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On March 05 2010 23:41 Plexa wrote:
It's not like 6 colossi are unstoppable - isolated they are quite fragile. There just isn't any good answer against Broodlords as protoss.
you could say the same of brood lords. Void rays will kill isolated brood lords in seconds.
Brood lord is the zerg 'capital ship'. You need protoss' anti-capital ship unit to deal with them. That unit is the void ray.
Equal supply of void rays should kill brood lords. If he has them supported with other units, the rest of your army should counter those other units. scout scout scout. In BW, it was important to scout for expansions and to keep tabs on where his army is/is moving to. But in SC2, it's important to scout army composition so you can counter it effectively. Also, the only thing the greater spire does is allow creation of brood lords. So if you scout a greater spire -> you know 100% there will be brood lords coming soon, and you can plan for it.
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Archons maybe? They do additional damage to bio and splash should fry the little shitkins they spawn.
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Brood lords only cost 50 minerals less than a carrier. And they can't even attack air. If you let the zerg get 5 brood lords, you're screwed. It would be no different if you let protoss get ~4.5 carriers or ~4.5 battlecruisers. And before you say that carriers have to pay for interceptors, well brood lords have to pay for anti air, or else they'll be annihilated.
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Many of you are missing the point. I want to address some arguments, but first I want to point something out.
Just because a unit is counterable, does not make it balanced. Psi-Storm could be coded to do 300 damage a storm, and it would still be counterable, but it would not be balanced. Roaches could be programmed to hit air, and they would be counterable, but not balanced.
Now the arguments:
Cost argument: The cost justifies them being this strong.
This is completely irrelevant and in fact strengthens the OP point. Carriers die easily to just a few Hydralisks, and Carriers are the 'ultimate' unit for Protoss and they are countered extremely easily.
Tech argument: It's place in the tech tree justifies them being this strong.
This has some validity, but the point is, if there is no viable counter, with the game being equal in terms of control and economy, then it isn't balanced. You cannot have one race with a trump card that automatically puts them at an advantage that the other race cannot get back. Protoss has no such unit. They did with the original version of the Mothership - they no longer have this.
A Broodlord army with zergling and hydra support on the ground and muta and corruptor support in the air is literally unbeatable by a similar size army by Protoss.
The solution that you'd have to counter it with would be at least 1 Phoenix for every Corruptor + Mutalisk + Broodlord. In addition you'd also have to have Zealots and High Templar on the ground.
What happens in battle is that when the Broodlords attack Zealots, the Zealots AI automatically attack the Broodlings and if you try to micro past them, you get surrounded. Thus the Zealots cannot get to the Hydralisks. The hydralisks focus their attention on your Phoenixs, and Hydras destroy all Protoss air.
I recall the first game I encountered Broodlords, I had a 180 food army, mixed Phoenixs, Void Rays, Collosus, High Templar and Zealots (probably about 80 food of just Zealots).
I was able to storm most of the zerglings and hydras, but the broodlings took out literally all my ground just as fast as I could storm his, and his hydras and mutalisks and corruptors killed all my phoenixs. I checked the replay and he had 140ish food.
The fact is, that with Broodlords, he can focus Hydras on your air, and the broodlings will clean up literally all ground units.
The Solution: You really don't necessarily need to nerf Broodlords to the point of making them obsolete, but their armor and HP is too high to effectively counter. Buffing Phoenix (slightly) would be a huge step in the right direction as well.
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just buff phoenix and nerf BLs a bit so that phoenix<BLs.
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There's a similar lag time building brood lords as there is building carriers or battlecruisers in brood war. If you see a greater spire going up (takes a full 100 seconds) or corrupters coming out, you need to attack NOW. Chances are he has spent a ton of cash just getting this tech halfway up, and you will have a strong advantage on the ground. If you wait until the investment has run its course, you'll be in big trouble.
The total transition takes at minimum 100 secs for greater spire, and 34 seconds for the brood lords to morph, assuming he has all the resources he needs at morph time which I never do.
It seems like players are not reacting to mass brood lord the same way they'd react if a player were massing up carriers or battlecruisers, and it would be a real shame to downgrade legitimate late game tech like that simply because of inexperience in the matchup.
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On March 06 2010 02:05 onmach wrote:
It seems like players are not reacting to mass brood lord the same way they'd react if a player were massing up carriers or battlecruisers, and it would be a real shame to downgrade legitimate late game tech like that simply because of inexperience in the matchup.
The issue isn't whether or not the Broodlords are scouted. The issue is not having an army composition to beat them with all things being equal.
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I didn't read the entire thread but I agree.
If you don't scout Brood lords coming it's instant GG for you. Even if you do scout them you need to do everything possible to keep them in low numbers or they will decimate your ground army. Protoss currently has piss poor anti-air. Phoenixes are extremely fragile and do not do spash, Void ray is LOL against air, and anything on the ground that can attack air will get pwnd by Brood lords before they can do any adequate damage or get run over by lings and hydras. Storm is also not a good option against Brood lords, not only because of the low damage output of storm, Brood lords do not clump together well. You might be able to get target 2 or 3 max with one storm.
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On March 05 2010 21:35 PrideNeverDies wrote:
hydra/broodlord seems to work like goon/carrier, but better.
That is the current problem with this game.
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The whole air-ground balance compared to bw is skewed right now, a2g is so much stronger and g2a (and even a2a) is much weaker. Based on the size of the holes this seems to leave I feel like it's something that will addressed in an expansion.
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On March 05 2010 21:57 Plexa wrote:
But stalkers just royally suck against everything else sooo...
Hydra 1v1 is better than a stalker.. so yeah they do suck..
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On March 06 2010 02:30 iounas wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2010 21:57 Plexa wrote:
But stalkers just royally suck against everything else sooo... Hydra 1v1 is better than a stalker.. so yeah they do suck..
T2 unit v a T1.5 unit. And stalkers are an anti-armored unit, which hydra isn't.
You can't say a unit is bad because it loses to another unit 1on1...
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On March 06 2010 02:35 BlasiuS wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2010 02:30 iounas wrote:On March 05 2010 21:57 Plexa wrote:
But stalkers just royally suck against everything else sooo... Hydra 1v1 is better than a stalker.. so yeah they do suck.. T2 unit v a T1.5 unit. And stalkers are an anti-armored unit, which hydra isn't. You can't say a unit is bad because it loses to another unit 1on1...
Well its cheaper too and protoss anti air options suck..
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Yeah, I think lack of protoss anti air is one of the main reasons broodlords are so good. Phenioxes are really protoss' only decent anti air option - archons are just bad now.
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United States17042 Posts
One possible strategy counter (dosen't fix the fact that Broodlords are really good) would be the mothership. It depends what kind of midgame strategy you went (i'm thinking about phoenix scouting, so you already have a stargate), but on certain maps Dark Void + psistorm might be the way to go.
I agree that brood lords are still really good with no easy real lategame counter. mothership + recall means you have mobility without map control though, which can be nice.
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United States17042 Posts
On March 06 2010 02:35 BlasiuS wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2010 02:30 iounas wrote:On March 05 2010 21:57 Plexa wrote:
But stalkers just royally suck against everything else sooo... Hydra 1v1 is better than a stalker.. so yeah they do suck.. T2 unit v a T1.5 unit. And stalkers are an anti-armored unit, which hydra isn't. You can't say a unit is bad because it loses to another unit 1on1...
the cost differential is terrible too >.> hydra are a bunch less expensive than stalkers.
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On March 06 2010 03:26 GHOSTCLAW wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2010 02:35 BlasiuS wrote:On March 06 2010 02:30 iounas wrote:On March 05 2010 21:57 Plexa wrote:
But stalkers just royally suck against everything else sooo... Hydra 1v1 is better than a stalker.. so yeah they do suck.. T2 unit v a T1.5 unit. And stalkers are an anti-armored unit, which hydra isn't. You can't say a unit is bad because it loses to another unit 1on1... the cost differential is terrible too >.> hydra are a bunch less expensive than stalkers.
And its also good against many units.. And 1 full storm doesnt kill them and if you micro them they can take 2 storms.
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I'm a Z player mainly so maybe I'm biased... I've always thought broodlord is the best unit addition to zerg. They are very strong and corruptors like you said beat pheonix for equal costs.
I think the broodlord is expensive though so it's understandable that they do a good deal of damage.
To me the broodlings are similar to the protoss' interceptors which before the mothership nerf was actually very annoying and difficult to fight against... No scourge and whenever I would bring corruptors I had to spread them out really good to avoid the stasis shit.
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The Brood Lord might be VERY GOOD, but let's not forget the fact that this unit is without comparison the hardest unit to get to in the game:
1. Spawning Pool
2. Lair
3. Spire
4. Corruptor
5. Infestation Pit
6. Hive
7. Greater Spire
8. Morph Corruptor
9. $$$ Profit $$$
The maximum number of steps for any P or T unit is 4-5.
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On March 06 2010 01:55 Mirhi wrote:
Many of you are missing the point. I want to address some arguments, but first I want to point something out.
Just because a unit is counterable, does not make it balanced. Psi-Storm could be coded to do 300 damage a storm, and it would still be counterable, but it would not be balanced. Roaches could be programmed to hit air, and they would be counterable, but not balanced.
Now the arguments:
Cost argument: The cost justifies them being this strong.
This is completely irrelevant and in fact strengthens the OP point. Carriers die easily to just a few Hydralisks, and Carriers are the 'ultimate' unit for Protoss and they are countered extremely easily.
Tech argument: It's place in the tech tree justifies them being this strong.
This has some validity, but the point is, if there is no viable counter, with the game being equal in terms of control and economy, then it isn't balanced. You cannot have one race with a trump card that automatically puts them at an advantage that the other race cannot get back. Protoss has no such unit. They did with the original version of the Mothership - they no longer have this.
A Broodlord army with zergling and hydra support on the ground and muta and corruptor support in the air is literally unbeatable by a similar size army by Protoss.
The solution that you'd have to counter it with would be at least 1 Phoenix for every Corruptor + Mutalisk + Broodlord. In addition you'd also have to have Zealots and High Templar on the ground.
What happens in battle is that when the Broodlords attack Zealots, the Zealots AI automatically attack the Broodlings and if you try to micro past them, you get surrounded. Thus the Zealots cannot get to the Hydralisks. The hydralisks focus their attention on your Phoenixs, and Hydras destroy all Protoss air.
I recall the first game I encountered Broodlords, I had a 180 food army, mixed Phoenixs, Void Rays, Collosus, High Templar and Zealots (probably about 80 food of just Zealots).
I was able to storm most of the zerglings and hydras, but the broodlings took out literally all my ground just as fast as I could storm his, and his hydras and mutalisks and corruptors killed all my phoenixs. I checked the replay and he had 140ish food.
The fact is, that with Broodlords, he can focus Hydras on your air, and the broodlings will clean up literally all ground units.
The Solution: You really don't necessarily need to nerf Broodlords to the point of making them obsolete, but their armor and HP is too high to effectively counter. Buffing Phoenix (slightly) would be a huge step in the right direction as well.
Honestly I stopped reading the moment you said that "cost justifying them being this strong is irrelevant because of random example plucked out of my ass carriers". Pretty much the worst argument-logic path I've ever seen.
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EPT
