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Judging at some of the posts I've recently read on TL, it seems that people are slowly starting to figure out that late game SC2 Zerg has no counter.
If you checked my post historic, you would realize that I was among the numerous ones who foresee this problem. But as soon as the beta came in, people were too eager to play the damn game (and test all the infamous builds they had though at) to keep the theoretical discussions alive.
This of course may have been the right thing to do at the time, but now that the basic timings and strategies are slowly being figured out, I guess we could once again look at the big picture.
The Zerg macro issue lies in 2 things:
- Because the Zerg produced all their units out of 1 building, they can tech switch instantly. This ability used to be one of the Swarm's main characteristics in SC1, but as SC2 introduced the hard counter system, it is now far more deadly.
- The Larva injection mechanism. The real problem I guess. The combination of the Zerg tech-switch with the unrealistic amount of units that can be poured out of 3-4 hatcheries.
In BW, there usually were a combination of OP spells/units/characteristics which balanced themselves. For instance, darkswarm + lurkers/lings usually was the only way to pass through a line of mm while, on the other hand, irradiate(/siege tanks) enabled Terrans to kill a lot of Zerg units for free thus keep up with their macro.
[ ![[image loading]](http://www.gosugamers.net/starcraft/images/screens/TruevMajor3.jpg)
Any Terran losing carelessly too many science vessels and tanks would usually get swarmed in the 5 next minutes.
As for the Protoss, it was pretty much the same thing, except with HT and storm. In other words, any Protoss losing his HT carelessly was usually overwhelmed in the next 5 minutes as well.
What changed with SC2 is that, while Zerg macro got even better and scarier, the possibility for the other races to counter this inherent strength almost vanished.
Storm, HSM, siege tanks.. are nothing compared to what they were in SC1. + Show Spoiler +Colossi don't replace HT in SC2, as the Zerg now have the corrupter which seems to have been specifically designed to focus and destroy them, thus not allowing them to survive as long as the HT in SC1.
In fact, and more interistingly, they were as good at the beginning of the BETA but got all nerfed as soon as some players complained about them.
This is why Protoss and Terran now have to rely on quick timing pushes, unscouted harass... all of which have also been nerfed by Blizzard.
The issue is that while all these nerfs were done, the Zerg macro, which is the real and profund reason behind all these all-in types of play, has been left untouched.
All this leads us to 4 possible scenario:
1). Blizzard is methodic. They are first balancing the early game, before changing out the late game.
2). Blizzard believes that if the T and P have a 50% chance of beating Zerg before late game, the game is balanced. From a pure statistical point of view this is not wrong, however I guess that a lot of ex starcraft 1 players would feel outraged by such an idea. It is clear that the best and most memorable Starcraft 1 games are usually the longest ones.
3). Blizzard thinks that the expansions might balance things out so evening out the players race distribution is currently as much if not more important than achieving perfect balance.
I know they denied this, but just because one company responsible denied it doesn't mean that it's not in the head of a large part of their design and balance teams.
4). Blizzard is incompetent balance-wise. This idea might sounds harsch but as an ex-War3 player who listened with attention every single one of their declarations on balance, I don't think we can conclude that there's no way this couldn't be true to a certain degree.
Post your thoughts on this.
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thanks for the info... I think would zerg lacks late game are units that do area of damage sorta of things like fungal growth. fungal growth is good but not sufficient when huge armies in late game start coming at you. like youve stated, in BW there were lurkers and dark swarm, lurkers for their area of damage (splash). i think alot of this comes into play in FFAs where everyone turtles and techs to the highest and attacking at supply cap. obviously, the toss with the mothership/ colossus wins. or the terran with mass thors/seige tanks. Why do they win? splash damage. just my two cents. oh i forgot, ultras. but lets be realistic, they are not cost efficient as colossus with lance upgrade assuming the armies fighting are at same costs.
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So Zerg is allways a favorit in the late game, i didnt know that .....
From now on im just gona go for early roaches, make tons of spinecrawler and just 1 base my way to the late game, or in a other word, victory.
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totally agree with you, i was saying this even in early beta inject larvae and unlimited larvaes at hatchery are retarded and should be tweaked
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Zerg has always been the best race to be honest, and now that every single early game harass is taken out of the game they absolutely take no skill at all. I just think Blizzard is incompetent at balancing, and before SC2 WAR3 and WOW were a good example of it.
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On October 20 2010 21:47 Grack wrote:
totally agree with you, i was saying this even in early beta inject larva and unlimited larvaes at hatchery are retarded and should be tweaked
it's limited to 19.
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Larvae
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Yes, if you turtle in your base and just sit there and let a zerg macro uninterrupted and don't snipe expos / utilize your early and mid game advantage. OF COURSE you are going to get rolled in the late game.
This is not because the zerg late game units are too strong, or because zerg's macro mechanic is unfair. It is because you did not implement a strategy designed to counter the strengths of the zerg race. After all, this is what Starcraft is all about. If you play right into the hands of the strengths of your opponents race, of course you will lose. Try harassing and sniping expansions and generally forcing confrontation earlier in the game, when your army is stronger than the zerg's army. etc.
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That's just the way it is. Zerg has always been weaker at the start, stronger in the late game. That's why people always try to rush strong Zerg opponents, because they know they will be in trouble late game. Look at the MLG, Huk cannon rushed Idra twice!
Also, the larva thing is a double edged sword. When a zerg player has enough drones, their unit production is off the charts. But when they lose tons of drones, it directly affects their ability to produce units. I think it's fantastic mechanic, and it makes zerg so much different from the other two races (T and P are relatively similar).
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Russian Federation145 Posts
TvZ is almost balanced. Terran has a fair chance at beating ultralisks with thor marauder. The problem is that zerg takes map control with speedlings, takes map control with roaches, takes map control with mutalisks and terran can't divide his army and use terran mobility as an advantage because mutalisks will clean up any medics and get an instant surround on creep on any split up armies. Zergs also have vision of the whole map due to floating overlords - can't build vikings to destroy them because mutalisks will break them.
PvZ is a whole different story. Protoss really struggles against zerg in the late game and really struggles with taking any sort of expansions against 4 range roaches.
TvP has the problem you described. Terran just can't win against colossus ht, or carrier mothership. Nerf. Nerf. Nerf.
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Can't protoss keep up with zerg macro? The ability to spawn units "up front" instead of through production queue means tech switches are less powerful against them. I am not a protoss player though.
For the time being I agree terran is at a disadvantage in the longer macro games, but I believe it's just a matter of getting used to. So far terran has been way too focused on the early game, maybe we will see some sick map control techniques developing.
In the mean time I'm playing zerg 
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um. high templar are just as capable of surviving to fight another day. ravens don't fulfil the same roles in the terran army- sci vessels were assassins, ravens are more like defilers in effect- buffing/debuffing/supporting an army.
I think half the problem is toss- even super high level toss- are being idiots with their HT's, getting like one storm off with each and then losing them needlessly. It continually makes me weep to watch GSL and MLG matches were super high level toss lose three or four temps with every engagement. If they even saved half of them they'd end up with ten or twelve temps- at which point your pretty much autowin in the current metagame.
There's no reason why the old standbys of a speed shuttle picking up depleted templar and ferrying them to saftey once they've expended their energy, or just storming then immediately rallying back to your base can't work.
Terran has perhaps more of an issue, against zerg at least, since ghosts are the real 'sci vessel' equivalent with snipe. again, very mobile units that can be medivaced out or stealthed to live to fight another day. A critical mass of ghosts is almost impossible to break, they're tough, versatile and shut down just about every composition zerg has. The problem is terrans never let their count hit more than 5, they just throw down a couple of snipes or an EMP and then lose them.
When BW esque caster micro evolves in SC2, we'll see a lot more of the dynamics you're suggesting
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On October 20 2010 21:53 TheDrill wrote:
TvZ is almost balanced. Terran has a fair chance at beating ultralisks with thor marauder. The problem is that zerg takes map control with speedlings, takes map control with roaches, takes map control with mutalisks and terran can't divide his army and use terran mobility as an advantage because mutalisks will clean up any medics and get an instant surround on creep on any split up armies. Zergs also have vision of the whole map due to floating overlords - can't build vikings to destroy them because mutalisks will break them.
wait how is this balanced ???
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Zerg macro got better in SC2, but so did Terran and Protoss. Your 4 "blizzard scenarios" have little to no support arguement. How can you guys take this thread seriously when the op says "Blizzard is incompetent balance-wise"?... This is another terran qq thread. nothing more.
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On October 20 2010 21:44 Neverever wrote:
So Zerg is allways a favorit in the late game, i didnt know that .....
From now on im just gona go for early roaches, make tons of spinecrawler and just 1 base my way to the late game, or in a other word, victory.
Is your post supposed to be idiotic? It's not about how easy it is to get to the late game. It's about the fact that once you do get into the late game with you know, a proper amount of bases (ie. 3) you will likely win. And the point is that if Blizzard keeps nerfing the early game without regard to the late game there will be trouble.
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lategame zerg is actually much weaker than Toss, unless you don't get out a huge number of Ultras or Mutas, which is very difficult to do.
Terran's strategies always relied on applying heavy pressure to the Zerg early on and therefore in some way negating the Zergs Lategame Macro-power and now that this is much harder to achieve very early on, Terran seems to struggle a lot in the Lategame.
I don't just wanna say "Terran just needs to play differently" etc. but the patch really isn't out for for such a long time and Terran seems to be playing very similar to before the patch, not really abusing Terran's Macro- and Lategame and really not using all of the Units in Terrans arsenal, like the Raven, Ghost etc.
If Terran start turtelling a lot and expand with Tanks, PF's, Turrets, Thor's etc. Instead of moving out and getting raped by Speedling+Baneling+Mutas or early Roach-Pressure or by trying to do some gimmicky Banshee or 1-base/early harrass-based play and instead try to move their early-game harrass a bit into the midgame with Drops, they could do much better IMHO.
I mean: After such a big patch, you can't expect to do exactly the same thing and still be successful with it.
I've personally seen/played lots of games where the Terran almost could keep up with the Zergs expansions in the Lategame, just by abusing PF's and strong Terran defense instead of trying to push out, so I think it's definitely possible to beat Zerg in the Lategame as Terran, just push out with a very strong Mech-army and keep Zerg's Expansion/drone-count under control with Drops.
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This thread is interesting but there is no evidence in what OP said.
I've seen top level players playing ZvT macro games and does not seem like zerg late game is OP.
On October 20 2010 21:50 iG.ClouD wrote:
Zerg has always been the best race to be honest, and now that every single early game harass is taken out of the game they absolutely take no skill at all. I just think Blizzard is incompetent at balancing, and before SC2 WAR3 and WOW were a good example of it.
So much nonsense here. What the hell you just said, did you even read what you write?
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I don't want to detract from the point you're trying to make, but I think that, for T players at least, early bio aggression would help shut down the dominance of late-game Z macro. However, the reason you don't see more of this is the lack of any real T counter to the baneling. In a game full of hard counters, the baneling simply demolishes any sort of bio play from T even without fungal growth, and there isn't any unit that you can incorporate into a bio army to hard-counter the banelings. Tanks just won't get off enough shots to do the job (cost for cost), and no good Z will a-move his banelings into your Thors when he can move-command them into your bio before attacking.
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Its not imba, zerg lategame only becomes unstoppable if you let them play passively and drone to their hearts desire, the solution is to force them to make units by pressuring often.
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I think Zerg lacks counters to P and T end game. Stopping a 200/200 push from P and T is hard and there are few maps where you have time to first lose an army and then rebuild it in time to mobilize.
I think you are as wrong as can be.
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I dont see how a critical mass of ghosts would be strong vs zerg. Well yea maybe you could kill some mutalisks or snipe 12 times an ultralisk to kill it but what are you gonna do vs the 40 zerglings and 20 banelings?
Oh right you have bonus to light but ghosts fire too slow (shitty dps for cost) and you will be overwhelmed because you'll have a small army (a ghost is more expensive than a tank)
I guess a buff to the seeker missile range, the raven's speed or to the seeker splash would be very helpful, that way we could control zerg army more easily
Buff the unit that kills units for free
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Try to beat a 200/200 protoss army as Zerg.
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Deleted, misread the OPs post.
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You could make exactly the same argument in SC1. Zerg late game raped Protoss late game, and depending on the styles of play it could go either way in ZvT (terran commits to mech they have better late game, they commit to bio and they have a weaker late game)
Zerg has by far the weakest maxed army in SC2, especially considering how they have to have 20 drones more than terran to make up for mules and how incredibly strong a maxed Protoss army can be with the correct composition.
It's too early to comment really, there has been no real evidence to support your arguments yet. Just seems that you aren't trying to play a management game since before the patch you could just make an army of whatever composition you wanted and attack.
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[B]
2). Blizzard believes that if the T and P have a 50% chance of beating Zerg before late game, the game is balanced. From a pure statistical point of view this is not wrong, however I guess that a lot of ex starcraft 1 players would feel outraged by such an idea. It is clear that the best and most memorable Starcraft 1 games are usually the longest ones.
Nice well thought out post. I'm not sure I agree with you that Zerg late game is superior to the other two races. While it's true that you can replace an army quicker, unless you've upgraded significantly and/or have hive tech units, your army can get crushed by a maxed army of either other race.
It also seems like P and T can macro Max armies off of 2 bases easier than Zerg can.
But I'm a Zerg player, so maybe I'm just getting defensive
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Given how silly some of the maps are, I don't think people know who has the best 200/200 army.
You would think Terran but I don't see it right now.
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The Zerg needs 5 Bases not 3 in Late game, terran and P are Ok with 3
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The main problem is how the Zerg can suicide their entire army then near instantly rebuild it with multiple hatcheries + inject.
I've watched it many times in professional matches, there will be a huge battle between a terran and zerg army, both armies nearly being completely wiped out. Within the next minute Zerg will be up to full strength and the Terran will be left with scraps.
Game over.
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On October 20 2010 22:02 kickinhead wrote:I've personally seen/played lots of games where the Terran almost could keep up with the Zergs expansions in the Lategame, just by abusing PF's and strong Terran defense instead of trying to push out, so I think it's definitely possible to beat Zerg in the Lategame as Terran, just push out with a very strong Mech-army and keep Zerg's Expansion/drone-count under control with Drops.
This doesn't work as well as you would think for these reasons:
1. You can't just snap your fingers and have a PF and turrets appear somewhere. You have to build the CC, move it to the expo, and then build turrets/PF there. IF you don't have an army in position to defend the expo as the PF/turrets go up, there's nothing stopping a group of lings/mutas from simply shutting you down. But that means your army is moving away from your nat, so you're either splitting your forces up (vulnerable to attack) or you're leaving your main undefended against a Nydus/OL drop or your nat undefended from a zergling attack.
2. A 200/200 mech army is very, very beatable. Enough zerglings and ultras will simply demolish a mech army, especially if you use OLs to drop ultras on top of the mech, or if you're able to get any sort of flank. Worst case scenario if you engage properly, you'll end up trading armies, which always benefits Z. If you just a-move in there, yeah, you might be in trouble... but you should have almost complete vision of the map from OLs and Creep, so you're going to know exactly where his army is at all times and you'll be able to dictate the terms of the engagement.
3. Drops are just not going to work. You can't take air superiority from Z, and a good Z will have the map blanketed with OLs, so he's going to see you coming. Mutalisks aren't doing their job if they're not shutting down your drops and keeping you penned in your base with relative ease. Even if you do lose some drones to a drop, there's nothing stopping you from cranking them out easily and grabbing another expo.
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I am very confused. I am a low diamond player so I am not the one to comment on balance paticularly but...
I remember threads about how bad the new zerg macro is broken cause inject larva is so hard to do when u r multitasking in midgame so that you might forget doing it. And how cost inefficient zerg units were and that in a 200/200 clash zerg would not be able to win.
Now zerg macro is completely imba?
And then people compare things to BW again... I see the OPs point, but the 3 months since release have taught me one thing: The game is still changing and evolving very quickly. Starting to condamn stuff is at this early point in time is not appropriate.
Zergs have been complaining about so many things. And then Fruitdealer comes along and wins the GSL. BAM! (okay after first reaper nerf, but ppl were still complaining), I don't say this is proof that something is balanced or not. But it changed my view on these issues. I learned that one should be really careful when talking about balance or potentially broken mechanics.
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blizzard worked only on balancing early/mid game but now when they nerfed most of all in pushes people started to notice how many issues is in late game (its not only zerg, look on tvp too)
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On October 20 2010 22:11 Burban wrote:
I dont see how a critical mass of ghosts would be strong vs zerg. Well yea maybe you could kill some mutalisks or snipe 12 times an ultralisk to kill it but what are you gonna do vs the 40 zerglings and 20 banelings?
Oh right you have bonus to light but ghosts fire too slow (shitty dps for cost) and you will be overwhelmed because you'll have a small army (a ghost is more expensive than a tank)
I guess a buff to the seeker missile range, the raven's speed or to the seeker splash would be very helpful, that way we could control zerg army more easily
Buff the unit that kills units for free
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The biggest problem with HSM (well, in TvZ... in the other matchups feedback and short range are worse) is the 125 energy requirement. I've tried Raven/marine builds, and aside from the obvious problem with baneling/muta, the amount of time it takes you to get a decent number of ravens with HSM and 125+ energy makes it a pure gimmick strat.
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On October 20 2010 21:31 TeWy wrote:
Because the Zerg produced all their units out of 1 building, they can tech switch instantly. This ability used to be one of the Swarm's main characteristics in SC1, but as SC2 introduced the hard counter system, it is now far more deadly.
SC2 does not have a hard counter system. It has the exact same system as BW. If you think SC2 has anything remotely comparable to, say, AOE2's spearman vs mounted, skirmisher vs archer etc, you have lost your mind.
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You may be right, but a late-game Terran or Protoss army can easily decimate a late-game Zerg one. If you prevent zerg from replenishing, they're going to lose every 200/200 push.
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On October 20 2010 22:28 hmunkey wrote:
You may be right, but a late-game Terran or Protoss army can easily decimate a late-game Zerg one. If you prevent zerg from replenishing, they're going to lose every 200/200 push.
Again, this WAS true until Z players started using OLs to drop Ultras on top of mech armies. Now a 200/200 mech army is definitely beatable with proper micro... and beating that 200/200 mech army pretty much ends the game then and there.
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On October 20 2010 22:26 Grack wrote:
blizzard worked only on balancing early/mid game but now when they nerfed most of all in pushes people started to notice how many issues is in late game (its not only zerg, look on tvp too)
"Nerfed all in pushes"?
Explain how did they nerf them? You mean by nerfing proxy rax and reaper? The most noticable nerf for terran was medivac nerf but this has nothing to do with all ins.
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On October 20 2010 22:30 PanzerKing wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2010 22:28 hmunkey wrote:
You may be right, but a late-game Terran or Protoss army can easily decimate a late-game Zerg one. If you prevent zerg from replenishing, they're going to lose every 200/200 push. Again, this WAS true until Z players started using OLs to drop Ultras on top of mech armies. Now a 200/200 mech army is definitely beatable with proper micro... and beating that 200/200 mech army pretty much ends the game then and there.
Too early to say, Terrans aren't used to playing in the lategame (TvZ) without a huge advantage. Give them some time to adjust before judging such things.
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its not hard to stay even in the macro game on less bases (in the case of T a gold makes up for 2 Z bases easily). Z has a smaller army from many drones and cant not fight upgraded lategame combos in a cost effective way since the ultra nerf. and the quick repump mostly just balances out the vastly better T/P lategame armies to clean up the leftovers from fights and only when maxed. since no matter how much larva you have you still need the ressources to do stuff with em. its not like a Z will always have 5k/5k banked to instantly rebuild 15 ultras after a fight and if you manage to take down a expo due to good positioning/with leftover stuff from the fight the Z can crumble very fast since all that larva will do nothing if the Z isnt heavily ahead on income.
so i do think people are overreacting here alot.
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On October 20 2010 22:32 Yaotzin wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2010 22:30 PanzerKing wrote:On October 20 2010 22:28 hmunkey wrote:
You may be right, but a late-game Terran or Protoss army can easily decimate a late-game Zerg one. If you prevent zerg from replenishing, they're going to lose every 200/200 push. Again, this WAS true until Z players started using OLs to drop Ultras on top of mech armies. Now a 200/200 mech army is definitely beatable with proper micro... and beating that 200/200 mech army pretty much ends the game then and there. Too early to say, Terrans aren't used to playing in the lategame (TvZ) without a huge advantage. Give them some time to adjust before judging such things.
No, it's definitely possible to destroy a 200/200 mech army with ultra drops. There are a ton of replays where Z players do this easily. It's not something you can "adjust to", period. You either waste supply on vikings and cripple your ground strength/risk losing to a surround, or you risk losing the army to ultra drops.
Either way, if your 200/200 army dies, you lose. Period. You simply can't rebuild your units quickly enough to be effective against incoming ultras - they'll roll over whatever you can cobble together in the next 30 seconds, then they're eating your nat and lings are rolling into your main. If you could queue up units and have them start building at 200/200 food, then maybe you could hold the incoming push... but as it stands, losing your 200/200 army is game over in TvZ.
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2. A 200/200 mech army is very, very beatable.
No, they really aren't. Watch IdrA vs. Drewbie sometime. IdrA is on like 6 bases to Drewbie's 2 and has teched up to Ultras. Drewbie has a sieged up mech army and is turtling hard to defend his base. IdrA proceeds to send like 800 food worth of units against the mech army in wave after wave...and utterly fails to break the mech army. Its only when he techs to Broodlords that he can do anything about it.
Lategame Toss armies are even more ridiculously powerful, and substantially more mobile than Terran mech.
And Zerg's ability to replenish units so quickly is great and all...but meaningless if you take the fight to their base, because you'll destroy them before they can replace their army.
If a Zerg players lets a Terran or Toss opponent tech up to T3 with full upgrades and push out with a 200/200 army, they are going to get their ass kicked most of the time. Zerg armies just can't win straight up fights in that situation, and the only way they survive is if they can delay the Terran or Toss from reaching their base long enough to crank out several huge armies and throw them at the T or P force.
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Just because terran players lost their ability to easily harass a zerg player now all of a sudden spawn larvae and tech switches are OP? I order to rebuild an army instantly you need the resources to do so and if both of your armies are sitting there a 200/200 and you're gathering resources it might be time to attack the zerg army.
Zerg lategame may be strong but there are ways to keep up with it.
Edit: Also give me an example of a 200/200 zerg army that beats a 200/200 terran army where the terran player doesn't make some sort of huge mistake. I'd like to see this.
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zerg doesnt have superior late game in any way.
its just a natural thing that the zerg does have an advantage if you try to 1base push him but he defends from that push.
if your a terran or protoss player and actually join a game having the idea to win in a macro game and not by a 1base push then you wont have a single disadvantage.
have you ever tried beating a colossus/warpgate ball or a thor/hellion ball or whatever as a zerg? even if you macro much better you will loose as if you were a total noob if you dont have 20 supply more and get a perfect fight position.
but maybe protoss and terran macro mechanics have to be buffed. zerg mechanic is easy to learn, hard to master. if you forget to larva inject for some seconds those seconds are lost. terran or protoss can just spam their mules and chrono boosts if they forget to use them at the right time.
maybe mules should mine a little bit more but have a cooldown so that its actually a disadvantage if you cant macro properly as a terran.
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On October 20 2010 22:37 awesomoecalypse wrote:No, they really aren't. Watch IdrA vs. Drewbie sometime. IdrA is on like 6 bases to Drewbie's 2 and has teched up to Ultras. Drewbie has a sieged up mech army and is turtling hard to defend his base.
Watch Idra vs. Seoyeonji and watch him demolish a T player on 5 bases, using effective Ultra drops and Nydus attacks.
And yeah, I saw that game. It's from a long, long time ago, and well before Z players started using Ultra drops. It has no relevance to what I'm talking about.
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Whenever people say there is no counter to banelings I wonder what they use their hellions for...
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On October 20 2010 22:40 imperator-xy wrote:
zerg doesnt have superior late game in any way.
its just a natural thing that the zerg does have an advantage if you try to 1base push him but he defends from that push.
if your a terran or protoss player and actually join a game having the idea to win in a macro game and not by a 1base push then you wont have a single disadvantage.
If you try to macro against zerg, he will definitely outmacro you. He can produce workers so much faster than you, that's just how zerg works.
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On October 20 2010 22:42 Ozzie wrote:
Whenever people say there is no counter to banelings I wonder what they use their hellions for...
Blings are not light... Use tanks to kill blings.
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On October 20 2010 22:42 Ozzie wrote:
Whenever people say there is no counter to banelings I wonder what they use their hellions for...
Blings do bonus damage to hellions because hellions are light, but not vice versa. Nice demonstration of game knowledge there.
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On October 20 2010 22:42 Ozzie wrote:
Whenever people say there is no counter to banelings I wonder what they use their hellions for...
1. Banelings are not light units. Hellions do very little damage against them.
2. Tanks will not stop banelings from rolling into your army, cost-for-cost. This is doubly true if you're the attacker and you lose some firing time while sieging up.
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It does seem like the cumulative effect of diminished early harassment options, zerg buffs and the changing mindset is making it hard for T and P to secure third bases vs. zerg. You can see this pretty clearly in the GSL thus far.
Its pretty staggering how much better zerg is doing this season than last.
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On October 20 2010 22:42 Kraznaya wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2010 22:40 imperator-xy wrote:
zerg doesnt have superior late game in any way.
its just a natural thing that the zerg does have an advantage if you try to 1base push him but he defends from that push.
if your a terran or protoss player and actually join a game having the idea to win in a macro game and not by a 1base push then you wont have a single disadvantage. If you try to macro against zerg, he will definitely outmacro you. He can produce workers so much faster than you, that's just how zerg works.
if zerg has more workers then his army is much smaller.
if your terran you can turtle and harass using hellions and drops, if your protoss you have to pressure your opponent so that he has to have an army.
zerg only has more workers if he sacrifices his army size.
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The reason for the Psi Storm nerf is cause they became easier to use and harder to dodge. In sc1 they were pretty dam hard to use effectively cause amidst everything else you had to do you had to individually select each templar and storm. But with smart casting its just click click click click = amazing carpet storm. On top of that units in sc2 feel clunkier and slower. So easier to use + harder to dodge means the spell would need a significant nerf or else it would just be ridiculous.
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On October 20 2010 22:40 PanzerKing wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2010 22:37 awesomoecalypse wrote:2. A 200/200 mech army is very, very beatable. No, they really aren't. Watch IdrA vs. Drewbie sometime. IdrA is on like 6 bases to Drewbie's 2 and has teched up to Ultras. Drewbie has a sieged up mech army and is turtling hard to defend his base. Watch Idra vs. Seoyeonji and watch him demolish a T player on 5 bases, using effective Ultra drops and Nydus attacks. And yeah, I saw that game. It's from a long, long time ago, and well before Z players started using Ultra drops. It has no relevance to what I'm talking about.
+ Show Spoiler +
Just watched it. The only place I could find that was even remotely close to what you were talking about is in 30 seconds into that video.
If you're talking about that particular instance then you are mistaken because he was on 4 base with the 4th not mining. Idra was on 6 bases at the time, and while idra was able to take out the expansion the mech army eventually ended up killing the ultras.
Edit: I'm going to stop commenting on this thread now because it's just going to turn into balance argument and I don't want to fuel the fire.
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On October 20 2010 22:51 imperator-xy wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2010 22:42 Kraznaya wrote:On October 20 2010 22:40 imperator-xy wrote:
zerg doesnt have superior late game in any way.
its just a natural thing that the zerg does have an advantage if you try to 1base push him but he defends from that push.
if your a terran or protoss player and actually join a game having the idea to win in a macro game and not by a 1base push then you wont have a single disadvantage. If you try to macro against zerg, he will definitely outmacro you. He can produce workers so much faster than you, that's just how zerg works. if zerg has more workers then his army is much smaller. if your terran you can turtle and harass using hellions and drops, if your protoss you have to pressure your opponent so that he has to have an army. zerg only has more workers if he sacrifices his army size.
No, because the zerg exponential expansion of economy begins a lot earlier than Terran's, now that he can hatch first without being afraid of anything. If Terran conversely 1 rax FEs, zerg can drone up for a ridiculous length of time because terran units are ranged and therefore require critical mass to push out. It's not so simple as "oh well they are both harvesting the same minerals and must make the same choices," the zerg option to purely drone and then purely make units to hold off a timing push is incredibly powerful when done by good players. That's why traditionally terran and protoss units are cost effective against zerg, which isn't even true anymore with banelings being incredibly cost effective against bio terran and roaches with range decimating mech terrans.
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Why always has one race to be imba? Since Terran seems to be fine now, everyone starts going "IMBA ZERG". I mean, lets wait and see what happens, for now its way to early to judge.
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On October 20 2010 23:00 Grummler wrote:
Why always has one race to be imba? Since Terran seems to be fine now, everyone starts going "IMBA ZERG". I mean, lets wait and see what happens, for now its way to early to judge.
Well, whining a lot worked for zergs pre patch 1.12 so its just desserts that it's happening to them in turn.
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On October 20 2010 22:49 Elwar wrote:
It does seem like the cumulative effect of diminished early harassment options, zerg buffs and the changing mindset is making it hard for T and P to secure third bases vs. zerg. You can see this pretty clearly in the GSL thus far.
Its pretty staggering how much better zerg is doing this season than last.
This basicly. If zerg macro is flawless there is no way terran can take 3rd. Even the zerg who won his ZvT (cant remember his name) today said that the supply before rax should be removed. The fact that zerg can do hatch before pool without any risk is just giving them too strong a economic lead in the early game.
Do a 1 rax FE and take your 3rd at the same time Z does it and you will still be behind on econ through the entire game. And yes thats even if you play aggressive.
He only lost to thor drop on LT, terran will only win vs an equally skilled zerg through gimmick play such as the thor drop.
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On October 20 2010 22:26 Grack wrote:
blizzard worked only on balancing early/mid game but now when they nerfed most of all in pushes people started to notice how many issues is in late game (its not only zerg, look on tvp too)
IdrA is that you?
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On October 20 2010 23:02 Armsved wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2010 22:49 Elwar wrote:
It does seem like the cumulative effect of diminished early harassment options, zerg buffs and the changing mindset is making it hard for T and P to secure third bases vs. zerg. You can see this pretty clearly in the GSL thus far.
Its pretty staggering how much better zerg is doing this season than last. This basicly. If zerg macro is flawless there is no way terran can take 3rd. Even the zerg who won his ZvT (cant remember his name) today said that the supply before rax should be removed. The fact that zerg can do hatch before pool without any risk is just giving them too strong a economic lead in the early game. Do a 1 rax FE and take your 3rd at the same time Z does it and you will still be behind on econ through the entire game. And yes thats even if you play aggressive. He only lost to thor drop on LT, terran will only win vs an equally skilled zerg through gimmick play such as the thor drop.
I've actually been trying a 14 CC double FE, one hidden and the other deliberately shown to Z after my first rax, and an 1850 Z was able to beat me with straight-up macro. He had no idea I was on 3 bases, and my bio push lost to pure roaches. Like, literally, nothing but roaches with equal upgrades. It was mildly ridiculous. Granted, I could have macro'd a little better, but once I fell behind on the food count there was just no catching up even with 9-10 raxes going full steam.
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I have been having this problem as well. Now that zerg can quite easily defense 1 or 2 base pushes I try to expand aggresively and outmacro the zerg.
If the zerg doesn't scout my play correctly I can beat him with this, but it seems that against good zergs its just impossible to keep with their macro.
I do find it really hard though to put pressure on zerg while I play a macro style. I think the key for me lies here. You need to expand aggresively but still deny zerg just droning and expanding like crazy. I havent been able to do this yet.
Drops seem really hard to pull of against zerg for me. If they have good overlord scouting and some muta's its easy for them to catch your dropship. It just feels unsafe.
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On October 20 2010 21:50 iG.ClouD wrote:
Zerg has always been the best race to be honest, and now that every single early game harass is taken out of the game they absolutely take no skill at all. I just think Blizzard is incompetent at balancing, and before SC2 WAR3 and WOW were a good example of it.
Agree, the problem with having to rely on timing pushes is once the timing is figured out good fucking luck.
Now harass has been nerfed and wtf are you supposed to do. I feel like I have to get lucky and the zerg needs to fuck up majorly to win any game longer than 10 minutes.
Expanding as terran aside from TvT isnt really worth it at all.
IMO what really fucks everything up is aside from Mauraders and tanks, all other ground is fucking horrible vs roaches and marauder and tank is directly countered by muta sooooooooooo tech switching can completely rape you (combine that with having to waste scan instead of mule when you are already behind economically)
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Damnit, accidently quoted myself when I wanted to edit T_T.
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What's all this "hard counter system" of SC2 that supposedly wasn't in SC1 O_o... There were some pretty "hard counters" in SC1 too!! Lurker vs infantry? Firebats vs zerglings? Corsair vs Mutalisk?
There's nothing new about making units that are good at killing the opponent's units.
Jury's still out about late game zerg being "unbeatable" - honestly, 200/200 colossus+gateway+storm protoss armies still often stomp my 200/200 ultra/corruptor/roach hydra infestor attempts at countering it when I end up in a zvp late game.
Expanding as terran isn't worth it? lol i'd have fun trashing your 1 or 2 base play late game as any race. If you're not going to expand, all your opponent needs to do is survive.
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The problem is before 1.1.1 and 1.1.2, zerg early game was too weak.
Now zerg early game is very safe, so the problem has reversed.
Blizzard has to find the balance between both, because now zerg seems really an unstoppable force, because of free multiple expands without real threat.
The GSL games are a very good demonstration of this new balance of power.
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On October 20 2010 22:37 Zerksys wrote:
Just because terran players lost their ability to easily harass a zerg player now all of a sudden spawn larvae and tech switches are OP? I order to rebuild an army instantly you need the resources to do so and if both of your armies are sitting there a 200/200 and you're gathering resources it might be time to attack the zerg army.
Zerg lategame may be strong but there are ways to keep up with it.
Edit: Also give me an example of a 200/200 zerg army that beats a 200/200 terran army where the terran player doesn't make some sort of huge mistake. I'd like to see this.
Actually a huge problem is the magic box of mutas, which makes zerg tech switches OP. Not saying that the magic box should be removed or tech switches oppurtunities should be changed, but something is just wrong.
Becaue magic box, terran could have a decent cominbiation of thors/mauruders/hellions or thors/tanks/hellions and be able to fight of mutas. Now they need to mix in more thors combined with marines to fight of the zerg because of the threat of mutas. But lets say the terran wins the first battle, and has like 1 thor and 10 marines surviving. Then the zerg can quickly tech switch to roaches, and tehre is absoltuely nothing the terran can do.Because the terran players needs AA, but the AA units are not cost effective vs roaches.
This was not a problem doing the reaper was imba patch, because it was easy to make succesfull ahrass, while expanding, and later make a tank/marine push (tanks were better vs blings as well). Now terran harass is nerfed, and the succes of hellion ahrass purely dpeneds on the zerg not responding correctly. If the zerg though is very skilled and reponds perfectly, the skill level of the terran does not matter. HE cant hellion harass, or other kind of harass succesfully, and he will lose. So while the balance is not very good now (like 53-47 in favor of zerg I would say), it will continue to get worse as players gets better, as zerg has the skill cap.
I think a way of blanacing this would be to buff terran late game oppurtunities. Thors could be given a splash dmg AA upgrade late game. Seeker missile could receive upgrade as well. Medis need their speed back to be able to harass more succesfully. Zerg already has lots of way to counter drops. Ghost could receive a slightl buff vs zerg as well.
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I love when people take their games to talk about balance.Ok so let me figured it out, all of you guys are losing against Zerg just because of this patch and the imbalance.
Hum it makes sens...
Edit: Oh now the gsl prove this, it becomes more and more interesting.
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I agree that there are a lot of imbalances late game, especially in TvP and TvZ. Probably that T lacks some tools late game and that the inject larvae system should be tweaked (having 4 hatcheries means 76 possible larvae).
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On October 20 2010 23:12 sylverfyre wrote:
What's all this "hard counter system" of SC2 that supposedly wasn't in SC1 O_o... There were some pretty "hard counters" in SC1 too!! Lurker vs infantry? Firebats vs zerglings? Corsair vs Mutalisk?
There's nothing new about making units that are good at killing the opponent's units.
Jury's still out about late game zerg being "unbeatable" - honestly, 200/200 colossus+gateway+storm protoss armies still often stomp my 200/200 ultra/corruptor/roach hydra infestor attempts at countering it when I end up in a zvp late game.
Expanding as terran isn't worth it? lol i'd have fun trashing your 1 or 2 base play late game as any race. If you're not going to expand, all your opponent needs to do is survive.
The hard counter systems were could be overcome with micro (spreading vs lurkers, lurkers took time to burrow, etc) Firebat vs Zergling, Sair vs Muta, all could be spread or overcome vs upgrades.
Marines fucking suck vs roaches and theres nothing you can do about it to micro, you just get fucking raped.
And no shit i get trashed late game, the advantage from expanding isnt very good at all right now vs zerg and protoss because theres a million ways to fucking die (especially vs protoss, expanding vs zerg isnt as bad, but it puts you into a macro game which you cant win unless the z fucks up bad)
I think everyone can agree that Protoss has BY FAR the strongest late game army (basically because of colossus' absurd range and instant storm warp in HT's).
Basically terran got nerfed into oblivion and has the shittiest way of scouting If you scan instead of mule you end up broke and if you dont scan your army can be hard countered like its fucking nothing. Bring old damage siege tanks back.
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Terran took our Dark Swarm, Econ
Protoss took our Muta Micro and got an instant Nydus for individual units
While we forgot how to detect, forgot we could make hydra tier 1 and how much they costed aswell as forgot we could upgrade their speed, lost our backbone container lurker, had our plague turned into a sticky nose snot, lost tonnes of early game shenanigans
All the while new units and abilities aplenty for t&p.
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I could not agree more. Everything you said is true.
I dont understand how other people cant see that T and P need to harass zerg all through early game to beat them in mid-late.
Zerg players think that the game is imbalanced when one of these strategies (harassing) ultimately wins them the game and see it as their own good play when the strats dont work and they win mid-late game.
This should be copied to the main forums.
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The most shocking thing to me is that prior to the 1.1.2 patch Zerg was winning the TvZ more than half of the time in every league but silver*.
I can only assume hope they were trying to get more people to play Zerg, but with the buffs to Zerg and nerfs to Terran I don't see how they couldn't foresee this MU drastically shifting in Zergs favor.
*Blizzards league analysis: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/882511#blog
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On October 20 2010 23:20 dere wrote:The most shocking thing to me is that prior to the 1.1.2 patch Zerg was winning the TvZ more than half of the time in every league but silver*. I can only assume hope they were trying to get more people to play Zerg, but with the buffs to Zerg and nerfs to Terran I don't see how they couldn't foresee this MU drastically shifting in Zergs favor. *Blizzards league analysis: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/882511#blog
And no one even brings up how bad TvP is.
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On October 20 2010 23:22 Sadist wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2010 23:20 dere wrote:The most shocking thing to me is that prior to the 1.1.2 patch Zerg was winning the TvZ more than half of the time in every league but silver*. I can only assume hope they were trying to get more people to play Zerg, but with the buffs to Zerg and nerfs to Terran I don't see how they couldn't foresee this MU drastically shifting in Zergs favor. *Blizzards league analysis: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/882511#blog And no one even brings up how bad TvP is.
That is another story for another day.
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I really don't get the "Zerg macro is unstoppable" mantra.
There is no reason why you SHOULD be able to stop a 15 hatch Zerg in the first place. For the first 10 minutes of the game, a Zerg player is BEHIND in econ if they have to build ANY combat units.
People need to stop acting like Zerg has some advantage by getting that hatch up. For the first 10 minutes, the FE is nothing but a LIABILITY for Zerg. Stopping all the bullshit that keeps a Zerg from getting that first hatch up is the first major step towards having a more balanced game.
After the 10 minute mark, it's not like Zerg gets a free 3rd. He has to fight for it and it is typically much easier for T or P to get his natural up and running. Either way, assuming things go well for both sides, you end up with 3 base vs 2 base, which is very NORMAL. 2 OCs dropping MULEs keep Terran players competitive with the zerg players mineral income, Protoss is the most behind as Chrono boost isn't really that great once a base is saturated, but then again, they're more mobile and can more easily set up their 3rd.
So now let's get into army comps.
Everything Terran has destroys everything Zerg has. The Thor for instance will ALWAYS get it's money back unless the Terran player is just throwing them out in the middle of an open field. Even against Zerglings, each shot is 25 minerals gone from the Zerg player, this is the worst case scenario, every other Zerg unit gives better money per shot. Marines counter EVERY unit in the Zerg army except for Banelings. TvZ is just so lop-sided when it comes to unit vs unit, if the Zerg isn't out-producing the Terran, he is steadily losing ground.
For Protoss, I really don't know why we don't see more Zealot/Archon/Templar play in PvZ at the pro level.
It's like they're trying to handicap themselves and not use the units that really put the zerg player on his heels.
Going for a comp like that means I have to use Roaches, and not much else. Hydras are out because storm destroys them. Ultras are useless against that entire unit comp and you can always add Immortals if needed. Mutas can do OK, but then switching to Stalker/Phoenix AFTER Mutas show up will put you back in the driver seat. Zerg might be ahead in econ, but their army gets DESTROYED when they go up against the Protoss army.
Things just aren't as one-sided as people are making it out to be. Zerg needs an econ advantage to be on even ground because their army still gets destroyed by the other two races.
I have yet to see the OP with Zerg on the winning end.
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On October 20 2010 23:23 Jermstuddog wrote:
I really don't get the "Zerg macro is unstoppable" mantra.
There is no reason why you SHOULD be able to stop a 15 hatch Zerg in the first place. For the first 10 minutes of the game, a Zerg player is BEHIND in econ if they have to build ANY combat units.
People need to stop acting like Zerg has some advantage by getting that hatch up. For the first 10 minutes, the FE is nothing but a LIABILITY for Zerg. Stopping all the bullshit that keeps a Zerg from getting that first hatch up is the first major step towards having a more balanced game.
After the 10 minute mark, it's not like Zerg gets a free 3rd. He has to fight for it and it is typically much easier for T or P to get his natural up and running. Either way, assuming things go well for both sides, you end up with 3 base vs 2 base, which is very NORMAL. 2 OCs dropping MULEs keep Terran players competitive with the zerg players mineral income, Protoss is the most behind as Chrono boost isn't really that great once a base is saturated, but then again, they're more mobile and can more easily set up their 3rd.
So now let's get into army comps.
Everything Terran has destroys everything Zerg has. The Thor for instance will ALWAYS get it's money back unless the Terran player is just throwing them out in the middle of an open field. Even against Zerglings, each shot is 25 minerals gone from the Zerg player, this is the worst case scenario, every other Zerg unit gives better money per shot. Marines counter EVERY unit in the Zerg army except for Banelings. TvZ is just so lop-sided when it comes to unit vs unit, if the Zerg isn't out-producing the Terran, he is steadily losing ground.
For Protoss, I really don't know why we don't see more Zealot/Archon/Templar play in PvZ at the pro level.
It's like they're trying to handicap themselves and not use the units that really put the zerg player on his heels.
Going for a comp like that means I have to use Roaches, and not much else. Hydras are out because storm destroys them. Ultras are useless against that entire unit comp and you can always add Immortals if needed. Mutas can do OK, but then switching to Stalker/Phoenix AFTER Mutas show up will put you back in the driver seat. Zerg might be ahead in econ, but their army gets DESTROYED when they go up against the Protoss army.
Things just aren't as one-sided as people are making it out to be. Zerg needs an econ advantage to be on even ground because their army still gets destroyed by the other two races.
I have yet to see the OP with Zerg on the winning end.
Roaches absolutely rape marines, what the hell are you talking about + they are decent vs thors.
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Okay, now terran are saying zerg has the strongest 200/200 army? Give me a break.
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Lol roaches rape marines really? Go test by yourself to have a clue about it
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Look at how well qxc did vs IdrA in three games, non of which were very short. It's way too early too call out late game inbalance
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On October 20 2010 23:25 Bull-Demon wrote:
Okay, now terran are saying zerg has the strongest 200/200 army? Give me a break.
Nobody is saying that. What we are saying is that a 200/200 mech army can be beaten by, or at worst, traded for a 200/200 Z army that is micro'd properly. When that happens, T loses the game.
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On October 20 2010 23:25 Sadist wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2010 23:23 Jermstuddog wrote:
I really don't get the "Zerg macro is unstoppable" mantra.
There is no reason why you SHOULD be able to stop a 15 hatch Zerg in the first place. For the first 10 minutes of the game, a Zerg player is BEHIND in econ if they have to build ANY combat units.
People need to stop acting like Zerg has some advantage by getting that hatch up. For the first 10 minutes, the FE is nothing but a LIABILITY for Zerg. Stopping all the bullshit that keeps a Zerg from getting that first hatch up is the first major step towards having a more balanced game.
After the 10 minute mark, it's not like Zerg gets a free 3rd. He has to fight for it and it is typically much easier for T or P to get his natural up and running. Either way, assuming things go well for both sides, you end up with 3 base vs 2 base, which is very NORMAL. 2 OCs dropping MULEs keep Terran players competitive with the zerg players mineral income, Protoss is the most behind as Chrono boost isn't really that great once a base is saturated, but then again, they're more mobile and can more easily set up their 3rd.
So now let's get into army comps.
Everything Terran has destroys everything Zerg has. The Thor for instance will ALWAYS get it's money back unless the Terran player is just throwing them out in the middle of an open field. Even against Zerglings, each shot is 25 minerals gone from the Zerg player, this is the worst case scenario, every other Zerg unit gives better money per shot. Marines counter EVERY unit in the Zerg army except for Banelings. TvZ is just so lop-sided when it comes to unit vs unit, if the Zerg isn't out-producing the Terran, he is steadily losing ground.
For Protoss, I really don't know why we don't see more Zealot/Archon/Templar play in PvZ at the pro level.
It's like they're trying to handicap themselves and not use the units that really put the zerg player on his heels.
Going for a comp like that means I have to use Roaches, and not much else. Hydras are out because storm destroys them. Ultras are useless against that entire unit comp and you can always add Immortals if needed. Mutas can do OK, but then switching to Stalker/Phoenix AFTER Mutas show up will put you back in the driver seat. Zerg might be ahead in econ, but their army gets DESTROYED when they go up against the Protoss army.
Things just aren't as one-sided as people are making it out to be. Zerg needs an econ advantage to be on even ground because their army still gets destroyed by the other two races.
I have yet to see the OP with Zerg on the winning end. Roaches absolutely rape marines, what the hell are you talking about + they are decent vs thors.
Actually, supply wise, in large balls, marines (probably now with medivac support, do rape roaches.
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Protoss' shtick is that they have fewer, stronger units. Zerg is supposed to have many weaker. Terran is in the middle.
By this simple logic, one would expect a 200/200 supply Protoss army to beat the other races at 200/200 supply.
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i did test roaches against marines. And at equal food and equal upgrade marines beat roaches without medivacs. Just test it
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And so what if roaches rape marines, all it takes is a 50/50 investment and you can produce marauders one of the best ground vs ground units in the game.
I love how much this has become like WoW, whining about patches and balancing, about classes(races) being overpowered and underpowered, about how compared to vanilla(Brood War) it's not the same. If you want identical races go play Supreme Commander or some shit, play Starcraft 2 for the strategy, the requirement that you keep up with macro, and for having to scout so you know what you're opponent is doing so you can counter it.
You're acting like a Zerg can instantly go from having 50 hydras to having 100 mutas, guess what, they can't. It takes time for the switch from spire building to mutas building to having enough resources etc...
And yes if you let a Zerg get 4 or 5 bases while staying on 2 you deserve to lose, simply because they out resource you like crazy.
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On October 20 2010 23:27 hugman wrote:
Look at how well qxc did vs IdrA in three games, non of which were very short. It's way too early too call out late game inbalance
I don't think he did particularly well, given that they're both very talented players. The first game was over well before Idra decided to end it, he just played conservatively, which is perfectly reasonable when money is on the line. In the second, he left when he arguably had a chance of winning, bu he'd decided he didn't want to play it out. The third game was also over well before Idra moved in for the kill, when he easily wiped out QXC's army in one pitched battle and QXC had no chance to catch up in macro.
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I said it since beta, people laughed at me and they flamed me. I said it when people like Dimaga pool rushed or baneling busted and failed and people laughed less at me but flamed me even more and I'm still saying it: ZERG IS THE BEST RACE, most zergs were just bad and hopefully people will accept this fact now without flaming!
They went for FE, didn't scouted and just made drones and got rolled by an push (THE COUNTER TO EXPO + DRONE ONLY) now they FE and can't be bunkerrushed or harassed and pushes get destroyed because of the better economy and +1 range roach and I always said that lategame Zerg is unbeatable if they go EVEN (isnt it ridiculous that you have to be ahead to get a fair game?) into the mid- lategame because larvainject is way too strong.
Zerg has the army which takes the last amount of skill, they only use 1 spellcaster/ability in most of the fights /infestor) and dont have the bonus damage shit and P/T units need more micro (hellion/tank focus fire, bio ball stim and micro / P has to make use of the hardcounterunits to focus the right shit + storm + sentry + even phoenix need micro in a fight against mutas) and finally Zerg has like 3 buildings (+ tech to get the units) for their macro management.
You cant give a race a safe early game, an easy usable A move army (and with autosurround and no overkill/selfsplashing banelings it is an a move army unless you a move into a chokepoint), and the easiest macro in combination with the most effective macro.
Zergs were crying they are going to switch over to Terran but they didnt, but after days the first switched from Terran to Zerg isn't this proof enough?
If I wouldnt have played Terran since sc1 I would change too, damn I even changed from sc2 P to sc2 T because PvZ during beta was totally broken with the 1 supply roach and the funny a move, after a move from Zerg in the lategame.
HOPEFULLY all the zergs will enjoy their freewins over the next weeks and finally realize that a BALANCED game with even games will make more fun even IF you lose against a better player!
Finally the only thing that stops zerg from total domination are the maps (which are indeed anti-zerg) but imagine bigger maps with longer pushtimings, more expansions and wide areas to surround... I think it will be mostly impossible to win a game.
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On October 20 2010 21:31 TeWy wrote:
Judging at some of the posts I've recently read on TL, it seems that people are slowly starting to figure out that late game SC2 Zerg has no counter.
No? Ultras die to thors, immortals and stimmed marauders with ease. They are actually just terrible against immortals.
Broodlords are slow, weak and depend on their range and positioning to be effective. All pro gamers that go broodlords end up loosing some of them, even if the battle is leaning in favour of zerg.
Please, explain me, what part of zerg late game "has no counter" as ultras and broodlords can be nullified with the choices that terran and protoss has.
Even more, zerg late game, doesn't have a SINGLE UNIT that shoots up. You have to depend on corruptors or hydras which are tier 2 units.
So, reading that someone thinks that zerg lategame is imba, when a single BC owns every single tier 3 zerg unit, is strange.
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On October 20 2010 23:25 Sadist wrote:
Roaches absolutely rape marines, what the hell are you talking about + they are decent vs thors.
Stuff like this just shows how little those arguing the Terran point actually pay attention to the TvZ matchup.
Roaches MIGHT break even or barely ahead against Marines and Thors if they start the fight in favorable terrain.
If you flip this around and give the Terran favorable grounds, they will obliterate the Roaches.
I would also like to point out, I am not saying that Zerg macro isn't strong, but it isn't nearly as unstoppable as some people try to make it out to be.
The situation has gotten better to the point where it is feasible that I don't lose 50% of my games right off the bat as a Zerg player because everything is stacked against me. A FE is how Zerg builds his base, and now I can finally build my base in a normal way most games. We are now on equal footing with Protoss and Terran.
Yes, drones do need to be harassed. Just like probes and SCVs need to be harassed. SC2 is an economic battle, he who kills the most workers usually wins.
Zerg macro is strong because the Zerg army is terrible. Things are getting more balanced.
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On October 20 2010 23:28 PanzerKing wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2010 23:25 Bull-Demon wrote:
Okay, now terran are saying zerg has the strongest 200/200 army? Give me a break. Nobody is saying that. What we are saying is that a 200/200 mech army can be beaten by, or at worst, traded for a 200/200 Z army that is micro'd properly. When that happens, T loses the game.
So think of ways to prevent that from happening. If the zerg has the resources to just replenish his army instantly, the game was decided long before the maxed army battle.
Edit: Adding this in. I just find it absolutely insane how its been less than a week since this patch landed, and within a day terran were already calling for nerfs saying the MU had been borked. This was after almost three months of zerg players being told to "maybe try nydus/drops?". Give it some time, the first week you should be brainstorming for new strategies not complaining on the forums. In a month if the top 200 is half zerg and they are winning every tourney, then we'll talk. Until then give it a rest.
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On October 20 2010 23:33 Killerbot wrote:
And so what if roaches rape marines, all it takes is a 50/50 investment and you can produce marauders one of the best ground vs ground units in the game.
I love how much this has become like WoW, whining about patches and balancing, about classes(races) being overpowered and underpowered, about how compared to vanilla(Brood War) it's not the same. If you want identical races go play Supreme Commander or some shit, play Starcraft 2 for the strategy, the requirement that you keep up with macro, and for having to scout so you know what you're opponent is doing so you can counter it.
You're acting like a Zerg can instantly go from having 50 hydras to having 100 mutas, guess what, they can't. It takes time for the switch from spire building to mutas building to having enough resources etc...
And yes if you let a Zerg get 4 or 5 bases while staying on 2 you deserve to lose, simply because they out resource you like crazy.
The problem is if you overcommit to marauder you die to muta ling/baneling anyway and if you overcommit to marine thor you get absolutey CRUSHED by infestor/baneling/roach or for the hell of it pure roach with auto surround.
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On October 20 2010 23:33 Killerbot wrote:
And so what if roaches rape marines, all it takes is a 50/50 investment and you can produce marauders one of the best ground vs ground units in the game.
I love how much this has become like WoW, whining about patches and balancing, about classes(races) being overpowered and underpowered, about how compared to vanilla(Brood War) it's not the same. If you want identical races go play Supreme Commander or some shit, play Starcraft 2 for the strategy, the requirement that you keep up with macro, and for having to scout so you know what you're opponent is doing so you can counter it.
You're acting like a Zerg can instantly go from having 50 hydras to having 100 mutas, guess what, they can't. It takes time for the switch from spire building to mutas building to having enough resources etc...
And yes if you let a Zerg get 4 or 5 bases while staying on 2 you deserve to lose, simply because they out resource you like crazy.
The thing about WoW is that most people who complain about balance don't know the first thing about PvP, but there's general consensus among the most skilled players on what is broken and needs to be fixed. You don't see that in SC2, not at all. Among top players, nobody wants to come out and admit what might be too strong or too weak because they all want to make a living off the game and they all have a stake in making their race appear as weak as possible.
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On October 20 2010 23:33 AmstAff wrote:
I said it since beta, people laughed at me and they flamed me. I said it when people like Dimaga pool rushed or baneling busted and failed and people laughed less at me but flamed me even more and I'm still saying it: ZERG IS THE BEST RACE, most zergs were just bad and hopefully people will accept this fact now without flaming!
They went for FE, didn't scouted and just made drones and got rolled by an push (THE COUNTER TO EXPO + DRONE ONLY) now they FE and can't be bunkerrushed or harassed and pushes get destroyed because of the better economy and +1 range roach and I always said that lategame Zerg is unbeatable if they go EVEN (isnt it ridiculous that you have to be ahead to get a fair game?) into the mid- lategame because larvainject is way too strong.
Zerg has the army which takes the last amount of skill, they only use 1 spellcaster/ability in most of the fights /infestor) and dont have the bonus damage shit and P/T units need more micro (hellion/tank focus fire, bio ball stim and micro / P has to make use of the hardcounterunits to focus the right shit + storm + sentry + even phoenix need micro in a fight against mutas) and finally Zerg has like 3 buildings (+ tech to get the units) for their macro management.
You cant give a race a safe early game, an easy usable A move army (and with autosurround and no overkill/selfsplashing banelings it is an a move army unless you a move into a chokepoint), and the easiest macro in combination with the most effective macro.
Zergs were crying they are going to switch over to Terran but they didnt, but after days the first switched from Terran to Zerg isn't this proof enough?
If I wouldnt have played Terran since sc1 I would change too, damn I even changed from sc2 P to sc2 T because PvZ during beta was totally broken with the 1 supply roach and the funny a move, after a move from Zerg in the lategame.
HOPEFULLY all the zergs will enjoy their freewins over the next weeks and finally realize that a BALANCED game with even games will make more fun even IF you lose against a better player!
Finally the only thing that stops zerg from total domination are the maps (which are indeed anti-zerg) but imagine bigger maps with longer pushtimings, more expansions and wide areas to surround... I think it will be mostly impossible to win a game.
Because if you indeed was saying this since beta I see why someone would ''flame'' you. You are totally disregarding patches and changes they brought and now after one quite poorly argumented thread you assume you ''have always been right''
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-Protoss and Terran can build an economy while teching and getting an army.
-Zerg can build and economy faster, and can build an army faster, but when doing both at once they are actually slightly slower than Protoss and Terran.
This means that Protoss and Terran have an advantage early game. Either the Zerg is building a crazy fast economy, or building a fast army. They can't build a fast army without a strong economy so this is the basis of Zerg builds, fast expanding and getting just enough defence to hold of the enemy early.
If you let a Zerg play capitalize on his ability to grow a huge economy really fast, there's no doubt he's going to be set to capitalize on his ability to grow a huge army really fast.
The counter to this is to harrass and push early. Even if the Zerg hold you off, you're delaying his economy. Zerg units simply aren't cost effective vs Protoss and Terran in most cases, so the way to beat a Zerg late game is to damage him enough early game.
Even if we're talking about 1 hour long games. The Zerg wants to have 7 bases and creep everywhere at this point. It's up to the other player to deny expansions, reduce the creep ect. If they start attacking, you need to counter attack. As a Terran, once you're 200/200 you need to attack, you're 200/200 army should win in a straight up battle, and being the agressor allows you to do damage with your remaining forces before the Zerg has a chance to rebuild.
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On October 20 2010 23:36 Sadist wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2010 23:33 Killerbot wrote:
And so what if roaches rape marines, all it takes is a 50/50 investment and you can produce marauders one of the best ground vs ground units in the game.
I love how much this has become like WoW, whining about patches and balancing, about classes(races) being overpowered and underpowered, about how compared to vanilla(Brood War) it's not the same. If you want identical races go play Supreme Commander or some shit, play Starcraft 2 for the strategy, the requirement that you keep up with macro, and for having to scout so you know what you're opponent is doing so you can counter it.
You're acting like a Zerg can instantly go from having 50 hydras to having 100 mutas, guess what, they can't. It takes time for the switch from spire building to mutas building to having enough resources etc...
And yes if you let a Zerg get 4 or 5 bases while staying on 2 you deserve to lose, simply because they out resource you like crazy. The problem is if you overcommit to marauder you die to muta ling/baneling anyway and if you overcommit to marine thor you get absolutey CRUSHED by infestor/baneling/roach or for the hell of it pure roach with auto surround.
There's this crazy concept called scouting, and you get basically free scouting using this ability called scan it's on your orbital command, you should try it instead of just spamming MULES.
If you go marauder, expect more lings, so go for hellions/tanks/marines, which can defeat roaches in enough numbers.
It's called Strategy! Expect responses to your responses, moves to counter your moves. Learn to adapt instead of complaining about imbalance.
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On October 20 2010 22:20 UnholyRai wrote:
The main problem is how the Zerg can suicide their entire army then near instantly rebuild it with multiple hatcheries + inject.
I've watched it many times in professional matches, there will be a huge battle between a terran and zerg army, both armies nearly being completely wiped out. Within the next minute Zerg will be up to full strength and the Terran will be left with scraps.
Game over.
Read: Zerg units are free so long as they have the larvae to create them.
Man am I playing Zerg wrong.
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On October 20 2010 23:23 Jermstuddog wrote:
I really don't get the "Zerg macro is unstoppable" mantra.
There is no reason why you SHOULD be able to stop a 15 hatch Zerg in the first place. For the first 10 minutes of the game, a Zerg player is BEHIND in econ if they have to build ANY combat units.
People need to stop acting like Zerg has some advantage by getting that hatch up. For the first 10 minutes, the FE is nothing but a LIABILITY for Zerg. Stopping all the bullshit that keeps a Zerg from getting that first hatch up is the first major step towards having a more balanced game.
After the 10 minute mark, it's not like Zerg gets a free 3rd. He has to fight for it and it is typically much easier for T or P to get his natural up and running. Either way, assuming things go well for both sides, you end up with 3 base vs 2 base, which is very NORMAL. 2 OCs dropping MULEs keep Terran players competitive with the zerg players mineral income, Protoss is the most behind as Chrono boost isn't really that great once a base is saturated, but then again, they're more mobile and can more easily set up their 3rd.
Why do you say this when it isnt true? If zerg goes hatch before pool and terran goes 1 rax FE, both players have flawless macro, zerg will be able to match terrans army while maintaining an econ lead. Not to mention that 1 rax FE commits to bio for atleast the first 8 minuts of the game, easily shut down by lings baneling. The hatch before pool is a huge deal when done by a zerg at around the 2k rating...
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United States22154 Posts
On October 20 2010 23:34 gREIFOCs wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2010 21:31 TeWy wrote:
Judging at some of the posts I've recently read on TL, it seems that people are slowly starting to figure out that late game SC2 Zerg has no counter. No? Ultras die to thors, immortals and stimmed marauders with ease. They are actually just terrible against immortals. Broodlords are slow, weak and depend on their range and positioning to be effective. All pro gamers that go broodlords end up loosing some of them, even if the battle is leaning in favour of zerg. Please, explain me, what part of zerg late game "has no counter" as ultras and broodlords can be nullified with the choices that terran and protoss has. Even more, zerg late game, doesn't have a SINGLE UNIT that shoots up. You have to depend on corruptors or hydras which are tier 2 units. So, reading that someone thinks that zerg lategame is imba, when a single BC owns every single tier 3 zerg unit, is strange.
Well I think your first problem is assuming that a Zerg player is going to go only tier 3 units, I mean if you are getting something like broodlords then you should probably also have corruptors lying around. While I will grant that thors beat ultralisks as do immortals,you have to realize that no one is going just ultras, its usually ultra + lings and lings absolutely rape immortals and thors and they do fairly well against marauders too.
When people say that zerg lategame has no counter they aren't talking about individual units, but rather about the ability to trade armies and suddenly recreate their whole army before the other player can get more than as single production cycle in.
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On October 20 2010 23:39 Killerbot wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2010 23:36 Sadist wrote:On October 20 2010 23:33 Killerbot wrote:
And so what if roaches rape marines, all it takes is a 50/50 investment and you can produce marauders one of the best ground vs ground units in the game.
I love how much this has become like WoW, whining about patches and balancing, about classes(races) being overpowered and underpowered, about how compared to vanilla(Brood War) it's not the same. If you want identical races go play Supreme Commander or some shit, play Starcraft 2 for the strategy, the requirement that you keep up with macro, and for having to scout so you know what you're opponent is doing so you can counter it.
You're acting like a Zerg can instantly go from having 50 hydras to having 100 mutas, guess what, they can't. It takes time for the switch from spire building to mutas building to having enough resources etc...
And yes if you let a Zerg get 4 or 5 bases while staying on 2 you deserve to lose, simply because they out resource you like crazy. The problem is if you overcommit to marauder you die to muta ling/baneling anyway and if you overcommit to marine thor you get absolutey CRUSHED by infestor/baneling/roach or for the hell of it pure roach with auto surround. There's this crazy concept called scouting, and you get basically free scouting using this ability called scan it's on your orbital command, you should try it instead of just spamming MULES. If you go marauder, expect more lings, so go for hellions/tanks/marines, which can defeat roaches in enough numbers. It's called Strategy! Expect responses to your responses, moves to counter your moves. Learn to adapt instead of complaining about imbalance.
There's a fatal flaw with your argument. If T pushes out (and he has to push out, either to expand or to pressure Z once his army maxes since T can't bank resources/larvae like Z) then Z can scout his army composition. It takes a Z player, what, 30 seconds to build 25+ roaches? How many tanks do you think a T player can build in 30 seconds?
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These overpowered threads have always popped up once in a while so I'm not taking this too serious but it's nice to see that Zerg is the new op
Or at least the new race to whine about op.
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Toss with a massive stalker colossi ball is nearly impossible to stop. They can even warp in reinforcements near their main army. Unless a Zerg has several hatches in his main, he has to rally them elsewhere before attacking. Otherwise they stream in and die to the massive toss army. Also it's not as simple as just switching tech instantly if you are harassing. If it's late game and you let the Zerg player get every building, then you probably deserve to lose.
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although i enjoy reading lengthy posts on balance discussions.. i really dislike anything that discusses zergs macro mechanics
you assume a zerg is able to macro freely, this is really not the case. any competent terran/protoss can shut down expansions extremely easily with drops/harass.
seriously, on the current map pool, this game is very favourable to terran and protoss. only in 'balanced maps' we see zerg taking control of the game...
ie, blizzard is balancing on statistics based on the current map pool, which if they change, will change balance, more people will whinge about x race beats x race because x.
zerg cannot suicide entire armies and eventually win. there is no reason to fight in unfavourable terrain for any race. in the case of zerg almost all terrain is unfavourable except in the middle of maps or on creep. you take advantage of this by expanding slowly and keeping up with defense and macroing against a zerg while harasssing and you win. this is the fundamental of every game.
terran or protoss build up a death ball and box a move to zerg base.
its even easier to win in early game.
zerg is not underpowered, zerg is not overpowered, terran is not 'overpowered' but they are less underpowered than zerg when it comes to maps and unit strength. protoss are currently the most 'overpowered' because they can take any map regardless of race as they are the most versatile, and easiest to play with.
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I think you are completely wrong. The reason you see so many posts crying about Z late game, is because T and P actually have to know how to play now instead of doing all in midgame builds and then saying "sup 1200 diamond". The late game isn't perfectly balanced, but its hardly "broken". Its no different than SCBW in that if you let a Z get up 2 bases ahead of you and get insane macro you get run the fuck over. Remember Sauron zerg in SC1? Now you don't have to have july zerg apm to do it. I haven't seen any high level players complaining about the late game, and I'm guessing its because they know how to play a long game.
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good thread..this is why i want to play zerg =)
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On October 20 2010 22:37 awesomoecalypse wrote:No, they really aren't. Watch IdrA vs. Drewbie sometime. IdrA is on like 6 bases to Drewbie's 2 and has teched up to Ultras. Drewbie has a sieged up mech army and is turtling hard to defend his base. IdrA proceeds to send like 800 food worth of units against the mech army in wave after wave...and utterly fails to break the mech army. Its only when he techs to Broodlords that he can do anything about it. Lategame Toss armies are even more ridiculously powerful, and substantially more mobile than Terran mech. And Zerg's ability to replenish units so quickly is great and all...but meaningless if you take the fight to their base, because you'll destroy them before they can replace their army. If a Zerg players lets a Terran or Toss opponent tech up to T3 with full upgrades and push out with a 200/200 army, they are going to get their ass kicked most of the time. Zerg armies just can't win straight up fights in that situation, and the only way they survive is if they can delay the Terran or Toss from reaching their base long enough to crank out several huge armies and throw them at the T or P force.
Lol that is such an old replay. Please, mech is neutralized since the last patch with the roach buff.
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On October 20 2010 23:40 Armsved wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2010 23:23 Jermstuddog wrote:
I really don't get the "Zerg macro is unstoppable" mantra.
There is no reason why you SHOULD be able to stop a 15 hatch Zerg in the first place. For the first 10 minutes of the game, a Zerg player is BEHIND in econ if they have to build ANY combat units.
People need to stop acting like Zerg has some advantage by getting that hatch up. For the first 10 minutes, the FE is nothing but a LIABILITY for Zerg. Stopping all the bullshit that keeps a Zerg from getting that first hatch up is the first major step towards having a more balanced game.
After the 10 minute mark, it's not like Zerg gets a free 3rd. He has to fight for it and it is typically much easier for T or P to get his natural up and running. Either way, assuming things go well for both sides, you end up with 3 base vs 2 base, which is very NORMAL. 2 OCs dropping MULEs keep Terran players competitive with the zerg players mineral income, Protoss is the most behind as Chrono boost isn't really that great once a base is saturated, but then again, they're more mobile and can more easily set up their 3rd. Why do you say this when it isnt true? If zerg goes hatch before pool and terran goes 1 rax FE, both players have flawless macro, zerg will be able to match terrans army while maintaining an econ lead. Not to mention that 1 rax FE commits to bio for atleast the first 8 minuts of the game, easily shut down by lings baneling. The hatch before pool is a huge deal when done by a zerg at around the 2k rating...
Yes, it is a huge deal, because Zerg is BEHIND in economy.
Sure, I can own your bio army with ling bling if I want to go all in, get 500 minerals/250 gas worth of blings, 100/100 for ling speed + another 1000 minerals on lings.
This is not normal play, this is an all-in, no different from 5-rax marine.
Assuming that the Zerg should HAVE to build his pool first is unfair. There really is no equivalent for T or P, the closest I could say is that you have to build a Factory/Cybernetics core before using MULEs or Chrono boost.
Watch any replay where you're up against a Zerg player. He will be behind in drones for the first 5-10 minutes of the game. The more pressure you apply, the more behind in drones he gets.
The only thing that keeps his econ at an equivalent level is having 4-8 of those drones at his expansion, giving him 10% more bang per drone.
AFTER 10 minutes is a different story, and if a T or P player is staying on 1 base beyond that window, they are definitely doing things wrong. But assume they expanded heading into a macro game, things just evened up again. As Zerg finally starts getting the capabilities to pour resources into drones and start saturating 2 bases, T or P just got a 2nd base up and has either doubled their mules or doubled their chrono. Zerg will take a 3rd soon, but 3 base vs 2 isn't nearly as lop-sided as 2 base vs 1. And the Zerg army still sucks.
Pool first is putting the Zerg player unfairly behind in econ. 15 hatch is NORMAL play. How do people not see this?
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The two main posts in the OP are both invalid.
#1: We can't instantly tech switch and produce 30 of [x] unittype, since we don't have the money, plus Zerg basically just has three hard counters, one being super late and super costly, one coming in two steps and one being only a counter to very specific units like the carrier or battlecruiser. ALL of them easily countered if opponent is a non-retard.
#2 Inject Larvae: This just enables us to keep up with the other races. Properly macroed Toss and Terran can produce an equal amount of units as Zerg with inject larvae (unless you do it wrong, the limitation isn't larvae, it's resources, same for T and P), the difference being that Zergs units are usually less cost-effective than the T and P counterparts. The reason we usually need to be +1 base to our opponents isn't larvae.
Zerg is still UP. It's just going to take a while for the other races to adapt. Even now it's not OP, we're just a little bit more even with the other races.
If Zerg was any balanced at all, guys like QXC simply wouldn't take any map from guys like IdrA. That's a fact. When somebody practices twice or three times as much as another person, the latter person should just never win game against the former person. But that's exactly the case with Terran and Protoss vs Zerg.
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I totally agree with this post, there is no point in going lategame against Zerg and fast expansion builds are pretty much null and void once you face a zerg who can control his spawn larva.
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On October 20 2010 23:49 heishe wrote:
#2 Inject Larvae: This just enables us to keep up with the other races. Properly macroed Toss and Terran can produce an equal amount of units as Zerg with inject larvae (unless you do it wrong, the limitation isn't larvae, it's resources, same for T and P), the difference being that Zergs units are usually less cost-effective than the T and P counterparts.
The difference being that once you're safe you have the ability to pump out 20 or so drones instantly and recover from harassment and once again overtake your opponent in macro.
If you really believe that Zerg is underpowered then you are terribly misguided, sure Zerg has some issues with a lot of timing pushes, but what army does Terran have that can counter a maxed zerg army? I've never seen a Terran win against a Zerg in a late-game situation where the game wasn't decided by a lot of damage early on from some timing attack.
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There's a fatal flaw with your argument. If T pushes out (and he has to push out, either to expand or to pressure Z once his army maxes since T can't bank resources/larvae like Z) then Z can scout his army composition. It takes a Z player, what, 30 seconds to build 25+ roaches? How many tanks do you think a T player can build in 30 seconds?
Oh give me a break zerg don't just sit on 1875/625 waiting for you to show him what to make.
It's garbage like this that needs to stop.
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On October 20 2010 23:23 Jermstuddog wrote:
Pool first is putting the Zerg player unfairly behind in econ. 15 hatch is NORMAL play. How do people not see this?
Except it isn't, Terran and Protoss can't just thrown down an expansion in the start of the game, why should Zerg have the ability to?
In BW this was more standard because Zerg needed the extra hatchery for larvae and the early-game timings were different, but in SC2 you have the Queen for larvae production so you don't need to go hatch before pool.
There were cannon zealot attacks in BW that were pretty solid against hatch before pool as well, and no it is not 'NORMAL' play, whatever you may think 'NORMAL' play is.
If you go hatch before pool prepare to die, because of course a rush tactic can kill a fast expansion.
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Faced with a late game situation against a Zerg that's on 4-6 bases and has nearly a 200/200 army why not employ some harrasment tactics that target the larva themselves? Has anyone actually tried switching from mineral/gas econ harrasment to larva econ harrasment in the late game?
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OP is completely wrong. He's looking at the game in a situational vacuum -- using such an approach can make any race appear OP. A typical game of SC2 has so many variables throughout the game that change the tide -- you can't just pick an imaginary late game situation where each side has X units and Y structures and then say Zerg has an advantage. It's illogical for reasons so obvious that this thread made me cringe.
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On October 20 2010 23:52 MaD.pYrO wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2010 23:49 heishe wrote:
#2 Inject Larvae: This just enables us to keep up with the other races. Properly macroed Toss and Terran can produce an equal amount of units as Zerg with inject larvae (unless you do it wrong, the limitation isn't larvae, it's resources, same for T and P), the difference being that Zergs units are usually less cost-effective than the T and P counterparts.
The difference being that once you're safe you have the ability to pump out 20 or so drones instantly and recover from harassment and once again overtake your opponent in macro. If you really believe that Zerg is underpowered then you are terribly misguided, sure Zerg has some issues with a lot of timing pushes, but what army does Terran have that can counter a maxed zerg army? I've never seen a Terran win against a Zerg in a late-game situation where the game wasn't decided by a lot of damage early on from some timing attack.
If you ever pump out "20 or so drones" instantly, there's a huge hole in your defense which Terran and Protoss can take advantage of, unless they've fucked something up leading up to that point. Always.
Other than that, there's nothing to say to that. Just remember what I said and come back to this thread in one or two months time, when (without additional changes) Zerg will -again- not win a single tournament.
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Another point I would like to bring out is, nothing has changed from the Zerg players perspective, this is why they are doing so well after the patch.
Roaches got only slightly better, everything else is the same.
Meanwhile, Terran players have lost their crutch. So while Zerg players are doing the same old thing, Terran players who have been relying on this unfair harassment are now playing against Zergs who are actually able to defend themselves and finding that they have no back-up plan.
Zerg players have been enduring the beating for months while they work on other aspects of the game that they can control. Now that the imba opening phases have been smoothed out, those other aspects are coming to light.
Terrans will catch up in another month.
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On October 20 2010 23:55 tetracycloide wrote:
Faced with a late game situation against a Zerg that's on 4-6 bases and has nearly a 200/200 army why not employ some harrasment tactics that target the larva themselves? Has anyone actually tried switching from mineral/gas econ harrasment to larva econ harrasment in the late game?
Larvae has an insane amount of armor and are not that easily killed except for Psi Storm etc.
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On October 20 2010 23:56 heishe wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2010 23:52 MaD.pYrO wrote:On October 20 2010 23:49 heishe wrote:
#2 Inject Larvae: This just enables us to keep up with the other races. Properly macroed Toss and Terran can produce an equal amount of units as Zerg with inject larvae (unless you do it wrong, the limitation isn't larvae, it's resources, same for T and P), the difference being that Zergs units are usually less cost-effective than the T and P counterparts.
The difference being that once you're safe you have the ability to pump out 20 or so drones instantly and recover from harassment and once again overtake your opponent in macro. If you really believe that Zerg is underpowered then you are terribly misguided, sure Zerg has some issues with a lot of timing pushes, but what army does Terran have that can counter a maxed zerg army? I've never seen a Terran win against a Zerg in a late-game situation where the game wasn't decided by a lot of damage early on from some timing attack. If you ever pump out "20 or so drones" instantly, there's a huge hole in your defense which Terran and Protoss can take advantage of, unless they've fucked something up leading up to that point. Always.
Zerg has just defended a timing attack and is left with a bigger army -> +15 drones.
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On October 20 2010 21:31 TeWy wrote:
This is why Protoss and Terran now have to rely on quick timing pushes, unscouted harass... all of which have also been nerfed by Blizzard.
The issue is that while all these nerfs were done, the Zerg macro, which is the real and profund reason behind all these all-in types of play, has been left untouched.
My version of this allinish types of play is explained because at the release of the game, those 1 base timing pushes were ridiculously powerful/easy/diversified, which mean any terran could mass the heck out of any of their units behind their safe wall with 40 apm (100 apms + terrans included harass at the same time with ''cute and original play'' units such as : reaper, hellion, hellion drop, blue flame hellion,thor drop, tanks drop, etc..)
This easy yet powerful style of play was combined by the fact zerg had a ridiculously hard time to scout what the hell was coming and when.
Now that the early game is a little less shaky for zerg we might want to look at this end game ''no counter'' zerg army, in the meanwhile, how about you give a couple weeks for other races to try and diversify their play from ''mass desired comp and push when you feel like it'' to ''maybe zerg has enought breathing room to dictate the game a bit, I should try to see what he's doing instead of playing Campaign #25 - All in on easy mode''.
For real, how many weeks did zergs scream imba, tournies ending in 8 tvts while terrans were just going from ''ya know.. we know there's a couple issue in the MU but let's wait and see what bliz do'' to ''Z IS BEST RACE, use NYDUS and TECH switches''.
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On October 20 2010 23:57 MaD.pYrO wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2010 23:55 tetracycloide wrote:
Faced with a late game situation against a Zerg that's on 4-6 bases and has nearly a 200/200 army why not employ some harrasment tactics that target the larva themselves? Has anyone actually tried switching from mineral/gas econ harrasment to larva econ harrasment in the late game? Larvae has an insane amount of armor and are not that easily killed except for Psi Storm etc.
Hatcheries and queens don't.
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On October 20 2010 23:55 MaD.pYrO wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2010 23:23 Jermstuddog wrote:
Pool first is putting the Zerg player unfairly behind in econ. 15 hatch is NORMAL play. How do people not see this? Except it isn't, Terran and Protoss can't just thrown down an expansion in the start of the game, why should Zerg have the ability to? In BW this was more standard because Zerg needed the extra hatchery for larvae and the early-game timings were different, but in SC2 you have the Queen for larvae production so you don't need to go hatch before pool. There were cannon zealot attacks in BW that were pretty solid against hatch before pool as well, and no it is not 'NORMAL' play, whatever you may think 'NORMAL' play is. If you go hatch before pool prepare to die, because of course a rush tactic can kill a fast expansion.
Because not even Zerg has the means to take advantage of that expansion in those early stages of the game. By the time the hatchery is done, we might be at 18 drones to 20 SCVs + 1 MULE or 24 probes.
If I can't move 5 of my drones over to that expo, I am so far behind in econ that it's laughable.
Have you watched one of your XvZ replays yet?
How does that seem fair?
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On October 20 2010 22:01 dcberkeley wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2010 21:44 Neverever wrote:
So Zerg is allways a favorit in the late game, i didnt know that .....
From now on im just gona go for early roaches, make tons of spinecrawler and just 1 base my way to the late game, or in a other word, victory. Is your post supposed to be idiotic? It's not about how easy it is to get to the late game. It's about the fact that once you do get into the late game with you know, a proper amount of bases (ie. 3) you will likely win. And the point is that if Blizzard keeps nerfing the early game without regard to the late game there will be trouble.
It was suppose to be sarcastic, i simply dont belive Zerg is by defualt favorit to win the match in late game.
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I go all-in every match against zerg. I figured out that it's the only way I still have a chance to win.
There's some zerg I usually play against (1500), I never win vs him if I dont 1 base all-in..(and he never win vs me when I one base all-in though, lol)
I can hellion to banshee harass then marine tank push, if it fails I can leave the game cause each fight after that push will put me more and more behind.
I really think the best way to fix that issue is to buff the raven, because it can kill units without requiring money, so it would balance the macro problem. Actually I cant see a use for that unit. Dont tell me that mass ravens beat thewind, because I saw them used against Idra and it was an epic failure (just spam fungal on them + some infested terrans).
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You pretty much hit the nail on the head, Blizzard sees a close to 50% win ratio vs Z and thinks its balanced.
What they're not looking at is the statistics where other races beat Z in the late game or where games even REACH the late game. It does worry me alot that people use the argument "Well you need to harass/timing push a Z to win, you're retarded if you take it to the late game."
I mean really? The game is not balanced if you cannot choose to play a lategame vs Z.
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On October 20 2010 23:56 heishe wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2010 23:52 MaD.pYrO wrote:On October 20 2010 23:49 heishe wrote:
#2 Inject Larvae: This just enables us to keep up with the other races. Properly macroed Toss and Terran can produce an equal amount of units as Zerg with inject larvae (unless you do it wrong, the limitation isn't larvae, it's resources, same for T and P), the difference being that Zergs units are usually less cost-effective than the T and P counterparts.
The difference being that once you're safe you have the ability to pump out 20 or so drones instantly and recover from harassment and once again overtake your opponent in macro. If you really believe that Zerg is underpowered then you are terribly misguided, sure Zerg has some issues with a lot of timing pushes, but what army does Terran have that can counter a maxed zerg army? I've never seen a Terran win against a Zerg in a late-game situation where the game wasn't decided by a lot of damage early on from some timing attack. If you ever pump out "20 or so drones" instantly, there's a huge hole in your defense which Terran and Protoss can take advantage of, unless they've fucked something up leading up to that point. Always. Other than that, there's nothing to say to that. Just remember what I said and come back to this thread in one or two months time, when (without additional changes) Zerg will -again- not win a single tournament.
if both go expo Z has totally mapcontroll in ZvT, linge deny any ground scout and mutas deny any air scout drop + keep the Terran in his base and with larvainject he can abuse this to pump out a shitload of drones and a terran who expos and uses his mules for scan will be behind anyway because they produce slower than any race and dont benefit as much as the other races from a FE (P has 2 Nexi with chrono and Z has 2 hatches with larvainject and T has what? right an OC with the mule to be EVEN economically but if you use them for scanns you are economically just behind and isn't it funny that blizzard just destroyed Terran harassment with this patch?)
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On October 20 2010 23:55 MaD.pYrO wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2010 23:23 Jermstuddog wrote:
Pool first is putting the Zerg player unfairly behind in econ. 15 hatch is NORMAL play. How do people not see this? Except it isn't, Terran and Protoss can't just thrown down an expansion in the start of the game, why should Zerg have the ability to? In BW this was more standard because Zerg needed the extra hatchery for larvae and the early-game timings were different, but in SC2 you have the Queen for larvae production so you don't need to go hatch before pool.There were cannon zealot attacks in BW that were pretty solid against hatch before pool as well, and no it is not 'NORMAL' play, whatever you may think 'NORMAL' play is. If you go hatch before pool prepare to die, because of course a rush tactic can kill a fast expansion.
You have no idea what you're talking about. The reason to get the early hatchery is for larva and to be able to produce your 2nd/3rd queen while morphing into lair and nothing else. If you had enough larva to do whatever you wanted you would see zergs expanding around 30-40 food.
Here is how good larva management goes. Step 1 you get a hatchery quickly. Step 2 you get queens and spawn a couple tumors (necessary for base defense). You then quickly start using spawn larva and all the larva on 2 hatcheries.
Here is how 1 base larva management goes. Get roach warren instead of 2nd hatchery. Make queen and spawn larva immedietly. Get roaches because you don't have enough larva to do anything else unless you produce 0 drones and stay on about 15 drones for most of the game. Or do some other gimmick like spine crawler fast muta.
EDIT: And to the OP. Learn to play in the late game. People that know when to take their 2nd and 3rd can fight a zerg in the late game. Zergs right now are just better at producing a strong late game because we've been playing with a huge early game handicap for months!
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On October 20 2010 23:41 GMarshal wrote:
Well I think your first problem is assuming that a Zerg player is going to go only tier 3 units, I mean if you are getting something like broodlords then you should probably also have corruptors lying around. While I will grant that thors beat ultralisks as do immortals,you have to realize that no one is going just ultras, its usually ultra + lings and lings absolutely rape immortals and thors and they do fairly well against marauders too.
When people say that zerg lategame has no counter they aren't talking about individual units, but rather about the ability to trade armies and suddenly recreate their whole army before the other player can get more than as single production cycle in.
You're proyecting to the game an error by the player.
But first: If terran has tools to deal with early and mid game zerg units, and also have tools to deal with the late game units, they obviously have ways to deal with the combination off both. Maybe it's a little tricky, maybe people need time to mix their units in the proper way. To use an example, 6 helions deny ALL the lings that "rape thors". Zealots punish lings hard and are great meat shields and stand between the ultras and the immortals.
But, in a normal game, with even players, the zerg should be broke the hole game. He'll be spending money in upgrades, expos, tech, drones, units, ect. If a Zerg starts stockpiling minerals and gas, that means that the terran or protoss has an army advantage. If they engage, the T or P army should win, because zerg units are less cost effective, and he should be spending that money not to get rolfstomped by the terran ball. The more money Z has in the bank, the more onesided will be the battle.
Now, if you are in a 200/200 T vs 200/200 Z army, and sit arround while the Z starts stocking resources, then I think you deserve to loose.
The 200/200 Z army is the weakest. And the limitation for macro in this game, is not the production capabilities of each race. It's the income. Yes, Zerg has the theorical ability to produce 150 food in one cycle. But in reality, they don't have the resources to do so. Even more when in late game you have to deal with the drone/army equation, having 70 drones hurts your army size, and when you are zerg size and positioning is all you have.
So, no, I don't think that Zerg wins because he can replenish an army in a matter of seconds. If the Zerg has the chance to sit on 200/200 and the thousands that a replenish demands, the terran made a mistake earlier, just as if a zerg lets a colossi count get up to 8.
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On October 21 2010 00:07 Medzo wrote:
EDIT: And to the OP. Learn to play in the late game. People that know when to take their 2nd and 3rd can fight a zerg in the late game. Zergs right now are just better at producing a strong late game because we've been playing with a huge early game handicap for months!
zergs are so full of themselves its unbelivable, do they rly forgot how fucking overpowered they were for majority of the beta where simple roach spam and 1a won 90% of games?
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You're wrong, ZvT endgame is balanced and ZvP endgame is very hard for the Z as HT+Collosi and gateway units is really hard to counter, especially in the current map pool.
I know Zerg is suposed to lose a 200/200 battle because they can remake units faster, but it takes a while to remake an army (that is useless if not grouped up) so you have to fight them very near to their base and hope they dont counter push too fast because you'll lose an expo or two before your ultras spawn...especially on stupidly small maps
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On October 21 2010 00:02 Burban wrote:
I go all-in every match against zerg. I figured out that it's the only way I still have a chance to win.
There's some zerg I usually play against (1500), I never win vs him if I dont 1 base all-in..(and he never win vs me when I one base all-in though, lol)
I can hellion to banshee harass then marine tank push, if it fails I can leave the game cause each fight after that push will put me more and more behind.
I really think the best way to fix that issue is to buff the raven, because it can kill units without requiring money, so it would balance the macro problem. Actually I cant see a use for that unit. Dont tell me that mass ravens beat thewind, because I saw them used against Idra and it was an epic failure (just spam fungal on them + some infested terrans).
Sounds more like you and your friend both need more practice then an imbalance issue really. To be frank it really does. Since if he cannot withstand any kind of allin pressure early/mid game then he scouts bad or cannot respond proper.
And if you cannot win a game vs him late game you are either really bad at macro/pressuring or are a bad player. Terran players can freaking win over Zergs lategame. It's not impossible at all.
Only difference right now beetwen last patch and this is that it feels like zerg is able to punish terran a bit more for stupid shit then they were able last patch. This is how I experience it at least, and yes I play zerg, and I lose to terrans who play better then freaking me not like before make random amount of thors behind walls and then A-Move into mainbase.
I have more sympathy for the protoss players to be honest since it became a lot more easy to punish a fast expanding toss as zerg nowadays, but terran players dont have anything to really whine about. If you lose as a terran nowadays it's your own fault. Not the game, not the balance, not dustin browder or the "noob" zerg playing. I'ts you
And since someone is going to whine about it I'm 1800 daimond zerg not a bronze league player.
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Regarding Marine vs Roach that people were arguing about earlier. Messed around with the unit tester and....
You need at least 3:1 odds in order to beat roaches. So its 150 mineral cost and 3 food vs 75 minerals and 2 food and 25 gas.
You start throwing in stim and shield and it becomes 1.5:1/1:1 ish (depending on concave/creep), but arguably that also means that there will be less marines and you are delaying tech for those two upgrades.
Not to mention that in order to accumulate enough marines you need to at least have 2 barracks (either via reactor or actually getting 2 barracks).
So I have nfc why people are stating that roaches barely deal with marines. You can of course start throwing in medivacs and marauders, but then that becomes a question of unit composition vs unit composition.
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On October 20 2010 21:59 Thereisnosaurus wrote:
um. high templar are just as capable of surviving to fight another day. ravens don't fulfil the same roles in the terran army- sci vessels were assassins, ravens are more like defilers in effect- buffing/debuffing/supporting an army.
I think half the problem is toss- even super high level toss- are being idiots with their HT's, getting like one storm off with each and then losing them needlessly. It continually makes me weep to watch GSL and MLG matches were super high level toss lose three or four temps with every engagement. If they even saved half of them they'd end up with ten or twelve temps- at which point your pretty much autowin in the current metagame.
You there are pretty ignorant. If you ever watch BW matches, u'll see the HTs are nearly never microed, and you know why? because casters in BW were low priority targets due to not having an attack. In SC2 they are top priority, so given their relatively short casting range (esp to predict movements), I don't see how they can not get easily killed after one or 2 storms. A 1a player would also take out all the casters without needing to focus fire.
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terrans can cut like 30 scvs and just use mules on their 3rd mining base, effectivly allowing them to have a larger army.
just sayin'
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Myth Busting time.
On October 21 2010 00:06 AmstAff wrote:
terrans [...] produce slower than any race
Thor build time 60 seconds
Ultralisk build time 75 seconds
Colossus build time 75 seconds
BC build time 90 seconds
Broodlord build time 74 seconds
Carrier build time 120 seconds
Marine build time 25 seconds
Zergling build time 24 seconds
Zealot build time 38 seconds (28 @ Warp Gate)
Marauder build time 30 seconds
Roach build time 27 seconds
Stalker build time 42 seconds (32 @ Warp Gate)
Not even going to mention the difference in tech times as Terran always comes out ahead.
Looks pretty competitive/on the low end of build times to me.
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On October 21 2010 00:23 optical630 wrote:
terrans can cut like 30 scvs and just use mules on their 3rd mining base, effectivly allowing them to have a larger army.
just sayin'
Yeah for how long? I would much rather have an ability to power workers for lategame play then get instant money for like 15 sec.
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On October 20 2010 23:57 MaD.pYrO wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2010 23:55 tetracycloide wrote:
Faced with a late game situation against a Zerg that's on 4-6 bases and has nearly a 200/200 army why not employ some harrasment tactics that target the larva themselves? Has anyone actually tried switching from mineral/gas econ harrasment to larva econ harrasment in the late game? Larvae has an insane amount of armor and are not that easily killed except for Psi Storm etc.
I'm not sure I'm following. Psi Storm is great vs. zerg, so is HSM. Why not use them? Mid game storm drops are a great harrasment tactic why not continue them into the late game only switching targets from drones to larva?
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On October 21 2010 00:18 Mensab wrote:
Regarding Marine vs Roach that people were arguing about earlier. Messed around with the unit tester and....
You need at least 3:1 odds in order to beat roaches. So its 150 mineral cost and 3 food vs 75 minerals and 2 food and 25 gas.
You start throwing in stim and shield and it becomes 1.5:1/1:1 ish (depending on concave/creep), but arguably that also means that there will be less marines and you are delaying tech for those two upgrades.
Not to mention that in order to accumulate enough marines you need to at least have 2 barracks (either via reactor or actually getting 2 barracks).
So I have nfc why people are stating that roaches barely deal with marines. You can of course start throwing in medivacs and marauders, but then that becomes a question of unit composition vs unit composition.
Just throw 20 marines with combat shield and without stimpack against 10 roaches and you will see what happen
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On October 21 2010 00:24 Jermstuddog wrote:Myth Busting time. Show nested quote +On October 21 2010 00:06 AmstAff wrote:
terrans [...] produce slower than any race Thor build time 60 seconds Ultralisk build time 75 seconds Colossus build time 75 seconds BC build time 90 seconds Broodlord build time 74 seconds Carrier build time 120 seconds Marine build time 25 seconds Zergling build time 24 seconds Zealot build time 38 seconds (28 @ Warp Gate) Marauder build time 30 seconds Roach build time 27 seconds Stalker build time 42 seconds (32 @ Warp Gate) Not even going to mention the difference in tech times as Terran always comes out ahead. Looks pretty competitive/on the low end of build times to me.
nice done... I was talking about economic and you just quote a start of a a sentence and the end of another one. next time better quote all and dont just take the parts that you like and take them out of context!
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On October 20 2010 23:59 MaD.pYrO wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2010 23:56 heishe wrote:On October 20 2010 23:52 MaD.pYrO wrote:On October 20 2010 23:49 heishe wrote:
#2 Inject Larvae: This just enables us to keep up with the other races. Properly macroed Toss and Terran can produce an equal amount of units as Zerg with inject larvae (unless you do it wrong, the limitation isn't larvae, it's resources, same for T and P), the difference being that Zergs units are usually less cost-effective than the T and P counterparts.
The difference being that once you're safe you have the ability to pump out 20 or so drones instantly and recover from harassment and once again overtake your opponent in macro. If you really believe that Zerg is underpowered then you are terribly misguided, sure Zerg has some issues with a lot of timing pushes, but what army does Terran have that can counter a maxed zerg army? I've never seen a Terran win against a Zerg in a late-game situation where the game wasn't decided by a lot of damage early on from some timing attack. If you ever pump out "20 or so drones" instantly, there's a huge hole in your defense which Terran and Protoss can take advantage of, unless they've fucked something up leading up to that point. Always. Zerg has just defended a timing attack and is left with a bigger army -> +15 drones.
show me one replay where the zerg was able to instantly pump 15 drones after he just defended a "timing attack" and where the game wouldn't have been over anyways even if the zerg just produces combat units instead of drones, and your point is valid. as it stand right now, in any situation where what you're stating occurs is when the T or P fucked something up terribly and the game is over after the Zerg defended the timing attack either way, no matter what he does. Or it is in the lategame and the Zerg already had a big advantage.
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I can't stand when this argument is made that all of a sudden zerg is able to tech switch. You have had to have spent the money on full tech and appropriate upgrades. You would have had to be banking a HEEEELLLLL of a lot of resources. And you needed to be maxed for a looong ass time to build up larvae on all your hatcheries. And you needed to have your opponent LET you take 4-5 bases.
Playing defensively all game, it is much more likely the 200/200 battle will be happening at your doorstep, not the T or P's front. Even if you can replenish your army with allll the aforementioned situations lining up in sync, it still does take time. In 30 seconds of roach build time the remainder of the T and P army can absolutely clean up your natural, killing your producing structure and a ton of drones. In fact, he can clean up your other base too, then pull back to expand himself. Besides, although you can be making roach/ling quite quickly, that's the least effective of your units against the late game T or P army, even in small numbers. You need big power units (to quote day9) to fight even on an even plane, and obviously they take longer, and there's no way you've banked enough gas to reproduce ultra/BL/infestor. Cool can do it because he was just plain better than his opponents in GSL 1. Even then there is a very edge-of-a-knife period where he has NOTHING in the late game. If the timing isn't just right he just loses.
You also forget that the T and P is also macro'ing and reinforcing the whole time as well, not just the zerg.
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On October 21 2010 00:29 Samhax wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2010 00:18 Mensab wrote:
Regarding Marine vs Roach that people were arguing about earlier. Messed around with the unit tester and....
You need at least 3:1 odds in order to beat roaches. So its 150 mineral cost and 3 food vs 75 minerals and 2 food and 25 gas.
You start throwing in stim and shield and it becomes 1.5:1/1:1 ish (depending on concave/creep), but arguably that also means that there will be less marines and you are delaying tech for those two upgrades.
Not to mention that in order to accumulate enough marines you need to at least have 2 barracks (either via reactor or actually getting 2 barracks).
So I have nfc why people are stating that roaches barely deal with marines. You can of course start throwing in medivacs and marauders, but then that becomes a question of unit composition vs unit composition.
Just throw 20 marines with combat shield and without stimpack against 10 roaches and you will see what happen
roaches are 2 food in name only, they are cheaper than 2 food units and are easily massed. You just need the supply opened up.
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As a zerg I want to place my input on the situation.
Yes, lategame zerg is VERY very strong. The ability to tech switch is especially strong versus protoss when you can go from +3 cracklings to roaches to counter the zealots easily.
HOWEVER, terran and protoss units are more robust. At the cost of a longer and more annoying production time. Currently I see terrans go for a mostly thor hellion timing push. While this is indeed very tough to handle, when it is dealt with there is no way for terran to swing back unless they did a LOT of damage.
Zerg always wants to trade armies. I don't care if I lose my entire army because I know that I can rebuild them faster. When a zerg loses their entire army it isnt that huge of a deal, with a very strong contrast to terran and protoss.
What advice I want to give terran and protoss is to keep your main force alive. Don't blindly engage a zerg even if you feel you are behind. The larger a terran force of Thors + hellions + MM gets, the tougher it becomes. Do whatever you can to keep the most cost effective units of the zerg ( Zergling, baneling, roach ) at bay. Those are the units that I like to techswitch to.
For protoss this means in the lategame; ALWAYS have high templar. And for terran I would like to see more raven and ghost play. I havent seen a seeker missile nor a nuke in like 400 games. Where they can both be great to put zerg out of their comfort zone. And point defense drones are great vs mutalisks as is the seeker. While the turrets are extremely annoying to deal with en masse because zerg lacks an energy draining spell caster like HT or ghost.
Thats all my input on this. ~1370 diamon zerg
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On October 21 2010 00:42 Sadist wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2010 00:29 Samhax wrote:On October 21 2010 00:18 Mensab wrote:
Regarding Marine vs Roach that people were arguing about earlier. Messed around with the unit tester and....
You need at least 3:1 odds in order to beat roaches. So its 150 mineral cost and 3 food vs 75 minerals and 2 food and 25 gas.
You start throwing in stim and shield and it becomes 1.5:1/1:1 ish (depending on concave/creep), but arguably that also means that there will be less marines and you are delaying tech for those two upgrades.
Not to mention that in order to accumulate enough marines you need to at least have 2 barracks (either via reactor or actually getting 2 barracks).
So I have nfc why people are stating that roaches barely deal with marines. You can of course start throwing in medivacs and marauders, but then that becomes a question of unit composition vs unit composition.
Just throw 20 marines with combat shield and without stimpack against 10 roaches and you will see what happen roaches are 2 food in name only, they are cheaper than 2 food units and are easily massed. You just need the supply opened up.
for me 75 mineral 25 gas=100 mineral, and marines are massable with 5+ rax, so what's your point?
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On October 21 2010 00:24 Jermstuddog wrote:Myth Busting time. Show nested quote +On October 21 2010 00:06 AmstAff wrote:
terrans [...] produce slower than any race Thor build time 60 seconds Ultralisk build time 75 seconds Colossus build time 75 seconds BC build time 90 seconds Broodlord build time 74 seconds Carrier build time 120 seconds Marine build time 25 seconds Zergling build time 24 seconds Zealot build time 38 seconds (28 @ Warp Gate) Marauder build time 30 seconds Roach build time 27 seconds Stalker build time 42 seconds (32 @ Warp Gate) Not even going to mention the difference in tech times as Terran always comes out ahead. Looks pretty competitive/on the low end of build times to me.
How can you post something this ridiculous with a straight face?
Thanks for pointing out that a Z who morphs in one unit at a time will be outproduced by the other races. That's a brilliant observation, and very much worth our time.
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You are an idiot if you let zerg macro up without applying pressure through hard pushes with toss or drops and pushes with terran. Your statement about the 'tech switch' is incorrect. Yes, larvae can become any unit in the zerg arsenal (save for banelings and brood lords), but in general, zerg structures have less hp (850 for some) and take far longer to build. Like every other race, zerg cannot simply tech EVERYTHING in his arsenal. Not to mention losing an option whilst losing a building. If protoss or terran lose ONE rax/warp gate, they don't lose the ability to make units through all their other ones. This makes zerg tech buildings more valuable than that of other races. Losing a spire is huge based on its cost and low hp, making it very vulnerable to terran drops.
if you let the zerg macro up, he will simply get a tonne of banelings (what i do anyway...) with some infestors to hold you in place (and maybe muta/corruptor/ultra) and trade armies, since he can just rebuild with such speed from hatcheries. It's up to you to put up harass and stop the zerg going 4base+ comfortably, as it is his job to scout and prevent any expansions you try to throw up. It's a game of back and forth, but in essence all zerg really has to do is hold out til the end and win.
If you think this is imba, consider this: zerg cannot make drones and units at the same time. Whilst the other races have worker/unit production from different facilities, zerg must choose between economy and defense early on. As Zerg, I've lost many a game where I cannot hold off a well played all-in attack, mostly due to my greediness in droning up. In this sense, defending and holding off pushes gets very hard to do.
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Actually I have the opposite problem in lategame zerg situations.
We engage with our 200/200 armies, and obviously I lose. But I can remake my whole army instantly! Right?
Except... well... ultralisks take a full minute to make. So you have 1 minute to walk into my base/expos and just wreck shit. Not to mention that all my units are being created at all my different bases rather than a single block of unit producing structures, this means you can get lots of free kills from stragglers. It is very difficult for zerg to deal with an opponent inside the base.
I really don't understand why people think zerg has such an advantage lategame. Remaking your whole army has never felt like an ideal situation to me. Though maybe I'm just not doing it right...
Like every other race, zerg cannot simply tech EVERYTHING in his arsenal.
I think we're talking about a lategame situation. Personally in that situation I think you can - and should - grab all the tech structures so that you can instantly pump out the hard counters after an army loss.
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On October 20 2010 23:34 gREIFOCs wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2010 21:31 TeWy wrote:
Judging at some of the posts I've recently read on TL, it seems that people are slowly starting to figure out that late game SC2 Zerg has no counter. No? Ultras die to thors, immortals and stimmed marauders with ease. They are actually just terrible against immortals. Broodlords are slow, weak and depend on their range and positioning to be effective. All pro gamers that go broodlords end up loosing some of them, even if the battle is leaning in favour of zerg. Please, explain me, what part of zerg late game "has no counter" as ultras and broodlords can be nullified with the choices that terran and protoss has. Even more, zerg late game, doesn't have a SINGLE UNIT that shoots up. You have to depend on corruptors or hydras which are tier 2 units. So, reading that someone thinks that zerg lategame is imba, when a single BC owns every single tier 3 zerg unit, is strange.
Giving you the benefit of the doubt (i.e. >elementary reading comprehension), I'm assuming you read only the portion you quoted, then responded based on a prediction of where his point was leading; as far as I know the op is discussing macro mechanic imbalance, not late game unit imbalance beyond the notion that t and p don't have satisfactory "kill tons for free" units to deal with said macro.
I don't think anyone who has an issue with ultralisks has animosity towards the unit itself, but the ability to make tons at once. Given that immortals are only decent against roaches prior to ultralisks entering the fray, it's unlikely for a protoss to be immortal heavy going into the transition. Saying a protoss can counter ultralisks with copious amounts of immortals is all well and good, but think about the amount of foresight it takes to have enough to deal with +-9 ultralisks being hatched simultaneously. Saying protoss can cope with it while still maintaining the zerg superiority complex that every facet of play for you is more skill intensive, is parallel to a terran who claimed zerg could deal with the previous reaper abuse with said defense being easier than the assault in my mind. I don't see why early release imbalance should merit reparations being paid to zerg players in the form of people accepting "having your cake and eating it too" argument structure.
As for my personal opinion on the matter, as a protoss player I don't find the pvz matchup fun- this is more important than balance on paper in my mind. As the op stated, if protoss were to win 50% of games before reaching the late game stage, and lose 100% that do, that is statistically balanced- however it isn't fun to me. It seems to me that the vast majority of the zerg arsenal is amazingly simple for protoss to deal with despite the ability to produce so quickly, while a lightning fast switch to mutalisks and later ultralisks are mind-numbingly difficult to cope with. This results in many occurrences of protoss players overcompensating or over-preparing for the possibility of two nightmarish and frustrating units, often being punished by the units they weren't worried about.
One response to the before mentioned fear, is to employ some sort of rush or all-in strategy to prevent either from ever coming into play- and I find it quite understandable that many protoss players feel more comfortable with said tactics considering the alternative. However, from my point of view this makes the matchup stagnant, frustrating, and boring. I'm as much for giving zerg early game options as I am for toning down the macro mechanics. Even with a 50% win rate in the current state of the game, going into the majority of pvz games knowing I will be frustrated for a large portion of the match, win or lose, is exhausting.
On the other hand, regardless of technical balance, I find the pvt matchup to be extremely entertaining. Both have decent early pressure options; Both have some cheese; Both have some early covert tactics; Both have ample room for creativity; Both have the ability to play a macro oriented game; Both have the ability to punish greedy play. There is a standard playout to the matchup (colossi+gateway support->into a way to deal with vikings vs bio+possible tanks+vikings-> a response to protoss responding to viking count), yet there are plenty of nonstandard playouts to the matchup. Additionally, even standard play can lead to unorthodox improvisation once reaching the 'transition away from massive amounts of colossi countered by vikings' stage, and it often does. These can be as minimalistic as kiwkaki using hallucinated phoenixes to tank for colossi, as abrupt as ogsInCa's recent transition from colossi into immortal+storm+gatway, or as ridiculous as TLO vs nazgul on metaloplis. Most of all I can expect some great battles where some sleek micro or positioning abuse will play a major role- unlike pvz, I know I will enjoy myself, win or lose.
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Well, I think Zerg can reach 200/200 food much faster than P or T if all the harassment failed.
But think about it, Z will get steamrolled vs any other race with 200/200 food.
So Z can never let P or T get 200 food or they will most of the time just lose the game.
And to do that Z must always attack P/T late game in order to keep them under 200 food as long as possible.
But it is much tougher to do that because all the good units are so gas intensive.
So how do you justify that Z is overpowered late game?
Z's units are lousy value over money if you ask me. So how is that balanced?
The answer is this: It is balanced by the fact that Z is much stronger at late game macro.
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On October 20 2010 23:56 Jermstuddog wrote:
Another point I would like to bring out is, nothing has changed from the Zerg players perspective, this is why they are doing so well after the patch.
Roaches got only slightly better, everything else is the same.
Meanwhile, Terran players have lost their crutch. So while Zerg players are doing the same old thing, Terran players who have been relying on this unfair harassment are now playing against Zergs who are actually able to defend themselves and finding that they have no back-up plan.
Zerg players have been enduring the beating for months while they work on other aspects of the game that they can control. Now that the imba opening phases have been smoothed out, those other aspects are coming to light.
Terrans will catch up in another month.
This. Zerg's being playing at a disadvantage, it's only natural that a slight improvement that helps zerg's early game will see a big improvement of zerg's play, because zerg players actually have more skill than their W/L show.
There are a billion analogies for this, I just randomly thought how zerg has been trying learning to juggle five balls while everyone else juggles four, now zerg is going back to four and naturally finds it easier.
In other words, most zerg's that have been doing standard play have been forced to develop skill to overcome their race deficiency.
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On October 20 2010 22:02 Alpina wrote:This thread is interesting but there is no evidence in what OP said. I've seen top level players playing ZvT macro games and does not seem like zerg late game is OP. Show nested quote +On October 20 2010 21:50 iG.ClouD wrote:
Zerg has always been the best race to be honest, and now that every single early game harass is taken out of the game they absolutely take no skill at all. I just think Blizzard is incompetent at balancing, and before SC2 WAR3 and WOW were a good example of it. So much nonsense here. What the hell you just said, did you even read what you write?
Alpina, you and many others have not played this game enough it seems. Z is back to pre-release status - the best.
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On October 21 2010 00:36 AmstAff wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2010 00:24 Jermstuddog wrote:Myth Busting time. On October 21 2010 00:06 AmstAff wrote:
terrans [...] produce slower than any race Thor build time 60 seconds Ultralisk build time 75 seconds Colossus build time 75 seconds BC build time 90 seconds Broodlord build time 74 seconds Carrier build time 120 seconds Marine build time 25 seconds Zergling build time 24 seconds Zealot build time 38 seconds (28 @ Warp Gate) Marauder build time 30 seconds Roach build time 27 seconds Stalker build time 42 seconds (32 @ Warp Gate) Not even going to mention the difference in tech times as Terran always comes out ahead. Looks pretty competitive/on the low end of build times to me. nice done... I was talking about economic and you just quote a start of a a sentence and the end of another one. next time better quote all and dont just take the parts that you like and take them out of context!
You make it sound so bad, "Terran" is the quote from the first sentence, I just figured I'd pull it from what you said rather than type it in myself.
But either way, I guess you want to talk about econ.
Ok, lets talk econ.
Every Mule is worth 4 free SCVs for 30 seconds, again, each mule costs 0 minerals and 0 supply. These can be saved up and dropped at the same time, or you can decide not to mule and give yourself instant vision of any area on the map for 10 seconds. I guess all that isn't worth the 150 mineral investment early on though.
Every time a Zerg player makes a building, he loses a drone. This has a major impact on Zergs early game and keeps them from being able to econ and tech simultaneously in an efficient manner like every other race in the game.
Zerg has the slowest movement up the tech tree.
At any rate, Zerg still has to pay the standard 50 minerals and 1 supply per drone. We won't mention that they share a very limited resource (larva) with every other unit in the zerg army. There are no free deals here.
Zerg has the worst defenses of all the races. Spine Crawlers cost just as much as cannons but can't shoot up and don't detect. Spore crawlers can shoot up and detect, but can't hit ground and usually end up being a waste of a drone. Zerg doesn't have the option of installing a giant cannon on top of their hatcheries.
All of these things add up to be a very flimsy macro machine. Sure it's efficient at gathering resources and producing troops once it gets going, but it is slow to start and not very tolerant to harassment.
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On October 21 2010 00:48 PanzerKing wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2010 00:24 Jermstuddog wrote:Myth Busting time. On October 21 2010 00:06 AmstAff wrote:
terrans [...] produce slower than any race Thor build time 60 seconds Ultralisk build time 75 seconds Colossus build time 75 seconds BC build time 90 seconds Broodlord build time 74 seconds Carrier build time 120 seconds Marine build time 25 seconds Zergling build time 24 seconds Zealot build time 38 seconds (28 @ Warp Gate) Marauder build time 30 seconds Roach build time 27 seconds Stalker build time 42 seconds (32 @ Warp Gate) Not even going to mention the difference in tech times as Terran always comes out ahead. Looks pretty competitive/on the low end of build times to me. How can you post something this ridiculous with a straight face? Thanks for pointing out that a Z who morphs in one unit at a time will be outproduced by the other races. That's a brilliant observation, and very much worth our time.
I guess other races only have 1 unit producing building too...
4 gate is strong vs Zerg for a reason, Zerg has a VERY hard time keeping up with the unit-production that 4 gateways is capable of.
At any rate, I say it with as straight a face as those who claim Terran production capabilities are slow.
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On October 21 2010 00:46 Samhax wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2010 00:42 Sadist wrote:On October 21 2010 00:29 Samhax wrote:On October 21 2010 00:18 Mensab wrote:
Regarding Marine vs Roach that people were arguing about earlier. Messed around with the unit tester and....
You need at least 3:1 odds in order to beat roaches. So its 150 mineral cost and 3 food vs 75 minerals and 2 food and 25 gas.
You start throwing in stim and shield and it becomes 1.5:1/1:1 ish (depending on concave/creep), but arguably that also means that there will be less marines and you are delaying tech for those two upgrades.
Not to mention that in order to accumulate enough marines you need to at least have 2 barracks (either via reactor or actually getting 2 barracks).
So I have nfc why people are stating that roaches barely deal with marines. You can of course start throwing in medivacs and marauders, but then that becomes a question of unit composition vs unit composition.
Just throw 20 marines with combat shield and without stimpack against 10 roaches and you will see what happen roaches are 2 food in name only, they are cheaper than 2 food units and are easily massed. You just need the supply opened up. for me 75 mineral 25 gas=100 mineral, and marines are massable with 5+ rax, so what's your point?
except you play terran and he plays zerg so to him your perception is very wrong. for a zerg player Gas is at about a 1-3 mineral ratio depending on how many workers you have mining gas.
For every one saturated geyser thats a potential 3 mineral pr second except the workers are mining gas.
So in the eyes of a zerg player the roach is more like a 150 mineral unit but its cheap on larvae so it has its pros and cons. Cons far outweighing the pros.
I dont even see why this is being argued in a zvp thread but roaches even with their new increased range are not cost effective against marines especially once upgrades start streaming out for terran while zergs tend to be more moderate in getting their upgrades.
For every roach the zerg makesearly on, thats another drone that could have been mining
Now back to the OP. The Zerg macro issue
There is no issue as all of zergs units are designed in such a fashion that they will evaporate in a 200 / 200 engagement. The issue is with early protoss agression not being as effective as it used to be so your forced to play a bit more reactionary turtle style, more on the defence, more reliant on your observers to see the map.
A zerg unit is supposed to be good at small army engagements and outside of a close to perfect concave or close to perfect flank the roach for instance is an absolutely TERRIBLE unit.
Even tier 3 follows this logic, adding one ultralisk to your army when you already have 6-8 is a terrible choice for zerg because diverse army composition and superior positioning often times than not tip the scales into zergs favour.
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I remember back when terran's in broodwar thought terran couldn't play a really strong macro style straight up.....
Then came iloveoov.
Terran's don't know how to play macro games properly yet because they have never had to. They could just do tons of damage in the first few minutes of the game and either win or continue with that advantage. Terrans can still do plenty of early to mid game damage. A problem on teamliquid is that people over generalize every scenario such as "omg roach range increase now hellion harass is completely thwarted i cant even harass zerg and cant use thor hellion banshee midgame push ahhhhhh". Do you realize how stupid that sounds?
maybe try creating timing pushes mid to late game that are in between zerg tech switches (before hive) etc.
And like everyone said before me - zergs have been getting beat down early game for months having to perfect everything about the early game just to stand a chance half the time. It is only logical that they catch up when the patches are released. All those 70 apm terrans that rely on ok micro and build order wins against zerg are dropping FAST. Terran has tons of options throughout the game however it may start to take broodwar like APM to begin to realize their full potential. Sounds good to me.
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On October 21 2010 01:06 avilo wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2010 22:02 Alpina wrote:This thread is interesting but there is no evidence in what OP said. I've seen top level players playing ZvT macro games and does not seem like zerg late game is OP. On October 20 2010 21:50 iG.ClouD wrote:
Zerg has always been the best race to be honest, and now that every single early game harass is taken out of the game they absolutely take no skill at all. I just think Blizzard is incompetent at balancing, and before SC2 WAR3 and WOW were a good example of it. So much nonsense here. What the hell you just said, did you even read what you write? Alpina, you and many others have not played this game enough it seems. Z is back to pre-release status - the best.
Not pre-release but in early beta. Pre-release zerg was weakest 
Anyway I don't get why everyone is whining here - not much has changed in recent months. I mean yeah some changes are huge like reaper nerf, proxy barack nerf, but they don't really influence the late game.
Yeah roach range is nice buff but nothing gamebreaking. I don't think a lot of changed in ZvT or ZvP late game in recent patches.
Btw don't forget ultra dmg and spash nerf.
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United States17042 Posts
This discussion isn't going anywhere. No one can cite any progames or...anything to back up these points. The best that I can come up with in response to the op is that zerg macro is different from T and P - possibly better, possibly worse, but for this we're talking about the same difference that existed in bw, which ended up being a balanced rts over the course of years.
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