On September 17 2017 12:31 Luddite wrote: Are there any stats on how often zerg wins zvt, when the game gets into late game queens vs mech? My impression is that zerg loses a lot more than they win in that situation. They *can* win, but it's just such an uphill battle against a maxed out 3/3 mech army, especially once Terran fills up the map with turrets and mines.
But maybe I'm just getting the wrong idea because most of the games I've seen like that have been Larva vs. Flash or Last, and they're both godly at using huge mech armies. How does it work against other players?
It's a matter of how good your economy is. As I said, if you aren't much ahead of the T, you either take the JD approach or you'll end up going for Queens. Still, I'd bet some money that the win ratio is much better than when they try to deal with Terran's mech ball using brute force.
It's not a 'tricky' build anymore. It's almost standard, we don't seel everygame because very few games go to late game. Ts are working on countering it because seeing 12 tanks disappear can make them lose the game quite fast. Now they'll start to remaking Vessels after some point and even some go for Valks, also because the Muta switch can also be devastating. The late game ZvT became a Cat and Mouse battle. It's a beauty.
I gave up on the match up when the fast hive/tech to swarm became popular but now its my favorite match up to watch on Dual FPVods.
On September 15 2017 14:11 tomatriedes wrote: The game was more balanced before mech switch became so popular and perfected. Rather than nerfing terran units I would like to see a small energy buff to queens to make them more efficient.
Watch Larva and ZerO man. Queens are plenty efficient already. One reason this is is watch Flash's video on the mech switch where he says you basically want only tanks. This means queens have no counter in the terran army for the most part.
I never said queens are of no use, just that tweaking them would help with balance.
Would be nice if mass queen broodlings were useful for us regular folks, instead of being so difficult that only top pros could use them.
Top progamers indeed used them, in a grand total of 2 or 3 games at most in all of BW history. As I said earlier, queens in ZvT are nice, but the fad died as soon as it saw use. Terrans just spammed turrets and added a one or two valks to the late mech+SV army. Then all investment in mineral, gas, and time to accumulate energy for the zergs are completely nullified - resources that could be put to better use by getting Ultras and Defilers.
To be honest, queens might have even found more use in D level ICCup ZvT where are just having fun playing the game and not really minding the perfect BO or strat win. If I were playing zerg against a D or E level terran, I'd put queens in play 100% of the time the game reaches late lair tech.
Yeah Queens only work on D level ICCUP players like Flash and Last. /s
Seriously, just because "counters exist" doesn't mean Queens aren't viable. They are. That doesn't mean they are right for every single game or situation, but they have use in high level ZvT.
It's not fair to say "look at BW's history, how few games Queens are used" -- well they are used now, get used to it.
The bolded "/s" is redundant; your idiocy is already massively apparent through your statements.
I made 3 or 4 posts on this topic already in the last couple of pages, and for your sake, I will summarize them here: highest prolevel ZvT queens are nice and exciting, but terrans easily found a cheap hard counter that this strategy was never even thought of again. In lower level games (such as D/D+ ICCup) where the margin for error is far far wider and knowledge of the game is not as immaculate, this strategy could work.
To elaborate. From 2010-2011/2012 when the skill level in BW was at its absolute peak, queens as an answer to lategame mech were tried for a few games. There was a reason why that strategy was never seen again in the rest of the individual and team leagues after a couple or so game. See, to get lategame zvt queens to be effective as intended, you have to of course spawn queens - not just 1 or 2, but perhaps 5-6 at least (as done in actual progames) so that you have enough to snipe the mass of tanks at that point in the game and also to cycle the energy efficiently. Needless to say, that required minerals and gas. Nevermind minerals as any good pro zerg lategame would have no problem with minerals and would just be dumping them at lings and lords. But gas is precious lategame for ultralisks, hydra-lurkers, and defilers. That's just item number 1, namely spawning queens. Now, you also need to research brrodling (and maybe ensnare), which is another gas dump. Moreover, broodling need 150/250 max queen energy, so it takes practically forever to have a chance for a single snipe and you have to wait again for another chance. (I will save the unit properties of the queen later)
This all means that lategame zvt, while terran is massing tanks, vults, and even a few mms, and bulking them up to their unstoppable 3/3 level, you are skimping on ultralisks and lurkers FOR A CHANCE to snipe tanks. Again as I said multiple times, its exciting and clever - IF IT WORKS. To go back a bit, did you notice two things I purposely didnt mention in the lategame mech army? Yes, scvs and SVs.
I will not theorycraft on the outcome of this strategy but instead narrate how it occurred in the actual games that it was played. So Flash was sitting on key positions in the map with tanks, gols, and vults waiting for Zero to dry up and to waste his army while his vultures are constantly raiding stray units and bases. The time has come and Zero (and in another game NSK) move out with his dark swarmed ultra-ling-lurker army, and surprise!!! QUEENS!!! Flash loses some ground but readjusts, merely on the strength of the immovable 3/3 mech army. Makes a couple of Valks, and teams it up with the SVs to hunt for the queens. Meanwhile, in the main battle fields, he spams a million turrets around his army. Now Zero is done playing around and proceeds with another push. Voila, not only was he greeted by a stronger and more organized tank wass, but his queens cant even get in range bacause of the turrets. once the jig was up and Flash has an idea where the queens are, the Valk+SV go hunting. Not only are the queens "attackless", they are also paper-thin. A couple irradiates and a few valk airbombs erase the queens, and the short-lived strategy, in existence.
The take home lesson here is that going queens come at the cost of reducing your main army or delaying upgrades. On the terran side, the things he needs to deal with queens are already in play anyway, and all those investment for the strategy I mentioned above are countered by a mere 100 mineral building and removed from the game by things that terran already has, at no additional cost to adjust to the strategy.
So, unless there is a new and effective meta, or the terran is an idiot, this strategy is much more likely to fail than succeed. It was tried before and it is being tried now in the SC:R revival. Still no success. Show me otherwise and I will withdraw my statement.
On September 15 2017 14:11 tomatriedes wrote: The game was more balanced before mech switch became so popular and perfected. Rather than nerfing terran units I would like to see a small energy buff to queens to make them more efficient.
Watch Larva and ZerO man. Queens are plenty efficient already. One reason this is is watch Flash's video on the mech switch where he says you basically want only tanks. This means queens have no counter in the terran army for the most part.
I never said queens are of no use, just that tweaking them would help with balance.
Would be nice if mass queen broodlings were useful for us regular folks, instead of being so difficult that only top pros could use them.
To be honest, queens might have even found more use in D level ICCup ZvT where are just having fun playing the game and not really minding the perfect BO or strat win. If I were playing zerg against a D or E level terran, I'd put queens in play 100% of the time the game reaches late lair tech.
I, as protoss, met queens may be couple of times from the same player (zealot.hero was his name, iirc). And playing ZvT, my style is hydra ling lurker with ensnare, it's availible at t2 and overall feels fresh and fun after tonns of standart games. Of course, it's for the D-guys like myself, and, let's be honest, the majority of BW population.
So, unless there is a new and effective meta, or the terran is an idiot, this strategy is much more likely to fail than succeed. It was tried before and it is being tried now in the SC:R revival. Still no success. Show me otherwise and I will withdraw my statement.
...theres thousands of ladder and tournament games showing it succeed.
Ok, i read a few replies and it got me curious. I'm not dogmatic and I argue based on evidence that I'm aware of, but a lot of you have been saying that lategame ZvT queens are popular and successful.
I may be OOTL, but could anyone link a 2016 or 2017 game using this strat successfully?
So, unless there is a new and effective meta, or the terran is an idiot, this strategy is much more likely to fail than succeed. It was tried before and it is being tried now in the SC:R revival. Still no success. Show me otherwise and I will withdraw my statement.
...theres thousands of ladder and tournament games showing it succeed.
I can't wade through all the ladder games, besides I think we want to limit our discussion to prolevel. Anyway, could you link me some progames? thanks
On September 17 2017 13:34 Twinkle Toes wrote: Ok, i read a few replies and it got me curious. I'm not dogmatic and I argue based on evidence that I'm aware of, but a lot of you have been saying that lategame ZvT queens are popular and successful.
I may be OOTL, but could anyone link a 2016 or 2017 game using this strat successfully?
Thanks
Go to the Larva thread, like half of the vods people link there are him using queens successfully.
Thanks Luddite. But I'm gonna need some help lol. What the hell is the Larva thread? His fan thread? I came from BW but swtiched totally to SC2, but then enjoyed that BW is kinda back with ASL and SC:R. But I have zero anything about BW between 2012-2017
On September 17 2017 14:12 Twinkle Toes wrote: Thanks Luddite. But I'm gonna need some help lol. What the hell is the Larva thread? His fan thread? I came from BW but swtiched totally to SC2, but then enjoyed that BW is kinda back with ASL and SC:R. But I have zero anything about BW between 2012-2017
2015 game, ZerO vs Last: Last made the finals in the previous SSL losing a close series to sSak and was a favourite. ZerO won a nice game on Circuit Breaker which is considered somewhat balanced to eliminate Last. In 2016/17, we've seen Larva beat Flash using queens on Camelot and other maps on his streams during the last ASL etc... Some zergs prefer drops, other queens but they are still viable to a degree in the matchup.
Ok so I did some due diligence. And thanks Dazed and BigFan for the above vids.
I just finished watching 5, maybe 6, lategame zvt mech vs queens. Here's my conclusion:
Yeah I was totally ignorant of the developments in this strategy, it's seeing a lot of play since I last watched BW. Sorry about that, ok?
I notice the strategy is viable (short of being actually completely successful) in two specific situations: first, in balanced (non terran favored) maps where z have a fighting chance to fight mech without navigating through choke points, too much elevated areas where tanks can dominate pretty much uncontested, vast expanse of "buildable" land where t can spam turrets, AND plenty of "groundless" areas where queens can hide while regenerating energy;
second. when it is SUPER lategame when both parties are scavenging for the last few hundreds remaining in mineral and gas patches. In this situations, queens are crucial in counteracting small raiding parties of vulture and tanks, especially if it comes with dark swarm and ultralings. They are also useful as escorts to z's own raiding armies and reducing t's defenses sniping stray tanks and goliaths, HOWEVER...
In peak lategame mech when both parties are still in full eco and military might, queens are meatbags during engagement and have to be used with utmost care, or have to be hidden away and saved for later.
Scourge are an ok (but not metashifting) reply to mech SV. and could be good if t has suboptimal goliath and turret count.
The muta switch was inspired!
All those queens and not one case of Infested CC, dayum!
THEREFORE, correct me if I'm wrong, the winning strategy for zerg seems to be: constant aggro to prevent mech accumulating to its full power at max, reduce or remove lurkers in favor of queens and spire tech, superhuman apm with queen-broodling and plague+darkswarm, in addition to the usual atm-intensive army control, mech switches to keep t honest between tank+vult and gols, while z is always a step ahead in army advantage, and a balanced map.
It's doable but extremely difficult for zerg, and not necessarily full-fledged winning strategy at this point. I don't ever see this as a go to mainstream strategy unless there is a more effective variation developed later. But it's exciting how this will be tweaked further and how it would fair against peak terran like flash-level circa 2012. I hope BW makes a proper mainstream comeback so we could see this and more.
And while this is a balance thread, let me punch in a few whines. In all of the zvt ive watched, there were key stretches in lategame where zerg was throwing down 500/500+- on ultralings only to be completely nullified by 9 mines from 3 vultures lol. the zergs are practically breaking the bank and all terran has to do is pull 2-3 vultures and plant mines in rally points or in mineral patches and the zerg army literally disappears, even before the vultures themselves engage. so funny. tldr: vulture and vulture mines imba
Don't forget this amazing (queen) game either. Jaedong vs Flash in the deciding match of Moo vs Neox in the ACL from this summer. I've never seen anything like this before or after.
IMO the game is ALMOST perfectly balanced. Of course some match ups will be harder for some races like PvZ and ZvT but all in all being close to 50% win ratio in all MUs is pretty darn good for a 98 game. The only thing I think is tesagi (like many others already stated) are vultures. Vultures are too good (or too cheap). Everything else is fine.
true the vulture is probably the biggest terran advantage.. I wouldn't change anything to the mines even though they're really strong because, it seems like it would be a huge change. Idk. But I think they kill workers unfair fast, I would say reducing their dmg a bit would probably be good. Ofc this would impact their damage on other targets too, and I think that wouldn't be bad. Not a huge damage reduction, something like 2 or 4 damage less, they would kill workers in 3 shots, so a 50% change of effectiveness at that (in situations where no shots wasted), 4 shots for killing scvs instead of 3, and if further reduced they would also need 3 shots to kill a ling. A little less effective at killing zealots with direct damage.. Seeing how fast they are, cheap, how fast they shoot, they damage shields 100%, they have the mines, I think losing a little damage on the vulture would not be bad.
Changing the mines by making the AoE a little smaller, is that good or bad? too big a change, probably, it's a bigger change, it impacts pvt too much (though it would be less friendly fire damage for the terran too lol).
On September 16 2017 23:44 Espers wrote: People don't use Queens anymore, it was just something Zergs tried for a little while once ZvT gets to end game with 3-3 Tanks..They lack the punch to really stop the Terran push because you have to wait so long for Queen mana to regenerate enough to cast another Broodling, and as people said mixing in Valks deters Queens very well.
They're just not very good. I don't know why people mention "well it works at D", that's beside the point. It's an inferior strategy at every level.
Ensnare in the midgame probably has more potential, but not really worth delaying your Hive or having less gas for Hive stuff.
bruh.. zergs have been doing it more and more vs the mech switch in zvt. what are you on lol
no, the games where Zergs were using queens were like 3-4 months ago for a while with mixed results. you won't see Larva, Effort and so on use them now. you won't see them in the ASL. they're really not worth it.
EPT
