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I'm sorry I brought up SC1 situations as comparison, this is a different game and those situations shouldn't be referenced.
Back on topic: the races in SC2 each defend differently. Terran walls off, Protoss forcefields/warps in reinforcements, and Zerg uses spine crawlers and units. Really, the only way zerg CANNOT be prepared well enough for hellions is if he doesn't scout for them, and therefore doesn't account for them. Look at Idra's play, if he needs to he'll happily sacrifice an overlord so he knows exactly what Terran is doing. (And before we get into "sacrificing an overlord to scout," remember that Terran either sacrifices a scan, a reaper, a hellion or a combination of those to know what's up).
Well placed spine crawlers make hellion harassing not cost effective because you won't kill anything, and 200-400 minerals down is the last place Terran wants to end up against Zerg. Yes marauders are incredibly effective against spine crawlers. But take a lesson from Day[9], your opponent can't get marauders, and hellions, and banshees, and expo, and... etc. Terran can go hellion-marauder, but that doesn't mean Zerg can't go spinecrawler+zerglings, or spinecrawler+roaches. Zerg can adequately defend against any early Terran unit composition if they remain aware of their opponent.
In response to drop play, this is where creep really excels as a defender's advantage. Overlords are useful as early spotters, and creep highways connecting Zerg's bases allow for speedy reinforcements wherever the harass is heading. I feel people underestimate creep too much. It provides map presence as well as sight to the Zerg, so Zerg can sit there army wherever they want and see any ground pushes by the enemy.
Lastly, the point of getting a fast expo up is to get an economic edge on your opponent. For Zerg this has always been more important than for the other races. If you're going to get a fast expo, understand that your opponent has more opportunities for early harass than you. Accept that fact and plan accordingly. If Zerg wants to try 1-base aggression they can, and in some cases it can prove very effective. If it doesn't then Zerg's in pretty bad shape, but if Terran or Protoss 1-base they can still continue fighting normally. But do we really want every race to fight the exact same style? You might, but I want to see variety in the playstyles of Zerg, Terran and Protoss players. What we have now offers that very well.
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On July 31 2010 10:47 Doormat wrote:
1. Protoss can also wall off. Have sentries to force field ramps and can warp in units to any powered area with warpgates.
2. No race can power drones like zerg. Therefore for balance they should have to put more effort into defending early pressure.
I'll speak to TvZ because I play Terran but I would assume this applies to Protoss as well:
The big tension is that the Zerg will get a macro advantage and then win because of the advantage producing out of a hatchery provides them. Therefore it is the Terran's responsibility to either win based on more efficient unit composition (which I haven't seen yet) or to put pressure on the Zerg early to prevent the macro advantage. So making it so the Zerg can't defend easily makes this tension balanced otherwise Zergs will just turtle up, get the macro advantage, and win.
No race can power drones like zerg? lmao that's such BS.
Go ahead and watch some replays of good players. The gatherer count for each side is usually even if the players are evenly matched. This is because zerg actually has to use their larva to make units as well, and every time they make a building, the drone is permanently lost.
do you know how expensive a spine crawler actually is in terms of total economic cost? the face value (100 min.) plus the drone (50 min.) 1 larva (hard to place a number on, but trust me, larva are valuable) and the total minerals not collected during the time it takes to hatch the replacement drone. (the cost of the replacement drone is not counted, because that would be double-counting... fyi for all the not economically inclined out there).
that considered, i'd say the true cost is at least 200 min. and one can't even take down 2 marauders. hence, spine crawlers generally aren't worth it unless combined with units that'll tank for it or if you're using them to hold off hellions while you tech (thus saving money by not needing to invest in extra queens/roaches).
compared to Terran's wall + repair and bunkers, spine crawlers are a joke.
/but just b/c defense isn't balanced doesn't mean the meta game isn't balanced.
//to continue on my tangent, there were so many skills in brood war that were straight up imbalanced... but because all races had imbalances it was fair. for example, psi storm was ridiculously OP... but so was plague. Blizzard decided to make all the units in SC2 even by nerfing them to death until they all suck equally.
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On July 31 2010 21:11 Madkipz wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2010 20:16 Meldrath wrote:
''Open thread insert whine here'' Hellion harass = having to park your queen on a ramp and have 1 spine crawler up at your expo to stop this harass.. QQ now get roaches and mass 120381239082 of them like zerg do. then go go burrowed movement. incoming Terran GG LOL TROLL ;D
I dont know, strategy seems pretty legit, it's the way steve bonnel plays, he's top diamond.
I only wish I could be as pro with roaches as him.
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On August 01 2010 04:36 dudeman001 wrote:
Well placed spine crawlers make hellion harassing not cost effective because you won't kill anything, and 200-400 minerals down is the last place Terran wants to end up against Zerg.
Seriously?
With 2-4 hellions you kill drones with 1-2 shot drones and you cant kill anything when there is 1-2 spine crawler which uses at least 3 shots to kill a hellion (dont know exact amount)?
Not to mention that throwing down 1 spine crawler costs 200 minerals + 1 larva and lost mining time. And you need a queen blocking the ramp, or T will just run to main. The T player can just retreat seeing spine crawlers and barely lost anything, but gaining map control.
The Z player must face the worst T player ever if hellions are not cost effective.
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What i find is:
Z expands as normal. due to hellion harass, has to spend minerals on spine crawlers which use drones and also may lose drones to the harass, potentially extra larva and minerals on lings to help.
Ever check out the graphs for resources? Terran with mules and constant scv production (which is normal) is pretty much even with the Z with an expo that has a half decent number of drones on it. Pretty lame.
T has extra minerals to spend on hellions on harass. Whereas a zerg cant harass cheaply at all due to the T wall in (what are lings going to do?). So the terran has almost no worries while sitting in his base, all the while harassing constantly, and doesnt really need to expand until hes running out of minerals.
Also just makes me mad when i see overlord speed and drop upgrades cost 300/300 whereas terran can fly around the map with their medivacs and harass while their base is impregnable.
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Ok I guess I talked to much about hellions and that really deterred my actual point. I included them because defending versus them was a common early game scenario.
I'm really trying to find an example to explain but I guess scbw ones don't get my point across. Crap I really wish autosave replay still existed.
Let me play some games today and I'll post the ones with some of the problems I am experiencing.
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I have just been promoted to diamond league as terran. Its so easy. I expect some nerf patch
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Imo, the real issue is mostly the amount of choices races have.
As far as balance goes, its perfectly fine that a player who is investing money in harrassment units is able to force an early expanding player to waste money.
In fact, Id go as far as to say that if terran wasnt able to force zerg to spend minerals and larva on defenses when zerg early expands, then it would really be imbalanced.
As far as balance goes, its fine.
However, as far as gameplay, and fun goes, thats a whole different story.
Zerg, in the early game, litteraly has only 2 choices. 1 base all-in, or early expand and macro. aggression and/or harrassment isnt really possible for a 1 base zerg vs a terran, without investing a huge amount of money and larva into it. Once it gets to T2, creep is spread, drops, burrow, nydus worms, and so on all become possibilities, and it really evens out a lot across the races, all of them have a ton of choices.
But as said, right now, zerg has 2 choices vs terran. terran, on the other side, can harrass with reapers, hellions, do bio pushes, stay on one base and tech to banshees, or to vikings, and probably even early expand safely with a couple of bunkers. lots of choices really.
Now most of these choices do come from the fact that terran doesnt need that much to be able to defend in the early game. If zerg was able to actually attack terran early enough, then terran players would have to be a lot more carefulk about what they do, and zergs would have a lot more options.
But as said, I dont think that balance is really an issue, and watching pro replays doesnt seem to show a huge imbalance anywhere.
Even if the zerg is forced to make premptive spine crawlers in each and every game, simply because the terran started building a factory, and COULD be making hellions, that doesnt mean its imbalanced. Just that the choices for zerg are limited. In the same way, protoss has to make a stalker against any terran player making an early tech lab barrack. That doesnt mean its completely imbalanced, just that it limits the protosse's choices quite a lot.
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Excuse the BW comparison, but wouldn't deterring hellions be somewhat similar to deterring vultures? You know..make a sunken or two and wall off with other buildings.
And wouldn't defending a sunken break be akin to defending a spine break? Get some zerglings and/or other stuff along with 4+ spine crawlers?
Scouting has always been a big part of zerg play, and it's usually the thing that most players absolutely refuse to do or really suck at nowadays. Scouting is a huge part of the defender's advantage, which is one reason why terran is so good at defending. If zerg messes up at scouting, they get killed. If a terran messes up at scouting, we also die. It just so happens terrans have the ultimate scouting tool, so this doesn't happen as often as it does to zerg.
I haven't seen anyone mention scouting at all, thus I don't believe any of the dramatic balance accusations of spine crawlers being too weak, terran being too strong, zerg being to weak, etc. If properly scouted, anything can be beat.
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On July 31 2010 10:00 kNyTTyM wrote:
Yesterday I played a zvt on delta quadrant
That's where you went wrong, Delta Quadrant is unplayable against Terran, I recommend thumbing it down in the map preferences.
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On August 01 2010 05:19 tacrats wrote:
Also just makes me mad when i see overlord speed and drop upgrades cost 300/300 whereas terran can fly around the map with their medivacs and harass while their base is impregnable.
Medics are indeed free of charge and require no tech buildings to get.
Spending 300/300 also nets us as many medivacs as we have supply depots.
In all seriousness though, if you have a good overlord spread, and creep spread between your bases (more bases than the T), you should be able to spot drops well in advance. Zerg has plenty of offensive options to contain the terran or punish him for moving out.
Also no one is forcing you to fast expand, I've seen 1base muta into contain into mass expand be very effective in high level play.
This thread all in all is a good example of why apples aren't eggs, but they're still both edible.
Have a nice day!
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failquote instead of edit 
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On August 01 2010 06:43 imBLIND wrote:
Excuse the BW comparison, but wouldn't deterring hellions be somewhat similar to deterring vultures? You know..make a sunken or two and wall off with other buildings.
And wouldn't defending a sunken break be akin to defending a spine break? Get some zerglings and/or other stuff along with 4+ spine crawlers?
Scouting has always been a big part of zerg play, and it's usually the thing that most players absolutely refuse to do or really suck at nowadays. Scouting is a huge part of the defender's advantage, which is one reason why terran is so good at defending. If zerg messes up at scouting, they get killed. If a terran messes up at scouting, we also die. It just so happens terrans have the ultimate scouting tool, so this doesn't happen as often as it does to zerg.
I haven't seen anyone mention scouting at all, thus I don't believe any of the dramatic balance accusations of spine crawlers being too weak, terran being too strong, zerg being to weak, etc. If properly scouted, anything can be beat.
Ya it's like defending versus a vulture with splash on rush hour 3. I keep coming back to hellions but that wasn't really what I wanted to discuss. As for the sunken break, I said previously I couldn't think of anything that breaks like marauders so did a short test.
Stimmed marauders kill spine crawlers slightly more efficiently then unsieged tanks did to sunkens. 7 marauders kills 4 spines. To my knowledge, the only 1 base builds that could break 4 sunkens for terran in brood war was 3 rax and fast tank. So imagine terran sunken breaking you with a handful of fast moving siege tanks and firebats to kill lings. A vulture running on the outskirts of the 3'o clock natural of Lost temple will be hit 3 times by a sunken and die. A hellion running by a spine on the edge of any LT natural will be hit once and 4 is needed to kill it.
So I thought of something else that may help people understand what I am getting at. The queen is a significant defender's advantage in anti-air situations. I didn't even think about this before.
Why is it a defender's advantage? Queens are extremely slow so off creep so you can quickly defend with them at YOUR base but not in the center of the map. They have the same cost and build time of a spine crawler and are already an integral part of your game (spawn larva).
Now thanks to piousflea who did some testing a while back
Link
MYTH #7: "Mass Queens are insanely cost-effective anti-air":CONFIRMED
Without any micro or Transfusion, 4 queens (600/0/8) can beat:
- 6 Mutas (600/600/12)
- 3 Banshees (450/300/9)
- 3 Voidrays (750/450/9)
Queens can beat several air units cost for cost even without transfuse and even take up less supply. Now let us say a terran has 6 banshees roaming the map and you decide to engage in the center with 6 hydralisks. Zerg might lose all the hydras and terran gets away with 2 banshees. Now terran later goes into zergs natural with 6 more banshees and sees 3 queens and 3 hydras. With the defensive advantage zerg has, he is able to win the battle cost effectively utilizing an already integral part of his game. This defensive advantage incorporates 2 of the zerg advantages I wrote off as basically useless against ground (queen and creep). However when we talk about anti- air, zerg gets a significant advantage from just being at his base and properly using using a staple part of his race (terran gets repair zergs get queen).
Now if that helped anyone understand my point, I want something like that but for ground defense.
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Queens can attack ground too silly :p
Your problem is still with hellions though. You really want a speed upgrade required for them, just admit it 
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Yeah people seem to forget about creep. Creep is EVERYTHING. People like TLO talk about it as a replacement for scourge in terms of map control.
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So about the hellion/spine crawler issue, I will quote IdrA himself.
Can you share your opinion about Spine Crawlers? I think they are often wasted and medium skilled players often build too many. What’s the purpose in your opinion of these defensive structures?
I think they’re quite good actually. They’re absolutely necessary for defending one base protoss play. Often you’ll need to get one or two to hold off hellion harass vs terran, and a sunken can allow you to survive ling/bane allins with a fast expand zvz. I think the root time may be a bit too long, but overall I’m quite happy with them .
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On August 01 2010 04:38 MforWW wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2010 10:47 Doormat wrote:
1. Protoss can also wall off. Have sentries to force field ramps and can warp in units to any powered area with warpgates.
2. No race can power drones like zerg. Therefore for balance they should have to put more effort into defending early pressure.
I'll speak to TvZ because I play Terran but I would assume this applies to Protoss as well:
The big tension is that the Zerg will get a macro advantage and then win because of the advantage producing out of a hatchery provides them. Therefore it is the Terran's responsibility to either win based on more efficient unit composition (which I haven't seen yet) or to put pressure on the Zerg early to prevent the macro advantage. So making it so the Zerg can't defend easily makes this tension balanced otherwise Zergs will just turtle up, get the macro advantage, and win. No race can power drones like zerg? lmao that's such BS.
compared to Terran's wall + repair and bunkers, spine crawlers are a joke.
I shall quote WhiteRa, (I'm on a roll reading these interviews.)Let’s take a closer look to the matchups for Protoss, can you tell us something about PvZ? What’s your general game plan and how should a standard PvZ go along from the perspective of a Protoss?
I have two standard strategies, with a fast expansion and without one  . From the Protoss point of view, you need to force Zerg to play your game, to avoid giving him the few minutes he needs to build twice the amount of your workers (but you must be careful here, do not let yourself get surrounded or you can lose all your troops).
And then there's this:
compared to Terran's wall + repair and bunkers, spine crawlers are a joke.
Of course! That's part of being Terran! Like Zerg is about massing units quickly and covering the map, and protoss is about small amounts of high tech units.
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On August 01 2010 13:12 kNyTTyM wrote:Show nested quote +On August 01 2010 06:43 imBLIND wrote:
Excuse the BW comparison, but wouldn't deterring hellions be somewhat similar to deterring vultures? You know..make a sunken or two and wall off with other buildings.
And wouldn't defending a sunken break be akin to defending a spine break? Get some zerglings and/or other stuff along with 4+ spine crawlers?
Scouting has always been a big part of zerg play, and it's usually the thing that most players absolutely refuse to do or really suck at nowadays. Scouting is a huge part of the defender's advantage, which is one reason why terran is so good at defending. If zerg messes up at scouting, they get killed. If a terran messes up at scouting, we also die. It just so happens terrans have the ultimate scouting tool, so this doesn't happen as often as it does to zerg.
I haven't seen anyone mention scouting at all, thus I don't believe any of the dramatic balance accusations of spine crawlers being too weak, terran being too strong, zerg being to weak, etc. If properly scouted, anything can be beat. Ya it's like defending versus a vulture with splash on rush hour 3. I keep coming back to hellions but that wasn't really what I wanted to discuss. As for the sunken break, I said previously I couldn't think of anything that breaks like marauders so did a short test. Stimmed marauders kill spine crawlers slightly more efficiently then unsieged tanks did to sunkens. 7 marauders kills 4 spines. To my knowledge, the only 1 base builds that could break 4 sunkens for terran in brood war was 3 rax and fast tank. So imagine terran sunken breaking you with a handful of fast moving siege tanks and firebats to kill lings. A vulture running on the outskirts of the 3'o clock natural of Lost temple will be hit 3 times by a sunken and die. A hellion running by a spine on the edge of any LT natural will be hit once and 4 is needed to kill it. So I thought of something else that may help people understand what I am getting at. The queen is a significant defender's advantage in anti-air situations. I didn't even think about this before. Why is it a defender's advantage? Queens are extremely slow so off creep so you can quickly defend with them at YOUR base but not in the center of the map. They have the same cost and build time of a spine crawler and are already an integral part of your game (spawn larva). Now thanks to piousflea who did some testing a while back LinkShow nested quote +MYTH #7: "Mass Queens are insanely cost-effective anti-air":CONFIRMED
Without any micro or Transfusion, 4 queens (600/0/8) can beat:
- 6 Mutas (600/600/12)
- 3 Banshees (450/300/9)
- 3 Voidrays (750/450/9)
Queens can beat several air units cost for cost even without transfuse and even take up less supply. Now let us say a terran has 6 banshees roaming the map and you decide to engage in the center with 6 hydralisks. Zerg might lose all the hydras and terran gets away with 2 banshees. Now terran later goes into zergs natural with 6 more banshees and sees 3 queens and 3 hydras. With the defensive advantage zerg has, he is able to win the battle cost effectively utilizing an already integral part of his game. This defensive advantage incorporates 2 of the zerg advantages I wrote off as basically useless against ground (queen and creep). However when we talk about anti- air, zerg gets a significant advantage from just being at his base and properly using using a staple part of his race (terran gets repair zergs get queen). Now if that helped anyone understand my point, I want something like that but for ground defense.
You're too focused on unit/structure stats and not focused enough about the actual gameplay.
We know about transfusion and we know that 3 queens and a couple of hydras will kill banshees fairly easily. We also know that queens are a defensive unit meant to stay on the creep. You insist that we buff zerg and/or nerf terran abilities.
Since zerg has the most powerful macro capacity among the three races, why dont you invest some of that macro into zerglings? Scouting his unit composition will give you a huge advantage because now you know what to make to counter the Terran army. With spawn larvae, the amount of time needed to pump drones has gone down. You can start pumping units earlier with less of an economic setback, which was a huge obstacle with BW zerg.
Scouting, reacting, and timing is what Zerg thrives on. First you said zerg had no defensive advantage. Now you claim zerg needs more defensive advantage vs ground. Drones are not the only thing zergs can build. Scout and build units to help defend and stop complaining about how underpowered the structures are. We know what the defender's advantage is. What you're proposing has nothing to do with it. Just because zerg didn't have to build any combat units to defend early game ZvT does not give you an excuse to not scout and build units. With spawn larvae, you have nothing to be complaining about.
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That's MASS reapers vs 1 queen at a time...
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EPT
