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Active: 646 users

Do we still want the Roach in HotS?

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okrane
Profile Joined April 2010
France265 Posts
June 16 2012 09:31 GMT
#1
Honest question to forumers.

We have a new installment of the game, a chance to set things right, to repair past mistakes and design flaws, to make the game sharper and better than it was before.

And still we have this god awful boring and bland unit in the core of the zerg army.

The expansion could be a way of removing it and adding another solution for Zerg early tier which would make things more interesting and fun to watch.

All opinions are welcome.

Really disappointed with Starcraft II Zerg! :(
Fleshcut
Profile Joined April 2011
Germany592 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 09:34:05
June 16 2012 09:33 GMT
#2
It's too important to Zs to remove it. Why not remove the tanks from terran? They are boring. Leading to turtle style play and impossible to crack defenses. Roaches are at least mobile and get you into a real game even if I have to admit that they are boring compared to lings. But you can't remove any of them. :/ Sadly.
Amlitzer
Profile Joined August 2010
United States471 Posts
June 16 2012 09:35 GMT
#3
The thing I hate about the roach is that it has these really interesting mechanics (burrow move and regen) that go unused 99% of the time. Instead they are just used as a pure dps unit, which isn't what I imagine blizzard intending at all. I think they really need to revert their range back to 3 for starters.
"Not even justice, I want to get truth!"
Garmer
Profile Joined October 2010
1286 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 09:36:45
June 16 2012 09:36 GMT
#4
tank boring, what? blasphemy.... roach are ten time more boring 1a units
Imho roach should cost 1 supply 100hp/3 range and same dps as now, but with a passive ability in his attack(like the devourer)
freetgy
Profile Joined November 2010
1720 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 09:40:14
June 16 2012 09:38 GMT
#5
I think roaches are fine, but the are to fast & tanky for the ressourc cost.

usually a unit is either fast or tanky.

A speed roach has movement speed of 4 on creep.....almost as fast as speedlings.

As far as i am aware 2 roaches beat any equivalent of 150/50 ressource army of the opponents, which makes them a very boring a-move unit in most of the cases.
Fueled
Profile Joined October 2011
United States1610 Posts
June 16 2012 09:39 GMT
#6
Ya its too important to Zergs to remove.

I'm kind of on the fence about them though. As watching goes, I hate seeing them in ZvP and ZvT, but I love watching roach battles in ZvZ.
The Wood League - Where a double gas opening can still mean a Marine/SCV all-in
Probe1
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United States17920 Posts
June 16 2012 09:39 GMT
#7
Haha do you have any idea how fucked everything would be if Roach was one supply? That's catching a candle only to let the fireplace burn down the house. Just imagine every time your opponent beat you with a roach timing then add 25-30% more roaches.


I want the Hydra back to its original use as much as anyone. However this is SC2 and I've accepted it will never be the same as BW. Roaches are part of what we use and they are remarkably fine the way they are.
우정호 KT_VIOLET 1988 - 2012 While we are postponing, life speeds by
Yorbon
Profile Joined December 2011
Netherlands4272 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 09:44:57
June 16 2012 09:40 GMT
#8
Marines OP, remove them. And there are enough other games with infantery shooting with guns: not so original.
Also, the zealot is pretty bland.

Roach is too standard in zerg army to get rid from. Small steps are needed to do so with good replacement. Imo not possible until lotv.
dAPhREAk
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
Nauru12397 Posts
June 16 2012 09:42 GMT
#9
and replace it with what?
Zrana
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United Kingdom698 Posts
June 16 2012 09:42 GMT
#10
I feel like the swarm host fills the role of a midgame defensive+cost-efficient+high-retention unit, whilst the speed upgrade for hydras could allow them to fill the role of the big ranged dps ball.

This doesn't necessarily mean that the roach should be removed, rather that now zergs have other options for roles the roach previously filled we will (probably) start to see roaches used and made more situationally which will make them seem like a less bland unit.
Aunvilgod
Profile Joined December 2011
2653 Posts
June 16 2012 09:44 GMT
#11
And have 2 more years of balancing? Hmm no rather not.
ilovegroov | Blizzards mapmaker(s?) suck ass | #1 Protoss hater
Probe1
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United States17920 Posts
June 16 2012 09:45 GMT
#12
You think we won't have a significant period of balancing anyway?
우정호 KT_VIOLET 1988 - 2012 While we are postponing, life speeds by
DystopiaX
Profile Joined October 2010
United States16236 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 09:47:24
June 16 2012 09:46 GMT
#13
Nope. Removing it means a lot more changes that would ultimately make it more difficult for the Zerg to get adjusted to the new expansion than the other 2 races. It would be like removing Stalkers/Marauders because they're "boring" as well. They may be vanilla ability wise but they allow the race to do a lot of different strategies with them. They're too important to remove.


On June 16 2012 18:42 Zrana wrote:
I feel like the swarm host fills the role of a midgame defensive+cost-efficient+high-retention unit, whilst the speed upgrade for hydras could allow them to fill the role of the big ranged dps ball.

This doesn't necessarily mean that the roach should be removed, rather that now zergs have other options for roles the roach previously filled we will (probably) start to see roaches used and made more situationally which will make them seem like a less bland unit.

You can get Roaches much quicker than Swarm Hosts though (hatch instead of lair tech). They're much more expensive than roaches and according to those that played they're really underwhelming. Not cost efficient at all. Also Roaches aren't purely a defensive unit and doesn't play the (intended) siege role that the Swarm Host does. I don't see the similarity in application at all.
Chargelot
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
2275 Posts
June 16 2012 09:46 GMT
#14
On June 16 2012 18:42 dAPhREAk wrote:
and replace it with what?

The beetle. It's like a roach, but with 25% more fun built into it. It could do things like burrow underground and move, and then pop up onto unsuspecting enemies. Roaches can't do that. Roaches are boring 1a units.
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Dalavita
Profile Joined August 2010
Sweden1113 Posts
June 16 2012 09:46 GMT
#15
On June 16 2012 18:33 Fleshcut wrote:
It's too important to Zs to remove it. Why not remove the tanks from terran? They are boring. Leading to turtle style play and impossible to crack defenses. Roaches are at least mobile and get you into a real game even if I have to admit that they are boring compared to lings. But you can't remove any of them. :/ Sadly.


What are you smoking. Tanks are objectively good for the game, and a huge part of what BW and SC has always been about. Shame they're so shit in SC2 compared to BW or we'd see some real positional games instead of blobfests.
Diizzy
Profile Joined August 2011
United States828 Posts
June 16 2012 09:47 GMT
#16
remove the roach. make lings a little tougher. give us the lurker.
Warzilla
Profile Joined December 2010
Czech Republic311 Posts
June 16 2012 09:47 GMT
#17
Yes it would be fun to see stephano figuring out new style ;D
"AFTER LOST GAME - I usually run around in circles yelling "WHY OH GOD WHY" in my room, pointing towards the sky. After 5 to 10min ,i get tired and go back to playing"
BisuDagger
Profile Blog Joined October 2009
Bisutopia19230 Posts
June 16 2012 09:48 GMT
#18
I think roaches provide a lot or early game management that otherwise wouldn't exist. They are needed before lair tech and are versatile in their uses. I can't see another type of new unit replacing it. That early in tech you want something that can work as a meat shield and deal decent dps but not be super special without upgrades. I think the roach pretty much covers that.
ModeratorFormer Afreeca Starleague Caster: http://afreeca.tv/ASL2ENG2
Ktk
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Korea (South)753 Posts
June 16 2012 09:49 GMT
#19
Well it's not like any other matchup has the standard way to play where you max out on any other unit at 12m and win the game with that. Not even marines, though you could make a case for blink stalkers... hmm.

Jokes aside it is a pretty important unit, as mech becomes a more viable option (or so Blizzard says / hopes............) in HotS, I think having the Roach will be a good transition unit for WoL players to mess around with the new units - we don't want to absolutely shatter Zerg players' knowledge of the game (in that: when you see mech, build roaches). Roach drops will still be good against mech because Terran didn't get new anti air other than widow mines.

Blizzard has said they're not opposed to 1a "macro-friendly" (lol) units; that was their reasoning for warhound/battle hellion - no reason to eliminate units. You'd only get people mad by removing it. We don't know if It would still be played more often than bc's, hydras now, reapers, ravens, neosteel frames...
Tachion
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Canada8573 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 09:52:07
June 16 2012 09:51 GMT
#20
On June 16 2012 18:42 dAPhREAk wrote:
and replace it with what?

tier 1 hydras that aren't terrible. Of course that would fuck up hots changes but this is mindless theorycraft anyway.
i was driving down the road this november eve and spotted a hitchhiker walking down the street. i pulled over and saw that it was only a tree. i uprooted it and put it in my trunk. do trees like marshmallow peeps? cause that's all i have and will have.
algue
Profile Joined July 2011
France1436 Posts
June 16 2012 09:51 GMT
#21
Remove the "boring a+click units" = remove half of the zerg army + the entire protoss army
You can't , sorry.
rly ?
Qikz
Profile Blog Joined November 2009
United Kingdom12022 Posts
June 16 2012 09:52 GMT
#22
On June 16 2012 18:35 Amlitzer wrote:
The thing I hate about the roach is that it has these really interesting mechanics (burrow move and regen) that go unused 99% of the time. Instead they are just used as a pure dps unit, which isn't what I imagine blizzard intending at all. I think they really need to revert their range back to 3 for starters.


That's the way I see roaches IMO.

Especially since Terrans never get any ravens so burrowing under tanks would be really bloody useful.
FanTaSy's #1 Fan | STPL Caster/Organiser | SKT BEST KT | https://twitch.tv/stpl
CatNzHat
Profile Blog Joined February 2011
United States1599 Posts
June 16 2012 09:53 GMT
#23
On June 16 2012 18:33 Fleshcut wrote:
It's too important to Zs to remove it. Why not remove the tanks from terran? They are boring. Leading to turtle style play and impossible to crack defenses. Roaches are at least mobile and get you into a real game even if I have to admit that they are boring compared to lings. But you can't remove any of them. :/ Sadly.

Units that control space like siege tanks, allow for terran to be more aggressive because they're safer from counter attacks. This dynamic creates interesting and exciting gameplay, they don't lead to turtle playstyles, but allow for it, just like collosus and sentries.
gingerfluffmuff
Profile Joined January 2011
Austria4570 Posts
June 16 2012 09:55 GMT
#24
Terrible thread with terrible ideas.
Roach is the only tanky combat unit zerg has the first 13 minutes or so. How are u gonna defend against Zealots and Hellions?
Range back to 3? Goes really well with FF...

IMO the best unit of the three (Roach, Marauder;Stalker) is the Stalker. Versatile and microable with Blink.
・゚✧:・゚+..。✧・゚:・..。 ✧・゚ :・゚ ゜・:・ ✧・゚:・゚:.。 ✧・゚ SPARKULING *・゜・:・゚✧:・゚✧。゚+..。 ✧・゚: ✧・゚:・゜・:・゚✧::・・:・゚・゚
Cascade
Profile Blog Joined March 2006
Australia5405 Posts
June 16 2012 09:55 GMT
#25
On June 16 2012 18:31 okrane wrote:
All opinions are welcome.

The idea is interesting, and has some potential imo, but you completely fail to address the hard part...

The idea stands and falls with what you replace the roach with. You would have to rebuild the entire dynamics of three matchup from tier 1.5 and up. How would you do that? Until you have some kind of thoughts on what the replacement could look like, and how it would be better, then this discussion won't go any further than "roaches are boring lulz". Everyone can complain about things not working perfectly ("collosus OP", "marines imba", "BL inf unbeatable" etc), but without constructive ideas on how the situation can be improved, complaining doesn't help anyone.

So I ask: WHY is the roach not wanted? Why is it needed? What could fulfill the same role, but without the drawbacks?
lichter
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
1001 YEARS KESPAJAIL22272 Posts
June 16 2012 09:57 GMT
#26
One hotkey for burrow, a different hotkey for unburrow.

Ability to select only burrowed or unburrowed units (ctrl+click)

More distinct unit portraits for burrowed vs unburrowed units

= more interesting Roach micro?
AdministratorYOU MUST HEED MY INSTRUCTIONS TAKE OFF YOUR THIIIINGS
forsooth
Profile Joined February 2011
United States3648 Posts
June 16 2012 09:59 GMT
#27
On June 16 2012 18:33 Fleshcut wrote:
Why not remove the tanks from terran? They are boring.

You should delete your account, go outside, and rethink your life.
teddyoojo
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
Germany22369 Posts
June 16 2012 10:00 GMT
#28
On June 16 2012 18:33 Fleshcut wrote:
It's too important to Zs to remove it. Why not remove the tanks from terran? They are boring. Leading to turtle style play and impossible to crack defenses. Roaches are at least mobile and get you into a real game even if I have to admit that they are boring compared to lings. But you can't remove any of them. :/ Sadly.

tanks are bad, i have no problem with that
Esports historian since 2000. Creator of 'The Universe' and 'The best scrambled Eggs 2013'. Host of 'Star Wars Marathon 2015'. Thinker of 'teddyoojo's Thoughts'. Earths and Moons leading CS:GO expert. Lord of the Rings.
Bluething
Profile Joined October 2010
Lithuania75 Posts
June 16 2012 10:00 GMT
#29
Why create these stupid threads? ._.;
Cyro
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
United Kingdom20285 Posts
June 16 2012 10:02 GMT
#30
1 supply 100hp/3 range and same dps as now


But protoss thirds are already 100-130 supply when zerg hits max on 3-4hatch roach production.. they would not pass 150 before zerg was maxed on 1 supply roaches and when 60 current roaches can end a lot of zvps, i cant imagine what 120 slightly nerfed ones would do..
"oh my god my overclock... I got a single WHEA error on the 23rd hour, 9 minutes" -Belial88
Zrana
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United Kingdom698 Posts
June 16 2012 10:03 GMT
#31

You can get Roaches much quicker than Swarm Hosts though (hatch instead of lair tech). They're much more expensive than roaches and according to those that played they're really underwhelming. Not cost efficient at all. Also Roaches aren't purely a defensive unit and doesn't play the (intended) siege role that the Swarm Host does. I don't see the similarity in application at all.


I kinda meant that you can defend an all-in with them as well as pressure the opponent in the midgame. With the lower gas cost you can get roaches out earlier but if you can defend with ling/spine until about 10mins ish you can maybe make the same thing happen with swarm hosts. If they are indeed underwhelming then maybe that wont happen or maybe they'll be buffed.

Also, we really don't know how the game will look. Hydras look waay more tempting to make now with abduct owning collosi and the speed upgrade making storm a bit less harsh.

Anyway i don't see the problem with roaches. I know a lot of protoss players hate them but losing to collosus or a vortex going off before you snipe the Mship has gotta be worse than losing to mass roach.
Chaosvuistje
Profile Joined April 2010
Netherlands2581 Posts
June 16 2012 10:04 GMT
#32
Zerg versus Zerg infinite Zergling-baneling war gogogo.

I wouldn't mind that to happen, but you know, it will just be replaced by another swarmy 1a unit. So no, getting rid of it has no benefit whatsoever to the people watching considering that there are loads of 1a units out there that are just as exciting as the roach in other races.

[]Phase[]
Profile Joined September 2010
Belgium927 Posts
June 16 2012 10:06 GMT
#33
I'd like it a little cheaper and a little weaker, but I still want it there
Garmer
Profile Joined October 2010
1286 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 10:08:16
June 16 2012 10:06 GMT
#34
On June 16 2012 19:02 Cyro wrote:
Show nested quote +
1 supply 100hp/3 range and same dps as now


But protoss thirds are already 100-130 supply when zerg hits max on 3-4hatch roach production.. they would not pass 150 before zerg was maxed on 1 supply roaches and when 60 current roaches can end a lot of zvps, i cant imagine what 120 slightly nerfed ones would do..


100 instead of 145 and 3 range instead of 4 is not a sligthly nerf for sure, if it's still a problem just lower it to 80hp, problem solved

but roach 1 suppy is more zergish and less protish
sleepingdog
Profile Joined August 2008
Austria6145 Posts
June 16 2012 10:07 GMT
#35
On June 16 2012 19:00 Bluething wrote:
Why create these stupid threads? ._.;


Because it's a perfectly valid question that I myself have been pondering about lately...

Let's face it, the roach is god-awful in PvZ. It's a boring unit that can quickly win games if you follow Stephano's macro-style. In many games no transition is needed. I would be very happy to see a new approach that wouldn't include the roach. Obviously there had to be a replacement.

Just think about the following: why should any zerg even USE the new HotS-units in PvZ when protoss - apparently - doesn't get another anti-roach-unit anyways? Even though we have to wait for the beta obviously, I don't see why mass-roaching shouldn't still be viable in HotS.
"You see....YOU SEE..." © 2010 Sen
sluggaslamoo
Profile Blog Joined November 2009
Australia4494 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 10:08:33
June 16 2012 10:07 GMT
#36
I would like to see the Roach/Marauder/Colossus/Immortal removed.

And 1 supply hydras with speed upgrade at hatch tech returned.
Come play Android Netrunner - http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=409008
Vindicare605
Profile Blog Joined August 2011
United States16056 Posts
June 16 2012 10:08 GMT
#37
The Roach by itself is a little bland, but when mixed with Burrow and Burrow movement they are actually pretty interesting units later on. By comparison the Hydralisk is far more straight forward yet no one complains about IT being a boring unit.
aka: KTVindicare the Geeky Bartender
Hall0wed
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
United States8486 Posts
June 16 2012 10:08 GMT
#38
On June 16 2012 18:38 freetgy wrote:
I think roaches are fine, but the are to fast & tanky for the ressourc cost.

usually a unit is either fast or tanky.

A speed roach has movement speed of 4 on creep.....almost as fast as speedlings.

As far as i am aware 2 roaches beat any equivalent of 150/50 ressource army of the opponents, which makes them a very boring a-move unit in most of the cases.


1 Stalker
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Macpo
Profile Joined September 2010
453 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 10:11:18
June 16 2012 10:09 GMT
#39
As a zerg player, I agree I would prefer to not see them in hots, as I feel they are one of the most uninteresting unit in the game, even compared to other standard tier one units (like the marine, which you can micro, stim, drop; or even the stalker, that you can blink). Their burrow and burrow move is quite useless.
Now, they are also the most essential unit of the zerg arsenal, so suppressing the roach would probably mean suppressing the whole zerg knowledge about the game.
So I am not sure about it; but would definitely be happy to see blizzard try something about this... maybe even reconsidering the animation for burrow, so that burrow micro may become interesting?

"Courage consists, however, in agreeing to flee rather than live tranquilly and hypocritically in false refuges." G. Deleuze
Garmer
Profile Joined October 2010
1286 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 10:12:00
June 16 2012 10:09 GMT
#40
On June 16 2012 19:07 sluggaslamoo wrote:
I would like to see the Roach/Marauder/Colossus/Immortal removed.

And 1 supply hydras with speed upgrade at hatch tech returned.

i'm with you, worst units in starcraft's history(but immortal is cool)
Skrita
Profile Joined May 2011
Czech Republic55 Posts
June 16 2012 10:09 GMT
#41
I would appriciate that, if the roach would be changed to a little differnet role, then marauder could be changed too. So the two of the most boring units would be gone(their uninterestingness) . And in the most wild scenario, becuse these two would be changed(probably made a little less effective) the king of boring units, the walker of worlds Collosus could be made somewhat interesting.
-Kira
Profile Blog Joined March 2012
352 Posts
June 16 2012 10:10 GMT
#42
On June 16 2012 18:31 okrane wrote:
Honest question to forumers.

We have a new installment of the game, a chance to set things right, to repair past mistakes and design flaws, to make the game sharper and better than it was before.

And still we have this god awful boring and bland unit in the core of the zerg army.

The expansion could be a way of removing it and adding another solution for Zerg early tier which would make things more interesting and fun to watch.

All opinions are welcome.



You don't like a unit. Noone cares. /thread

User was temp banned for this post.
mrtomjones
Profile Joined April 2011
Canada4020 Posts
June 16 2012 10:11 GMT
#43
Yes you will still want them. Any splash unit will absolutely rape pure hydra. Roaches will still be used.
F-Decoy
Profile Joined June 2011
France245 Posts
June 16 2012 10:11 GMT
#44
3 range instead of 4 is a huge nerf. Some ppl already forgot. Before the 4 range buff, roach weren't often used especially vs Protoss because of FF. 25% range nerf or boost isn't nothing.
lunchrush
Profile Joined March 2011
United States138 Posts
June 16 2012 10:13 GMT
#45
Don't balance threads usually get deleted?
There is no order in the world around us, we must adapt ourselves to the requirements of chaos instead. -Kurt Vonnegut
Corsica
Profile Joined February 2011
Ukraine1854 Posts
June 16 2012 10:14 GMT
#46
For me not to use roach is to lose 90% of my game automatically, besides how you gonna combat mech zvt?
Excludos
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Norway8054 Posts
June 16 2012 10:15 GMT
#47
Did anyone watch the hots showcase matches and noticed how interesting they where? Sure they're probably set up to be interesting on purpose by the players, but I also noticed there wasnt many roaches being made. I honestly feel that the roach has a place in the game, but it should not be a all purpose unit which is fast, tanky, can burrow, move while burrow, has insane regen, and deals a ton of damage.

I mean, why not give the stalker cloak, lower its resource cost, make it a bit faster and increase its damage? That way protoss doesn't need to build anything else in the game either!
Excludos
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Norway8054 Posts
June 16 2012 10:15 GMT
#48
On June 16 2012 19:13 lunchrush wrote:
Don't balance threads usually get deleted?

This isn't a balance thread?
Garmer
Profile Joined October 2010
1286 Posts
June 16 2012 10:16 GMT
#49
On June 16 2012 19:14 Corsica wrote:
For me not to use roach is to lose 90% of my game automatically, besides how you gonna combat mech zvt?

this is the reason why roach is boring, and need to go and replaced with something more awesome, or reworked to be an interesting unit
Liquid`Jinro
Profile Blog Joined September 2002
Sweden33719 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 10:17:43
June 16 2012 10:16 GMT
#50
On June 16 2012 18:33 Fleshcut wrote:
It's too important to Zs to remove it. Why not remove the tanks from terran? They are boring. Leading to turtle style play and impossible to crack defenses. Roaches are at least mobile and get you into a real game even if I have to admit that they are boring compared to lings. But you can't remove any of them. :/ Sadly.

The tank is the best unit in the game....

The roach I mostly dislike as a tier 1 unit, I think as a tier 2 unit it's completely fine, I just hate the dynamic it creates vs hellion openings, I dont think zerg should have a unit like that so early, especially now that queens are 5 range.

Might be you'd have to make some other changes for terran if that was the case, as terrans could potentially get a littttttle bit too comfortable/2 fac hellion happy. Not sure how you'd deal with that exactly but there is *some* room for nerfing zerg in the current state of TvZ.

Of course, doing that to roaches would be a huge deal in ZvP lol, not even gonna comment on that one as I'm not qualified at all.

On June 16 2012 19:09 Skrita wrote:
I would appriciate that, if the roach would be changed to a little differnet role, then marauder could be changed too. So the two of the most boring units would be gone(their uninterestingness) . And in the most wild scenario, becuse these two would be changed(probably made a little less effective) the king of boring units, the walker of worlds Collosus could be made somewhat interesting.

Yeah, the roach/marauder/immortal all interact in a really negative way on the game, IMO. It's not an easy problem to fix at all tho....

And yes, the colossus is just.. Meh.
Moderatortell the guy that interplanatar interaction is pivotal to terrans variety of optionitudals in the pre-midgame preperatories as well as the protosstinal deterriggation of elite zergling strikes - Stimey n | Formerly FrozenArbiter
Aelfric
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
Turkey1496 Posts
June 16 2012 10:16 GMT
#51
I've no idea why you guys suggest this kind of stuff. Roaches are the main attacker of zerg army most of the time. We all know Stalkers or Marauders won't get removed. Roaches won't too no matter how hard you want it. Blizzard won't even listen this kind of stuff.
Tomorrow never comes until its too late...
sleepingdog
Profile Joined August 2008
Austria6145 Posts
June 16 2012 10:18 GMT
#52
On June 16 2012 19:11 F-Decoy wrote:
3 range instead of 4 is a huge nerf. Some ppl already forgot. Before the 4 range buff, roach weren't often used especially vs Protoss because of FF. 25% range nerf or boost isn't nothing.


This was actually the most terrible change overall - I would have preferred any other change. The thing is, roaches are, in my opinion, supposed to be used against aggressive gateway-play early on, especially zealots. But like protoss can't beat terran MM with pure gateway-units, it shouldn't be "that" big of a problem for zergs to rely on something else a little bit further into the game.
"You see....YOU SEE..." © 2010 Sen
NeMeSiS3
Profile Blog Joined February 2012
Canada2972 Posts
June 16 2012 10:19 GMT
#53
On June 16 2012 18:51 Tachion wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 18:42 dAPhREAk wrote:
and replace it with what?

tier 1 hydras that aren't terrible. Of course that would fuck up hots changes but this is mindless theorycraft anyway.


someone's dreaming, Hydra's will always be terrible!
FoTG fighting!
SgtCoDFish
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
United Kingdom1520 Posts
June 16 2012 10:19 GMT
#54
I really like roaches, actually; I'd be sad to see them go. That said, I'm looking forward to roach/hydra/viper in HotS because I love dropping everywhere and being annoying :D
Chargelot
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
2275 Posts
June 16 2012 10:20 GMT
#55
On June 16 2012 19:10 -Kira wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 18:31 okrane wrote:
Honest question to forumers.

We have a new installment of the game, a chance to set things right, to repair past mistakes and design flaws, to make the game sharper and better than it was before.

And still we have this god awful boring and bland unit in the core of the zerg army.

The expansion could be a way of removing it and adding another solution for Zerg early tier which would make things more interesting and fun to watch.

All opinions are welcome.



You don't like a unit. Noone cares. /thread

I don't understand why you think this is an acceptable post. Your opinion of the thread is what people don't care about. It's a valid topic of discussion, and while the OP could probably be better written, you can't just come into a thread, read it, dislike it, and decide to shit on it. You can say that Roaches are valid units. You can agree that roaches are invalid. You can say you think it would be stupid to remove them, or you can say this is brilliant.

Personally, I like roaches, and I think they're as acceptable as any of the other low-tier units in the game. Removing them would probably be a bad choice at this point, and Zerg would either end up with the same tanky type of unit, because they would need damage absorption, or they would just get rolled with their new interesting unit.

But if you have literally nothing to say but "/thread" why the fuck even post? What do you gain by doing that? What do you prove by saying that? Is there any purpose greater than to be a dick?
if (post == "stupid") { document.getElementById('post').style.display = 'none'; }
Velr
Profile Blog Joined July 2008
Switzerland10686 Posts
June 16 2012 10:21 GMT
#56
On June 16 2012 18:55 gingerfluffmuff wrote:
Terrible thread with terrible ideas.
Roach is the only tanky combat unit zerg has the first 13 minutes or so. How are u gonna defend against Zealots and Hellions?
Range back to 3? Goes really well with FF...

IMO the best unit of the three (Roach, Marauder;Stalker) is the Stalker. Versatile and microable with Blink.



See, thats my problem with it.

Zerg should not have or need a tanky unit aside from Ultras...
Klonere
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
Ireland4123 Posts
June 16 2012 10:24 GMT
#57
You want to remove a unit that isn't the colossus?

What is wrong with you?
Ryder.
Profile Joined January 2011
1117 Posts
June 16 2012 10:28 GMT
#58
On June 16 2012 19:08 Hall0wed wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 18:38 freetgy wrote:
I think roaches are fine, but the are to fast & tanky for the ressourc cost.

usually a unit is either fast or tanky.

A speed roach has movement speed of 4 on creep.....almost as fast as speedlings.

As far as i am aware 2 roaches beat any equivalent of 150/50 ressource army of the opponents, which makes them a very boring a-move unit in most of the cases.


1 Stalker

Yes 2 roaches do beat 1 stalker, what's your point?
Leetley
Profile Joined October 2010
1796 Posts
June 16 2012 10:28 GMT
#59
I've always kinda wanted see the switch for hydra be the backbone unit and roach to be the current hydraish unit. Both units would need balancing, like hydra having T2 speed upgrade or something like that.
MrSexington
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
United States1768 Posts
June 16 2012 10:29 GMT
#60
If they fixed the hydras, I'd be open to removing roaches.

Also, I'd like them to remove the Marauder and fix Reapers to help fill that void. Reapers are just so much more interesting of a unit than Marauders.

Not that any of this is going to happen.
Chaosvuistje
Profile Joined April 2010
Netherlands2581 Posts
June 16 2012 10:29 GMT
#61
On June 16 2012 19:18 sleepingdog wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 19:11 F-Decoy wrote:
3 range instead of 4 is a huge nerf. Some ppl already forgot. Before the 4 range buff, roach weren't often used especially vs Protoss because of FF. 25% range nerf or boost isn't nothing.


This was actually the most terrible change overall - I would have preferred any other change. The thing is, roaches are, in my opinion, supposed to be used against aggressive gateway-play early on, especially zealots. But like protoss can't beat terran MM with pure gateway-units, it shouldn't be "that" big of a problem for zergs to rely on something else a little bit further into the game.


There is a reason Zergs take to the skies in the lategame you know. Roaches are viable in every stage of the game to some extent rather than being an only 'anti-gateway' unit. Zerglings in the lategame just melt to anything, same with Hydralisks. Protoss' splash damage is just so strong that we NEED a tanky unit to stand a chance on the ground against anything that has more than 2 collosi in the army. If you just want roaches to be viable against gateway units, you're essentially doing what the hydralisk is now. Tell me that the Hydralisk is in a good position in the game right now, I dare you.

Roach range increase was the best change for the roach because it made them less of a 1a unit because now you were able to snipe stuff rather than just trying to get into range. Doing anything like increasing health or armour or decreasing cost would have made the unit more boring and even more of a splash tanker.

If you think 3 base roach spam is bad, think of 5 hatch hydra bust in broodwar. That could bust protoss pretty well and hit both ground AND air.
oOOoOphidian
Profile Joined January 2011
United States1402 Posts
June 16 2012 10:30 GMT
#62
burrow move is very cool, but otherwise I would rather hydra be better and tier 1. it seems like it might get more late game use in the future at least, probably phasing out roaches somewhat like they should have already been doing for late game.
Creator of sc2unmasked.com
Serelitz
Profile Joined April 2011
Netherlands2895 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 10:35:54
June 16 2012 10:33 GMT
#63
On June 16 2012 18:36 Garmer wrote:
tank boring, what? blasphemy.... roach are ten time more boring 1a units
Imho roach should cost 1 supply 100hp/3 range and same dps as now, but with a passive ability in his attack(like the devourer)


Roaches' biggest drawback is their supply inefficiency. Even with increased cost, just halving their supply makes them infinitely much better. Not going to happen.

edit: I hope burrow move becomes passive (maybe burrow research time increased a bit to not make the timings to fast) and then reduce its' armor by 1. Make it a bit less tanky a-move, more harassy/micro-encouraging.
Integra
Profile Blog Joined January 2008
Sweden5626 Posts
June 16 2012 10:34 GMT
#64
On June 16 2012 18:46 Chargelot wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 18:42 dAPhREAk wrote:
and replace it with what?

The beetle. It's like a roach, but with 25% more fun built into it. It could do things like burrow underground and move, and then pop up onto unsuspecting enemies. Roaches can't do that. Roaches are boring 1a units.

The beetle sounds awesome.
"Dark Pleasure" | | I survived the Locust war of May 3, 2014
[F_]aths
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
Germany3947 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 10:37:28
June 16 2012 10:35 GMT
#65
On June 16 2012 18:31 okrane wrote:
Honest question to forumers.

We have a new installment of the game, a chance to set things right, to repair past mistakes and design flaws, to make the game sharper and better than it was before.

And still we have this god awful boring and bland unit in the core of the zerg army.

The expansion could be a way of removing it and adding another solution for Zerg early tier which would make things more interesting and fun to watch.

All opinions are welcome.


I think you make a mistake by having a unit-centric view on the game. I prefer more to think in tech paths and strategy directions. The roaches for example can be microed against force fields (with burrow movement.) It's not easy to just replace the roach.

On another note, I like the roach and don't find it boring at all. While the roach is somewhat 1-A viable (since the range was upgraded to 4) it should be used with some micro.


In SC2, zerg has no anti-air unit until tier 2 (save for the queen.) One cannot simply put the hydra back to tier 1.5 without making all races more equal (terran has anti-air with tier 1, protoss with 1.5)
You don't choose to play zerg. The zerg choose you.
Batch
Profile Joined May 2010
Sweden692 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 10:42:59
June 16 2012 10:36 GMT
#66
If roaches were to be removed from zerg then hydralisks would have to be moved down to tier one and this would probably make for less exciting games.

PvZ: Hydralisks pretty much hard counters zealots, sentries and stalkers and tier on hydralisks would end all early game aggression from protoss.
TvZ: Every T would mass hellions and hardly ever use marauders since the only armored unit in the zerg ground arsenal would be the ultralisk.

I do think the raoch is a boring unit but the game is sort of built around it at this point.
Deckkie
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
Netherlands1595 Posts
June 16 2012 10:36 GMT
#67
I wouldnt be surprised if 80-90% of players wants the roach/Colossus/marauder gone. To bad its te 10-20% that works for blizzard.

I think that when the Colossus is gone it would be easier for zerg to figh without roaches, and easier for terran to fight without marauders.

Give the zerg tier 1 Hydra's, with a Tier 2 speed boost and we could possibly have a more awesome game overall. And they can replace the tier 2 hydra with the swarm host.
Always look on the bright side of life
Hall0wed
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
United States8486 Posts
June 16 2012 10:37 GMT
#68
On June 16 2012 19:28 Ryder. wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 19:08 Hall0wed wrote:
On June 16 2012 18:38 freetgy wrote:
I think roaches are fine, but the are to fast & tanky for the ressourc cost.

usually a unit is either fast or tanky.

A speed roach has movement speed of 4 on creep.....almost as fast as speedlings.

As far as i am aware 2 roaches beat any equivalent of 150/50 ressource army of the opponents, which makes them a very boring a-move unit in most of the cases.


1 Stalker

Yes 2 roaches do beat 1 stalker, what's your point?


Micro
♦ My Life for BESTie ♦ 류세라 = 배 ♦
[F_]aths
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
Germany3947 Posts
June 16 2012 10:38 GMT
#69
On June 16 2012 19:36 Deckkie wrote:
I wouldnt be surprised if 80-90% of players wants the roach/Colossus/marauder gone. To bad its te 10-20% that works for blizzard.

I think that when the Colossus is gone it would be easier for zerg to figh without roaches, and easier for terran to fight without marauders.

Give the zerg tier 1 Hydra's, with a Tier 2 speed boost and we could possibly have a more awesome game overall. And they can replace the tier 2 hydra with the swarm host.

So every race has regular anti-air units before tier 2? Sounds not so awesome to me with that much symmetry.
You don't choose to play zerg. The zerg choose you.
Otak
Profile Joined April 2011
United Kingdom110 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 10:40:41
June 16 2012 10:39 GMT
#70
On June 16 2012 19:07 sluggaslamoo wrote:
I would like to see the Roach/Marauder/Colossus/Immortal removed.

And 1 supply hydras with speed upgrade at hatch tech returned.


Agreed except the immortal and hydra speed upgrade at hatch (maybe lair would be more realistic). They are much more niche units that can fill a role but will get owned in other circumstances rather than the "one size fits all" mentality of collossus/roach and the boringness or the marauder.
FinalForm
Profile Joined August 2010
United States450 Posts
June 16 2012 10:43 GMT
#71
dont like the game? dont play then
phodacbiet
Profile Joined August 2010
United States1740 Posts
June 16 2012 10:45 GMT
#72
On June 16 2012 18:38 freetgy wrote:
I think roaches are fine, but the are to fast & tanky for the ressourc cost.

usually a unit is either fast or tanky.

A speed roach has movement speed of 4 on creep.....almost as fast as speedlings.

As far as i am aware 2 roaches beat any equivalent of 150/50 ressource army of the opponents, which makes them a very boring a-move unit in most of the cases.


Colossus does a lot of DPS and are EXTREMELY mobile. Most units in this game are a move units but it is how you position them before you a move them is what make them interesting. Like marines, it is so great when people split them and then a move them which looks really cool.
nomyx
Profile Joined June 2012
United States2205 Posts
June 16 2012 10:46 GMT
#73
My problem with roaches are they don't feel like a zerg unit. 145 hp, 1 armor, 16 (!) damage for a t1.5 unit? Seems more like a protoss unit hiding in a shell than a zerg unit.
Cinim
Profile Joined April 2011
Denmark866 Posts
June 16 2012 10:46 GMT
#74
buff hydra survival for hots aswell, make them tier 1 unit, and remove roaches! roaches worst thing that happend to zerg... of course will take balancing, but will be so much better
Hell, it's about time
Deckkie
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
Netherlands1595 Posts
June 16 2012 10:47 GMT
#75
On June 16 2012 19:38 [F_]aths wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 19:36 Deckkie wrote:
I wouldnt be surprised if 80-90% of players wants the roach/Colossus/marauder gone. To bad its te 10-20% that works for blizzard.

I think that when the Colossus is gone it would be easier for zerg to figh without roaches, and easier for terran to fight without marauders.

Give the zerg tier 1 Hydra's, with a Tier 2 speed boost and we could possibly have a more awesome game overall. And they can replace the tier 2 hydra with the swarm host.

So every race has regular anti-air units before tier 2? Sounds not so awesome to me with that much symmetry.


The thing is that at this point every race has a regular anti armour unit at tier 1, and that kind of symmetry isnt very awesome to me. Especially when it feels as if every armour unit is balanced against the tier 1 anti armour unit.
Always look on the bright side of life
SarcasmMonster
Profile Joined October 2011
3136 Posts
June 16 2012 10:48 GMT
#76
Either 1 supply (but slightly weaker) Roachs or tier1 Hydras. Zerg doesn't feel swarm-y enough in WOL and less fun to play because of it.
MMA: The true King of Wings
Arnstein
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Norway3381 Posts
June 16 2012 10:51 GMT
#77
The problem with big changes, like removing the roach, is that it would change too much for the competitive players. Pro players depend on winning, and it's not fun for them to play if the game changes so much that they don't know what they're doing anymore.
rsol in response to the dragoon voice being heard in SCII: dragoon ai reaches new lows: wanders into wrong game
HaXXspetten
Profile Blog Joined October 2009
Sweden15718 Posts
June 16 2012 10:52 GMT
#78
I'd love to see it go, but I'm not sure how that'd work. Sure, Hydras will be a lot better but still...
Garmer
Profile Joined October 2010
1286 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 10:59:43
June 16 2012 10:55 GMT
#79
On June 16 2012 19:51 Arnstein wrote:
The problem with big changes, like removing the roach, is that it would change too much for the competitive players. Pro players depend on winning, and it's not fun for them to play if the game changes so much that they don't know what they're doing anymore.

obviously change like this, should come with hots, where there is already a reset of the game, not with a patch
Assirra
Profile Joined August 2010
Belgium4169 Posts
June 16 2012 10:56 GMT
#80
On June 16 2012 19:47 Deckkie wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 19:38 [F_]aths wrote:
On June 16 2012 19:36 Deckkie wrote:
I wouldnt be surprised if 80-90% of players wants the roach/Colossus/marauder gone. To bad its te 10-20% that works for blizzard.

I think that when the Colossus is gone it would be easier for zerg to figh without roaches, and easier for terran to fight without marauders.

Give the zerg tier 1 Hydra's, with a Tier 2 speed boost and we could possibly have a more awesome game overall. And they can replace the tier 2 hydra with the swarm host.

So every race has regular anti-air units before tier 2? Sounds not so awesome to me with that much symmetry.


The thing is that at this point every race has a regular anti armour unit at tier 1, and that kind of symmetry isnt very awesome to me. Especially when it feels as if every armour unit is balanced against the tier 1 anti armour unit.

What anti armor unit does the zerg has exactly?
They don't get bonus damage against armor if that is what you mean.
ThePlayer33
Profile Joined October 2011
Australia2378 Posts
June 16 2012 10:59 GMT
#81
only if you make lings hit air
| Idra | YuGiOh | Leenock | Coca |
Garmer
Profile Joined October 2010
1286 Posts
June 16 2012 11:01 GMT
#82
remove roach
make ling more strong(like in BW or slightly better)
make them move underground(at faster speed then roach), so they can avoid force field
profit??
Incognoto
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
France10239 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 11:08:32
June 16 2012 11:03 GMT
#83
The Roach is key to so much Zerg play it's insane. It's used in every match up and in different ways it's quite possibly one of the most interesting units Zerg has. The Roach's key value is that it is way more robust than any other Z unit. It doesn't die immediately like Hydra, Zerglings, Muta, etc. That makes the Roach an immensely versatile unit.

Some people say that Roaches are 1-A dumb units. While that can be true if you do strats like the 12 minute max, people largely underestimate the value of burrow with Roaches. In a fight, burrowing weak Roaches can be as good (perhaps even better than) blink for Stalkers. They get their health back so quickly it's absurd. Burrow also makes them good harass units. I think Root Zergs are those who utilize burrow roaches the best and I encourage Zergs to watch their streams. This may be biased, I only watch Root Zergs and Idra so... :p

No, Roach is a great unit, the bread and butter for Zerg. Don't take it out.

I'd rather see an anti-armor unit for Zerg, like the Immortal. Might make retarded Roach/Infestor wars more interesting to watch. :B



Also Tanks aren't boring at all they're absolutely huge in TvZ (probably TvT as well, I wouldn't know about TvP but it seems that mobile units > tanks). I would argue that TvZ is easily the most entertaining match up there is btw.
maru lover forever
shin ken
Profile Blog Joined October 2009
Germany612 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 11:17:25
June 16 2012 11:03 GMT
#84
I really like the roach! It reminds me of those cookie cutter spammable tank units from old games like command & conquer! It's cool to have something like a good ol' tank rush (=roach rush) in the game especially for beginner/lowlevel players. It's a good way to learn basic macro and timings with those units. AND it has trademark command & conquer tiberian sun style burrowed movement.

It's one of those units that has "Dustin Browder" written all over it, who brings a lot of C&C influences into the starcraft space. There might be some people who don't like that influence but Dustin designed the games which are widely considered the pinaccle of the C&C series which has never recovered from his departure to Blizzard.

Many Most C&C players followed suit and switched to the SC camp and while it's a minority (which is not represented in the progamer circus) you shouldn't ignore the likes and dislikes of a significant chunk of your playerbase.
Iyerbeth
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
England2410 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 11:07:56
June 16 2012 11:04 GMT
#85
My biggest issue with delaying or removing Roaches is there would never be another Lair built in ZvZ again. You might be able to work around the other match up issues, but without any option to fight Banelings, ZvZ would suck.

I think the real problem with the Roach was in the design of the Zerg army. Every race can pick a staple "backbone" unit and for Zerg the only option is the Roach. You could argue that Lings could fill the role and maybe do in some cases when handled by people like Stephano but realistically they die to pretty much everything unless you get very favourable surrounds and minimal splash. Then there's the Hydra which dies to everything. The Baneling which has obvious issues being the backbone of an army. The Ultra which is Hive tech. What else can Zerg do but build Roaches?

That's not a balance whine I should add as I'm quite happy with the strength of my Zerg. I just don't see any other unit that can be the staple Zerg unit as it stands now.
♥ Liquid`Sheth ♥ Liquid`TLO ♥
Atlasy
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
Hungary229 Posts
June 16 2012 11:07 GMT
#86
On June 16 2012 18:33 Fleshcut wrote:
It's too important to Zs to remove it. Why not remove the tanks from terran? They are boring. Leading to turtle style play and impossible to crack defenses. Roaches are at least mobile and get you into a real game even if I have to admit that they are boring compared to lings. But you can't remove any of them. :/ Sadly.

I laughed so hard <3 thank you. Dude I'm seriously interested how did you get that conclusion.

First, with HotS coming out and with it's current form Hydras are way more powerful than roaches. I believe that roaches can be jumped out. You won't need them in the game only in special situations. And you will never ever make one of them.
Second, if you look back from where roaches come from you will see that they're completely crippled in their current form. Their original role was to regenerate as fast as they can and all that stuff, but it was obviously imba as shit. Now they are essential. Why? Easy because non of the Zerg units can fit in his role. Hydra could but it's too slow to actually be available. Roaches were designed to be an interesting unit, but in their current form they are kinda boring.
Third, do you realize what do you say? Tanks are essential, and even I do feel like they are too weak especially if we consider that abduct is coming out soon and if it remains in it's current form it will completely cripple tanks. Tanks are designed for a slow, strategical pushes, and obviously there is that turtleish style, but it's not problem, in my opinion.
Fourth, :DD that was the moment when I've laughed the hardest. Why? Comparing lings to roaches is really stupid, and calling zerglings interesting is ... strange... I mean they are not a smart-designed unit, you don't need mind to design a zergling I mean what do you need? Low health low cost low damage and speed. That's all. A 4 years old kid could design it. It's not interesting at all, It's just important. The game can't exist without them they serving an extremely important role. Not like roaches because their role could be easily overtaken by Hydras.
Bensio
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United Kingdom621 Posts
June 16 2012 11:07 GMT
#87
i would prefer a slightly stronger zergling, while making the roach more of a tactical burrow tank unit, have its tankiness come from burrow regen, not health, I wish it had its insane burrow regen from the beta back but with a lot less HP
Durp
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
Canada3117 Posts
June 16 2012 11:10 GMT
#88
Roaches will end up being more of a niche late game unit in HotS. The Hydralisk with its movement bonus is going to be the unit zergs start massing late game. It's got better DPS, and will now actually able to be used offensively. The roach conversely will now primarily fit the role of anti-mech/all in busting unit, and an anti-zealot or heavy colossus play unit.

I actually really like the Roach as a unit, I think the real problem isn't the unit itself but rather the ultra-reliance on it that zerg players have now. With the swarm host addition and hydralisk changes, I imagine that will change with HotS. Keep it in.
SOOOOOooooOOOOooooOOOOoo Many BANELINGS!!
sertas
Profile Joined April 2012
Sweden885 Posts
June 16 2012 11:12 GMT
#89
its easy, remove roach and replace with hydra for the same price, the hydra death animation should be cool as in broodwar and the unit is a lot more interesting then the roach. Add maybe something new to tier 2 this i dont know what. But you dont really need to add anything new, hydras are very rarely used in ZvP or TvZ anyway. So hydra would be the new roach and a lot cooler.
Deckkie
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
Netherlands1595 Posts
June 16 2012 11:12 GMT
#90
On June 16 2012 19:56 Assirra wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 19:47 Deckkie wrote:
On June 16 2012 19:38 [F_]aths wrote:
On June 16 2012 19:36 Deckkie wrote:
I wouldnt be surprised if 80-90% of players wants the roach/Colossus/marauder gone. To bad its te 10-20% that works for blizzard.

I think that when the Colossus is gone it would be easier for zerg to figh without roaches, and easier for terran to fight without marauders.

Give the zerg tier 1 Hydra's, with a Tier 2 speed boost and we could possibly have a more awesome game overall. And they can replace the tier 2 hydra with the swarm host.

So every race has regular anti-air units before tier 2? Sounds not so awesome to me with that much symmetry.


The thing is that at this point every race has a regular anti armour unit at tier 1, and that kind of symmetry isnt very awesome to me. Especially when it feels as if every armour unit is balanced against the tier 1 anti armour unit.

What anti armor unit does the zerg has exactly?
They don't get bonus damage against armor if that is what you mean.


Yes, I know it isnt as linear as armour unit vs anti armor unit.
But what I ment was that when armour units are made (tanks, colossi, thor, ultra) that there is this tier 1 unit that becomes the go to unit. Terran just makes marauders and zerg just makes roaches as very 1a friendly counters. With the Protoss its already done a little different, they have the zealots that are the beefy units and the staker is kinda mid range.

It may not be always correct, but it often feels like the bigger units are balanced by making very standard, general tier 1 massable units. and therefor my dislike for the roach and the marauder.

But please tell me if im very of point, because I am terran myself (and only diamond at that TT) and may very well be wrong.
Always look on the bright side of life
DarkPlasmaBall
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
United States44214 Posts
June 16 2012 11:12 GMT
#91
On June 16 2012 18:46 Chargelot wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 18:42 dAPhREAk wrote:
and replace it with what?

The beetle. It's like a roach, but with 25% more fun built into it. It could do things like burrow underground and move, and then pop up onto unsuspecting enemies. Roaches can't do that. Roaches are boring 1a units.


I totally expected this post to be written by baller.

Where has he gone off to? Haven't seen him posting lately.

But I agree that if we're just going to get rid of 1a units... then there goes 1/3 - 1/2 the units in the game
"There is nothing more satisfying than looking at a crowd of people and helping them get what I love." ~Day[9] Daily #100
Nazza
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
Australia1654 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 11:15:29
June 16 2012 11:13 GMT
#92
The REAL questions is, what does the roach do that a (BW) hydra cannot?

Units usually have two major traits: Versatility and Damage. And usually when you have more Versatility, you have less damage. I definitely think that some units in SC2 have way too much damage and not enough versatility.

The better units imo, have a lot of versatility, which actually is enough for you to keep using them early to mid, or mid to late game.
Eg.
Marine:
Hits air/ground
Cheap
Can be stimmed and microable (splitting/etc)
however very low health and (individual) damage

Phoenix:
Fast Air Unit
Used to Scout
Used to Harass
Used to defend vs Muta Harassment
However very low health and (individual) damage

Whereas, the roach: It has lots of HP and pretty good damage. However, there is no real way to "get more" out of a roach. You can't really micro it, and burrow-movement is extremely gimmicky. The only real practical situation I can really think of is doom dropping, which you can do with any other unit.

And the counter argument is that: BW Hydras don't actually have that much micro either. And yes, I would agree with you, there's actually nothing more to a hydra other than it can shoot up as ground units. However in BW, Reavers and psi storm in ZvP, and wraith harassment/heavy late game in ZvT made them so that whatever situation you were going to make hydras meant that you had to micro them and be extremely proactive about moving and relocating your hydralisk force.

My biggest issue is probably the fact that roaches are redundant, the roles of the hydra and the roach overlap a little bit. That is, you could probably make a more compact game of SC2 if you just gave back the old Hydra, and focused your resources on something Zerg really does not have, that is something that really makes use of the creep mechanic rather than say "oh hey, let's make hydras unnecessarily slow off creep to make an artificial synergy".

TL;DR: Try not to think about the game in terms of damage and unit counters, but units that can give you a tactical edge.
No one ever remembers second place, eh? eh? GIVE ME COMMAND
paradoxOO9
Profile Joined January 2011
United Kingdom1123 Posts
June 16 2012 11:14 GMT
#93
Its more the way that people use them, I still don't understand why people aren't using burrow the same way that protoss are using blink. They have great abilities like burrow movement and the health regen that just go kinda unnoticed.
Nazza
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
Australia1654 Posts
June 16 2012 11:20 GMT
#94
On June 16 2012 19:51 Arnstein wrote:
The problem with big changes, like removing the roach, is that it would change too much for the competitive players. Pro players depend on winning, and it's not fun for them to play if the game changes so much that they don't know what they're doing anymore.


Trust me, Pro players don't depend on units to win them games. Part of their job sometimes is to adapt to change (hi Kespa).
No one ever remembers second place, eh? eh? GIVE ME COMMAND
DarkInfinity
Profile Joined July 2011
121 Posts
June 16 2012 11:21 GMT
#95
Yes, unless you want to make the hydralisk tier 1 and reduce its cost, the roach is a critical unit to Zerg in all matchups.
And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee!
Chargelot
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
2275 Posts
June 16 2012 11:21 GMT
#96
On June 16 2012 20:12 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 18:46 Chargelot wrote:
On June 16 2012 18:42 dAPhREAk wrote:
and replace it with what?

The beetle. It's like a roach, but with 25% more fun built into it. It could do things like burrow underground and move, and then pop up onto unsuspecting enemies. Roaches can't do that. Roaches are boring 1a units.


I totally expected this post to be written by baller.

Where has he gone off to? Haven't seen him posting lately.

But I agree that if we're just going to get rid of 1a units... then there goes 1/3 - 1/2 the units in the game

Ahaha. Roaches can be fun units. You just have to use them correctly. Zealots are fun with charge. Stalkers are fun with blink. Marauders are fun with shells. Roaches are fun with burrow move.
if (post == "stupid") { document.getElementById('post').style.display = 'none'; }
gingerfluffmuff
Profile Joined January 2011
Austria4570 Posts
June 16 2012 11:22 GMT
#97
On June 16 2012 20:07 Atlasy wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 18:33 Fleshcut wrote:
It's too important to Zs to remove it. Why not remove the tanks from terran? They are boring. Leading to turtle style play and impossible to crack defenses. Roaches are at least mobile and get you into a real game even if I have to admit that they are boring compared to lings. But you can't remove any of them. :/ Sadly.

I laughed so hard <3 thank you. Dude I'm seriously interested how did you get that conclusion.

First, with HotS coming out and with it's current form Hydras are way more powerful than roaches. I believe that roaches can be jumped out. You won't need them in the game only in special situations. And you will never ever make one of them.
Second, if you look back from where roaches come from you will see that they're completely crippled in their current form. Their original role was to regenerate as fast as they can and all that stuff, but it was obviously imba as shit. Now they are essential. Why? Easy because non of the Zerg units can fit in his role. Hydra could but it's too slow to actually be available. Roaches were designed to be an interesting unit, but in their current form they are kinda boring.
Third, do you realize what do you say? Tanks are essential, and even I do feel like they are too weak especially if we consider that abduct is coming out soon and if it remains in it's current form it will completely cripple tanks. Tanks are designed for a slow, strategical pushes, and obviously there is that turtleish style, but it's not problem, in my opinion.
Fourth, :DD that was the moment when I've laughed the hardest. Why? Comparing lings to roaches is really stupid, and calling zerglings interesting is ... strange... I mean they are not a smart-designed unit, you don't need mind to design a zergling I mean what do you need? Low health low cost low damage and speed. That's all. A 4 years old kid could design it. It's not interesting at all, It's just important. The game can't exist without them they serving an extremely important role. Not like roaches because their role could be easily overtaken by Hydras.


If i would be playing terran or Protoss i would post the same :D

But, Hydra dies to everything, literally.
It is light and needs Lair tech and its gas heavy and it needs creep (will see about the speed upg)

Maybe changing the Hydra into a non-light (like the queen, without the psionic part) unit with 90 hp would work, idk.
・゚✧:・゚+..。✧・゚:・..。 ✧・゚ :・゚ ゜・:・ ✧・゚:・゚:.。 ✧・゚ SPARKULING *・゜・:・゚✧:・゚✧。゚+..。 ✧・゚: ✧・゚:・゜・:・゚✧::・・:・゚・゚
FakeDeath
Profile Joined January 2011
Malaysia6060 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 11:28:21
June 16 2012 11:23 GMT
#98
On June 16 2012 20:14 paradoxOO9 wrote:
Its more the way that people use them, I still don't understand why people aren't using burrow the same way that protoss are using blink. They have great abilities like burrow movement and the health regen that just go kinda unnoticed.


IMO Blink will always be more useful than burrow movement.
Since you can always use blink in battles whereas you can't do the same with burrow movement.

Burrow movement is mainly used to going through FFs and for its increased health regen.
I don't see any other situation where burrow movement can be useful other than these two.

Burrow movement loses it effectiveness as it progress towards the later stages of the game where BLs+Infestors become
more prevalent on the field and roaches loses their effectiveness whereas stalker will still be useful in sniping infestors and BLs
with blink.So yeah most people don't get burrow movement.

Plus,Blink and Burrow Movement are 2 entirely different skills.
So you can't compare them like that.
Play your best
VirtuallyJesse
Profile Joined February 2011
United States398 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 11:25:00
June 16 2012 11:24 GMT
#99
I'd love to see Roaches gone and Stalkers be remade, at least in my perfect world at least. ^^ Blink is neat but theres so much more opportunity.
freetgy
Profile Joined November 2010
1720 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 11:27:05
June 16 2012 11:26 GMT
#100
On June 16 2012 19:37 Hall0wed wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 19:28 Ryder. wrote:
On June 16 2012 19:08 Hall0wed wrote:
On June 16 2012 18:38 freetgy wrote:
I think roaches are fine, but the are to fast & tanky for the ressourc cost.

usually a unit is either fast or tanky.

A speed roach has movement speed of 4 on creep.....almost as fast as speedlings.

As far as i am aware 2 roaches beat any equivalent of 150/50 ressource army of the opponents, which makes them a very boring a-move unit in most of the cases.


1 Stalker

Yes 2 roaches do beat 1 stalker, what's your point?


Micro


you realize that speed roaches are faster then stalker off creep, and even way faster on creep?
and good luck doing that while beeing fungaled
Chargelot
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
2275 Posts
June 16 2012 11:27 GMT
#101
On June 16 2012 20:23 FakeDeath wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 20:14 paradoxOO9 wrote:
Its more the way that people use them, I still don't understand why people aren't using burrow the same way that protoss are using blink. They have great abilities like burrow movement and the health regen that just go kinda unnoticed.


IMO Blink will always be more useful than burrow movement.
Since you can always use blink in battles whereas you can't do the same with burrow movement.

Burrow movement is mainly used to going through FFs and for its increased health regen.
I don't see any other situation where burrow movement can be useful other than these two.

Plus,Blink and Burrow Movement are 2 entirely different skills.
So you can't compare them like that.

Proper burrow micro means that roaches aren't focused down. So Terran is targeting roches with his marines, you burrow the roach he's hitting before it dies, and then they will have to target a new unit. That roach doesn't necessarily need to get full health before it resurfaces. It just means the roach lives longer, and has more damage output before it dies. Which is how blink micro works in battle. This isn't really done, with roaches it's always burrow everything and risk scan/obs or don't even bother with burrow.
if (post == "stupid") { document.getElementById('post').style.display = 'none'; }
Masemium
Profile Joined April 2012
Netherlands33 Posts
June 16 2012 11:32 GMT
#102
As a Roach hater myself, I thought about this too. I've come up with one solution, to keep the Zergling and Hydralisk at tier 1, and to add a 3rd tier 1 unit designed for tanking and holding off Gateway units and Marauders.

The key lies with the Baneling.

Step 1

The Baneling is now a seperate Larva unit at Lair tech. Making this unit stronger and better since it got bumped in tech is possible.

Step 2

Hydralisk back to Hatchery tech as commonly suggested. Unit stats need to be adjusted.

Step 3

The Zergling can now morph into the Roach at Hatchery level. Roach stats need to be adjusted. Personally I think they would be more intersesting if they were melee units.

This way, at Hatchery level, your army can consist of Zerglings, Hydras, and melee Roaches. Perhaps Roaches can get a special ability that makes them tuck into a ball for added health/armor and regeneration. This way the opponent has to choose whether to attack the healing idle-Roaches, or ignore them and move on, but will have to face them again later.

At Lair tech you get Air+Baneling+Infestor+Swarm Host

At Hive tech you get More Air+Ultra
Sentou junbi!
emc
Profile Joined September 2010
United States3088 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 11:36:54
June 16 2012 11:34 GMT
#103
On June 16 2012 19:08 Vindicare605 wrote:
The Roach by itself is a little bland, but when mixed with Burrow and Burrow movement they are actually pretty interesting units later on. By comparison the Hydralisk is far more straight forward yet no one complains about IT being a boring unit.


oh no we complain about it, but we are smart not to discuss balance on TL because it warrants bans. I'm still unsure how this thread is still open, so I guess the new rules are everyone can make a balance/whine thread as long as it has HotS in it?

By comparison the marauder is a much much more bland unit, it doesn't even have a micro mechanic like burrow, burrow regen and burrow movement. I think this thread is silly, I mean what unit do you replace it with? Oh right, I was thinking about how zerg needs the roach then I remember that zerg has 5 range queens and really don't need the roach anymore. I'm sure there might be a timing attack that could hurt zerg without the roach but I'm still thinking what it could be when zerg still has mutas.
Woizit
Profile Joined June 2011
801 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 11:37:02
June 16 2012 11:35 GMT
#104
On June 16 2012 20:27 Chargelot wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 20:23 FakeDeath wrote:
On June 16 2012 20:14 paradoxOO9 wrote:
Its more the way that people use them, I still don't understand why people aren't using burrow the same way that protoss are using blink. They have great abilities like burrow movement and the health regen that just go kinda unnoticed.


IMO Blink will always be more useful than burrow movement.
Since you can always use blink in battles whereas you can't do the same with burrow movement.

Burrow movement is mainly used to going through FFs and for its increased health regen.
I don't see any other situation where burrow movement can be useful other than these two.

Plus,Blink and Burrow Movement are 2 entirely different skills.
So you can't compare them like that.

Proper burrow micro means that roaches aren't focused down. So Terran is targeting roches with his marines, you burrow the roach he's hitting before it dies, and then they will have to target a new unit. That roach doesn't necessarily need to get full health before it resurfaces. It just means the roach lives longer, and has more damage output before it dies. Which is how blink micro works in battle. This isn't really done, with roaches it's always burrow everything and risk scan/obs or don't even bother with burrow.


Uh burrow micro's used, it's just not as good as blink, that's why it's not as prevalent.

With blink, you can reposition your entire army while fighting. How many times have you seen an engagement where the blink stalkers start off in a bad concave and end up in a superior one? Burrow can't do that.

Blink is also a single step process, with burrow, you have to unburrow again, to make it fight. That makes it less useful than blink, not to mention that the weaken stalkers are still firing after blinking back unlike the burrowed roaches.
DemigodcelpH
Profile Joined August 2011
1138 Posts
June 16 2012 11:38 GMT
#105
It does seem a bit too efficient for it's cost.
Talin
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
Montenegro10532 Posts
June 16 2012 11:39 GMT
#106
On June 16 2012 18:31 okrane wrote:
And still we have this god awful boring and bland unit in the core of the zerg army.


I don't agree with this line of reasoning at all. If anything, Starcraft 2 needs more units like the Roach, Marauder, (WoL) Hellion, (non-Blink) Stalker or Mutalisk. Not the exact same units, obviously, but units which are straightforward, kind of "ergonomic" (easy to pick up and control, microable), that ideally don't have any fancy special abilities or features.

It's the fundamental RTS unit - 90% of units are supposed to be like this, with key differences being in speed, range, pathing and grouping AI, type of damage, armor, etc.

What we need is less spellcasters (especially AoE) and weird or wacky abilities. These cause the most problems with the game, cause the most balance issues and also make the game less skillful as a whole, especially with smartcasting.
FlaminGinjaNinja
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
United Kingdom879 Posts
June 16 2012 11:39 GMT
#107
Roaches are fine, yes they can be boring if you max them and 1a but so most units. It just depends how you use them.
GinjaNinja.661 EU I'd like to thank my sh*t keyyboard for always messing up my 'Y's
paradoxOO9
Profile Joined January 2011
United Kingdom1123 Posts
June 16 2012 11:40 GMT
#108
On June 16 2012 20:23 FakeDeath wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 20:14 paradoxOO9 wrote:
Its more the way that people use them, I still don't understand why people aren't using burrow the same way that protoss are using blink. They have great abilities like burrow movement and the health regen that just go kinda unnoticed.


IMO Blink will always be more useful than burrow movement.
Since you can always use blink in battles whereas you can't do the same with burrow movement.

Burrow movement is mainly used to going through FFs and for its increased health regen.
I don't see any other situation where burrow movement can be useful other than these two.

Burrow movement loses it effectiveness as it progress towards the later stages of the game where BLs+Infestors become
more prevalent on the field and roaches loses their effectiveness whereas stalker will still be useful in sniping infestors and BLs
with blink.So yeah most people don't get burrow movement.

Plus,Blink and Burrow Movement are 2 entirely different skills.
So you can't compare them like that.

I mean in regards to when the roach gets low on health using burrow on it to stop it from dying then unburrowing it after, the way that a weakened stalker would blink back.
Hall0wed
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
United States8486 Posts
June 16 2012 11:41 GMT
#109
On June 16 2012 20:26 freetgy wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 19:37 Hall0wed wrote:
On June 16 2012 19:28 Ryder. wrote:
On June 16 2012 19:08 Hall0wed wrote:
On June 16 2012 18:38 freetgy wrote:
I think roaches are fine, but the are to fast & tanky for the ressourc cost.

usually a unit is either fast or tanky.

A speed roach has movement speed of 4 on creep.....almost as fast as speedlings.

As far as i am aware 2 roaches beat any equivalent of 150/50 ressource army of the opponents, which makes them a very boring a-move unit in most of the cases.


1 Stalker

Yes 2 roaches do beat 1 stalker, what's your point?


Micro


you realize that speed roaches are faster then stalker off creep, and even way faster on creep?
and good luck doing that while beeing fungaled


You do realize that Roach speed costs money and Infestors also cost money last I checked. Obviously this would put you well over the 150/50 cap that was established in the initial post.

Nice try you guys. ^_^
♦ My Life for BESTie ♦ 류세라 = 배 ♦
bhfberserk
Profile Joined August 2011
Canada390 Posts
June 16 2012 11:42 GMT
#110
Roach is pretty good in general. It is quite interesting to have burrow movement and regen. But I have always questioned the big claw. *It was originally a melee units and it attacks really fast with the 2 claws. But since it is a range unit, should the claws be gone and re-model to a more "Green poison spewing bug"?

Zeon0
Profile Joined September 2010
Austria2995 Posts
June 16 2012 11:43 GMT
#111
OP asks a question, 50% of replies are Protoss QQ ...
Hater of MKP since GSL Open Season 2 | Fanboy of: NesTea Stephano IdrA DIMAGA MorroW ret DongRaeGu Snute SaSe Mvp ThorZaIN DeMusliM
FakeDeath
Profile Joined January 2011
Malaysia6060 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 11:55:49
June 16 2012 11:44 GMT
#112
On June 16 2012 20:40 paradoxOO9 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 20:23 FakeDeath wrote:
On June 16 2012 20:14 paradoxOO9 wrote:
Its more the way that people use them, I still don't understand why people aren't using burrow the same way that protoss are using blink. They have great abilities like burrow movement and the health regen that just go kinda unnoticed.


IMO Blink will always be more useful than burrow movement.
Since you can always use blink in battles whereas you can't do the same with burrow movement.

Burrow movement is mainly used to going through FFs and for its increased health regen.
I don't see any other situation where burrow movement can be useful other than these two.

Burrow movement loses it effectiveness as it progress towards the later stages of the game where BLs+Infestors become
more prevalent on the field and roaches loses their effectiveness whereas stalker will still be useful in sniping infestors and BLs
with blink.So yeah most people don't get burrow movement.

Plus,Blink and Burrow Movement are 2 entirely different skills.
So you can't compare them like that.

I mean in regards to when the roach gets low on health using burrow on it to stop it from dying then unburrowing it after, the way that a weakened stalker would blink back.


The problem is blinking is a single step process whereas burrow and then unburrowing is a two step process.
This itself makes stalker blink micro much easier than the roach burrow-unburrow movement in battle scenario.

Not only that blinking back your stalker won't decrease your army dps since they only blink to the back of the army
whereas the roach burrow and unburrow reduces army dps and take time for roach to heal up.

Also, blinking back your army into better concaves which increase your army fighting dps whereas burrow can't do the same.

That's why i believe Blink is more superior than Burrow movement in battle situation which is mainly used for going through FFs and mainly for healing up your unit when not in battle.

Play your best
sluggaslamoo
Profile Blog Joined November 2009
Australia4494 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 11:46:22
June 16 2012 11:45 GMT
#113
On June 16 2012 20:32 Masemium wrote:
As a Roach hater myself, I thought about this too. I've come up with one solution, to keep the Zergling and Hydralisk at tier 1, and to add a 3rd tier 1 unit designed for tanking and holding off Gateway units and Marauders.

The key lies with the Baneling.

Step 1

The Baneling is now a seperate Larva unit at Lair tech. Making this unit stronger and better since it got bumped in tech is possible.

Step 2

Hydralisk back to Hatchery tech as commonly suggested. Unit stats need to be adjusted.

Step 3

The Zergling can now morph into the Roach at Hatchery level. Roach stats need to be adjusted. Personally I think they would be more intersesting if they were melee units.

This way, at Hatchery level, your army can consist of Zerglings, Hydras, and melee Roaches. Perhaps Roaches can get a special ability that makes them tuck into a ball for added health/armor and regeneration. This way the opponent has to choose whether to attack the healing idle-Roaches, or ignore them and move on, but will have to face them again later.

At Lair tech you get Air+Baneling+Infestor+Swarm Host

At Hive tech you get More Air+Ultra


That was an idea i had back in beta in one of my micro mods haha. I approve.

Ideally they would be used for trapping units rather than DPS though.
Come play Android Netrunner - http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=409008
SeinGalton
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
South Africa387 Posts
June 16 2012 11:46 GMT
#114
Not a fan of the roach and would love to see it disappear. Zerg needs a beefy defensive unit but it shouldn't be so abusable in large numbers. Personally I feel that giving it an interesting twist like being really slow unburrowed but relatively quick burrow movement speed would make for a more technical unit that encourages more micro. I feel they should be reasonable in small numbers but much weaker in large numbers, and just enough punch to help manage zealots and hellions.

But I'd love something more technical and tougher to use. The Roach sucks.
They're coming to get you, Barbara.
ScoSteSal
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
United States54 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 11:50:47
June 16 2012 11:47 GMT
#115
here is my set of ideas for working more micro potential into the game while keeping it just as noob/a-move friendly and all that

Roach
Make it 200hp/2armor/24dmg/2.4sec attack delay/3 range/2.25ms/3supply/150min/75gas and give it base 10 burrowed regen & hive upgrade that makes it 20 burrowed regen, this will make it much more effective to micro (currently whenever I talk to any1 good at sc2 about any micro involving conserving roaches thru burrow or transfuse they say its too expensive on apm & too low on resources saved, this will help that a ton) and make it's burrowed movement 2 instead of 1.44, make lair speed upgrade give it 2.75 burrowed movement speed, this actually isnt that scary because its stats are going up much less than cost & the regen increase is offset by the fact that fewer roaches are regenerating (ie 4 new roaches burrowed regen 40hps but equal cost of old roaches wud be 9 old roaches regening 45hps, actually a bit less but for less apm), this makes it a much more "special" unit and way more hilariously fun to use and much more worth microing

marauder: this is already interesting because it adds a new dimension to scoot-n-shoot micro & with micro become rather good even against units that it has low damage vs (ie zeals)

colossus: this unit is "static," that is, if you have it then you wreck the enemy's face (yes, the viking/colossus dancing can be interesting, but that is the only case where the colossus really gets any micro, and that isnt as fun as the micro that would come out if what i am suggesting happened). Also, it has a lot of potential for harassing on its own (a la reaper) but that potential is shut down by the fact that it is so slow (both points supported by great success/decent popularity of speed prism/colossus harass). Now, what if the colossus's range was reduced to 7 but its movement speed was increased to 3 with an upgrade to 3.75 and its firing animation was made so that the period where any order cancels the attack is tiny (a la marine but not quite that crazy) and it could no longer be attacked as air, then you have really interesting dancing between the colossus and the enemy ground force where the colossus is exploiting is smaller range advantage but higher ms & short attack animation to kite the enemy force if the enemy force tries to focus it & whaling on them if the enemy force doesn't focus the colossus, it would also have significant potential as a harasser with its high ms & good aoe dmg & range and cliff-hopping (see hots reaper)

All of this is for Hots, of course.
Iustum Agere Arduum Est...Sed Modo Sine Day9o
Ballack
Profile Joined April 2010
Norway821 Posts
June 16 2012 11:48 GMT
#116
On June 16 2012 18:55 Cascade wrote:
Everyone can complain about things not working perfectly ("collosus OP", "marines imba", "BL inf unbeatable" etc), but without constructive ideas on how the situation can be improved, complaining doesn't help anyone.



That's feedback, and while it doesn't mean roaches will be removed for HotS, Blizzard may act on it at a later stage given they find something to replace the roach with, when they know that the unit isn't very popular. Complaining does help, and what does it hurt?
Just when I thought I was out, Blizz pulled me back in..
SarcasmMonster
Profile Joined October 2011
3136 Posts
June 16 2012 11:48 GMT
#117
Poll: Should the roach stay?

Removed entirely and replaced with a new HOTS unit (40)
 
35%

Keep as is (38)
 
34%

Keep but swap tiers with Hydras (and rebalanced accordingly) (19)
 
17%

Keep but changed (1 supply etc.) (16)
 
14%

113 total votes

Your vote: Should the roach stay?

(Vote): Keep as is
(Vote): Keep but changed (1 supply etc.)
(Vote): Keep but swap tiers with Hydras (and rebalanced accordingly)
(Vote): Removed entirely and replaced with a new HOTS unit

MMA: The true King of Wings
Noocta
Profile Joined June 2010
France12578 Posts
June 16 2012 12:01 GMT
#118
That would change so much into the balance of the game, Blizzard will never do it.
" I'm not gonna fight you. I'm gonna kick your ass ! "
Garmer
Profile Joined October 2010
1286 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 12:03:29
June 16 2012 12:02 GMT
#119
they can with HOTS, because there will be anyway balance changes..
PresenceSc2
Profile Joined February 2011
Australia4032 Posts
June 16 2012 12:04 GMT
#120
Do we really need the marine? Fuck it, lets get rid of the zealot while were at it!
Stephano//HerO//TaeJa//Squirtle//Bomber
Noocta
Profile Joined June 2010
France12578 Posts
June 16 2012 12:06 GMT
#121
On June 16 2012 21:02 Garmer wrote:
they can with HOTS, because there will be anyway balance changes..


Small change, with units to add where races lacks at the moment.
Removing a core unit all together is a hundred time more difficult.
" I'm not gonna fight you. I'm gonna kick your ass ! "
toiletCAT
Profile Blog Joined June 2012
Qatar284 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 12:11:01
June 16 2012 12:07 GMT
#122
Sorry but some of your suggestions are absolutely hilarious. Replace tier, replace unit, 1 supply, haha.

If any unit should be let go It's the collosi.


LOL.
Zorgaz
Profile Joined June 2010
Sweden2951 Posts
June 16 2012 12:08 GMT
#123
The roach has it's problems but I still think it should stay, It is needed against Mech ZvT and has a vital role in both ZvP and ZvZ. With HOTS coming i actually think we will see fewer roaches since there will be new options for Zerg.

If any unit should be let go It's the collosi. According to this thread it's the unit most people want to see removed http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=337475

I really dislike the Collosi because it's a Siege Unit with a great AOE attack that is very mobile. That's not how Siege units should be ?! They should have a strong attack, but be immobile, the Siege Tank is a perfect example.

The Collosi was bad idea, It's not imbalanced due to the fact that it can be attacked from air. But it's really strange, the reaver in BW was so much better....
Furthermore, I think the Collosi should be removed! (Zorgaz -Terran/AbrA-Random/Zorg-Dota2) Guineapigs <3
SarcasmMonster
Profile Joined October 2011
3136 Posts
June 16 2012 12:10 GMT
#124
On June 16 2012 21:08 Zorgaz wrote:
The roach has it's problems but I still think it should stay, It is needed against Mech ZvT and has a vital role in both ZvP and ZvZ. With HOTS coming i actually think we will see fewer roaches since there will be new options for Zerg.

If any unit should be let go It's the collosi. According to this thread it's the unit most people want to see removed http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=337475

I really dislike the Collosi because it's a Siege Unit with a great AOE attack that is very mobile. That's not how Siege units should be ?! They should have a strong attack, but be immobile, the Siege Tank is a perfect example.

The Collosi was bad idea, It's not imbalanced due to the fact that it can be attacked from air. But it's really strange, the reaver in BW was so much better....


Wow, that poll wasn't even close lol.
MMA: The true King of Wings
FakeDeath
Profile Joined January 2011
Malaysia6060 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 12:13:31
June 16 2012 12:11 GMT
#125
On June 16 2012 21:02 Garmer wrote:
they can with HOTS, because there will be anyway balance changes..


True but the roach is a core unit of the zerg and has been balanced over 2 years.(range upgraded,1supply to 2supply,
only attack ground used to attack air).Roach has been overall pretty much balanced.

If they removed it and replaced with an new HotS unit, they will fuck up the game balance even more and take way
even more time to balance the game especially seeing how Blizzard take so so long to patch the game balance.
Etc(Overlord speed buff which was needed in a lot of time only after 2 years they did it, reaper speed which used to be OP
was nerfed take them months to patch it though they nerfed it to oblivion)
Play your best
MilesTeg
Profile Joined September 2010
France1271 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 12:12:55
June 16 2012 12:12 GMT
#126
I knew this thread would be bad just by reading the title, and it didn't disappoint. You give absolutely no argument as to why you consider Roaches boring. Probably because you don't have any argument. Is it because they don't have any gimmick (or rather, they have one that's rarely used)? You could say that of any core army unit, that's just how the game works.

I'm surprised this is considered a good enough thread, OP is awful and most posts here have been people whining or trolls.
FakeDeath
Profile Joined January 2011
Malaysia6060 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 12:16:08
June 16 2012 12:16 GMT
#127
On June 16 2012 21:10 SarcasmMonster wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 21:08 Zorgaz wrote:
The roach has it's problems but I still think it should stay, It is needed against Mech ZvT and has a vital role in both ZvP and ZvZ. With HOTS coming i actually think we will see fewer roaches since there will be new options for Zerg.

If any unit should be let go It's the collosi. According to this thread it's the unit most people want to see removed http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=337475

I really dislike the Collosi because it's a Siege Unit with a great AOE attack that is very mobile. That's not how Siege units should be ?! They should have a strong attack, but be immobile, the Siege Tank is a perfect example.

The Collosi was bad idea, It's not imbalanced due to the fact that it can be attacked from air. But it's really strange, the reaver in BW was so much better....


Wow, that poll wasn't even close lol.


Collosus winning by a huge margin for it to be removed.lol
Play your best
Sea_Food
Profile Blog Joined May 2011
Finland1612 Posts
June 16 2012 12:16 GMT
#128
Why do some people say that hydralisk would be more fun. What does hydralisk give that roach does not?
Wildmoon
Profile Joined December 2011
Thailand4189 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 12:17:36
June 16 2012 12:17 GMT
#129
Roach is no more boring than Hydra in BW. Only reason people can give is that Roach looks worse.
NMHU.
Profile Joined October 2011
Canada110 Posts
June 16 2012 12:18 GMT
#130
On June 16 2012 18:51 algue wrote:
Remove the "boring a+click units" = remove half of the zerg army + the entire protoss army
You can't , sorry.



Sick bait there, buddy.


- NMHU.
CrtBalorda
Profile Joined December 2011
Slovenia704 Posts
June 16 2012 12:19 GMT
#131
I doesnt matter if a unit sucks removing roaches would imbalance the game and blizzard doesnt want that. Besides we are still getting awsome hydras in hots, I miss those.
4th August 2012...Never forget.....
Garmer
Profile Joined October 2010
1286 Posts
June 16 2012 12:20 GMT
#132
sadly they won't remove nothing, even with LOTV, i'm starting to think that, the true BW successor will be SC3 lol...maybe
Wildmoon
Profile Joined December 2011
Thailand4189 Posts
June 16 2012 12:23 GMT
#133
On June 16 2012 21:20 Garmer wrote:
sadly they won't remove nothing, even with LOTV, i'm starting to think that, the true BW successor will be SC3 lol...maybe


I don't get what's your point?
Garmer
Profile Joined October 2010
1286 Posts
June 16 2012 12:27 GMT
#134
my point is that i want a better SC2, with less boring units.
Shichoo
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
Canada118 Posts
June 16 2012 12:30 GMT
#135
Removing the Roach creates a hole in the Zerg army early in the game that they don't have a beefy unit, so it wouldn't be easy to just take them off.
@brixbeltran on Twitter. Follow me. ^____^
Wildmoon
Profile Joined December 2011
Thailand4189 Posts
June 16 2012 12:31 GMT
#136
On June 16 2012 21:27 Garmer wrote:
my point is that i want a better SC2, with less boring units.


like hydra,marine,zealot, and many more? It's really subjective if th unit is boring or not. What's more important is if it's really good for the game to remove it.
Psyclon
Profile Joined July 2010
Bulgaria2443 Posts
June 16 2012 12:31 GMT
#137
I wonder - what makes a unit "boring" or "fun"?
Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds!
Vega62a
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
946 Posts
June 16 2012 12:31 GMT
#138
Unfortunately, the roach is really critical to zerg earlygame. Wanna see every zerg ever rage? 4gate zealot-sentry +1 with no roaches to hold it off. They'd have to spine wall every base to stop it, and then you could just go home, collect your expansion, and laugh your way to a freewin.
Content of my posts reflects only my personal opinions, and not those of any employer or subsidiary
ChriseC
Profile Joined December 2010
Germany440 Posts
June 16 2012 12:37 GMT
#139
i would rather see infestors to be removes
fungal is damn lame
From Afar
Profile Joined June 2012
United States19 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 12:40:30
June 16 2012 12:40 GMT
#140
Roaches aren't boring. Starcraft 2 has a lot of units with spells and abilities, but that isn't the norm. Standard RTS units don't do much more than shoot, and that's even true in BW. Roaches can shoot stuff and burrow, just like marines can shoot stuff and stim, and zealots hit stuff and charge. It's not boring. What we don't want, is every unit having a bunch of complicated abilities just for the sake of making them more unique.
Garmer
Profile Joined October 2010
1286 Posts
June 16 2012 12:40 GMT
#141
On June 16 2012 21:31 Wildmoon wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 21:27 Garmer wrote:
my point is that i want a better SC2, with less boring units.


like hydra,marine,zealot, and many more? It's really subjective if th unit is boring or not. What's more important is if it's really good for the game to remove it.

marine ar microable, they have stim, u can't compare them to roach, roach are just a-move shit.
zealot force you to move/kite them, so they are good also
SarcasmMonster
Profile Joined October 2011
3136 Posts
June 16 2012 12:41 GMT
#142
On June 16 2012 20:48 SarcasmMonster wrote:
Poll: Should the roach stay?

Removed entirely and replaced with a new HOTS unit (40)
 
35%

Keep as is (38)
 
34%

Keep but swap tiers with Hydras (and rebalanced accordingly) (19)
 
17%

Keep but changed (1 supply etc.) (16)
 
14%

113 total votes

Your vote: Should the roach stay?

(Vote): Keep as is
(Vote): Keep but changed (1 supply etc.)
(Vote): Keep but swap tiers with Hydras (and rebalanced accordingly)
(Vote): Removed entirely and replaced with a new HOTS unit



For those who missed it.
MMA: The true King of Wings
Garmer
Profile Joined October 2010
1286 Posts
June 16 2012 12:43 GMT
#143
keep but changed, for me
Wildmoon
Profile Joined December 2011
Thailand4189 Posts
June 16 2012 12:46 GMT
#144
On June 16 2012 21:40 Garmer wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 21:31 Wildmoon wrote:
On June 16 2012 21:27 Garmer wrote:
my point is that i want a better SC2, with less boring units.


like hydra,marine,zealot, and many more? It's really subjective if th unit is boring or not. What's more important is if it's really good for the game to remove it.

marine ar microable, they have stim, u can't compare them to roach, roach are just a-move shit.
zealot force you to move/kite them, so they are good also


Roach can burrow move too.
Striding Strider
Profile Joined February 2011
United Kingdom787 Posts
June 16 2012 12:48 GMT
#145
Swap with Hydras and rebalance.
I have a beard. I'm unprofessional.
From Afar
Profile Joined June 2012
United States19 Posts
June 16 2012 12:50 GMT
#146
On June 16 2012 21:48 Striding Strider wrote:
Swap with Hydras and rebalance.

Hydras are just as "boring" as roaches, except they shoot air, which would make them a nightmare to rebalance. Plus, they're already going to be so fast that people will probably use them a ton, anyway. Making such a big change for nothing is ridiculous.
toiletCAT
Profile Blog Joined June 2012
Qatar284 Posts
June 16 2012 12:50 GMT
#147
On June 16 2012 21:31 Psyclon wrote:
I wonder - what makes a unit "boring" or "fun"?


His subjective opinion.
Garmer
Profile Joined October 2010
1286 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 12:55:41
June 16 2012 12:52 GMT
#148
On June 16 2012 21:46 Wildmoon wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 21:40 Garmer wrote:
On June 16 2012 21:31 Wildmoon wrote:
On June 16 2012 21:27 Garmer wrote:
my point is that i want a better SC2, with less boring units.


like hydra,marine,zealot, and many more? It's really subjective if th unit is boring or not. What's more important is if it's really good for the game to remove it.

marine ar microable, they have stim, u can't compare them to roach, roach are just a-move shit.
zealot force you to move/kite them, so they are good also


Roach can burrow move too.

the burrow move would be more interesting, if was more useful... they should give burrowered roach more speed
On June 16 2012 21:50 From Afar wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 21:48 Striding Strider wrote:
Swap with Hydras and rebalance.

Hydras are just as "boring" as roaches, except they shoot air, which would make them a nightmare to rebalance. Plus, they're already going to be so fast that people will probably use them a ton, anyway. Making such a big change for nothing is ridiculous.

Hydra are less boring to watch, cuz they are more fragile, therefore they require more attention and consequently more micro
Garmer
Profile Joined October 2010
1286 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 12:55:02
June 16 2012 12:54 GMT
#149
double
Destructicon
Profile Blog Joined September 2011
4713 Posts
June 16 2012 12:57 GMT
#150
Here is my take on the problem with my personal opinion and ideas how to fix it.

The roach is indeed a very boring unit. It has medium HP, giving you limited incentives to try and micro them to be more effective, it has high damage with slow rate of fire, so it doesn't benefit a lot from micro and their signature ability, burrow heal, is crap in comparison to blink in terms of micro potential. Lastly, the unit is so cheep that you can mass tons and tons of them, and the more you have the less incentive you have to micro them.

However, when I look at the roach, I don't think of only a boring 1-a move unit, I think of a unit with tons of lost potential.

How I'd fix it, well, I'd start off by slashing away 15 HP from it and 4 damage, secondly I'd tweak its burrow mechanics.
Boost its base burrow regen and upgraded regen, also modify one of its upgrades, maybe tunneling claws so that the roach gains 10 armor and 25% more movement speed for 3 seconds after the it burrows, it loses this armor if it unburrows and the armor buff has a 9 second internal cool down.

What this does is it allows you to move back injured roaches and save them, the same way you do with Blink. Blink now has a huge advantage in that it not only negates missile attacks that are flying towards the stalker, but it also puts the stalker into a position where it can survive and fight for even longer.

You don't get that with roach, they still move very slowly while burrowed and the regen isn't enough to save them while you try and micro them back.

Of course a lot of the numbers can be tweaked, like the regen rate both upgraded and un upgraded, the armor, movement speed, attack speed etc. But the purpose, the core of the idea, is to shift the focus of the roach away from a mass-able 1-a friendly unit, to a very micro friendly unit, that performs better if you micro it diligently.

Instead the classic duel of Protoss with blink stalkers vs mass roaches, trying to out-micro and focus fire with his stalkers while the zerg just sends masses of units, I'd rather see both Protoss focus on his blink stalker, and the zerg focus on his burrow micro, and the player with the best micro wins. It would be kind of like blink wars, but with a different flavor, and not necessarily bad, PvP may have tons of shortcomings as a match up, but blink stalker wars are definitely one of the most entertaining and intense sights to behold.
WriterNever give up, never surrender! https://www.youtube.com/user/DestructiconSC
Wildmoon
Profile Joined December 2011
Thailand4189 Posts
June 16 2012 12:58 GMT
#151
On June 16 2012 21:52 Garmer wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 21:46 Wildmoon wrote:
On June 16 2012 21:40 Garmer wrote:
On June 16 2012 21:31 Wildmoon wrote:
On June 16 2012 21:27 Garmer wrote:
my point is that i want a better SC2, with less boring units.


like hydra,marine,zealot, and many more? It's really subjective if th unit is boring or not. What's more important is if it's really good for the game to remove it.

marine ar microable, they have stim, u can't compare them to roach, roach are just a-move shit.
zealot force you to move/kite them, so they are good also


Roach can burrow move too.

the burrow move would be more interesting, if was more useful... they should give burrowered roach more speed
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 21:50 From Afar wrote:
On June 16 2012 21:48 Striding Strider wrote:
Swap with Hydras and rebalance.

Hydras are just as "boring" as roaches, except they shoot air, which would make them a nightmare to rebalance. Plus, they're already going to be so fast that people will probably use them a ton, anyway. Making such a big change for nothing is ridiculous.

Hydra are less boring to watch, cuz they are more fragile, therefore they require more attention and consequently more micro


Not really. One can even argue than Roach is more fun to watch because they can ambush opponent with burrow move.
emc
Profile Joined September 2010
United States3088 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 13:09:05
June 16 2012 13:02 GMT
#152
On June 16 2012 21:57 Destructicon wrote:
Here is my take on the problem with my personal opinion and ideas how to fix it.

The roach is indeed a very boring unit. It has medium HP, giving you limited incentives to try and micro them to be more effective, it has high damage with slow rate of fire, so it doesn't benefit a lot from micro and their signature ability, burrow heal, is crap in comparison to blink in terms of micro potential. Lastly, the unit is so cheep that you can mass tons and tons of them, and the more you have the less incentive you have to micro them.

However, when I look at the roach, I don't think of only a boring 1-a move unit, I think of a unit with tons of lost potential.

How I'd fix it, well, I'd start off by slashing away 15 HP from it and 4 damage, secondly I'd tweak its burrow mechanics.
Boost its base burrow regen and upgraded regen, also modify one of its upgrades, maybe tunneling claws so that the roach gains 10 armor and 25% more movement speed for 3 seconds after the it burrows, it loses this armor if it unburrows and the armor buff has a 9 second internal cool down.

What this does is it allows you to move back injured roaches and save them, the same way you do with Blink. Blink now has a huge advantage in that it not only negates missile attacks that are flying towards the stalker, but it also puts the stalker into a position where it can survive and fight for even longer.

You don't get that with roach, they still move very slowly while burrowed and the regen isn't enough to save them while you try and micro them back.

Of course a lot of the numbers can be tweaked, like the regen rate both upgraded and un upgraded, the armor, movement speed, attack speed etc. But the purpose, the core of the idea, is to shift the focus of the roach away from a mass-able 1-a friendly unit, to a very micro friendly unit, that performs better if you micro it diligently.

Instead the classic duel of Protoss with blink stalkers vs mass roaches, trying to out-micro and focus fire with his stalkers while the zerg just sends masses of units, I'd rather see both Protoss focus on his blink stalker, and the zerg focus on his burrow micro, and the player with the best micro wins. It would be kind of like blink wars, but with a different flavor, and not necessarily bad, PvP may have tons of shortcomings as a match up, but blink stalker wars are definitely one of the most entertaining and intense sights to behold.


I like where you are going with the new roach but at the same time, you mentioned that zerg sends masses of units but should also be responsible for more micro? I think it would be better for zerg in general to be more swarmy rather than micro intensive, thats what terran/toss is for. Am I wrong on this? I think the current roach supports the zerg swarm theme pretty well. But I wouldn't mind a more swarmy unit if that's what I could get like maybe a swapped hydra

On June 16 2012 21:50 From Afar wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 21:48 Striding Strider wrote:
Swap with Hydras and rebalance.

Hydras are just as "boring" as roaches, except they shoot air, which would make them a nightmare to rebalance. Plus, they're already going to be so fast that people will probably use them a ton, anyway. Making such a big change for nothing is ridiculous.


I'm not so sure, terran has marines and banshee builds are still effective in TvT and I imagine they will still be good in ZvT if hydras were swapped because zerg would still need detection. In ZvP phoenix decimate hydras of equal numbers, and void builds have been obsolete since the queen buff, so I'm not so sure how hydras being T1 would really change that. I don't think it would be a total nightmare to rebalance when they could just make it like BW.
Jermstuddog
Profile Blog Joined June 2010
United States2231 Posts
June 16 2012 13:04 GMT
#153
People are missing the big point of this whole issue.

Interesting != effective.

Roaches are fine, the big problem is burrow-move/regen are not effective, so they don't get used.

No reason to scrap the whole unit because a couple people think it's imba.

If we're using that logic, we should start by scrapping the marine.

Terran really needs that right now...
As it turns out, marines don't actually cost any money -Jinro
Roynalf
Profile Joined August 2011
Finland886 Posts
June 16 2012 13:09 GMT
#154
I think that as hots brings the hydra speed upgrade we will see less roaches as the matches go on, roaches are going to be this gap filling unit betwen tier one and the end game composition
(V) (;,,;) (V) Woopwoopwoopwoop
sM.Zik
Profile Joined June 2011
Canada2547 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 13:10:28
June 16 2012 13:09 GMT
#155
As a zerg and still a fairly new player to the Sc2 scene, my view is :

Lower the damage a bit but give them a slight higher attack rate.
Fix the burrow regen/move burrow so its more effective. If they fix that, they can slightly lower the HP.

Beside that, I think it's fine. I wouldnt mind to switch the tier tech with Hydra now that they'll get the speed upgrade.

Edit : They just can't remove it. Zergs are so used to play with this units that it wouldnt be fair to remove it, it's like removing stalkers or marines....
Jaedong Fighting! | youtube.com/ZikGaming
Destructicon
Profile Blog Joined September 2011
4713 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 13:13:44
June 16 2012 13:10 GMT
#156
On June 16 2012 22:02 emc wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 21:57 Destructicon wrote:
Here is my take on the problem with my personal opinion and ideas how to fix it.

The roach is indeed a very boring unit. It has medium HP, giving you limited incentives to try and micro them to be more effective, it has high damage with slow rate of fire, so it doesn't benefit a lot from micro and their signature ability, burrow heal, is crap in comparison to blink in terms of micro potential. Lastly, the unit is so cheep that you can mass tons and tons of them, and the more you have the less incentive you have to micro them.

However, when I look at the roach, I don't think of only a boring 1-a move unit, I think of a unit with tons of lost potential.

How I'd fix it, well, I'd start off by slashing away 15 HP from it and 4 damage, secondly I'd tweak its burrow mechanics.
Boost its base burrow regen and upgraded regen, also modify one of its upgrades, maybe tunneling claws so that the roach gains 10 armor and 25% more movement speed for 3 seconds after the it burrows, it loses this armor if it unburrows and the armor buff has a 9 second internal cool down.

What this does is it allows you to move back injured roaches and save them, the same way you do with Blink. Blink now has a huge advantage in that it not only negates missile attacks that are flying towards the stalker, but it also puts the stalker into a position where it can survive and fight for even longer.

You don't get that with roach, they still move very slowly while burrowed and the regen isn't enough to save them while you try and micro them back.

Of course a lot of the numbers can be tweaked, like the regen rate both upgraded and un upgraded, the armor, movement speed, attack speed etc. But the purpose, the core of the idea, is to shift the focus of the roach away from a mass-able 1-a friendly unit, to a very micro friendly unit, that performs better if you micro it diligently.

Instead the classic duel of Protoss with blink stalkers vs mass roaches, trying to out-micro and focus fire with his stalkers while the zerg just sends masses of units, I'd rather see both Protoss focus on his blink stalker, and the zerg focus on his burrow micro, and the player with the best micro wins. It would be kind of like blink wars, but with a different flavor, and not necessarily bad, PvP may have tons of shortcomings as a match up, but blink stalker wars are definitely one of the most entertaining and intense sights to behold.


I like where you are going with the new roach but at the same time, you mentioned that zerg sends masses of units but should also be responsible for more micro? I think it would be better for zerg in general to be more swarmy rather than micro intensive, thats what terran/toss is for. Am I wrong on this? I think the current roach supports the zerg swarm theme pretty well.


I agree that, the current roach does fit into the swarm zerg theme that Blizzard has tried to create, and they do fill the role they are supposed to fill effectively. But at the same time I believe Blizzard has taken the themes of some of the races to the extreme. In short I believe Blizzard is wrong to keep insisting on these flavors for races at the detriment to game play.

I believe each race should have its own abilities to micro regardless of theme and I believe this would make the game much, much more exciting, much better to view, and it would feel fairer. At least when you lose a blink stalker war you come out of it thinking, well I just got outplayed the other guy had better micro, you don't always get that feeling in TvP, TvZ, or PvZ, there are some things that just feel cheep and unfair, despite them being balanced, or certain things that require some strategies/builds that are harder to execute then the corresponding counter-strategy/build.
WriterNever give up, never surrender! https://www.youtube.com/user/DestructiconSC
bubblegumbo
Profile Blog Joined July 2008
Taiwan1296 Posts
June 16 2012 13:19 GMT
#157
The roach is still needed unless hydra speed is a tier 2 upgrade. It is not.
"I honestly think that whoever invented toilet paper is a genius. For man to survive, they need toilet paper!"- Nal_rA
Jermstuddog
Profile Blog Joined June 2010
United States2231 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 17:32:29
June 16 2012 13:40 GMT
#158
On June 16 2012 22:09 Roynalf wrote:
I think that as hots brings the hydra speed upgrade we will see less roaches as the matches go on, roaches are going to be this gap filling unit betwen tier one and the end game composition


Hydra speed is going to he a lot less interesting than Blizz makes it out to be.

I already end a good 90% of my games before hive tech, so hydras will remain equally non-viable as they currently are, then let's look at the all the counter techs that are available at hive tech that Blizz conveniently ignored in their HotS preview.

ZvP already has the colossus, storm, and hydras struggle with effectiveness vs standard gateway armies anyway. I hardly see them becoming the go-to endgame unit by adding a little bit of move speed... They might replace roaches, which are hardly the go-to unit themselves, rather, theyre used for the final punch after the major fight has been won and all the core units on both sides get wiped out.

They will never be effective in ZvT due to the fact that literally every Terran unit cost-effectively counters them.

They will remain exactly where they're at in ZvZ, which is behind a wall of roaches.

The HotS preview looked nice, but I was shaking my head the whole time. That whole game was one of those ladder games you have where you're just disappointed with yourself for playing so stupidly regardless of whether you win or lose.

The speed upgrade is nice, and fixes one of MANY issues with the hydra, but for the vast majority of games, it will prove to be too little, too late.

god i hate auto-correct
As it turns out, marines don't actually cost any money -Jinro
Jermstuddog
Profile Blog Joined June 2010
United States2231 Posts
June 16 2012 13:41 GMT
#159
On June 16 2012 22:19 bubblegumbo wrote:
The roach is still needed unless hydra speed is a tier 2 upgrade. It is not.


Even if speed is T2, the roach is STILL needed since tanking hydras are hugely cost inefficient.
As it turns out, marines don't actually cost any money -Jinro
FakeDeath
Profile Joined January 2011
Malaysia6060 Posts
June 16 2012 13:43 GMT
#160
On June 16 2012 22:40 Jermstuddog wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 22:09 Roynalf wrote:
I think that as hots brings the hydra speed upgrade we will see less roaches as the matches go on, roaches are going to be this gap filling unit betwen tier one and the end game composition


Hydra speed is going to he a lot less interesting than Blizz makes it out to be.

I already end a good 90% of my games before hive tech, so guffaw will remain equally non-viable as they currently are, then let's look at the all the counter techs that are available at hive tech that Blizz conveniently ignored in their HotS preview.

ZvP already has the colossus, storm, and hydras struggle with effectiveness vs standard gateway armies anyway. I hardly see them becoming the go-to endgame unit by adding a little bit of move speed... They might replace roaches, which are hardly the go-to unit themselves, rather, theyre used for the final punch after the major fight has been won and all the core units on high sides get wiped out.

The HotS preview looked nice, but I was shaking my head the whole time. That whole game was one of those ladder games you have where you're just disappointed with yourself for playing so stupidly regardless of whether you win or lose.

The speed upgrade is nice, and fixes one of MANY issues with the hydra, but for the vast majority of games, it will prove to be too little, too late.


Yeah agreed with this. That ZvP battle report was horrendous to be used as a example.
Play your best
Destructicon
Profile Blog Joined September 2011
4713 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 13:44:27
June 16 2012 13:44 GMT
#161
I think Hydras currently struggle against standard GW armies just because of the speed. With them moving at stim speed they could be much better at stutter stepping, splitting, focus firing, dodging FFs/storms etc. I like it because it would force zergs to learn and perfect a new type of micro, but at the same time I'm not sure the new hydra will be attractive enough given the fact that, by the time the upgrade is ready all the counter units will be available too.
WriterNever give up, never surrender! https://www.youtube.com/user/DestructiconSC
Probe1
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United States17920 Posts
June 16 2012 13:44 GMT
#162
I thought those battle reports were just supposed to be a fun highlight of the few ideas that are going into beta.. not a serious representation of the game and its balance lol.
우정호 KT_VIOLET 1988 - 2012 While we are postponing, life speeds by
KalWarkov
Profile Blog Joined December 2011
Germany4126 Posts
June 16 2012 13:47 GMT
#163
Teh solution to everything
Roach 145 HP --> 135 HP
Hydra 80 HP --> 90 HP

how about some t2 hydra defense yo?
DiaBoLuS ** Sc2 - Protoss: 16x GM | Dota2 - Offlane Immortal | Wc3 - Undead decent level | Diablo nerd | Chess / Magnus fanboy | BVB | Agnostic***
emc
Profile Joined September 2010
United States3088 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 13:50:50
June 16 2012 13:49 GMT
#164
On June 16 2012 22:40 Jermstuddog wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 22:09 Roynalf wrote:
I think that as hots brings the hydra speed upgrade we will see less roaches as the matches go on, roaches are going to be this gap filling unit betwen tier one and the end game composition


Hydra speed is going to he a lot less interesting than Blizz makes it out to be.

I already end a good 90% of my games before hive tech, so hydras will remain equally non-viable as they currently are, then let's look at the all the counter techs that are available at hive tech that Blizz conveniently ignored in their HotS preview.

ZvP already has the colossus, storm, and hydras struggle with effectiveness vs standard gateway armies anyway. I hardly see them becoming the go-to endgame unit by adding a little bit of move speed... They might replace roaches, which are hardly the go-to unit themselves, rather, theyre used for the final punch after the major fight has been won and all the core units on high sides get wiped out.

The HotS preview looked nice, but I was shaking my head the whole time. That whole game was one of those ladder games you have where you're just disappointed with yourself for playing so stupidly regardless of whether you win or lose.

The speed upgrade is nice, and fixes one of MANY issues with the hydra, but for the vast majority of games, it will prove to be too little, too late.


I see what you're saying, but zerg has new tools that actually make the hydra good with speed. The viper alone will actually make hydras strong, and how is storm a problem when you now have speed and can actually dodge storms? The thing is that in WoL getting hive tech early for anything but upgrades is a waste of resources because you need 4 bases to support any hive units, but in HotS, getting hive tech early for hydra speed will be worth it since we now have vipers and swarm hosts at our disposal.

Swarm host, hydra, viper will be pretty strong, whether you think the battle report was a fraud or not, if you think that unit combination won't be effective, then have fun playing a WoL roach style in HotS. But I could be wrong, just as wrong as I think you are being now, but we won't know for sure until the beta is out.
mrRoflpwn
Profile Blog Joined February 2011
United States2618 Posts
June 16 2012 13:51 GMT
#165
This thread feels like one big troll to me...
Long live the Boss Toss!
Synche
Profile Joined May 2010
United States1345 Posts
June 16 2012 13:52 GMT
#166
I know people have their own pet peeves but let's be cereal for a second, the Colossus is a much greater threat to the integrity of the game.

A high tech ultimate a-move unit, needs to go.
NoMicroWin
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United States688 Posts
June 16 2012 13:53 GMT
#167
This isn't brood war guys, its Starcraft 2. No tier one hydras, lurkers or any of that. The Roach is a staple unit in the zerg arsenal, and as much as I hate it, Zerg would be almost a completely different race. This is not something they had in BW, and has shown to be the new way of playing SC2. Keep it.
If she pulls out her stalkers, you pull out your mauraders and concussive all over her tits
Charon1979
Profile Joined October 2010
Austria317 Posts
June 16 2012 13:53 GMT
#168
Instead the classic duel of Protoss with blink stalkers vs mass roaches, trying to out-micro and focus fire with his stalkers while the zerg just sends masses of units, I'd rather see both Protoss focus on his blink stalker, and the zerg focus on his burrow micro, and the player with the best micro wins. It would be kind of like blink wars, but with a different flavor, and not necessarily bad, PvP may have tons of shortcomings as a match up, but blink stalker wars are definitely one of the most entertaining and intense sights to behold.


The Problem is: Burrow is not Blink and will never be

Blink is instant, Burrow takes a few seconds (both ways)

A Blinkstalker Blinked back still fires whil recharging Shields (so its no DPS loss)

Blink does take 3 Actions (Select, Hotkey, Klick) while Burrow takes 4 (Select, Hotkey, ShiftKlick, ShiftHotkey)

A single Detector makes Burrow Micro useless

There is no way Burrow could ever be used like Blink
FakeDeath
Profile Joined January 2011
Malaysia6060 Posts
June 16 2012 13:57 GMT
#169
On June 16 2012 22:49 emc wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 22:40 Jermstuddog wrote:
On June 16 2012 22:09 Roynalf wrote:
I think that as hots brings the hydra speed upgrade we will see less roaches as the matches go on, roaches are going to be this gap filling unit betwen tier one and the end game composition


Hydra speed is going to he a lot less interesting than Blizz makes it out to be.

I already end a good 90% of my games before hive tech, so hydras will remain equally non-viable as they currently are, then let's look at the all the counter techs that are available at hive tech that Blizz conveniently ignored in their HotS preview.

ZvP already has the colossus, storm, and hydras struggle with effectiveness vs standard gateway armies anyway. I hardly see them becoming the go-to endgame unit by adding a little bit of move speed... They might replace roaches, which are hardly the go-to unit themselves, rather, theyre used for the final punch after the major fight has been won and all the core units on high sides get wiped out.

The HotS preview looked nice, but I was shaking my head the whole time. That whole game was one of those ladder games you have where you're just disappointed with yourself for playing so stupidly regardless of whether you win or lose.

The speed upgrade is nice, and fixes one of MANY issues with the hydra, but for the vast majority of games, it will prove to be too little, too late.


I see what you're saying, but zerg has new tools that actually make the hydra good with speed. The viper alone will actually make hydras strong, and how is storm a problem when you now have speed and can actually dodge storms? The thing is that in WoL getting hive tech early for anything but upgrades is a waste of resources because you need 4 bases to support any hive units, but in HotS, getting hive tech early for hydra speed will be worth it since we now have vipers and swarm hosts at our disposal.

Swarm host, hydra, viper will be pretty strong, whether you think the battle report was a fraud or not, if you think that unit combination won't be effective, then have fun playing a WoL roach style in HotS. But I could be wrong, just as wrong as I think you are being now, but we won't know for sure until the beta is out.


Well hydra and viper could be good but we need to wait for the beta.
The feedback for the swarm host is really underwhelming from the HotS not sure why though.
Play your best
CajunMan
Profile Joined July 2010
United States823 Posts
June 16 2012 13:58 GMT
#170
Without roaches early mech pushes would break the game. Because of blue flame, thor, and tank roaches become absolutely necessary early game. Until brood lords come out if we only had ling hydra early to defend that every unit terren produced would shit on them and the games wouldn't go past 12 min ever.
okrane
Profile Joined April 2010
France265 Posts
June 16 2012 13:59 GMT
#171
On June 16 2012 22:58 CajunMan wrote:
Without roaches early mech pushes would break the game. Because of blue flame, thor, and tank roaches become absolutely necessary early game. Until brood lords come out if we only had ling hydra early to defend that every unit terren produced would shit on them and the games wouldn't go past 12 min ever.


don't think that no other balance changes would not be made.
This is not a remove roach and leave everything as it is.
Remove roach and rework the game to make it more interesting in the early-mid game.
Really disappointed with Starcraft II Zerg! :(
emc
Profile Joined September 2010
United States3088 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 14:04:05
June 16 2012 14:03 GMT
#172
On June 16 2012 22:57 FakeDeath wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 22:49 emc wrote:
On June 16 2012 22:40 Jermstuddog wrote:
On June 16 2012 22:09 Roynalf wrote:
I think that as hots brings the hydra speed upgrade we will see less roaches as the matches go on, roaches are going to be this gap filling unit betwen tier one and the end game composition


Hydra speed is going to he a lot less interesting than Blizz makes it out to be.

I already end a good 90% of my games before hive tech, so hydras will remain equally non-viable as they currently are, then let's look at the all the counter techs that are available at hive tech that Blizz conveniently ignored in their HotS preview.

ZvP already has the colossus, storm, and hydras struggle with effectiveness vs standard gateway armies anyway. I hardly see them becoming the go-to endgame unit by adding a little bit of move speed... They might replace roaches, which are hardly the go-to unit themselves, rather, theyre used for the final punch after the major fight has been won and all the core units on high sides get wiped out.

The HotS preview looked nice, but I was shaking my head the whole time. That whole game was one of those ladder games you have where you're just disappointed with yourself for playing so stupidly regardless of whether you win or lose.

The speed upgrade is nice, and fixes one of MANY issues with the hydra, but for the vast majority of games, it will prove to be too little, too late.


I see what you're saying, but zerg has new tools that actually make the hydra good with speed. The viper alone will actually make hydras strong, and how is storm a problem when you now have speed and can actually dodge storms? The thing is that in WoL getting hive tech early for anything but upgrades is a waste of resources because you need 4 bases to support any hive units, but in HotS, getting hive tech early for hydra speed will be worth it since we now have vipers and swarm hosts at our disposal.

Swarm host, hydra, viper will be pretty strong, whether you think the battle report was a fraud or not, if you think that unit combination won't be effective, then have fun playing a WoL roach style in HotS. But I could be wrong, just as wrong as I think you are being now, but we won't know for sure until the beta is out.


Well hydra and viper could be good but we need to wait for the beta.
The feedback for the swarm host is really underwhelming from the HotS not sure why though.


I think the SH will be amazing, since it requires infestation pit and it only costs 100 gas, it will have some good synergy with infestors. burrow some SH outside an enemies natural then fungal any units that try and snipe them, I already foresee this being a cool build to try. Oh, and since infestation pit unlocks hive, you can then go fast hive for hydras, I think it will work out as a pretty legit strat.
FlukyS
Profile Blog Joined August 2011
Ireland485 Posts
June 16 2012 14:07 GMT
#173
Roach are still going to be made to hold off rushes in hots and that wont change id say there will be all new unit compositions like swarm host roach where the roach defend vs widow mines and crap. It would take playing it to figure it out but there is definitely a place for them.
CajunMan
Profile Joined July 2010
United States823 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 14:08:23
June 16 2012 14:07 GMT
#174
On June 16 2012 22:59 okrane wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 22:58 CajunMan wrote:
Without roaches early mech pushes would break the game. Because of blue flame, thor, and tank roaches become absolutely necessary early game. Until brood lords come out if we only had ling hydra early to defend that every unit terren produced would shit on them and the games wouldn't go past 12 min ever.


don't think that no other balance changes would not be made.
This is not a remove roach and leave everything as it is.
Remove roach and rework the game to make it more interesting in the early-mid game.


Like how? Are we gonna add another roach unit in? If not blue flame still beats everything 2reactor factor hellion will kill anything without blue flame.
emc
Profile Joined September 2010
United States3088 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 14:15:21
June 16 2012 14:10 GMT
#175
On June 16 2012 22:58 CajunMan wrote:
Without roaches early mech pushes would break the game. Because of blue flame, thor, and tank roaches become absolutely necessary early game. Until brood lords come out if we only had ling hydra early to defend that every unit terren produced would shit on them and the games wouldn't go past 12 min ever.


think about it though, early game zerg has queens to deal with any harassment, so you don't need roaches then. Sure you might need roaches for any two base mech all-in, but I think vipers and hydras and spine crawler defense will be sufficient to deal with it. Vipers will grab enemy tanks one at a time and your hydras clean up the rest, the blue flame might hurt your hydras but you have spines and queens for that. If terran does a 3 base mech push, then you should be able to get BL's or ultras out if they are maxing out on mech, so I again still don't see how roaches are absolutely necessary. And in ZvP, the viper will make the roach unnecessary as well because you can pick off colossus with zerglings if you like and use hydra speed to dodge storms. Maybe a unit to fill the anti-armored gap zerg has until ultras, but other than that, I can't think of a good enough reason to really keep the roach.

in ZvZ without roaches we would see more ling/bling wars but would eventually stable out as more zergs get additional queens in ZvZ. The defensive baneling player is usually always better off, so there is a defenders advantage so it wouldn't totally eliminate longer games in ZvZ. I could be wrong, but having the viper and roach to stop mech would be overkill as you can run over mech with just roaches and overlord drops by themselves, so roaches might not be necessary in the grand scheme of things.

On June 16 2012 23:07 CajunMan wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 22:59 okrane wrote:
On June 16 2012 22:58 CajunMan wrote:
Without roaches early mech pushes would break the game. Because of blue flame, thor, and tank roaches become absolutely necessary early game. Until brood lords come out if we only had ling hydra early to defend that every unit terren produced would shit on them and the games wouldn't go past 12 min ever.


don't think that no other balance changes would not be made.
This is not a remove roach and leave everything as it is.
Remove roach and rework the game to make it more interesting in the early-mid game.


Like how? Are we gonna add another roach unit in? If not blue flame still beats everything 2reactor factor hellion will kill anything without blue flame.


sim city, spine crawlers, 6 queens and some banelings on top of your ramp should do it. 2reactor factory would be strong I admit, but it wouldn't be unbeatable.
canikizu
Profile Joined September 2010
4860 Posts
June 16 2012 14:12 GMT
#176
On June 16 2012 18:35 Amlitzer wrote:
The thing I hate about the roach is that it has these really interesting mechanics (burrow move and regen) that go unused 99% of the time. Instead they are just used as a pure dps unit, which isn't what I imagine blizzard intending at all. I think they really need to revert their range back to 3 for starters.


Yeah I think this is true, roaches doesn't mean to play this way. There was a hack bot, sort of like blink stalker hack, that show such potential of roaches. Basically you flank everywhere with 5-or-more-roach groups, and keep burrowing the injured one and pop up when they full health. Hell, you don't even need those tactical strikes, just a-move the roaches in, but as the hack bot shows, when the front roaches' hp got low, you burrow it, and let the back roaches take care of the battle while the front roach still regen and burrow-move into the enemy, then when they're full hp again, just pop up in middle of the enemy and crush faces.

Roach is beefy, high dps, has strong escape mechanism, but we never make use of it. That was the very reason why we have the burrow and unborrow hotkey together, it's much easier to do that trick if you have both of them on the same hotkey. It's a shame that roach use never evolve into what it meant to be.
Gladiator6
Profile Joined June 2010
Sweden7024 Posts
June 16 2012 14:13 GMT
#177
On June 16 2012 20:48 SarcasmMonster wrote:
Poll: Should the roach stay?

Removed entirely and replaced with a new HOTS unit (40)
 
35%

Keep as is (38)
 
34%

Keep but swap tiers with Hydras (and rebalanced accordingly) (19)
 
17%

Keep but changed (1 supply etc.) (16)
 
14%

113 total votes

Your vote: Should the roach stay?

(Vote): Keep as is
(Vote): Keep but changed (1 supply etc.)
(Vote): Keep but swap tiers with Hydras (and rebalanced accordingly)
(Vote): Removed entirely and replaced with a new HOTS unit



Lol 1 supply roaches, going back to beta? That was horribly imbalanced.
Flying, sOs, free, Light, Soulkey & ZerO
Asymmetric
Profile Joined June 2011
Scotland1309 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 14:15:53
June 16 2012 14:14 GMT
#178
I don't see a roach problem. It's pretty much the only unit thats durable/cheap enough to put pressure on Protoss/Terran early game and it doesn't appear too strong. Even in ZvP, the best protoss's are holding 3 base roach pushs and comming out way ahead these days if they scout and prepare correctly.

And then theres ZvZ. Removing the roach from ZvZ would pretty much devolve the match up into ling baneling wars indefinately. Even better, faster, earlier hydralisks don't stand much chance against massed ling/banelings. Hell one of the reasons broodwar ZvZ is such a stagnant match-up is because a unit like the roach never existed.

Honestly I think with the improved hydras and swarmhosts you'll see more diverse army compositions from zergs mid-game in Hots anyway but I don't see a compelling argument to get rid of roachs.
Cereb
Profile Joined November 2011
Denmark3388 Posts
June 16 2012 14:17 GMT
#179
Of course you can't just remove such a core unit lol.

But if we are going to theorycraft it could be abit more interesting to have them be at 1 supply with less damage to get more of a swarm feel


"Until the very very top in almost anything, all that matters is how much work you put in. The only problem is most people can't work hard even at things they do enjoy, much less things they don't have a real passion for. -Greg "IdrA" Fields
IIIOmegaIII
Profile Joined May 2011
Sweden319 Posts
June 16 2012 14:18 GMT
#180
On June 16 2012 18:40 Yorbon wrote:
Marines OP, remove them. And there are enough other games with infantery shooting with guns: not so original.
Also, the zealot is pretty bland.

Roach is too standard in zerg army to get rid from. Small steps are needed to do so with good replacement. Imo not possible until lotv.


em....wat?? thats pure bs. u remove the marine, u remove the repressentative unit for terran. really wierd statement. same with the zealots. both of them are the symbolic units for respective race, removing them would just mess it all up.

also, why remove the roaches? so cool unit.
emc
Profile Joined September 2010
United States3088 Posts
June 16 2012 14:18 GMT
#181
On June 16 2012 23:14 Asymmetric wrote:
I don't see a roach problem. It's pretty much the only unit thats durable/cheap enough to put pressure on Protoss/Terran early game and it doesn't appear too strong. Even in ZvP, the best protoss's are holding 3 base roach pushs and comming out way ahead these days if they scout and prepare correctly.

And then theres ZvZ. Removing the roach from ZvZ would pretty much devolve the match up into ling baneling wars indefinately. Even better, faster, earlier hydralisks don't stand much chance against massed ling/banelings. Hell one of the reasons broodwar ZvZ is such a stagnant match-up is because a unit like the roach never existed.

Honestly I think with the improved hydras and swarmhosts you'll see more diverse army compositions from zergs mid-game in Hots anyway but I don't see a compelling argument to get rid of roachs.


in HotS you don't need the roach to put on pressure if you have the swarm host, which spawns free units that can shoot air, combine them with zerglings and you will keep them alive.

if you put in the baneling in BW, I think the match up would honestly have stabilized more because you can literally make 2 banelings, and with enough micro, stop the player who makes 8 banelings, it's all about control, roaches don't offer the same intense gameplay as ling/bling wars do.

the viper and swarm host pretty much solve all the problems zergs had in WoL but at the same time makes the roach rather redundant. I mentioned this in the post above yours, don't know if you read it but here it is again and why I believe the roach might not be entirely necessary in HotS.

+ Show Spoiler +
On June 16 2012 22:58 CajunMan wrote:
Without roaches early mech pushes would break the game. Because of blue flame, thor, and tank roaches become absolutely necessary early game. Until brood lords come out if we only had ling hydra early to defend that every unit terren produced would shit on them and the games wouldn't go past 12 min ever.


think about it though, early game zerg has queens to deal with any harassment, so you don't need roaches then. Sure you might need roaches for any two base mech all-in, but I think vipers and hydras and spine crawler defense will be sufficient to deal with it. Vipers will grab enemy tanks one at a time and your hydras clean up the rest, the blue flame might hurt your hydras but you have spines and queens for that. If terran does a 3 base mech push, then you should be able to get BL's or ultras out if they are maxing out on mech, so I again still don't see how roaches are absolutely necessary. And in ZvP, the viper will make the roach unnecessary as well because you can pick off colossus with zerglings if you like and use hydra speed to dodge storms. Maybe a unit to fill the anti-armored gap zerg has until ultras, but other than that, I can't think of a good enough reason to really keep the roach.

in ZvZ without roaches we would see more ling/bling wars but would eventually stable out as more zergs get additional queens in ZvZ. The defensive baneling player is usually always better off, so there is a defenders advantage so it wouldn't totally eliminate longer games in ZvZ. I could be wrong, but having the viper and roach to stop mech would be overkill as you can run over mech with just roaches and overlord drops by themselves, so roaches might not be necessary in the grand scheme of things.

On June 16 2012 23:07 CajunMan wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 22:59 okrane wrote:
On June 16 2012 22:58 CajunMan wrote:
Without roaches early mech pushes would break the game. Because of blue flame, thor, and tank roaches become absolutely necessary early game. Until brood lords come out if we only had ling hydra early to defend that every unit terren produced would shit on them and the games wouldn't go past 12 min ever.


don't think that no other balance changes would not be made.
This is not a remove roach and leave everything as it is.
Remove roach and rework the game to make it more interesting in the early-mid game.


Like how? Are we gonna add another roach unit in? If not blue flame still beats everything 2reactor factor hellion will kill anything without blue flame.


sim city, spine crawlers, 6 queens and some banelings on top of your ramp should do it. 2reactor factory would be strong I admit, but it wouldn't be unbeatable.
BoggieMan
Profile Blog Joined August 2011
520 Posts
June 16 2012 14:24 GMT
#182
removing roaches from the game would make hellions and collusi so ridicolously overpowered.
Leetley
Profile Joined October 2010
1796 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 14:28:52
June 16 2012 14:27 GMT
#183
On June 16 2012 23:13 Gladiator333 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 20:48 SarcasmMonster wrote:
Poll: Should the roach stay?

Removed entirely and replaced with a new HOTS unit (40)
 
35%

Keep as is (38)
 
34%

Keep but swap tiers with Hydras (and rebalanced accordingly) (19)
 
17%

Keep but changed (1 supply etc.) (16)
 
14%

113 total votes

Your vote: Should the roach stay?

(Vote): Keep as is
(Vote): Keep but changed (1 supply etc.)
(Vote): Keep but swap tiers with Hydras (and rebalanced accordingly)
(Vote): Removed entirely and replaced with a new HOTS unit



Lol 1 supply roaches, going back to beta? That was horribly imbalanced.

Yeah, but the roach will obviously be in need of a nerf if changed to 1 supply each.
BronzeKnee
Profile Joined March 2011
United States5217 Posts
June 16 2012 14:28 GMT
#184
I haven't thought it through entirely, but I don't think I would mind if they removed the Light Tag from Hydras, then swapped Hydras and Roaches in the tech tree.
0neder
Profile Joined July 2009
United States3733 Posts
June 16 2012 14:31 GMT
#185
Agree that the mechanics are interesting but rarely used. Probably because detection is too easily available in SC2.

I don't hate the roach comepletely, but I hate that it's a 2 supply unit. Zerg should have a 1 supply unit in tier 1. They should revert it.
ZeromuS
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
Canada13389 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 14:36:47
June 16 2012 14:34 GMT
#186
On June 16 2012 23:31 0neder wrote:
Agree that the mechanics are interesting but rarely used. Probably because detection is too easily available in SC2.

I don't hate the roach comepletely, but I hate that it's a 2 supply unit. Zerg should have a 1 supply unit in tier 1. They should revert it.


Imagine Stephano, with instead of 60 roaches, having 90. The entire game becomes broken, even if the roaches had 3 range you just, can't do it. They are fast, they are tanky they have high DPS that armour upgrades don't diminish much because of one single high damage attack.

While I don't think they need to be removed the Roach is a funny funny unit. High DPS, single burst type damage that armor doesn't help much against, high hp and tanky, fast, inexpensive, 4 range. The only thing they don't do is shoot up. I know they are "supply inefficient" but when you can be 60 supply up on your opponent with the roach that isn't a problem anymore.

StrategyRTS forever | @ZeromuS_plays | www.twitch.tv/Zeromus_
Peqqz
Profile Joined December 2011
Germany201 Posts
June 16 2012 14:38 GMT
#187
On June 16 2012 18:33 Fleshcut wrote:
It's too important to Zs to remove it. Why not remove the tanks from terran? They are boring. Leading to turtle style play and impossible to crack defenses. Roaches are at least mobile and get you into a real game even if I have to admit that they are boring compared to lings. But you can't remove any of them. :/ Sadly.




Weired / Confusing / Dumb post.
first we make expand, then we defend it.
emc
Profile Joined September 2010
United States3088 Posts
June 16 2012 14:41 GMT
#188
On June 16 2012 23:34 ZeromuS wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 23:31 0neder wrote:
Agree that the mechanics are interesting but rarely used. Probably because detection is too easily available in SC2.

I don't hate the roach comepletely, but I hate that it's a 2 supply unit. Zerg should have a 1 supply unit in tier 1. They should revert it.


Imagine Stephano, with instead of 60 roaches, having 90. The entire game becomes broken, even if the roaches had 3 range you just, can't do it. They are fast, they are tanky they have high DPS that armour upgrades don't diminish much because of one single high damage attack.

While I don't think they need to be removed the Roach is a funny funny unit. High DPS, single burst type damage that armor doesn't help much against, high hp and tanky, fast, inexpensive, 4 range. The only thing they don't do is shoot up. I know they are "supply inefficient" but when you can be 60 supply up on your opponent with the roach that isn't a problem anymore.



anything and everything can be changed, if blizzard made roaches 1 supply then I'm sure something else about them would be changed, there is no way they would remain as is, come on man, it doesn't take a lot of brains to figure that out. Roaches could instead do low damaging but fast hitting attacks like zerglings to make armor more effective against roaches, banelings can be our burst damage unit.
CajunMan
Profile Joined July 2010
United States823 Posts
June 16 2012 14:41 GMT
#189
On June 16 2012 23:10 emc wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 22:58 CajunMan wrote:
Without roaches early mech pushes would break the game. Because of blue flame, thor, and tank roaches become absolutely necessary early game. Until brood lords come out if we only had ling hydra early to defend that every unit terren produced would shit on them and the games wouldn't go past 12 min ever.


think about it though, early game zerg has queens to deal with any harassment, so you don't need roaches then. Sure you might need roaches for any two base mech all-in, but I think vipers and hydras and spine crawler defense will be sufficient to deal with it. Vipers will grab enemy tanks one at a time and your hydras clean up the rest, the blue flame might hurt your hydras but you have spines and queens for that. If terran does a 3 base mech push, then you should be able to get BL's or ultras out if they are maxing out on mech, so I again still don't see how roaches are absolutely necessary. And in ZvP, the viper will make the roach unnecessary as well because you can pick off colossus with zerglings if you like and use hydra speed to dodge storms. Maybe a unit to fill the anti-armored gap zerg has until ultras, but other than that, I can't think of a good enough reason to really keep the roach.

in ZvZ without roaches we would see more ling/bling wars but would eventually stable out as more zergs get additional queens in ZvZ. The defensive baneling player is usually always better off, so there is a defenders advantage so it wouldn't totally eliminate longer games in ZvZ. I could be wrong, but having the viper and roach to stop mech would be overkill as you can run over mech with just roaches and overlord drops by themselves, so roaches might not be necessary in the grand scheme of things.

Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 23:07 CajunMan wrote:
On June 16 2012 22:59 okrane wrote:
On June 16 2012 22:58 CajunMan wrote:
Without roaches early mech pushes would break the game. Because of blue flame, thor, and tank roaches become absolutely necessary early game. Until brood lords come out if we only had ling hydra early to defend that every unit terren produced would shit on them and the games wouldn't go past 12 min ever.


don't think that no other balance changes would not be made.
This is not a remove roach and leave everything as it is.
Remove roach and rework the game to make it more interesting in the early-mid game.


Like how? Are we gonna add another roach unit in? If not blue flame still beats everything 2reactor factor hellion will kill anything without blue flame.


sim city, spine crawlers, 6 queens and some banelings on top of your ramp should do it. 2reactor factory would be strong I admit, but it wouldn't be unbeatable.


You would not have enough energy on vipers to get all the siege tanks and siege tanks smoke spines, queens, lings ,and hydras everything you have for defense. Also I have to commit 6 queen baneling and spine crawlers to stop some hellions. And that doesn't mean the terren didn't just expand behind it I would be so far behind it'd be ridiculous. The roach is important unless we are removing other races units as well. How bout this I'll get rid of the roach when medivacs are gone. That is a very poorly designed unit that makes drops 3x as effective and zerg doesn't have the same drop defense as in Broodwar. Because we forgot I guess.
Silentenigma
Profile Joined July 2009
Turkey2037 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 14:42:34
June 16 2012 14:42 GMT
#190
I think they should nerf or remove roaches to make them situational.I think they are the worst units in sc2 to watch.
日本語が上手ですね
ZeromuS
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
Canada13389 Posts
June 16 2012 14:45 GMT
#191
On June 16 2012 23:41 emc wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 23:34 ZeromuS wrote:
On June 16 2012 23:31 0neder wrote:
Agree that the mechanics are interesting but rarely used. Probably because detection is too easily available in SC2.

I don't hate the roach comepletely, but I hate that it's a 2 supply unit. Zerg should have a 1 supply unit in tier 1. They should revert it.


Imagine Stephano, with instead of 60 roaches, having 90. The entire game becomes broken, even if the roaches had 3 range you just, can't do it. They are fast, they are tanky they have high DPS that armour upgrades don't diminish much because of one single high damage attack.

While I don't think they need to be removed the Roach is a funny funny unit. High DPS, single burst type damage that armor doesn't help much against, high hp and tanky, fast, inexpensive, 4 range. The only thing they don't do is shoot up. I know they are "supply inefficient" but when you can be 60 supply up on your opponent with the roach that isn't a problem anymore.



anything and everything can be changed, if blizzard made roaches 1 supply then I'm sure something else about them would be changed, there is no way they would remain as is, come on man, it doesn't take a lot of brains to figure that out. Roaches could instead do low damaging but fast hitting attacks like zerglings to make armor more effective against roaches, banelings can be our burst damage unit.


Agreed that Blizz can change it but I don't think someone can say "it needs to be 1 supply" without qualifying it with "of course some things would need to change".

StrategyRTS forever | @ZeromuS_plays | www.twitch.tv/Zeromus_
emc
Profile Joined September 2010
United States3088 Posts
June 16 2012 14:46 GMT
#192
On June 16 2012 23:41 CajunMan wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 23:10 emc wrote:
On June 16 2012 22:58 CajunMan wrote:
Without roaches early mech pushes would break the game. Because of blue flame, thor, and tank roaches become absolutely necessary early game. Until brood lords come out if we only had ling hydra early to defend that every unit terren produced would shit on them and the games wouldn't go past 12 min ever.


think about it though, early game zerg has queens to deal with any harassment, so you don't need roaches then. Sure you might need roaches for any two base mech all-in, but I think vipers and hydras and spine crawler defense will be sufficient to deal with it. Vipers will grab enemy tanks one at a time and your hydras clean up the rest, the blue flame might hurt your hydras but you have spines and queens for that. If terran does a 3 base mech push, then you should be able to get BL's or ultras out if they are maxing out on mech, so I again still don't see how roaches are absolutely necessary. And in ZvP, the viper will make the roach unnecessary as well because you can pick off colossus with zerglings if you like and use hydra speed to dodge storms. Maybe a unit to fill the anti-armored gap zerg has until ultras, but other than that, I can't think of a good enough reason to really keep the roach.

in ZvZ without roaches we would see more ling/bling wars but would eventually stable out as more zergs get additional queens in ZvZ. The defensive baneling player is usually always better off, so there is a defenders advantage so it wouldn't totally eliminate longer games in ZvZ. I could be wrong, but having the viper and roach to stop mech would be overkill as you can run over mech with just roaches and overlord drops by themselves, so roaches might not be necessary in the grand scheme of things.

On June 16 2012 23:07 CajunMan wrote:
On June 16 2012 22:59 okrane wrote:
On June 16 2012 22:58 CajunMan wrote:
Without roaches early mech pushes would break the game. Because of blue flame, thor, and tank roaches become absolutely necessary early game. Until brood lords come out if we only had ling hydra early to defend that every unit terren produced would shit on them and the games wouldn't go past 12 min ever.


don't think that no other balance changes would not be made.
This is not a remove roach and leave everything as it is.
Remove roach and rework the game to make it more interesting in the early-mid game.


Like how? Are we gonna add another roach unit in? If not blue flame still beats everything 2reactor factor hellion will kill anything without blue flame.


sim city, spine crawlers, 6 queens and some banelings on top of your ramp should do it. 2reactor factory would be strong I admit, but it wouldn't be unbeatable.


You would not have enough energy on vipers to get all the siege tanks and siege tanks smoke spines, queens, lings ,and hydras everything you have for defense. Also I have to commit 6 queen baneling and spine crawlers to stop some hellions. And that doesn't mean the terren didn't just expand behind it I would be so far behind it'd be ridiculous. The roach is important unless we are removing other races units as well. How bout this I'll get rid of the roach when medivacs are gone. That is a very poorly designed unit that makes drops 3x as effective and zerg doesn't have the same drop defense as in Broodwar. Because we forgot I guess.


thats a good point, I will give it to you there. Zerg can't very well prepare for a hellion all-in and also a 2 base mech all-in, but then again, wouldn't that just promote better scouting? 2 reactor factory and 2 base all-in mech is two different things. And also you didn't realize that the viper has consume? since you are defending, you are near your own base and can consume your own buildings, then go back and pick off another tank. With hydra/ling/viper, the more mobile army, you can pick off pieces of his army from the middle of the map, consume at your base and be ready for the main engagement by the time he arrives at your base. Theory crafting of course, but when I get my hands on HotS I won't be making a single roach during the beta, just to see if I can pull it off.
emc
Profile Joined September 2010
United States3088 Posts
June 16 2012 14:48 GMT
#193
On June 16 2012 23:42 Silentenigma wrote:
I think they should nerf or remove roaches to make them situational.I think they are the worst units in sc2 to watch.


yea but that's kind of like... implied. if blizzard suddenly gave marines 6 range, you would have to assume they costed more or got nerfed in some other way because there is no way in hell a 6 range marine would at all be balanced, just like 1 supply roach.
CajunMan
Profile Joined July 2010
United States823 Posts
June 16 2012 14:57 GMT
#194
On June 16 2012 23:46 emc wrote:


thats a good point, I will give it to you there. Zerg can't very well prepare for a hellion all-in and also a 2 base mech all-in, but then again, wouldn't that just promote better scouting? 2 reactor factory and 2 base all-in mech is two different things. And also you didn't realize that the viper has consume? since you are defending, you are near your own base and can consume your own buildings, then go back and pick off another tank. With hydra/ling/viper, the more mobile army, you can pick off pieces of his army from the middle of the map, consume at your base and be ready for the main engagement by the time he arrives at your base. Theory crafting of course, but when I get my hands on HotS I won't be making a single roach during the beta, just to see if I can pull it off.


Well scouting is good but mech allins will still hit like a brick shit house and the problem I see happening isn't that vipers won't be good with consume but will you get past 1 use. I think a good terren will just move all the way up to your natural and siege then you can pull them all you want he's already hitting you. The problem is you can just keep backing up it doesn't matter how mobile your army is it will never be able to fight the mech army head on at any point without roaches early and he'll just steam roll you without time for multiple pulls or consumes. Zerg by design needs a more bases and when these allins hit you are just getting your third up and relying on 3-4 different techs of units to defend the push on 2 extremely gas intensive units I don't think you will have the income to support Hydra, Viper, Ling + whatever else in mass number enough to stop any Thor, Tank, hellion, scv push.
Comeh
Profile Blog Joined July 2008
United States18918 Posts
June 16 2012 14:59 GMT
#195
I'm not sure why people are saying "its too important to remove" when the whole point is the game is being redesigned / revamped, so there is the possibility of changing other things to remove a unit that doesn't fit zerg, and makes the game more boring / bland.
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Garmer
Profile Joined October 2010
1286 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 15:02:28
June 16 2012 15:01 GMT
#196
one supply roach could be balanced, everything could be balanced, units are just numbers, just make the damn roach more zergish(1 supply) and a stronger burrow-move, same for the marauders , need to be reworked.
HeeroFX
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
United States2704 Posts
June 16 2012 15:11 GMT
#197
On June 16 2012 18:33 Fleshcut wrote:
It's too important to Zs to remove it. Why not remove the tanks from terran? They are boring. Leading to turtle style play and impossible to crack defenses. Roaches are at least mobile and get you into a real game even if I have to admit that they are boring compared to lings. But you can't remove any of them. :/ Sadly.




Tanks are not boring. How is watching things get blown to tiny bits boring? Now roaches are boring. Things die in acid pool of death...lame.
Kich
Profile Joined April 2011
United States339 Posts
June 16 2012 15:15 GMT
#198
On June 16 2012 18:31 okrane wrote:
Honest question to forumers.

We have a new installment of the game, a chance to set things right, to repair past mistakes and design flaws, to make the game sharper and better than it was before.

And still we have this god awful boring and bland unit in the core of the zerg army.

The expansion could be a way of removing it and adding another solution for Zerg early tier which would make things more interesting and fun to watch.

All opinions are welcome.



I really agree with this. Just give Hydra's their run speed back naturally and move them back to being a tier 1 unit.
emc
Profile Joined September 2010
United States3088 Posts
June 16 2012 15:20 GMT
#199
On June 16 2012 23:57 CajunMan wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 23:46 emc wrote:


thats a good point, I will give it to you there. Zerg can't very well prepare for a hellion all-in and also a 2 base mech all-in, but then again, wouldn't that just promote better scouting? 2 reactor factory and 2 base all-in mech is two different things. And also you didn't realize that the viper has consume? since you are defending, you are near your own base and can consume your own buildings, then go back and pick off another tank. With hydra/ling/viper, the more mobile army, you can pick off pieces of his army from the middle of the map, consume at your base and be ready for the main engagement by the time he arrives at your base. Theory crafting of course, but when I get my hands on HotS I won't be making a single roach during the beta, just to see if I can pull it off.


Well scouting is good but mech allins will still hit like a brick shit house and the problem I see happening isn't that vipers won't be good with consume but will you get past 1 use. I think a good terren will just move all the way up to your natural and siege then you can pull them all you want he's already hitting you. The problem is you can just keep backing up it doesn't matter how mobile your army is it will never be able to fight the mech army head on at any point without roaches early and he'll just steam roll you without time for multiple pulls or consumes. Zerg by design needs a more bases and when these allins hit you are just getting your third up and relying on 3-4 different techs of units to defend the push on 2 extremely gas intensive units I don't think you will have the income to support Hydra, Viper, Ling + whatever else in mass number enough to stop any Thor, Tank, hellion, scv push.


well it could very well be that mass swarm host counters any mech all-in perfectly but we just don't know it. I see how necessary roaches are in WoL but in HotS? I feel like roaches could be avoided completely.
FeUerFlieGe
Profile Joined April 2011
United States1193 Posts
June 16 2012 15:21 GMT
#200
Roaches are fine. Besides, low cost early game fast moving hydras are going to be a bit overpowered.
To unpathed waters, undreamed shores. - Shakespeare
Mr Showtime
Profile Joined April 2011
United States1353 Posts
June 16 2012 15:26 GMT
#201
This thread screams "Turn SC2 into BW!"
Lightswarm
Profile Blog Joined November 2008
Canada966 Posts
June 16 2012 15:32 GMT
#202
On June 16 2012 18:42 dAPhREAk wrote:
and replace it with what?


1 supply, 60 hp tier 1 hydra
Team[AoV]
jimbobicus
Profile Joined May 2011
Canada23 Posts
June 16 2012 15:37 GMT
#203
As a protoss player...get rid of the roach!

As a viewer, lover of the game, and rational human being. The roach is fine and IMO it fits the zerg quite well, and will be interesting to see if its use changes a bit in HoTS.
iiGreetings
Profile Joined March 2011
Canada563 Posts
June 16 2012 15:37 GMT
#204
On June 16 2012 18:38 freetgy wrote:
I think roaches are fine, but the are to fast & tanky for the ressourc cost.

usually a unit is either fast or tanky.

A speed roach has movement speed of 4 on creep.....almost as fast as speedlings.

As far as i am aware 2 roaches beat any equivalent of 150/50 ressource army of the opponents, which makes them a very boring a-move unit in most of the cases.

Forcefields.. in numbers make roaches laughable
Adapt and React I MKP, PartinG, EffOrt ♥
Fealthas
Profile Joined May 2011
607 Posts
June 16 2012 15:41 GMT
#205
I hope we remove the immortal, roach, and marauder. They are dumb units that make the "armoured" tag a curse and are used to counter eachother.
Wait, but aren't immortals the counter to marauders and roaches? No, everyones just makes more roaches and maraders when they see immortals.
SarcasmMonster
Profile Joined October 2011
3136 Posts
June 16 2012 15:43 GMT
#206
Poll: Should the roach stay?

Removed entirely and replaced with a new HOTS unit (40)
 
35%

Keep as is (38)
 
34%

Keep but swap tiers with Hydras (and rebalanced accordingly) (19)
 
17%

Keep but changed (1 supply etc.) (16)
 
14%

113 total votes

Your vote: Should the roach stay?

(Vote): Keep as is
(Vote): Keep but changed (1 supply etc.)
(Vote): Keep but swap tiers with Hydras (and rebalanced accordingly)
(Vote): Removed entirely and replaced with a new HOTS unit



The plurality of the people want the roach to stay as is. Small sample, but what-evs.
MMA: The true King of Wings
Shiori
Profile Blog Joined July 2011
3815 Posts
June 16 2012 15:44 GMT
#207
On June 17 2012 00:37 iiGreetings wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 18:38 freetgy wrote:
I think roaches are fine, but the are to fast & tanky for the ressourc cost.

usually a unit is either fast or tanky.

A speed roach has movement speed of 4 on creep.....almost as fast as speedlings.

As far as i am aware 2 roaches beat any equivalent of 150/50 ressource army of the opponents, which makes them a very boring a-move unit in most of the cases.

Forcefields.. in numbers make roaches laughable

Forcefields also come from a unit that costs 4x the gas as a Roach.
Insomni7
Profile Joined June 2011
667 Posts
June 16 2012 15:44 GMT
#208
I never felt that the roach had any real problems. The way they can be used with burrow can make them a surprisingly dynamic unit to counter some protoss mid-game timings. They have pressure potential in zvt, and they are extremely fun to control, split counter and position in zvz. To me they can sometimes be the marine of zerg. Weather or not it is strictly an interesting unit, it has so much potential in the right hands that I believe it is still a very well designed unit.
Never Forget.
Ryndika
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
1489 Posts
June 16 2012 15:46 GMT
#209
Roach owns, don't take it away from me. Love the metagame shifts with it from 3-3 roachspam into 1-0 roachspam. No seriously, I like it at early game against hellions. Roachling is really fun to play for me, feels very swarmy.
as useful as teasalt
Torte de Lini
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
Germany38463 Posts
June 16 2012 15:47 GMT
#210
The roach is a focal point of the early to mid game for Zerg, it's practically essential.
https://twitter.com/#!/TorteDeLini (@TorteDeLini)
CreationSoul
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
Romania231 Posts
June 16 2012 15:48 GMT
#211
yeah... let's remove the marauder then.....

to be fair... the roach right now is a core Z unit and if it is removed.... major rebalancing of all matchups needs to happen.....
Quitting is the easy way out...
Kanil
Profile Joined April 2010
United States1713 Posts
June 16 2012 15:49 GMT
#212
On June 17 2012 00:48 CreationSoul wrote:
yeah... let's remove the marauder then.....

to be fair... the roach right now is a core Z unit and if it is removed.... major rebalancing of all matchups needs to happen.....

I wouldn't miss either unit in the slightest.
I used to have an Oz icon over here ---->
Censured
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Czech Republic1060 Posts
June 16 2012 15:50 GMT
#213
I would love to see roach getting much less hp but in return getting the hp regen like it had in alpha/early beta
Occupation: Legend
TommyP
Profile Joined December 2011
United States6231 Posts
June 16 2012 15:50 GMT
#214
On June 16 2012 18:59 forsooth wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 18:33 Fleshcut wrote:
Why not remove the tanks from terran? They are boring.

You should delete your account, go outside, and rethink your life.


I find them boring too. Terran has one siege tank on high ground and turtles and thats about as boring as SC2 can get. I agree. You should rethink your life.
#TheOneTrueDong
GamanNo
Profile Joined November 2010
Sweden63 Posts
June 16 2012 15:52 GMT
#215
If any unit should go shouldn't that be the sentry with its forcefields?
I say get rid of it and make protoss more fun to watch ^^
emc
Profile Joined September 2010
United States3088 Posts
June 16 2012 15:53 GMT
#216
On June 17 2012 00:44 Shiori wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 17 2012 00:37 iiGreetings wrote:
On June 16 2012 18:38 freetgy wrote:
I think roaches are fine, but the are to fast & tanky for the ressourc cost.

usually a unit is either fast or tanky.

A speed roach has movement speed of 4 on creep.....almost as fast as speedlings.

As far as i am aware 2 roaches beat any equivalent of 150/50 ressource army of the opponents, which makes them a very boring a-move unit in most of the cases.

Forcefields.. in numbers make roaches laughable

Forcefields also come from a unit that costs 4x the gas as a Roach.


yes but cost less minerals, can be warped in and the requirement to make them is a key tech structure for protoss, the roach warren is not. We could go back and forth about trivialities that don't matter, what matters is how a game progressed that makes the roach better than the sentry or vice versa.
TelecoM
Profile Blog Joined January 2010
United States10670 Posts
June 16 2012 15:56 GMT
#217
On June 16 2012 18:47 Diizzy wrote:
remove the roach. make lings a little tougher. give us the lurker.


I actually like this idea a lot, mainly because I miss the lurker. T_T
AKA: TelecoM[WHITE] Protoss fighting
provrorsbarn
Profile Joined January 2011
Sweden766 Posts
June 16 2012 15:56 GMT
#218
On June 17 2012 00:56 GGzerG wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 16 2012 18:47 Diizzy wrote:
remove the roach. make lings a little tougher. give us the lurker.


I actually like this idea a lot, mainly because I miss the lurker. T_T


yeah that game is called starcraft
Im just a zerg
ACrow
Profile Joined October 2011
Germany6583 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 15:58:11
June 16 2012 15:57 GMT
#219
The roach is working and is absolutely needed by Zerg...however it's very bland, boring and the definition of an easy to use a-move unit. It will be hard to exchange without messing everything up, but if it could be done, I'd be all for it.
Get off my lawn, young punks
50bani
Profile Blog Joined June 2009
Romania480 Posts
June 16 2012 16:02 GMT
#220
I don't know if this was posted before in the thread, but you need to keep in mind that the game already does a lot of things very well. Yes, the TvP stats lie about the matchup, but in general you can say that the game is pretty solid.
HOTS is not out yet, not even Beta so you can't say anything about what the game will look like.

Many one line posts in the thread about changing the stats of this unit or that, remove this or that... I thought they were frowned upon on TL. Basically, you guys are making(proposing) huge changes to the game without giving a good reason why your idea will be an improvement over the status quo.
I'm posting on twoplustwo because I have always been amazed at the level of talent that populates this site --- it's almost unparalleled on the Internet.
wcr.4fun
Profile Joined April 2012
Belgium686 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 16:04:20
June 16 2012 16:03 GMT
#221
The people who say the hydra in bw is not much different from the roach are correct. But somehow I loved the hydra in broodwar and don't really like the roach (besides it's cute model).

The micro aspect is gone! If you didn't micro your hydras (storm dodging, mines,...) for 5 seconds you could lose them all in 3-4 storms for example. 3 hatch spire into 5 hatch hydra gives you 40 hydra's versus a toss who went forge fast expand, at the time you decide to push. How is this that much different from sc2? Not so much, besides the fact that you just a-move your roaches and go back to injects. Whereas in BW you had to control your hydra's so well versus an insanely smaller army of the toss. But those 5-6 templars could ruin your day in less than a few seconds. This encouraged players to get a pack of muta's to snipe the templars. Which promotes even more micro!!

Micro doesn't exist for zergs in sc2. Moving shot doesn't exist in sc2. For christ sake, I can take a pack of roaches, put one in front of it (not in the control group) and let it dance around my entire base by using the control group of roaches. No such thing was possible in bw. Remove this gliding, smooth engine and give us back MICRO and moving shot.
SarcasmMonster
Profile Joined October 2011
3136 Posts
June 16 2012 16:06 GMT
#222
On June 17 2012 01:03 wcr.4fun wrote:
The people who say the hydra in bw is not much different from the roach are correct. But somehow I loved the hydra in broodwar and don't really like the roach (besides it's cute model).

The micro aspect is gone! If you didn't micro your hydras (storm dodging, mines,...) for 5 seconds you could lose them all in 3-4 storms for example. 3 hatch spire into 5 hatch hydra gives you 40 hydra's versus a toss who went forge fast expand, at the time you decide to push. How is this that much different from sc2? Not so much, besides the fact that you just a-move your roaches and go back to injects. Whereas in BW you had to control your hydra's so well versus an insanely smaller army of the toss. But those 5-6 templars could ruin your day in less than a few seconds. This encouraged players to get a pack of muta's to snipe the templars. Which promotes even more micro!!

Micro doesn't exist for zergs in sc2. Moving shot doesn't exist in sc2. For christ sake, I can take a pack of roaches, put one in front of it (not in the control group) and let it dance around my entire base by using the control group of roaches. No such thing was possible in bw. Remove this gliding, smooth engine and give us back MICRO and moving shot.


How many ground units in BW have moving shot?
MMA: The true King of Wings
Silky
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
United States260 Posts
June 16 2012 16:10 GMT
#223
Roaches are incredibly needed for the meta-game as they are really the only responses zerg has to some of the terran and protoss build. Not to mention the zvz roach battles. I think people see roaches as too good, and that is not the case. I believe that people are trying to find a way to hurt zerg due to them thinking that the race is OP. It is not. Seriously, people need to stop whining about imbalance and just play the game. If you truly want to get better, you need to set that behind yourself and admit that, when someone beats you, it's because they truly out-played you.
Have a good life
Kovaz
Profile Joined October 2010
Canada233 Posts
June 16 2012 16:16 GMT
#224
Honestly, I think the game would be much better off if they just took out roach speed and replaced it with hydra speed at lair tech. Roaches are fairly rare in ZvT beyond early-game counters to hellions and reapers, and speed doesn't affect that. PvZ, would be way better off with speed-hydra + ling as the primary midgame (although we'd have to do something about colossi, preferably replace them with a unit that can harass from a warp prism), the micro would be way more two-sided with storms vs. storm dodging, blinking stalkers back while zerg tries for a surround, etc. Rather than what we have now, which is zerg a-moves in two locations, protoss has to get near-perfect FFs or just dies. ZvZ would be heavily affected, not sure hydra vs. hydra would be any better than roach vs. roach, but at least it would probably be more clear to viewers whose units are whose.
Recognizable
Profile Blog Joined December 2011
Netherlands1552 Posts
June 16 2012 16:19 GMT
#225
While we are it it, remove the marauder and immortal aswell. Would make the game more interesting imo
Rumpus
Profile Joined August 2011
United States136 Posts
June 16 2012 16:22 GMT
#226
Roach, Marauder, Colossus, Corrupter, Hydralisk, Carrier, all in need of a serious reworking...or letting go.
Grammin'
InfusedTT.DaZe
Profile Joined August 2010
Romania693 Posts
June 16 2012 16:26 GMT
#227
removing roaches, make hydras a bit better
"Echoes of past events nudge the tiller on my present course, I await its reflection in the future"
lorkac
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
United States2297 Posts
June 16 2012 16:28 GMT
#228
I actually find the roach a really interesting unit ESPITE* Blizzard's best efforts.

at 75m/25g it is arguably the best unit pound for pound. Fast, tricky, tanky, hard hitting and has uses throughout the game.

But at 2 supply each roach they are the *worse* unit to max out on in the game.

Typical late game. 80 drones, 5 queens taking up about 90 supply giving you 110 supply to work with.

55 Roaches--no support.

Or 40~ roaches with a bit of support.

Or 30~ roaches with lots of support (Lings, Infestors, etc...)

It makes this nice balance where they because this unit you kind of want to have all the time, but you never really want a lot of it.
By the truth we are undone. Life is a dream. Tis waking that kills us. He who robs us of our dreams robs us of our life --Orlando: A Biography
Phlatline
Profile Blog Joined December 2007
Croatia176 Posts
June 16 2012 16:30 GMT
#229
Roaches are fine, get over it. They are the only scary zerg unit until tier 3
dgwow
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
Canada1024 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 16:32:50
June 16 2012 16:32 GMT
#230
Yes please remove the roach, colossus, marauder, reaper, immortal, corruptor and introduce some more exciting units! Not going to happen though.
Don't let those anti-cheese advocates tell you what to do. Rush to meet life head on!
sleepingdog
Profile Joined August 2008
Austria6145 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 16:36:31
June 16 2012 16:33 GMT
#231
Ok, I never played BW but it amazes me how people fail to see the difference between the BW-hydra and the SC2-roach: in BW the hydra was ONLY useful in certain circumstances while the roach is viable pretty much the whole game. Even though this isn't necessarily a bad thing it's just bad design when mass-roach can overwhelm a stalker/immortal army. And this can often be observed when the 12 minute burst comes and toss just hasn't enough stuff yet.

The marine, on the other hand, doesn't function without at least a bit of support - even marineking needs medivacs fast-ish to make his style work vs zerg. Also the immortal is a terrible stand-alone unit. Roaches are pretty much the only unit that can still win games vs skilled opponents without having to be used together with other units.

On June 17 2012 01:10 Silky wrote:
Roaches are incredibly needed for the meta-game as they are really the only responses zerg has to some of the terran and protoss build. Not to mention the zvz roach battles. I think people see roaches as too good, and that is not the case. I believe that people are trying to find a way to hurt zerg due to them thinking that the race is OP. It is not. Seriously, people need to stop whining about imbalance and just play the game. If you truly want to get better, you need to set that behind yourself and admit that, when someone beats you, it's because they truly out-played you.


What a godawful logic - first you somehow try to claim that people see zergs as OP. That's clearly not the point of the thread. Secondly you don't even present any facts at all towards the roach. It's posts like this that make controversial threads so hard to follow.
"You see....YOU SEE..." © 2010 Sen
saladToss
Profile Joined June 2012
United States75 Posts
June 16 2012 16:35 GMT
#232
roaches should have a smaller collision size, less range, less damage, less hp, and cost 1 supply/hatch 2 per egg
Time is like a fuse, short and burning fast
Stratos_speAr
Profile Joined May 2009
United States6959 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 16:41:22
June 16 2012 16:37 GMT
#233
On June 16 2012 18:33 Fleshcut wrote:
It's too important to Zs to remove it. Why not remove the tanks from terran? They are boring. Leading to turtle style play and impossible to crack defenses. Roaches are at least mobile and get you into a real game even if I have to admit that they are boring compared to lings. But you can't remove any of them. :/ Sadly.


You're completely clueless if you think Tanks are boring.

Tanks add an incredible amount of depth to the game. Roaches do not. They are generic, all-purpose A-move units with no interesting micro depth to them whatsoever. Marauders are the same way. Sadly, Blizzard is so focused on balance that they aren't concerned with depth.

This thread screams "Turn SC2 into BW!"


Actually it only screams "Make SC2 more interesting and remove these generic, boring A-move units!"
A sound mind in a sound body, is a short, but full description of a happy state in this World: he that has these two, has little more to wish for; and he that wants either of them, will be little the better for anything else.
sleepingdog
Profile Joined August 2008
Austria6145 Posts
June 16 2012 16:45 GMT
#234
On June 17 2012 01:37 Stratos_speAr wrote:
Sadly, Blizzard is so focused on balance that they aren't concerned with depth.


Yup, agreed. Blizzard seemingly didn't spend to much thought concerning the overall design of specific units but focused more on the statistics to make it - more or less - balanced. It is sad that even with HotS most units are either imported BW-units or just another bunch of a-movers. The only exception is the blink stalker - even though hated on by many, blink is a truly unique, new thing and has delivered tons of exciting battles.

I'm no designer but surely there have to be tons of undiscovered possibilities for units that require positioning and micro?
"You see....YOU SEE..." © 2010 Sen
ACrow
Profile Joined October 2011
Germany6583 Posts
June 16 2012 16:45 GMT
#235
On June 17 2012 01:16 Kovaz wrote:
...Roaches are fairly rare in ZvT beyond early-game counters to hellions and reapers, and ...

Think back (~5-6months ago) when mech was pretty popular in TvZ, one of the answers that Zerg had was roaches. Hydras would fail in that role.
Get off my lawn, young punks
Therg
Profile Joined October 2010
Sweden238 Posts
June 16 2012 16:54 GMT
#236
Keep the roach but:

1.Give the roach a slight buff, as well as higher cost

or

2.Give the roach a slight nerf, and make it 1 supply

My 2 cents
Stratos_speAr
Profile Joined May 2009
United States6959 Posts
June 16 2012 16:55 GMT
#237
On June 17 2012 01:45 sleepingdog wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 17 2012 01:37 Stratos_speAr wrote:
Sadly, Blizzard is so focused on balance that they aren't concerned with depth.


Yup, agreed. Blizzard seemingly didn't spend to much thought concerning the overall design of specific units but focused more on the statistics to make it - more or less - balanced. It is sad that even with HotS most units are either imported BW-units or just another bunch of a-movers. The only exception is the blink stalker - even though hated on by many, blink is a truly unique, new thing and has delivered tons of exciting battles.

I'm no designer but surely there have to be tons of undiscovered possibilities for units that require positioning and micro?


There are many good things that are unique to SC2 - Creep spread, Blink, Warp In, switching addons, Banelings, Ravens (I still think they're woefully underused), and several other units. Even new units (Oracle, Swarm Host, Viper) are pretty awesome and not necessarily carbon copies of BW units.

That said, the problem is that the core units are poorly designed. The Colossus, Roach, and Marauder are incredibly boring, with very, very little micro or depth available to them, and they are very generic and are absolutely essential to the vast majority of games. Hell, having an A-move unit or two isn't even the problem; the problem is when these A-move units become the cornestone of a race's army.
A sound mind in a sound body, is a short, but full description of a happy state in this World: he that has these two, has little more to wish for; and he that wants either of them, will be little the better for anything else.
Freeze967
Profile Joined August 2011
United States230 Posts
June 16 2012 16:59 GMT
#238
In the HotS battle reports we've seen so far, no roaches have been made. Maybe this has been already decided for us?
Stratos_speAr
Profile Joined May 2009
United States6959 Posts
June 16 2012 17:04 GMT
#239
On June 17 2012 01:59 Freeze967 wrote:
In the HotS battle reports we've seen so far, no roaches have been made. Maybe this has been already decided for us?


The Battle Reports can't be used as an indication of anything. The players specifically focused on new units/upgrades, regardless of what is actually best to use. They are showcases of new units, nothing more.
A sound mind in a sound body, is a short, but full description of a happy state in this World: he that has these two, has little more to wish for; and he that wants either of them, will be little the better for anything else.
l3iRdMaN
Profile Joined February 2004
United States72 Posts
June 16 2012 17:05 GMT
#240
we should just get rid of every unit and float our buildings at each other
redDuke
Profile Joined March 2011
Australia207 Posts
June 16 2012 17:10 GMT
#241
On June 16 2012 18:35 Amlitzer wrote:
The thing I hate about the roach is that it has these really interesting mechanics (burrow move and regen) that go unused 99% of the time. Instead they are just used as a pure dps unit, which isn't what I imagine blizzard intending at all. I think they really need to revert their range back to 3 for starters.


100% agree. For a possibly interesting unit, it is usually used as an a-move, massed unit. Especially against toss to force cost ineffective engagements and eventual loss. Damn you Stephano!!! (still, pls win DH thnkx)
vile | FXO | Liquid | EG | coL
Iyerbeth
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
England2410 Posts
June 16 2012 17:20 GMT
#242
I don't know about players who aren't terrible but for me when I tried using burrow more with Roaches I found that it literally lost me games because they require so much time invested in managing them. They absolutely need a seperate "unburrow" key for it to even begin to be viable, and if you really want to see it being used a speed buff whilst burrowed would help. Speed buff whilst burrowed might break ff's though.
♥ Liquid`Sheth ♥ Liquid`TLO ♥
Allscorpion
Profile Joined April 2010
United Kingdom319 Posts
June 16 2012 17:38 GMT
#243
Surely if this thread is going to stay up, it needs a poll (and I vote yes). The roach is a nessasary unit for defence as well as offense but the main purpose of the unit is defence.
Day[9] Made me do it
toiletCAT
Profile Blog Joined June 2012
Qatar284 Posts
June 16 2012 17:41 GMT
#244
Yes, we do.
Iyerbeth
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
England2410 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 17:43:15
June 16 2012 17:42 GMT
#245
On June 17 2012 02:38 Allscorpion wrote:
Surely if this thread is going to stay up, it needs a poll (and I vote yes). The roach is a nessasary unit for defence as well as offense but the main purpose of the unit is defence.


Yeah there is a poll, it's just not in the OP. I'd say leave it as it is too, but I'd be open to seeing what Blizzard can think up, but that's not a poll option.

Poll: Should the roach stay?

Removed entirely and replaced with a new HOTS unit (40)
 
35%

Keep as is (38)
 
34%

Keep but swap tiers with Hydras (and rebalanced accordingly) (19)
 
17%

Keep but changed (1 supply etc.) (16)
 
14%

113 total votes

Your vote: Should the roach stay?

(Vote): Keep as is
(Vote): Keep but changed (1 supply etc.)
(Vote): Keep but swap tiers with Hydras (and rebalanced accordingly)
(Vote): Removed entirely and replaced with a new HOTS unit

♥ Liquid`Sheth ♥ Liquid`TLO ♥
Skrita
Profile Joined May 2011
Czech Republic55 Posts
June 16 2012 17:42 GMT
#246
On June 17 2012 00:43 SarcasmMonster wrote:
Poll: Should the roach stay?

Removed entirely and replaced with a new HOTS unit (40)
 
35%

Keep as is (38)
 
34%

Keep but swap tiers with Hydras (and rebalanced accordingly) (19)
 
17%

Keep but changed (1 supply etc.) (16)
 
14%

113 total votes

Your vote: Should the roach stay?

(Vote): Keep as is
(Vote): Keep but changed (1 supply etc.)
(Vote): Keep but swap tiers with Hydras (and rebalanced accordingly)
(Vote): Removed entirely and replaced with a new HOTS unit



The plurality of the people want the roach to stay as is. Small sample, but what-evs.


You are taking it from the wrong side, majority(65% at the time of writing) of the poll wants the roach changed/removed completly, we are just not agreeing on a single option.
Alpino
Profile Joined June 2011
Brazil4390 Posts
June 16 2012 17:45 GMT
#247
On June 16 2012 18:33 Fleshcut wrote:
It's too important to Zs to remove it. Why not remove the tanks from terran? They are boring. Leading to turtle style play and impossible to crack defenses. Roaches are at least mobile and get you into a real game even if I have to admit that they are boring compared to lings. But you can't remove any of them. :/ Sadly.


What? Tanks are one of the most interesting units in Starcraft as a whole, and sadly in Sc2 tanks are so weak that they don't amke anything impossible to crack. Tanks should zone the map and they don't do that unfortunately, if you find this kind of thing interesting are you even sure you like this game?
20/11/2015 - never forget EE's Ember
marcelluspye
Profile Joined August 2011
United States155 Posts
June 16 2012 17:46 GMT
#248
Remove the roach, put in some other armored thing that has good micro potential, and I would be so happy. But, that's never going to happen, though I might build a lot more hydras in HotS with a speed upgrade.
SarcasmMonster
Profile Joined October 2011
3136 Posts
June 16 2012 17:47 GMT
#249
On June 17 2012 02:42 Skrita wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 17 2012 00:43 SarcasmMonster wrote:
Poll: Should the roach stay?

Removed entirely and replaced with a new HOTS unit (40)
 
35%

Keep as is (38)
 
34%

Keep but swap tiers with Hydras (and rebalanced accordingly) (19)
 
17%

Keep but changed (1 supply etc.) (16)
 
14%

113 total votes

Your vote: Should the roach stay?

(Vote): Keep as is
(Vote): Keep but changed (1 supply etc.)
(Vote): Keep but swap tiers with Hydras (and rebalanced accordingly)
(Vote): Removed entirely and replaced with a new HOTS unit



The plurality of the people want the roach to stay as is. Small sample, but what-evs.


You are taking it from the wrong side, majority(65% at the time of writing) of the poll wants the roach changed/removed completly, we are just not agreeing on a single option.


To be fair to myself, I said plurality. And when I said it, it was almost at 50%.
MMA: The true King of Wings
toiletCAT
Profile Blog Joined June 2012
Qatar284 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 17:49:38
June 16 2012 17:47 GMT
#250
On June 17 2012 02:46 marcelluspye wrote:
Remove the roach, put in some other armored thing that has good micro potential, and I would be so happy. But, that's never going to happen, though I might build a lot more hydras in HotS with a speed upgrade.


You can easily micro the Roach o_O

You have to realize that StarCraft if is a strategy game and the Roach is not "just a unit you make, omg boring", it has its purpose in the early game, mid-game and late game. Removing it would cause a lot of trouble!
zezamer
Profile Joined March 2011
Finland5701 Posts
June 16 2012 17:48 GMT
#251
Roach needs to stay because it's the only low tech unit that deals well with colossus and hellion+thor.

Well they could replace it with something more interesting that fills the same role.
404AlphaSquad
Profile Joined October 2011
839 Posts
June 16 2012 17:58 GMT
#252
Units I dont like in WOL: Marauders,Roaches,Collossus,Thor,Infestor,and the ability ForceField. They should get replaced with something that´s more exciting.
aka Kalevi
TBone-
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
United States2309 Posts
June 16 2012 17:58 GMT
#253
You guys are all saying its too important, but do you guys remember those hots battle reports? No roaches were made in either of the games (PvZ and TvZ).
Eve online FC, lover of all competition
toiletCAT
Profile Blog Joined June 2012
Qatar284 Posts
June 16 2012 18:00 GMT
#254
On June 17 2012 02:58 TBone- wrote:
You guys are all saying its too important, but do you guys remember those hots battle reports? No roaches were made in either of the games (PvZ and TvZ).


That's because the point of the Battle Report was to show the new Heart of the Swarm changes/units.
zezamer
Profile Joined March 2011
Finland5701 Posts
June 16 2012 18:00 GMT
#255
On June 17 2012 02:58 TBone- wrote:
You guys are all saying its too important, but do you guys remember those hots battle reports? No roaches were made in either of the games (PvZ and TvZ).


They are just demonstrating new units in the battle reports afaik
Arghnews
Profile Joined June 2011
United Kingdom169 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 18:10:24
June 16 2012 18:08 GMT
#256
And replace it with? is exactly the correct problem. You can't just REMOVE something because it's boring, lol. What the hell am I meant to do against toss mid game without the roach? It's a staple, as one example. Sure, z could try to fast hive/focus on creep and go hydras, but tbh, they're just worse than roaches. Especially, the necessity of hive rush/creep for any attacking will put back attacks further, so toss goes faster 3rd, collosus and even FF shut down hydras hard, esp. as they are less tanky than roaches. 4 gate with mass zealot will become an issue, unless I go blings every game which... bla bla bla

Can't just remove it. I agree it's not how it was intended, but for now, I don't think removal is even an option.

Swapping tiers with Hydras + rebalance.... judging by how well hydras counter gateway units and roaches would then have to better vs toss midgame whilst hydras get nerfed to remove just fast hydra attacks.... would be interesting, but from a balance perspective, I think the only major change would be toss early air wouldn't be viable.
Karthane
Profile Joined June 2010
United States1183 Posts
June 16 2012 18:11 GMT
#257
Not every unit has to be super interesting. Every race needs a meaty unit that they can go to in most situtions. Just like terrans have marauders and protoss have Stalkers.
ZeromuS
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
Canada13389 Posts
June 16 2012 18:16 GMT
#258
On June 17 2012 03:11 Karthane wrote:
Not every unit has to be super interesting. Every race needs a meaty unit that they can go to in most situtions. Just like terrans have marauders and protoss have Stalkers.


Stalkers aren't meaty they die really quick to the other meaty units until you hit a huge number of stalkers and only in PvZ :/
StrategyRTS forever | @ZeromuS_plays | www.twitch.tv/Zeromus_
Black[CAT]
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
Malaysia2589 Posts
June 16 2012 18:17 GMT
#259
Hydras should had been the massable a-move unit while Roach is sort of like I dont know really...
You mean ESPORTS isnt a synonym for SC2? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ -Proud owner of a Filco Majestouch 2 with Cherry Blue Switches- BW or SC2? Why not both?
Narw
Profile Joined February 2011
Poland884 Posts
June 16 2012 18:19 GMT
#260
Just becouse you find roaches boring and state it like a fact in OP dosn't exactly means all do find it same way. If you want em to be fun play like that. Do drops with em, burrow em in opponent's base after droping, do attacks in many places at once.

Removing roaches would also fuck up EVERY matchup as it's CORE UNIT.
Sepheren
Profile Joined May 2012
United States66 Posts
June 16 2012 18:21 GMT
#261
On June 16 2012 18:36 Garmer wrote:
tank boring, what? blasphemy.... roach are ten time more boring 1a units
Imho roach should cost 1 supply 100hp/3 range and same dps as now, but with a passive ability in his attack(like the devourer)


It's tough to 1a roaches unless you're far ahead. Their short range makes it so you need to get in close, so you have to dash into stalkers or thors, split versus tanks, and be very careful not to get fungaled out of range versus infestor roach...
Bygone
Profile Joined October 2010
United States58 Posts
June 16 2012 18:21 GMT
#262
When SC2 first came out, I hated the roach, refused to use it for a very very long time as it didn't feel very 'zergy' to me. A moderately high health, supply heavy unit isn't what I was used to playing with as zerg. as time went on the roach began to sneak his way into my play no matter how much i hated seeing it there. I would not mind if the roach was removed from the game, however I'm not sure what unit would ahve to be put in place (or changed) to accommodate for the role that the roach served
Excludos
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Norway8054 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-06-16 18:27:14
June 16 2012 18:26 GMT
#263
On June 17 2012 03:19 Narw wrote:
Just becouse you find roaches boring and state it like a fact in OP dosn't exactly means all do find it same way. If you want em to be fun play like that. Do drops with em, burrow em in opponent's base after droping, do attacks in many places at once.

Removing roaches would also fuck up EVERY matchup as it's CORE UNIT.


Every matchup is going to get fucked up anyways in hots, so why not change around with the units while we're at it? A unit should not be cheap, tanky, easily massable, burrow, move while burrow, really fast regen and high dps all in one. All its missing is "flying" and "shoot up", which considering the weak air units in this game isn't really an issue. I think the roach is a cool concept, but it needs to put in a more spesific role, and not just a unit you can mass 100% every game and it will work against everything.
GMarshal
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
United States22154 Posts
June 16 2012 18:28 GMT
#264
put it in one of the existing hots threads
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