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I did some testing in unit tester - 4 marauders can kill 3 spine crawlers if they engage one at a time. On most maps, when setting up static D to defend your natural, you cannot place them in a position where they can't be attacked one at a time - them being only 1 range longer than Marauders and 2 units wide.
The only time you CAN set them up is against a choke - but Zerg wants to engage in the open, doesn't it? On a map like Blistering Sands, if you set up your spine crawlers to attack them while they're in the choke, then you're forefitting the advantage of speedlings and roaches - his longer range units will all be firing all at the same time and you'll be lining up to take your shots.
The only time Spine crawlers seem worth their salt is against low count Reaper or Hellion harass - but it's very expensive for something that loses its worth almost instantly.
So if the only time you can use spine crawlers effectively against an army is in a choke and that invalidates your army.. then you have to make a choice - where do I want to engage the enemy? Or, more importantly, which do I want to defend with, static D or my army?
Going by the fact that this choice only exists on natural-choked maps, and on open maps I am simply forced to fight in the open without the help of Static D, then I'm inclined to say the latter.
Thoughts?
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Spine crawlers are really a must have against hellions.
If the terran doesn't make hellions, I only build some of them in the mid/late game to defend my expos against drops (if you don't have spine crawlers against hellion drop you are really dead).
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Spine crawlers also tend to make the bioball move out of a tight ball and more into a line formation. That makes it easier to hit them with zerglings.
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I think you should be wondering why your three single Spine Crawlers are being engaged without any support.
I use them mostly as a distraction, while my units actually do the damage. If the Spine Crawlers ARE left alone, they can do a chunk of damage as well.
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Spine crawlers have crazy DPS and if I have a sub 70 food army I try to gtfo their range since I rather kill their units than die to them. Also good Zergs will position them correctly and transfuse them with queens making them even more of a pain in the ass for quick timing pushes.
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On August 27 2010 08:50 Xizorz wrote:
Spine crawlers also tend to make the bioball move out of a tight ball and more into a line formation. That makes it easier to hit them with zerglings.
This only really happens if the Terran player is not paying attention. Why would he move his units out of a ball? Just stay in a ball and move in range of one spine crawler.
On August 27 2010 08:50 Grimjim wrote:
I think you should be wondering why your three single Spine Crawlers are being engaged without any support.
I use them mostly as a distraction, while my units actually do the damage. If the Spine Crawlers ARE left alone, they can do a chunk of damage as well.
Well, how do you fight a Terran who will only attack the spine crawler, and once your units show up he backs off? Everyone I face does this, and it's not always possible to get zerglings behind him to trap him.
On August 27 2010 08:54 ChickenLips wrote:
Spine crawlers have crazy DPS and if I have a sub 70 food army I try to gtfo their range since I rather kill their units than die to them. Also good Zergs will position them correctly and transfuse them with queens making them even more of a pain in the ass for quick timing pushes.
Not really, they have less DPS of two unstimmed marines - or one unstimmed marauder against armored.
How do you define positioning them 'correctly'? As far as I can tell there's only two ways - in a choke and not in a choke - one way is crap for the crawlers, the other is crap for the army.
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Position them so that your ranged units + SC form an arc around the incoming army. Since your army is mobile and the SCs really aren't try to put them in a position that allows for on the fly 'concaving' the opponent. (It is important to retreat as far as possible if you are pulling off a thin defense.
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When I feel a timing push is coming I usually hide some speedlings in an area nearby. When they attack, the spine crawlers+roaches and a few lings can attack from front while I send my slings from behind, it works fairly effectively unless there is a tower nearby
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Spine-related ZvT question:
I generally have about 6 queens for my main/nat, and I spread a huge amount of creep tumors, and after I have creeped up my half of the map I still throw a lot of "active" tumors around my spines, I like to do this if terran tries to siege my lings/spines, as selecting X active creep tumors and choosing to make new tumors will waste a wave of siegefire and i can send in lings/banes...
Is this a decent strat or am I simply wasting my time/apm for a rare scenario in ZvT?
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On August 27 2010 09:16 ChickenLips wrote:
Position them so that your ranged units + SC form an arc around the incoming army. Since your army is mobile and the SCs really aren't try to put them in a position that allows for on the fly 'concaving' the opponent. (It is important to retreat as far as possible if you are pulling off a thin defense.
Can you give an example? I think I know generally what you're saying, but it doesn't change what I said in the OP that either they can stay in a ball and attack them 1 at a time, or they're in a choke and immune to melee/roaches.
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another way to place your spine crawlers in on top of a cliff and have them hit the units that are on the sides of his ball.
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I'm thinking that if you put them a little bit behind the choke and use Speedlings or something to help with the funneling once your opponent is trying to get through the choke. Or something.
But I hardly use Spine Crawlers unless I'm getting rushed anyway. They're only really good against Marines and Zerglings in my experience, or forcing a Tank push to continually unsiege if you space them apart. I feel like they're only a staller or a deterrent.
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I like to build them to try to get their tanks to siege a bit farther away... then I can attack lure their bio ball into the base while flanking the tanks that are a ways out right when they unsiege.
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Yes. They protect your base while you get what you need to become aggressive. Don't need gas, so you can concentrate on either pushing eco or tech.
Especially good against hellions and reapers, the main early harassment options for T.
But as with every static defense, their usefulness is primarily determined by placement, and so is very map dependent.
And if you find yourself to need a lot of spine crawlers that you don't want to make, you probably made some macro and teching mistakes.
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spines are great with burrowed banelings, as its pretty easy to predict were an enemy will engage them(use this on maps were its not always viable to just mine up your ramp.
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against hellions or on LT at the cliff 2 hold off Thor-drops.
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Definitely use spine crawlers ZvT. They help immensely with hellion harass, especially if you can block off points of entry into your mineral lines. They don't really lose their worth as you mention, because hellion harass can come from anywhere at any time of the game. And even though marauders do well against them (your enemy should not be engaging them one at a time) they act as good early game defensive measures, more so when you have units with your crawlers to make them survive longer.
Think of it like the creep colonies Zergs built in ZvT Broodwar. If they didn't make those colonies they'd surely lose, but because the coloines are built the Zerg can hold off early aggression and keep their natural expansion alive. Same principle applies to spine crawlers.
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I mainly use the spine crawler just to distract a terran or protoss army, so I can get a surround.
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I use them to fight hellion harass, or else lose many drones to them. They are also good to make if they are hellion heavy but light on tanks. Slightly forces marauders or more tanks in their mix, which can buy you time to get more mutas, or whatever. But usualy, i only make 2 or so midgame, a few more at expos late game.
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On August 27 2010 08:54 ChickenLips wrote:
Spine crawlers have crazy DPS and if I have a sub 70 food army I try to gtfo their range since I rather kill their units than die to them. Also good Zergs will position them correctly and transfuse them with queens making them even more of a pain in the ass for quick timing pushes.
I was under the impression that their dps was only 16.and 18 on armoured. Thats pretty terrible.
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I think one spine crawler is fine against hellions or against reapers on LT / Kulas (so they cant just permanent jump up and down the cliff), but there you need alot of zerglings to prevent it from being sniped. More than that is pretty useless, as any tankpush will just kill them.
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Spinecrawlers are definetly not "costeffective" in most ZvT scenarios (they help vs hellion harrass on maps with open naturals though)
But this is not the only thing to consider.
In Broodwar, sunken colonies were not really great vs Terrans aswell, Tanks obviously hardcounter them, and even 10 marines 2 medics could kill 2 sunkens without much trouble, adding in 1-2 firebats to take the first shots when there were more then 2 sunkens.
However, the problem that zerg often has, is that you can only make zerglings at the beginning, and those use up your larva so fast, that you will have a ton of minerals and gas if you build nothing else.
If youre teching to e.g. mutas or some other unit, its ok to save up money, but you still have the disadvantage if your enemy has units that do well against those zerglings, e.g. hellions. So you need to hold your opponent off, until you can get your mutas out, but you cant make a big enough army, since your larva/unitvalue ratio is terribad without any tech (or denied tech, like you cant make roaches when he has alot of marauders). Then you just make those spinecrawlers to keep your opponent from attacking, until your next tech is done, of course spinecrawlers alone suck vs marauders, and zerglings alone suck vs hellions e.g. but together with some micro, it can be so annoying and cost so much time for the terran to break you, even though the units themselves are not costeffective.
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idc I'm from brood war, and I get into that habit of just throwing down 3-4 spine crawlers if I see a terran rush that I'm not expecting.
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They are really weak vs. Terran. I use them only vs. hellion harass or in maps like LT where they cannot be killed one by one w/o others not attacking.
To OP: I don't think on maps with chokes spines prevents you from flaking or attacking, at least not for me..
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On August 27 2010 17:02 TriniMasta wrote:
idc I'm from brood war, and I get into that habit of just throwing down 3-4 spine crawlers if I see a terran rush that I'm not expecting.
They build so slow though, doesn't the Terran arrive before they finish?
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if terran go 5 rax reaper I wont bother building one, it will just get 2 shotted.
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Crawlers are useless beyond your transition into mid game. If they had a decent burrow time, they could be used resourcefully in a timing push; if they had a decent build time they could be used as a resourceful response to an incoming strike force; if they had detection, they would be essential.
I don't what bugs me more - the 50 second build time or the 12 second burrow. But the tandem is ridiculous - to think a Spine costs you a drone (or larva in the early game) is even moar ridiculous. If your opponent can force you to make a Crawler, they are already doing damage to you.
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If your opponent can force you to make a Crawler, they are already doing damage to you.
+1
I only use spine whenever I feel hellions are coming, and mid/late game to make harass on my exps not TOO easy.
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Crawlers are only really useful to stop hellion harass and/or to defend against a 4 gate push, since if you scout one coming, throwing down a few crawlers can be a good response.
Crawlers are a pathetic use of money though both in terms of DPS (150 minerals for 15 dps is beyond pathetic) and HP. Consider that for the price of one spine crawler you can get 6 zerglings and each zergling does 7 dps.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=115345
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On August 27 2010 09:24 eth3n wrote:
Spine-related ZvT question:
I generally have about 6 queens for my main/nat, and I spread a huge amount of creep tumors, and after I have creeped up my half of the map I still throw a lot of "active" tumors around my spines, I like to do this if terran tries to siege my lings/spines, as selecting X active creep tumors and choosing to make new tumors will waste a wave of siegefire and i can send in lings/banes...
Is this a decent strat or am I simply wasting my time/apm for a rare scenario in ZvT?
That actually sounds like a good technique =o
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What if Queens could create spine crawlers? I think this would allow zerg to create static defense without that dreaded feeling of losing yet another drone just to stay alive. It always just feels so wrong to see a zerg hover at 20 drones just to stay in the game, while other races one base and manage 30.
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On August 27 2010 20:02 Macabre wrote:
What if Queens could create spine crawlers?
This is probably a bad idea. The Queen is already a high priority in Zerg harass, but putting her at the very top would be too much. That is too much responsibility for a single unit.
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EPT
