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Currently in patch 7 beta (and probably before)
Preface:
+ Show Spoiler +I'm a rank 12~ platinum zerg player and I have this habit of asking people every game what rank they are. It seems that I play mostly plats around my level until I run into a terran and I die, then I will sometimes play either lower ranked plat or top level gold. (and I even lose to these terrans often)
Also, ever since the reset I have been keeping track of matchup records on a piece of paper. My ZvZ and ZvP are winning records (59% & 58%) but my ZvT is a horrible 44%. It's funny because my ZvT actually used to be my best matchup a few patches ago (probably mostly because terrans weren't as seasoned yet).
So anyways, I don't know if it's just me and something I don't know/do in the matchup, but for the life of me I cannot figure out how to not get owned in this matchup.
I have been trying all kinds of openings just trying to find a decent safe one, but it seems the terran can easily scout it and counter it, or just play standard and be fine anyways. I have tried: 14 hatch/13 pool, 15 hatch/14 pool, 1 hatch speedlings/blings, 1 hatch roaches, fast muta, etc.
The real problem imo, is that it is nearly impossible to scout the terran, while they can easily scout you. The reason why scouting is so important in this early is because you need to know what to counter.
Typical Terran openings:
- Reaper
- Hellions
- Bunker/proxy rush
- MnM
- Marauder/Hellion
- FE
- Banshee
- Viking
Almost all of which require different units/defenses.
For the first 2, FE/roach opening works ok, but the reapers can still show up before the roach warren is up, and queens don't really cut it. You're gonna lose some drones, and even if you make some crawlers they don't cover all the angles, same as the queen they're too slow.
Hellions, are usually easy to scout if they walled and you can use a ling/drone scout to see the factory on the reactor at their door.
Just to note, roaches are too slow to keep up with harassers as well, but usually you can have a few to cover the angles.
Bunker rush is basically the same thing in BW, just send a lord/drone to your not and react accordingly with drones/lings/queens/crawlers.
Now the last 5 strats are the real killers.
A good terran will keep only a few units (like 1 marine/marauder) at the wall and disguise whatever he is making in his base. So he could easily have 2-3 more rax by his CC pumping men until he scans or whatever and makes the timing push, expands, gets medivacs, etc.
Just as easily, he could be making marauder/hellion and keep pumping the units at you.
He can also build his CC further in his base (so you can't see with lord/ling) and have less units and just drop bunkers/p-fort when he expands quickly. And then take it from there.
Alternatively, he can tech to starports, and either get banshee (which do too much damage imho) or vikings which can at the very least rape half your lords, but can also harass mineral lines etc. meanwhile he is expanding and pumping marauders and then just moves out and lands the vikings on the floor to help dish out the dps and tank.
It feels to me that marauders, banshees, and planetary fortress are a bit overpowered for this matchup. I could be wrong, because the real problem for me is just scouting and reacting in time.
If I rush to lair, I won't have ovie speed or overseer in time to see his tech and be able to react at my base in time. (And I'm not even gonna get into if the terran hides his structures somewhere else on the map.) Crawlers build in 50 seconds, throwing down hydra den, roach warren, or bling nest AND trying to make the units of of them in time is impossible.
So basically what happens is I am just building blindly and hoping I guess right, or trying to make a little bit of everything in order to respond in time to my scouts, which usually leaves my econ trashed or just doesn't give enough units to counter anyways.
Again, I could be completely wrong about all of this, but I seem to have tried everything and in the other matchups I am doing fine. So if anyone has any advice, I'll take it. I also don't seem to have high level terran players to game with, so if you are one, I'd like to mass game with you.
Also, assuming we are playing properly and making correct counters (imagine maphax on or whatever). It seems to me that these units are too poweful
Marauders: They have a ton of HP and are a semi small unit , can stim , have a slowing attack to kite, can be healed by medivacs, (all of those making ling surrounds not easy / as effective) and do ridiculous damage to armored/structures. They basically do well versus hydras, lings, roaches, blings, crawlers, even ultras. They have no hard counters on the ground, and mutas take a long time to kill them.
Some suggestions would be to make stim do more damage since it seems that marauders can stim almost indefinitely. Marines lose ~20% of their life when they stim, marauders lose 8%. It could possible to scale with their HP and 20% of their life would be 25hp. So both marines and marauders would lose 20% when they stim. I mean, lorewise it's not like stim ruins their armor, it ruins the person's body inside. Afaik marauders are the same human criminals inside as marines. So 3-4 stims and you're out.
Other suggestions would be to make them slightly larger, shorten their stim duration, nerf the slowing attack (maybe even remove it altogether), reduce their max HP, or increase build time.
Banshees: Fast, very mobile, decent HP, High damage, good range, and they can cloak eventually. What are their weaknesses again?
early on they can take a queen 1v1, they can 2 shot drones/lings, good damage to roaches, DPS buildings pretty well, and even hydras in low or equal numbers seem to melt under them. Especially off creep where hydras are super slow and early where hydras don't have range yet. Spore crawlers have to be placed everywhere in order to stop them because of their range, and that's not really cost effective.
Planetary Fortress: This thing is supposed to help with defense not be a show stopper. Just about any time I see a Pfort I say to myself "Ok, can't attack/stop that expo, what else can I do?" And I made a thread about this thing before. If you have equal armies and you fight near a pfort its GG for zerg. Where if a zerg had 4 crawlers and a queen with equal numbers, it's nothing. Any kind of raid or backdoor assault near a pfort is also completely suicidal. Also http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=118040 granted, most people didn't agree with me, but higher level zerg players seem to (even terrans using them on me). I only ask for the simple corruption buffs.
Allow corruption to remove all attack AI priority from the PF for attack units being attack moved near it. So you can get at the SCV, and at the very least just make them run away instead of staying mining or repairing. Allow corruption to be recasted over something already corrupted to refresh the 30 second timer.
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i hate the PF, i think it should be more of a take forever to kill fortress rather than this ultra-powerful cannon that can wipe out an entire army. maybe +500/1000 hp and +5 armor with a small single target attack instead?
serves the purpose of protecting an expo from attacks until your army gets there
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As a gold player, I find it hard to say it's imbalanced, but there are certainly a few things they can change to make it better. I think the problem with playing a Terran player is that their hard counters are HARD counters, and really force the Zerg player into a very homogenous army. Hellions counter anything early on the ground except Roaches. Marauders do well against everything but Speedlings and Hydra (which only require a small amount of Hellions to effectively destroy).
The whole Marauder/Roach thing seems to be the problem here. Roaches are the only good counter to most Terran ground units (mostly due to the high prevalence of splash damage by Hellions and Tanks), but Marauders smash Roaches to pieces. And then Marauders also smash other units to pieces.
As far as Banshee's go... yeah, they are a huge pain, but they also require a sacrifice to tech quickly to and can be beaten back. If the guy is good, it requires the Zerg player to spend a pretty hefty amount of resources to be secure, but SC2 seems to emphasize that detection and ground-to-air is costly.
Planetary Fortress is a bit silly. One guy was able to push back around 12-15 Muta's and what must have been 30 Roaches with a PF and 2 thors and a lot of SCV's. I'll try to find the replay. Won eventually, but it really opened my eyes at the effectiveness of the PF. But it requires the guy to not get more scan/mules. I'm not sold on it being overpowered, but I do agree when you say it completely shuts down raiding and harassment (beyond Mutas, which get toasted by the new Turrets/Thor's).
I hate to call "imbalance", so I won't yet, but it does seem like much smaller amounts of Terran units can counter very large amounts of Zerg units for pretty cheap, without much tech, and even the Zerg counters to units like Marauders are just not very viable. To beat a Terran player it really feels like you have to outwork/outproduce/outexpand and outmicro.
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On April 04 2010 15:08 Chen wrote:
i hate the PF, i think it should be more of a take forever to kill fortress rather than this ultra-powerful cannon that can wipe out an entire army. maybe +500/1000 hp and +5 armor with a small single target attack instead?
serves the purpose of protecting an expo from attacks until your army gets there
well, that would be kinda redundant then, because terran could just as easily make it an OC and lift away where zerg can't hit it.
other suggestions I had for it
# Reduce the range to 5 and make it +1 to 6. This way hydras w/ range can outrange it until he gets the upgrade at least.
# Change the attack, to instead of doing splash, to attack faster and hit 1 target at a time.
# Change the damage from 40, to 25+15 light or something similar.
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if you play the attrition game with terran, zerg has a huge advantage. If you are trying to bust him constantly, a fail attempt will cost u games.
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i have been feeling the opposite. If you do not win vs Zerg or gain an advantage in around 7 minutes, you die to exponential economy and whatever they want to literally throw at you to deny your third...then you die.
everything you literally mentioned OP, that can kill or hurt you, are just build orders/initial units early or right as the mid-game is starting. Once it's past that stage (if you survive, which good Z can), then ZvT is essentially free win for Zerg.
baneling/roach/hydra can pretty much rape any marine heavy army with very little micro, and if terran loses their first ball of marines, they lose the game because of how fast Z can reproduce supply limit.
feels like a much harder, if not impossible late game for Terran, whereas like you described, the early game build orders, or little tricky unit ratios work out well for Terran...before the 7-10 min mark. After that, if Terran did not equalize or get some type of advantage, it's Zerg freewin imo.
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avilo, just out of curiosity, what level player are you?
Basically what you said 'could' be true, but what does that matter if you are raping zergs early on with a slew of build orders that they can't prepare for and will die to.
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On April 04 2010 15:12 CharlieMurphy wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2010 15:08 Chen wrote:
i hate the PF, i think it should be more of a take forever to kill fortress rather than this ultra-powerful cannon that can wipe out an entire army. maybe +500/1000 hp and +5 armor with a small single target attack instead?
serves the purpose of protecting an expo from attacks until your army gets there well, that would be kinda redundant then, because terran could just as easily make it an OC and lift away where zerg can't hit it. other suggestions I had for it Show nested quote +# Reduce the range to 5 and make it +1 to 6. This way hydras w/ range can outrange it until he gets the upgrade at least.
# Change the attack, to instead of doing splash, to attack faster and hit 1 target at a time.
# Change the damage from 40, to 25+15 light or something similar.
well if the zerg has any AA (hydras) it cant run away in time right? idk i just think more hp/armor for less attack makes it less game-breaking in a battle while providing the defense you want when under attack even just getting rid of splash would help. esp with the comp auto-targeting the fortress instead of the 20 repairing scv's
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Im a platinum player and it always seemed to me that Zergs > Terrans. But could be me since its probably my worse matchup.
Planetary Fortress is BS i agree it needs some kind of nerf like you cant repair it so fast or less damage.
As a terran i dont see roaches having a place in this matchup they die so quickly to everything except rines and helions. Banelings/mutas are the most scary thing for me since they do so much damage (seriously they need to make the banelings do splash damage to friendly units like tanks) and the movility of the mutas is just too good
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I sincerely feel that Blizs overdid buffing terrans in latest patches.
The other problem is that terran units are multipurpose, even tier1 units of terran basically counter 90% of Z or P army. That's a serious problem.
When I play zerg I have to rush to get Lair and Hydras because of the possible banshee harass. But sometimes terran doesn't build a single starport and roll over me with MM and helions 
There is no way I can scout what is going on. Its retarted.
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mutas were inherently nerfed in this matchup by giving thors flak cannons and making turrets do way more damage though.
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On April 04 2010 15:13 SirNeb wrote:
if you play the attrition game with terran, zerg has a huge advantage. If you are trying to bust him constantly, a fail attempt will cost u games.
Tell me how the zerg can win the attrition game with terran. With both races turtling, terrans can have PFs, siege tanks, ravens, thors, bunkers, and turrets, all of which destroy large zerg armies with very little effort. Where as zerg has...? And with medivacs being standard in all terran bio armies, it's very easy for the terran to doom drop the zerg in late stages of the game and kill all of zergs tech before zerg can react.
To me this match up seems really difficult; there are games where I was ahead in base count, and still lost to a large terran push/drop. Before mutas seemed to be a viable opening but at patch 7 going mutas seem to be an autoloss as your mutas will do jackshit against even 3 turrets guarding the mineral line.
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i agree with you on Marauders and PF, though i have decent win percentage against Terrans for the past 2-3 weeks (i sucked terribly beforehand)
i open speedling
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maybe zvt was imbalanced b4 in favor of zerg now ur strat isnt working bcause of patch and u cant adjust to it
god i love words
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On April 04 2010 15:31 splcer wrote:
maybe zvt was imbalanced b4 in favor of zerg now ur strat isnt working bcause of patch and u cant adjust to it
god i love words
dont talk about stuff u dont know
kinda funny, but anyways. I said in the op that I've tried different strats..
The problem is scouting, which has always been a problem from the start. Before though, terrans were predictable and didn't know they could do all those things I listed in the op.
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Marauder stim pack takes 20HP to stim, not 10. I wouldn't mind seeing it being increased to 25 though since it makes Marauders so powerful when stimmed.
As for Banshees, I think the downside to them is their price and time it takes to get them; they also can't attack air I guess.
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I'll give an input from the Terran point of view. Plat 27 right now with TvZ being my most capable matchup
Reaper
In a reaper-optimized BO, reaper comes at the time that allows the terran to punish hatch first. Personally, I think that hatch first is not necessary in SC2 thanks to the queen. I'm not saying that a zerg has to play 1 base against a 1 base terran, but generally zerg has more mapcontrol early game than a T, allowing for a safer earlier expansion anyways. Nospeed reapers can be countered (for lack of a better word, reacted?) by both zerglings and speedlings and queen. Speeded reapers can be countered by speedlings. It is also countered by roaches. As the T, I think that a zerg can play safe by going poolfirst and then expanding during/after lingspeed will allow the Z to be safe against reapers and at the same time let the Z get early expansion.
Hellions
Just like the reaper, hellions can be stopped quite easily by speedlings and roaches (not slow zerglings). Since it comes at a much later time, the Z shouldn't find it TOO difficult to prepare for it. In a good scenario the Z can scout it and react immediately. In a bad scenario the Z may not scout it, but getting a roach warren and 2~4 roaches as insurance would prevent much harm. If it's a medivac drop, it's more potent, and it comes down to micro imo (using queen to attack medivac while controlling drones to separatethem and attacking hellions with lings/roaches)
Bunker rush
Honestly, it's not impossible or very difficult to take down a bunker with 1~2 marines before the hatch goes down. a good surround with a mixture of drones, zerglings, and a queen will take down a bunker rather quickly. Of course, target fire repairing SCVs first. I know as the T that a skilled Z can stop a bunker rush from taking down the hatch. Of course, it damages the zerg's economy but the zerg is taking a gamble when it chooses to hatch first.
MnM
MnM alone is rather easily stopped...I'm guessing you mean MnMnM? Baneling+lings are the key to destroying any MMX force, and honestly I've found that hydras are surprisingly effective against MMM without tank with good positioning. I would say the best way to counter MMX before tier 3 would be hydra doubleling (or I guess mutal doubling but I would say hdyras are better than mutalisks right now because of turrets and thor). Banelings can be ridiculously cost-effective with the right control and scenario from my experience.
Marauder/Hellion
I've never really done this because if the zerg can survive until mutas it puts the T at a terrible position.
FE
I feel like Terran 1rax FE is a lot more viable in SC2 because of the durability of buildings against lings. I haven't done this because in practice games my friend always defeated me with a specific cheese. But frankly if you can get mutalisks out before thors and the terran skimps on turrets, it will be gg because marines cannot protect 2 bases from mutalisks effectively because of muta's mobility
Banshee
I've won a lot of games in early beta using banshees. But banshees are a huge investment as the terran, and if it's stopped well the zerg is hugely in favor in my opinion which is why I rarely use them anymore. A nocloak banshee comes out between 6:30~7 iirc. So if the T goes 1port, that's 1, and 2port, that's 2. Now, if there's only 1, 2 queens can defend it. Korean pros will get 2~3 queens and place them near each other if they suspect banshees. Of course, this is to buy time until lair and hydra or muta and overseer. As for cloaked banshees, cloaking taking 2 minutes to research, and it's definitely viable to get a lair before cloaked banshee can come in. If the T goes 1port, it's probably on even ground with similar skill level, and if the T goes 2 port the game is pretty much decided at that point depending on how well the zerg is prepared (either complete loss or a VERY favorable position). I don't use this so much anymore, and I would say it's not overpowered because it's like any cheese, it can be stopped if you spot a starport with a tech lab.
Viking
1~2 vikings can be stopped with queens only or hydras. Getting 4~5 vikings is a HUGE investment, and if the Z has overlords all over the place it will pay off. But if not, the T is in a VERY bad position IF the Zerg doesn't rush broodlords because the viking's ground mode isn't good enough for it to be important part of the terran one-punch army.
Almost all of which require different units/defenses.
I kinda disagree with the statement. I think speedlings or roach warren-expand-lair-hydra den is a pretty versatile opening that can stop all the things mentioned above with proper control and some information.
I know scouting must be a pain, but as the Z you have to throw in 1~2 overlords to see what the T is doing. The good thing is that once you see a starport with techlab or factory with a reactor you have a good idea how to shut the build down. And frankly, as long as Z doesn't get caught completely unprepared, Z can recover majority of the losses it suffers thanks to map control and faster and safer expansions. Not to mention Z can pump drones very quickly once it is safe.
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i've always found I could rush ovie speed and get into his base enough to rush to defend any type of fast banshee or weird mech builds, but it always comes really close and i need to make the upgrade a big priority.
I do 13 pool
queen @ 100% pool
lair @ 100% queen
ovie speed@ 100% lair
with at least 2 ovies on either side of his main, ready to rush in when the upgrade finishes. hope this helps!
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Just like in BW when a factory opening could mean a lot of things, I just sacrifice a slowverlord into the main at a certain time to see what's up. A lot of maps are kinda big and you might not see everything, but you'll always get some valuable info like how many marines he has at the very least. I do this when terran is being sneaky and putting one marine at his wall like you mentioned. I almost always do a very greedy roach FE and if I see a fast factory I drone less and lair faster. Otherwise I just continue as normal and drone while saving some larva in case of some timing attack etc.
+ Show Spoiler +disclaimer: I'm only rank 19 in plat atm with not an immense amount of games under my belt.
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zvt is imba yes, z >>>>>>>> t lol
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EPT
