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Current Ravagers Don't Fit Zerg Design

Forum Index > Legacy of the Void
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hvylobster
Profile Joined November 2010
United States23 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-04-28 16:41:36
April 18 2015 21:37 GMT
#1
Edit: Appropriate trade-offs have been added to the newest patch of LotV, removing its status as a Superior Roach. It still fills a similar space as the Roach, but in my opinion it is now a zergling -> baneling type morph where Burrow Regen and Move as well as HP are sacrificed for the addition of a powerful ability. I no longer agree with the title to this thread.




I just checked the stats of the Ravager, and overall it confuses me. ALL of Zerg's other Morph Unit abilities involve some major trade off: a Baneling can only ever attack once and is in most cases slower than zerglings, an Overseer loses the ability to drop creep as well as access Ventral Sacs in exchange for vulnerability to Feedback, a Lurker MUST burrow in order to attack and can no longer attack air units in addition to losing movement speed, a Broodlord is SIGNIFICANTLY slower than a Corruptor and can no longer attack air units.

What sacrifice is made for the Ravager? It's slower than roaches. It is larger than roches.It does not regen HP while burrowed as fast as roaches, and I believe it has 25 less HP than roaches, which is strange considering the general bulkiness of the Ravager model as compared to roaches; the baneling's 5 less hitpoints make sense for a suicide-unit, as they should be more fragile from a flavor and balance standpoint.
Slightly more importantly, the Ravager cannot burrow-move. As blizzard toys more and more with the idea of fast-moving burrowed Roaches, it seems like this is the intended MAJOR tradeoff that a player makes when turning their roaches into ravagers. A zerg player gives up the harassment utility

What is gained by morphing the Ravager? A "skillshot" type ability that gives Zerg a Hatchery-tech non-Queen unit that can hit air. 2 more range, equalling that of a Stalker. Dramatically increased attack speed that retains the Roach's 16 basic attack damage, giving it the 2nd highest DPS of any Zerg unit next to the Ultralisk. This is a Hatchery tech, remember.

So Zerg players can upgrade their roaches in nearly every way with the only limiting factors being available supply and available resources. Slower units are of course a liability in any RTS, but the ability to eliminate forcefields removes most of this "weakness" against Protoss. Roach/Hydra is effectively obsolete with Ravagers; they deal with the same problems better and suffer less from Protoss splash damage due to the sheer size of the Ravager as compared to the Hydralisk. As well, Ravagers are not light units, meaning they do not take increased damage from Phoenix groups lifting, Baneling splash, Hellions/Hellbats with Infernal Pre-Igniters, or the rare Ghost basic attack. In fact, the increased attack speed means the Ravager will always win the close-range no-upgrade 1v1 fight with a Zealot, while prior to the Morph the Zealot would win such a fight. I haven't tested this case, but I assume Ravagers can also outlast a Hellbat in close-range, although this case becomes less relevant in that Ravagers significantly out-range Hellbats while roaches only just barely do.

I've mostly focused on the implications of Ravagers vs Protoss, but I think we can all agree that the Ravager is a problem unit in other matchups as well. This post is to simply stress one key fact:

Ravagers Are Flat Out Better Than Roaches After Your Opponent Gets Reliable Detection

Why keep a roach around for an army unit when you could instead have the unit that boasts the second highest dps of any single Zerg unit next to the Ultralisk. At Hatchery tech.

Let me reiterate:
Morphs in Brood War originally caused a unit to specialize: Mutalisks went from harassment flocks to either aerial siege units or anti-air specialists, while Hydras went from rank-and-file ranged unit to positional ground-based siege/defense unit.
Similarly, SC2 Morphs also specialize a unit: Zergling from cannon-fodder flood unit to sudden burst-damage suicide unit, Overlords from floating supply depots that could drop creep at lair into a floating supply depot with enhanced scouting capability and minor macro disruption, Corrupters went from Air-to-Air fighters with the ability to make units smell 20% worse for 30 seconds into a Guardian-like slow-moving Air-to-Ground siege unit. Hydralisks make the same trade-off they made in Brood War, although they aren't currently Zerg's rank-and-file ranged unit.

What specialty do Ravagers have? What SERIOUS tradeoffs are made in their construction? Mobility isn't a word I associate with roaches, so losing out on that isn't much of a trade off. Model size isn't even a trade-off, it's a bonus when facing the AOE that becomes almost universally necessary in the late game.

If this message reaches Blizzard, I hope they understand that nothing can be added to any unit that would tone down the Ravager. Something must be taken away from this unit in order for it to be a proper Zerg-style morph.

Now the lingering question for us to hash out: What should be removed from the Ravager in order to rectify its current severe design overlap with Roaches?

edit: Removed a mistaken remark about Colossi possessing bonus damage to light units (they have no such bonus), replaced it with more examples.
teh
Cricketer12
Profile Blog Joined May 2012
United States13990 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-04-18 21:44:10
April 18 2015 21:43 GMT
#2
On April 19 2015 06:37 hvylobster wrote:
: What should be removed from the Ravager in order to rectify its current severe design overlap with Roaches?

maybe make it viable as lair tech? the biggest concern I have is the threat it poses in early game rushes
Chain 1 Arthalion Chain 2 Urgula Chain 3 Mululu Chain 4 Lukias
Kranyum
Profile Joined September 2012
77 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-04-18 21:56:32
April 18 2015 21:56 GMT
#3
I disagree.

Ravagers are perfect units for the Zerg.

For the past 5 years Zerg had absolutely no way of pressuring the enemy in the first minutes of the game without all-in-ing (and usually a very weak all in for that matter)
This made P and T be greedy and influenced the entire flow of the game. Now the possiblity oif a Ravager push keeps the other races honest in what they can or cannot do.

This is not only a balance issue (as the game can be balanced without such a unit) but also a design issue.
As a Zerg player, I have quit Sc2 in 2010 because of the sheer frustration of having to handle any of the 1 million all-ins and cheezes without any chance of doing the same. It sucked the fun out of the game for me. I have not played since.

ejozl
Profile Joined October 2010
Denmark3463 Posts
April 18 2015 21:57 GMT
#4
Now the lingering question for us to hash out: What should be removed from the Ravager in order to rectify its current severe design overlap with Roaches?

I think it should be the tier 1 Zerg spell caster, the Ghost/Sentry of Zerg. It should have no attack, or a very crappy one and should have cost for it's spell. There should be more spells added to it aswell.
I think it's already stupid that Viper has 4 spells, out of nowhere, where any other caster has 3.
SC2 Archon needs "Terrible, terrible damage" as one of it's quotes.
TheDwf
Profile Joined November 2011
France19747 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-04-18 22:09:39
April 18 2015 21:57 GMT
#5
Yeah, clearly. While the concept of turning the Roach into something else is good as far as I'm concerned, huge issues with the Roach-Hydralisk-Ravager triangle are bound to arise if Blizzard keeps building on top of the existing flawed fundations.

Some of the issues are:

(1) Roaches should cost 1 supply*.
(2) Roaches should not have Protoss stats.
(3) Hydralisks should cost 1 supply*.
(4) Then, as you say, the Ravager should sacrifice something in order to fulfill a clear role (increasing the supply-efficiency of a Roach-based army seems like the natural role, but how to do that remains to be defined). A unit should not be in the game for the sole purpose of countering a spell.

*Edit for clarity. Read: should be remade as a 1 supply variant of the unit, not halve the current supply value with stats unchanged.

And all of this is linked to the critical Zerg problematic of mass larvae, which prevents the race from applying early game pressure efficiently because of hyper-development.

+ Show Spoiler +
On April 19 2015 06:37 hvylobster wrote:
As well, Ravagers are not light units, meaning they do not take increased damage from Phoenix groups lifting, Colossi's Laser Beams.

Small mistake here: Colossi don't deal extra damage to Light units.
FrostedMiniWheats
Profile Joined August 2010
United States30730 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-04-18 22:09:10
April 18 2015 22:07 GMT
#6
I don't have the beta yet, but I have seen my share of LotV and I completely agree with you. It isn't even so much balance that's the problem with the ravager but too much overlap with the roach and even the hydralisk to some extent. It makes for a less interesting game.

Having more dps and health than a hydralisk means all the hydra has to compensate is the ability to hit air and a lair upgrade that makes them faster with more range. Pretty weak difference and definitely less desirable overall. This also indirectly hurts the lurker as there's less of a reason to build the unit it morphs off of.

The roach? The only good advantage I see with roaches is their hatch-tech burrow movement in LotV. Still, it seems better just to make ravagers and bulldoze through shit. It's largely a better roach.

The ravager dps even gets in the way of the main selling point of the unit, which is the cool skillshot aoe. Every time I see the unit in action corrosive bile seems pretty negligible compared to the insane auto-attack from the ravager's dps. It's like, corrosive bile is dodged then the ravagers just move in and wreck shit along with the roaches on the front lines.
==

To the point.

So my vision for the ravager is a unit that should be in the minority of the army as a support unit in the back line. Roaches and hydralisks should be the bulk of the army as tanks and dps respectively with the ravager supporting as an artillery unit. I suggest the following to experiment with:

- The Ravager's auto-attack be completely removed (it's this or severely nerf that dps)
- Cost changed from 25/75 -> 50/50
- HP reduced from 120 -> 100
- Speed increased from 2.55 -> 3.5 (this is faster than a speed roach off creep)
- Corrosive bile cooldown reduced from 7 sec -> 5 sec
- Delay between corrosive bile launch and landing is reduced from 2.5 sec -> 2 sec

Reasoning:

Removing the auto-attack means the ravager does damage solely through corrosive bile. Corrosive bile already seems too easy to dodge currently so to compensate I'm suggesting it be able to be spammed more frequently and there be less of a window for the opponent to move out of the way. Furthermore, I think dramatically buffing the Ravager's speed (in conjunction with a health reduction) gives Zerg a speedy unit to compliment the relatively immobile roach/hydra comp. It also makes it easier to ambush an army with corrosive bile, which doesn't seem to be the case currently.

Combined with a very slight reduction in cost, I think the thing would still be worth building. Corrosive bile is still good for zoning, destroying force fields, and with greater speed it should be easier to land. Most of all though, this transforms the ravager into a very distinct unit within the Zerg's arsenal. It also would be more of a skill-based unit.
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ZenithM
Profile Joined February 2011
France15952 Posts
April 18 2015 22:24 GMT
#7
This is a valid concern, I feel, contrary to a lot of the threads that are popping up lately. The Ravager is really only a "better roach", this isn't very interesting as a Zerg mutation.
tokinho
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
United States792 Posts
April 18 2015 22:24 GMT
#8
Notice how the people talking in this thread don't have beta access and are complaining that the ravager is too much like a protoss unit. Yeah its a good unit that is expensive and you have to make sure it doesn't die!! Finally, zerg has a strong unit besides mutas!!!!!! that is good in tier 1 and tier 2 fights. Woot fungal is good again!! Lurker pushes are good again.

The real problem is zerg was given irradiate and protoss starts with no chronoboost, where normally they jump ahead at the 11 worker mark in the game from chrono. If they had 2 chronos to put directly into warp gate/econ, or a tech, All the zerg/terran pushes wouldn't work. The problem is that zerg armies are at 170 to 115 supply instead of 170-130 like they were before. Play the beta first and do some benchmarks, then we'll talk. protoss is about 40 seconds behind compared to the other two races for the 11 minute hots benchmarks.
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hvylobster
Profile Joined November 2010
United States23 Posts
April 18 2015 22:46 GMT
#9
On April 19 2015 06:57 TheDwf wrote:
Yeah, clearly. While the concept of turning the Roach into something else is good as far as I'm concerned, huge issues with the Roach-Hydralisk-Ravager triangle are bound to arise if Blizzard keeps building on top of the existing flawed fundations.

Some of the issues are:

(1) Roaches should cost 1 supply*.
(2) Roaches should not have Protoss stats.
(3) Hydralisks should cost 1 supply*.
(4) Then, as you say, the Ravager should sacrifice something in order to fulfill a clear role (increasing the supply-efficiency of a Roach-based army seems like the natural role, but how to do that remains to be defined). A unit should not be in the game for the sole purpose of countering a spell.

*Edit for clarity. Read: should be remade as a 1 supply variant of the unit, not halve the current supply value with stats unchanged.

And all of this is linked to the critical Zerg problematic of mass larvae, which prevents the race from applying early game pressure efficiently because of hyper-development.

+ Show Spoiler +
On April 19 2015 06:37 hvylobster wrote:
As well, Ravagers are not light units, meaning they do not take increased damage from Phoenix groups lifting, Colossi's Laser Beams.

Small mistake here: Colossi don't deal extra damage to Light units.

+ Show Spoiler +
Mistake removed and replaced with more salient examples.


I believe Zerg's hamstrung early-game push potential is either by design or simply a happy accident; instead of directly applying pressure with a muscular army knocking at the enemy's front door, Zerg is able to apply indirect pressure by expanding and producing drones while appearing idle. The threat of Zergling forces on the map is strong enough to deter all but focused/cutesy pressure that hits before queens are out OR contains units that perform exceptionally well against slow Lings (Hellions, Zealots, Stalkers). I don't think every race needs an ATTACK button at every stage of the game; if I want to play scrappy games focused on early pressure, I'll play Protoss or Terran.

The "flawed foundations" are indeed a bit of a problem, as seen by the current state of Zerg without the crutch of the Swarm Host-*crawler siege tactic. Dramatic redesigns of core units may be asking too much, but, as has been argued time and again, what better time to test a sweeping re-balance than a six-month Beta? I know of a better time: One year ago, well before publically spreading the Beta and putting a clock on time left to test a replacement of TWO of a race's core units.

I have a silly idea for the Ravager that defies its aggressive name: Trade the Roach's mid-range ground attack for a longer ranger air-only attack. It would be Unique, as no other race has a dedicated ground-to-air unit. It would be a Specialization, as Zerg's only anti-air units at Hatch tech in LotV are currently the Queen and an ability on the Ravager. Would it be good? I don't know but it is better than "A Stronger, Larger, Slower Roach With a Different Way Of Circumventing a Force-Field", and it's much better than a unit that does nothing without its ability.
teh
hvylobster
Profile Joined November 2010
United States23 Posts
April 18 2015 23:17 GMT
#10
On April 19 2015 07:24 tokinho wrote:
Notice how the people talking in this thread don't have beta access and are complaining that the ravager is too much like a protoss unit. Etc, etc.


Nobody said anything about the Ravager being "too much like a protoss unit". The closest thing anyone said to that was TheDwf, and he was talking about the ROACH. I am trying to point out the problems of the Ravager from a Zerg design perspective. I don't know enough about Protoss to give advice on how to solve its current early-game issues in LotV; perhaps more starting energy on the first Nexus might help? Start a thread on the official forums about it and see if Blizzard takes it into consideration; I can't post there because I don't have the beta, which is why I'm focusing on a single point rather than more broad considerations like the LotV economy.

I don't care about how strong Ravager timings are, as long as they are optional rather than optimal play. I don't particularly care about the stats of units that are not part of the army supporting the Ravager. What I DO care about is consistency in Zerg's Morph Unit mechanic, as severely reducing the trade-off effectively means the original unit may as well be a costly larva until you morph it.

Also of note is the fact that Ravagers are the only Unit Morph in Zerg's history that does not require an upgrade or tech structure of some sort. Even the Overseer requires Lair-tech; the Lair also grants Overlords an ability that is lost when Morphed into Overseers. As neither Overunits can cause any direct damage, swapping Creep-dropping to temporarily deny expansions for a better scout that can slightly delay upgrade/unit construction timings is indeed a meaningful trade off. Not to mention Morphing all of your Overlords is expensive and does not improve its primary function: Floating Supply Depot.

+ Show Spoiler +
Terran's Mechanical Unit Toggle mechanic is clear and consistent on all units except the HotS Thor: press the button to sacrifice mobility for a situationally better attack. If you want we can talk about how the Cyclone also breaks this design convention in a way that's detrimental to gameplay, but the problems with a unit that essentially auto-attacks and continues to fire at Siege-Tank range even through Fog of War should be self-evident.
teh
FueledUpAndReadyToGo
Profile Blog Joined March 2013
Netherlands30548 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-04-18 23:22:08
April 18 2015 23:18 GMT
#11
They should just greatly reduce (by like 60+%) the basic attack damage of the ravager to make it more of a supporting unit. Perhaps increase hp slightly to compensate. It should be used as mobile light siege and a a counter to forcefields. Then it's a very fun unit I think.

And perhaps make the spell only damage buildings after a lair upgrade to counter unstoppable rushes.
Neosteel Enthusiast
Pontius Pirate
Profile Blog Joined August 2013
United States1557 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-04-19 00:01:59
April 19 2015 00:01 GMT
#12
On April 19 2015 08:18 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:
They should just greatly reduce (by like 60+%) the basic attack damage of the ravager to make it more of a supporting unit. Perhaps increase hp slightly to compensate. It should be used as mobile light siege and a a counter to forcefields. Then it's a very fun unit I think.

And perhaps make the spell only damage buildings after a lair upgrade to counter unstoppable rushes.

I'd like to see some typed damage in order to alter the problem of excessive Ravager dps. Maybe 8 +8 light, slightly intensifying the Roach > Ravager > Hydra > Roach triangle. That having been said, even that seems excessive. 6 +6 light? Anything lower, and it would seem a little bit pointless, as it wouldn't even 3-shot a Zergling. The bile shot is hard to hit mobile units with, and also does too much damage when it does hit, which means it slaughters buildings. A slightly radius increase in exchange for lower damage seems to be a good call. Maybe also combined with a slight cooldown nerf, like changing it from 7 seconds to 10 seconds.
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Maniak_
Profile Joined October 2010
France305 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-04-19 00:21:13
April 19 2015 00:09 GMT
#13
Small detail that seems to be often overlooked, the ravager is a 100/100, 3 supply unit. Not exactly the cheapest thing ever, especially in the early game (though the LotV economy helps).
It does feel a bit strong, but given their cost, and their lower health compared to roaches (only 20% lower, but still lower), rushing to mass them as soon as possible is pretty much an all in.

It's not like you can simply use them instead of roaches. There's a choice to make. The initial economy boost from LotV enables rushing for them, but other than one initial timing that could easily be delayed by tweaking some stats, I'm not sure if they're that much of an issue. At least from my extremely low skill viewpoint, where they haven't magically allowed me to not get wrecked yet


Also as a sidenote, it's the first time, after five years, that zerg has a 'versatile' unit in the early game. Versatile as in ranged, that can hit both ground and air, like terran has with marines and protoss with stalkers. And they're more expensive while coming later (well maybe on par with stalkers there). *And* their anti-air attack is a skill shot that the opponent sees coming quite some time before it hits. Not really a 1-a destroys everything unit like the warhound, or even an auto-kill anything even without vision like the cyclone.

Leaving them at hatch tier may allow queens to go back to their pure macro role instead of being the one unit that has any chance to defend against... basically anything. Reapers? Hellions? Hellbats? Proxy gates? Proxy Oracle? Wouldn't it be nice if Zerg had more than 1 unit able to defend any of this without sacrificing their economy anyway at the same time?

That may very well be why Blizzard didn't put them at Lair tier in the first place.

I'm not saying the ravager should not be touched at all. We're 3 weeks into the beta, anything goes. But Blizzard may have actually thought about it when they made it available right from the start. And I do believe it's in order to help zerg against the various early attacks that have been killing them since WoL given their lack of a versatile early unit. Except for Queens, who had to get a range buff in order to help in this regard. And we know what happened next
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Fuchsteufelswild
Profile Joined October 2009
Australia2028 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-04-19 01:09:32
April 19 2015 00:45 GMT
#14
There is no particular need for a specific additional to morphing units.

Brood lords are entirely different units to corruptors.

Banelings are there to help thin the numbers so that the zerglings can perform better due to less of them dying before they reach their intended targets (far less shots received before getting into mêlée range) and help some of the larva spent on zerglings more supply efficient, so again, they're entirely different.

Lurkers also fill completely different roles.
These units are a lot more expensive than the units from which they morph and also use more supply. Depending on the situation, they may be less supply and/or cost efficient, so clearly they already have their disadvantages without needing some specific additional downside decided by you or anyone else.

Because the measurements of damage are much neater if worked out in old game seconds (i.e. Normal speed values rather than Faster speed), I'll be demonstrating with Normal measurements.

On April 19 2015 06:37 hvylobster wrote:
Ravagers Are Flat Out Better Than Roaches After Your Opponent Gets Reliable Detection

Nonsense. 2.5× the attack rate, but for the supply, that's only 1.667× the damage output for supply.
Suppose we consider gas to be twice as valuable as minerals (generally it's considered it's worth more. 2× is just my choice).
Roach: (75 + (25 × 2)) ÷ (16 × 2) = 15.625 cost per point of damage per game second.
Ravager: (100 + (100 × 2)) ÷ (16 ÷ 0.8) = 15 cost per point of damage per game second.
∴ When treating gas as twice as valuable, Roaches actually deal greater damage per second per point of "a resource".

Range needs to be taken into account, the corrosive bile too, the build time for the strength of the unit, but it's simply not completely superior.
Roaches have greatly increased healing while burrowed, can move while burrowed and already have 145 hit points compared to the 120 hit points of the Ravager which (based on 2× value of gas) costs 2.4× as much for 17.24% less hit points.
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The_Red_Viper
Profile Blog Joined August 2013
19533 Posts
April 19 2015 01:06 GMT
#15
I like this thread cause i agree with you completely.
Imo the ravager is BY FAR the worst designed unit in the current beta.
It doesn't fit as a morph unit, it doesn't fit zerg as a whole, it doesn't even fit in a rts game tbh.

Blizzard's only thoughts could have been: "well people think roaches are boring and zerg players hate forcefields, let's make a unit out of the roach which counters it".
While that might actually not even be a bad starting point, the ravager is really their best take on it? cmon...
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Shield
Profile Blog Joined August 2009
Bulgaria4824 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-04-19 01:17:01
April 19 2015 01:16 GMT
#16
Disruptor is also bad. You may say it's cool, but do you think it will be cool once people become even better at splitting armies? It also favours luck than skill.
FabledIntegral
Profile Blog Joined November 2008
United States9232 Posts
April 19 2015 02:18 GMT
#17
I agreed with teh OP before reading the thread, what the OP outlines (unit morph results in a trade off) is exactly what I dislike about the Ravager. I would rather see the Ravager have more HP, but suddenly transform into a melee unit of some sort (keep the mortar, of course) and then work with it from there. Perhaps make the mortar bigger to keep it's use, but it shouldn't be a unit you spam a ton of whenever you can afford it.

Most of the time you have a "morph" unit it isn't the unit you want to mass. For example, with Zergling Baneling, it is rarely beneficial to have more Banelings than Zerglings. Same with Overlord/Overseer, Hydra/Lurker, and Corrupter/BL. You almost always want to keep a large amount of the former unit.
FrostedMiniWheats
Profile Joined August 2010
United States30730 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-04-19 03:18:06
April 19 2015 03:15 GMT
#18
On April 19 2015 09:45 Fuchsteufelswild wrote:

Show nested quote +
On April 19 2015 06:37 hvylobster wrote:
Ravagers Are Flat Out Better Than Roaches After Your Opponent Gets Reliable Detection

Nonsense. 2.5× the attack rate, but for the supply, that's only 1.667× the damage output for supply.
Suppose we consider gas to be twice as valuable as minerals (generally it's considered it's worth more. 2× is just my choice).
Roach: (75 + (25 × 2)) ÷ (16 × 2) = 15.625 cost per point of damage per game second.
Ravager: (100 + (100 × 2)) ÷ (16 ÷ 0.8) = 15 cost per point of damage per game second.
∴ When treating gas as twice as valuable, Roaches actually deal greater damage per second per point of "a resource".

Range needs to be taken into account, the corrosive bile too, the build time for the strength of the unit, but it's simply not completely superior.
Roaches have greatly increased healing while burrowed, can move while burrowed and already have 145 hit points compared to the 120 hit points of the Ravager which (based on 2× value of gas) costs 2.4× as much for 17.24% less hit points.


C'mon, that cost/dps disparity is pretty negligible in a realistic game. You're going to have more than enough resources to afford them.

He already addressed that there are some advantages to the roach. Is the ravager 100% superior? No, but the problem is when you take into account the sum of their pros/cons the ravager easily comes out on top. It's to the point of if you have the money are there many scenarios you'd want a roach over a ravager? I can't think of many. This is unusual compared to Zerg's other morphs.

I can imagine many scenarios in which I wouldn't want to morph every other unit except this one. Not only that, Zerg units and their morphs tend to compliment each other. The ravager tends to overshadow the unit it morphs from instead.

I mean, this is like if Brood lords had an anti-air attack with more range but with slightly less dps. Corrutors are still faster and maybe slightly better AA, but BLs wreck everything on the ground and are more than capable of defending themselves from air units. If I have the resources, I doubt I'd be keeping too many corruptors around.
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Big J
Profile Joined March 2011
Austria16289 Posts
April 19 2015 03:55 GMT
#19
I don't agree with the OP. The ravager loses all of the beefiness of the roach through the morph.
120HP/1armor for 100/100/3 instead of 145HP/1armor for 75/25/2 is a much, much worse statistic, supply and costwise.

You shrug that off with "I believe it has 25HP less", but this is a massive deal. It is 25HP less for 25/75/1 more. Or let me rephrase that:
2000resources spent on ravagers have 1200 hit points.
2000resources spent on roaches have 2900 hit points.
1950resources spent on hydralisks have 1040 hit points.
--> Costwise, ravagers field only 42% of the roaches beefiness. It's around as beefy as a hydralisk. All of that not even taking into account that the ravager is 1:1 minerals-gas, while roaches and hydras are 66% and 50% cheaper on the gas with 3:1 and 2:1 ratios.

But what about "making all your roaches into ravagers if you have enough money". Ok, so for supplies the stats tell us:
30supply on ravagers have 1200hit points.
30supply on roaches have 2175hit points.
30supply on hydras have 1200hit points.
--> Supplywise, the ravager is as beefy as the tanky hydralisk.



The real deal - besides questionable balance/tech level overall - is how the ravager is just a better hydralisk against ground units.
For 1.5times the supply of a hydralisk, 1.33times overall resource cost - in particular, 2times the gas cost - the ravager has like
1.25times the dps of a hydralisk
1.5times the hit points of a hydralisk
1 extra armor
same range as the hydralisk after the upgrade
+ the corrosive bile ability

The combination of ravagers+roaches is statistically already nearly the same as ravagers+hydra on amove. Then there is corrosive bile which is "quite powerful". The only reason to build hydralisks seems to be to morph lurkers or as anti-air.
And that goes to say that the hydralisk and the roach are already quite similar units in many HotS scenarios, e.g. for defenses against Protoss rushes the choice between hydras and roaches is often a stylistic one. They both have up- and downsides of course and the roach is universally just the better unit, but now there will be another unit at similar range and with similar attack-move outcomes as those two.

The ravager design looks fun - yet redundant. It's not going to be a breakthrough for roach/hydra based play like the viper was or the lurker will be. It's not going to be an alternative lategame siege weapon in its current design. It overlaps a ton with the existing ranged core units of zerg and under the assumption that blizzard will get ravager rushes under control, it has no specific role that couldn't be fullfilled by any other unit, besides of course shooting forcefields. A crap spell that should be tweaked or taken out for the sake of all matchups anyways.

Also, I think that zerg has too many longrange gimmicks now. Corrosive bile, old swarm host, new swarm host, abducts, irradiate. I can only hope that 9range lurkers will somehow get rid of that hole in zergs midgame sieging capabilities, otherwise its going to be ability spam all day.
BillGates
Profile Blog Joined April 2013
471 Posts
April 19 2015 05:11 GMT
#20
Ravager is a noob type unit, making Zerg more A-click race and ruining skill ceiling for the game. The unit has no place in SC and should be absolutely removed from the game!
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