Because, no, I didn't make this thread two years ago (shifty eyes). I honestly feel that this topic needs discussing, but we need a new thread to do it in.
Anyway, I think they're an unappreciated unit that really doesn't get as much airtime as it should. They're probably one of the most cost effective Zerg units, and you only need to incorporate a few into your army to get a high utility from them, not to mention you'll already be building a Queen's Nest on your way to more standard Hive tech. Spells aren't that expensive either. Hell, if your queen got irradiated, just be glad it was your cheap 100/100 queen instead of your 50/150 Defiler or Lurker, etc. I honestly feel Queens are like the Defilers of 2004, in that no one really appreciated them and thought they were a trash unit (when in reality they kick massive ass).
Ensnare is probably the most useful Queen spell. It slows both movement speed and attack rate for units, often bringing fast-attacking units (Stimmed Marines are the most prominent example) down to a more managable speed. It also reduces movement speed, and makes flanking a whole lot easier. I believe Ensnare would be very effective in match ups such as ZvP, as Zealots would be slowed, Dragoons would hardly attack at all, and Archons would be pretty much useless with their Reaver-like speed and horrendously slow attack rate under Ensnare. Ensnare can also be used in ZvZ battles, and I believe that a Queen is worth the cost of a few mutas if you get an Ensnare on a Mutalisk clump. It's obviously not wise to just rush Queens, but I think eventually they'd be pretty useful in ZvZ as well.
Ensnare'd be useful when engaging the enemy to reduce enemy aggregate DPS. By slowing attack speed, if you integrate enemy damage with respect to time, you'll find that it's greatly reduced. Additionally, the fact that it slows down units pretty much prevents escape, as well as make it exceedingly difficult for the enemy to gain a positional advantage over you during your fight. An example would be Hydras vs. a Zealot-heavy army. Their Zealots won't be able to surround you effectively, and besides that, you won't be taking as much damage anyway thanks to the reduced DPS. Another example in TvZ (to relate this to a current topic, TvZ Valks), if you Ensnare the Valkyrie clump, you can easily eliminate them with Hydras without much fear of them flying away, thus ensuring they lost more than you did (Overlords vs. Valkyries).
I'm going to quote eriador here:
On August 29 2006 15:38 Liquid`Drone wrote: it's really, really great vs sair/reaver (and carriers) but once again it only really helps if you have enough units to beat his units. if he can fight it out then it's not a big deal. but if you don't have ensnare and you manage to flank his corsairs with mutas and he doesnt have enough sairs to beat them, normally he can just retreat to cannons and try again later and you gained nothing but with ensnare you can actually kill all his units then. vs sair reaver it can often be gamedeciding :O
The most effective use of Parasite is in its "soft power" ability. What I mean by that is that it basically shuts down the use of whatever unit it's targeting. If, say, you target an expensive like an Archon, you either force it to show you the unit composition of its army through its vision, or force the Protoss to basically abandon the unit so that it doesn't show much. If, say, he just puts it in a corner somewhere so he doesn't show his tech, it can't be used against you. And if he decides to actually use it, you get to see his army and some positions of it, even if he brings it in at the last moment. Either way, you either get an advantage in information or an relative advantage in power (as compared to if the Archon had not been parasitized). Additionally, Parasite can be used on other "important" units such as Shuttles or Science Vessels. Certainly, those units are used often by the enemy, and if he's forced to just abandon that unit somewhere so he doesn't reveal the location of the impending Reaver drop or Irradiate raid, you'll have countered the utility of that unit, effectively costing him whatever the unit cost was for that unit.
I'll also mention the cliched uses of Parasite. Yes, you can parasite creatures and enemy workers. It's actually not as effective as going after a high-value enemy target. They'll probably suicide the worker (though yes, you'll have seen some buildings and such), and you don't have control over any critters. That's why I advocate using it on targets such as Science Vessels/High Templar/etc.
Spawn Broodling, though, is very expensive energy-wise, and probably isn't as efficient as the other two spells. But still, it could be used for example, against a Terran by forcing Tank splash onto the Broodlings you create, thus hurting his own units if they're clumped. But I think the only reason Broodling could potentially be used is in a long stalemate, by periodically picking off important units. Still, Broodling pays for itself after a few uses, especially if you target, say, Tanks, or High Templar. Additionally, if you get rid of some "core" units like that, you'll delay the enemy because his army will be significantly weaker . You could choose to engage then with his strategic tools taken away. Seriously. Fighting a Templarless army ZvP is significantly easier, and if you have some extra queens, he'll basically have no way to counter Ensnare. But all in all, at 150 energy, Spawn Broodling is very expensive.
Just for the hell of it, this is what eriador has to say about Infest:
On August 29 2006 15:38 Liquid`Drone wrote: and infest is fucking AWESOME. especially if people don't know you're the kind of guy who likes to infest. (eventually against players I knew I only really got to infest command centres I would otherwise have killed cause every time a cc started burning they immediately started repairing just cause it was me ) but when I played vs unknown nonkoreans I could like come in with a queen 2 minutes after a battle and take the cc cause they just didn't care about it having 600 hp but I won a lot of games with infest as well
Some final words by eriador:
On August 29 2006 15:38 Liquid`Drone wrote: I always thought using queens was easy as hell easiest spellcaster in the game imo ensnare STICKS to whatever unit you throw it at, so unlike storm you don't need to anticipate where the units are moving. you just press e and then left mouseclick on the unit in the middle. in addition the queen is flying thus you never have to take account for it getting blocked by other units (like defilers can sometimes get when you're trying to swarm. or templars with storm. ) maybe it's hard to keep track of where they are but I never had that problem as I always hotkeyed queens to 0.
and drowsy is pretty much correct. I played a zvt style of play where queens helped me tremendously. with other styles of play you also benefit greatly later on, but if you're doing a standard 3 hatch muta into lurker ling kind of thing, you actually have more problems spending 400 gas on getting fast queen than I did with my hiverush.
also broodling is almost useless (cept for stalemates pretty much but terran wins that due to irradiate anyway), and you don't need more than 2-3 queens.
and in zvp they're really good if you have lings vs goons and he tries running or you have hydra vs zealot archon and he tries running if you're up against a zealot goon archon templar force and you don't have enough units to beat the force in the first place, ensnare doesn't help that much. still enough to spend 300/300 on it though. for sure. but it'll very rarely be gamedeciding. (unlike zvt where I would often win because of ensnare. )
and zvz they're really great in theory but usually there isnt any point in the game where you can spend 400 gas on 2 queens queens nest and ensnare.
Finally, I'd like to open the floor to discussion on Queens being a potential "counter" of sorts to the recent increased popularity of Valkyries + a more mech heavy force. Obviously, Parasite works wonders against Valkyries due to the reasons outlined above, and Ensnare can also really fuck them over since you can pick them off easily once you've sacrificed some Overlords and probably your Queen to get that Ensnare off. But hey, you just hydralisked that Valkyrie clump.
And Chill, this isn't a Queen rush ;D...just throwing it out there
Interesting thoughts, but I only see the queen as useful zvt, with the infest ability. You really don't have the money to invest in queen tech zvz and in zvp queens aren't really that useful against the standard protoss ground army. Sairs would cut them up too, although ensnare might make it easier to kill them with hydras.
I hate the fact that both Parasite and Ensnare aren't instant spells though. You have to watch the projectile fly across the screen and hit its target. If only they made it instant like Plague and Swarm...
Anyways, Infested Terrans are awesome as well. They can burrow! Plus they take only one spot in an Overlord, meaning a single Overlord can house a total of 8, which means 4000 potential damage.
I've always wanted to try out queens - I've read the old thread and was very interested in the discussion. I think that they are extremely useful perma-scout for only 100/100, and I have used them before in ZvP albeit very rarely (and just for parasite). I really would like to try using queens more though, oftentimes their mobility can be better than using slow, fragile defilers and can get to the fight faster and support. Several inherent benefits exist as well, they cost less and aren't as high priority to target as a defiler is, giving you more $$$ to get other crucial units than constantly reproducing those lost defilers.
I'm very curious to see how queens can work in ZvT as well, for a timing mutaling rush with +1 and ensnare, if you can hit just before the science vessel you can probably devastate any MnM army with very few casualties (whereas without ensnare, you will kill them but lose many units). I think for ZvP the use is decreased, but is still great.
Ensnare really decreases DPS soooo much and is a very noticeable difference on stimmed marines (afaik they stimmed+ensnared rines fire at same rate as unstimmed marines?) That can make a huge difference in battles and really help a lot. In stark contrast you've got the immobile defiler that can cast two VERY powerful spells, yet enemies can run from dark swarm with ease unless you have them cornered. Ensnare forces their hand, to attack or flee (and if they run, they will run slowly and get surrounded). Another benefit is that with the extra mobility, you can quickly ensnare when drops are unloaded to ensure your units have time to get their and lessen the damage the enemy can do. I think ensnare can be better than defilers in several aspects, so I'd like to test this in my games sometime.
Pros:
Cheap perma scout
Ensnare is EXTREMELY good and cheap
Queens are mobile and don't die as much - you won't have to replace them as much as defilers
i think if zerg players started using queens more then ter players will start upgrading the restore ability for meds...
i mean i think it's a good idea but i don't think it's gonna get wise spread (mainly because ensnare is where it's at and u need to upgrade to use that)
I have completely dominated in ZvZ using mass queen. Only worked because he didn't go Mutalisk which makes it irrelevant in practice but I used mass broodling to kill drones and to slaughter lurkers. I also think Broodling can be effective ZvT by killing a couple scvs and the broodlings then create additional harassment.
Ensnare has got to be the best spell though, especially if you are going lurker against Terran who rely on the speed of their marines to micro effectively it could seriously screw with their micro, throw them off, and generate additional casualties for them. Ensnare vessels + scourge might be a decent combo too.
Honestly, in ZvZ, I think Ensnare would be more useful in those large Mutalisk fights. I'd rather have, say, 16 Mutalisks and a Queen with Ensnare than 20 Mutalisks. The difference in DPS more than makes up for it (attack speed of enemy Mutalisks is drastically reduced).
That being said, I don't think mass Queens is that effective, mainly since Broodling is so expensive. Still having a few Queens on hand for Parasite/Ensnare can be very useful.
On October 23 2008 12:12 Empyrean wrote: Honestly, in ZvZ, I think Ensnare would be more useful in those large Mutalisk fights. I'd rather have, say, 16 Mutalisks and a Queen with Ensnare than 20 Mutalisks. The difference in DPS more than makes up for it (attack speed of enemy Mutalisks is drastically reduced).
That being said, I don't think mass Queens is that effective, mainly since Broodling is so expensive. Still having a few Queens on hand for Parasite/Ensnare can be very useful.
You could seriously rape mutalisk with ensnare + scourge you would think?
On October 23 2008 10:34 Ozarugold wrote: I hate the fact that both Parasite and Ensnare aren't instant spells though. You have to watch the projectile fly across the screen and hit its target. If only they made it instant like Plague and Swarm...
Anyways, Infested Terrans are awesome as well. They can burrow! Plus they take only one spot in an Overlord, meaning a single Overlord can house a total of 8, which means 4000 potential damage.
You forget the splash... We're talking possibly over 9000 damage! *ahem*
Maybe zergling bomb their tanks, then drop an IT or two. Or, better yet, Infested Terran Doom Drops! Or, best of all, a queen and an ovie with two ITs. Drop them in the mineral line so that you get as many SCVs as possible while hitting their CC. Infest CC. Build more ITs. Repeat.
One big difference between Queens and Defilers is that with consume, Defilers are basically guaranteed to get a spellcast off. If your queen gets irradiated before energy, she's a waste. Admittedly though, seems like ensnare vs SK Terran could be amazing.
On October 23 2008 10:34 Ozarugold wrote: I hate the fact that both Parasite and Ensnare aren't instant spells though. You have to watch the projectile fly across the screen and hit its target. If only they made it instant like Plague and Swarm...
Anyways, Infested Terrans are awesome as well. They can burrow! Plus they take only one spot in an Overlord, meaning a single Overlord can house a total of 8, which means 4000 potential damage.
You forget the splash... We're talking possibly over 9000 damage! *ahem*
Maybe zergling bomb their tanks, then drop an IT or two. Or, better yet, Infested Terran Doom Drops! Or, best of all, a queen and an ovie with two ITs. Drop them in the mineral line so that you get as many SCVs as possible while hitting their CC. Infest CC. Build more ITs. Repeat.
Honestly, Infested Terrans aren't feasible. Eri was just talking about infesting damaged CCs just to piss off the Terran. They'd probably destroy your Infested CC before you could produce any Infested Terrans anyway :/
EDIT: Any skilled Zergs care to comment? I'm looking at you, eri! :D
On October 23 2008 12:31 DeepGreen wrote: One big difference between Queens and Defilers is that with consume, Defilers are basically guaranteed to get a spellcast off. If your queen gets irradiated before energy, she's a waste. Admittedly though, seems like ensnare vs SK Terran could be amazing.
Mmmm idk about that, if they terran has a vessel cloud can't he just as easily irradiate your queens are you can parasite his units? Since his irr > your queens he will eventually have more vessels than your queens and can continue on with his irradiate on defilers and rape the lurkerling. Of course there is no harm in having queens but if you have a standard 3 gas against an SK terran idk if you have all the gas for lurkers, scourges, queens, upgrades, hydralisks, and probably ultras and/or defilers. I could see queens working alright in ZvZ and ZvP how you mentioned but ZvT with queens sounds like it would be a little rough. It seems to me like fool-proof plan such "Why don't we just nuke him!!1!1" + Show Spoiler +
Of course not that far-fetched but just my thoughts...
Ensnare is awesome in combination with hydras against corsairs. It also reveals cloaked units. In other words, queens can be great against sair/DT! I never use them against T, but I suppose parasiting vessels could be a major pain in the ass. They are underused because the pros don't incorporate them into their strategies, but in reality at our level of play they can be game winners.
EDIT I'm not saying to make a ton of queens, but even just 2 or 3 in a whole game can be cost effective and lethal. EDIT2: Ensnare makes dragoon micro impossible. It is also good against drops, as you can slow down the dropships/shuttles while scourge are under way, and if units are dropped you can slow their progress while your reinforcements arrive.
No one is doubting the use of Queens, but think of a situation where you would want a Queen out instead of a Defiler out a minute faster. The only one I can think of is ZvP and Zergs seem to be doing fine without Queens as is.
Assuming you don't get nest until you are getting hive anyway and that you hatch queens the second nest finishes: You will cast a grand total of 1 ensnare before consume is done, and 1 more right as it finishes. Plauge/darkswarm are always better spells to cast in combat.
This means that unless you are fast enough to play with defilers and still have apm to spare (lol??) queens are _detracting_ from your game.
_Unless_ of course you are playing a style where those 1-2 ensnares really make a difference. Eris two base defiler rush come to mind. He used that ensnare to push the terrans mm blob back so that his swarm push could start closer to the terran.
***Stupid Theorycrafting*** Perhaps you could open like 3 hatch lurkers, add nest the second lair finishes. When nest finishes build 3 queens and hide them in a corner. Start hive. Use lurkers to push the t blob back to his nat. Don't lose unnecessary lurkers!! you aren't expanding anyway so you are in no hurry. Rally defilers to your lurker push. When consume finishes your queens will have 150+ energy and t will probably have like 3-4 tanks and 0-1 vessel. Broodling those tanks and swarmpush into his main should be easy. Lol?
On October 23 2008 09:44 Empyrean wrote: Because, no, I didn't make this thread two years ago (shifty eyes). I honestly feel that this topic needs discussing, but we need a new thread to do it in.
Anyway, I think they're an unappreciated unit that really doesn't get as much airtime as it should. They're probably one of the most cost effective Zerg units, and you only need to incorporate a few into your army to get a high utility from them, not to mention you'll already be building a Queen's Nest on your way to more standard Hive tech. Spells aren't that expensive either. Hell, if your queen got irradiated, just be glad it was your cheap 100/100 queen instead of your 50/150 Defiler or Lurker, etc. I honestly feel Queens are like the Defilers of 2004, in that no one really appreciated them and thought they were a trash unit (when in reality they kick massive ass).
Ensnare is probably the most useful Queen spell. It slows both movement speed and attack rate for units, often bringing fast-attacking units (Stimmed Marines are the most prominent example) down to a more managable speed. It also reduces movement speed, and makes flanking a whole lot easier. I believe Ensnare would be very effective in match ups such as ZvP, as Zealots would be slowed, Dragoons would hardly attack at all, and Archons would be pretty much useless with their Reaver-like speed and horrendously slow attack rate under Ensnare. Ensnare can also be used in ZvZ battles, and I believe that a Queen is worth the cost of a few mutas if you get an Ensnare on a Mutalisk clump. It's obviously not wise to just rush Queens, but I think eventually they'd be pretty useful in ZvZ as well.
Ensnare'd be useful when engaging the enemy to reduce enemy aggregate DPS. By slowing attack speed, if you integrate enemy damage with respect to time, you'll find that it's greatly reduced. Additionally, the fact that it slows down units pretty much prevents escape, as well as make it exceedingly difficult for the enemy to gain a positional advantage over you during your fight. An example would be Hydras vs. a Zealot-heavy army. Their Zealots won't be able to surround you effectively, and besides that, you won't be taking as much damage anyway thanks to the reduced DPS. Another example in TvZ (to relate this to a current topic, TvZ Valks), if you Ensnare the Valkyrie clump, you can easily eliminate them with Hydras without much fear of them flying away, thus ensuring they lost more than you did (Overlords vs. Valkyries).
On August 29 2006 15:38 Liquid`Drone wrote: it's really, really great vs sair/reaver (and carriers) but once again it only really helps if you have enough units to beat his units. if he can fight it out then it's not a big deal. but if you don't have ensnare and you manage to flank his corsairs with mutas and he doesnt have enough sairs to beat them, normally he can just retreat to cannons and try again later and you gained nothing but with ensnare you can actually kill all his units then. vs sair reaver it can often be gamedeciding :O
The most effective use of Parasite is in its "soft power" ability. What I mean by that is that it basically shuts down the use of whatever unit it's targeting. If, say, you target an expensive like an Archon, you either force it to show you the unit composition of its army through its vision, or force the Protoss to basically abandon the unit so that it doesn't show much. If, say, he just puts it in a corner somewhere so he doesn't show his tech, it can't be used against you. And if he decides to actually use it, you get to see his army and some positions of it, even if he brings it in at the last moment. Either way, you either get an advantage in information or an relative advantage in power (as compared to if the Archon had not been parasitized). Additionally, Parasite can be used on other "important" units such as Shuttles or Science Vessels. Certainly, those units are used often by the enemy, and if he's forced to just abandon that unit somewhere so he doesn't reveal the location of the impending Reaver drop or Irradiate raid, you'll have countered the utility of that unit, effectively costing him whatever the unit cost was for that unit.
I'll also mention the cliched uses of Parasite. Yes, you can parasite creatures and enemy workers. It's actually not as effective as going after a high-value enemy target. They'll probably suicide the worker (though yes, you'll have seen some buildings and such), and you don't have control over any critters. That's why I advocate using it on targets such as Science Vessels/High Templar/etc.
Spawn Broodling, though, is very expensive energy-wise, and probably isn't as efficient as the other two spells. But still, it could be used for example, against a Terran by forcing Tank splash onto the Broodlings you create, thus hurting his own units if they're clumped. But I think the only reason Broodling could potentially be used is in a long stalemate, by periodically picking off important units. Still, Broodling pays for itself after a few uses, especially if you target, say, Tanks, or High Templar. Additionally, if you get rid of some "core" units like that, you'll delay the enemy because his army will be significantly weaker . You could choose to engage then with his strategic tools taken away. Seriously. Fighting a Templarless army ZvP is significantly easier, and if you have some extra queens, he'll basically have no way to counter Ensnare. But all in all, at 150 energy, Spawn Broodling is very expensive.
Just for the hell of it, this is what eriador has to say about Infest:
On August 29 2006 15:38 Liquid`Drone wrote: and infest is fucking AWESOME. especially if people don't know you're the kind of guy who likes to infest. (eventually against players I knew I only really got to infest command centres I would otherwise have killed cause every time a cc started burning they immediately started repairing just cause it was me ) but when I played vs unknown nonkoreans I could like come in with a queen 2 minutes after a battle and take the cc cause they just didn't care about it having 600 hp but I won a lot of games with infest as well
On August 29 2006 15:38 Liquid`Drone wrote: I always thought using queens was easy as hell easiest spellcaster in the game imo ensnare STICKS to whatever unit you throw it at, so unlike storm you don't need to anticipate where the units are moving. you just press e and then left mouseclick on the unit in the middle. in addition the queen is flying thus you never have to take account for it getting blocked by other units (like defilers can sometimes get when you're trying to swarm. or templars with storm. ) maybe it's hard to keep track of where they are but I never had that problem as I always hotkeyed queens to 0.
and drowsy is pretty much correct. I played a zvt style of play where queens helped me tremendously. with other styles of play you also benefit greatly later on, but if you're doing a standard 3 hatch muta into lurker ling kind of thing, you actually have more problems spending 400 gas on getting fast queen than I did with my hiverush.
also broodling is almost useless (cept for stalemates pretty much but terran wins that due to irradiate anyway), and you don't need more than 2-3 queens.
and in zvp they're really good if you have lings vs goons and he tries running or you have hydra vs zealot archon and he tries running if you're up against a zealot goon archon templar force and you don't have enough units to beat the force in the first place, ensnare doesn't help that much. still enough to spend 300/300 on it though. for sure. but it'll very rarely be gamedeciding. (unlike zvt where I would often win because of ensnare. )
and zvz they're really great in theory but usually there isnt any point in the game where you can spend 400 gas on 2 queens queens nest and ensnare.
Finally, I'd like to open the floor to discussion on Queens being a potential "counter" of sorts to the recent increased popularity of Valkyries + a more mech heavy force. Obviously, Parasite works wonders against Valkyries due to the reasons outlined above, and Ensnare can also really fuck them over since you can pick them off easily once you've sacrificed some Overlords and probably your Queen to get that Ensnare off. But hey, you just hydralisked that Valkyrie clump.
And Chill, this isn't a Queen rush ;D...just throwing it out there
not to demean u or anything but really plague any1? plague is why most ppl get defierls palgue/swarm are the best spells sure ensnare would slow enemy speed down but so does plague lets see a slowed 100 eprcent hp untis or a a slowed 1 hp unit i think ug et the idea quenn is like not even worth getting >>
I'm going to write a more in-depth response later today, but I just want to start by saying what I said the last time this was up for discussion:
DO NOT underestimate the power of parasiting neutral critters. I once parasited one of those kakaru things on bluestorm and caught two dropships on the way to a back-drop and the fact he had expanded to his 4th when it flew in that direction. No one suspects the friggin critter.
Parasite is a very very good spell, it's like maphack, except it costs mins, gas and some APM. Have 3 queens hotkeyed to 0 or something and you can keep the Protoss ball "maphacked" with ease. If you have 3 queens they get 3 charges of parasite every minute or so, I don't know the exact mana regen rate, but that's a lot of parasited units. If there are too many units parasited it becomes a huge bother for the Protoss to kill/send away the units, so you can keep your eyes on the army movement. You can even parasite workers to keep an eye on the mineral and cannon counts of P expansions. Also, after the first parasited unit, you can keep casting the spell at its maximum range of 11.
Now, imagine you parasite the Terran's science vessel cloud. You'd know exactly where the Terran main army and vessels are. You could flank like you're Lee Jaedong or something.
Too bad the medic has the spell Restoration, which renders parasite useless in ZvT.
Now that I think of it, queens would be a lot better if you could give them chain commands like you can to scvs. I'll check if that's possible.
Edit: Well, you can't do it like with SCVs, but you can do a normal cloning, then selecting the group again and issuing the chain move command so that they run away after parasiting. That's the optimal way of using parasite.
On October 23 2008 20:33 GinNtoniC wrote: I'm going to write a more in-depth response later today, but I just want to start by saying what I said the last time this was up for discussion:
DO NOT underestimate the power of parasiting neutral critters. I once parasited one of those kakaru things on bluestorm and caught two dropships on the way to a back-drop and the fact he had expanded to his 4th when it flew in that direction. No one suspects the friggin critter.
On October 23 2008 19:33 KlaCkoN wrote: Assuming you don't get nest until you are getting hive anyway and that you hatch queens the second nest finishes: You will cast a grand total of 1 ensnare before consume is done, and 1 more right as it finishes. Plauge/darkswarm are always better spells to cast in combat.
This means that unless you are fast enough to play with defilers and still have apm to spare (lol??) queens are _detracting_ from your game.
_Unless_ of course you are playing a style where those 1-2 ensnares really make a difference. Eris two base defiler rush come to mind. He used that ensnare to push the terrans mm blob back so that his swarm push could start closer to the terran.
***Stupid Theorycrafting*** Perhaps you could open like 3 hatch lurkers, add nest the second lair finishes. When nest finishes build 3 queens and hide them in a corner. Start hive. Use lurkers to push the t blob back to his nat. Don't lose unnecessary lurkers!! you aren't expanding anyway so you are in no hurry. Rally defilers to your lurker push. When consume finishes your queens will have 150+ energy and t will probably have like 3-4 tanks and 0-1 vessel. Broodling those tanks and swarmpush into his main should be easy. Lol?
It would only require about 240 EAPM to control both T___T
I used to do this really stupid ZvT build that involved Queens.
I would fast expand, and sunken the shit out of my base. I'm talking like 7-8 sunkens in total, to slow down his tank push to buy you much needed time. You really need that extra time for Queens (Make about 6-9) to get enough energy to spawn broodlings. Meanwhile you upgrade to hive and get cracklings, while upgrading armor, and get all Queen upgrades.
Then you pretty much just come out, ensnare his army, brood his tanks. Hopefully by then you have 0-1 Cracklings. Then just take it from there. You should have a massive zergling army.
It's really an all in build though. Wraiths will fuck your shit up, along with mass bats, but no one ever gets mass bats.
On October 23 2008 20:33 GinNtoniC wrote: I'm going to write a more in-depth response later today, but I just want to start by saying what I said the last time this was up for discussion:
DO NOT underestimate the power of parasiting neutral critters. I once parasited one of those kakaru things on bluestorm and caught two dropships on the way to a back-drop and the fact he had expanded to his 4th when it flew in that direction. No one suspects the friggin critter.
I went through a period where I tried to use queens to broodling HT. If each queen you make can snipe just 1 templar, they pay for themselves. And of course removing storm from a protoss attack can mean a BIIG thing.
However I didnt have the APM to really make it a legitament strategy
On October 23 2008 23:11 Fen wrote: I went through a period where I tried to use queens to broodling HT. If each queen you make can snipe just 1 templar, they pay for themselves. And of course removing storm from a protoss attack can mean a BIIG thing.
However I didnt have the APM to really make it a legitament strategy
You parasited the ball and sniped the templars before a battle? Pretty hard to broodling templars in battle since queens are so slow and you got other things to do.
On October 23 2008 23:11 Fen wrote: I went through a period where I tried to use queens to broodling HT. If each queen you make can snipe just 1 templar, they pay for themselves. And of course removing storm from a protoss attack can mean a BIIG thing.
However I didnt have the APM to really make it a legitament strategy
You parasited the ball and sniped the templars before a battle? Pretty hard to broodling templars in battle since queens are so slow and you got other things to do.
Yeah, the whole idea was to use queens like the terran uses Sci vessels, just crusing round burning stuff and being a pain in the ass.
Queen are not viable for high level players, simply because its a waste of resources and time waiting for their energy to fill up. There is simply much better and easyer ways to use that gas.
And for low leve players (like mysef) that many times have like 1000 minerals/gas stored by mid game because of bad macro, it would not be such a waste, but at the same time, the attention and micro required to use them properly would mean that your control over other things in the game, wich is already bad, would be even worst.
If queens had consume, they would probably be very useful (maybe even imbalanced) in TvZ since you would be able to spam broodlings on the tanks and ensare on the marines, but that its not the case, so i believe you can use queens some times, but just for fun or to try something different, but not because they can be cost effective.
2 Hatch hydra/lurker could work really against it. micro against mines and vults will be tough tho but if you hold them off, it MIGHT be possible to break the wall, tho i dont know what the right timing for getting comsat or turrets is. if they are delayed enough, you could burrow a lurker or two right at the wall and hold off vults with hydra or hydra/ling.
the other option is to try get scourge quick enough to take out the dropship but that would have to be pretty much have to be 1-base
On October 23 2008 20:33 GinNtoniC wrote: I'm going to write a more in-depth response later today, but I just want to start by saying what I said the last time this was up for discussion:
DO NOT underestimate the power of parasiting neutral critters. I once parasited one of those kakaru things on bluestorm and caught two dropships on the way to a back-drop and the fact he had expanded to his 4th when it flew in that direction. No one suspects the friggin critter.
When I see critters I click them until nuke.
Only happens in single player ;D
That does explain why I've clicked some over 1000 times to no avail.
On October 24 2008 00:17 DarkSaieden wrote: 2 Hatch hydra/lurker could work really against it. micro against mines and vults will be tough tho but if you hold them off, it MIGHT be possible to break the wall, tho i dont know what the right timing for getting comsat or turrets is. if they are delayed enough, you could burrow a lurker or two right at the wall and hold off vults with hydra or hydra/ling.
the other option is to try get scourge quick enough to take out the dropship but that would have to be pretty much have to be 1-base
On October 24 2008 00:17 DarkSaieden wrote: 2 Hatch hydra/lurker could work really against it. micro against mines and vults will be tough tho but if you hold them off, it MIGHT be possible to break the wall, tho i dont know what the right timing for getting comsat or turrets is. if they are delayed enough, you could burrow a lurker or two right at the wall and hold off vults with hydra or hydra/ling.
the other option is to try get scourge quick enough to take out the dropship but that would have to be pretty much have to be 1-base
Wrong thread?
he was probably responding to valk (fantasy build) usage that op asked.
On October 23 2008 19:33 KlaCkoN wrote: ***Stupid Theorycrafting*** Perhaps you could open like 3 hatch lurkers, add nest the second lair finishes. When nest finishes build 3 queens and hide them in a corner. Start hive. Use lurkers to push the t blob back to his nat. Don't lose unnecessary lurkers!! you aren't expanding anyway so you are in no hurry. Rally defilers to your lurker push. When consume finishes your queens will have 150+ energy and t will probably have like 3-4 tanks and 0-1 vessel. Broodling those tanks and swarmpush into his main should be easy. Lol?
On October 23 2008 23:11 Fen wrote: I went through a period where I tried to use queens to broodling HT. If each queen you make can snipe just 1 templar, they pay for themselves. And of course removing storm from a protoss attack can mean a BIIG thing.
However I didnt have the APM to really make it a legitament strategy
You parasited the ball and sniped the templars before a battle? Pretty hard to broodling templars in battle since queens are so slow and you got other things to do.
On October 23 2008 23:11 Fen wrote: I went through a period where I tried to use queens to broodling HT. If each queen you make can snipe just 1 templar, they pay for themselves. And of course removing storm from a protoss attack can mean a BIIG thing.
However I didnt have the APM to really make it a legitament strategy
You parasited the ball and sniped the templars before a battle? Pretty hard to broodling templars in battle since queens are so slow and you got other things to do.
How are queens slow?
Seriously, they're one of the fastest units in the game and they're not hampered mobility-wise by other units since they're flying.
I used queens once in a ZvZ that was pretty stalemate, ensnared the group of mutas and pretty much killed most of them as they ran away before it wore off. It was awesome.
On October 23 2008 23:11 Fen wrote: I went through a period where I tried to use queens to broodling HT. If each queen you make can snipe just 1 templar, they pay for themselves. And of course removing storm from a protoss attack can mean a BIIG thing.
However I didnt have the APM to really make it a legitament strategy
You parasited the ball and sniped the templars before a battle? Pretty hard to broodling templars in battle since queens are so slow and you got other things to do.
How are queens slow?
Seriously, they're one of the fastest units in the game and they're not hampered mobility-wise by other units since they're flying.
Queens are fast when moving, but their casting animation is long as all hell.
broodling as a spell is hurt pretty badly by their casting animation like, with ensnare, if you throw ensnare and the queen dies before ensnare lands, ensnare still works if you broodling something but the queen dies after broodling is thrown but before broodling lands (in zvt this actually happens a pretty significant amount of time, queens melt to focused marine fire and tanks are usually a little behind) then the broodling doesnt work.. I seriously think like one out of three broodling attempts end up failing because the queen dies after throwing the spell. zvp, it can be good, especially in sort of lock-downed situations where neither player is really capable of attacking the other, but zvt you really are better off just not researching broodling.
On October 24 2008 20:45 Liquid`Drone wrote: broodling as a spell is hurt pretty badly by their casting animation like, with ensnare, if you throw ensnare and the queen dies before ensnare lands, ensnare still works if you broodling something but the queen dies after broodling is thrown but before broodling lands (in zvt this actually happens a pretty significant amount of time, queens melt to focused marine fire and tanks are usually a little behind) then the broodling doesnt work.. I seriously think like one out of three broodling attempts end up failing because the queen dies after throwing the spell. zvp, it can be good, especially in sort of lock-downed situations where neither player is really capable of attacking the other, but zvt you really are better off just not researching broodling.
I agree. I don't think I'd ever use broodling. Maybe if I could work out a timing with 2/3 hatch lurker to have a couple when HTs come out to help the contain. I seriously doubt you could get them early enough though.
Given frees massive archoon + reaver blob, wouldt queens + broodling be a good option to reduse the archoon numbers so they dont become such a critical mass? But then again he would have to stall for the queens to get energy so...
Given frees massive archoon + reaver blob, wouldt queens + broodling be a good option to reduse the archoon numbers so they dont become such a critical mass? But then again he would have to stall for the queens to get energy so...
you cant broodling archons nor reavers if you could then zergs should build like 12 queens every single zvp =p
queens have one really, really sweet lategame use zvp, and that is used in conjunction with dark swarm against mass archon. thats actually a pretty key thing about queens ; they're like twice as good used together with defilers. if you have to pick one, you're almost always better off with defiler (only exception is vs corsairs), but normally you want to use queens in addition to defilers, as swarm becomes significantly harder / more impossible to defend against. this sounds really hard in theory, but the fact is, if you get used to using queens and you have them hotkeyed on 0 or whatever, then it's not difficult at all, as you can easily throw the ensnare before you send in the rest of your units, unlike defilers you dont need to worry about them being killed by tank fire or whatever.
you do need to sacrifice one hotkey though. I think using queens efficiently without hotkeying them on an individual hotkey is virtually impossible.
Imo, queens are only good in theory... In practice, its just too damn hard to use them, even for a progamer. Zerg is already the race which requires the most multitasking and throwing in queens just makes things even harder. If you still can expand like a madman and manage your drones, build up your tech and macro hard, while keeping scouts all over the map to see his army movements and stuff and still use queens effectively, hats off to you! I doubt anyone other than JD himself would be able to pull it off though and even he has his limits
On October 24 2008 20:45 Liquid`Drone wrote: broodling as a spell is hurt pretty badly by their casting animation like, with ensnare, if you throw ensnare and the queen dies before ensnare lands, ensnare still works if you broodling something but the queen dies after broodling is thrown but before broodling lands (in zvt this actually happens a pretty significant amount of time, queens melt to focused marine fire and tanks are usually a little behind) then the broodling doesnt work.. I seriously think like one out of three broodling attempts end up failing because the queen dies after throwing the spell. zvp, it can be good, especially in sort of lock-downed situations where neither player is really capable of attacking the other, but zvt you really are better off just not researching broodling.
if u ever used a queen. u kno that they cast their spells long range. so its not hard to kill a tank and run away or a templar. so i mean they can be useful.
On October 24 2008 23:27 Kallepettersen wrote: Imo, queens are only good in theory... In practice, its just too damn hard to use them, even for a progamer. Zerg is already the race which requires the most multitasking and throwing in queens just makes things even harder. If you still can expand like a madman and manage your drones, build up your tech and macro hard, while keeping scouts all over the map to see his army movements and stuff and still use queens effectively, hats off to you! I doubt anyone other than JD himself would be able to pull it off though and even he has his limits
Yep. You only have limited time and APM, and even as a progamer you need to use that time/APM at maximum efficiency. Using queens/ensnare always sounds great in theory, but in practice you better spend the 1 second you'd need to fiddle around with your queen for building more standard units. Unless you're much better than your opponent, then you obviously can toy around a bit, but if it's a really tough fight, and almost all progamer fights are really tough, then you simply can't stray too far from playing standard because every second of you not playing "the best way" means that you give an advantage to your opponent, and that means you lose the theoretical advantage you gain from using Ensnare anyway (and it's not even guaranteed that your queen will survive or that Ensnare will hit enough units due to your opponent spreading/retreating his units or whatever; and if any of that happens you'll be at a disadvantage right away). And the multitasking you have to do with using standard units plus defilers plus all the macro work is simply too much even for a 450 APM progamer. You simply can't afford to spend time microing a queen on top of all that. That is the main reason why queens aren't used. As a result, they simply aren't as efficient as other units in practice (only in theory).
It's funny btw that when some Zerg hero gets raped in some game he shouldn't have lost, people always come up with threads like "why not use queens". Last time I've seen threads like this was when Bisu raped Savior. People immediately went "zomfg why not use ensnare vs corsairs!!!!!111". Like the progamers don't know better what works and what doesn't...
On October 24 2008 20:45 Liquid`Drone wrote: broodling as a spell is hurt pretty badly by their casting animation like, with ensnare, if you throw ensnare and the queen dies before ensnare lands, ensnare still works if you broodling something but the queen dies after broodling is thrown but before broodling lands (in zvt this actually happens a pretty significant amount of time, queens melt to focused marine fire and tanks are usually a little behind) then the broodling doesnt work.. I seriously think like one out of three broodling attempts end up failing because the queen dies after throwing the spell. zvp, it can be good, especially in sort of lock-downed situations where neither player is really capable of attacking the other, but zvt you really are better off just not researching broodling.
if u ever used a queen. u kno that they cast their spells long range. so its not hard to kill a tank and run away or a templar. so i mean they can be useful.
On October 24 2008 20:45 Liquid`Drone wrote: broodling as a spell is hurt pretty badly by their casting animation like, with ensnare, if you throw ensnare and the queen dies before ensnare lands, ensnare still works if you broodling something but the queen dies after broodling is thrown but before broodling lands (in zvt this actually happens a pretty significant amount of time, queens melt to focused marine fire and tanks are usually a little behind) then the broodling doesnt work.. I seriously think like one out of three broodling attempts end up failing because the queen dies after throwing the spell. zvp, it can be good, especially in sort of lock-downed situations where neither player is really capable of attacking the other, but zvt you really are better off just not researching broodling.
if u ever used a queen. u kno that they cast their spells long range. so its not hard to kill a tank and run away or a templar. so i mean they can be useful.
Good thing he isn't the Zerg player most known for incorporating Queens into his play.
On October 24 2008 20:45 Liquid`Drone wrote: broodling as a spell is hurt pretty badly by their casting animation like, with ensnare, if you throw ensnare and the queen dies before ensnare lands, ensnare still works if you broodling something but the queen dies after broodling is thrown but before broodling lands (in zvt this actually happens a pretty significant amount of time, queens melt to focused marine fire and tanks are usually a little behind) then the broodling doesnt work.. I seriously think like one out of three broodling attempts end up failing because the queen dies after throwing the spell. zvp, it can be good, especially in sort of lock-downed situations where neither player is really capable of attacking the other, but zvt you really are better off just not researching broodling.
if u ever used a queen. u kno that they cast their spells long range. so its not hard to kill a tank and run away or a templar. so i mean they can be useful.
Good thing he isn't the Zerg player most known for incorporating Queens into his play.
On October 25 2008 23:28 Disastorm wrote: Ive always heard different things about ensnare about it slowing down attack speed. So does it really slow down attack speed, as well as movement?
The fire rate penalty varies from unit to unit. Some units are immune to it, I think Goliaths, Carriers and Tanks, but usually I think it's 15-20% decrease. Stimmed marines get a lot more penalty.
There was a thread about it, but god knows where that is.
its seriously pretty huge I remember on nostalgia I used to play like almost pure zergling/queen with double evo a lot of terrans were SHOCKED cuz their 30 ensnared m&m actually got _raped_ by 60 lings.
Here's my attempt at executing the build detailed in the thread Zerg on Coke. I started off with a 9 pool and then transitioned into upgraded hydraling+queens. This was my first time doing this build so I made several errors, but I think I could have expanded more and gotten have (and +1 melee) sooner. I was so used to getting carapace first that I accidentally clicked carapace instead of missiles, but I don't think it affected me much. In terms of hydraling ratio, I had almost no lings, so next time I will need to add hatcheries to keep down my money and make more lings to support the hydras. Keep in mind that this game was at D level on my smurf and it was my first attempt, but hopefully I can get some comments from these games on what else needs to be done and also show that it is very viable. Thanks Misrah for making this build, I plan to test this a lot more soon!
I especially liked fending off the enemy army with slow lings (I thought I was going to die because of lack of speed) and giving up no map control the entire game! As a result I could have expanded so much more than I did, but I was just so unused to that feeling. Although it won't be as easy against a better player, and if people start recognizing the build they may be able to counter it better with more harrass and better unit combos, etc, I really enjoy this build so far (and I've only used it once!)!
Edit: Ahhh, I just realized I only beat his early game push because he forgot to heal with medics... I must have done something wrong then, what do you think Misrah? Or was it just because I 9 pooled + bad economy and he 2 raxed rush which is more early than the 1 rax expand timing push? I think I also got my first gas a bit too early.
Make sure you guys check out that thread, it is a very very interesting build that includes queens as a major focal point to support a crazy yet cool build!
I am trying to find another thread that got flamed because it said something about faking Spire and going straight into Lurk fast Hive or something like that.. if anyone can find it and bump it and paste that video please!
That game was kinda weird, seems to me that jaedong wouldve crushed that first attack without queens anyway, probably it really fucked that the terran scanned the spire. This is what happens when you get too used to playing against 1 build. Terrans should really learn to time their second scan for when the mutas are supposed to come out, and only then actually build all those turrets asap.
go.go went mech and firefist 2hatch hydra into mutas, getting somewhat of an advantage with early pressureplay,but firefist threw it almost away; however at around 21 minutes go.go pushed with a somewhat decent force towards his nat but he had queens and broodlinged all the tanks, beeing able to take the armie head on with pure hydra
On December 26 2008 08:11 Jack117 wrote: Couldn't Queens be used ZvZ to both slow down attack speed and make it impossible to micro against scourge? The mutas would be stacked = easy ensnare
WAAAAYYYYYYYY too late on the tech.
By the time the queen's nest is up, 99% of games are over....
On December 26 2008 08:11 Jack117 wrote: Couldn't Queens be used ZvZ to both slow down attack speed and make it impossible to micro against scourge? The mutas would be stacked = easy ensnare
WAAAAYYYYYYYY too late on the tech.
By the time the queen's nest is up, 99% of games are over....
Queen + scourge is better than muta, but there is too much teching involved. You need both spire and queen's nest, also you need to research ensnare and build the queen, wait 33 seconds for the enegy. You'll end up with no gas and the timing is probably way off anyway.
On October 23 2008 11:59 R3condite wrote: i think if zerg players started using queens more then ter players will start upgrading the restore ability for meds...
i mean i think it's a good idea but i don't think it's gonna get wise spread (mainly because ensnare is where it's at and u need to upgrade to use that)
Restore will only help vs parasite. Broodling? Obviously not
Ensnare? Sure if you can manage to restore every single marine under 3 seconds when you should be trying to run away because of ling flank and lurker burrowing
Queen's nest is needed anyway, and 100/100 for research is very cheap. It's definately gonna be widespread.
On December 26 2008 08:11 Jack117 wrote: Couldn't Queens be used ZvZ to both slow down attack speed and make it impossible to micro against scourge? The mutas would be stacked = easy ensnare
I believe ensnare doesn't effect attack speed of units that don't receive attack speed boosts. (Zerglings, marines, etc).
I could be wrong, it's been awhile since I used queens but that's from what I recall. Tehyr'e still great against marine/medics though.
On December 26 2008 08:11 Jack117 wrote: Couldn't Queens be used ZvZ to both slow down attack speed and make it impossible to micro against scourge? The mutas would be stacked = easy ensnare
I believe ensnare doesn't effect attack speed of units that don't receive attack speed boosts. (Zerglings, marines, etc).
I could be wrong, it's been awhile since I used queens but that's from what I recall. Tehyr'e still great against marine/medics though.
No, it reduces all attack speeds by around 20% except tank and goliath and ultra. Stimmed marines and cracklings get an extra penalty. Marine is reduced to near normal attack and normal speed and crackling gets whatever.
There'a thread about this somewhere with a list, but I can't remember the title of it.
EDIT: FOUND IT EDIT 2: That stimmed marine part is wrong. I have tested it myself and it actually makes the rine fire at near normal rate.
courtesy of Bill Everything written below, with the exception of Ensnare statistics, is courtesy of me, and done through testing. Important things are in blue.
Ensnare attack-slowdown stats, TAKEN VERBATIM FROM BILL's GUIDE Zerg Units -Lings 15% decrease -Hydras 15% decrease -Mutes 15% decrease (quite boring huh?) -Ultras UNCHAGED!!!! Yes u read right. Ensnaire does not affect ultras. -Cracklings 25% decrease
Terran Units -Marines 17% decrease -Stimmed Marines 23% decrease -Golies UNCHANGED BOTH AIR AND GROUND. So next time dont be surprised if your lings get raped of ensnaired gollies -Wraith 16% decrease -BCs air 16%....BCs ground 4%. Pretty strange but i did this many times and the results were the same. Ensnaire has different effect on air and ground BCs attack!!!! -Valks 18-20% decrease. -I left firebats for the end because they are so hard to calculate. The trick is to have the tanks that take the damage at exactly the same angle towards firebats fire. If tanks are at 45 angle towards firebat fire they take more damage for some reason compared to 90 or 0 angle. Anyway, all things considered equal ensnaire decreases firebat rate by 29%. That's the largest decrease of all!!!
Toss Units -Zealots 16% decrease -Goons air 14%, Goons ground 11% decrease. Pretty strange again but that's what i found, period. -Archon air 20%, Archon ground 3% decrease. What can i say people, hope u correct me. -Dts 22% decrease -Carriers UNCHANGED. When ensnairing carriers directly, fire rate doesn't decrease. Then i tried to ensnaire some interceptors. I didn't notice any change either. That gave me much grieve!!!!! -Sairs 12% decrease -Scout air 16% decrease. Forgot to test ground.
I'd like to add that guradian's decrease is about 11% while (to my great dissapointment) siege tanks and reavers are not affected.
Infesting a damaged CC is brilliant just because you take away a cc and most terrans don't see it coming...if you get it away to use IT's that's a bonus.
Most of the time, when my units get parasited, I leave them in my army because I figure I'll beat the guy anyway. If I see some more queen use, I'll reconsider leaving them where they are and maybe even get restoration.
Maybe scourge + ensare is not efective but hydra+ensare is. If you add to that 1 spore at each mineral line to deny massive drone killing maybe it can work. The question is how ensare affect mutas? if its attack rate isnt slowed then it will suck.
ive really used hydra/queen a LOT zvz, tried many different variations and builds it doesnt work on the highest level no matter what you do. I beat some amateurs and semipros with it like 4 years ago but mutamicro has evolved so much since then, and I lost against the best zergs back then as well.
there was one really really sweet kind of, tactical move you could do though. basically, when you are planning your 1 massive attack, naked expand to a location far away and have a queen nearby, then when he eventually scouts the expansion which is inevitable, he normally attacks it with mutas then you ensnare them all and then you bust out of your main. suddenly hes not able to get lings/mutas together, nor can he counterattack because theyre not mobile of course if he sends 12 lings instead then you just wasted 300 minerals and you're even further behind :p
I think if you play zerg and you suck at zvz, you don't have any ambition of playing on the very highest level and muta/scourge micro is like, your least favourite thing, trying to master hydra/lurker/queen can get you a higher winratio. back when I did it, temple was the most popular map and any zerg could just expand to both islands, contain me while turtling his natural, so it just completely failed if the other zerg had experience playing against it. maybe there are some maps that are slightly better for it, what I think the biggest problem will be is that zergs nowadays are actually good at using their mutas and they will rape your drones even with 2 spores in your main. (hydra queen basically required you to both fast expand and to sunken/spore a lot early on.)
EPT
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