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On August 07 2010 02:56 heishe wrote:
the problem is that the other races have many units available with one building, while we have buildings for each specific unit. and even then, we have to tech our main building (hatch/hive) just to enable these buildings. imo the building time of these should be made shorter to compensate.
I feel this too. If Terran gets a Rax with a Techlab, they unlock Reapers which rule over Light units, and Marauders which beat Armored.
Factory with a techlab, Siege tanks for armored, hellions for light, thors for mutalisks.
Zerg has heavy cost for all single-unit techs, plus they each have a neccesary upgrade that's never cheap. Roaches just need the speed for 100/100, Hydras need the 150/150 range, Ultras need the 150/150 armor, Zerglings need the 100/100 speed, Banelings pretty much need the 150/150 speed...
Protoss definitely feels this as well - with the exception of Cy Core and Stargate, each building only unlocks one army unit - and some things like Charge (needed to keep the unit viable) and Psi storm (needed in general) are just no-brainer upgrades that are 200/200.
Terran upgrades that are neccesary are reaper packs, conc shells (50/50), siege mode and stim (100/100). They also have the cheapest tech structures that unlock the most units each... so they get their entire pool of units (minus BC) accessible while Z and P decide which T2 unit they should pick. This ends up making T the best at switching tech and production to react to their opponent's composition. They just don't need that on top of having the best defensive options (and best harass... and best anti-harass).
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To play further off of what Day9 has been talking about, let's look at the "busting units" that allow you to punch through your opponents choke. I am only a platinum 1v1 player, but I spend a lot of time looking at a wide variety of analysis of high level play.
Protoss have the largest variety of options. During the early-mid game, Immortals allow you to do an insane amount of damage while tanking a fair bit of damage. It's a tier 2 unit that can be made very quickly and meshes very nicely with just about any composition. Void Rays, while normally used to attack the mineral line, also provide excellent support if your opponent has heavily fortified ground defenses at the expense of air defense. Like the immortal, it's pretty pricey, but it is a tier 2 unit that can be brought in to help before your opponent has assembled a massive force.
Moving into the late game, colossus really add some flexibility at t3 with their insane range and manuverability and carriers/mothership while not really used at the higher levels, are more than capable of serving in this capacity and we may see them incorporated into more and more builds as strategy evolves.
Terrans strength lies in their insane amount of splash damage. Tanks often make an early appearance at t2 and they can effectively shut down just about any ground force short of t3 aside from immortals if you have a fair amount of them. Missile turrets are the most effective base defense in terms of dps/mineral and the range upgrade lets them take out any air unit pretty effectively aside from brood lords and carriers. Adding some vikings or a thor or two into this mix can effectively eliminate the threat presented by any air unit due to their large range keeping them safe from ground forces.
The Zerg, however, only have Ultras/brood lords which are t3 units requiring an immense amount of time and resources to produce. Zerg have other options to run around these defenses in the early game, but the OP has done a great job of pointing out the weaknesses in these strategies. The fact that a zerg cannot truly take advantage of his larger resources to penetrate a well-defended base until the late game plays a huge part in the frustration felt by Zerg players in what feels like an uphill battle. Our inability to wall off means that the Zerg need to take initiative in order to control where the attack happens but our inability to attack our opponents' main allows them to dictate the pace of the game.
Giving the Zerg some type of terrain abuse (alla reapers or collossus) or some type of t2 threat (perhaps a later upgrade that allows banelings bonus damage to structures) could go a long way to balancing the game. Right now it is just too difficult to capitalize on immobility when a skeleton crew can be left to hold a base long enough for your opponents' main force to return.
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I don't understand why there aren't any pro-level players tinkering around with Nydus Network tactics. I've seen less than a handful of Diamond-level players even try to abuse them, but in all cases, the Zerg mobility (notably the unpredictable hit and run tactics) was too overwhelming to keep up with. My point is that the Nydus Network is a highly underutilized tool that should be explored a little deeper.
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On August 07 2010 16:12 OhJesusWOW wrote:
I don't understand why there aren't any pro-level players tinkering around with Nydus Network tactics. I've seen less than a handful of Diamond-level players even try to abuse them, but in all cases, the Zerg mobility (notably the unpredictable hit and run tactics) was too overwhelming to keep up with. My point is that the Nydus Network is a highly underutilized tool that should be explored a little deeper.
It has been explored plenty deep - it has three serious issues:
1) Good opponents will keep pylons or supply depots on every edge of their base. Once a nydus starts, they have twenty seconds to do 200 damage to it. They can wait until it's halfway through and then send a single marauder on it, or pull 5 SCVs off mining to attack it, or maybe it'll get popped by a nearby siege tank immediately.
2) It takes 200 gas to build and 100 gas to build a worm. That's 300 gas on the gamble that your opponent is clueless enough to not do the above.
3) Units pour through one at a time. It seems like defensive nydus might be a good idea to bring troops across the map quickly, but in most cases it's slower than just walking. If it's in the opponent's base you just can't transport zerglings - they come out way too slowly.
It's not like pro players haven't explored it, they explored it and decided it wasn't very good - then it was nerfed.
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completely agree with Phrost. you don't have to attack through the choke point to kill them. there are just MANY MANY ways to harrass someone when they make a chokepoint and defend that chokepoint. that's why in pro games, yes they do block choke points, but they also really don't do it as much. if someone defends chokepoint, you can get multiple expos and that leads to mass broodlord/corruptors/infestors and that kills workers, messes with unit production, and many more~
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On August 07 2010 16:51 nahk4r wrote:
completely agree with Phrost. you don't have to attack through the choke point to kill them. there are just MANY MANY ways to harrass someone when they make a chokepoint and defend that chokepoint. that's why in pro games, yes they do block choke points, but they also really don't do it as much. if someone defends chokepoint, you can get multiple expos and that leads to mass broodlord/corruptors/infestors and that kills workers, messes with unit production, and many more~
Read the OP
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ZvT was fine in the beta but then..the NP nerf..
In my opinion that's the main reason
Infestor isn't being used at all
FG is nice against bio
infested terrans are nice for harrass but that alone isn't worth the gas
Just my 2cent
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On August 07 2010 16:24 fdsdfg wrote:
It has been explored plenty deep - it has three serious issues:
1) Good opponents will keep pylons or supply depots on every edge of their base. Once a nydus starts, they have twenty seconds to do 200 damage to it. They can wait until it's halfway through and then send a single marauder on it, or pull 5 SCVs off mining to attack it, or maybe it'll get popped by a nearby siege tank immediately.
2) It takes 200 gas to build and 100 gas to build a worm. That's 300 gas on the gamble that your opponent is clueless enough to not do the above.
3) Units pour through one at a time. It seems like defensive nydus might be a good idea to bring troops across the map quickly, but in most cases it's slower than just walking. If it's in the opponent's base you just can't transport zerglings - they come out way too slowly.
It's not like pro players haven't explored it, they explored it and decided it wasn't very good - then it was nerfed.
That is true. I actually meant utilizing the Nydus Network outside of the opponent's base as a means to quickly dodge and dip between expansions without compromising resources lost on units - 300 gas won't seem so bad if it offers your army they safety net. I've seen them used successfully like this way a few times (these are the matches I was referring to in my previous post), where the Zerg had his Network all over the map in random places. He was impressive. He used the network to transfer drones to his expos in seconds, likewise, he could evacuate his expansions just as fast when danger or loss was eminent. And most impressive, was the little things he would do with his queens, sending them in and out of the networks in between larva spawning to drop down creep tumors and slather the entire map with creep. I'm referring to one match in particular, and the entire thing seemed improvised, but it was still pretty damaging.
Anyways, I understand some of the set back and concerns are involved with worms, and I wish their build time was treated more like burrow (as in, a detector would be needed to see it until it sprouted), but alas, I hope someone finds a way to utilize them creatively.
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On August 03 2010 10:42 obsid wrote:
Sad but true, this ends up causing the zerg player to mass expand, all over the place, get a 200/200 army, then wait till he has enough min/gas to replace his entire army then quickly attack/drop lose his entire force, and rebuild it 20 sec latter, and reattack. Only from the almost 400 food he can get from mass larva does he stand a chance at the end game (other then maybe broodlords). Really one of the only ways (other then maybe broodlords) of killing off a good turtling terran that can get 2/3 bases.
It's like you're saying exploiting weakness is not how you should win a game. There has to be an easy way to beat someone who turtles and is highly immobile instead of expanding, right?
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Is it really that bad?
I mean I've read about this since beta, and I am a Terran player so I've been thinking a lot "bah, just overcome it, you probably haven't figured out the right way yet." But it seems it's still 'unbeatable' with a little skill to add.
I'm not going to try to play Zerg because I hate slime, but I have trouble understanding still why you couldn't bust Mech prior to it becoming 200/200.
I'm currently experementing with bio vs Zerg due to the instawin I get once I show a thor (Zerg players tend to get nervous and make loads of misstakes once you guys have realized I went Mech).
I feel that if I get interrupted while moving my army as Mech I get steamrolled by roaches that are burrowed smart even IF I have a raven, since lings/ultra/hydra or broodlord will attack me from another front.
I can't wait for the Koreans to start countering mech - it's not fun to jsut do hellion - thor - tank every TvZ I get :b
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Ah i finally read the OP from the beginning to the end word for word.
but my point still stands that... (well i haven't played zerg since sc1 but...) no zerg really harasses me until they get out a large large force on my choke point... i see that as a problem for the zerg not only because well zerg's units are much cheaper, and because once terran or protoss has a variety of units well.. it's much harder for zerg to kill them off.
also massive zerglings with their two upgrades in spawning pool is very very very strong
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On August 07 2010 19:05 mikkelinen wrote:
Is it really that bad?
I mean I've read about this since beta, and I am a Terran player so I've been thinking a lot "bah, just overcome it, you probably haven't figured out the right way yet." But it seems it's still 'unbeatable' with a little skill to add.
I'm not going to try to play Zerg because I hate slime, but I have trouble understanding still why you couldn't bust Mech prior to it becoming 200/200.
I'm currently experementing with bio vs Zerg due to the instawin I get once I show a thor (Zerg players tend to get nervous and make loads of misstakes once you guys have realized I went Mech).
I feel that if I get interrupted while moving my army as Mech I get steamrolled by roaches that are burrowed smart even IF I have a raven, since lings/ultra/hydra or broodlord will attack me from another front.
I can't wait for the Koreans to start countering mech - it's not fun to just do hellion - thor - tank every TvZ I get :b
Just had a ZvT that I actually won when the opponent went mech. I was on 4-5 bases to his 2 and still had to wait for him to move out for a third (I was sitting on 200/200 for 5 minutes knowing damn well that attacking would lose me the game). When he moved out I lost my 200/200 to kill most of his army (he had 4-5 tanks left) and won because I could remake 11 ultras and 60 zerglings instantly where he was locked to 2 bases and only remade a relatively small army.
Note that I still lost 7 of the second wave of ultras before getting through because he had a base full of buildings with siege tanks in the back (and surrounded by turrets so mutas weren't an option).
What it came down to at the end is that I had 6000 more resources lost, 9000 more gathered and a 3000 larger army when he gged with almost nothing left.
Note that in this game I did hit him with a delayed baneling bust and completely shut down his harassment (I think he dropped one of my bases and traded 2 medivacs and everyone in there for a hatch and 5-6 drones). I had him out-upgraded (I was 3-1-3 I believe to his 1 mech attack).
So using a theoretical counter (roach ling ultra vs thor/tank with a few marines hellions and marauders) in a relatively open space (open natural on Delta Quadrant, he was trying to expand to his natural as a 3rd, I had ultras from the right and left with ling and burrowed roaches hitting the front) with a much larger army, I still took 2 to 1 losses. In the meantime the turrets and wall in buildings (he had a wall 3 layers deep after my baneling bust) cost him no population. In fact where our turrets cost us 150 minerals and a larva, his cost 75 minerals and do extremely well against mutas.
Earlier I had an opponent apologize ... apparently his first Terran game (mid-diamond level toss player, I checked afterwards), he had just gone straight up thors on Xel Naga caverns, I had him contained, ran in 50 zerglings to the expansion and 10-15 mutas to the main (I was running 2 bases getting a 3rd up). I killed all (every single one) of his scvs. He took his thor/marine marauder medivac mix, hit 1a and annihilated every troop I had and my main and natural. The marines died to banelings, the marauders tanked a lot of lings and the thors just killed everything. He was still getting reinforcements because he had accidentally let his macro slip (first time Terran) and just made 4-5 mules and what scvs he could to keep up his econ.
I honestly have no idea what zerg can do against 4+thors together with minimal support. They seem to cost efficiently destroy everything except broodlords (and maybe ultras if the tank marauder count is low and they are out of position) and by the time broodlords pop they have viking support.
Maybe a Terran player can give us a solution that involves "I hope he doesn't scan my roach/ultra" or "I hope he just forgot to make vikings or attack before the late game".
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I had an hour long ZvT match today on that Xel'naga caverns map. I got the lead by getting a fairly quick expo while holding off his initial MM push, then got a 3rd up. I pushed on his natural when I just put down my 4th, with a ling hydra muta mix, but he had a PF, tanks and an ungodly amount of turrets. So naturally I mass expand and eventually take every other expo. I contain him until I tech up to Brood Lords. I then find out that it is just impossible to break a hard turtling Terran as Zerg. Brood Lords have 9.5 range while Vikings have 10 and Thors have 10 with splash. I even out numbered him with corrupters vs. vikings but they are only range 6 and turrets are 7 so he would just fall back to behind all his turrets while picking off the BL(which are so damn slow you can't pull the back fast enough), I then try pushing with roach/ultra and they just melt to the tanks when they are behind buildings and on cliffs where you cannot get to them...
I eventually won after an hour of denying him expansions (he only had 3 bases, 2 for most of the game), and each time I pushed I almost lost because he would just push back with whatever was left and take out an expo or two before I could stop him. Truth be told if he didn't suck I probably would have lost. He eventually made one final counter push that I barely held of and said "well im out of money gg". So the morale of the story is the turtling Terrans decide when the game is over.
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On August 07 2010 19:05 mikkelinen wrote:
Is it really that bad?
I mean I've read about this since beta, and I am a Terran player so I've been thinking a lot "bah, just overcome it, you probably haven't figured out the right way yet." But it seems it's still 'unbeatable' with a little skill to add.
I'm not going to try to play Zerg because I hate slime, but I have trouble understanding still why you couldn't bust Mech prior to it becoming 200/200.
I'm currently experementing with bio vs Zerg due to the instawin I get once I show a thor (Zerg players tend to get nervous and make loads of misstakes once you guys have realized I went Mech).
I feel that if I get interrupted while moving my army as Mech I get steamrolled by roaches that are burrowed smart even IF I have a raven, since lings/ultra/hydra or broodlord will attack me from another front.
I can't wait for the Koreans to start countering mech - it's not fun to jsut do hellion - thor - tank every TvZ I get :b
So you assert that you personally cannot see anything wrong with ZvT as a matchup, whilst also saying that ZvT is boring because all you do is make mech and its instawin. Excellent.
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I haven't played a whole lot of 1v1's so maybe I shouldn't comment, but I'm a mid-plat zerg player and vs T so far(4-5 games) I've basically stuck with lings all game and the second he moves, swarmed him. Even while tanks are sieged, with mech support, the lings can make it to the tanks while he's on the move(spread out a little). I send in my BLs/mutas to draw mech fire then send in the lings right after, making sure they swarm everything. I keep seeing hydras mentioned in this thread and personally I don't see the reason for hydras vs an all-ground army.
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I agree almost completely with the OP, but one question remain:
In a game where Idra defeated TLO in a ZvT where TLO was on 4 bases with a 5th going up at the crucial moment, Idra managed to literally outmicro the terran with corrupter/ broodlords. Now, of course, Vikings have insane range, but during that replay it seemed you can kind of go toe to toe. Perhaps idra is just too good, but it shows some possibility of breaking T mech with mass air. I'm sure there are reasons why this might not actually work as well as that match implied, can you explain this, Sheth?
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In my experience, the issue isn't so much when you've got 4-5 bases up and running and hive tech. To some extent, you can break a turtle by throwing waves of units (ultra + ling, BL + corrupter) at it, dropping on top of the tanks at a choke, etc.
It's just that you have to survive up to that point for a chance to win the game.
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from my experiance in the ZvT matchup, i only beat terran mech when i severely 'outplay' my opponent. whenever i have played terran players who scan my base seeing a spire then pushing because its safe to assume im saving minerals and gas for muta harass. whilst make two turrets at their base to completely protect them unless i have like 10 mutas (1k minrals and gas right there ah no thanks) then steam rolling my base with A move.
alot of T players in complete ignorance at this problem would simply say "use mobility suround burrow and kill me" the problem is how? when your army is attacking MY choke with your insane tank range lack of back door options and the risk of losing the game right there the only thing i have left to do is a move into your army and hope for the best. Burrowed roaches work once in a game, and only once against a competant player. and require two LENGTHY upgrades to make viable, and since i spent gas on mutas its likely i wont have the gas to get those upgrades when i need it.
resulting with the zerg player gging and moving on to hopefully another game with out T mech.
although i have had success with delayed baneling busts. not so much all ins but enough to wipe out most the mid game army to give me more time to tech, although however when the mid game push comes i still find my self having to drop banelings on their army whilst moving roaches under their army, surrounding with zerglings and setting up baneling traps. honestly it all seems a little over the top for me to use EVERYTHING i have invested so far in the game to just HALT your mid game push. and after the fight if i win, i have actually lost. even when zerg beats that push, we have lost almost all our units and have to rebuild it where you can take your expo safetly cause your lovely ability to turtle up.
last i recalled the way things should run is, if i hold off your push i can expo, yet atm its zerg going, shit hold this off rebuild army then expo. terran just goes, a move then expo, if i lose just turtle till im ready again. and since there is a lack of units from zerg that can break a turtling terrans line (bar what one unit thats t3 and doesnt comeout till its pretty much near the end of the game?) terran is not worried in the slightest, just move the line to the expo and bam lets have a smoke.
i apologise it it seems a bit to QQ rage whiny, i find ZvT an extreme uphill battle for zerg unless your obviously the better player, or the terran goes bio. in which case i yell THANK FKING GOD!!!
although i disagree that the matchup is a lost cause, though there does have to be a change to one of the following.
either larger wide maps just to help zergs cause, nothing extreme but with the current choke gameplay style maps atm, its terrans that are profiting to much.
a slight terran nerf for thor, not so much the AA, i have no problem against thor beating mutas, its just the fact that thors beat mutas AND does 60 damage over two volleys against ground, when the immortal a PURELY ANTI ARMOURED unit does 50 to armoured units. perhaps a reduction to 20 damage a shot for thors, 40 damage a volley is still a bit, and it would allow my roaches just a slightly bit more survive ability. and that way it wont be anti everything but rather support, again im not preaching this change just suggestions.
OR a slight change to zerg, such as increase the cost to build a nydus at base by say 50 minrals and gas, BUT let it cost nothing to pop up somewhere, that way its not a huge investment to have it shut down by scvs or 1 maruader OR the ability to make it spawn SEVERAL mouths, each costing 50 more minerals and gas then the predecessor. just suggestions dont flame me for my ideas T.T
i dont know, something has to be changed, even just something slight. RAAAAAAGE over.
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Someone mentioned that the Hatch was only 300, except its 300+ 50 for drone + the opportunity cost of that drone mining. Which depending how far you have to send it, its not really an advantage at all. Oh I forgot you also have to sacrifice a larva which has an opportunity cost of making any other unit.
I've been playing Z all beta and now live. And my biggest beef has to be the tech times. As the 'swarming' race, it feels like I should be able to pop out my spawning pool faster than a gateway or a rax, and start swarming. Because my units don't have range, don't have shields and I need 2x as many of them to kill anything.
Of course the classic example is the Spire. 100 second build time is a joke. After forcing you to wait for Lair. Compared to the 50 second build time of a Starport down a completely linear build path.
And if you want to get Brood Lords, well you need a greater spire. And not only does that require Hive, money, and a lot more time. But if you lose your greater spire, you lose the ability to produce every air unit. And if you dare to rebuild it, you now need to live for 3:20 with what you had or can now make. And just hope to god your current strat didn't revolve around that tech to much. Compared to if a Terran loses a starport or a starports tech lab, he can just swap with another buildings tech lab or pop up another starport in 50 seconds and then tech lab swap.
I agree with the OP. And a lot of whats said. But I just don't feel swarmy with the amount of time it takes to tech. Oh and the fact that Zerg have less offensive units than any other race is ridiculous. Zerg are THE aggressor race. Lore backs that up.
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@ topic: 100% signed.
lets just hope that blizzard will hear us 
i think, the thousands of roach nerfs let us end up like this.
cause for now, there is nothing you can to from midgame on to push into the terran, you will just die.
well, that is sth the roache was reated for....
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EPT
