented - probably many times - but that it was simply not yet incorporated into the metagame. Will queens become an important part of the metagame vs mech, and even thereby find their way into vs bio builds? This has already been discussed at length in these forums - Getting a Queen every game? - and a lot of good points were raised, especially regarding the relative value of defilers. But faced with anyone who dismisses the notion that queens might become an important part of the Zerg metagame as mere theorycraft, I can only grin and cite Santayana: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
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One thing I'm curious about when it comes to ZvZ is why does it even require spore colonies to "safely" force Hive tech play.
I'm doubting it's safe but I haven't seen enough ZvZs to see this fail. OTOH I've seen plenty of ZvZs where zerg end up with more than 12 mutas. Once you hit 16 mutas it is economically viable to get Queens because you begin to quickly reach diminishing returns on getting more mutas compared to investing in Queen's Nest, Ensnare and a single queen to screw up the mobility and DPS of your opponent.
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savior vs firebathero, the infamous twirl ceremony.
cant remember if it was game 1 or game 5, but savior uses queens to infest ccs, then humiliation occurs :[
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I think the biggest factor as to why queens will not cause a revolutionary meta-game shift is because of it's unreliability.
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On June 12 2011 21:00 mutantmagnet wrote:
One thing I'm curious about when it comes to ZvZ is why does it even require spore colonies to "safely" force Hive tech play.
I'm doubting it's safe but I haven't seen enough ZvZs to see this fail. OTOH I've seen plenty of ZvZs where zerg end up with more than 12 mutas. Once you hit 16 mutas it is economically viable to get Queens because you begin to quickly reach diminishing returns on getting more mutas compared to investing in Queen's Nest, Ensnare and a single queen to screw up the mobility and DPS of your opponent.
Queen's Nest, 150/100, 60 second build time. Lose a drone, 50 minerals, 1 larva.
Ensnare, 100/100, 80 second build time.
Queen, 100/100, 50 second build time.
Because you'd just get rolled.
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On June 12 2011 23:34 raviy wrote:Show nested quote +On June 12 2011 21:00 mutantmagnet wrote:
One thing I'm curious about when it comes to ZvZ is why does it even require spore colonies to "safely" force Hive tech play.
I'm doubting it's safe but I haven't seen enough ZvZs to see this fail. OTOH I've seen plenty of ZvZs where zerg end up with more than 12 mutas. Once you hit 16 mutas it is economically viable to get Queens because you begin to quickly reach diminishing returns on getting more mutas compared to investing in Queen's Nest, Ensnare and a single queen to screw up the mobility and DPS of your opponent. Queen's Nest, 150/100, 60 second build time. Lose a drone, 50 minerals, 1 larva. Ensnare, 100/100, 80 second build time. Queen, 100/100, 50 second build time. Because you'd just get rolled.
If youre going to hive tech anyway, then you should get double defiler mounds for plague/consume
then tech to queens
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On June 12 2011 23:34 raviy wrote:
Because you'd just get rolled.
You won't get rolled. Once you try to control two groups of mutas scourge throw off your ability to manage APM which creates the viability to transition into Queens. Once they ensnare one of the muta flocks the APM demanded to play is reduced which puts you in a better mental and physical condition to close out the game or play the extended one.
The reduction on APM demand is well worth the risk.
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On June 12 2011 21:00 mutantmagnet wrote:
One thing I'm curious about when it comes to ZvZ is why does it even require spore colonies to "safely" force Hive tech play.
I'm doubting it's safe but I haven't seen enough ZvZs to see this fail. OTOH I've seen plenty of ZvZs where zerg end up with more than 12 mutas. Once you hit 16 mutas it is economically viable to get Queens because you begin to quickly reach diminishing returns on getting more mutas compared to investing in Queen's Nest, Ensnare and a single queen to screw up the mobility and DPS of your opponent.
Because gas. If you use gas to tech you have less in your army than your opponent. Build spores or die. The returns from extra mutals just don't diminish enough.
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On June 12 2011 21:00 mutantmagnet wrote:
One thing I'm curious about when it comes to ZvZ is why does it even require spore colonies to "safely" force Hive tech play.
I'm doubting it's safe but I haven't seen enough ZvZs to see this fail. OTOH I've seen plenty of ZvZs where zerg end up with more than 12 mutas. Once you hit 16 mutas it is economically viable to get Queens because you begin to quickly reach diminishing returns on getting more mutas compared to investing in Queen's Nest, Ensnare and a single queen to screw up the mobility and DPS of your opponent.
Which ZvZs have you been watching? 12 mutas is actually really deep into the mid-game and that's assuming no army engagement.
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IMO Queens also have potential vs Bio TvZ. Ensnare can be very powerful against MnM as Jaedong showed vs Fantasy on Sin Chupung-Ryeong.
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EPT
