On March 11 2025 21:55 Biff The Understudy wrote: If parasite was so interesting in the mid game (it’s not), terran would research restore and use a medic to get rid of it.
Generally the idea that in a phase of the game where every apm and every second counts and where you can die to a bust because you mismicroed your mutas once or because your lurkers are 4 seconds later than the terran bust, you will make a Queen to get vision by microing it to a vessel and using parasite to get to see stuff you already know are happening is a bit baroque.
Restore costs just as much to research as a queen takes to build - so if you force that reaction off one queen you're still even on resources.
It's going to be a lot easier to keep your mutas alive and time your lurkers correctly if you have an exact read on how the marines are clumped and where the Terran army is.
Would you rather have 9 mutas and be blind or 8 mutas and 1 queen but know exactly what to do with them? You'd save a lot of APM using your Mutas if you didn't have to worry about them running into a bio ball because you know the bio ball is somewhere else - and if the science vessel isn't with the army it's stuck at home and that's more than worth a queen.
If T sees it coming and researches restore, that's one less tank to bust your natural - wouldn't you always be willing to sacrifice one muta to kill one tank?
My point is that terran wouldn’t research restore anyway because zerg wouldn’t bother with it, because at that point of the game it makes zero sense.
The transition between muta harass to lurker and then defiler is on an absolute knife edge, it’s all a matter of seconds and survival. There moment you guys are talking about is after science vessel come out and before defilers are out, that’s a small window where Zerg absolutely knows where terran is: Terran is moving out to kill him. When you have defiler, i don’t think that parasite makes much sense when you have plague instead. You are going to use your resources and apm to reduce the vessel count, not to get some intel that your opponent can easily counter.
As i said there is a niche application for the spell when you are fighting merch and you are making queens anyway.
On March 11 2025 02:44 ThunderJunk wrote: Restoration costs just as much to upgrade as one queen takes to build - so wouldn't it pretty much ALWAYS be worth it to get one queen to parasite the first or second science vessel that comes out?
(I remember seeing a pro parasite a science vessel once and it completely wrecked the Terran's strat because he never felt like he could move his vessel out onto the map and he was effectively just down his first vessel.)
Also, isn't ensnare actually really good? It lasts 40 seconds, makes bio worse, and if you land it on vessels they're doomed to scourge.
So, wouldn't it be sensible to get just one queen every ZvT game?
And Protoss doesn't even have any solution to parasite besides killing their own unit in cold blood. So, why not get one in every ZvP, too?
Zergs should get one or more queen in every zvp game that goes to hive and in most zvt games where hive is started. This is honestly one of the areas where there is most room for improvement.
But parasite vs t is kinda meh, aside from what people are saying, using broodling vs mech. The thing people need to remember is that starcraft isn't a game with just 2 resources - minerals and vespene - but a third one too; attention. Queens require a dedicated hotkey to be used well, and those hotkeys are in limited supply. Parasite has long range, but the utility of it, vs a bio-terran who can get restore to counter it, is pretty limited.
As the - honestly - biggest queen proponent in the western world, and probably the player with the most experience using them, these are the ways queens should be used:
Parasite against mid-late/late game protoss. Throw them on archons and shuttles. Not something to rush for, but no reason not to build 2 queens for this purpose after you've gotten hive and defiler tech - it's definitely worth it, and protoss has no answer. The only downside, honestly, is that this might inspire more protoss players to go for dark archons, and those are pretty good and we should be happy if p doesn't bother with them.
Parasite to help you clone broodling against mech armies. You might only get to do it once before t counters with restore, but that one time is often game winning.
Parasite against protoss players going sair reaver. (Here, you're also getting queens for ensnare, but parasiting a few sairs so you know where the army is headed means your hydras are always in place to defend and suddenly you've neutered part of the strength of sair reaver - that you won't have overlords in place to know where he's going. Protoss will often send their parasited sairs into a corner/suicide them - in this case, keep parasiting, that's obviously worth it for you)
Ensnare: Ensnare vs wraiths is just fantastic Ensnare vs bio if you are going crazy zerg or hydra lurker. But if you're doing a standard muta into lurker into defiler, you should prioritize the defiler, and honestly, queens are a bit too demanding to add to the mix in this scenario. Going crazy zerg though? 100% get queens for ensnare.
Vs protoss, ensnare is less good. It's fantastic against sair reaver (or any really committed sair build), but generally not awesome against protoss ground, especially not if it's a dragoon/templar based army. P can usually wait it out and just storm in that case, and the queens might get picked off. It's not like it's bad - if you manage to ensnare 15 p units then that's definitely annoying for p, but it's not outright game winning.
One exception: In the super late game, when protoss has abandoned goons (because of defilers) and their army consists of mass archon, reavers, templars and zealots, zerg has an army combination that obliterates this, but which hardly ever sees the light of day: The queen guardian (hydra) mix. I've genuinely won a lot of games where protoss had a 12 archon 6 templar 4 reaver lots of zealots army by making this switch - you have parasited the archons, you do a cloned broodling attack on the templars, and then you ensnare the archons and swoop in with guardians. This can genuinely allow a zerg to completely destroy a more costly protoss army, with hardly any losses - completely unheard of if you stick to hydra lurk ling defiler ultra like most do. This is more of a post 25-30 minute thing, but honestly, in games lasting more than 30 minutes, zergs should often make 6-12 queens and utilize all 3 spells. Before that point, generally too costly and knife edgy.
Broodling: Well, vs mech is obvious. This, and to counter wraith play, are the two ways where queens are so obviously good that you frequently see people do it. Aside from that, it's also viable when going hydra lurker and facing bio with double factory tank support.
Additionally, the aforementioned mass broodling vs templar (or even goon templar) in the super late game. Here's an example -
You can see that I've parasited the archon so I have perfect view of the army, then I just clone broodlings and easily kill the base using hydras after. Would defiler lurker ling work? Sure, but it'd almost certainly be more costly - I kill 8 goons, 2 archons, 2 templars, 4 cannons, 2 zealots, while only losing like 8 out of a 24 hydra army, here. All the queens survive and get to broodling more later on.
Queens are APM taxing, this is why zergs usually do not bother getting them. They already have enough on their hands: muta micro, then defiler and lurker micro, larva...
On March 13 2025 02:51 SiarX wrote: Queens are APM taxing, this is why zergs usually do not bother getting them. They already have enough on their hands: muta micro, then defiler and lurker micro, larva...
Queens are viable only vs Mech, wraiths and situationally marines around 10-13 minutes when terran doesnt have absolutely massive marines groups. Also viable in super late game vs protoss but thats rare.
The restore argument some made can work. But I have seen only RoyaL do it because he loves to experiment with rarely used tech. He used restore for his vessels, not vs parasite though.
On March 13 2025 14:56 pyrogenetix wrote: Dark archons have been more and more popular these days in pvz since they directly counter the muta ball sniping templars
Feedback is also amazing against defilers. Mini used it to fast effect against Jaedong this week in their bo7 duel.
On March 13 2025 02:51 SiarX wrote: Queens are APM taxing, this is why zergs usually do not bother getting them. They already have enough on their hands: muta micro, then defiler and lurker micro, larva...
Queens are viable only vs Mech, wraiths and situationally marines around 10-13 minutes when terran doesnt have absolutely massive marines groups. Also viable in super late game vs protoss but thats rare.
The restore argument some made can work. But I have seen only RoyaL do it because he loves to experiment with rarely used tech. He used restore for his vessels, not vs parasite though.
Queens can infest Command Centers, though. It can be a huge Terran counter since Terran is the only race who can float buildings. Infesting the Command Center balances that. Otherwise, Terran is always economically ahead when the base is fully depleted.
Recent Flash vs Larva @Roaring Currents had me thinking - could queens set the pace of the game? Ensnare lasts 25.2 seconds. 75 mana is replenished in 100.8 seconds according to game data page on liquipedia. 4 queens can effectively ensnare the same bioball round the clock. Recipe for tesagi tears: •4 queens hatched simultaneously. That part is important. •31.5 seconds afterwards you have 4 queens hatched. 81.9 seconds later you have 4 ensnare ready queens. You send one after the other to ensnare whatever you wish around the map every 2 larva spawning instances. By the time first ensnare is dispelled, you cast the other one. So, your 4th ensnare is cast by your 4th queen. 100.8 seconds have passed since the first ensnare. All queens have +75 more mana. Thus, you can keep continuously casting ensnare. This could streamline zerg offense. All you need is vision and you can cast ensnare from 9 range(2 hatcheries apart horizontally from point center of the units).
On September 28 2025 06:50 mtcn77 wrote: Recent Flash vs Larva @Roaring Currents had me thinking - could queens set the pace of the game? Ensnare lasts 25.2 seconds. 75 mana is replenished in 100.8 seconds according to game data page on liquipedia. 4 queens can effectively ensnare the same bioball round the clock. Recipe for tesagi tears: •4 queens hatched simultaneously. That part is important. •31.5 seconds afterwards you have 4 queens hatched. 81.9 seconds later you have 4 ensnare ready queens. You send one after the other to ensnare whatever you wish around the map every 2 larva spawning instances. By the time first ensnare is dispelled, you cast the other one. So, your 4th ensnare is cast by your 4th queen. 100.8 seconds have passed since the first ensnare. All queens have +75 more mana. Thus, you can keep continuously casting ensnare. This could streamline zerg offense. All you need is vision and you can cast ensnare from 9 range(2 hatcheries apart horizontally from point center of the units).
4 Queens and Ensnare would cost you 500/500. I'm pretty sure you'd always be better off going for Hive and Defilers.
On September 28 2025 06:50 mtcn77 wrote: Recent Flash vs Larva @Roaring Currents had me thinking - could queens set the pace of the game? Ensnare lasts 25.2 seconds. 75 mana is replenished in 100.8 seconds according to game data page on liquipedia. 4 queens can effectively ensnare the same bioball round the clock. Recipe for tesagi tears: •4 queens hatched simultaneously. That part is important. •31.5 seconds afterwards you have 4 queens hatched. 81.9 seconds later you have 4 ensnare ready queens. You send one after the other to ensnare whatever you wish around the map every 2 larva spawning instances. By the time first ensnare is dispelled, you cast the other one. So, your 4th ensnare is cast by your 4th queen. 100.8 seconds have passed since the first ensnare. All queens have +75 more mana. Thus, you can keep continuously casting ensnare. This could streamline zerg offense. All you need is vision and you can cast ensnare from 9 range(2 hatcheries apart horizontally from point center of the units).
4 Queens and Ensnare would cost you 500/500. I'm pretty sure you'd always be better off going for Hive and Defilers.
Defilers are 50/150 a pop. You have to develop hive tech and every spell takes an insane amount of time to research. I want to make a case here. Hive 75s, Defiler Mound 38s, consume 63s. That is 176 seconds in which you could hatch 4 queens 31.5s, research ensnare 50s, by that +50s you have 50 starting mana +25=75 mana and start ensnaring everything in sight, permanently, round the clock. By the time consume is done you will have spent 3 ensnares and only 6.3s until the 4th and you don't have to waste apm consuming zerglings and casting dark swarms. Queens are more mobile than defilers. You just have to keep your distance from the enemy which is easy for a unit with the fastest in game speed. You just have to stick to one rule if you don't want to lose your queens: keep vision of your target with some other unit before you cast any spells with your queens and you will have full 9 range casting of your queens from a safe distance. PS: I calculated consume tech tree with just 1 defiler. You have to spend the same amount of gas, 450/500. You cannot count defilers without 2 zerglings, so 500/500.
Dark Archon and Maelstrom/Feedback is actually somewhat used, and actually really good. Feedback is actually super easy to use too with it's crazy long range
On January 27 2025 20:37 mutantmagnet wrote: Dark Archon isn't as popular at killing defilers because it is a ground unit.
Unlike a vessel which is not impeded by allies nor has its vision obscured by high ground the Dark Archon is much slower at reacting to defilers.
The vision can be mitigated by protoss players not losing their corsairs before hive tech comes into play.but the positional issue can't be mitigated.
Maybe it doesn't need to be but It's obvious why most people, forget about pros, are not happy with the idea of putting a ground based spell caster in front of their army.
Maybe this is the one use case that could make hallucination relevant but so far noone has tried it.
Devourer/ muta is the best air to air unit combo in the game, period.
But there is no point for devourers to be used.
Hydra's has sufficiently carried zerg when corsairs were an issue and terran folds to scourge unless they get battlecruisers which is so rare and has always ended up in small enough numbers hydra plague has been good enough.
The only way you can force zerg to use devourers is to create a secondary objective that devourers can attack after the muta/devo combo wins the air battle.
That means at the pro level you will only see devourer in ZvZ because overlords meet that condition.
If Terran had a building that was valuable while flying then devourers could also see play then.
Non sense,Mutas devorer combo is not the best air -air combo in the game. No matter how much people claim on paper, in game it doesnt work.
On January 27 2025 20:37 mutantmagnet wrote: Dark Archon isn't as popular at killing defilers because it is a ground unit.
Unlike a vessel which is not impeded by allies nor has its vision obscured by high ground the Dark Archon is much slower at reacting to defilers.
The vision can be mitigated by protoss players not losing their corsairs before hive tech comes into play.but the positional issue can't be mitigated.
Maybe it doesn't need to be but It's obvious why most people, forget about pros, are not happy with the idea of putting a ground based spell caster in front of their army.
Maybe this is the one use case that could make hallucination relevant but so far noone has tried it.
Devourer/ muta is the best air to air unit combo in the game, period.
But there is no point for devourers to be used.
Hydra's has sufficiently carried zerg when corsairs were an issue and terran folds to scourge unless they get battlecruisers which is so rare and has always ended up in small enough numbers hydra plague has been good enough.
The only way you can force zerg to use devourers is to create a secondary objective that devourers can attack after the muta/devo combo wins the air battle.
That means at the pro level you will only see devourer in ZvZ because overlords meet that condition.
If Terran had a building that was valuable while flying then devourers could also see play then.
Non sense,Mutas devorer combo is not the best air -air combo in the game. No matter how much people claim on paper, in game it doesnt work.
Mutalisks and devourers max at 10/9, above this 10 muta count their combo dps amplifies relative to cost. Hydralisks and devourers max at 14/9. A much cheaper duo, 3750/2350 vs 3700/1700.
On September 28 2025 06:50 mtcn77 wrote: Recent Flash vs Larva @Roaring Currents had me thinking - could queens set the pace of the game? Ensnare lasts 25.2 seconds. 75 mana is replenished in 100.8 seconds according to game data page on liquipedia. 4 queens can effectively ensnare the same bioball round the clock. Recipe for tesagi tears: •4 queens hatched simultaneously. That part is important. •31.5 seconds afterwards you have 4 queens hatched. 81.9 seconds later you have 4 ensnare ready queens. You send one after the other to ensnare whatever you wish around the map every 2 larva spawning instances. By the time first ensnare is dispelled, you cast the other one. So, your 4th ensnare is cast by your 4th queen. 100.8 seconds have passed since the first ensnare. All queens have +75 more mana. Thus, you can keep continuously casting ensnare. This could streamline zerg offense. All you need is vision and you can cast ensnare from 9 range(2 hatcheries apart horizontally from point center of the units).
4 Queens and Ensnare would cost you 500/500. I'm pretty sure you'd always be better off going for Hive and Defilers.
Defilers are 50/150 a pop. You have to develop hive tech and every spell takes an insane amount of time to research. I want to make a case here. Hive 75s, Defiler Mound 38s, consume 63s. That is 176 seconds in which you could hatch 4 queens 31.5s, research ensnare 50s, by that +50s you have 50 starting mana +25=75 mana and start ensnaring everything in sight, permanently, round the clock. By the time consume is done you will have spent 3 ensnares and only 6.3s until the 4th and you don't have to waste apm consuming zerglings and casting dark swarms. Queens are more mobile than defilers. You just have to keep your distance from the enemy which is easy for a unit with the fastest in game speed. You just have to stick to one rule if you don't want to lose your queens: keep vision of your target with some other unit before you cast any spells with your queens and you will have full 9 range casting of your queens from a safe distance. PS: I calculated consume tech tree with just 1 defiler. You have to spend the same amount of gas, 450/500. You cannot count defilers without 2 zerglings, so 500/500.
Defilers are much better because Dark Swarm keep you alive to scale by being able to protect your bases or take zone control. cost is relatively the same but the cost efficiency is much higher. You also need hive tech upgrade unlocks for your other units.
On September 28 2025 06:50 mtcn77 wrote: Recent Flash vs Larva @Roaring Currents had me thinking - could queens set the pace of the game? Ensnare lasts 25.2 seconds. 75 mana is replenished in 100.8 seconds according to game data page on liquipedia. 4 queens can effectively ensnare the same bioball round the clock. Recipe for tesagi tears: •4 queens hatched simultaneously. That part is important. •31.5 seconds afterwards you have 4 queens hatched. 81.9 seconds later you have 4 ensnare ready queens. You send one after the other to ensnare whatever you wish around the map every 2 larva spawning instances. By the time first ensnare is dispelled, you cast the other one. So, your 4th ensnare is cast by your 4th queen. 100.8 seconds have passed since the first ensnare. All queens have +75 more mana. Thus, you can keep continuously casting ensnare. This could streamline zerg offense. All you need is vision and you can cast ensnare from 9 range(2 hatcheries apart horizontally from point center of the units).
4 Queens and Ensnare would cost you 500/500. I'm pretty sure you'd always be better off going for Hive and Defilers.
Defilers are 50/150 a pop. You have to develop hive tech and every spell takes an insane amount of time to research. I want to make a case here. Hive 75s, Defiler Mound 38s, consume 63s. That is 176 seconds in which you could hatch 4 queens 31.5s, research ensnare 50s, by that +50s you have 50 starting mana +25=75 mana and start ensnaring everything in sight, permanently, round the clock. By the time consume is done you will have spent 3 ensnares and only 6.3s until the 4th and you don't have to waste apm consuming zerglings and casting dark swarms. Queens are more mobile than defilers. You just have to keep your distance from the enemy which is easy for a unit with the fastest in game speed. You just have to stick to one rule if you don't want to lose your queens: keep vision of your target with some other unit before you cast any spells with your queens and you will have full 9 range casting of your queens from a safe distance. PS: I calculated consume tech tree with just 1 defiler. You have to spend the same amount of gas, 450/500. You cannot count defilers without 2 zerglings, so 500/500.
Defilers are much better because Dark Swarm keep you alive to scale by being able to protect your bases or take zone control. cost is relatively the same but the cost efficiency is much higher. You also need hive tech upgrade unlocks for your other units.
Hive is not auto win condition for zerg. Sometimes, you have to catch up. That is the part I have beef with. Hive is not catching up play, it is domination play. When you see zerg go to ultraling and get beat, I don't see the benefit of it. And it always starts from a near miss defense due to how late the whole defiler strategy is. I find it hard to believe how terrans cannot do a timing push, that is a 1:34.6s delay from a queen ensnare they are not taking advantage of. Hydralisks are the main unit for catching up to the enemy. Hydralisks, lurkers and defilers are a real strategy, however I find it not up to the task. I'm saying you could do better if you would go with queens if your intention was to defend. Look at the flash vs larva on Roaring Currents game. 1 ensnare is all it took. Even with defilers, 1 dark swarm is never enough and it is static, it does not stick to the enemy.
I just learned you can time your dark swarm casts by counting forward 28 mana points! I bet same can be done for maelstrom and ensnare. A lot of features can be manually approximated.
On October 01 2025 04:09 mtcn77 wrote: Just watching Larva vs Bisu. Larva understands me. If you would only ensnare the probes, you would do as much economic damage as a psistorm.
I would like to see your math on this.
Per liquipedia, Ensnare has a size of 128x128 vs Storm's 96x96. Ensnare halves the speed of mining while Storm kills workers.
Ensnare has a duration of 25.2 seconds while the production time of a single worker is 12.6, so the loss of mining time from both is technically equal for a single worker, but you can't say that they are equal since for Zerg, there is the additional opportunity cost of using larva to replace workers while races who can produce a single unit at a time from their production facilities have additional time with less mining.
Even if we pretend that the loss of mining time is equal, I don't see how Ensnare's greater size makes up the actual mineral cost of replacing workers.
On October 01 2025 04:09 mtcn77 wrote: Just watching Larva vs Bisu. Larva understands me. If you would only ensnare the probes, you would do as much economic damage as a psistorm.
I would like to see your math on this.
Per liquipedia, Ensnare has a size of 128x128 vs Storm's 96x96. Ensnare halves the speed of mining while Storm kills workers.
Ensnare has a duration of 25.2 seconds while the production time of a single worker is 12.6, so the loss of mining time from both is technically equal for a single worker, but you can't say that they are equal since for Zerg, there is the additional opportunity cost of using larva to replace workers while races who can produce a single unit at a time from their production facilities have additional time with less mining.
Even if we pretend that the loss of mining time is equal, I don't see how Ensnare's greater size makes up the actual mineral cost of replacing workers.
You can see a psistorm coming from a million miles away(you play zerg and have overlords) while protoss can't(early game advantage is at zerg), corsairs are dodging scourge, or at least that is what they expect of you. You swoop in with a queen, do a little ensnaring at 9 range and then... swoop away. If you think mutas are fast, queens come up faster. I'm not saying at a base race situation, they fill up different sections of the game which lowers chances of them meeting in the field. HTs are heavy late while queens are right after hydralisk if you dedicate yourself to it. You can cast ensnare on multiple targets you know? Vertically you can ensnare units spread across 5 minerals(wait, I didn't assume for L shaped junctions). Given how populated the mineral patches are, you can really throw a wrench into the protoss economy with queens and that is just the surface level idea. PS: let's say you killed 5 drones with your HT(I'm being generous). You replace the 5 drones from the same hatchery in 75.6 seconds so everything resumes to normal. Then, we have to count the mining loss, that is 433+250=683 minerals loss. Now let us take the alternative, you go to the protoss main, or natural. You ensnare the vertical strip of minerals right at the center. You ensnare just 10 probes(again, being very generous to protoss). In 25.2s, that bunch of probes would mine 245 minerals. You can run away from a psistorm, you cannot run away from an ensnare.
EPT
