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Hi, I don't want to start a flame war about balances or patches, I'd just want to share my opinion on the matchup from a zerg pespective. (Btw, I'm low master so I don't consider myself a great player by any means.)
I feel like most of the time in zvt, everything is decided in the beginning of the game or early mid-game. When the T makes a great play (For instance hellion drop killing lots of drones or a great push), it pretty clear by looking at the worker count how the zerg is in desadvantage.
However, when the Z plays nicely, it's harder to see it.. In fact, I feel like it's *so* hard to kill a T.. even if you've got a huge lead. And, if you decide to attack and fail, you give a great opportunity for the T to get back in the game and win. (I'll have to say it happened a lot of time to me).
Basically, what I want to say is that, more often than not, the game is decided in the first few minutes but the zerg has to wait until the very late game to finally "show" their lead.
It's a little bit the same in ZvP.. if you counter a 2 base timing push, it's usually a mistake to mass roaches and try to finish a P. I've lost so many games doing that.. the safe way is to wait 10 more minutes, get 30 spines with upgrated broodlords and +3/+3 melee/armor.
So, my question/opinion is more.. don't you find it normal that zerg lategame is really strong? In a close game, a zerg shouldn't be able to get 20 upgrated broodlord, with mass infestor and spine everywhere. Imagine the inverse.. 15 cannon in every base 20 carrier + mass high templars with a stalker ground + cannon in the middle of the map. We very rarely see that because once the protoss has the advantage, they can straight go kill a zerg once they hit 200.
More often than not, when the game is very close against my opponent, I don't have the luxurary to get to these very late game units.. and if so, I can't mass them! I'll get a few ultras to save my fourth or trade a few broodlords with some rines/thors/vicking.. but it's not a huge hive army.
And again, please, it's just my opinion, if I'm wrong no need to insult me, just give logical explanations thanks!
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The thing is, since the ghost nerf, often if Zerg is ahead enough to get that 5+ infestor 10+ broodlord deathball, it's over if Terran doesn't have either a very large army advantage, say, 70+ marines in a huge concave or a surround, or the Zerg screws up his fungals on ravens and has his broodlords all clumped up.
Naturally this has lead to a lot of QQ from Terrans(myself included), and a reluctance to go into late-game vs Zerg. It also means that there are two matchups that the majority of us are crippled in in the late game.
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I feel the same way as Z. It's so hard to break a defending T or P as Z, but it feels like any defense you put up that doesn't involve broodlords instantly gets wiped out.
Thus far I don't think it's been much of a balance issue, but I think blizz is on the right track to fixing it with the viper swarm spell in HotS.
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United Arab Emirates439 Posts
I agree it is harder for a Zerg to finish a game where they have a huge lead, rather than Protoss or Terran. And like you said, it isn't uncommon for even Professional Zerg players to throw a game away by trying to push their lead too much. This can happen to players of every race though. This is why you hear the phrase "when you're ahead, get more ahead". It's always safer, no matter what race you play.
The reason for Zerg's troubles is pretty obvious: Zerg armies are, generally, much worse in chokes, and they have no Siege Unit until the Brood Lord. Siege units are critical for pushing an Army advantage. So sometimes as a Zerg, you just have to hold onto your lead until you can get Brood Lords and then finally push your advantage. Banelings and Mutalisks can both help you push a huge lead, but they are also both very fragile and very easy to spend all your money on, so you can go from a solid lead to way behind with just a few control mistakes (see: Muta/Ling/Bling).
I must admit nothing is more frustrating for me than "winning" the game at 10 minutes in a TvZ, only to have to defend all types of harassment and cute moves for the next 7 or 8 minutes and then roll over a Terran army only to hear "Infestor/Broodlord OP".
If it makes you feel better OP, Blizz did say they wanted to add ways for Zerg to push their advantage in the mid-game. And that is the idea behind both the Swarm Host and the Viper's "Dark Swarm/Disruption Web" like ability. Personally, I'm excited to use 15 Swarm Hosts to troll my opponent after already 'winning' the game.
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Denying and starving out the terran by camping their expansions with burrowed lings and overlord creep is the best way to defeat a turtling terran. They will have to SHOW you that they are taking the expansion by sitting their army at it, because if they dont you can just run another few lings in and burrow again.
I used to be pretty bad at ending games and losing my advantage crashing my 200/200 army against a 130/200 army and dying horribly to a wall. Then I realized that you just have to sit around and wait for gas and morph broodlords 1 by 1 until they push out, or if you are going ultras, park your ass in a position to destroy a moving push. Unless you're up double supply, you don't want to break their main.
Also, runbys.
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What you're saying sounds a lot like "when you're ahead, get more ahead" and of course it's true. If you have the economic advantage, you want the game to go long. On the other hand, I don't think zerg is required to win only in late game. I see the top class zerg players often ending the game before it reaches a max/max game state. DRG makes tons and tons of kills in the midgame. I do hope that the expansion makes zerg midgame aggression less risky for us mere mortals.
I don't find it normal for zerg lategame to be very strong. Zerg had the weakest maxed army in Broodwar, this thing where zerg has a deathball is very disorienting to me. I'm used to the idea that lategame zerg compensates for its weak stuff with speed and raw production, or that zerg hits timings where they are maxed and the opponent is not. I think it feels extremely weird that zerg gets maxed and then proceeds to tech up and let his opponent also get maxed, and it's indicative of poor game design for long games.
I find it easy to see when a zerg plays well. They just barely defend some push, then you look up at the worker count and zerg is now up 20 workers.
I think the carrier/templar army you propose actually loses quite badly to the broodlord/infestor/corruptor army. Beyond this, I really don't like that zerg has become the race that you have to stop from building this slow deathball thing. That's supposed to be how protoss works. Late game zerg should be about abusing the larva mechanic to tech switch and break the opponent because he can't keep up with the waves of different zerg stuff.
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United Arab Emirates439 Posts
@Agenda42
Although it may not seem that way, Zerg still does have the weakest late game army. They just get their late game army sooner, because the moment they get the tech for it, they can create that perfect army. A Protoss Army with Mothership, 6-8 Archons, 3-4 Colossus, Some HT, and a ton of Stalkers is still much stronger than Infestor/Brood Lord. That's why Zerg makes Spine Crawlers and Protoss has map control. And of course nobody needs to be told a maxed out Mech army is BY FAR the strongest army in the game (partially because Mules allow for more Army Supply).
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On April 03 2012 09:23 Fencer710 wrote:
The thing is, since the ghost nerf, often if Zerg is ahead enough to get that 5+ infestor 10+ broodlord deathball, it's over if Terran doesn't have either a very large army advantage, say, 70+ marines in a huge concave or a surround, or the Zerg screws up his fungals on ravens and has his broodlords all clumped up.
Naturally this has lead to a lot of QQ from Terrans(myself included), and a reluctance to go into late-game vs Zerg. It also means that there are two matchups that the majority of us are crippled in in the late game.
How is it over at that point rofl? You're silly man, make some vikings, and a couple of thors to supplement your Marine/tank/medivac force.
I agree, that you should actively put pressure on the zerg when you can, but the game isn't far from over in the late game. You just need to know what tech path the zerg is going and try to act accordingly.
Marine/Medivac/Tank with Viking and Thor support fot BL/Infestors.
Marine/Medivac/Tank with Marauder and Thor support for Ultras/Infestors.
The hard part is knowing when to have the adequate infrastructure to support the production and preparing for a potential tech switchs in the very late game.
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I'll say one thing to you, if I get to the later stages of the game without having dealt decent damage to the Zerg I have just 100% lost the game, so expect me to go all out on you from the very first second.
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On April 03 2012 10:58 ZjiublingZ wrote:
@Agenda42
Although it may not seem that way, Zerg still does have the weakest late game army. They just get their late game army sooner, because the moment they get the tech for it, they can create that perfect army. A Protoss Army with Mothership, 6-8 Archons, 3-4 Colossus, Some HT, and a ton of Stalkers is still much stronger than Infestor/Brood Lord. That's why Zerg makes Spine Crawlers and Protoss has map control. And of course nobody needs to be told a maxed out Mech army is BY FAR the strongest army in the game (partially because Mules allow for more Army Supply).
In TvZ, I really can't agree. Nothing that comes out of a factory is of much use against broodlords, and mech TvZ is about hitting a timing before zerg gets the infestor/broodlord/corruptor thing going. If the game goes long, the mech player feels quite uncomfortable TvZ.
Over in PvZ, the mothership is quite powerful. I don't know that this means the protoss army is stronger than the zerg army, though. This matchup currently seems to be defined by a big lategame stalemate where neither player can attack into the other unless someone makes a positioning mistake, and map features play a bigger role than in other matchups.
I think zerg late game is quite poorly designed in WoL. I do have some hope that the new units will make zerg a dynamic and mobile late game race, like they were at all points of a Broodwar game and how they play in early and midgame in SC2. In particular, the viper has a lot of potential in my eyes.
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On April 03 2012 09:23 Fencer710 wrote:
The thing is, since the ghost nerf, often if Zerg is ahead enough to get that 5+ infestor 10+ broodlord deathball, it's over if Terran doesn't have either a very large army advantage, say, 70+ marines in a huge concave or a surround, or the Zerg screws up his fungals on ravens and has his broodlords all clumped up.
Naturally this has lead to a lot of QQ from Terrans(myself included), and a reluctance to go into late-game vs Zerg. It also means that there are two matchups that the majority of us are crippled in in the late game.
I think ghost have the same problem infestor did in 1.4, they are still good, but since they got recently nerfed no one actually want to play them.
Keep in mind that if you get a good EMP, or even some good snipe on the infestors since it's now a 2shot kill, the marine can just stim, advance and vaporize 2000 worth of gas in 3sec, completely winning the game.
So i know getting ghost in range isnt that easy, but getting to BL tech isnt either.
Also BL/Infestor is very slow, and deprive the Z of muta, making him extremely vulnerable to multiple drops
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United Arab Emirates439 Posts
On April 03 2012 11:19 Agenda42 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 03 2012 10:58 ZjiublingZ wrote:
@Agenda42
Although it may not seem that way, Zerg still does have the weakest late game army. They just get their late game army sooner, because the moment they get the tech for it, they can create that perfect army. A Protoss Army with Mothership, 6-8 Archons, 3-4 Colossus, Some HT, and a ton of Stalkers is still much stronger than Infestor/Brood Lord. That's why Zerg makes Spine Crawlers and Protoss has map control. And of course nobody needs to be told a maxed out Mech army is BY FAR the strongest army in the game (partially because Mules allow for more Army Supply). In TvZ, I really can't agree. Nothing that comes out of a factory is of much use against broodlords, and mech TvZ is about hitting a timing before zerg gets the infestor/broodlord/corruptor thing going. If the game goes long, the mech player feels quite uncomfortable TvZ. Over in PvZ, the mothership is quite powerful. I don't know that this means the protoss army is stronger than the zerg army, though. This matchup currently seems to be defined by a big lategame stalemate where neither player can attack into the other unless someone makes a positioning mistake, and map features play a bigger role than in other matchups. I think zerg late game is quite poorly designed in WoL. I do have some hope that the new units will make zerg a dynamic and mobile late game race, like they were at all points of a Broodwar game and how they play in early and midgame in SC2. In particular, the viper has a lot of potential in my eyes.
Mech TvZ does not "rely" on hitting a timing before Infestor/Brood Lord, the same way PvZ doesn't. It is an important timing to hit in both match-ups though, because, unless they are far behind, they have an army advantage, and the Zerg is forced to use larvae/resources on units they don't want to. A Mech player doesn't auto-lose against Infestor/Brood Lord. Vikings + Thors can deal with Infestor/Brood Lord quite well. In PvZ, it is often a stale mate situation I agree, but that is because of Spine Crawlers. The 'perfect' Protoss army is much more powerful if they aren't attacking into 10-20 Spine Crawlers.
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@Agenda42 Yeah, I find it sad how the late zerg game is played.. I miss the "macro/mass" part of it.
You say that zerg can kill the T earlier.. but just look at DRG in the latest mlg/gsl, he was sometime way ahead, attacked a turtling T, failed, got way behind and lost the game.
Btw, these days I'm trying this versus protoss which is more "zergy": I go stephano 3 hatches but once I hit lair I go all-in from 4 hatches. I get 3 evo, drop/speed and just mass it up and attack from everywhere. I also freely take a fourth. The cool thing is that I can safely bank a lot of gaz and make a big muta switch for the killing blow. (Vs the roaches/lings, P will go zl/stalk/immortal/colossus.) But I don't think that would work in the higher levels.
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On April 03 2012 10:58 ZjiublingZ wrote:
@Agenda42
Although it may not seem that way, Zerg still does have the weakest late game army. They just get their late game army sooner, because the moment they get the tech for it, they can create that perfect army. A Protoss Army with Mothership, 6-8 Archons, 3-4 Colossus, Some HT, and a ton of Stalkers is still much stronger than Infestor/Brood Lord. That's why Zerg makes Spine Crawlers and Protoss has map control. And of course nobody needs to be told a maxed out Mech army is BY FAR the strongest army in the game (partially because Mules allow for more Army Supply).
I disagree. ZvP you need the spines to survive your transition, not really that the brood/infestor is weak. ZvT, I don't see how tanks and thors are gonna do anything when you got a ton of broodlords and corrupters.
But I agree with the OP. It's kind of hard to win right there so you have to "get more ahead" especially in ZvT. ZvP it's a bit easier to throw stuff at them and remax or deny their 3rd forever since they can't build a 3rd nexus in their base, but it can be difficult.
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United Arab Emirates439 Posts
On April 03 2012 11:53 K3Nyy wrote:Show nested quote +On April 03 2012 10:58 ZjiublingZ wrote:
@Agenda42
Although it may not seem that way, Zerg still does have the weakest late game army. They just get their late game army sooner, because the moment they get the tech for it, they can create that perfect army. A Protoss Army with Mothership, 6-8 Archons, 3-4 Colossus, Some HT, and a ton of Stalkers is still much stronger than Infestor/Brood Lord. That's why Zerg makes Spine Crawlers and Protoss has map control. And of course nobody needs to be told a maxed out Mech army is BY FAR the strongest army in the game (partially because Mules allow for more Army Supply). I disagree. ZvP you need the spines to survive your transition, not really that the brood/infestor is weak. ZvT, I don't see how tanks and thors are gonna do anything when you got a ton of broodlords and corrupters. But I agree with the OP. It's kind of hard to win right there so you have to "get more ahead" especially in ZvT. ZvP it's a bit easier to throw stuff at them and remax or deny their 3rd forever since they can't build a 3rd nexus in their base, but it can be difficult.
Zergs don't stop making Spine Crawler walls once they get up the Brood Lord Infestor army. And they stay under it for a reason. If the army was stronger, they would just attack, and PvZ wouldn't be the 'stalemate situation' it so often is in the very late game. I'm not saying Brood Lord Infestor is weak, just that it is weaker than a Protoss ultimate composition.
In ZvT it's not Tanks and Thors that take on Broodlord/Corruptor/Infestor, it's Thors and Vikings (maybe ravens or ghosts too).
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I dunno, I feel Zerg game in SC2 is not that dissimilar to Zerg lategame in BW. As one of the final edits on this very site says, Zerg is like a wildfire , it starts small and can be drowned easily when it starts out, once Zerg grows it becomes a force of nature worth being feared.In BW Zerg too had the goal to deflect all attacks until Hive and Defilers, UIltras and Guardians were out
The only thing I don't like is that a Zerg deathball is silly. I blame Fungal for that. In BW Zerg had Dark Swarm which let the Zerg army overrun positions and it felt much more "swarmy" than in SC2. Both are incredibly powerful abilities, I like the concept of Dark Swarm better.
But one thing is sure in both SC2 and BW Zerg always relied more in Hive tech to finish the game. Could the game be ended before that? Sure, but it depended more on BO disadvante\too much of a lead for the Zerg\Opponent screwing up badly.
I don't think its badly designed at all. Lategame it is, mid game could use some help imo, but overall its not bad at all.
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The difference is the defenders advantage for zerg is significantly less than P and T, it's why zerg can't 'rush' tech out and hope to get 10 worker kills to get ahead (see banshee/dt builds). Zerg's defense is it's army, if the army dies there is no defense. Trading armies is different, because you can't be attacked instantly, but losing an army is game over.
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On April 03 2012 11:40 ZjiublingZ wrote:
Mech TvZ does not "rely" on hitting a timing before Infestor/Brood Lord, the same way PvZ doesn't. It is an important timing to hit in both match-ups though, because, unless they are far behind, they have an army advantage, and the Zerg is forced to use larvae/resources on units they don't want to. A Mech player doesn't auto-lose against Infestor/Brood Lord. Vikings + Thors can deal with Infestor/Brood Lord quite well. In PvZ, it is often a stale mate situation I agree, but that is because of Spine Crawlers. The 'perfect' Protoss army is much more powerful if they aren't attacking into 10-20 Spine Crawlers.
Can you link me to some pro level TvZs where the terran goes mech, gets to a level game state against infestor/broodlord/corruptor, and then wins the lategame? I don't recall seeing this ever in the GSL, but I could be forgetting.
In terms of elite players, MVP wins tons of games with mech, but he does it with a three base timing that is almost all-in. MarineKing's marine/hellion/thor thing also relies on getting to the broodlords before they are an effective army. Overall usage of Mech TvZ appears to be on the rise in response to the zerg switch from muta to infestor play, but zerg remains dominant on long game statistics.
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On April 03 2012 10:05 ZjiublingZ wrote:
I agree it is harder for a Zerg to finish a game where they have a huge lead, rather than Protoss or Terran. And like you said, it isn't uncommon for even Professional Zerg players to throw a game away by trying to push their lead too much. This can happen to players of every race though. This is why you hear the phrase "when you're ahead, get more ahead". It's always safer, no matter what race you play.
The reason for Zerg's troubles is pretty obvious: Zerg armies are, generally, much worse in chokes, and they have no Siege Unit until the Brood Lord. Siege units are critical for pushing an Army advantage. So sometimes as a Zerg, you just have to hold onto your lead until you can get Brood Lords and then finally push your advantage. Banelings and Mutalisks can both help you push a huge lead, but they are also both very fragile and very easy to spend all your money on, so you can go from a solid lead to way behind with just a few control mistakes (see: Muta/Ling/Bling).
I must admit nothing is more frustrating for me than "winning" the game at 10 minutes in a TvZ, only to have to defend all types of harassment and cute moves for the next 7 or 8 minutes and then roll over a Terran army only to hear "Infestor/Broodlord OP".
If it makes you feel better OP, Blizz did say they wanted to add ways for Zerg to push their advantage in the mid-game. And that is the idea behind both the Swarm Host and the Viper's "Dark Swarm/Disruption Web" like ability. Personally, I'm excited to use 15 Swarm Hosts to troll my opponent after already 'winning' the game.
This is exactly why I hate it when Terrans complain that late game Zerg is too strong and they are statistically not favored to win late game. Here's a theory...maybe the stats are skewed because most late game ZvT scenarios where the Zerg won...the Terran should have been dead a long while ago! But zerg has to wait for their siege weapon to be safe.
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The thing i feel about zvt is that trading armies isn't as good as when you are trading armies with a toss player. For remaking units it would go zerg being the fastest followed by terran then by protoss. (just going by which race can max out fastest).
but the the thing is i totally disagree with zerg late game being strong. Only bc in a lot of situations a 200/200 army SHOULD kill a 200/200 zerg army. But i guess where zerg has the advantage is where they can transition much better than a terran army. For example a terran player is going mech. Helions/tanks/thors.
And you decide to go either, muta/ling/bane or ultra/ling/bane/festor or roach festor w/e you choose.
A 200/200 terran army is going to ruin one of those compositions 9 times out of 10. But as a zerg player you are able to switch tech very easily. with your first few attacks with lower supply between 120-160 you can be trading and (losing) your army to the terran tech army. But while behind on 3+ bases you are transitioning into broodlords.
To me, i think terran own the early game with the ability to mass T1 units fast.
I think zerg owns the mid game as zerglings are great t1 units but the lack of larva in the early game makes then not as strong in smaller numbers. Where as in the mid game the t2 zerg units own, like banes, festors, roach/hydra/muta.
And of course the 200/200 toss death ball is what owns the late game.
zerg is about being able to counter what your opponent is doing as it is much harder/less efficient for a toss/terran player to do so.
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EPT
