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Hiding Defilers

Forum Index > Brood War Strategy
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Crimson)S(hadow
Profile Blog Joined July 2007
Philippines596 Posts
August 25 2023 01:35 GMT
#1
messed around trying to find ways to hide defilers from irradiate, made a quick video on what i found
"It's the end of the BW era which i devoted everything to for 10 years. I tried playing sc2, but my BW memories run too deep; I felt like I was playing an entirely different game" -ToSsGirL
Nirli
Profile Joined February 2023
Bulgaria378 Posts
August 25 2023 14:56 GMT
#2
Might as well burrow them with a pair of lings, one click and done.
Highgamer
Profile Joined October 2015
1444 Posts
Last Edited: 2023-08-25 16:19:15
August 25 2023 16:17 GMT
#3
On August 25 2023 23:56 Nirli wrote:
Might as well burrow them with a pair of lings, one click and done.

If Terran saw it and remembers the units' positions he can still target the burrowed defiler though. And sometimes lings are not present.

But of course: It's a very situational, niche trick. And most Terrans will just spam the command and will lose but 1-2 seconds.

Still, definitelly could create a pimpest play situation if the spam doesn't work - or if a hidden lone defiler suddenly pops up and crashes a sunken-break party at the 4th or something.
MeSaber
Profile Joined December 2009
Sweden1235 Posts
August 26 2023 04:49 GMT
#4
Safest is defiler in overlord and an overlord is usually present at all times.

Practicality is another issue.
-.-
Crimson)S(hadow
Profile Blog Joined July 2007
Philippines596 Posts
August 26 2023 05:15 GMT
#5
i just want to normalize more moments like this:


usually you only use 1-2 defilers with your main army, with spares hiding near nydus to run from irradiates. but having spare defilers burrowed & hiding under an antenna seems a lot less APM intensive, especially if terran doesn't even see the burrow hole. for example, i taught the trick to my friend, and when i offrace TvZ against him, even if I know the trick, most of the time i don't even see when he uses it against me.
"It's the end of the BW era which i devoted everything to for 10 years. I tried playing sc2, but my BW memories run too deep; I felt like I was playing an entirely different game" -ToSsGirL
XenOsky
Profile Blog Joined March 2008
Chile2303 Posts
August 27 2023 01:59 GMT
#6
why not use overlords like shuttle with high templar.
StarCraft & Audax Italiano.
Ideas
Profile Blog Joined April 2008
United States8148 Posts
Last Edited: 2023-08-27 14:51:37
August 27 2023 14:51 GMT
#7
On August 27 2023 10:59 XenOsky wrote:
why not use overlords like shuttle with high templar.


I would think because the cost of the double upgrade for speed + drop and then overlords can just get irradiated and the splash from that can still kill/damage your defilers and other units.

OP's technique seems APM intensive but potentially really strong. Getting burrow needs to be more normalized in ZvT anyway to counter eraser trick anyway IMO. I hope this makes it's way to the pro scene and see them experiment with it lol
Free Palestine
MeSaber
Profile Joined December 2009
Sweden1235 Posts
August 28 2023 07:47 GMT
#8
On August 26 2023 14:15 Crimson)S(hadow wrote:
i just want to normalize more moments like this:
https://youtu.be/nPZJaYTJV8M?feature=shared&t=5

usually you only use 1-2 defilers with your main army, with spares hiding near nydus to run from irradiates. but having spare defilers burrowed & hiding under an antenna seems a lot less APM intensive, especially if terran doesn't even see the burrow hole. for example, i taught the trick to my friend, and when i offrace TvZ against him, even if I know the trick, most of the time i don't even see when he uses it against me.


But the problem there isnt the expansion but rather what you do against dropships. Artosis has the wrong composition and need dropships instead of mass vessels. Vessels are great but dropships have always been the winning factor against a zerg with swarm.

BCs also an option with restoration.
-.-
MeSaber
Profile Joined December 2009
Sweden1235 Posts
Last Edited: 2023-08-28 08:11:40
August 28 2023 08:05 GMT
#9
To hide defilers you have some other options. You can burrow a ling above it, then clicked its the ling thats being selected. Second you can burrow a lot of lings around the defiler to mask it, having the opponent click every burrowed unit to find the defiler, you can semi stack with this to make it a chore enough to just skip irradiation completely, the scan only lasts for so long until it has to be rescanned, with enough lings burrowed it might take too long to find. For an irradiation you need vision of the target for the whole duration irradiation is to be casted, if vision is gone it will be invalid target, then you will have to redo the whole process or remember defiler position.

I havent found out exactly how the stacking order works, sometimes the ling at the top and sometimes not.

To stack you pick a unit, click patrol on the burrowed unit, click burrow when its close or ontop depending of lag of the game.

One thing is for sure, having burrow makes defilers much harder to irradiate as you cant use the irradiation cast from over the whole map for said reason.
-.-
Crimson)S(hadow
Profile Blog Joined July 2007
Philippines596 Posts
August 29 2023 04:16 GMT
#10
On August 28 2023 17:05 MeSaber wrote:
To hide defilers you have some other options. You can burrow a ling above it, then clicked its the ling thats being selected. Second you can burrow a lot of lings around the defiler to mask it, having the opponent click every burrowed unit to find the defiler, you can semi stack with this to make it a chore enough to just skip irradiation completely, the scan only lasts for so long until it has to be rescanned, with enough lings burrowed it might take too long to find. For an irradiation you need vision of the target for the whole duration irradiation is to be casted, if vision is gone it will be invalid target, then you will have to redo the whole process or remember defiler position.

I havent found out exactly how the stacking order works, sometimes the ling at the top and sometimes not.

To stack you pick a unit, click patrol on the burrowed unit, click burrow when its close or ontop depending of lag of the game.

One thing is for sure, having burrow makes defilers much harder to irradiate as you cant use the irradiation cast from over the whole map for said reason.


figuring out how burrow order works and possibly being able to intentionally manipulate it holds so much potential
"It's the end of the BW era which i devoted everything to for 10 years. I tried playing sc2, but my BW memories run too deep; I felt like I was playing an entirely different game" -ToSsGirL
MeSaber
Profile Joined December 2009
Sweden1235 Posts
Last Edited: 2023-08-30 07:06:37
August 30 2023 06:57 GMT
#11
I was trying to find this out with my programmeing expert wnr75 but we lead to believe its memory reference based so no way of manipulating it.

Example: unit is created, it gets an id put in memory spot x (randomly), second unit created gets and id and put in memory spot y which is before spot x so it ends up at the top of the stack order.

We tried many many things to make it work but ended up with random memory location as the stack order.

Another thing we found is different selection order based on amount of units being selected.

Example you select exactly 12 units (the max amount) then it got the order of min x -> max x (left to right) in the selection window, while selecting more than 12 units made the selection order random (maybe also memory reference).

Why would you ever care about this selection order? Well it could be used to send units in parallell lines. Example you select 6 mutas in a horizontal line, they then get the order, most left muta = first in selection window. If you would want to send each muta downwards in a straight line you would select all mutas then move command then deselect(shift key) each muta from the top left of selection window to make mutas be deselected from left to right.

There are moments i actually use this to not have all selected units cross each other but instead take the shortest route. Example if you have 2 mutas horizontally you would want left muta to go left and right to right if split up.

One thing to note is that if you hotkey a group of units the selection window order is never random for each time you select the group with a hotkey (ctrl-1). It keeps the original order from when the hotkey group was saved so if you mix your units up the most left unit after mixing might not be the first unit in selection window anymore.

This has its own usecases to cast spells. If you hotkey say 6 HTs in ctrl-1, the order of each HT will never change in selection window, if you remember what HTs you clicked in selection window to throw storms you will know which ones you used up already.

Its also a quick way to check energy on each HT: click 1, select first HT, no E, repeat.

Just to mention the fastest way to check E on many HTs: select your HTs, click storm and throw it somewhere on minimap out of range, the ones who moves have E. Click Stop.
-.-
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