On April 09 2010 13:51 durron wrote: Zerg cant be aggressive because early game armies (6 pool cheese asside) destroy lings. By the time roaches is out they are hard countered by Mauraders and Immortals. To say nothing of wall offs.
Game 1 of ...
Granted that video is from before Patch 8, BUT TLO used Roaches and Zerglings, so the reduced armor has not the big impact you might want to give it. Also Nazgul never got an Immortal out ... only Zealots and Stalkers and TLO put a ton of pressure on.
On April 09 2010 13:51 durron wrote:Ok well thats fine, so we macro up... but wait. Our mid game army also gets demolished. Splash from storm/tank/colossi rapes our armies.
Well who said that you have to be able to beat them "head on"? Use tricks and harrass to pull his strings and attack somewhere else and kill a base.
Zerg have the unique ability to cover the whole map with creep tumors and get total detection ... like ultimate Xel'Naga towers. All this takes is a little micro/macro. With this ability you can also deny expansions to non-Zerg players and even "invade" their bases. So you should know exactly where your opponent is and be able to strike where he is not. The goal of the game isnt to beat his army, but rather to destroy his base. Sadly Zerg players havent gotten around to the concept of harrassing and are stuck in their "grab a Horde and A-move" and are totally discounting sneakiness (drops, harrass, Infestors).
On April 09 2010 13:51 durron wrote:Ok so our awesome unitproduction makes up for it... except with reactors/warp in our production isnt even THAT much of an advantage. Heck it is almost a bit of a disadvantage being you have to split army/workers/supply up between them.
Errr ... you have the cheapest Expo, a queen to spew extra larva and you are complaining about it? Look at it like this: - You can only build as much as you can afford and P and T have to spend LOTS of resources early on on production buildings. - You need seven barracks, factories, ... to be able to produce with the same speed as you, and you have three types of buildings. If you want to go mass air you just need a Spire and then pump Mutas from every Larva you can afford. Terran and Protoss would have to build SEVEN buildings per hatchery to have the same potential.
On April 09 2010 13:51 durron wrote:And then on top of this Zerg is the MOST susceptible to cheese like Banshee and Void Ray harass.
You actually consider this cheese? Just because you are unwilling to invest in defense (and scouting)? Investing into an AA turret or two should be mandatory, since DTs and cloaked Ghosts with Nukes can ruin your day.
On April 09 2010 13:51 durron wrote:Zerg cant win early, cant win late. Where is the bunker busting "Dark swarm"m type ability.
- Brood Lords? - You dont need to kill a bunker / turtled Terran with Tanks in the middle of the map, just go around it with Nydus. - Banelings do extra damage against buildings? Isnt a bunker a statement of self-containment? You dont NEED to bust in right then, but rather triple expand and crush him with really huge numbers 5-10 minutes later? If you absolutely must break the bunker right there and then THIS is for you.
On April 09 2010 13:51 durron wrote:As people get better at this game and are able to deny zerg harrass... what is zerg left with?
I am no pro. I still forget spawm larvae. But I can see what is infront of me. Every other race can sit in their base and make a well rounded army that will counter whatever zerg makes. Meanwhile Zerg , trying the same thing, will be demolished.
What kind of harrass are you using? There are so many tricks up the sleeves of Zerg that I doubt people can protect against them all.
Zerg is left with the same thing the others have: their imagination! Zerg usually get Infestors LAST for their army, but that unit requires energy to be effective and energy requires time. Also it might not be a good idea to have the Infestor in the main bunch of your army, but rather attack from a different angle. Many players are still forgetting their detectors and Infestors can move while burrowed (as Roaches can). Dont whine about Reapers if you dont use moving burrowed Roaches to harrass yourself. You only need 3-4 Roaches to kill a lot of workers. Dont whine about massed MMM if you dont use Fungal Growth on them to split them up, deal damage, let their Stim Pack run out and reduce the energy of the Medivacs. Dont whine about Immortals if you dont use Infestors to Mind Control them. Dont whine about air attacks if you dont build defenses against that. Think creatively and never ever discard a unit of your army as useless!
Zerg just won the latest ICCUP tourney tonight. Zerg are also dominating the latest (post-patch) round of tournaments in Korea (see the replay thread).
Guess the rest of the zerg should watch those replays and take notes.
On April 09 2010 14:15 Ryuu314 wrote: Zerg has the easiest time expanding. Why? Because for one their hatcheries only cost 300 while CCs and Nexuses cost 400. This means you can expand earlier and more often. In addition, the ease at which Zerg can mass armies means that you can get an army to defend your expos quickly and easily.
Kind of off here. 300 for the hatch plus 50 for the drone sacrifice. Each main building has it's advantages. CC lift and can be repaired. Nexus comes with its macro mechanic free of charge. And hatch is cheaper but you have to spend 2 food and 150 minerals for your macro mechanic.
Rabiator great job on giving a thorough and thoughtful answer i hate it when ppl just dismiss ppl and insult them when they're frustrated instead of doing what you did. I'm a noob and I've learned that it's hard to get real help like yours without the bm storm!
On April 09 2010 16:13 Reborn8u wrote: Rabiator great job on giving a thorough and thoughtful answer i hate it when ppl just dismiss ppl and insult them when they're frustrated instead of doing what you did. I'm a noob and I've learned that it's hard to get real help like yours without the bm storm!
There definately is some truth behind that. Tough, as we say in Germany (translated) "A taste of your own medicine" is given here.
This is a beta game and most people tend to discuss balance issues since we are all more or less new to this game. However high level players or players who claim deeper insight in the game mechanics (which excludes me of course) might feel insulted by posts like "zerg cant win" or "there is no possibility to do XYZ" - since it is way to early to say what is possible and what not. Plus it might cause a wave (remember, we are all newbies in this game) of those who feel "difficulties" through their leak of insight which leads to a huge balance issue on a higher level.
So if you ask for advice:
post a replay ask what (from your point of view) doesn't work for YOU and WHY ask what you might did wrong
But stop blaming it on all on balance, there are things left that have to be discussed but we have become a lot further towards balance by new so we have to be careful!
You underestimate the power of Zerg production capability WAY too much. The larva mechanic allows you to create any army composition near-instantaneously. The only thing preventing that from being totally broken in BW was the rate at which larva spawned. That limit is now somewhat removed with the Queen macro mechanic. Hence the bit about Zerg having the most imba macro mechanic. Like I said earlier, Zerg needs to be the aggressor. Mass mutas and force the Protoss to get Stalkers. Now switch to mass cracklings and laugh as those Stalkers melt to the claws of your lings. He got Colossi? Okay, make a crapton of Corruptors and enjoy killing expensive shit that can't even hit back. He got more stalkers again? Okay morph your Corruptors into Brood Lords, the strongest "ultimate" unit in the game and just roflstomp your opponent.
Ridiculous.
See more hydras with only 1 or 2 roaches? warp in more zealots from the proxy pylon. See mutas? warp in more stalkers from the warp prism or if you have the gas, sentries. Just heard the nydus? warp in units at your base. Warpgates allows protoss to fine tune army composition any time, anywhere. Most of the protoss army is from gateway anyways. How often do you find yourself in the situation where you need to mass off of more than 2 robos or 2 stargates?
See protoss has went more zealots and you need a thicker roach line? better start prepping those eggs.
Hatcheries cannot compete with warpgates in terms of flexibility.
How good a race's macro mechanic is has nothing to do with how the race is overall. One of the macro mechanics has to be better than the others, and when they saw that zerg's was the strongest, they balanced the rest of the race accordingly.
You underestimate the power of Zerg production capability WAY too much. The larva mechanic allows you to create any army composition near-instantaneously. The only thing preventing that from being totally broken in BW was the rate at which larva spawned. That limit is now somewhat removed with the Queen macro mechanic. Hence the bit about Zerg having the most imba macro mechanic. Like I said earlier, Zerg needs to be the aggressor. Mass mutas and force the Protoss to get Stalkers. Now switch to mass cracklings and laugh as those Stalkers melt to the claws of your lings. He got Colossi? Okay, make a crapton of Corruptors and enjoy killing expensive shit that can't even hit back. He got more stalkers again? Okay morph your Corruptors into Brood Lords, the strongest "ultimate" unit in the game and just roflstomp your opponent.
Ridiculous.
See more hydras with only 1 or 2 roaches? warp in more zealots from the proxy pylon. See mutas? warp in more stalkers from the warp prism or if you have the gas, sentries. Just heard the nydus? warp in units at your base. Warpgates allows protoss to fine tune army composition any time, anywhere. Most of the protoss army is from gateway anyways. How often do you find yourself in the situation where you need to mass off of more than 2 robos or 2 stargates?
See protoss has went more zealots and you need a thicker roach line? better start prepping those eggs.
Hatcheries cannot compete with warpgates in terms of flexibility.
Protoss can be very flexible in terms of unit composition to counter the enemy army. You're absolutely correct. However, what they can't do is completely switch their tech on its head. Keep in mind that the only units that they can warp in are gateway units. At the moment, the key to most PvZ lies in the Robo Bay units, which can't be warped in. When storm was more viable Protoss had an easier time switch army composition on the fly to adjust, but now it's much harder to do that.
Also, a common situation where I'm put into is when a Zerg threatens mass mutas and I have to start massing up stalkers as soon as I see the spire go up, often before the first muta pops because once the spawn larva mechanic kicks in it is extremely hard to keep up my production to rival that of Zerg's. Being able to switch from stalkers to zealots on the fly is not that helpful when you can't even keep up with Zerg's production.
See more hydras with only 1 or 2 roaches? warp in more zealots from the proxy pylon. See mutas? warp in more stalkers from the warp prism or if you have the gas, sentries. Just heard the nydus? warp in units at your base. Warpgates allows protoss to fine tune army composition any time, anywhere. Most of the protoss army is from gateway anyways. How often do you find yourself in the situation where you need to mass off of more than 2 robos or 2 stargates?
See protoss has went more zealots and you need a thicker roach line? better start prepping those eggs.
Hatcheries cannot compete with warpgates in terms of flexibility
If you look at the cost and the amount of buildings toss needs to tech and macro I think you'll see it's a little more balanced than that suggests. Also many ppl are finding mutas useful to harass toss and it pretty much keeps them warping in at home. I agree hatcheries cant compete in flexibility but the amount of units you can produce and the cost of those units combined with the rate you can expo can be a real nightmare for toss, especially since they nerfed storm to the point where ppl arnt even bothering with templars.
Admittidley, one thing that annoys me about zerg is how a sunken can A) Outrange a bunker and B) how they're so powerful. Anything else I have trouble against really is just me failing, but playing someone who expands everywhere super fast and sunkens alot while getting mutas makes being aggressive so hard, especially since turrets cost so much now and die so quickly.
I think zerg are perfectly fine, lots of things you can do to break defense and if you can't, just mass expand everywhere since you'll generally not be able to be pushed on by the time you've expanded enough.
You should never think of TvZ as cost to cost fight, as well as ZvP. Zerg always lose more units/food/money.
As Nony aka Liquid'Tyler stated the problem is the map. Zerg is supposed to outmacro other race and establish constant refill of army. But current maps are very small and games are wc3-like which doesn't allow zergs to play good old SCBW zerg.
Previously in sc1 maps were so big that if terran leaves his base he couldn't make it back on time. Now that terrans are very mobile + medivacs and short distance they can easily take out zerg expansions and go back to their base quickly.
On April 09 2010 17:17 Qikz wrote: Admittidley, one thing that annoys me about zerg is how a sunken can A) Outrange a bunker and B) how they're so powerful. Anything else I have trouble against really is just me failing, but playing someone who expands everywhere super fast and sunkens alot while getting mutas makes being aggressive so hard, especially since turrets cost so much now and die so quickly.
I think zerg are perfectly fine, lots of things you can do to break defense and if you can't, just mass expand everywhere since you'll generally not be able to be pushed on by the time you've expanded enough.
What stops you from running him over with marauders in this situation? Marauders eat any structure for lunch, including spine crawlers. Just gotta make sure you have a thor or some marines by the time the mutas show up. The new turrets are very effective at killing mutas.
What buildings would need to be switched to? 2 starports when you went robo to add a little phoenix oomph to stalkers? that's 300/300 which is fairly comparable to 200/200 for a spire. If you throw in lair/cyber core, it's even cheaper for protoss.
You should already have a robo for obs if nothing. You guys are already voiding templars which is effective against everything. DTs counter nothing specifically. Citadel is more of an upgrade building for again, gateway units that you can already build which is even cheaper to reach than it is to reach hydra den.
How is warping in gateway units on the fly and instead of queuing up immortals, you queue up colossus turning your tech on its head? You can really afford to mass colossi out of 2 robos early?
Have you played zerg extensively at all? I've played protoss for a while in the beginning and then I played zerg for a while, and now I've been randoming a lot. Protoss feels far more flexible and versatile than zerg. There just haven't been that many memorable PvZs where I lost to "surprise! mutas!". Ling or roach all ins, yes, but same can be said about proxy gates. Also, early game, chrono boost/protoss econ is way better than inject larvae which doesn't even come into play until the first queen.
Honestly, whenever a huge whine post like this appeared in BroodWar era, where everything seems hopeless and whatever you do you lose - it was just shit macro.
taking over the whole map / power macroing / outproducing is one style for zerg. but the nydus worm and drops give them another style, too. I wish zerg had lurkers still, though.
On April 09 2010 13:51 durron wrote: Zerg cant win early, cant win late. Where is the bunker busting "Dark swarm"m type ability.
As people get better at this game and are able to deny zerg harrass... what is zerg left with?
I am no pro. I still forget spawm larvae. But I can see what is infront of me. Every other race can sit in their base and make a well rounded army that will counter whatever zerg makes. Meanwhile Zerg , trying the same thing, will be demolished.
Why is it you think that 6 out of 8 in the finalists of the Korean PlayXP tournament are Zerg? You think it is because they are too weak? Hardly, at high level play they are still too strong.
Obviously they manage extremely well, you don't. Hence if anything is broken its you, not the race.
On April 09 2010 16:50 GoDannY wrote: This is a beta game and most people tend to discuss balance issues since we are all more or less new to this game. However high level players or players who claim deeper insight in the game mechanics (which excludes me of course) might feel insulted by posts like "zerg cant win" or "there is no possibility to do XYZ" - since it is way to early to say what is possible and what not. Plus it might cause a wave (remember, we are all newbies in this game) of those who feel "difficulties" through their leak of insight which leads to a huge balance issue on a higher level.
Especially because this is a beta there is no point in calling out "X cant win anymore". You have to expect changes to the balance and be ready to learn to play again from scratch. Too many people are stuck in their "I must win to get to Rank 1 Plat league"-mentality while forgetting the true purpose of the Beta: learning how to use every unit a race has and trying every trick it can do. I know I will be pretty annoyed WITH MYSELF when I play a 1v1 and face a Zerg who has Medivacs floating over his Roaches and sieged Tanks behind them (I plan on playing Terran myself).
Sure some changes will change the game to look different from what you expect, but no one said you have to be able to win with spending the same amount of resources and then going for an open head-on confrontation. At this point it the expectation of the player and his inability to adapt to changes which lets him lose more often than the actual changes.
Sometimes outmacroing is the only way you can defeat a turtle who is teching hardcore and Zerg with their spew-larva ability and relatively cheap Hatcheries (350 minerals is less than 400 for Terran / Protoss) have the easiest way to expand and outmacro. If you dont like macroing thats not an imbalance of the game but rather your own fault.
From my Starcraft 1 experience I know I never learned to use a High Templar properly, but since I acknowledge this mistake now I hope to do better in SC2. If you find your own blind spots it might actually help you evolve into a better player.
On April 09 2010 16:05 Geo.Rion wrote: yeah, i agree with you on many points The only viable option is to force the opponent to make mistakes, with faking tech or mutaharass and exp a whole lot, and pull out a roach army. Rushing to ultras is not viable, mas muta cannot win, hydras are useless, lings/blings cannot break a well rounded army, so Zergs are left to mass that nerfed-insect, roach. Pre-patch when Hydras werent useless it was different, you could fight on even-ish terms mid-game. Patch 8 totally screwed up the game in my opinion. Seriously 80 hp Tier 2 unit? are you serious Blizzard?
If by even terms mid-game you mean that zerg would totally rape any kind of protoss combo with pure roach/hydra (given that the toss didn't manage to do any serious damage with timed pushes/void rays/etc), then yes, it was totally even terms.
Really it's just been whine whine whine whine ever since beta first came out. Just go with the patches and find more clever ways to play. That's why it's a beta. Everyone wants to just build a bunch of crap and steamroll, then they think it's balanced. Well you can't. Deal with it, or change races.
Also I like how templars are considered "effective against everything" when they really suck hugely vs most of everything. There's little damage dealt over too long of a time span on a very small radius. I'd take Fungal Growth over storm ANYDAY.
EPT
