EPTSo I've always kind of felt this, but I was wondering if anybody else feels the same way...
When you play starcraft and engage in a battle, there are usually two (or three) reasons you attempt to fight. 1. You think you can win the battle and gain an advantage over your opponent - or 2. You have no other choice but to fight (or 3. You are stupid/inexperienced/overconfident/retarded etc.). For the sake of this post I will only be talking about situations regarding the first reason.
I'm not sure if this is how other people do it (but I'll assume so anyway) but when I play, I have an idea of positioning, but more importantly, how effective each unit is (their DPS, their HP, effectiveness of composition vs opponent's army, number of units you have, etc.) And you just have an overall gut 'feeling' that your army is stronger than theirs, and you pray that you are right. Most of the time, you are.
For some reason or other, the spine crawler always 'feels' weak. I'm not talking stats or anything yet, but having used ample amounts of static defence of all 3 races, I feel as if spine crawlers are the weakest of all the towers. Here are my reasons:
1. Spine crawlers attack the slowest of all the static defenses:
You may say "A terran bunker has no attack" or "but they have the highest damage". Yes, but that is beside the point. Spine crawlers are generally the most useful for holding off early-mid game rushes. Anything after that and they become fairly useless. Spine crawlers have by far the slowest attack of all 3 static defenses. Why does that matter? Because you are wasting damage if the spine crawler's attack goes over the unit's hp. The stronger the attack, the more damage that is wasted.
For Example: + Show Spoiler +
Consider a marine on 40 hp as part of a large group of marines (perhaps it has been damaged by a drone, whatever). Both a spine crawler and a photon canon require 2 hits to kill it. However, the spine crawler will take 1.5x the time it takes for the spine crawler, due to its attack being slower. It does a total of 50 damage to the marine, but the extra 10 damage is wasted because the marine is dead. In this sense, for an early-mid game situation, a faster, weaker attack is preferred over a slower, stronger attack.
Leading on from 1...
2. Spine Crawlers have the least dps of all static ground defenses.
If we compare terran bunkers, protoss canons and zerg spine crawlers statistically, it becomes apparent.
+ Show Spoiler +
Bunkers - cost 100 (+ 4 marines = 300)
DPS - 6/0.215 seconds or about 28-29 dps
HP - 400 (+marines 45 each = 580, but for the sake of this thread, we will consider the bunker only)
Range - 6 (7 using marauders, again, for the sake of the thread, using marines as an example)
Armor - 1
Build Time - 35 seconds
Advantages - Salvagable for 100% return. Can be upgraded with terran building armor/neosteel frame. Damage upgrades as infantry weapons are upgraded. Repairable. Using marines, can hit air. Marines can stim while inside bunker.
Disadvantages - Range slightly smaller than that of other races using only marines. Requires marines to be effective, furthering the cost of the bunker, though marines do not die when the bunker dies, and the bunker may be salvaged and marines reincluded in the army.
Photon Canons - cost 150
DPS - 20/1.2 seconds or about 16.67/second
HP - 150hp/150shield
Range - 7
Armor - 1, shield armor 0
Build Time - 40 seconds
Advantages - Is a detector, hits air. Shield regenerates. Shield armor upgradable (though not recommended). Does not require worker's presence once it begins to warp in.
Disadvantages - Rather expensive for its dps (from a pure dps point of view, 2 canons is less than 3 zealots in terms of dps). Reqiures a forge (other races require only their starting unit-producing structures like barracks and spawning pool).
Spine Crawlers - Cost 100 + 50 = 150 (Drone cost)
DPS - 25 (+5 to armored)/1.85 seconds or about 13.514 (+2.7)/second
HP - 300
Range - 7
Armor - 2
Build Time - 50 seconds
Advantages - Can uproot and reposition if necessary (although the re-root time rather significant and can usually only be done out of battle). Regenerates hp (minimal rate, 0.27hp/sec). Can be Transfused for increased effectiveness.
Disadvantages - Kills the initial drone. Relies on creep (Dies rather rapidly whilst burrowed off-creep. Can only burrow (re-root) on creep. Very slow off-creep.)
My very brief rant: + Show Spoiler +
"But Bunkers aren't imbalanced" the Terrans will cry. Yes they are, compared to spine crawlers. Come down to earth and play with the rest of us instead of sitting on your pedestal of comfort. Try the other races and then speak. Kthx. BTW I'm a random player, so less hatin. I just like the idea that as zerg, you should be able to make drones/units to fit the situation and that a perfectly played game as zerg should win every time -_-
So from the stats, we see that not only do spine crawlers have the highest cooldown on their attack, but also the lowest dps of the three.
3. Spine crawlers take the longest time to get up
To be completely honest, 50 seconds sounds ridiculous. It's almost as much as a barracks, and it's nowhere near enough time to build after seeing an opponent's army move out. Seems like spines have to be pre-emptive, which is just another word for 'guessing game'.
What I think will fix this, though this is just an opinion and I realise that as a low diamond player it won't really be respected so I'm spoilering it -.- + Show Spoiler +
increase spine crawler range to 8. Spines are already confined by creep so it makes sense that they have more range to increase their effectiveness. Would also help zerg stop canon rushes and etc, which would encourage use.
