Right now my playing level is around C- with a 50% win ratio. I like to play to get fun rather than to improve. I've been trying new things with protoss and zerg. From theorycraft, queens in zvp should be a good build because broodling > templar, and mass hydras > toss without storm.
Now, the issue is here: how viable do queens get as the skill curve goes up? The protosses had good records for c- (25-8)/(21-6). But they're not B level of course. The idea here is to get 6 queens asap to get enough energy for broodling and when protoss goes out of his base, snipe up to 6 templars and gain absolute map control.
If i had better army control/macro/game management im sure i would have won much easier this games, however i dont know how good can the protoss respond to this tech.
Well, since most Protoss's normally go Corsair now it wouldn't be overall worth it. The unit that is an absolute counter to queens is the Dark Archon of course, but I am unaware of the feedback vs broodling range. Of course most Protoss's won't even think about feedback because it is not a very common skill. I think if the Protoss knows the entire race, then Queens won't be very valid.
If he doesn't get corsairs your still taking a BIG chunk of minerals and gas that could be used on say, more hydras. Unless you want to be a bitch zerg and turtle up and use queens. Your giving the Protoss more mobility than anything. Lurker/Hydra is more effective IMO.
Also, you need to beware of miss clicks and have perfect mouse control while sacrificing and overlord or two to gain the vision needed to control the Queens to snipe before you initiate combat.
Not super viable. In general terms, that gas is better spent on lurkers. The times I find queens most useful is as a counter to sair/reaver and reaver/goon strategies.
Against sair/reaver, cut down his mobility and vastly increase your ability to pick off shuttles and get pot-shots at his sairs.
Against reaver/goon, it throws off his goon micro BADLY and better allows you to pick off shuttles containing reavers.
These days, both those styles are out of fashion, and against a beesuit style queens don't work so well.
I think Queens aren`t `direct` support units like templar or vessel, they are more tactical weapons, (making broodlings when map runs out of minerals, parasiteing some units to get vision, or even ensnaring a whole toss army.) But you can`t apply them in most of the time, defilers usually much better, because they can cast plauge (what`s much better then ensnare), swarm, and mainly because, they can get back energy with consume. You must know when to call in some Queens.
I think mass Hydra + Queen strat is not so good, cause an experienced toss will make 2 DA-s, wich are more than enough to deal with Queens (Feedback range and DA vision >> broodling range and Queen vision)
It basically cripples the attacking and moving speed of Protoss ground, allowing for easier set up and more effective damage over time. Bill307 compiled a percentage list of Ensnare slow for movement and attack speeds, but I'm not sure where the list is.
Parasite is also situationally useful, when you want to gain some scouting or make an Observer useless. You can also parasite important units such as Archons or Templar in order to make the Protoss wary about where he sends his units. This is probably less useful than ensnare, though.
The good thing about Ensnare is that you don't need to hit all the units for it to effect the toss army movement. Ensnared units block the other units from moving at the normal speed anyway. Ensnare --> masslurk 360 degree flank would be the stuff of legends.
I'm not so sure about heavy expenditure into Queens for Broodling usage, as although at 100/100 Queens are relatively cheap casters, 150 mana is a lot. If you invest in Queens like that, it makes a big dent into your resources, and the payoff comes perhaps too late. i guess your rationale for anti-Storm is pretty strong, but the implementation is a little gimmicky for my tastes. Can you really get all of the templar before your next important fight (in which you're down a good 5 lurkers perhaps because of your Queen investment)? Good flanking and unit composition is more reliable, although the potential of eradicating all Storm usage is greater.
Since you're going to be using queens anyway and like to play for fun, you should try an ensnare/scourge combo when faced against a fleet of corsairs. I don't really know how viable this tactic would be against a decent opponent though. It just looks really cool when executed properly and seems somewhat equivalent to the toss' maelstrom/storm combo. Plus the slow movement of the corsairs makes it really easy to clone scourge.
Only flaw I see is that Toss always have their templars in shuttles. Even if you manage to ensnare the shuttle, your queen may not have enough energy to spawn broodlings on the temp, if he unloads it.
Ensnare is the better ability of the two, and it does work wonders in ZvP. Makes flanks way easier.
Toss always have their templars in shuttles? Highly unlikely...
I think ensnare is a good ability to have in your arsenal, one major flank (with ensnare) when protoss tries to push out to obtain a third expo could be devastating for the toss. I think queens should be used more frequently in ZvP, just not for broodlings.
Don't broodling, parasite. Either he kills the unit or you gain vision. Even if you lose the queen you're better of as long as you didn't target a zealot or dragoon or a probe.
We've mostly been over this in the other Queen thread. Broodling is too much of a cost to invest versus the time it takes to pay off. You basically need to spend 600 gas to get a few Queens and Broodling now, and them leave them in the corner for 2 minutes before they're useful.
Ensnare is super useful against both races. I'm surprised professional Zergs haven't turned to it yet.
Also, you need to beware of miss clicks and have perfect mouse control while sacrificing and overlord or two to gain the vision needed to control the Queens to snipe before you initiate combat.
Parasite.
I've used queens some, and these are a few general tips, that I've found from my gameplay:
If you start researching broodling when you have 110 energy for your queens, they'll have 150 when it finishes (iirc).
If you're going Queens, get dual upgrades for your hydras/lings (I did it before I even got lair; ideally you time it so that when your lair finishes, your first upgrades are finishing so you can start the new ones... I don't actually remember the timing). You have the money for this because you're not going muta or lurkers. When you go Hive, you're going Hive to get more updrades and cracklings, not ultra/defiler.
If you're getting esnare, just upgrade it right away, your queens will have energy.
Don't rush for Broodling. It's good when the game starts to get desperate, but it costs you too much early game for basically no benefit.
IMO if you're going Queens, you're not going lurks or muta for awhile, because you're going to be spending all your extra gas on upgrades.
PS: Take my suggestions with a grain of salt. They work for me, but I'm not terribly skilled and don't often play terribly skilled players myself. If anyone wants I can make a rep pack of games where I've used Queens.
On March 23 2008 23:53 Chill wrote: Ensnare is super useful against both races. I'm surprised professional Zergs haven't turned to it yet.
My guess is probably a timing issue - by investing in Queens, he's either temporarily behind in economy or "useful" unit count. The opponent would probably have more leeway in expanding or attacking expansions, or making some other sort of attack before the Queens have started to "pay for themselves".
I'd probably relate it to expanding in PvP - it's an investment which can lead to success, but if timed wrong, leads to disaster.
And seriously - someone ask Eri how to use Queens.
in zvp theyre really not that great, cept vs mass corsair. (in which case they're kind of necessary. and DEFINITELY worth it. frankly, well controlled mass corsairs cannot be killed without it, unless you're able to kill everything else he has too. with ensnare, all you need is a sufficient force.) and broodling is sort of useless. parasite can be really good zvp (makes him have to waste archons or give you full view of his every move.)
but ensnare just isnt THAT useful against big lumps of protoss because he can just wait, stand in formation and storm shit that comes. broodling could be good, but the problem is that if the queen dies before the broodling hits, the broodling doesnt work. and sadly, if you try to broodling a templar inside a group of units, that happens too often.
there are some other situations where its great. like if he tries to bust out with 12+ archons in lategame, ensnare can be AWESOME, it basically makes any of the normal archon killers twice as good. (that is, mass hydra or ultraling+swarm) even mass guardian+ ensnare can be a really, really great counter.
but against the normal just, straight out protoss ball of zealot goon archon templar, queens are mostly worth it for parasite. which frankly, is still more than worth the 100/100. (you usually spend more on scouting overlords anyway. )
zvt however, queens are gamewinning. zvp they're good in certain situations.
So why do not progamers use queens against mass corsairs? The trend in PvZ has recently been to go FE into 2gate sair. Wouldn't an early ensnare make them very vulnerable to following hydras or scourges? Or do the sairs kill the queen before it manages to get off its ensnare spell. If UpMagiC was Zerg, would he use queens?
Ensnare is excellent, but in late game, it's often a matter of manging your handspeed, and not just resources. Defiler spells are usually much more efficient use of limited handspeed than ensnare once you get to late game.
That said, I honestly think queens will find some use during the pre defiler phase, once pros figure out the timing and resources of incorporating them into their builds.
On March 24 2008 23:55 Shauni wrote: So why do not progamers use queens against mass corsairs? The trend in PvZ has recently been to go FE into 2gate sair. Wouldn't an early ensnare make them very vulnerable to following hydras or scourges? Or do the sairs kill the queen before it manages to get off its ensnare spell. If UpMagiC was Zerg, would he use queens?
excuse my arrogance but I honestly think the only reason why a progamer would not get ensnare against mass corsair is a combination of 1 : not being good enough at using queens (for example, you kind of need to at least temporarily dedicate a hotkey to queens to properly use them, or you'll find that they're never where they are supposed to be. I personally used "0". and 2 : not being aware of how beneficial it is. the fact is, you rarely see people "experiment" with queens, however you do see the same players build them over and over. this is because once people are accustomed to building them, building them in the situations where they are great, becomes totally natural, kind of like how building defilers zvt is something people do without having to think, but before they became mainstream, it was not. however, incorporating something new into an already functioning style of play is well, it's honestly not even particulary difficult, it's just something people are unwilling to do.
tvp has undergone a similar revolution, with emp vs arbiters, something that's more and more frequently used, and pvt had one a long time ago when people first started getting mass stasis. the reason why queens havent really had their breakthrough is that zergs have been able to win without them.
Could one explanation be that at the professional level, players and/or coaches are unwilling to sacrifice immediate results by diverting practice time to work out an untried approach, even if it holds promise? From what I understand, practice schedules are pretty structured, and something would have to be left out to allow for the integration of queens into a players ZvT. It's always safer to walk the known paths (sadly).
You're probably already hurting for gas in Z v T from lurkers, and once you have the Queen's den, going straight to hive and spending your gas in Defilers is a much better choice than investing any money in queens.
On March 25 2008 03:08 GeneralStan wrote: Defiler >> Queen in Z v T
You're probably already hurting for gas in Z v T from lurkers, and once you have the Queen's den, going straight to hive and spending your gas in Defilers is a much better choice than investing any money in queens.
I find that the Hive tech timing window is pretty big for the Terran to exploit though. I like to stay on Lair for a bit longer than most zergs and make a large amount of lurkerling to try and tech to Hive with an advantage, rather than stalling for every possible second while tanks pound my natural sunkens. A well placed Ensnare can help lurkerling immensely, considering I have bad macro and usually have the resources to spare :p
I'm not really sure if that's relevant to the thread though, seeing as how the thread is ZvP oriented.
You all can be sure that having a queen against drop reaver / corsairs is REALLY good. It forces the P to kill the shuttle if they're parasited and thus give you more time to eco while pumping no stop hydras. Another usefull hint is that when P goes drop / corsairs, they also tends to play carriers in longs games. Therefore having 2 or 3 parasited carriers are really usefull. It almost give the P no power at all. The ideal would be of course plague / darkswarm / parasite / ensnare like i said in an another thread.
I remember i played eri style queens zvt for like two weeks straight after i saw one of your reps i dont even remember what the build was, something like 12 hatch 11pool, then gas and then 3rd hatch and somehow timing of queen + lurk ling worked out and then when T comes to contain w/ mnm ensnare, rape, and then pressure/expand/win.
just to be clear defiler >> queen zvt. but seriously, defiler + queen.. that's one fucking amazing combination. ensnare+swarm is just incredible. and if you keep the queen(s) hotkeyed it's not even particulary hard to execute.
like, the best part about the queen is that it's the most mobile spellcaster in the game. it might generally have the least good spells, but unlike every other caster you can always have it in position to throw spells before a battle starts.
On a more... actually, less serious note: I've once tried ensnaring archons that were chasing my mutas, but I just ended up not microing my mutas and getting them killed by something else. Also ensnared a shuttle once and killed it with hydras too... AFTER its reaver killed all my drones and other stuff. Broodling takes way too long to wait for energy and is only useful in stalemates (I never had a chance to use broodling in a 1v1, ever). Parasite is useful but I always forget about it.
The only thing I've used queens for in 1v1 is infesting command centres when terrans lift them from my ultraling. ..
Queens are very difficult to use properly... but if you can pull it off, it's pretty impressive (and sends a message to your opponent "you got owned by queens")
Having your shuttle parasited opens interesting bluff options to the P player...like using it for a decoy drop in conjunction with a second one at a different base
i did some build not on purpose : 2 hatch lurk like some very fast tech ( hat 12 pool 12 gas asap lair asap and so..) then i contained toos with lurks while making an hatchery in front of his entrance that makes nearly impossible for the toss to go out ( lurks + sunks + spores + hydra rallied) .
Then i made queens because i thought broodlings worked on reavers and so. But ofc it doesnot . Anyway with ensane it was a nightmare for the p, i mean it was already quite imposible to go out vs sunkens lurks spore hydra but with ensane microing was just impossible for them (+ the fact units attack is affected). Of course he they tryed with many reavers but i just send some hydras assaults to kill em one by one from time to time.
With parasite i could know every thing he was doing ( shutles /corsair intercepted by hydras or scourges , how much troops he got ..) . With broodling i was killing templars wich made him pumping only goons and reavers then . Still killling some goons every minutes is quite demoralizating. By the time and the fact he had to switch from "classic fast expand protoss army" to "olldchool fast expand protoss army " ( corsair reavers ..then goons) he did not have minerals anymore. I'm not a good zerg neither a z user but i'm pretty sure its very very effective build if it was used by a good zerg. U dont need many gas and troops , so while u just block him and cause u needed queen nest u can slowly switch to pure ultras with only 3 gas.
On March 23 2008 12:24 Aurious wrote: Well, since most Protoss's normally go Corsair now it wouldn't be overall worth it. The unit that is an absolute counter to queens
Isn't it actually the opposite. I'm thinking ensnare + hydras or even ensnare + scourges would terrifyingly counter sairs.
Like it has been said before. Going queens only for the broodling against HT would be way expensive and take too long. I was thinking more like go queens to support your early muta or hydra army against sairs. You could mass muta for the flexibility and map control. Harrass him here and there to keep him busy while you mass expand and contain him from expanding. One natural and common counter for that is to go 2 stargate which would own your mutas after getting a critical mass of sairs. If you manage to keep some queens around and use ensnare + scourge to keep his sair count low. You would be able to maintain air superiority and expand better. Once the toss starts switching from sairs 2 HTs, by then your old queens will already have nice amount of energy. So you keep muta harrasing, but broodling HTs here and there to keep there number low.
Never tried it myself, actually. Just pure theorycrafting here. I could be totally wrong. But by watching some Bisu vs zerg vids, which usually goes from pure sair air domination leading to HT/reaver to counter hydras. I figured some early snares could keep the first sair harrass at bay. Give the zerg mobility -> expansion advantage. Which would, theorically, lead to easier dealing with HTs late game.
I mean, just look at this game: Bisu vs Savior in Katrina. Savior mass expanded and went mass hydras but just couldn't defend all bases against the flexibility of mass sairs harrass + reaver/ht drops in all bases with just hydras. His hydras got owned by the mobility of sairs + shuttles, specially on Katrina. If instead of 10000 hydras he had spent part of that money in Queens. Wouldn't he be able to deal with it much better? Wouldn't snare + hydras put a period on the mass sairs? Wouldn't snare + scourge put a period on the shuttles?
I really think ensnare has potential. Its only 75 energy and its a pretty good spell and its cheap to research on a not particularly expensive unit whose tech building is absolutely required.
EPT
