Lurker bit too strong?

On September 28 2015 20:44 Sholip wrote:

What I don't like about the spikes is that they don't really "travel," but rather after a certain time, they damage everything in the spikes' line at the same time. So a unit close to the Lurker is damaged at the same time as a unit 6 spaces away. This is kind of counter-intuitive and does not fit well with the animation.

On September 28 2015 22:17 Sam94 wrote:
Yeah i agree with everyone is saying. The problem i believe (my own opinion) is that ZVP meta at the moment is usually ground fights which make for good action personally. However when lurkers come out it seems like ground armies are literally worthless because as we all agree lurkers just kill them at an extremely fast rate. Going sky toss every time vs a zerg in a macro game seems quite boring and annoying to play.

Also a problem I've faced on ladder is when I'm caught out of position with lurkers the game is 99% over because i cannot engage the lurker without losing my whole army and teching to air by that time isn't possible. My question is that are we now just going to see zvp become a sky toss fest because if so this is going to be a boring matchup or can blizzard do something to help fix/adjust the unit slightly so that ground can also work vs the lurker?

On September 28 2015 22:45 Tiaraju9 wrote:


Against lurkers you can:

- Abuse the lack of mobility (similar to the way you used to play against swarm host). Use the cheaper recall and adepts.
- Use flanking forces to engage (chargelot plus archons from behind the zerg army... quite easy to do in maps such terraform).
- Disruptor. It's a cheap unit (150/150), 3 supply. You can have between between 5 and 10 in your main army.

You don't need to go air against lurkers, but you can't just amove into a lurker army.

On September 28 2015 22:55 DinoMight wrote:


Disagree, everything just MELTS if you attack into Lurkers. You NEED a lot of disruptors (produced from the Robo.. not easy to get 5 out) or air units....

On September 28 2015 22:48 B-royal wrote:
The visual and aural aspect of lurkers are awful. Give the spines a proper sound and animation as in brood war. I think this would go a long way already.

On September 28 2015 22:55 DinoMight wrote:


Disagree, everything just MELTS if you attack into Lurkers. You NEED a lot of disruptors (produced from the Robo.. not easy to get 5 out) or air units....

On September 28 2015 23:14 Tiaraju9 wrote:


If the zerg have lurkers burrowed and hydra/roach well positioned you are not supposed to attack into it. And I believe that against ground zerg play (lurkers/ultras) we need two robos with 3 bases.

You could be underestimating the power of disruptors. Zerg off creep can't split.

The tricky part of lurker armies is when you are playing from behind economically (say, because your adept harass got shut down). You need resources to flank/harass and tech.



Rifkin was saying that he talked with Blizzard's sound designers about this and they agreed that the lurker sound needs a rework. We can expect at least new sound soon (TM).

I wish you couldn't attack straight into sieged tanks T.T . But well Terran now has flying super fast siege tanks that do that job.

On September 28 2015 21:52 Beliskner wrote:
I think most people would agree, that contrary to popular belief, your not suppose to be able to engage into already burrowed lurkers. A lot of people will engage in and be like 'Oh that's OP' as they melt your army before you kill them.
The need to keep the damage high so you literally can't walk across them and kill them.

But I'm with the others, they don't seem able to be microd against, or at least as soon as you see spikes or hear the sound your army receives a lot of damage, you need at least a decent warning that they're there, or the ability to dodge around spikes in low numbers.

On September 29 2015 02:22 TimeSpiral wrote:
The lurker is very strong, and requires specific responses from both Terran and Protoss.

Lurkers do massive line-AOE damage, while invisible, at a massive 9-range (radial) after upgraded. They can outrange all static defense, including upgraded Planetary Fortress. They do not cause friendly fire damage (Zerg is completely free of friendly fire, I believe).

Can you imagine the tears if this unit had any of the downsides typical to Terran? Imagine if there was an on-screen warning, "hey, are you sure you want to walk into this unit's range?" Or, "Hey, see this little line, you've been targeted. Better walk away slowly before you take damage!" Or, "oh shit, noooooo! My AOE unit just accidentally shelled my entire army. Now I lose the battle." I'm sure as everyone was reading this it was almost laughable how unthinkable it was. Yet the Ghost (Snipe and Nuke), Widow Mine, Siege Tank, Raven (Hunter Seeker), and Liberator all have one or all of these major weakness attributes.

With all that said, I don't think I've seen enough Lurker play at the highest levels for anything to appear broken, or OP. They are strong. Super strong! But probably not too strong. If anything, because of how impossible it is to battle creep right now, this might be indirectly making them more difficult to deal with.

On September 28 2015 22:17 Sam94 wrote:
Yeah i agree with everyone is saying. The problem i believe (my own opinion) is that ZVP meta at the moment is usually ground fights which make for good action personally. However when lurkers come out it seems like ground armies are literally worthless because as we all agree lurkers just kill them at an extremely fast rate. Going sky toss every time vs a zerg in a macro game seems quite boring and annoying to play.

Also a problem I've faced on ladder is when I'm caught out of position with lurkers the game is 99% over because i cannot engage the lurker without losing my whole army and teching to air by that time isn't possible. My question is that are we now just going to see zvp become a sky toss fest because if so this is going to be a boring matchup or can blizzard do something to help fix/adjust the unit slightly so that ground can also work vs the lurker?

On September 29 2015 02:42 DilemaH wrote:


Theres an unspoken concept called "balance/design by comparison", and its generally bad idea. Just because one race has something, doesn't mean another should. I could go into examples, but theres so many that I wont. With that said, imagine how terrible lurkers would be with friendly fire. The reason tanks are fine despite the splash is because tanks can fire over units, whereas the lurker fires through units. If lurkers attacked like siege tanks, then friendly splash would...well...It would actually still be terrible. Imagine zerglings. Or, hey, what if banelings had friendly fire? Why? Because, by your logic, all races should have friendly fire because its a common theme with terran units! Seriously, imagine how unplayably hard zerg would be. Managing banelings against bio is (surprisingly) hard enough: imagine having to manually detonate them in optimal places so that your entire army wouldn't die to them.

Zerg does in fact have 1 friendly fire source, being the ravager (this is it though). Protoss has Psi-storm and disruptors. The only time balance by comparison is viable is for essential things: each race should have a way to control space, harass, hold early attacks, scale into the lategame etc etc. Some of these essential factors, however, can be removed or amplified for certain races to create some interesting things.

On September 29 2015 02:30 Ovid wrote:


How was ZLS banned for massive racial bias in all discussion threads and not you?

On September 29 2015 03:28 Energizer wrote:
If anything lurker needs a buff to light units. As it stands its the only cost-effective AoE ground unit the zerg has with sustained damage, and yet it has arguably the most drawbacks when compared to other siege units, not to mention with how late the unit comes out and how much needs to be invested for it. So it should be something to be feared and respected when trying to engage head first into a lurker line like an idiot.

On September 29 2015 03:25 jinjin5000 wrote:
They just need to make burrow maybe take 0.5-1 sec slower and Nerf its HP. Damage is fine.

On September 29 2015 03:34 DilemaH wrote:


I think its already feared and respected (link)

The lurker is probably the best siege/positional unit right now.



As long as it can't be 1-shot by disruptors: otherwise that would make things a bit too hard for zerg. 2-shot (as it is right now) is fine

On September 29 2015 04:05 FLuE wrote:
Feel like I don't have so much an issue of stopping lurkers as I do keeping my detection alive. It seems so easy to just snipe off all the detection and then you are in trouble.

Would love to see OBS speed faster and no upgrade needed. Of all the things in the game they haven't sped up that is the one that would probably help the most.

On September 29 2015 05:00 jpg06051992 wrote:

Disruptors handle them very nicely and it also makes Templars ferociously strong in the late game, they are undoubtedly the better choice, Disruptors need to get rid of the controllable projectile thing and get it over with and make it go full Reaver. Let it just shoot the damn thing it's too much for Protoss players to do in big fights I think.

On September 29 2015 11:48 GinDo wrote:
People keep talking storm, but what about Oracle Revelation? Also isn't Storm a good option?

Edit: New revelation also detects and has 9 range. Imho its the most op spell in the game

On September 28 2015 20:03 Sam94 wrote:
Hi,

What does everyone think about lurkers as of now in LOTV? Personally i think they are a bit too strong because of there 9 range. Unless you have skytoss in an engagment with lurkers you are not going to win a fight because they just completely destroy ground units. What do you guys think?

Thanks

On October 02 2015 19:06 Dratini25 wrote:
Blizzard should nerf the lurkers by making the lurkers burrow time longer, and cant just dive into the ground then attacking because thats really op, and they should nerf the range to i think 7 is fair. considering their attack speed and dmg is already crazy high WITH splash that can hit up to atleast what 5 different units? so increasing their burrow time then time after that to attack and nerfing the range to 7 instead of 9 also the swarmhosts are getting buffed again, so the lurkers NEED this nerf to balance zerg out

On October 02 2015 20:34 shid0x wrote:
As a Terran i feel kind of lost against lurkers...
Most of my games end up in similar cases of old swarmhost. I get a lot of tanks and turret and the map gets separated in two. The thing is if i don't get those tank and play more mobile ( bio / raven ) i get shrekt because if i don't pay attention for a second everything dies.Also i don't wanna use 2 raven to kill one lurker , it feels unfair.

On September 28 2015 21:01 Ramiz1989 wrote:

If it really works that way, then that is a bug that should be fixed.

Storm is a good option but you have *VERY little wiggle room on the range. I feel like at 8 range Lurkers would still accomplish the same thing but not necessarily force air like they do now.

On October 03 2015 00:17 TorkkSC wrote:


I don't think range is much of an issue. I think having equal range with Disruptors and Storm is fine, it makes positioning that much more important. I do believe Lurkers have too much health. It takes an eternity to kill one. 2 Disruptor shots, 3 Storms, and 8 Colossus shots are the numbers for killing a Lurker. And if they're spread well, these things are almost impossible to do in a reasonable amount of time.

While I think 2 Disruptor shots for killing a Lurker is fine, they should also take only up to 2 Storms since that would take 8 seconds at most to kill, which is still a decent amount of time where your high templar are exposed in the front and your army is in the back, so the Zerg has a window of opportunity to counter micro and snipe the High Templar while not making it an impossibly long process to break a Lurker siege.

Why is everyone acting like SEEING the lurkers is the problem? That's not really it..

Very slight nerfs could possibly be appropriate, perhaps a slight lowering of health.

On October 05 2015 02:05 rotta wrote:

Sounds familiar for some reason...

+ Show Spoiler +

On October 05 2015 04:52 TimeSpiral wrote:
The only way we've found to deal with Lurkers in TvZ is Liberator play. We play Archon mode. The lurker is definitely a situation where if you get caught off guard and don't have tanks/liberators, and banked scans, you basically die. Raven is garbage against lurker. Too easy to snipe.

On October 05 2015 02:05 rotta wrote:

Sounds familiar for some reason...

+ Show Spoiler +

On October 05 2015 04:52 TimeSpiral wrote:
The only way we've found to deal with Lurkers in TvZ is Liberator play. We play Archon mode. The lurker is definitely a situation where if you get caught off guard and don't have tanks/liberators, and banked scans, you basically die. Raven is garbage against lurker. Too easy to snipe.

On October 05 2015 08:27 jinjin5000 wrote:
lowering its enormous health pool and increasing is burrow time would make it fine I believe.

On October 05 2015 09:01 DilemaH wrote:


Holy, I didn't realize it was that large. It should be something like 165, so it doesn't get one-shot by disruptors, but can still be focused down. at 165, it would be left with 20 hp after a disruptor shot, so it can be pulled back. I also totally agree with the burrow nerf: its too easy to gain space with the lurker.

One more thing I would recommend is nerfing its off-creep speed, while keeping the on-creep speed the game. This keeps it good on defense at home, but makes it harder to go out across the map with to get space. Its a defensive, space-controlling unit: not something offensive. These 3 nerfs should keep it in its place. As for damage, stats and such, the unit is in a great place.

On October 05 2015 06:44 Heyjoray wrote:

Thats actually bullshit, most of the times you are able to overpower Lurker with bio, when you havent done that with Tanks already. You are also allowed to abuse the fact that there is not enough anti against drops available. There is a good reason why there arent any lurker plays against bio in pro games. Playing with Lurker is nothing with awkward and disappointing

On October 05 2015 09:24 GinDo wrote:
Lurker is fine. You just can't 1A across the map without looking at your army. Kinda like in WOL before HOTS gave us Widow Mines w/ Instant Burrow

People just need to slow down, and move around. Remember that Lurkers can only attack when burrowed so attack from another angle. Lurkers are also immobile, so drop around.

Lurkers are exciting, I hope they don't get nerfed.

I will say though the SC2 Lurker effects are underwhelming.

On October 05 2015 10:14 DilemaH wrote:


I agree that the lurker is a great addition to the game. What people don't like is how you can easily walk up and burrow the lurker offensively. The proposed nerfs by Jinjin and I are focused on keeping it as a zone-control unit, andnot something you can throw into a deathball and use offensively.

On October 05 2015 10:48 Sickel1 wrote:


I think you are playing against them incorrectly. Offensive burrowing was a thing in BW as well, but it was never an issue.

On October 05 2015 10:58 GinDo wrote:


Well alot of Terran have gotten used to not using many tanks.

Trust me you can't Offensive burrow without Vipers against a huge siege line with Marines and medics.

On October 05 2015 05:44 DilemaH wrote:


Going for a lurker-based style vs terran is very expensive. Vs mech, they're obviously pretty bad since they're too expensive, the enemy always has tanks available, and theres just better units to get (ie ravager, broodlord, ultra etc). Against bio, think of it this way:

A hydra den costs 100/100. The lurker den costs 50/100. The lurker itself costs a total of 150/150. Thats a LOT of gas zerg has to invest into lurkers. And besides: lurkers take EXTREMELY long to make: you need the hydra den, the lurker den morph, the hydralisk and then the lurker morph. The lurker den and lurkers themselves take extremely long to morph. This gives terran (and every race) a large window where zerg is extremely vulnerable to attacks, which means they'll have no: banelings, upgrades, economy, and no spire going up (and bio-mine should be attacking by now). Plus, a quick lurker den means they'll have no mutalisks, and the general counter to lurkers is to attack where they aren't (IE drops). So you can doom drop their main (if you somehow let them get to lurker tech without dying) and just about everywhere for free. And if zerg invests into lurkers once they're stabilized, they're delaying their super-powerful hive-tech transition (since we all know how damn good ultras are). And by the time they have lurkers out, you should know because you'd have dropped them by then, so you can start siege tank/liberator production. Liberator would probably be better, since their gas would be in lurkers, so you would just dominate the sky. I can understand that they're extremely hard to push into, but they just seem so damn easy to punish and play around as terran if you do it right.

And this is given they're going for a ling/bane/muta style. If they're going roaches/hydras, you should already have tank production started by then.

tl;dr the lurker might be good, but there seems like so many holes that open up if zerg invests into lurkers against bio. They delay upgrades, their spire, their hive-tech, and have few banelings to hold off the early pushes. A few libs could just come in to siege and wrest air control against the low muta count while the bio goes to town on the low baneling count.

On October 05 2015 06:44 Heyjoray wrote:

Thats actually bullshit, most of the times you are able to overpower Lurker with bio, when you havent done that with Tanks already. You are also allowed to abuse the fact that there is not enough anti air against drops available. There is a good reason why there arent any lurker plays against bio in pro games. Playing with Lurker is nothing but awkward and disappointing

On October 06 2015 00:32 TimeSpiral wrote:


I don't disagree with much of what you're saying. I'd probably push back on your style of saying it though. It's so tempting to endlessly list conditions that support whatever claim you're trying to make when theorycrafting. I'm guilty of this too, especially when me and my Archon partner are discussing the game.

Basically, the fallacy goes something like this: when they do this thing, we should try that thing. Yeah, but we can't do that thing because then they can just do this other thing.

Yeah, well that's the fucking game, lol. It's not played in a vacuum, it's entirely dependent on the game state when you're making the decisions.



Lol. Whoa there, Tiger. I'm not saying it's the only way to deal with Lurkers. I was sharing our experience in Archon mode. Calm down.

On October 05 2015 10:59 Heyjoray wrote:

It was an issue until people learned how to deal with it