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On August 03 2010 22:12 BalanceFx wrote:
Zerg seem to be the least forgiving in terms of making a mistake. Lose 4 Zerglings too early? That could be game.
Both Toss and Terran can wall off to a large degree zerg are generally wide open. On top of that their base defenses are laughably easy to deal with/avoid. I am not sure what's wrong with zerg but seems like something is missing.
That's their race though. They're wide open. And creep and queens could be argued to be very effective defensively, especially against air.
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On August 03 2010 19:05 luckySe7en wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 10:19 Sheth wrote:
For those of you not familiar with SC1, Dark swarm allowed all zerg units burrowed underneath the area it was cast on to not take damage.
so... who, specifically, are you saying is unfamiliar with SC1?
SC2 is my first RTS, and I had no idea what Dark Swarm was and appreciated Sheth saying what it was because I've seen people talk about it before but really had no idea what it was. I'm sure I'm not the only person who didn't know what it was.
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On August 03 2010 10:29 Saracen wrote:
[...]In order to play aggressively and harass, you need some kind of fallback defense or else the opposing player can just ignore the harass and roll over you. [...]
Quoting myself from the other thread:
[...] The reason is that while I'm busying attacking his base with my army, he simply rushes straight into mine and can kill it faster since I have no units like the defiler or the lurker to help delay for my overlords that move slow as sin or my nydus worm that's leisurely pooping out a unit at a time.[...]
Saracen, I thought of an idea but I can't really test it since i'm at work. In this context you're describing, couldnt a few infestors (2-3) positioned at your base be able to delay at least reasonably an incoming attack by casting a few fungal growth in quick succession (I'm thinking 2 or 3 well placed Fungal growth, then re-cast after its 6 second duration should delay by 12-18 seconds the bulk of his army)
But... is 12-18 seconds enough 
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On August 03 2010 23:10 hottchix.hottchix wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 19:05 luckySe7en wrote:On August 03 2010 10:19 Sheth wrote:
For those of you not familiar with SC1, Dark swarm allowed all zerg units burrowed underneath the area it was cast on to not take damage.
so... who, specifically, are you saying is unfamiliar with SC1? SC2 is my first RTS, and I had no idea what Dark Swarm was and appreciated Sheth saying what it was because I've seen people talk about it before but really had no idea what it was. I'm sure I'm not the only person who didn't know what it was.
I think what's pointing is that Sheth's description of Dark Swarm is completely wrong. It blocked all incoming direct damage on units underneath it, I don't know why he said "burrowed" units. However splash damage can still hit, so siege tanks can technically kill things under swarm, Firebats can kill anything under swarm, etc.
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On August 03 2010 23:18 FTemplar wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 10:29 Saracen wrote:
[...]In order to play aggressively and harass, you need some kind of fallback defense or else the opposing player can just ignore the harass and roll over you. [...]
Quoting myself from the other thread:
[...] The reason is that while I'm busying attacking his base with my army, he simply rushes straight into mine and can kill it faster since I have no units like the defiler or the lurker to help delay for my overlords that move slow as sin or my nydus worm that's leisurely pooping out a unit at a time.[...]
Saracen, I thought of an idea but I can't really test it since i'm at work. In this context you're describing, couldnt a few infestors (2-3) positioned at your base be able to delay at least reasonably an incoming attack by casting a few fungal growth in quick succession (I'm thinking 2 or 3 well placed Fungal growth, then re-cast after its 6 second duration should delay by 12-18 seconds the bulk of his army) But... is 12-18 seconds enough
I think TLO, playing as Zerg, did something exactly like this once. It worked rather well.
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On August 03 2010 23:25 MythicalMage wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 23:18 FTemplar wrote:On August 03 2010 10:29 Saracen wrote:
[...]In order to play aggressively and harass, you need some kind of fallback defense or else the opposing player can just ignore the harass and roll over you. [...]
Quoting myself from the other thread:
[...] The reason is that while I'm busying attacking his base with my army, he simply rushes straight into mine and can kill it faster since I have no units like the defiler or the lurker to help delay for my overlords that move slow as sin or my nydus worm that's leisurely pooping out a unit at a time.[...]
Saracen, I thought of an idea but I can't really test it since i'm at work. In this context you're describing, couldnt a few infestors (2-3) positioned at your base be able to delay at least reasonably an incoming attack by casting a few fungal growth in quick succession (I'm thinking 2 or 3 well placed Fungal growth, then re-cast after its 6 second duration should delay by 12-18 seconds the bulk of his army) But... is 12-18 seconds enough I think TLO, playing as Zerg, did something exactly like this once. It worked rather well.
Oooo. Now i'm feeling all smart and stuff. 
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I just have to agree.
I had been playing a lot of TvZ lately, and hellion harrass was a definite weak point in my game. So, I was getting into the habit of 1 basing, getting a couple roaches and then expanding.
I played a game, where I shut down the initial hellion harrass fairly early and I was in good shape. I then expanded and sac'd an ov to see what I was in for. I caught 2 raxes and a factory before my OV was killed. I started my lair and just as it was finishing I get hit with 2 cloaked banshees. It's now impossible to recover.
So, general zerg vs terran play goes like this.
1. drone up.
2. Ling speed or early roach
3. Try to survive reaper, or hellion harrass.
4. Scout
5. worry and prepare for MM timing push
6. worry about banshee harrass
7. deny expansions
8. mass expand
9. wait until he pushes out and hope you can take out his army.
If you make any mistake in 2-7 you lose. Zerg really has no ability to be aggressive. Muta harrass doesn't really count because it's shut down after the initial harrass and it will take much, much longer for muta's to decimate your drone count then 2 banshees. (and we don't have cloak)
Things that I've found that are absolutely essential are
a) having glial reconstitution for roaches and having some 2-3 roaches in every mineral line to fend off hellion harrass at expos
b) being ahead in upgrades
c) trying to hide any tech that you can. HARD tech switches have been the only reliable way for me to to win this matchup. I generally go muta/speedling in the mid game and then save up a bunch of larvae while I try to harrass / dance around the front door to force a different composition and then switch to heavy mass roach with tunneling claws. If the T scans the switch before he pushes, it's pretty much gg though.
Also, it's interesting that Browder said the Lurker does not fit this game. I believe there was some discussion about it being overpowered because of new unit pathing and the clumping. However, there seems to be no problem with the way hellions completely nullify lings (with preigniter) or the way thors completely nullify muta with their splash damage?
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On August 03 2010 18:46 Pabs wrote:
Protoss and Terran have trouble attacking a turtling Terran position as well. I don't quite feel qualified to tell someone like Sheth that they need to change their strategy against T; but there it is... There are posts on TL every day from new players that wonder why their army gets owned every time they try to force the front door. They generally get the same answer... Expand and
Take advantage of Terran immobility. I really don't see a different answer for Sheth.
You bring up an interesting point, let me explain.
Terran 1 against Terran 2, Terran 1 is turtled up. Terran 2 now expands more and gets more vikings and tanks. With the viking range he can push back opposing vikings at the top of the cliff, thus denying line of sight to his tanks which are free to bombard. Scans are an obvious delaying tactic from the defender but are limited whereas the viking sight is not due to superior economy.
Terran against Zerg, Terran is turtled up. Zerg now expands like a madman and gets 200/200 army only to discover that he can not push because his opponent outranges him with every unit. He can not drop in or nydus due to a few well placed turrets and a some vikings. He can not rely on broodlords due to vikings as well. He can not kill the vikings because they sit right over siege tanks and thors which also massively outrange any units zerg can bring out. So the Zerg sits on 200/200, accumulates a ton of resources he can not use and waits for the Terran to hit his 200/200 and push out. The zerg then has to hope the Terran player makes a mistake and loses the initial battle (which is already unlikely). Then you need to quickly rebuild the army and hope the terran didn't have a thor and a couple tanks left behind to stop counter attacks.
Terran against protoss, Terran is turtled. The protoss has access to units like the immortal which can actually take a round or two of tank fire, the zealot which with charge is essentially a 3 in one speedling (and when there is a limited front, the 3 in 1 is very important). The Terran player still needs vikings to stop void rays which otherwise will overrun him as badly as broodlords would (with the exception that void rays can fly in fast and get away if needed). If there is any gap a warp prism can be used to deploy protoss troops immediately (much much faster than the Nydus in a late game situation with 10 gates). Stalkers can also just blink up, effectively closing the distance and negating range and high ground advantages. I am not saying that the protoss have an easy time of it, but they have more tools at their disposal than the zerg.
The basic reason is that zerg have fewer units (7 that can attack ground plus infestor and corruptor) and of those 7, we have:
-a basic flyer (with the shortest range for a flyer)
-3 basic melee attackers (roaches are essentially melee, range 5-6 is required to get a good concave from the bottom of a ramp)
-one suicidal unit that is only good against a couple of the opponent's (marines, zealots, hellions if they are silly enough to be in range)
-one generic all purposed ranged attacker with no special ability
-the broodlord, which is horrendously expensive and only attacks ground
So there are a few things to note from that list:
-Zerg have 2 units with interesting abilities (infestor and broodlord) which can be used to spawn more units and seem swarmy. Compare this to concussive shell, cliff jumping, sieging, thor guns, ravens, viking changes, repairing on all mechanical, orbital commands ...
-Zerg have the most melee units in the game as well as the fewest units overall. In fact we have fully 2 units that can attack air and ground (compared to 4 for Terran and 4 for protoss).
-Zerg have the shortest range in the game with their units that can attack air or both (hydras and corruptors get beaten by carriers, vikings and thors and tied with most others, mutas are just bottom of the pile).
-Zerg is the only race with no tier 3 that can attack air (compared to 2 for Terran and 1 for protoss).
The overall conclusion being that Zerg have both the fewest units and the least versatile ones, which leads to Zerg wins invariably being a lot of macro and 1a2a3a which is boring to play with or against. The fact is you can't micro zerglings or hydras like you can micro with stim or blink.
Another thing to note is that Zerg players have explored all of their units (and in some detail). If Terran or Toss have a problem there are still units with unexplored potential like the Carrier or BC (as KOTB showed). On the other hand Zerg just have one more unit that attacks ground well, gets choked up and gets owned by some common unit in the Terran arsenal.
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Ugh. I wish there was some sort of upgrades for zerglings around hive tech other than adrenal glands. Making Adrenal glands lair tech then adding a hive tech upgrade like:
Brood Flesh Armor:
Reduces damage of splash attacks by 80%
Hp is increased by 10.
Multiplies HP regen when burrowed by 2.
This will force a terran to not rely on splash damage as much, you'll be able to actually threaten him in a head on fight, and zerglings will then be more effective mid game and late game. This doesn't effect protoss as much, because the splash units they have are...well...Archons! The collossi's lazer wouldn't effect the Armor on the zerglings, and the HP increase would let the zerglings get into range. Also, burrowing zerglings during a fight would regen health extremely quickly, and give zerg a CHANCE to micro and use their skills to overcome their opponent.
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On August 03 2010 23:57 TLOBrian wrote:
Ugh. I wish there was some sort of upgrades for zerglings around hive tech other than adrenal glands. Making Adrenal glands lair tech then adding a hive tech upgrade like:
Brood Flesh Armor:
Reduces damage of splash attacks by 80%
Hp is increased by 10.
Multiplies HP regen when burrowed by 2.
This will force a terran to not rely on splash damage as much, you'll be able to actually threaten him in a head on fight, and zerglings will then be more effective mid game and late game. This doesn't effect protoss as much, because the splash units they have are...well...Archons! The collossi's lazer wouldn't effect the Armor on the zerglings, and the HP increase would let the zerglings get into range. Also, burrowing zerglings during a fight would regen health extremely quickly, and give zerg a CHANCE to micro and use their skills to overcome their opponent.
That would still only help late game. It's the early and mid game that are the real problem imo.
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United States2095 Posts
On August 03 2010 23:24 floor exercise wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 23:10 hottchix.hottchix wrote:On August 03 2010 19:05 luckySe7en wrote:On August 03 2010 10:19 Sheth wrote:
For those of you not familiar with SC1, Dark swarm allowed all zerg units burrowed underneath the area it was cast on to not take damage.
so... who, specifically, are you saying is unfamiliar with SC1? SC2 is my first RTS, and I had no idea what Dark Swarm was and appreciated Sheth saying what it was because I've seen people talk about it before but really had no idea what it was. I'm sure I'm not the only person who didn't know what it was. I think what's pointing is that Sheth's description of Dark Swarm is completely wrong. It blocked all incoming direct damage on units underneath it, I don't know why he said "burrowed" units. However splash damage can still hit, so siege tanks can technically kill things under swarm, Firebats can kill anything under swarm, etc.
Sorry, I just gave a basic definition of what it was. If you want to be completely correct it blocks all ranged damage to units underneath the "swarm" except for splash damage from say tanks or firebats. Melee units will still be able to attack underneath it. However with many zerglings and lurkers it was often impossible for melee units to get in range to attack these ranged lurkers. Also the splash damage wouldn't affect any unit that was burrowed if it was under the swarm. Then you would need a spell such as Irradiate or a melee unit to hit the lurkers in their burrowed state. Hope thats a bit more correct for ya!
Anyway for all of the people telling me that I should just turtle up and expand, theres a major problem with this. As you can see from some of my games vs. Morrow and QXC they can just slowly take a whole side of the map. If a T takes 4/5 bases and a Z takes 4/5 bases and they simply wait for the minerals to run out the T will always win, because his units are more economical and I could only attack in a choke. That's why I feel like its important we have an ability to push forward a little bit with an attack and at the least be able to stop mining.
Overseer's do not stop PF's anymore.
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On August 03 2010 23:25 MythicalMage wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 23:18 FTemplar wrote:On August 03 2010 10:29 Saracen wrote:
[...]In order to play aggressively and harass, you need some kind of fallback defense or else the opposing player can just ignore the harass and roll over you. [...]
Quoting myself from the other thread:
[...] The reason is that while I'm busying attacking his base with my army, he simply rushes straight into mine and can kill it faster since I have no units like the defiler or the lurker to help delay for my overlords that move slow as sin or my nydus worm that's leisurely pooping out a unit at a time.[...]
Saracen, I thought of an idea but I can't really test it since i'm at work. In this context you're describing, couldnt a few infestors (2-3) positioned at your base be able to delay at least reasonably an incoming attack by casting a few fungal growth in quick succession (I'm thinking 2 or 3 well placed Fungal growth, then re-cast after its 6 second duration should delay by 12-18 seconds the bulk of his army) But... is 12-18 seconds enough I think TLO, playing as Zerg, did something exactly like this once. It worked rather well.
The thing is, TLO did use it to delay, but he wasn't harassing with his army or anything, he had his army camped at his expo, and he was fungal growthing the T's stuff to weaken it before the fight really.
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On August 04 2010 00:14 Chriamon wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 23:25 MythicalMage wrote:On August 03 2010 23:18 FTemplar wrote:On August 03 2010 10:29 Saracen wrote:
[...]In order to play aggressively and harass, you need some kind of fallback defense or else the opposing player can just ignore the harass and roll over you. [...]
Quoting myself from the other thread:
[...] The reason is that while I'm busying attacking his base with my army, he simply rushes straight into mine and can kill it faster since I have no units like the defiler or the lurker to help delay for my overlords that move slow as sin or my nydus worm that's leisurely pooping out a unit at a time.[...]
Saracen, I thought of an idea but I can't really test it since i'm at work. In this context you're describing, couldnt a few infestors (2-3) positioned at your base be able to delay at least reasonably an incoming attack by casting a few fungal growth in quick succession (I'm thinking 2 or 3 well placed Fungal growth, then re-cast after its 6 second duration should delay by 12-18 seconds the bulk of his army) But... is 12-18 seconds enough I think TLO, playing as Zerg, did something exactly like this once. It worked rather well. The thing is, TLO did use it to delay, but he wasn't harassing with his army or anything, he had his army camped at his expo, and he was fungal growthing the T's stuff to weaken it before the fight really.
It's still really cool! XDD
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On August 03 2010 23:29 FTemplar wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 23:25 MythicalMage wrote:On August 03 2010 23:18 FTemplar wrote:On August 03 2010 10:29 Saracen wrote:
[...]In order to play aggressively and harass, you need some kind of fallback defense or else the opposing player can just ignore the harass and roll over you. [...]
Quoting myself from the other thread:
[...] The reason is that while I'm busying attacking his base with my army, he simply rushes straight into mine and can kill it faster since I have no units like the defiler or the lurker to help delay for my overlords that move slow as sin or my nydus worm that's leisurely pooping out a unit at a time.[...]
Saracen, I thought of an idea but I can't really test it since i'm at work. In this context you're describing, couldnt a few infestors (2-3) positioned at your base be able to delay at least reasonably an incoming attack by casting a few fungal growth in quick succession (I'm thinking 2 or 3 well placed Fungal growth, then re-cast after its 6 second duration should delay by 12-18 seconds the bulk of his army) But... is 12-18 seconds enough I think TLO, playing as Zerg, did something exactly like this once. It worked rather well. Oooo. Now i'm feeling all smart and stuff.
This can be easily stopped by a few ghosts (2-3) positioned in front of the army to snipe the infestors. In all seriousness, spending so much gas (300-450) to delay a small portion of his army (think fungal AoE in comparison to terran unit size) for a few seconds isn't going to do much and will only weaken your standing army.
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Yeah, iirc, in the position TLO was in, he had the infestors, but his army was elsewhere or something and he was stalling. It's not a part of standard play, but it's another option, I guess.
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I think this is a very valid point for OP. And even fdsfdg whom I otherwise think post quite whiny threads.
Terran just have so many options to end the game throughout the early and mid game, and if it fails, Like 2 banshees built that killed 1-2 drones only, they still haven't lost by a long shot, they will get their 2nd and turtle to 200 food. When the final battle comes Z is still at a disadvantage in that fight. If T can get some marauders into our expansion like I watched a replay between mardow vs and3ad and snipe a vital tech or a hatch during the big fight then Z will have a hard hard time getting back into the game.
But Im still only lower diamond I do not expect to know more then most ppl here.
Z did win the KOTB. So Z has the potential. But it isn't that fun having to wait the entire game for opponent to attack and then hope you come out on top or that you can rebuild quick enough. I DO think that sheth or someone else that has more insight should post a detailed well analyzed post on blizz forums to get attention to this. I'm not saying nerf T or P or buff Z. But a few changes would be welcome so that we can somehow have the option to assault our opponents base. Either by giving us better defense or better ability to fight in chokes.
I'm not talking about early game cause obviously we need to be on the defensive here and we have our macro advantage and should be punished for using this to much and P and T should be able to punish us in many different ways. But once we reach late mid game and early end game drone production is almost irrelevant. At this point we need to be able to defend as the other races are, we need to be able to attack as the other races are. And BL and ultra is not good enough in this aspect. They are good enough to make that end 200/200 battle even though. But thats not my concern. We should be able to assault T or Ps base when we reach 200/200 having had superior macro whole game, but if we do this we give away the win. We must fight in the open or at our base / creep to win.
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I really have to wonder, though... against a really good Terran player who scouts actively and is reactive to your responses, how viable are Zerg options?
For example, one option is mutalisk harassment in an effort to contain the Terran to his natural. That's 200/200 for a spire which takes more than a minute to build, and then a hefty amount of gas -- they better do a lot of damage considering that, as a poster said above me, Terran can respond and fend them off using only minerals if he wants.
Burrowed roaches take a lot of resources as well -- movement speed upgrade, tunneling claws upgrade, the burrow upgrade itself... those are 3 different upgrades, at a total cost of 350/350, ostensibly to counter the siege mode upgrade of 100/100. That's a much bigger investment.
The same is probably true of using drops on the tank line (100/100 for speed, 200/200 for transport). Even if the cost of employing multiple options wasn't so prohibitive, most of these upgrades can't be done simultaneously. You're probably not on 3 bases yet, so you need to decide whether your hatcheries are researching burrow, making queens or overlord upgrades. Your roach warren can't get speed and burrow-move at the same time, so you need to prepare and choose your response far, far in advance.
You really only have the resources to employ one without slowing down your T3 and your third/fourth expansion. I've been using mutalisks for ease of use, but they're ultimately the least reliable because they fold to marines, turrets and thors. You can attack his economy but not his army.
Burrowed roaches can contain him until he gets a raven. Assuming he doesn't already have the tech for it, that might make the contain longer -- and roaches are useful as a main army unit too. However, it's risky -- one lucky scan and you're boned. Also, you can't harass him with it, so you can't slow down his economy. It's effectively the opposite of a muta opening.
I'd say the most reliable counter is banelings/roaches with overlord drops. It'll force him to build vikings, I guess? I've never had much success with it (again, I usually open mutalisk), but theoretically you could hit his army and his economy with it, so it could be a bigger threat.
If I've missed anything, let me know. I'm always open to expanding my toolbox, especially when it comes to countering mech.
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The problem with zerg is not that they cant push through terrans choke, and sc1 is irrelevant. Protoss could not do it in sc1 either and not only vs terran but vs zerg as well and they lived somehow. The fact that something is different from sc1 doesn't make it automatically bad or imbalanced.
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On August 04 2010 03:14 Cheerio wrote:
The problem with zerg is not that they cant push through terrans choke, and sc1 is irrelevant. Protoss could not do it in sc1 either and not only vs terran but vs zerg as well and they lived somehow. The fact that something is different from sc1 doesn't make it automatically bad or imbalanced.
Protoss couldn't do it in sc1 and the matchup was even. Zerg COULD do it in sc1 and the matchup was even. Now Zerg can't do it. SC1 trends don't mean anything to SC2, but the comparison is there if you don't want to get into the detailed mechanics of why zerg can't do it now and what it means for the game. Fortunately the OP provided both the comparison and details of what it means to not be able to break a choke.
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Bah I get so annoying when people say "abuse immobility of the tech army".
What immobility? On most maps the Terran player can defend 1-2 expansions and barely move his army. Actually attacking is just a few steps away..
I feel like half the imbalance is the map design. Open maps with larger distances to the expansions would make harassing much easier with a mobile army.
Another really annoying thing is how expensive it is to go for several tactics. If I want OL drop with banelings + burrow roaches + ling speed I will use forever to make an army to actually use it with. The curse of Zerg seems to be that they can make several units at a time, thus the tech is very expensive making the race inflexible.
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EPT
