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I couldn't agree more with the OP, I was arguing near this exact same thing the other day, and I found this thread and was happy I wasn't alone ;D
I'm new to SC, played around 110 matches and was Rank 2 gold as zerg, and I just got sick and tired of the play style. It just felt like I was ALWAYS on the receiving end just trying to endure. Some people may like to play more macro intensive, so hey be my guest and play zerg, but it just wasn't for me. It feels a lot more fun to be on the offensive.
I decided to screw around with protoss for awhile to see if I liked them better(I only played 3-4 games in non ranked matches to get used to the buildings/units), played 2 ladder games, and got matched up against zerg both times. Zerg was slightly favored too, so these are high rank gold/low plat zerg I was playing, and I won both times  My macro was HORRIBLE, but damn I just knew where to be and how exactly to counter their strategy.
First game he FE'd, so i 2 gated, killed the expo, forced him to make a ton of zerglings to fend off my zealots. tech'd straight to stargate and got 2 voidrays out while his spire was only half finished(he went speedlings into mutas, no roaches/hydras). was pretty much gg from there.
2nd game was lost temple and we were opposite sides, so the 2 gate wasn't effective since I didn't proxy(hay I'm new to toss :x). He went lings/hydras, and I got speed zealots + 3 colossai and just barbequed his entire army.
My macro was sloppy, I had what I can only assume to be less than optimal BO's since I'm new to toss, and I still just rolled them. Playing zerg really just exposed me to their weaknesses big time. I'm glad I made the switch.
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On May 05 2010 06:56 STS17 wrote:
Build a couple infestors and burrow-move them into your opponent's mineral line. Have Drop the Plag-goo on the workers and spam Infested Terran, the combined damage will destroy their mineral line in seconds and the infestors are free to burrow move out of there (until the Raven/Obs arrives to kill them, but they've done their damage at this point).
Problems with this is that you can't burrow under buildings aka walloffs so you have to either drop them from an overlord or get a nydus worm, this does not work agains terran as any terran that doesn't do math with his ass and a bit of crayon will have a sensory tower, and it's only viable VS protoss if they do not have any cannons in their mineral line.
Now that that is said seeing as we are talking about early game I don't see how a tier 2 caster is considered early game as they first need to be teched to and then need energy to perform this little stunt.
Leaving a burrowed zergling at every un-captured mineral node, tucking it close to the minerals still lets them place their town hall (meaning you gain sight of it without tipping them off by interrupting their construction) allowing for immediate knowledge of expansions with minimal risk on your behalf. Hell, if Zerglings are half as useless as some of you are making them out to be then there should be little issue assigning this duty to them.
Agreed and I don't get why people do not do this, this could possibly be polished more by using a baneling and blow up that nexus the moment it's made thus creating an effective eco contain.
I doubt it will work as well on terrans as I mostly see floating CCs to expos.
Corruptors - Stopping all building production for 30 seconds from key Terran/Protoss tech or production buildings. Imagine how frustrated a Terran player will be when their 550/150 Planetary Fortress is helpless to defend against an incomming raid.
I have no idea why but you can not corrupt Planetary fortresses, I love using it against missile turrets and cannons when harassing their mineral line with mutas, I see people using this later on as a block on protoss rapid reinfocement and scv/probe rebuild after a successful attack on their mineral line/s not to mention viking spamming terrans. <3
Then again a gasheavy tier 2 unit is not early game.
Additionally, early harass comes in many forms other then doing economic damage. Forcing your opponent to spend resources on things he doesn't necessarily want to build is just as good as letting your zerglings snack on their mineral line. Camping a dozen zergling outside their choke disallows them to move out allowing you to tech up - or forcing them to switch their build order while keeping them blind to your actions.
I have plenty more to offer but I feel this is getting rather long so I will leave it be for now.
Problems I see with this is that you are putting yourself in a worse situation, both protoss and terran can build units at the same time as they are pumping workers while you as zerg have to sacrifice a drone in order to have the larva to make a zergling, this reduces your income more than protoss or terran due to the fact that minerals are often not the problem after the first 10-12 workers but rather how many workers you can push out to saturate it
Overall it slows down your macro ball effect more than any of the other races which is what zerg as it stands primarely live off.
To boot terran can just float off if there is an expansion with rocks on the ramp.
I never really played scbw and so I have nothing to compare it to, all I know is I find myself constantly trying to defend the first pushes / harrasses and grab an expo after that. I'm also in the top bronze league atm so my opinions might not be valid higher up.
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Meh, Zerg couldn't really pressure at hatch tech in SC1 either. Against standard builds like Protoss FE, you can either 4pool, 9pool runby (don't work against probe blocking ramp), or speedling all in, hydra-all in or wait for lair. Against terran wall in, you simply can't attack at all and might face everything from 2port to 3rax bust to vult drop which you can't scout before hand and have to defend. Sunker willing into 3hatch muta is the standard after all, and the aggression in that comes after muta tech.
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I disagree with the OP. Zerglings come out much sooner than sentries and if he went 1gate cybercore a sustained push of zerglings should be able to put lots of pressure on, before he can FF his ramp. Assuming you heavily outnumber his zealots his best option is to wall off completely at that point.
I mean, if your opponent goes a turtle build and walls off his choke completely with factory buildings, then no you're not going to be able to pressure until tier 2... But how is this different from Broodwar? At least now you have baneling bust on supply depots, forcing him to put factories in his wall.
As soon as lair tech comes you can get burrowed roaches or overlord speed/drop.. And you can research those from a hatchery now so you can get them both at the same time.
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On May 06 2010 01:33 SWPIGWANG wrote:
Meh, Zerg couldn't really pressure at hatch tech in SC1 either. Against standard builds like Protoss FE, you can either 4pool, 9pool runby (don't work against probe blocking ramp), or speedling all in, hydra-all in or wait for lair. Against terran wall in, you simply can't attack at all and might face everything from 2port to 3rax bust to vult drop which you can't scout before hand and have to defend. Sunker willing into 3hatch muta is the standard after all, and the aggression in that comes after muta tech.
Zergling pressure was infinitely better in sc1 than in sc2.
In sc1:
1.)terran could rush with marines/scv/bunker
2.)protoss could rush with zealots and brings probes if wanted. or go zealot/cannon rush.
3.)zerg could do very effective ling rushes.
in sc2 #1 and #2 are the same, but #3 isn't the same at all.
In sc1 u could harrass with zerglings so well that pool -> speedlings was a common pro opening. Not to mention the diversity of lair tech (lurkers and mutas requiring vastly different counters) meant that 1base play could open up into powerful options to outplay your opponent.
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wow... i find zerg to be the most annoying race. I usually play terran, but have transitioned to zerg. Zerg is the master harrasser. Lings aren't great by themselves... use them in numbers!!! not only can you harass but you can scout. Okay, so what they blocked themselves in, this is your chance to expo and tech up. by the time they decide to attack or harrass you with some banshees or void rays, you SHOULD have AA. i.e. hydras or even mutas.
with early game lings, if they walled in and have units... you go mess with their destructible rocks for a bit. they won't reaper you, because you have units that'll easy defend it.
I usually ALWAYS 8 pool unless i get bored and want to try something else, it's easy to transition.
8 - pool
7/10 build 2 drones. 9/10
make ovie
your ovie and pool will be done at the same time
make 6 lings
then queen.
drone
drone
ovie
extractor
roach warren
expoing early i think is very dumb. i usually expo when i got some roaches, and my main base is greatly saturated.
i realized with zerg, having lings, roaches, hydras or mutas... is necessary. you need to mix everything up. attack from different angles with your lings.
and mutas seriously are so effing annoying, you gotta love them.
i haven't used infestors much, because i just simply haven't had the need for them. If i had them, i would overkill.
I haven't lost with zerg yet, but i'm only in gold. but i'm like 19-0
I'm in plat 2v2, haven't lost one when my partner and i are both zerg, unless one of us gets dropped.
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On May 05 2010 14:59 Brightside6382 wrote:
How is this any different from BW then?
Because lings did like 70% more damage in BW then they do in SC2... thats a HUGE difference, where marines and zealots either have the same dps or increase dps... so ya...
and in SC1 99% of the time a wall wasn't 100% ling proof...
also in SC1 there were no unbreakable walls called FF
so very different.
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This has been bothering me lately also. Zergs are put into a spot that the other two races arent. If Toss/Terran don't build a big enough army to fight off a zerg players army early game they don't get punished for it. They don't even lose a single worker. If zerg don't build a big enough army to fight off a toss/terrans army early game they LOSE. the toss/terran walk straight up the ramp to the mineral line and start killing drones.
There's no buying 20-30 seconds with a couple zealots placed at a wallin or raised supply depots so that reinforcements can arrive. If the toss/terran kills off your early game army and only 8-9 marines or 3-4 zealots survive you lose most of your workers and a tech building. That's zergs delaying option, a+move with drones. If a zerg wins a fight and has 10-15 zerglings left and rushes them to the enemies base 1 zealot or a few scvs repairing prevent anything.
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I agree with the OP.
I dont know why Blizzard thought it would be a good idea to make toss have like 12 units and terran 14, when zerg has only 9. (Not 100% sure its the correct numbers but its something like it, either way it proves a point)
Zerg lacks variation because of this, it should be pretty obvious.
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9?
Drone
Overlord
Overseer
Changeling
Zergling
Baneling
Roach
Infestor
Infested Terran
Mutalisk
Corruptor
Broodlord
Ultralisk
Thats 13, 11 if you dont include the Infested Terran and the Changeling, since both are going to be replaced.
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Baneling bust is going to be your only non all in early game threat. It may lack in diversity but it is very devastating when your opponent isn't expecting it.
Also I think it's clear that in SC2, blizzard designed terran to be the harasser race. Zerg seems to be the turtle and marco race. While toss seems to be the epic timing push race. The only problem is that terran has very good timing pushes (thor timing push with SCV's is SOOOO hard to deal with) and can still out turtle anyone.
This is a problem that can be easily corrected by fixing roaches.
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I think the original point wasn't balance but variety. You can argue that therevis variety between the 14pool/15hatch build and a faster 8 pool but walls are hard to break. However I don't mind it, if the other player walls in I can usually win with macro. In my experience they give up map control to speedlings and I can get hydras before any air rush. First 100 gas can get lair if you're nervous about it. One thing I hate is that it's hard to scout without observers or scans. Sometimes I have to suicide an overlord or two.
14pool/15hatch is really easy to defend in my experience, I've never lost to an early rush with that build. I'm sure that can be blamed on my opponents to a degree, and a reaper harrass or a bunker on my natural would probably wreck me. I've heard that the best way to fight the Zerg FE is to harrass and force them to overreact with spinecrawlers.
Either way, in some of my games people complain that Zerg is op because of their production, but if you turtle up and give up map control for too long then you can't keep up. I think this makes for interesting gameplay as each player has to balance their army and economy instead of one base play. It's definitely not that simple of course. I do wish it was easier to scout though, I'm always worried about what they're hiding. While I prefer to macro up, it would be nice if one base roach play can still be an option. There is still time before the release for something to happen.
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On May 19 2010 02:08 Catch]22 wrote:
9?
Drone
Overlord
Overseer
Changeling
Zergling
Baneling
Roach
Infestor
Infested Terran
Mutalisk
Corruptor
Broodlord
Ultralisk
Thats 13, 11 if you dont include the Infested Terran and the Changeling, since both are going to be replaced.
Well zerg does have a lot of units that can appear on the battlefield. But when you start talking about how many units zerg can actually build as part of an army composition?
Drone
Overlord
Overseer
Changeling
Infested Terran
These are not units that you can build as part of your army. Its not like you can tech to overseer/changeling army to threaten your opponent and put some pressure on him.
So you are left with an actual choice of 8 units to build your army with.
If you look at protoss for example, they would have an actual 12 units they can use for combat. (not counting observer and warp prism)
Terran has 12 counting the medivac.
So it does seem that there are more unit choices for terran and toss than for zerg.
Broodlings, overlords, overseers, changelings, larva, queens, infested terrans, and drones, are all "units", true, but you cant really count them as actual combat units or tech choices for an army composition, imo.
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On May 03 2010 06:52 peckham33 wrote:
i read this on a live-feed chat once and it stuck in my mind:
the focus of each race:
Terran: adaptability
Zerg: numbers
Protoss: late game power
Not really, but yes i guess.
Zerg needs numbers, but ever since the roach nerf, they are not impeccable late-game now vs toss, as before, Protoss was'nt as powerful late-game against Z until now. I agree though that T is all about diversity, they have so many combat units and different openings, but Z's openings in a non mirror matchup will nearly always be some type of FE build, or a 1base into a delayed FE, either way you need an expansion to beat a 1base T or P.
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lol, i cant believe you actually counted drone and overlord.
As someone said above, Terran has 12 counting medevac, and toss has 12 not counting observer and warp prism.
And Zerg has 9 combat units.
Why is this soo way off for me but not for anyone else? terran has 12, protoss has 12, seems balanced enough, then zerg has 9? I mean ok if we had 11, or 13, but we got 9?
If someone thinks that zerg gameplay is dull, that should be one of the reasons. I know its my reason anyway.
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I whole heartedly agree with this thread, yet I might be a tad bit biased since I just lost 8 games in a row, all vs. Toss or Terran.
Half of them I was Ling harassing the **** out of them, yet they somehow managed to mass a larger army and run right over me. The other half were perfectly executed timing attacks that, even though I saw coming, were nigh impossible to stop. I only managed to win my last game because it was Blistering Sands, and I abused the backdoor. Why don't more maps have backdoors?
Lings are weak, Roaches are too slow, Hydras are instantly murdered by any Thor, Siege Tank, or Collosus that looks at it the wrong way, and Mutas are garbage at doing anything but harassing.
Zerg need some major work.
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im so tired of the turtling, i try to cheese it every chance i get. Any one base build is always all-in for zerg, but I'm not against taking down the destructible rocks or a fast nydus worm rush. Its fun to mix up the play every so often and not FE.
I've had decent success with the hidden fast expansion also. Place it all the way across the map and use it until they find it. When they find it, do a hard quick back stab and hope youve had enough time for that FE to win it for you.
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On May 03 2010 11:54 houseurmusic wrote:
I disagree with OP. Banelings are the way to go for early aggression against all 3 races. I am rank 10 platinum (playing for a total of 3 days) and been having much success with the following build I made against teching opponents.
10 - ovie
10 - extractor trick and scout.
14 - gas
13 - pool
15 - ovie
This opening stops any kind of rush and leaves you with a decent eco. If toss is teching, terran is going for fast tech or reaper, or anything build vs zerg the following has worked for me.
When pool pops -> 2 lings, speed up, and queen.
next 50 gas baneling nest and take 2 off gas.
make non top lings until 26/26 then take expo.
When banelings nest pops speed will be done make 3 - 4 banelings outside opponents base.
Attack with about 15 speedlings and 3-4 banelings.
Toss will not have a sentry yet and if they do, it wont help them. Banelings will hit and kill there zelots/supply depot/pylon. You will be in there base with speedlings while pumping more if everything has gone well. I usually like to run a few speed lings to the corner of there base and morph them into banelings while running around with my other lings. Then use those banelings to hit the worker line.
**This build is especially effective vs those damn void ray rushes.
You can definitely do some damage if micro'd right. If you cant win the game right there you can now begin building another queen and massing drones. I'm not at my home comp now, but i can try to post some reps when i get home.
In case no one has reponded to this yet, you're quite simply wrong. Any intelligent Terran will have scouted the Baneling nest, 3-4 won't break the Terran wall, and this is far too slow to beat out the first Hellion which will absolutely shut down zerglings and banelings. Baneling busts against Terran are actually quite terrible if they scout, and still somewhat terrible if they play carefully without a scout. They are more effective against Protoss, though this build is cutting the timing a little too close to the sentry getting out, and the Protoss can nullfiy your Baneling splash with some reasonable zealot micro. I've Baneling busted quite frequently and while it works well in low Platinum or below top 5 gold, it stops working particularly well after that.
This will work against Void Ray rushes barring some amazing micro by the Protoss though, you are right about that.
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On May 06 2010 02:44 krnbrasha wrote:
wow... i find zerg to be the most annoying race. I usually play terran, but have transitioned to zerg. Zerg is the master harrasser. Lings aren't great by themselves... use them in numbers!!! not only can you harass but you can scout. Okay, so what they blocked themselves in, this is your chance to expo and tech up. by the time they decide to attack or harrass you with some banshees or void rays, you SHOULD have AA. i.e. hydras or even mutas.
with early game lings, if they walled in and have units... you go mess with their destructible rocks for a bit. they won't reaper you, because you have units that'll easy defend it.
If you aren't gettign rolled after 8 pooling and devoting enough larva to get "numbers" early game then you are playing some spectacularly bad opponents. The economic cost to your strategy is terrible, with zero benefit against Terran and only some benefit against Protoss.
Also, I forgot to mention this in my last post, but the OP is absolutely correct. This has been bothering me for weeks now, and it's only getting worse the more I play. When a standard Terran scout will see the six pool just as lings are getting out there's something terribly wrong with the matchup. Canceling one SCV allows him to complete the wall immediately if he went standard, making 6 pool 100% useless against even just decent Terrans.
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On May 19 2010 00:47 SureYouCan wrote:
This has been bothering me lately also. Zergs are put into a spot that the other two races arent. If Toss/Terran don't build a big enough army to fight off a zerg players army early game they don't get punished for it. They don't even lose a single worker. If zerg don't build a big enough army to fight off a toss/terrans army early game they LOSE. the toss/terran walk straight up the ramp to the mineral line and start killing drones.
There's no buying 20-30 seconds with a couple zealots placed at a wallin or raised supply depots so that reinforcements can arrive. If the toss/terran kills off your early game army and only 8-9 marines or 3-4 zealots survive you lose most of your workers and a tech building. That's zergs delaying option, a+move with drones. If a zerg wins a fight and has 10-15 zerglings left and rushes them to the enemies base 1 zealot or a few scvs repairing prevent anything.
While i completely agree with the fact that lings cannot raid probe lines anymore... its veryy annoying they jump out to get the zlot like 10 miles away...... The answer to all of these problems is banelings im very sure... 1 or 2 or 3 in mineral line and youve got an exponential rape. My Zerg play has gotten better by using these wonderous things called banelings. I think as Zerg you should never skip any tech building... its more about deciding which route you take first. But you should have already built the other tech buildings so when it comes time you are getting hardcountered or harassed you will be ready.
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EPT
