Madness, but I am ok with it. Burrow and burrow movement are two different things, and the infestor isn't teir 1. Anything to prevent the fast 3 bases we are seeing now.
It appears I game getting a whole new, totally insane game with HotS. As a SC2 fan, I endorse this plan. Madness is fun. Standard is dull.
Burrow is extremely useful in TvZ, and at least moderately useful in ZvZ.
Zerg can burrow Banelings in pathways to either waste scans for the Terran army or to kill tons of Marines, they can burrow Zerglings at expansions to force scans before landing CC's, can burrow Drones to save them from Marine drops and run-by's, can burrow Infestors to harass with Infested Terrans, and you can burrow Zerglings in the Terran's base during a run-by to harass even more later, etc.
I honestly don't think that Burrow needs to be at hatchery tech.
Burrow your drones so no harass can kill them. Nice buff for Zerg i'd say.
Seems really interesting. I wonder about the implications though, roaches would be deadly with this early burrow. I love this thought though, gives zerg something new in the early game, that P and T already have (MsC and Widow Mine).
On January 15 2013 07:25 Stingart wrote: Fencar made a good comment:
Burrow is extremely useful in TvZ, and at least moderately useful in ZvZ.
Zerg can burrow Banelings in pathways to either waste scans for the Terran army or to kill tons of Marines, they can burrow Zerglings at expansions to force scans before landing CC's, can burrow Drones to save them from Marine drops and run-by's, can burrow Infestors to harass with Infested Terrans, and you can burrow Zerglings in the Terran's base during a run-by to harass even more later, etc.
I honestly don't think that Burrow needs to be at hatchery tech.
Burrow your drones so no harass can kill them. Nice buff for Zerg i'd say.
Yeah burrow drones when 8 hellions go into them, then a scan and their dead anyway .
Honestly with how hard terran counters early game harass by zerg now (widow mines + free siege tank upgrade) this is a nice change that might bring some more early game harassment :D
On January 15 2013 07:26 Millet wrote: Seems really interesting. I wonder about the implications though, roaches would be deadly with this early burrow. I love this thought though, gives zerg something new in the early game, that P and T already have (MsC and Widow Mine).
Just remember, they cant move without their own tech(which could still be teir 2). I am going to keep posting this so people don't freak out, claiming they will be fighting off burrowed roachs at the 7 minute mark.
So happy they're considering this. Suggested this in a previous thread as well. It good that Blizz acknowledges that Zerg has almost no viable early game harassment options thanks to all the new early tech Terran and Toss have.
Can't wait to see <8 minute roach rushes and banelings mines planted at enemy's 3rds.
Wow didn't even respond to the bnet thread with this suggestion, since I thought there was no way this would ever happen, due to lack of detection at this stage of the game.
On January 15 2013 07:26 Millet wrote: Seems really interesting. I wonder about the implications though, roaches would be deadly with this early burrow. I love this thought though, gives zerg something new in the early game, that P and T already have (MsC and Widow Mine).
Just remember, they cant move without their own tech(which could still be teir 2). I am going to keep posting this so people don't freak out, claiming they will be fighting off burrowed roachs at the 7 minute mark.
I am sure they will still regen super fast.
Yeah, I know. It stills seems very interesting to me. Moving burrowed roaches would be way too much in the early game. Good that you've taken it on yourself to clarify it though, for people who don't already know about it. Kudos.
On January 15 2013 07:26 Millet wrote: Seems really interesting. I wonder about the implications though, roaches would be deadly with this early burrow. I love this thought though, gives zerg something new in the early game, that P and T already have (MsC and Widow Mine).
Just remember, they cant move without their own tech(which could still be teir 2). I am going to keep posting this so people don't freak out, claiming they will be fighting off burrowed roachs at the 7 minute mark.
I am sure they will still regen super fast.
The regen needs to be researched at t2 as well so you're not fighting super regen roaches or burrow move ones that early.
On January 15 2013 07:26 Millet wrote: Seems really interesting. I wonder about the implications though, roaches would be deadly with this early burrow. I love this thought though, gives zerg something new in the early game, that P and T already have (MsC and Widow Mine).
Just remember, they cant move without their own tech(which could still be teir 2). I am going to keep posting this so people don't freak out, claiming they will be fighting off burrowed roachs at the 7 minute mark.
I am sure they will still regen super fast.
Yeah, I know. It stills seems very interesting to me. Moving burrowed roaches would be way too much in the early game. Good that you've taken it on yourself to clarify it though, for people who don't already know about it. Kudos.
It is mostly to prevent the impending freak out, because the people who freak out most normally know the least about the game(or selectively remember things to make their arguments)
On January 15 2013 07:26 Millet wrote: Seems really interesting. I wonder about the implications though, roaches would be deadly with this early burrow. I love this thought though, gives zerg something new in the early game, that P and T already have (MsC and Widow Mine).
Just remember, they cant move without their own tech(which could still be teir 2). I am going to keep posting this so people don't freak out, claiming they will be fighting off burrowed roachs at the 7 minute mark.
I am sure they will still regen super fast.
The regen needs to be researched at t2 as well so you're not fighting super regen roaches or burrow move ones that early.
Roach get a hp regen boost when they're burrow. it's just not as fast when they don't have burrow mouvement
On January 15 2013 07:26 Millet wrote: Seems really interesting. I wonder about the implications though, roaches would be deadly with this early burrow. I love this thought though, gives zerg something new in the early game, that P and T already have (MsC and Widow Mine).
Just remember, they cant move without their own tech(which could still be teir 2). I am going to keep posting this so people don't freak out, claiming they will be fighting off burrowed roachs at the 7 minute mark.
I am sure they will still regen super fast.
Yeah, I know. It stills seems very interesting to me. Moving burrowed roaches would be way too much in the early game. Good that you've taken it on yourself to clarify it though, for people who don't already know about it. Kudos.
It is mostly to prevent the impending freak out, because the people who freak out most normally know the least about the game(or selectively remember things to make their arguments)
I understand. It's good. People do tend to freak out when reading news like this. Maybe you targeted me because of my low post count? It's understandable actually..
This would be fucking awesome. A great way to give a generalized buff to early game Zerg harass and defense, but one with economic tradeoffs and that won't make Z midgame pushes or lategame comps stronger.
On January 15 2013 07:41 awesomoecalypse wrote: This would be fucking awesome. A great way to give a generalized buff to early game Zerg harass and defense, but one with economic tradeoffs and that won't make Z midgame pushes or lategame comps stronger.
I am not so sure that I feel like it is necessary. After the queen range buff, many terrans have informed us of the various impracticalities of agression in the matchup and against protoss most zerg can take three bases relatively unhindered. Even the infamous immortal/sentry push comes at a time when you have lair already despite 3 bases.
Not that I am against burrow as a tool, I am just wondering whether there is a specific kind of application for it in the early game that Blizzard has in mind that I don't know about. If not, then they are just adding strength to an underused ability in hopes of seeing more use out of it and that might lead to other impracticalities.
Then again, if there is a time for testing stuff it is now.
As Zerg I think, that Protoss is okay against this. Both their teching paths will have detection (Observer or Oracle), but what about Terran? He will need to waste scans around the map to see burrowed units, and it's very expensive and shut downs any agression from Terran against Zerg, because he can lose marines against 2-3 banelings.
What about giving Reapers mini-version of Sensor Array? Lets name it "Battlefield Awareness", like previous cliff-vision for Reapers. It will spot cloaked and burrowed units with red spots near Reaper, but not detect!
Reaper will recieve a small mobile version of Sensor Array tower. Reaperwill be able to spot with red dots (like Sensor Array tower spotting units in Fog of War) burrowed and cloaked units. It will not detect, just spot with red dots, like Sensor Tower!
Terran players will be able to choose:
- Hm, don't walk here!! Too many red dots, dangerous zone! It may be banelings or zergling/baneling trap! - I should scan here, looks like I can kill it if I will scan at this place.
Mobile mini-sensor radius can be 5-6 or 10-11 around Reaper. So you will be able to see something burrowed or cloaked at that distance. It can be coldown based activable ability, when press ability button and Reaaper recieves temporary sensor, or just passive ability with smaller range
Reapers will recieve passive or coldownbased activable (for short time) ability "Mobile Sensor" which grants ability to see burrowed or cloaked units without detecting them.
On January 15 2013 07:41 awesomoecalypse wrote: This would be fucking awesome. A great way to give a generalized buff to early game Zerg harass and defense, but one with economic tradeoffs and that won't make Z midgame pushes or lategame comps stronger.
I am not so sure that I feel like it is necessary. After the queen range buff, many terrans have informed us of the various impracticalities of agression in the matchup and against protoss most zerg can take three bases relatively unhindered. Even the infamous immortal/sentry push comes at a time when you have lair already despite 3 bases.
Not that I am against burrow as a tool, I am just wondering whether there is a specific kind of application for it in the early game that Blizzard has in mind that I don't know about. If not, then they are just adding strength to an underused ability in hopes of seeing more use out of it and that might lead to other impracticalities.
Then again, if there is a time for testing stuff it is now.
That was WoL though. Widow mines, cheaper DTs and Oracles have all expanded the other races' ability to harass pretty early in the game. More accessible burrow offers some defense against that, without being some magic fix all--researching burrow isn't without an economic tradeoff, and while burrowing your drone line may save them from dying outright, they can't really mine while they're underground. Widow Mines, Hellbats and Mothership Core have also give the other races better early defensive options, which has made it more difficult to harass, and burrow may help with that.
I'm 100% for this, Zerg's need more aggression. I'm SO fed up playing macro games all the time. I've been experimenting with Swarm host timing pushes and there's not a lot that can be done before 3 base, it's really gay. Plus I love playing around with burrow so I'm for this. I think it'll go through so beta testing at least.
I like the aggressive map presence options this will give zerg in the early to mid game but my worry is that both you will need detection to harras a zerg as they can just burrow their drones
With terran who doesn't need siege research, it can be a nice idea to make early game more interesting. Maybe need the reaper change that suggested existor or other thing to terran if turret isnt enough, but anyway the burrow research time need to be longer.
On January 15 2013 07:59 ineversmile wrote: So now we need detection to build a Nexus against a zerg without lair tech?
EDIT: I mean, it's a nice idea...I just think that there might be some problems with blocking expansions with a 25 mineral, 1/2 larva cloaked unit.
They said if there's a probleme like that they could make it longer to research. You have a lot of time to make you nexus. Don't worry
Not even to make the Nexus. If you scout early burrow, you just have to start the expansion before burrow hits, or else tech to either stargate, robo or make a forge. Burrowed lings blocking a Nexus shouldn't be a huge issue imo..
On January 15 2013 07:59 ineversmile wrote: So now we need detection to build a Nexus against a zerg without lair tech?
EDIT: I mean, it's a nice idea...I just think that there might be some problems with blocking expansions with a 25 mineral, 1/2 larva cloaked unit.
How late are you building your Nexus that a Zerg would be able to block it with a burrowed unit? You still have to get the gas and research the ability, you know.
It's intended as a buff to aggressive openings but all this does is increase the power of Zerg defensively.
Early harassment is going to be pointless if Drones are able to burrow which forces out scans and observers. A large number of early game timings are going to be completely shut down by the possibility of Burrowed Banelings from Terran and Roaches that can burrow micro.
It's the same problem I have with the Mothership Core and the Widow Mine, it limits TOO much what can be done in each match up in the early game.
On January 15 2013 07:51 awesomoecalypse wrote: That was WoL though. Widow mines, cheaper DTs and Oracles have all expanded the other races' ability to harass pretty early in the game. More accessible burrow offers some defense against that, without being some magic fix all--researching burrow isn't without an economic tradeoff, and while burrowing your drone line may save them from dying outright, they can't really mine while they're underground. Widow Mines, Hellbats and Mothership Core have also give the other races better early defensive options, which has made it more difficult to harass, and burrow may help with that.
I don't disagree with what you are saying, but do you think we are seeing a lot of zergs die in the early game in hots now? I mean, cheese and one base builds are always the first to be developed so we see many kinds of rush builds, but it hardly appears to me as if zerg suffers more than other races from this.
Only by first observing a problem should we attempt to fix it. The burrow change sounds like a fix to me but I can't say I feel there is a clear enough reason for it. They already made spore crawlers very available to deal with mines and DTs (which both cost more than lair/burrow either way).
But we will see. I don't think it is going to make a huge difference either way. I always did think burrow was underused though.
On January 15 2013 07:50 Existor wrote: As Zerg I think, that Protoss is okay against this. Both their teching paths will have detection (Observer or Oracle), but what about Terran? He will need to waste scans around the map to see burrowed units, and it's very expensive and shut downs any agression from Terran against Zerg, because he can lose marines against 2-3 banelings.
What about giving Reapers mini-version of Sensor Array, that will spot cloaked and burrowed units with red spots near Reaper? You can chose which unit is better to have this passive ability.
Reaper will recieve a small mobile version of Sensor Array tower. Reaper/Mine will be able to spot with red dots (like Sensor Array tower spotting units in Fog of War) burrowed and cloaked units. It will not detect, just spot with red dots, like Sensor Tower!
Terran players will be able to choose:
- Hm, don't walk here!! Too many red dots, dangerous zone! It may be banelings or zergling/baneling trap! - I should scan here, looks like I can kill it if I will scan at this place.
Reapers will recieve passive ability "Mobile Sensor" which grants ability to see burrowed or cloaked units without detecting them.
Well to be honest widow mines + free siege tank make early aggression by zerg not very viable either. It's no different if widow mines are out the zerg needs to be defensive because moving out on the map to be aggressive isn't going to work unless you are lucky and the terran only makes 2.
So early burrow now forces terran to have early game detection as well (missile turret probably at natural so that burrowed units can't stay there).
On January 15 2013 07:50 Existor wrote: As Zerg I think, that Protoss is okay against this. Both their teching paths will have detection (Observer or Oracle), but what about Terran? He will need to waste scans around the map to see burrowed units, and it's very expensive and shut downs any agression from Terran against Zerg, because he can lose marines against 2-3 banelings.
What about giving Reapers mini-version of Sensor Array, that will spot cloaked and burrowed units with red spots near Reaper? You can chose which unit is better to have this passive ability.
Reaper will recieve a small mobile version of Sensor Array tower. Reaper/Mine will be able to spot with red dots (like Sensor Array tower spotting units in Fog of War) burrowed and cloaked units. It will not detect, just spot with red dots, like Sensor Tower!
Terran players will be able to choose:
- Hm, don't walk here!! Too many red dots, dangerous zone! It may be banelings or zergling/baneling trap! - I should scan here, looks like I can kill it if I will scan at this place.
Reapers will recieve passive ability "Mobile Sensor" which grants ability to see burrowed or cloaked units without detecting them.
Well to be honest widow mines + free siege tank make early aggression by zerg not very viable either. It's no different if widow mines are out the zerg needs to be defensive because moving out on the map to be aggressive isn't going to work unless you are lucky and the terran only makes 2.
So early burrow now forces terran to have early game detection as well (missile turret probably at natural so that burrowed units can't stay there).
It was outdated quote. I think only Reapers should get that ability. It will be a nice soft-detection that will allow to use Scanner Sweeps more effectively.
On January 15 2013 08:12 Vindicare605 wrote: I do not like this idea one bit.
It's intended as a buff to aggressive openings but all this does is increase the power of Zerg defensively.
Early harassment is going to be pointless if Drones are able to burrow which forces out scans and observers. A large number of early game timings are going to be completely shut down by the possibility of Burrowed Banelings from Terran and Roaches that can burrow micro.
It's the same problem I have with the Mothership Core and the Widow Mine, it limits TOO much what can be done in each match up in the early game.
I like that, if the Zerg has burrow and is being harassed by the Terran, the Terran has to make a choice about whether to burn a scan to kill drones or to just back off and take the lost mining time as reward enough. Right now, Zerg needs something early game because it's still vulnerable to all of the old timings it could get killed by (I'm looking at you, Sentry/Immortal... you asshole) in addition to new stuff (WIDOW MINES OMG), so it'll be nice for Zergs to have an additional option at their disposal at a time that actually makes sense.
BTW, the MSC doesn't detect anymore, so make as many Widow Mines against P as you want!
Sounds good. I think zerg needs something early game. To have HotS coming out with only the viper to look forward to, which means having to play the same early and midgame that we are familiar with over and over, the only difference being that there are numerous new threats, doesn't seem very thrilling.
On January 15 2013 08:27 Scrubwave wrote: Terrans will have to just get ravens quicker!
Or they should get sensors with Reapers
no
Sensors =\= detectors. Remember sensor tower? It does not detects, but just spots units in fog of war. Same for Reapers spotting burrowed units (not only in fog of war)
On January 15 2013 08:12 Vindicare605 wrote: I do not like this idea one bit.
It's intended as a buff to aggressive openings but all this does is increase the power of Zerg defensively.
Early harassment is going to be pointless if Drones are able to burrow which forces out scans and observers. A large number of early game timings are going to be completely shut down by the possibility of Burrowed Banelings from Terran and Roaches that can burrow micro.
It's the same problem I have with the Mothership Core and the Widow Mine, it limits TOO much what can be done in each match up in the early game.
So Blizzard should do nothing and just make all early game Zerg aggression pointless then? Gotcha...
Because after all Zerg can throw out 100/100 early game without sacrificing any econ /sarcasm
Will be interesting if they actually put it in and how fast they will put it back to t2 again. Or make the time it takes so long you could have gone lair + burrow anyway. Can't wait for the 100 starting energy on Orbitals though.
While I think zerg needs something new for the early game, this is definitely not it. All it does is promote passive play, which is the last thing I want as zerg.
On January 15 2013 08:55 Toads wrote: yeah but the queen is building at the same time
You are right, I dont expect this to be upgraded until after the first queen is out, and it will likely delay the lair a bit in doing so (and might mean the 4/6 queen strats are less used). But I could see it used probably as an alternative to ling speed (get one or the other but prob not both). If your going into a roach based play, say a roach/hydra or roach/infester mix, then getting this early makes a lot of sense. With ling based play, its possible but not nearly as useful as ling speed. And maybe in ZvT the zerg might get it for early burrowed banelings if he sees bio play.
On January 15 2013 07:40 baldgye wrote: so... they never want people to put on early aggression?
Because they will increase the research time, it will be nearly impossible to get reactionary burrow, and it is too expensive to waste money on early game just to be safe. It will only really help zerg when they are executing early attacks, and even there its effectiveness will be limited by, once again, its cost and research time. Moight be nice to have for some of the 2 base roach pushes zvz though.
On January 15 2013 07:23 blade55555 wrote: Wow that is actually really interesting.
I can definitely see some ling traps being set for unsuspecting units in the early early game
Zerg never dit lings trap and probably wont do it ever. It's sad because if you unborrow lings on top of marines for example, you come out way better most of the time
I wonder how good a baneling bust with speed/burrow lings will be against toss. Without MsC detection, the only detection early game is the cannon at the front usually. If you get past or kill that, the zerglings can keep poping up and down attacking pylons/probes etc and I cant see much the toss could do about it. That would be my only worry with this change.
On January 15 2013 07:59 ineversmile wrote: So now we need detection to build a Nexus against a zerg without lair tech?
EDIT: I mean, it's a nice idea...I just think that there might be some problems with blocking expansions with a 25 mineral, 1/2 larva cloaked unit.
How late are you building your Nexus that a Zerg would be able to block it with a burrowed unit? You still have to get the gas and research the ability, you know.
On January 15 2013 08:27 Scrubwave wrote: Terrans will have to just get ravens quicker!
Or they should get sensors with Reapers
no
Sensors =\= detectors. Remember sensor tower? It does not detects, but just spots units in fog of war. Same for Reapers spotting burrowed units (not only in fog of war)
How about a one-time use ability per reaper? - a bit similar to flare in WC3 for the mortar team.
On January 15 2013 08:36 zhurai wrote: mines should detect burrowed then.
Too much new things around new units. Reapers should recieve soft-detection.
On January 15 2013 08:32 Nightshade_ wrote:
On January 15 2013 08:28 Existor wrote:
On January 15 2013 08:27 Scrubwave wrote: Terrans will have to just get ravens quicker!
Or they should get sensors with Reapers
no
Sensors =\= detectors. Remember sensor tower? It does not detects, but just spots units in fog of war. Same for Reapers spotting burrowed units (not only in fog of war)
How about a one-time use ability per reaper? - a bit similar to flare in WC3 for the mortar team.
That's a pretty cool idea for the reaper! Would make them awesome at taking out tumors as well!
On January 15 2013 08:27 Scrubwave wrote: Terrans will have to just get ravens quicker!
Or they should get sensors with Reapers
no
Sensors =\= detectors. Remember sensor tower? It does not detects, but just spots units in fog of war. Same for Reapers spotting burrowed units (not only in fog of war)
That ruins strategy. the whole POINT of burrow is to surprise your opponent, if you just have the magic unit you make 1 of because it doesnt need tech lab anymore run around the map you go "LOLOLOL" and run around baneling traps or lingroach traps etc.
the "burrow unit at third base" is going to be annoying to deal with... The only problem I have with this is that it sortof forces protoss to open robotics again. Yes, the oracle have an ability to detect burrow, but its limited by energy. And if there is going to be burrowed zerg units across the entire map, then I fear it wont be enough. Well, we'll still have to wait and see.
On January 15 2013 08:36 zhurai wrote: mines should detect burrowed then.
Too much new things around new units. Reapers should recieve soft-detection.
On January 15 2013 08:32 Nightshade_ wrote:
On January 15 2013 08:28 Existor wrote:
On January 15 2013 08:27 Scrubwave wrote: Terrans will have to just get ravens quicker!
Or they should get sensors with Reapers
no
Sensors =\= detectors. Remember sensor tower? It does not detects, but just spots units in fog of war. Same for Reapers spotting burrowed units (not only in fog of war)
How about a one-time use ability per reaper? - a bit similar to flare in WC3 for the mortar team.
That's a pretty cool idea for the reaper! Would make them awesome at taking out tumors as well!
Or they could have sensor towers sense burrowed units, just not detect them.
On January 15 2013 09:21 Excludos wrote: the "burrow unit at third base" is going to be annoying to deal with... The only problem I have with this is that it sortof forces protoss to open robotics again. Yes, the oracle have an ability to detect burrow, but its limited by energy. And if there is going to be burrowed zerg units across the entire map, then I fear it wont be enough. Well, we'll still have to wait and see.
Oracle can detect and kill it, but will you defend your 3rd base with photons? Maybe better start with pylon-photon and then place nexus?
Also in ZvZ 1 baneling exploding will allow to kill burrowed zergling at natural/3rd. So it looks balanced too. Also my post about this on battle.net forums
• It does not ruins ZvX, because delays Lair-tech, meaning mobile detection, better anti-air and other tools.
• It does not ruins ZvP, because protoss always starts with photon at Nexus-expand, so they can quickly clear burrowed Zergling and easily place expand. For 3rd base they have observers/Oracle to detect (Oracle got Core's Envision after Patch #11), and they can place quickly pylon-photon to clear burrowed Zergling too.
• It refreshes ZvZ and turns early game into more positional, forcing Zerg-attacker go into tier2 instead trying to kill opponent at early game stages. With nerfed Fungal Growth against armored units it can be more interesting too. So if one Zerg did burrow, he delays Lair with all it tech like faster Roaches, Infestors, Mutalisks or other options, but it allows to defend better at tier1. Also if you know, where enemy unit is burrowed, you can explode one Baneling and kill burrowed unit without detection.
• It does not ruins ZvT. Terran can already deny 3rd expand for zerg by burrowing Widow Mine. I'm not saying, is that effective or not, but Terran can unlike Zerg. Terran have scans and can build turrets anywhere. Zerg spores can be built only on creep. Also it will allow to deny Terran expand a bit, like Terran can do it now with Reaper, bunker-marine rush, Widow Mine and mixes of these units.
On January 15 2013 08:36 zhurai wrote: mines should detect burrowed then.
Too much new things around new units. Reapers should recieve soft-detection.
On January 15 2013 08:32 Nightshade_ wrote:
On January 15 2013 08:28 Existor wrote:
On January 15 2013 08:27 Scrubwave wrote: Terrans will have to just get ravens quicker!
Or they should get sensors with Reapers
no
Sensors =\= detectors. Remember sensor tower? It does not detects, but just spots units in fog of war. Same for Reapers spotting burrowed units (not only in fog of war)
How about a one-time use ability per reaper? - a bit similar to flare in WC3 for the mortar team.
That's a pretty cool idea for the reaper! Would make them awesome at taking out tumors as well!
Or they could have sensor towers sense burrowed units, just not detect them.
I don't think detecting units is going to be big of a deal. Remember the roaches can't move underground with burrow only, so you will still see them before they burrow on your screen. Its not like they will suddenly sneak up to your base..well, not any quicker than before at least.
On January 15 2013 08:36 zhurai wrote: mines should detect burrowed then.
Too much new things around new units. Reapers should recieve soft-detection.
On January 15 2013 08:32 Nightshade_ wrote:
On January 15 2013 08:28 Existor wrote:
On January 15 2013 08:27 Scrubwave wrote: Terrans will have to just get ravens quicker!
Or they should get sensors with Reapers
no
Sensors =\= detectors. Remember sensor tower? It does not detects, but just spots units in fog of war. Same for Reapers spotting burrowed units (not only in fog of war)
That ruins strategy. the whole POINT of burrow is to surprise your opponent, if you just have the magic unit you make 1 of because it doesnt need tech lab anymore run around the map you go "LOLOLOL" and run around baneling traps or lingroach traps etc.
decrease reaper sensor range to 4-5 and it becomes less strong versus surprizes
On January 15 2013 08:36 zhurai wrote: mines should detect burrowed then.
Too much new things around new units. Reapers should recieve soft-detection.
On January 15 2013 08:32 Nightshade_ wrote:
On January 15 2013 08:28 Existor wrote:
On January 15 2013 08:27 Scrubwave wrote: Terrans will have to just get ravens quicker!
Or they should get sensors with Reapers
no
Sensors =\= detectors. Remember sensor tower? It does not detects, but just spots units in fog of war. Same for Reapers spotting burrowed units (not only in fog of war)
That ruins strategy. the whole POINT of burrow is to surprise your opponent, if you just have the magic unit you make 1 of because it doesnt need tech lab anymore run around the map you go "LOLOLOL" and run around baneling traps or lingroach traps etc.
Oh man, next thing you are going to tell me they are giving someone a flying unit that can two shot probes and can cloak with an upgrade. Man, that would be so powerful, I don't know how we could figure out builds to counter a unit like that.
Yeah, no one needs new tech to deal with this. We will all be fine.
HELL YES! Zerg early game aggression feels so neutered at the moment and forcing the other races to get detection before moving out is pretty baller defensively. I will be putting burrowed banes outside naturals all day long as payback for widow mines ^_^
On January 15 2013 09:21 Excludos wrote: the "burrow unit at third base" is going to be annoying to deal with... The only problem I have with this is that it sortof forces protoss to open robotics again. Yes, the oracle have an ability to detect burrow, but its limited by energy. And if there is going to be burrowed zerg units across the entire map, then I fear it wont be enough. Well, we'll still have to wait and see.
Oracle can detect and kill it, but will you defend your 3rd base with photons? Maybe better start with pylon-photon and then place nexus?
So now we have to build a pylon and a cannon before taking our third? That's 300 more minerals and significant build time that should just be starting the nexus immediately.
On January 15 2013 09:21 Excludos wrote: the "burrow unit at third base" is going to be annoying to deal with... The only problem I have with this is that it sortof forces protoss to open robotics again. Yes, the oracle have an ability to detect burrow, but its limited by energy. And if there is going to be burrowed zerg units across the entire map, then I fear it wont be enough. Well, we'll still have to wait and see.
Oracle can detect and kill it, but will you defend your 3rd base with photons? Maybe better start with pylon-photon and then place nexus?
So now we have to build a pylon and a cannon before taking our third? That's 300 more minerals and significant build time that should just be starting the nexus immediately.
Zerg must grow creep to place spore to kill widow mine at 3rd base, or get early lair, or explode 3 banelings to kill one widow mine which is 100 minerals and 50 gas more expensive than widow mine.
It's about time Blizzard started to address Zerg's pre-Lair game, the race needs some viable, aggressive builds in HOTS and I think returning Burrow to Hatchery is where it belongs - burrowed Roach regeneration can be nerfed if it's excessive, I'd rather have the early, tactical advantage of Burrow for Zerglings and Banelings than an otherwise worthless Roach ability that forces Burrow to Tier 2 tech.
Another option I wish Blizzard would experiment with is Hatch based Spawn Creep for Overlords so you could knock on the door of Protoss and Terran wall offs earlier, maybe combined with decreasing Spine Crawlers Burrow time to 3 seconds so you could aggressively walk them over to your opponent's base instead of proxy them.
Creep spread might be an issue, but in all honesty you can just cancel a Hatchery anyway if you want to place your Creep Tumors aggressively, and using your 2nd Overlord in order to connect the Creep between your main and natural makes you a little safer vs 11/11 Barracks.
Another option I wish Blizzard would experiment with is Hatch based Spawn Creep for Overlords so you could knock on the door of Protoss and Terran wall offs earlier, maybe combined with decreasing Spine Crawlers Burrow time to 3 seconds so you could aggressively walk them over to your opponent's base instead of proxy them.
You already were able to do 7pool spine rush and it was extremely strong in some cases.
Thats ok im Protoss player and i think its perfectly fine. Maybe we see some burrowed lings or early roaches to catch someone offguard. But I dont think it will have a huge Impact on the Pro Scene.
On January 15 2013 11:24 Mantaza wrote: Thats ok im Protoss player and i think its perfectly fine. Maybe we see some burrowed lings or early roaches to catch someone offguard. But I dont think it will have a huge Impact on the Pro Scene.
The only thing I think that's going to be a problem is roach attacks. There's already a fairly crippling roach/baneling bust in ZvT as well as a powerful early roach push in ZvP. With an early burrow, roaches become much more powerful due to their health regeneration. While I know that 100/100 is a big investment when going for roaches, I can see something like this either a) being upgraded instead of zergling speed for a more powerful roach push or b) finishing around the same time as zergling speed for a stronger roach/ling all-in. In theory, if a zerg player were able to get out about 10 roaches and use burrow micro perfectly, they could continually pump roaches and eventually overwhelm the opponent before they got detection.
Of course, I'm sure there are counters if you look at the bigger picture and such. I'm just saying that roaches MIGHT be problematic, so I'll be keeping my eye on that. I don't think early burrowed lings or super early burrowed banelings will be terrible; players will just have to be a little more cautious moving out. This might also provide terran with a good reason to grab an early raven every game.
Meh, this could potentially make it easier to turtle in ZvZ since you won't have mobile detection in hatch tech making it hard to be aggressive with your own ling/banes. In ZvT I really don't think its needed, queens and lings already dispatch of any early Terran pressure and its already easy to punish a greedy Terran who trys to take a fast 3rd base. ZvP this won't be that big of a change.
Burrow is significantly more powerful as a defensive tool than an offensive one. Now if an opposing race wants to be aggressive in the early game they'll need detection. This is particularly powerful against things like reapers, hellions, MSC, Oracles, and banshees.
Burrowed banelings is incredibly powerful to have that early in the game, and burrowed roaches without movement can only do so much harass. I don't have much faith in this shifting Zerg is any meaningful way to being anything other than "defend until Hive, then a-move" race.
On January 15 2013 11:40 Virid wrote: It's a bad idea.
Burrow is significantly more powerful as a defensive tool than an offensive one. Now if an opposing race wants to be aggressive in the early game they'll need detection. This is particularly powerful against things like reapers, hellions, MSC, Oracles, and banshees.
Burrowed banelings is incredibly powerful to have that early in the game, and burrowed roaches without movement can only do so much harass. I don't have much faith in this shifting Zerg is any meaningful way to being anything other than "defend until Hive, then a-move" race.
Explain to me why burrow is strong against MsC, oracles, or banshees?
On January 15 2013 11:40 Virid wrote: It's a bad idea.
Burrow is significantly more powerful as a defensive tool than an offensive one. Now if an opposing race wants to be aggressive in the early game they'll need detection. This is particularly powerful against things like reapers, hellions, MSC, Oracles, and banshees.
Burrowed banelings is incredibly powerful to have that early in the game, and burrowed roaches without movement can only do so much harass. I don't have much faith in this shifting Zerg is any meaningful way to being anything other than "defend until Hive, then a-move" race.
Explain to me why burrow is strong against MsC, oracles, or banshees?
On January 15 2013 11:40 Virid wrote: It's a bad idea.
Burrow is significantly more powerful as a defensive tool than an offensive one. Now if an opposing race wants to be aggressive in the early game they'll need detection. This is particularly powerful against things like reapers, hellions, MSC, Oracles, and banshees.
Burrowed banelings is incredibly powerful to have that early in the game, and burrowed roaches without movement can only do so much harass. I don't have much faith in this shifting Zerg is any meaningful way to being anything other than "defend until Hive, then a-move" race.
Explain to me why burrow is strong against MsC, oracles, or banshees?
Burrowing drones and weak queens.
While you're researching burrow, you can't make queens for 100+ seconds, it delays your lair also
Tier 1 burrow sounds amazing for so many reasons. Roach burrow micro in early game. Ling and bane ambushes. Burrowing lings away from enemy detection to force a scan. All sorts of fun moves.
Early burrow is an OFFENSIVE ability, not defensive. 100/100 early on is worth at least as much as 300/0. That's 2 queens, or 2 spines. You would hold early harass much more effectively with the extra defensive units than with Burrow and no defenses. After all, burrow does nothing to kill off the enemy units, and they can toast your larvae and hatch if you can't stop them.
On January 15 2013 11:24 Mantaza wrote: Thats ok im Protoss player and i think its perfectly fine. Maybe we see some burrowed lings or early roaches to catch someone offguard. But I dont think it will have a huge Impact on the Pro Scene.
The only thing I think that's going to be a problem is roach attacks. There's already a fairly crippling roach/baneling bust in ZvT as well as a powerful early roach push in ZvP. With an early burrow, roaches become much more powerful due to their health regeneration. While I know that 100/100 is a big investment when going for roaches, I can see something like this either a) being upgraded instead of zergling speed for a more powerful roach push or b) finishing around the same time as zergling speed for a stronger roach/ling all-in. In theory, if a zerg player were able to get out about 10 roaches and use burrow micro perfectly, they could continually pump roaches and eventually overwhelm the opponent before they got detection.
Of course, I'm sure there are counters if you look at the bigger picture and such. I'm just saying that roaches MIGHT be problematic, so I'll be keeping my eye on that. I don't think early burrowed lings or super early burrowed banelings will be terrible; players will just have to be a little more cautious moving out. This might also provide terran with a good reason to grab an early raven every game.
There will exist windows for strong burrowed roach push, but it will be kinda hard to pull off since: a) No ling speed burrow roach push will be with slow roaches as well, plus Protoss now have the MsC to defend. b) roach/ling all-in with speed and burrow is really gas heavy in the early game and thus the all in will be very delayed. I guess 1 photon cannon at the natural might not be enough any more. Still roach micro isn't that effective without burrow movement. Zealots would actually do well against burrow roaches in this situations cause they will just stand on top of them once the roaches burrow.
On January 15 2013 08:36 zhurai wrote: mines should detect burrowed then.
Too much new things around new units. Reapers should recieve soft-detection.
On January 15 2013 08:32 Nightshade_ wrote:
On January 15 2013 08:28 Existor wrote:
On January 15 2013 08:27 Scrubwave wrote: Terrans will have to just get ravens quicker!
Or they should get sensors with Reapers
no
Sensors =\= detectors. Remember sensor tower? It does not detects, but just spots units in fog of war. Same for Reapers spotting burrowed units (not only in fog of war)
That ruins strategy. the whole POINT of burrow is to surprise your opponent, if you just have the magic unit you make 1 of because it doesnt need tech lab anymore run around the map you go "LOLOLOL" and run around baneling traps or lingroach traps etc.
decrease reaper sensor range to 4-5 and it becomes less strong versus surprizes
3 reapers and spread them, it's a bad idea because it will just totally remove the purpose of burrow at hatch tech.
On January 15 2013 11:40 Virid wrote: It's a bad idea.
Burrow is significantly more powerful as a defensive tool than an offensive one. Now if an opposing race wants to be aggressive in the early game they'll need detection. This is particularly powerful against things like reapers, hellions, MSC, Oracles, and banshees.
Burrowed banelings is incredibly powerful to have that early in the game, and burrowed roaches without movement can only do so much harass. I don't have much faith in this shifting Zerg is any meaningful way to being anything other than "defend until Hive, then a-move" race.
Explain to me why burrow is strong against MsC, oracles, or banshees?
Burrowing drones and weak queens.
Oracles detect, Terrans can scan, if you burrow your drones or queen they are just sitting ducks. MsC was never a harassing unit to begin with, and you can still force mining and inject timing losses by forcing burrow.
On January 15 2013 11:40 Virid wrote: It's a bad idea.
Burrow is significantly more powerful as a defensive tool than an offensive one. Now if an opposing race wants to be aggressive in the early game they'll need detection. This is particularly powerful against things like reapers, hellions, MSC, Oracles, and banshees.
Burrowed banelings is incredibly powerful to have that early in the game, and burrowed roaches without movement can only do so much harass. I don't have much faith in this shifting Zerg is any meaningful way to being anything other than "defend until Hive, then a-move" race.
Explain to me why burrow is strong against MsC, oracles, or banshees?
Burrowing drones and weak queens.
Oracles detect, Terrans can scan, if you burrow your drones or queen they are just sitting ducks. MsC was never a harassing unit to begin with, and you can still force mining and inject timing losses by forcing burrow.
Expensive for harass energy, and expensive for mining cost, and MsC as support for recall is what was meant.
On January 15 2013 12:07 Existor wrote: While you're researching burrow, you can't make queens for 100+ seconds, it delays your lair also
I'm not sure how this responds to what I said.
On January 15 2013 12:11 Piousflea wrote: Tier 1 burrow sounds amazing for so many reasons. Roach burrow micro in early game. Ling and bane ambushes. Burrowing lings away from enemy detection to force a scan. All sorts of fun moves.
Early burrow is an OFFENSIVE ability, not defensive. 100/100 early on is worth at least as much as 300/0. That's 2 queens, or 2 spines. You would hold early harass much more effectively with the extra defensive units than with Burrow and no defenses. After all, burrow does nothing to kill off the enemy units, and they can toast your larvae and hatch if you can't stop them.
In every way that this is good offensively, it is doubly good defensively. Burrowing banelings near your base is intensely powerful against all ground pushes, which forces additional investment from the aggressor to mitigate. Roaches are good for burrow micro when you're attacking an opponent's front door, but Roach burrow is even better when you're trying to just barely hold off timings as you'll be on creep and closer to your production to mitigate the issues of having slow roaches.
The only way the reaper thing would work is if they drop a small low sight sensor tower with limited range and one use only per reaper. And that should probably be an upgrade on top of that.
This could be huge, an early 2base burrow roach pressure could completely smash FFE, it will atleast force P to be more cautious, at best it could kill them
This add options and may remove some of the NR20 game to add some low econ pressure game back, I am really looking forward to this
Well considering that most people don't even use burrow as it is (a relatively cheap upgrade at lair tech) I don't think this upgrade will change that much, lol.
Problem with burrowed bane plays and shit is that you have to keep resetting the mines after you detonate.
It's not a very constant form of space control. Just provides the edge you need to bust if you're doing ling/bling/muta @2-2.
I like it. It'll probably be irrelevant for macro play since Zergs have to be so precise with their early gas usage, but it adds options for early t1 aggressive play. More options = good.
I think at the very least this is good even if not many people use it just because Terran and Toss will have to be worried about a potential roach all in with burrow, since zerg has very little variety options at Tier 1, and even less all-ins even the threat of a potential one is good.
Naysayer thinks like burrow is free or something. 100 gas + that hatchery is unusable for an amount of time is pretty big. It also delay lair tech. Its strange that people keep on thinking that all zerg things are free.
yea i mean overall this wont really be enough to anywhere near fix zerg, they need quite a few more buffs to be able to even hope to compete with the other races in the late game atm.
On January 15 2013 14:31 phodacbiet wrote: Naysayer thinks like burrow is free or something. 100 gas + that hatchery is unusable for an amount of time is pretty big. It also delay lair tech. Its strange that people keep on thinking that all zerg things are free.
It's quite inexpensive...
It also does not take that long to research. And as most players delay their lair for quite a long time anyhow it's not really that big of a deal.
Most players probably will not get it anyhow.
Maybe there are some cool timings that will arise where you can delay opponent's third, or something like that.
But it's not really going to factor into baneling bomb usage.
On January 15 2013 08:03 Habitus wrote: For burrowed Drones, Terran has scan and Protoss has Oracle with detection. So I think this would be interesting to atleast test
Oracles don't have nearly enough energy to both detect and actually kill stuff. This change will most likely mean the end of oracle harass vs. zerg in the early stages of the game. It's just not feasible to either go oracle + observer or build another dedicated oracle just for detection who needs to sit around for like 2-3 minutes until he has enough energy for even 1 detection.
I don't like the change... If anything it will prevent protoss and terrans from moving out of their base. In PvZ ist actually means it's entirely impossible to move out without an observer.
On January 15 2013 08:03 Habitus wrote: For burrowed Drones, Terran has scan and Protoss has Oracle with detection. So I think this would be interesting to atleast test
Oracles don't have nearly enough energy to both detect and actually kill stuff. This change will most likely mean the end of oracle harass vs. zerg in the early stages of the game. It's just not feasible to either go oracle + observer or build another dedicated oracle just for detection who needs to sit around for like 2-3 minutes until he has enough energy for even 1 detection.
I don't like the chance... If anything it will prevent protoss and terrans from moving out of their base. In PvZ ist actually means it's entirely impossible to move out without an observer.
as it is oracles are pretty shitty harras units that just fly in cast their spell and insta kill shit. zerg deciding whether or not to get fast burrow to hide drones is cool and oracles forcing drones to burrow is kind of like entomb where u aren't killing the drones but preventing mining. Either way its better then fly in and insta kill the drones.
On January 15 2013 14:31 phodacbiet wrote: Naysayer thinks like burrow is free or something. 100 gas + that hatchery is unusable for an amount of time is pretty big. It also delay lair tech. Its strange that people keep on thinking that all zerg things are free.
It's quite inexpensive...
It also does not take that long to research. And as most players delay their lair for quite a long time anyhow it's not really that big of a deal.
Most players probably will not get it anyhow.
Maybe there are some cool timings that will arise where you can delay opponent's third, or something like that.
But it's not really going to factor into baneling bomb usage.
Eh early in the game 100 gas is pretty expensive. If you aren't going to do double evo upgrades then no it's not, but if you are doing double evo upgrades + burrow + ling speed + lair that is pretty expensive early on.
Obviously longer game goes on it's not an expensive upgrade but it is expensive as a hatch tech upgrade 100 gas is a lot bigger then people realize that early.
I will probably mess with it but I don't see this becoming imba or anything.
Not sure if anything is gonna change. The burrow cost has gas and rushing it doesn't really help that much Maybe burrow research and lair research at the same time can be good?
On January 15 2013 15:19 ETisME wrote: Not sure if anything is gonna change. The burrow cost has gas and rushing it doesn't really help that much Maybe burrow research and lair research at the same time can be good?
This.
Not exactly sure if I want to spend 100 gas so early in the game to have burrow when I mostly go double evo :/
It does not change that much vT and P, you will delay like 500 Min overall because of the early gas mining so early push will be stronger, you better spend that money on the third. I think it's ZvZ the one which get changed the most. I wonder what kind of cheese people will come up with this now...
I don't dislike it but I don't see how it helps us be aggressive. If you try to harass 100 gas pre-lair is something you can't afford. This can help a ton if you're passive however, you can trap hellions, deal with gateway timings, save drones, kill Marines with banelings ... All of those are only useful on defense.
If they want Zerg to get better aggression then should work on mines (no splash damage, balance them around that) and remove the last tank buff.
burrow is a really iconic zerg ability but while there are some cool uses like burrowed banelings i'd love to see them add something new to make it more useful
atm the by far best use is for infestors, you can do lots of tricky stuff with them while burrowed, with how much the infestor got nerfed they will be used less ofc
also blizzard really seems to want to make burrow more useful, the coolest change for hots that was announced for zerg was burrowed baneling movement, now that this is gone hopefully something else will be implemented
really zerg as a whole need more cool stuff that players can do to set themself apart from each other
It's good! Actually great! Though I really wish that they would do something that would make people use the Nydus more often. I never ever see it used that much and it's a really useful feature that Zerg players can utilise but they don't.
Overall though I think Burrow should be Tier 1, as long as tunneling claws stay at tier 2.
Not bad, but this could have been done in a regular patch or something... I would like something new and interesting, it's an expansion after all not a patch.
Harassing workers early game will be a pain in the ass.
On January 15 2013 18:06 HwangjaeTerran wrote: I wonder if they thought about marginal games, early base trades and stuff like that, maybe zerg can take all those games now.
Exactly.
Hope they tested it before rushing to that change.
More burrow usage is really cool, but it remains to be seen if people actually research it (I think the research isn't worth it, particularly that early).
Another interesting idea would be to make burrow automatic at Lair tech, wouldn't that be better?
Reapers will recieve passive or coldownbased activable (for short time) ability "Mobile Sensor" which grants ability to see burrowed or cloaked units without detecting them.
Oh fuck, I have been saying this since forever. Burrow micro pressure/allin finally incoming, burrowed banelings in the natural.
This could be so problematic, yet so cool.
On January 15 2013 17:27 Tsubbi wrote: burrow is a really iconic zerg ability but while there are some cool uses like burrowed banelings i'd love to see them add something new to make it more useful
atm the by far best use is for infestors, you can do lots of tricky stuff with them while burrowed, with how much the infestor got nerfed they will be used less ofc
also blizzard really seems to want to make burrow more useful, the coolest change for hots that was announced for zerg was burrowed baneling movement, now that this is gone hopefully something else will be implemented
really zerg as a whole need more cool stuff that players can do to set themself apart from each other
If they would get roach regeneration right it would be totally fine. Like extremely awesome.
I guess you know, actually oracle is the worst mobile detector in the game by far, that spell is only a panic button, nothing to do with normal mobile detection like raven and overseers. And with this burrow change, gate expand is pretty dead like everything not involving a robo.
On January 15 2013 07:27 blade55555 wrote: Yeah burrow drones when 8 hellions go into them, then a scan and their dead anyway .
One scan is 270 mineral (5 drones) and you will probably lose your hellions (800 minerals, 16 drones). Great idea! really...
Blizzard wants to put burrow at tier 1 because they want more offensive play from the zerg (which is good) but I'm affraid this change will simply allow zerg to turlte harder (baneling mines / burrow drones if danger) and rush T3 even more faster, and that is not what HotS needs
I guess you know, actually oracle is the worst mobile detector in the game by far, that spell is only a panic button, nothing to do with normal mobile detection like raven and overseers. And with this burrow change, gate expand is pretty dead like everything not involving a robo.
Nope, I think ghost is much worse. Still, some ghost opening is pretty good vs DT opening and I expect Oracle+Void Ray to be pretty good vs roaches. Not to mention that the standard PvZ opening is FFE. You have a canon (and the ability to build more) anyways!!!
It does nothing for Zergs being offensive in the MIDGAME (which is where they needed the boost compared to WoL, not in the early game), and it makes them even stronger defensively. Now, did we REALLY need to make Zerg even more turtly? As a Protoss, this is just going to force me to turtle behind skytoss/templar even harder.
@Big J, Inverno loves his gateway expands but he does have a point. Cannons are obviously shitty for offensive purposes, and a detecting oracle does jackshit as well because it doesn't have the energy to use anything else.
Reapers will recieve passive or coldownbased activable (for short time) ability "Mobile Sensor" which grants ability to see burrowed or cloaked units without detecting them.
Hey... that's actually a really cool idea.
Hey, then I want detection on my mothership core back
On January 15 2013 19:46 Teoita wrote: Looks pretty pointless to me.
It does nothing for Zergs being offensive in the MIDGAME (which is where they needed the boost compared to WoL, not in the early game), and it makes them even stronger defensively. Now, did we REALLY need to make Zerg even more turtly? As a Protoss, this is just going to force me to turtle behind skytoss/templar even harder.
@Big J, Inverno loves his gateway expands but he does have a point. Cannons are obviously shitty for offensive purposes, and a detecting oracle does jackshit as well because it doesn't have the energy to use anything else.
Ah well, I don't deny that a straight up implication could (or probably will) be problematic. But that's why they -) test it internally -) might add a longer research time (for example to prevent a 14/14 opening from blocking a 1gate expand, stuff like that) -) are surely willing to rebalance stuff like Protoss detection if needed. Maybe they will just switch detection back to the MSC if needed.
For 150/150 and 3 supply. And you don't even have to burn a scan/have overseers to snipe it. Oracles are not really a great unit otherwise as they are generally shut down too easy, and only work if you can seriously surprise your opponent.
People need to stop assuming that burrow research will magically appear in builds that are currently standard. The research just won't fit in a standard early game.
What might happen is that new builds emerge but you can't afford paying 100/100 that early and not making 2 queens and play the same way as before.
Besides having no detection is far from game-ending. It can be annoying, delay stuff, make the zerg army marginally stronger but I wonder if the research is worth the cost even in the scenarios people are mentioning.
On January 15 2013 07:41 awesomoecalypse wrote: This would be fucking awesome. A great way to give a generalized buff to early game Zerg harass and defense, but one with economic tradeoffs and that won't make Z midgame pushes or lategame comps stronger.
I am not so sure that I feel like it is necessary. After the queen range buff, many terrans have informed us of the various impracticalities of agression in the matchup and against protoss most zerg can take three bases relatively unhindered. Even the infamous immortal/sentry push comes at a time when you have lair already despite 3 bases.
Not that I am against burrow as a tool, I am just wondering whether there is a specific kind of application for it in the early game that Blizzard has in mind that I don't know about. If not, then they are just adding strength to an underused ability in hopes of seeing more use out of it and that might lead to other impracticalities.
Then again, if there is a time for testing stuff it is now.
This. Depending on the upgrade costs of burrow on hatch tech, it could mean even more powerful roach all-ins and even less possible early game harassment _against_ zerg. To prevent this, the burrow upgrade would have to be very costly. Either way, cheap or costly, this change makes no sense.
So...They want burrow to be tier 1, i can live with that. Going to effect TvZ alot more than any other match up. I can't see it effecting roaches much, unless u do roach all ins and burrow to regen health, but u wud lose ur timing then im pretty sure...
Baneling landmines going to be used even more and more, going be a bitch for Terran ^_^
On January 15 2013 07:41 awesomoecalypse wrote: This would be fucking awesome. A great way to give a generalized buff to early game Zerg harass and defense, but one with economic tradeoffs and that won't make Z midgame pushes or lategame comps stronger.
I am not so sure that I feel like it is necessary. After the queen range buff, many terrans have informed us of the various impracticalities of agression in the matchup and against protoss most zerg can take three bases relatively unhindered. Even the infamous immortal/sentry push comes at a time when you have lair already despite 3 bases.
Not that I am against burrow as a tool, I am just wondering whether there is a specific kind of application for it in the early game that Blizzard has in mind that I don't know about. If not, then they are just adding strength to an underused ability in hopes of seeing more use out of it and that might lead to other impracticalities.
Then again, if there is a time for testing stuff it is now.
This. Depending on the upgrade costs of burrow on hatch tech, it could mean even more powerful roach all-ins and even less possible early game harassment _against_ zerg. To prevent this, the burrow upgrade would have to be very costly. Either way, cheap or costly, this change makes no sense.
No matter what changes they make to Zerg early game, you are going to find people with complaints about "early harassment against Zerg is going to be even harder".
People need to understand, if Zerg has a stronger early game, their late game won't NEED to be as overpowered as it currently is at the moment. I've had to say this many times lately - for beta it's more important that fundamental roles are functional because the numbers can be tweaked later.
With that said, Burrow might turn out to be a good solution for Zerg early game. Because it's a solution that requires micro to be effective. Which is always welcomed as it adds skill-based elements to gameplay. Plus it's more fun to watch from a viewer perspective as well.
Also, keep in mind build orders that support this kind of build are drastically different, basically the difference between no-gas and quick lair. Protoss and Terran will still be able to scout and try to adapt around the different type of pressure, so no reason to be worried about "Early harassment" problems against Zerg. If anything this would discourage quick tech macro games, which is a welcome change imo.
Zerg players have been begging for something early game since WoL beta, I wish people wouldn't be complaining so much when they finally are finally doing something.
It won't be that big offensively early game, but it will really lessen the damage hellion runbys do in the early-midgame. Blizzard is so fucking gungho for giving toss and zerg more detection but ravens still cost 100/200 and come out of a tech-lab starport.
People are saying 100/100 and queen sacrifice is detrimental to zerg but how about burning 2/3 scans you saved up just to deal temporary economic damage to a zerg who can replenish his drone count in less than a minute after you attack, assuming you actually you know..kill drones?
This is the queen patch 2.0, this time they just want to make attacking easier and it in turn makes defending harass easier. 3 hatch is still standard against expand builds from a Terran. Burrow at your third while you tech to lair at your main, not cutting a queen and you'll definitely have gas to do so by that point. That way you'll have it damn near completion when hellion pushes come.
Offensive? Really? ...it's not like they're making tunneling claws T1.
On January 15 2013 07:27 blade55555 wrote: Yeah burrow drones when 8 hellions go into them, then a scan and their dead anyway .
One scan is 270 mineral (5 drones) and you will probably lose your hellions (800 minerals, 16 drones). Great idea! really...
I just love this math! At first you say that you lose 270 minirals when you scan (how do you actually lose something you never had?) and then you compare 8 hellions with 16 drones. Not taking into account what you just said, lost mining time on those drones from that point and forward.
On January 15 2013 21:27 Badfatpanda wrote: It won't be that big offensively early game, but it will really lessen the damage hellion runbys do in the early-midgame. Blizzard is so fucking gungho for giving toss and zerg more detection but ravens still cost 100/200 and come out of a tech-lab starport.
People are saying 100/100 and queen sacrifice is detrimental to zerg but how about burning 2/3 scans you saved up just to deal temporary economic damage to a zerg who can replenish his drone count in less than a minute after you attack, assuming you actually you know..kill drones?
So... your complaining about not enough detection in your first paragraph, when scans are intended to be early game detection for Terran... and then in your second paragraph complaining about using scans offensively? And dumbing down economic damage of taking out Drones?
If a Zerg player invests to try to do damage to the Terran player, shouldn't the Terran player need to invest something in response to that?
Also silly to say Zerg can just replenish the drone count in a minute, if they do so they are sacrificing larvae for that from other things, and having decreased income during that time. What about if Zerg does some economic damage to the Terran player and then Terran responds by immediately dropping mules which give more income than the Zerg player would have made during that entire time?
The rest of your comment goes beyond straight theory, since you are trying to extrapolate the first 10 minutes of the game without knowing anything about the ideal burrow build orders. If the Zerg player was going 3 hatch macro build Burrow isn't exactly one of the top things the Zerg player would be prioritizing... and the Terrans few scans would basically nullify any advantages Burrow had on defense since they would be working with a limited amount of defenders that would be detected with those few scans.
If we're talking theory, Burrow has more usefulness on offense, since you can force a scan and then back off, or more easily block expansion/contain, and repeat until the scans are gone or the Terran player invests more in to detection. You can't do that on defense without letting other economic damage happen, but it actually would theoretically work on offense.
If anything this change would bring Zerg on more even terms with Terran since they have widow mines that need to be detected. Also keep in mind if they prioritize burrow the Zerg players own detection would be lacking leaving them vulnerable if they don't plan around that.
On January 15 2013 21:27 Badfatpanda wrote: People are saying 100/100 and queen sacrifice is detrimental to zerg but how about burning 2/3 scans you saved up just to deal temporary economic damage to a zerg who can replenish his drone count in less than a minute after you attack, assuming you actually you know..kill drones?
... Well, to answer your question, the cost is much cheaper on the Terran side. If that's the only way you plan on using burrow it's just not worth it.
I think it's a great move, because it gives Zerg one more option at hatch tech without it being a free option. What I mean by that is, sure we get the option to research burrow, but if we do then we either:
I don't really believe any overpowered builds will come out of this, so given the downsides to the research at hatch, there's really no reason to keep it at lair, and frankly it should probably have been this way since day 1.
On January 15 2013 21:27 Badfatpanda wrote: It won't be that big offensively early game, but it will really lessen the damage hellion runbys do in the early-midgame. Blizzard is so fucking gungho for giving toss and zerg more detection but ravens still cost 100/200 and come out of a tech-lab starport.
People are saying 100/100 and queen sacrifice is detrimental to zerg but how about burning 2/3 scans you saved up just to deal temporary economic damage to a zerg who can replenish his drone count in less than a minute after you attack, assuming you actually you know..kill drones?
This is the queen patch 2.0, this time they just want to make attacking easier and it in turn makes defending harass easier. 3 hatch is still standard against expand builds from a Terran. Burrow at your third while you tech to lair at your main, not cutting a queen and you'll definitely have gas to do so by that point. That way you'll have it damn near completion when hellion pushes come.
Offensive? Really? ...it's not like they're making tunneling claws T1.
Either way, the Zerg has spent 100 more gas than if this were at lair. That's either a delayed lair/speed or less roaches. In the last case, that means that your hellions still can do damage, even with burrow.
On January 15 2013 21:29 mec wrote: I just love this math! At first you say that you lose 270 minirals when you scan (how do you actually lose something you never had?) and then you compare 8 hellions with 16 drones. Not taking into account what you just said, lost mining time on those drones from that point and forward.
Was just pointing out that if you have to use a scan early game to kill 8 drones, then it's pointless to harass and risk losing your helions. Scan could have earned you 270 minerals (very needed early game). If you use your scan for something else, you just lose 270 minerals. Period.
But i see you are focused on the wrong part of my post, the point I was trying to make waas this one :
On January 15 2013 19:44 VieuxSinge wrote: Blizzard wants to put burrow at tier 1 because they want more offensive play from the zerg (which is good) but I'm affraid this change will simply allow zerg to turlte harder (baneling mines / burrow drones if danger) and rush T3 even more faster, and that is not what HotS needs
I don't think you all realize that this change wouldn't affect hardly anything. Not because burrow isn't useful, there's just so many more important things to get.
In the early game, are you really going to spend your relatively low resources on Burrow rather than ling speed, +1 attack, or Lair? Or prioritize it over queens? Or drones, or units/buildings for defense, banenest/roach warren, units for an attack, expansions.. The thing about burrow people don't realize is that in most every case, you're not going to be getting it over these other things that are generally more vital and helpful. Yes you should eventually get it cus its useful, but how often is it going to be a core part of your opening, more important than those upgrades I mentioned?
You don't exactly have a ton of resources to just spend on whatever you like, especially as lair finishes you'll be needing resources for whichever lair tech, like roach speed, bane speed, spire, infestor pit, etc. I mean its not exactly like people prioritize burrow at lair right now over those other things. I'm saying all this as a response to all the people getting a little carried away with how suddenly detection will become suddenly so necessary early on and such nonsense
On January 15 2013 23:00 Zelniq wrote: In the early game, are you really going to spend your relatively low resources on Burrow rather than ling speed, +1 attack, or Lair? Or prioritize it over queens? The thing about burrow people don't realize is that in most every case, you're not going to be getting it over these other things that are generally more vital and helpful. Yes you should eventually get it cus its useful, but how often is it going to be a core part of your opening, more important than those upgraded I mentioned? You don't exactly have a ton of resources to just spend on whatever you like, especially as lair finishes you'll be needing resources for whichever lair tech, like roach speed, bane speed, spire, infestor pit, etc. I mean its not exactly like people prioritize burrow at lair right now over those other things. I'm saying all this as a response to all the people getting a little carried away with how suddenly detection will become suddenly so necessary early on and such nonsense.
exactly, burrow itself needs to be more useful, it is strictly worse than all alternatives you could spent gas on in the early and midgame, hopefully the'll do something about it
On January 15 2013 07:40 baldgye wrote: so... they never want people to put on early aggression?
Guess so. This is purely a defensive change.
Gateway timings will really suffer since the MSC lost detection. Zerg will be able to burrow Queens and Drones to save them against air attacks.
If Blizzard doesn't want early aggression to be viable, then it is time for them to start everyone with 2 bases, 32 workers, and some basic buildings. There is no reason to waste the time of Master League players, because some dumb is cheese is viable in Gold.
On January 15 2013 23:00 Zelniq wrote: In the early game, are you really going to spend your relatively low resources on Burrow rather than ling speed, +1 attack, or Lair? Or prioritize it over queens? The thing about burrow people don't realize is that in most every case, you're not going to be getting it over these other things that are generally more vital and helpful. Yes you should eventually get it cus its useful, but how often is it going to be a core part of your opening, more important than those upgrades I mentioned? You don't exactly have a ton of resources to just spend on whatever you like, especially as lair finishes you'll be needing resources for whichever lair tech, like roach speed, bane speed, spire, infestor pit, etc. I mean its not exactly like people prioritize burrow at lair right now over those other things. I'm saying all this as a response to all the people getting a little carried away with how suddenly detection will become suddenly so necessary early on and such nonsense.
Except that burrow will become a tool that will straight up stop Gateway timings with burrowed Roaches. So you scout the 7 Gate, and now it doesn't work at all, allowing the Zerg to be more greedy.
On January 15 2013 23:00 Zelniq wrote: In the early game, are you really going to spend your relatively low resources on Burrow rather than ling speed, +1 attack, or Lair? Or prioritize it over queens? The thing about burrow people don't realize is that in most every case, you're not going to be getting it over these other things that are generally more vital and helpful. Yes you should eventually get it cus its useful, but how often is it going to be a core part of your opening, more important than those upgraded I mentioned? You don't exactly have a ton of resources to just spend on whatever you like, especially as lair finishes you'll be needing resources for whichever lair tech, like roach speed, bane speed, spire, infestor pit, etc. I mean its not exactly like people prioritize burrow at lair right now over those other things. I'm saying all this as a response to all the people getting a little carried away with how suddenly detection will become suddenly so necessary early on and such nonsense.
I think David Kim failed to see the reason behind Z's lack of real aggression pre 9 min. As a long time Z player, i wholeheartedly agree with your opinion on this. +1 and Ling speed are far too important in any matchup and should not be forgone in favour of burrow. Burrow only has limited applications and it's resource cost is too high to warrant any real use pre lair. While some 'all ins' may be more effective, the inherent mechanical issues that lies with the Z race itself (needing more hatches/queens/strong eco) to maintain an otherwise swarmy yet not very cost efficient unit is too important which is why they should have looked at other alternatives aside from burrow.
The issue at hand is most likely the mechanics of Z which is so pervasive and if Z really wants to be able to commit decent pressure, they need to look at tweaking unit stats or changing certain drone/larvae mechanic. The current meta and Z's weakness on needing to be 1 base ahead is one such reason preventing possible harass options and these 'surface' changes are not enough to create any meaningful change.
On January 15 2013 07:40 baldgye wrote: so... they never want people to put on early aggression?
Guess so. This is purely a defensive change.
Gateway timings will really suffer since the MSC lost detection. Zerg will be able to burrow Queens and Drones to save them against air attacks.
If Blizzard doesn't want early aggression to be viable, then it is time for them to start everyone with 2 bases, 32 workers, and some basic buildings. There is no reason to waste the time of Master League players, because some dumb is cheese is viable in Gold.
On January 15 2013 23:00 Zelniq wrote: In the early game, are you really going to spend your relatively low resources on Burrow rather than ling speed, +1 attack, or Lair? Or prioritize it over queens? The thing about burrow people don't realize is that in most every case, you're not going to be getting it over these other things that are generally more vital and helpful. Yes you should eventually get it cus its useful, but how often is it going to be a core part of your opening, more important than those upgrades I mentioned? You don't exactly have a ton of resources to just spend on whatever you like, especially as lair finishes you'll be needing resources for whichever lair tech, like roach speed, bane speed, spire, infestor pit, etc. I mean its not exactly like people prioritize burrow at lair right now over those other things. I'm saying all this as a response to all the people getting a little carried away with how suddenly detection will become suddenly so necessary early on and such nonsense.
Except that burrow will become a tool that will straight up stop Gateway timings with burrowed Roaches. So you scout the 7 Gate, and now it doesn't work at all, allowing the Zerg to be more greedy.
I still think the response to early air aggression will be to get more Queens to defend rather than get this upgrade. Burrow will allow you to 'save' whatever Queens and drones you have, but that gives the attacker free reign over any tech structures. It'll buy you time to get more Queens, but for that you need more minerals which means having some drones exposed to be killed anyway.
On January 15 2013 19:16 InVerno wrote: nothing to do with normal mobile detection like raven and overseers. And with this burrow change, gate expand is pretty dead like everything not involving a robo.
I don't see how burrow change has a huge disadvantage for Zerg to prevent toss from taking their third.
Toss usually take their third usually pass 9 min mark, that's already pass the early game stage. By then, toss has obs out already.
It is a waste of 100 gas to spend on burrow just so a Zerg can burrow a zergling to deny a third.
On January 15 2013 19:16 InVerno wrote: nothing to do with normal mobile detection like raven and overseers. And with this burrow change, gate expand is pretty dead like everything not involving a robo.
I don't see how burrow change has a huge disadvantage for Zerg to prevent toss from taking their third.
Toss usually take their third usually pass 9 min mark, that's already pass the early game stage. By then, toss has obs out already.
It is a waste of 100 gas to spend on burrow just so a Zerg can burrow a zergling to deny a third.
It would be funny though to put a pair of banelings at the possible expansions of a Protoss and as the probes are transfering. Boom :D
On January 15 2013 21:29 mec wrote: I just love this math! At first you say that you lose 270 minirals when you scan (how do you actually lose something you never had?) and then you compare 8 hellions with 16 drones. Not taking into account what you just said, lost mining time on those drones from that point and forward.
Was just pointing out that if you have to use a scan early game to kill 8 drones, then it's pointless to harass and risk losing your helions. Scan could have earned you 270 minerals (very needed early game). If you use your scan for something else, you just lose 270 minerals. Period.
But i see you are focused on the wrong part of my post, the point I was trying to make waas this one :
On January 15 2013 19:44 VieuxSinge wrote: Blizzard wants to put burrow at tier 1 because they want more offensive play from the zerg (which is good) but I'm affraid this change will simply allow zerg to turlte harder (baneling mines / burrow drones if danger) and rush T3 even more faster, and that is not what HotS needs
And how much could 8 drones have earned the zerg? Its a flawled logic you are using that the scan is a loss of minirals when its in fact something completely different. I dont care about the rest of the post, im just trying to fix this logic that every terran player is trying to use as a excuse to be greedy.
If a scan costs you 270 minirals, how much does it cost to build buildings for the zerg in the long run?
On January 15 2013 07:27 blade55555 wrote: Yeah burrow drones when 8 hellions go into them, then a scan and their dead anyway .
One scan is 270 mineral (5 drones) and you will probably lose your hellions (800 minerals, 16 drones). Great idea! really...
I just love this math! At first you say that you lose 270 minirals when you scan (how do you actually lose something you never had?) and then you compare 8 hellions with 16 drones. Not taking into account what you just said, lost mining time on those drones from that point and forward.
Well I really LOVE your argument implying, well JUST SCAN AWAY who needs mule's??11 You won't lose any minerals LOL. I guess you've NEVER EVER played terran because you REALLY need mules to keep up in economy vs the other races. Zerg can just build a huge amount of workers in a short time. Protos can speed up worker production. Terran NEEDS mules mining in the early-game you can't just scan here and there and hey also over here.
As a Zerg player I love this. HotS is basically the same for Zerg until a little after lair tech, there are just more things that can kill us - more timings, different comps, different units. Burrow would be great as possibly an early-ish attack, depending on how long they make the research time. Burrowed roach attack may be plausible. If the research time is too low then burrowing a ling at the Protoss natural before they throw down their Nexus could be bothersome, or burrowing some lings in the mineral lines of bases before they're saturated and then attacking later could be potent.
However, if the research time is too long then Zergs would probably use it more as a defensive tool and use their lair tech units to attack (possibly with burrow?).
I think people must remember that zerg it's not getting free burrow. A early burrow rresearch means delayed lair tech ans less baneling/roaches. And, in general, don't help zerg offensive wise that much. Defensive wise, it's really cool since zerg can now plamt baneling landmines in key spots (like chokes) to have some scouting and better ground control.
Excellent news! This could be an incentive to use more this ability, and could create some cool ambushes. Plus, with MSC detection removed, it could has some use in PvZ too! Great.
On January 15 2013 07:27 blade55555 wrote: Yeah burrow drones when 8 hellions go into them, then a scan and their dead anyway .
One scan is 270 mineral (5 drones) and you will probably lose your hellions (800 minerals, 16 drones). Great idea! really...
I just love this math! At first you say that you lose 270 minirals when you scan (how do you actually lose something you never had?) and then you compare 8 hellions with 16 drones. Not taking into account what you just said, lost mining time on those drones from that point and forward.
Well I really LOVE your argument implying, well JUST SCAN AWAY who needs mule's??11 You won't lose any minerals LOL. I guess you've NEVER EVER played terran because you REALLY need mules to keep up in economy vs the other races. Zerg can just build a huge amount of workers in a short time. Protos can speed up worker production. Terran NEEDS mules mining in the early-game you can't just scan here and there and hey also over here.
No his arguement does not imply what you wrote. You should read it again.
His point is that a scan does not cost 270minerals. Just like 2zerglings built at 5mins in a 15min game does not cost 400minerals extra. (because that's what you mine in those 10mins with a drone that you could build instead of the zergling). Noone here denies that scaning instead of muling is bad for Terran economy. Upgrading burrow and building aggressive units instead of drones is the same for zerg economy.
Don't like that idea. Burrowed banelings with roaches in the early game? Way too strong. Burrowed lings / roaches with tier 1 tech is okay, but burrowed banelings should be tier 2 tech for sure.
On January 16 2013 00:51 Bahajinbo wrote: Don't like that idea. Burrowed banelings with roaches in the early game? Way too strong. Burrowed lings / roaches with tier 1 tech is okay, but burrowed banelings should be tier 2 tech for sure.
I'd say burrowed banelings being teir one is fine. It's no difference to widow mines coming out around that time too.
Burrowed banelings on defense that early would be way too strong. It would only serve to make Zerg even more immune to Terran aggression than it already is.
On January 15 2013 07:27 blade55555 wrote: Yeah burrow drones when 8 hellions go into them, then a scan and their dead anyway .
One scan is 270 mineral (5 drones) and you will probably lose your hellions (800 minerals, 16 drones). Great idea! really...
I just love this math! At first you say that you lose 270 minirals when you scan (how do you actually lose something you never had?) and then you compare 8 hellions with 16 drones. Not taking into account what you just said, lost mining time on those drones from that point and forward.
Well I really LOVE your argument implying, well JUST SCAN AWAY who needs mule's??11 You won't lose any minerals LOL. I guess you've NEVER EVER played terran because you REALLY need mules to keep up in economy vs the other races. Zerg can just build a huge amount of workers in a short time. Protos can speed up worker production. Terran NEEDS mules mining in the early-game you can't just scan here and there and hey also over here.
On January 15 2013 07:25 Stingart wrote: Fencar made a good comment:
Burrow is extremely useful in TvZ, and at least moderately useful in ZvZ.
Zerg can burrow Banelings in pathways to either waste scans for the Terran army or to kill tons of Marines, they can burrow Zerglings at expansions to force scans before landing CC's, can burrow Drones to save them from Marine drops and run-by's, can burrow Infestors to harass with Infested Terrans, and you can burrow Zerglings in the Terran's base during a run-by to harass even more later, etc.
I honestly don't think that Burrow needs to be at hatchery tech.
Burrow your drones so no harass can kill them. Nice buff for Zerg i'd say.
Yeah burrow drones when 8 hellions go into them, then a scan and their dead anyway .
Honestly with how hard terran counters early game harass by zerg now (widow mines + free siege tank upgrade) this is a nice change that might bring some more early game harassment :D
At least this serves to point out who is trying to stay honest and who just complains automatically for everything.
There is no way any reasonable person can think this is overpowered. Burrow won't work with any standard build. Like Zelniq said, this changes nothing. The only impact it may have is for some builds specifically designed around burrow. Maybe some roach timing.
The point is, teching to burrow for defense is stupid. Maybe there's a couple scenarios where burrow is worth it, but you know what else you can make instead? Roaches. Banelings. Queens. All of those will help you actually defend instead of losing marginally less in case you're overrun, and are much more solid and cheap options if you want a macro game. So many arguments in this thread make absolutely no sense, come on guys...
On January 15 2013 19:16 InVerno wrote: nothing to do with normal mobile detection like raven and overseers. And with this burrow change, gate expand is pretty dead like everything not involving a robo.
I don't see how burrow change has a huge disadvantage for Zerg to prevent toss from taking their third.
Toss usually take their third usually pass 9 min mark, that's already pass the early game stage. By then, toss has obs out already.
It is a waste of 100 gas to spend on burrow just so a Zerg can burrow a zergling to deny a third.
It would be funny though to put a pair of banelings at the possible expansions of a Protoss and as the probes are transfering. Boom :D
You can do this quite well vs any race currently :p Just try getting burrow soon after your lair, and you should be able to get under their inc 3rd base nicely unless they rush a 3rd early.
I've had some really nice results killing 20+ workers in one boom when they're transferred in the line, and they stack up on that one mineral patch just before they find other patches.
On January 15 2013 07:27 blade55555 wrote: Yeah burrow drones when 8 hellions go into them, then a scan and their dead anyway .
One scan is 270 mineral (5 drones) and you will probably lose your hellions (800 minerals, 16 drones). Great idea! really...
I just love this math! At first you say that you lose 270 minirals when you scan (how do you actually lose something you never had?) and then you compare 8 hellions with 16 drones. Not taking into account what you just said, lost mining time on those drones from that point and forward.
Well I really LOVE your argument implying, well JUST SCAN AWAY who needs mule's??11 You won't lose any minerals LOL. I guess you've NEVER EVER played terran because you REALLY need mules to keep up in economy vs the other races. Zerg can just build a huge amount of workers in a short time. Protos can speed up worker production. Terran NEEDS mules mining in the early-game you can't just scan here and there and hey also over here.
And they still don't get it? Amazing.
Don't pretend we don't get it. To put it in words correctly. You scan = lower income, minerals can still be mined later. BUT thinking you can just scan away is false. You could have had 270 minerals more which is very important to keep up in economy.
On January 15 2013 07:27 blade55555 wrote: Yeah burrow drones when 8 hellions go into them, then a scan and their dead anyway .
One scan is 270 mineral (5 drones) and you will probably lose your hellions (800 minerals, 16 drones). Great idea! really...
I just love this math! At first you say that you lose 270 minirals when you scan (how do you actually lose something you never had?) and then you compare 8 hellions with 16 drones. Not taking into account what you just said, lost mining time on those drones from that point and forward.
Well I really LOVE your argument implying, well JUST SCAN AWAY who needs mule's??11 You won't lose any minerals LOL. I guess you've NEVER EVER played terran because you REALLY need mules to keep up in economy vs the other races. Zerg can just build a huge amount of workers in a short time. Protos can speed up worker production. Terran NEEDS mules mining in the early-game you can't just scan here and there and hey also over here.
And they still don't get it? Amazing.
Don't pretend we don't get it. To put it in words correctly. You scan = lower income, minerals can still be mined later. BUT thinking you can just scan away is false. You could have had 270 minerals more which is very important to keep up in economy.
But your opponent will also have less economy to begin with, as he invested into burrow so your mules are not needed to keep up.
On January 15 2013 07:27 blade55555 wrote: Yeah burrow drones when 8 hellions go into them, then a scan and their dead anyway .
One scan is 270 mineral (5 drones) and you will probably lose your hellions (800 minerals, 16 drones). Great idea! really...
I just love this math! At first you say that you lose 270 minirals when you scan (how do you actually lose something you never had?) and then you compare 8 hellions with 16 drones. Not taking into account what you just said, lost mining time on those drones from that point and forward.
Well I really LOVE your argument implying, well JUST SCAN AWAY who needs mule's??11 You won't lose any minerals LOL. I guess you've NEVER EVER played terran because you REALLY need mules to keep up in economy vs the other races. Zerg can just build a huge amount of workers in a short time. Protos can speed up worker production. Terran NEEDS mules mining in the early-game you can't just scan here and there and hey also over here.
And they still don't get it? Amazing.
Don't pretend we don't get it. To put it in words correctly. You scan = lower income, minerals can still be mined later. BUT thinking you can just scan away is false. You could have had 270 minerals more which is very important to keep up in economy.
But your opponent will also have less economy to begin with, as he invested into burrow so your mules are not needed to keep up.
Idk what planet you are from, but zergs always have more units than me in the early Midgame, I don't drop mules more tha. 2 or 3 energy late, keep my mins under 100 until 10 min +. Big j, I wanted to say this because it's not reasonable to suggest Terran scanning ahead for everything. I play Zerg as well and I spread creep very aggressively. If Terran scans multiple times in a row to clear creep, i feel like money. Midgame it's very easy to be efficient with Muta so scanning pretty much puts you behind unless you're 4+ orbital and got all ur buildings up.
Terrains cut workers in Every matchup so they can add raxes and additional ccs quicker. They rely on mules while they do this, so while I agree with this change I think the raven cost must be altered or something, because it's going to seem unreasonable that Terran would be expected to scan everywhere..
This won't change anything at all, burrow is not interesting to get early on anyway. You can potentially use it to avoid harassment earlier or try to delay a third expansion but that stuff doesn't come up before lair timings anyway.
What will zerg do agressively with this? Early burrowed banelings? Burrowed roaches without movement? This is a token change that will hardly have any effect..
David kim deserved to be fired, the entire development of HotS is a joke. They introduce all kinds of units/abilities that stop harass like widow mines, early siege upgrade and the MsC and then they start buffing aggresive options.. They are continuously patching terrible changes by introducing other crappy changes..
On January 15 2013 07:27 blade55555 wrote: Yeah burrow drones when 8 hellions go into them, then a scan and their dead anyway .
One scan is 270 mineral (5 drones) and you will probably lose your hellions (800 minerals, 16 drones). Great idea! really...
I just love this math! At first you say that you lose 270 minirals when you scan (how do you actually lose something you never had?) and then you compare 8 hellions with 16 drones. Not taking into account what you just said, lost mining time on those drones from that point and forward.
Well I really LOVE your argument implying, well JUST SCAN AWAY who needs mule's??11 You won't lose any minerals LOL. I guess you've NEVER EVER played terran because you REALLY need mules to keep up in economy vs the other races. Zerg can just build a huge amount of workers in a short time. Protos can speed up worker production. Terran NEEDS mules mining in the early-game you can't just scan here and there and hey also over here.
And they still don't get it? Amazing.
Don't pretend we don't get it. To put it in words correctly. You scan = lower income, minerals can still be mined later. BUT thinking you can just scan away is false. You could have had 270 minerals more which is very important to keep up in economy.
But your opponent will also have less economy to begin with, as he invested into burrow so your mules are not needed to keep up.
Idk what planet you are from, but zergs always have more units than me in the early Midgame, I don't drop mules more tha. 2 or 3 energy late, keep my mins under 100 until 10 min +. Big j, I wanted to say this because it's not reasonable to suggest Terran scanning ahead for everything. I play Zerg as well and I spread creep very aggressively. If Terran scans multiple times in a row to clear creep, i feel like money. Midgame it's very easy to be efficient with Muta so scanning pretty much puts you behind unless you're 4+ orbital and got all ur buildings up.
Terrains cut workers in Every matchup so they can add raxes and additional ccs quicker. They rely on mules while they do this, so while I agree with this change I think the raven cost must be altered or something, because it's going to seem unreasonable that Terran would be expected to scan everywhere..
The discussion was not about burrowed banelings but about hellions that try to roast drones and might need an extra scan now to do so.
Burrowed banelings and roaches are on a different page. Those things are questions that only testing can answer, not whether it "is possible to have 1scan when you runby with hellions".
Interesting change. Early game, you can burrow lings for map vision and delaying expansions, regen roaches for some healing, a bit easier to save drones from harass. You would have to delay additional queens, third, lair or units to get it at hatch tech. Not what I would call a buff, but should open up some variety.
Perhaps it will also make burrow movement a more viable research too, a rarely used upgrade. Start Burrow and Lair at the same time, then tunneling claws immediately as lair is done.
Maybe it'll make roach pushes more viable early on? I don't know, the time spent researching burrow and spending all that gas on roaches would delay my lair way more than I'd like, but maybe other people have playstyles that would benefit from this
On January 16 2013 02:48 MorroW wrote: this sounds extremely broken and wrong
Fair game if you tell me.
it just seems kind of broken to go roach rush and be able to heal your roaches during it. how would you kill them anyway?
thats just 1 example but i think theres alot of ideas that pop up. and not to mention the constant paranoia walking on the map knowing there could be a huge trap anywhere at any given time. the way it is now youll know when burrow could be done, but you probably already have somewhat of map control to eliminate most of the position where baneling mines could be. now its like, you move out with hellions and lings unburrow on top of them and kill them. or you make a bio pressure and 2 banelings alone could theoretically kill it all. it just suddenly feels like a very hit and miss game if you wanna move out on the map for any kind of pressure
its maybe not the burrow use itself that would be broken, its the fear of it being used and not knowing if it is
kind of all from my own perspective what i said so far. but thinking as a protoss for a moment here, wouldnt having burrow in time for any single gateway pressure be kind of broken? all lovely 8 minute timings with 3-4 gate pressure, or massive gateway allins all seem so incredibly weak to do. and without those threats being very relevant, it allows for a lot more drones helping them later on
On January 16 2013 03:01 LoveTool wrote: Perhaps it will also make burrow movement a more viable research too, a rarely used upgrade. Start Burrow and Lair at the same time, then tunneling claws immediately as lair is done.
This is more along the lines of what I'm thinking of trying to make work if this goes live. I was thinking of a build based around 2 hatch aggression, using the t1 burrow upgrade at the same time (or depending if they change research time, slightly before) lair upgrade, at which point you could put a bit more focus on strong aggression rather then having to immediately take a 3rd and macro up.
On January 16 2013 03:06 MorroW wrote: and not to mention the constant paranoia walking on the map knowing there could be a huge trap anywhere at any given time. the way it is now youll know when burrow could be done, but you probably already have somewhat of map control to eliminate most of the position where baneling mines could be. now its like, you move out with hellions and lings unburrow on top of them and kill them. or you make a bio pressure and 2 banelings alone could theoretically kill it all. it just suddenly feels like a very hit and miss game if you wanna move out on the map for any kind of pressure
its maybe not the burrow use itself that would be broken, its the fear of it being used and not knowing if it is
That fear sounds pretty familiar as a Zerg player in ZvT right now if you leave the base without detection.
On January 16 2013 03:01 LoveTool wrote: Perhaps it will also make burrow movement a more viable research too, a rarely used upgrade. Start Burrow and Lair at the same time, then tunneling claws immediately as lair is done.
This is more along the lines of what I'm thinking of trying to make work if this goes live. I was thinking of a build based around 2 hatch aggression, using the t1 burrow upgrade at the same time (or depending if they change research time, slightly before) lair upgrade, at which point you could put a bit more focus on strong aggression rather then having to immediately take a 3rd and macro up.
On January 16 2013 03:06 MorroW wrote: and not to mention the constant paranoia walking on the map knowing there could be a huge trap anywhere at any given time. the way it is now youll know when burrow could be done, but you probably already have somewhat of map control to eliminate most of the position where baneling mines could be. now its like, you move out with hellions and lings unburrow on top of them and kill them. or you make a bio pressure and 2 banelings alone could theoretically kill it all. it just suddenly feels like a very hit and miss game if you wanna move out on the map for any kind of pressure
its maybe not the burrow use itself that would be broken, its the fear of it being used and not knowing if it is
That fear sounds pretty familiar as a Zerg player in ZvT right now if you leave the base without detection.
yes i wanted to talk about that too
if a dark templar turns out to be on the map, it shops up 1 marine and then your aware and can avoid more units dying, if its a widow mine - if the unit is strong enough it will survive the blow. if your sending out many units - like a pack of lings you use 1 in front as a mine sweeper. if your quick enough you can even walk out of the widow mine range before it hits. so heres the difference, you walk with a pack of marines and there are baneling mines - everything dies instantly without a warning. one might argue you could spread out your marines as your walking across the map, but keep in mind if your scared of burrow you should be scared of zergling speed too. zerglings can come any time while your walking and if your spread out they will surround and rape you so hard where as if your in a clump hugging edges (what 4rax pressure normally is) while walking on the map you will trade cost efficiently.
i can even see packs of hellions being raped by zergling burrow traps. we all know how many times hellions got surrounded by speedlings because the terran wasnt looking at that exact moment and how casters would say "the game was already almost over". well now zerg could do that constantly without the terran needing to fuck up for it to happen. the problem with moving such a tech earlier in the game is because burrow or the fear of burrow relies heavily on where it could be burrowed on the map. if burrow is not possible in early game, the hellions come out grab map control and keep it that way, burrow will not be feared later on in the game as long as the hellions kept the vision on the map. but if burrow is out before the hellions are. there is no way of really knowing or having a clue if your hellions are in danger of a full surround or if your later push with bio tank will get slaughtered by 2 banelings thats been waiting at a spot for 5 minutes for units to come. this ofcourse wont happen every single game, and terrans will move in weird angles with their units to avoid probable traps. but the fear of it is still there and theres always a risk that you end up losing everything
a change like this worries me less about balance and much more about the randomness that could happen
On January 16 2013 02:48 MorroW wrote: this sounds extremely broken and wrong
Fair game if you tell me.
it just seems kind of broken to go roach rush and be able to heal your roaches during it. how would you kill them anyway?
thats just 1 example but i think theres alot of ideas that pop up. and not to mention the constant paranoia walking on the map knowing there could be a huge trap anywhere at any given time. the way it is now youll know when burrow could be done, but you probably already have somewhat of map control to eliminate most of the position where baneling mines could be. now its like, you move out with hellions and lings unburrow on top of them and kill them. or you make a bio pressure and 2 banelings alone could theoretically kill it all. it just suddenly feels like a very hit and miss game if you wanna move out on the map for any kind of pressure
its maybe not the burrow use itself that would be broken, its the fear of it being used and not knowing if it is
kind of all from my own perspective what i said so far. but thinking as a protoss for a moment here, wouldnt having burrow in time for any single gateway pressure be kind of broken? all lovely 8 minute timings with 3-4 gate pressure, or massive gateway allins all seem so incredibly weak to do. and without those threats being very relevant, it allows for a lot more drones helping them later on
It puts you in a more awkward position i agree, but it is exactly the situation zerg is in ZvT. We have a fear all the time of, bunker rushes, widow mines, or hellions. I added hellions to that list because I think it's just retarted how there is literally slim to none skill involved, wiping out the zerg eco. It can be handled, but definatly sticks under the category of that "fear" you speak of. And really, how potent will it be? Terrans tend to get an ebay up quite early nowadays..
Burrow 100 minerals 100 gas 100 seconds research time
Burrowing allows Zerg ground units to hide underneath the surface. While burrowed, units can only be targeted while in the presence of an enemy Detector or while affected by Fungal Growth. Most units cannot move while burrowed but Infestors and Roaches, upon which they do not recieve the speed bonus for being on creep. While burrowed, units do not contact other non-burrowed units aside buildings, although they do contact other burrowed units in Starcraft II. Most units have their sight reduced by 4 while burrowed. The exceptions to this are the Infestors and Banelings, which do not suffer from reduced vision when burrowed, and Infested Terrans, which have their sight reduced by 5. Burrowing requires a brief period to complete, which varies between different units.
Similar to cloaked units, burrowed units can be spotted by keen players who notice a shadow-like cloud on terrain.
Burrow is a research that enables this for almost all Zerg ground units researched from any Zerg townhall once a Lair is complete. Larvae, Eggs, Cocoons, Broodlings, Nydus Worms and Changelings are the only units that cannot learn to burrow.
Roaches can research a seperate burrowing capability with movement and regeneration while burrowed from the Roach Warren. This does not require other tech.
Note: Tunneling claws requires lair and increases the rate at which Roaches regenerate Hit Points while burrowed from the 5 HP/sec provided by Rapid Regeneration to 10 HP/sec.
On January 16 2013 02:48 MorroW wrote: this sounds extremely broken and wrong
Fair game if you tell me.
it just seems kind of broken to go roach rush and be able to heal your roaches during it. how would you kill them anyway?
thats just 1 example but i think theres alot of ideas that pop up. and not to mention the constant paranoia walking on the map knowing there could be a huge trap anywhere at any given time. the way it is now youll know when burrow could be done, but you probably already have somewhat of map control to eliminate most of the position where baneling mines could be. now its like, you move out with hellions and lings unburrow on top of them and kill them. or you make a bio pressure and 2 banelings alone could theoretically kill it all. it just suddenly feels like a very hit and miss game if you wanna move out on the map for any kind of pressure
its maybe not the burrow use itself that would be broken, its the fear of it being used and not knowing if it is
kind of all from my own perspective what i said so far. but thinking as a protoss for a moment here, wouldnt having burrow in time for any single gateway pressure be kind of broken? all lovely 8 minute timings with 3-4 gate pressure, or massive gateway allins all seem so incredibly weak to do. and without those threats being very relevant, it allows for a lot more drones helping them later on
It puts you in a more awkward position i agree, but it is exactly the situation zerg is in ZvT. We have a fear all the time of, bunker rushes, widow mines, or hellions. I added hellions to that list because I think it's just retarted how there is literally slim to none skill involved, wiping out the zerg eco. It can be handled, but definatly sticks under the category of that "fear" you speak of. And really, how potent will it be? Terrans tend to get an ebay up quite early nowadays..
i meant youd be burrowing your banelings and zerglings outside of terran territory, not where they would build turrets, unless your implying terrans could turret push across the map - its too expensive and takes too long time.
the fear of bunker rush is not at all the same thing. the possibility of baneling mines would be impossible to track if they invested in it where they have it and how much. bunker rushes are scouted with a drone in early game and responded to. hellion runbys are countered every game by having decent sim city and some queens.
responding to burrow mine is something that is not possible, you cant scout it and you cant scan your way across the map or leap frogging with turrets for these timing attacks. the only logical conclusion is to say terran shouldnt be doing these timings with 4rax or hellion harass etc because the risk is too great and if that is what the result would be it would just cause the same effect as in pvz. terran/toss wouldnt do funny timings against zergs 3rd and zergs would slowly but surely adapt and start droning more than they already are.
not that it matters but, blizzard saying "burrow t1 to allow for more aggressive play" is not what it would be, burrow at t1 would result in the other races being less aggressive towards the zerg
On January 15 2013 23:00 Zelniq wrote: I don't think you all realize that this change wouldn't affect hardly anything. Not because burrow isn't useful, there's just so many more important things to get.
In the early game, are you really going to spend your relatively low resources on Burrow rather than ling speed, +1 attack, or Lair? Or prioritize it over queens? Or drones, or units/buildings for defense, banenest/roach warren, units for an attack, expansions.. The thing about burrow people don't realize is that in most every case, you're not going to be getting it over these other things that are generally more vital and helpful. Yes you should eventually get it cus its useful, but how often is it going to be a core part of your opening, more important than those upgrades I mentioned?
You don't exactly have a ton of resources to just spend on whatever you like, especially as lair finishes you'll be needing resources for whichever lair tech, like roach speed, bane speed, spire, infestor pit, etc. I mean its not exactly like people prioritize burrow at lair right now over those other things. I'm saying all this as a response to all the people getting a little carried away with how suddenly detection will become suddenly so necessary early on and such nonsense
Wrong. People can call me Terran biased, but you put out the most insane Zerg biased stuff on this forums. Pretending it affects hardly anything...
Here was what I wrote on the official forums and I'll expand on it here: ------------------------------------------------- "A very arbitrary and un-necessary Zerg buff (reminds me of the queen and overlord speed buff that completely broke TvZ and eventually PvZ as well).
Burrow at hatchery tech is too powerful, and is the most random buff ever. Burrowed lings blocking expansions is already quite strong, this will only make burrowed banes, and expansion blocking even better.
The other problem is, Terran's only reliable detection this early on is rooted into their economy. If you use a scan, that's a mule you do not have to allow you to keep up with the exponential economic growth of Zerg's larva inject.
Protoss would need robo and observers to reliably detect things early on.
Zerg's economic mechanic, larva inject, already is theoretically the most powerful macro mechanic of all three races. Zerg's early game received a very poorly placed and ill thought out buff in wings of liberty, the +2 queen range and overlord speed, which stagnated the metagame a year following it.
Zerg does not need anything else to make them cozier and safer in the early game to allow them to power 70 drones on three bases." -------------------------------- When it comes down to it, burrow at tier1 is an arbitrary buff to Zerg early game, which already has been arbitrarily buffed in the past. The +2 queen range and overlord speed buff were unnecessary and had long negative lasting impacts on TvZ.
This burrow buff is just as arbitrary and only strengthens Zerg early game even further. The uses of burrow at tier 1 allow even easier defense with burrowed banes, which ends up resulting in an economic hit to the other two races because Terran will have to spend scans rather than mule, and Protoss has to wait for robo for observers.
There are other issues, like essentially being able to cloak all your workers early game from harm, and being able to block Protoss/Terran thirds for free essentially with a burrowed Zergling.
All this does is make Zerg early game even safer with no drawback.
People need to understand that Zerg's macro mechanic, larva inject, grows exponentially while the other two mechanics do not. Zerg theoretically has the best economy in the game, and adding in an arbitrary buff that will potentially make that economy even easier to secure than it already is (after queen range buff) is just a terrible idea.
"It doesn't change anything hardly at all because burrow isn't useful" you say Zelniq? I'm pretty sure every other progamer alive will disagree with you.
I'll just leave people with the end of morrow's last post, so they can understand the actual implications of burrow:
On January 16 2013 03:47 MorroW wrote: not that it matters but, blizzard saying "burrow t1 to allow for more aggressive play" is not what it would be, burrow at t1 would result in the other races being less aggressive towards the zerg
I'd say that is pretty accurate. It makes the game more of a guessing game early game and makes it so T/P have an even more difficult time doing anything to Zerg early on. And we all know what happens when Zerg can freely hit 70 drones
On January 16 2013 02:48 MorroW wrote: this sounds extremely broken and wrong
Fair game if you tell me.
it just seems kind of broken to go roach rush and be able to heal your roaches during it. how would you kill them anyway?
thats just 1 example but i think theres alot of ideas that pop up. and not to mention the constant paranoia walking on the map knowing there could be a huge trap anywhere at any given time. the way it is now youll know when burrow could be done, but you probably already have somewhat of map control to eliminate most of the position where baneling mines could be. now its like, you move out with hellions and lings unburrow on top of them and kill them. or you make a bio pressure and 2 banelings alone could theoretically kill it all. it just suddenly feels like a very hit and miss game if you wanna move out on the map for any kind of pressure
its maybe not the burrow use itself that would be broken, its the fear of it being used and not knowing if it is
kind of all from my own perspective what i said so far. but thinking as a protoss for a moment here, wouldnt having burrow in time for any single gateway pressure be kind of broken? all lovely 8 minute timings with 3-4 gate pressure, or massive gateway allins all seem so incredibly weak to do. and without those threats being very relevant, it allows for a lot more drones helping them later on
It puts you in a more awkward position i agree, but it is exactly the situation zerg is in ZvT. We have a fear all the time of, bunker rushes, widow mines, or hellions. I added hellions to that list because I think it's just retarted how there is literally slim to none skill involved, wiping out the zerg eco. It can be handled, but definatly sticks under the category of that "fear" you speak of. And really, how potent will it be? Terrans tend to get an ebay up quite early nowadays..
The point he was trying to make, and still stands, is that you cannot "scout" for where burrowed banes are. You walk over them, you lose the game, and that's it. You can scout for hellions, you can scout for bunker rushes, you can prevent hellions from getting into your base and behind your mineral line unimpeded. There is fear he could be doing a strategy and you aren't scouting for it, then there is the fear that at any point you could lose the game without being able to know beforehand. The second one scares me. If I know that a bunker rush will kill me, then I know I chose a greedy build so I am prepared for the consequences. I don't choose to apply pressure to the zerg, I have to. And if he has burrow, and there is no way I can know where the burrowed banes are, then I could instantly lose all of my marines and the game. That's scary that I could lose the game at any point without having the ability to prevent it.
Wouldn't getting early burrow with the intention to defend a one base push be choosing a strategy that relies on such a push to occur, which is far from every game and thus a questionable way to open. If no push comes, and you don't use burrow for aggression you would be behind because you could have had drones, queens or earlier lair instead.
To me it makes more sense to get burrow before lair with the intention of being at least a bit aggressive or have some other primary purpose than pure defense or ambush. Am I off base here?
On January 16 2013 04:02 LoveTool wrote: I'm just a casual player, so I genuinely wonder.
Wouldn't getting early burrow with the intention to defend a one base push be choosing a strategy that relies on such a push to occur, which is far from every game and thus a questionable way to open. If no push comes, and you don't use burrow for aggression you would be behind because you could have had drones, queens or earlier lair instead.
To me it makes more sense to get burrow before lair with the intention of being at least a bit aggressive or have some other primary purpose than pure defense or ambush. Am I off base here?
You probably wouldn't get burrow for a one-base push since the research time would be too long. But you could (and this is important, that zerg can, not that zerg necessarily does) get it to stop a two-base pressure, which needs to happen to prevent you from mass droning and overwhelming the terran. Now, terran has to fear that at any point, there could be burrowed banes anywhere. So does the terran waste scans, making the push into an all-in since they have no economy to fall back on, or do they take a huge risk of walking over a baneling mine and losing their entire army for basically free, which can be game ending.
On January 16 2013 04:02 LoveTool wrote: I'm just a casual player, so I genuinely wonder.
Wouldn't getting early burrow with the intention to defend a one base push be choosing a strategy that relies on such a push to occur, which is far from every game and thus a questionable way to open. If no push comes, and you don't use burrow for aggression you would be behind because you could have had drones, queens or earlier lair instead.
To me it makes more sense to get burrow before lair with the intention of being at least a bit aggressive or have some other primary purpose than pure defense or ambush. Am I off base here?
no what your saying is right. getting burrow too early in hopes of punishing something is just like over committing blindly to units hoping your opponent is about to attack. it will give you fewer wins than losses
you never want to be too safe in this game. however in the standard meta game zergs are "forced" to get certain defenses to deflect hellions, respond to marine attacks or gateway attacks etc. like how you get 4 roaches initially at 8 minutes and make more if toss actually is attacking. or how you get 12-24 lings to prevent runbys and random stuff, and if terran is attacking. you have just the right time to build up more army.
im not talking about rushing out burrow to hurt your economy, i talk about investing in burrow to be out in about the same time your other safety net units would be out. see it as like, you add on an extra 100 100 and you have the potential not to just deflect an attack, but to crush it completely. and with your opponent knowing this possibility it will become less frequent that he chooses to apply pressure or attack you because he doesnt want to get crushed - which results in you making more drones in most of your games. the game of guessing increases drastically
On January 15 2013 07:26 Millet wrote: Seems really interesting. I wonder about the implications though, roaches would be deadly with this early burrow. I love this thought though, gives zerg something new in the early game, that P and T already have (MsC and Widow Mine).
Just remember, they cant move without their own tech(which could still be teir 2). I am going to keep posting this so people don't freak out, claiming they will be fighting off burrowed roachs at the 7 minute mark.
I am sure they will still regen super fast.
The regen needs to be researched at t2 as well so you're not fighting super regen roaches or burrow move ones that early.
Even without the upgrade, roaches have accelerated regen when burrowed. Just not as accelerated.
On January 16 2013 02:48 MorroW wrote: this sounds extremely broken and wrong
Fair game if you tell me.
kind of all from my own perspective what i said so far. but thinking as a protoss for a moment here, wouldnt having burrow in time for any single gateway pressure be kind of broken? all lovely 8 minute timings with 3-4 gate pressure, or massive gateway allins all seem so incredibly weak to do. and without those threats being very relevant, it allows for a lot more drones helping them later on
This is immediately what I thought of when I read through this thread. It won't really be possible for Protoss to pressure Zerg or kill workers anymore. 7-gate/8-gate all-ins will be very weak and even more of a coinflip because the zerg won't lose workers or units if they burrow. DT harass will be useless. warp-prism harass will be useless unless accompanied by an observer. Stargate harass outside of Oracles (which are already limited by energy) will be useless. Protoss can basically never harass the Zerg mineral line without an observer or oracle. And if Zerg goes roach or roach/ling all-in and skips zergling speed in favour of burrow, once they target down any cannons at the natural they basically won't lose any roaches if they burrow properly. Early burrow forces Protoss into a situation similar to how they were against Terran for parts of early WoL where they had to go for a relatively fast robo for observers or run the risk of losing to one banshee. It forces Protoss down tech paths and I thought that was what Blizzard was trying to get away from.
I don't play Terran anymore but it seems like it might be worse for them because of how amazing burrowed banelings are against marines and how vulnerable Terran is if caught off guard for even a second. It would shut down marine/tank timings really hard.
On January 15 2013 23:00 Zelniq wrote: I don't think you all realize that this change wouldn't affect hardly anything. Not because burrow isn't useful, there's just so many more important things to get.
In the early game, are you really going to spend your relatively low resources on Burrow rather than ling speed, +1 attack, or Lair? Or prioritize it over queens? Or drones, or units/buildings for defense, banenest/roach warren, units for an attack, expansions.. The thing about burrow people don't realize is that in most every case, you're not going to be getting it over these other things that are generally more vital and helpful. Yes you should eventually get it cus its useful, but how often is it going to be a core part of your opening, more important than those upgrades I mentioned?
You don't exactly have a ton of resources to just spend on whatever you like, especially as lair finishes you'll be needing resources for whichever lair tech, like roach speed, bane speed, spire, infestor pit, etc. I mean its not exactly like people prioritize burrow at lair right now over those other things. I'm saying all this as a response to all the people getting a little carried away with how suddenly detection will become suddenly so necessary early on and such nonsense
It isn't about Burrow becoming a part of the standard 15 Hatchery, 16 Spawning Pool builds but the potential harassment and all ins it threatens from more aggressive build orders like 10 Spawning Pool or 11 Spawning Pool that can afford to take gas on either 14 or 18, build their first 2 Queens incrementally or build their first set of Zerglings faster. Even some of the 15 Hatchery, 16 Spawning Pool builds that stop at 2 Queens in order to apply pressure or a tier 1 all in can probably make use of Burrow to either sustain the attack or transition out of it.
Sometimes the threat of something is more important than the presence and not everybody heads for a macro game with Zerg, more options are never a bad thing.
On January 15 2013 07:26 Millet wrote: Seems really interesting. I wonder about the implications though, roaches would be deadly with this early burrow. I love this thought though, gives zerg something new in the early game, that P and T already have (MsC and Widow Mine).
Just remember, they cant move without their own tech(which could still be teir 2). I am going to keep posting this so people don't freak out, claiming they will be fighting off burrowed roachs at the 7 minute mark.
I am sure they will still regen super fast.
The regen needs to be researched at t2 as well so you're not fighting super regen roaches or burrow move ones that early.
Even without the upgrade, roaches have accelerated regen when burrowed. Just not as accelerated.
Stalkers can always regenrate shields, and terran don't spend minerals on mules.
I actually kind of like this change. Burrow is kind of expensive on hatch tech early in the game, so a decision to invest in it early will be a serious sacrifice.
My major concern is how we'd pressure zerg as protoss, but while burrow might help defend a tiny bit, and it might prevent drone kills, they'd still lose the hatchery. More importantly, paying the money for burrow to have it done on time for a 4 gate +1 zealot timing or some early pressure will cut your unit count a bit because of how much extra gas you have to mine.
Edit: Ehhh, the more I think about it, the more I feel like they'd have to make changes to the upgrade itself, like it's research time or cost, to compensate for how much earlier it comes out now, so you might as well leave it on lair.
On January 15 2013 23:00 Zelniq wrote: I don't think you all realize that this change wouldn't affect hardly anything. Not because burrow isn't useful, there's just so many more important things to get.
In the early game, are you really going to spend your relatively low resources on Burrow rather than ling speed, +1 attack, or Lair? Or prioritize it over queens? Or drones, or units/buildings for defense, banenest/roach warren, units for an attack, expansions.. The thing about burrow people don't realize is that in most every case, you're not going to be getting it over these other things that are generally more vital and helpful. Yes you should eventually get it cus its useful, but how often is it going to be a core part of your opening, more important than those upgrades I mentioned?
You don't exactly have a ton of resources to just spend on whatever you like, especially as lair finishes you'll be needing resources for whichever lair tech, like roach speed, bane speed, spire, infestor pit, etc. I mean its not exactly like people prioritize burrow at lair right now over those other things. I'm saying all this as a response to all the people getting a little carried away with how suddenly detection will become suddenly so necessary early on and such nonsense
It isn't about Burrow becoming a part of the standard 15 Hatchery, 16 Spawning Pool builds but the potential harassment and all ins it threatens from more aggressive build orders like 10 Spawning Pool or 11 Spawning Pool that can afford to take gas on either 14 or 18, build their first 2 Queens incrementally or build their first set of Zerglings faster. Even some of the 15 Hatchery, 16 Spawning Pool builds that stop at 2 Queens in order to apply pressure or a tier 1 all in can probably make use of Burrow to either sustain the attack or transition out of it.
Sometimes the threat of something is more important than the presence and not everybody heads for a macro game with Zerg, more options are never a bad thing.
i dont think burrow allin or harass is so strong that it makes people so afraid of it
and as for burrow stopping 7/8 gate allins..well you can already do that just by making units if you know it's coming too, and be so far ahead..i dont get what's the problem of having a strong defense vs an allin. it's not like people will always go burrow every game and that'll just suddenly make the allin terrible
On January 15 2013 07:26 Millet wrote: Seems really interesting. I wonder about the implications though, roaches would be deadly with this early burrow. I love this thought though, gives zerg something new in the early game, that P and T already have (MsC and Widow Mine).
Just remember, they cant move without their own tech(which could still be teir 2). I am going to keep posting this so people don't freak out, claiming they will be fighting off burrowed roachs at the 7 minute mark.
I am sure they will still regen super fast.
The regen needs to be researched at t2 as well so you're not fighting super regen roaches or burrow move ones that early.
Even without the upgrade, roaches have accelerated regen when burrowed. Just not as accelerated.
Stalkers can always regenrate shields, and terran don't spend minerals on mules.
Your argument has no merit to it whatsoever, but I have to point out this: You pay 150 minerals for a MULE that mines as fast as 4 SCVs. If the Terran player ever uses the orbital for things other than MULEs, he's getting less than 4 SCV's worth from MULE drops. The things that make MULEs good are its other benefits: the fact that it takes 30 seconds to get a unit that mines as fast as 4 SCVs instead of using 68 seconds of time on the CC, that MULEs can stack on patches with SCVs, and that when killed, the MULE "respawns" within 90 seconds (assuming the Terran drops it again asap).
As for stalkers, well, they're balanced to account for shield regen.
I don't know if you assumed that I was claiming this burrow change is too strong or something....I wasn't taking any stance on the matter because it's silly to do that without playing out the scenario repeatedly.
On January 16 2013 02:48 MorroW wrote: this sounds extremely broken and wrong
Fair game if you tell me.
kind of all from my own perspective what i said so far. but thinking as a protoss for a moment here, wouldnt having burrow in time for any single gateway pressure be kind of broken? all lovely 8 minute timings with 3-4 gate pressure, or massive gateway allins all seem so incredibly weak to do. and without those threats being very relevant, it allows for a lot more drones helping them later on
This is immediately what I thought of when I read through this thread. It won't really be possible for Protoss to pressure Zerg or kill workers anymore. 7-gate/8-gate all-ins will be very weak and even more of a coinflip because the zerg won't lose workers or units if they burrow. DT harass will be useless. warp-prism harass will be useless unless accompanied by an observer. Stargate harass outside of Oracles (which are already limited by energy) will be useless. Protoss can basically never harass the Zerg mineral line without an observer or oracle. And if Zerg goes roach or roach/ling all-in and skips zergling speed in favour of burrow, once they target down any cannons at the natural they basically won't lose any roaches if they burrow properly. Early burrow forces Protoss into a situation similar to how they were against Terran for parts of early WoL where they had to go for a relatively fast robo for observers or run the risk of losing to one banshee. It forces Protoss down tech paths and I thought that was what Blizzard was trying to get away from.
I don't play Terran anymore but it seems like it might be worse for them because of how amazing burrowed banelings are against marines and how vulnerable Terran is if caught off guard for even a second. It would shut down marine/tank timings really hard.
Well, damn. You've got a point. Early pressure timings are my favorite playstyle, and WOW it would suck if they just were negated by burrow. Or you spend the money to drop chargelots and "lol, burrow".
To be honest i dont like burrow on hatch tech. For sure its cool, especially for some early roach attacks where u can pull back and heal. But does it really help anywhere else? Its 100/100, especially the 100 gas is what im worried about. Zerg has to invest so damn much gas in midgame in ZvP as well as ZvT to get the tech you need to survive and go to the later game. There is no room to invest 100/100 "just" for early burrow. You would be behind economywise in a lot of situations. This is even worse than in WoL, in WoL i could afford burrow as soon as my lair was done, in hots i just CANNOT. I feel like i need to play as much on the edge as humanly possible to keep up with a good terran/protoss player.
Overlord speed + poop creep at evo/hatch tech would had been so much more helpful than this, and so much more interesting too imo. Fail blizzard, fail!
a little edit..: it may impacts the game indirectly because allins of opponents will be more coinflip than they are now. But seriously, i dont think the metagame will be affected by that. Its like i said just too much of an investment, i doubt that high level players will go for something like that. The only new thing will be roach attacks with maybe slow slings and instead of the lingspeed burrow. But honestly, would you rather bank on you sniping the opponents detection or follow your allin up with tons of fast speedlings? Even going allin, i would still prefer lingspeed.
This just further discourages harassment and unit pressure like all of HotS. Moving out across the map as T now means spending scans, any harass will need scans, making the investment for the 'cool' moves much higher. The same can be said for the widow mine and MsC, making this kind of fair, but also leads to overall boring 3 base turtle into 200/200 pushes.
What HotS needs is more interesting harass options, not more defensive options that will once in a blue moon be used to pressure. Otherwise you're just replicating WoL where everything comes down to endgame compositions, leading to the same balance issues and the same snoozefest when watching all over.
On January 16 2013 06:24 Derez wrote: This just further discourages harassment and unit pressure like all of HotS.
Not sure where you are coming from with this. I play zerg and I have a beta key, so I've played HotS since december and my experience is 180 degrees the opposite. I get harassed the shit out of me, and I feel forced to build more units than in WoL just to get an economy up and not fall way behind. I have even flat out died to crippling harass damage before lair several times. If terran is aggressive it is actually hard to "just macro" for me. Reapers and mines are very good, the options for terran pressures are improved. So much, that in combination with improved terran and protoss defensive capabilities I feel more limited as zerg, because WoL pressure is easier to handle for these races.
I don't pretend to know all the potential issues with hatch burrow, but no need for terrans to go over board on this just yet I feel. It's not even in the beta yet.
On January 16 2013 06:24 Derez wrote: This just further discourages harassment and unit pressure like all of HotS.
Not sure where you are coming from with this. I play zerg and I have a beta key, so I've played HotS since december and my experience is 180 degrees the opposite. I get harassed the shit out of me, and I feel forced to build more units than in WoL just to get an economy up and not fall way behind. I have even flat out died to crippling harass damage before lair several times. If terran is agressive it is actually hard to "just macro" for me. Reapers and mines are very good, the options for pressures are improved. No need for terrans to go over board on this one.
Pretty much this... If its not a 8-10hellions running through my base trying to roast everything, it's widow mine drops, or some other form of harassment. Zerg has no early game options other than to turtle and try to defend against other races harassment. At least with this change there is SOMETHING Zerg can do to deter harassment and even punish greedy players.
On January 16 2013 02:48 MorroW wrote: this sounds extremely broken and wrong
Fair game if you tell me.
it just seems kind of broken to go roach rush and be able to heal your roaches during it. how would you kill them anyway?
thats just 1 example but i think theres alot of ideas that pop up. and not to mention the constant paranoia walking on the map knowing there could be a huge trap anywhere at any given time. the way it is now youll know when burrow could be done, but you probably already have somewhat of map control to eliminate most of the position where baneling mines could be. now its like, you move out with hellions and lings unburrow on top of them and kill them. or you make a bio pressure and 2 banelings alone could theoretically kill it all. it just suddenly feels like a very hit and miss game if you wanna move out on the map for any kind of pressure
its maybe not the burrow use itself that would be broken, its the fear of it being used and not knowing if it is
kind of all from my own perspective what i said so far. but thinking as a protoss for a moment here, wouldnt having burrow in time for any single gateway pressure be kind of broken? all lovely 8 minute timings with 3-4 gate pressure, or massive gateway allins all seem so incredibly weak to do. and without those threats being very relevant, it allows for a lot more drones helping them later on
It puts you in a more awkward position i agree, but it is exactly the situation zerg is in ZvT. We have a fear all the time of, bunker rushes, widow mines, or hellions. I added hellions to that list because I think it's just retarted how there is literally slim to none skill involved, wiping out the zerg eco. It can be handled, but definatly sticks under the category of that "fear" you speak of. And really, how potent will it be? Terrans tend to get an ebay up quite early nowadays..
The point he was trying to make, and still stands, is that you cannot "scout" for where burrowed banes are. You walk over them, you lose the game, and that's it. You can scout for hellions, you can scout for bunker rushes, you can prevent hellions from getting into your base and behind your mineral line unimpeded. There is fear he could be doing a strategy and you aren't scouting for it, then there is the fear that at any point you could lose the game without being able to know beforehand. The second one scares me. If I know that a bunker rush will kill me, then I know I chose a greedy build so I am prepared for the consequences. I don't choose to apply pressure to the zerg, I have to. And if he has burrow, and there is no way I can know where the burrowed banes are, then I could instantly lose all of my marines and the game. That's scary that I could lose the game at any point without having the ability to prevent it.
simple, spread your marines as you walk across the map? O.o Or just open up hellions after an expansion and you'd see if he has burrowed banes around the map.
I think the change is awesome but its def a big zerg buff and not sure if they need it or not currently. But it adds a lot of cool early game things that would spice up hots early game for zerg as there were no previous changes lower tech than hydra/swarmhost/infestor/muta when terran have widow mines and protoss have mothership core.
One of the things im looking forward to is a roach pressure build with burrow that forces terran to lift his CC. The burrow to delay landing the CC again or to do additional roach micro. Burrow being a good investment early on to put a ling at each sequential expansion your opponent takes.
On January 16 2013 07:02 Sbrubbles wrote: So, it seems the swarm is evolving! Or in this case, devolving back into BW!
Evolving INTO BW. ;D
I don't know, I really like burrow at tier 1, but I have a feeling that what Morrow said is the truth, it will be very good against every kind of all-in or pressure, and maybe too good. It just makes Zerg even more defensive in the early game which shouldn't be the case.
I don't see much purpose in this change. 100 gas in early game is a big investment if you ask me. It's definitely not something you would research in every standard macro game, because it significantly slows down your BO. I also feel like it's common in the current metagame to get a quick lair anyway which theoretically also allows you to get quick burrow. And honestly: which specific early game anti Zerg offense should be hindered by giving Zerg Burrow on Hatch tech? In ZvP, no Protoss will get aggressive before Zerg has Lair anyway. The same goes for ZvT. I just don't see any use for this change apart from some early game cheese.
On January 15 2013 07:25 Stingart wrote: Fencar made a good comment:
Burrow is extremely useful in TvZ, and at least moderately useful in ZvZ.
Zerg can burrow Banelings in pathways to either waste scans for the Terran army or to kill tons of Marines, they can burrow Zerglings at expansions to force scans before landing CC's, can burrow Drones to save them from Marine drops and run-by's, can burrow Infestors to harass with Infested Terrans, and you can burrow Zerglings in the Terran's base during a run-by to harass even more later, etc.
I honestly don't think that Burrow needs to be at hatchery tech.
Burrow your drones so no harass can kill them. Nice buff for Zerg i'd say.
yes because while you camp your marines over the burrowed drones the zerg is clearly getting far far ahead.
What if they made the burrow animation on hatch way more obvious? Or required an evo chamber? THen you would have a chance to scout it and see it coming, which means you could counter it by going harder econ or investing in drops/airtech as toss?
Afterall, by that point of the game, terran can scan to see if zerg is going for burrow tech and toss's just got the hallucination abillity. I think they should try it and find a way to weave it in before yelling "imba". It would make a VERY stale early game for zergs into something far more interesting in the expansion.
On January 15 2013 07:50 Existor wrote: As Zerg I think, that Protoss is okay against this. Both their teching paths will have detection (Observer or Oracle), but what about Terran? He will need to waste scans around the map to see burrowed units, and it's very expensive and shut downs any agression from Terran against Zerg, because he can lose marines against 2-3 banelings.
What about giving Reapers mini-version of Sensor Array? Lets name it "Battlefield Awareness", like previous cliff-vision for Reapers. It will spot cloaked and burrowed units with red spots near Reaper, but not detect!
Reaper will recieve a small mobile version of Sensor Array tower. Reaperwill be able to spot with red dots (like Sensor Array tower spotting units in Fog of War) burrowed and cloaked units. It will not detect, just spot with red dots, like Sensor Tower!
Terran players will be able to choose:
- Hm, don't walk here!! Too many red dots, dangerous zone! It may be banelings or zergling/baneling trap! - I should scan here, looks like I can kill it if I will scan at this place.
Mobile mini-sensor radius can be 5-6 or 10-11 around Reaper. So you will be able to see something burrowed or cloaked at that distance. It can be coldown based activable ability, when press ability button and Reaaper recieves temporary sensor, or just passive ability with smaller range
Reapers will recieve passive or coldownbased activable (for short time) ability "Mobile Sensor" which grants ability to see burrowed or cloaked units without detecting them.
So much negativity, and why? Because of theory crafting? Let's actually test this out first and see what it does before jumping to any major conclusions.
I think burrow at hatch tech can easily be compensated for other things. Like buffing missile turret cost from 100 down to 75 for terran and buffing cannon detection range for protoss. Lots of things could be changed, but I think it's for the better honestly, the more early game options for zerg the better, I'm sick of having to 3H toss every single game.
On January 16 2013 08:28 TheLunatic wrote: Give detection back to msc if this is gonna happen
May aswell forget about the T1 burrow idea if it's to make it completely useless. The WoL zerg design of "Expand or die" should have an end. Right now there is no viable aggressive option against FFE. At best this change may end the FFE NR20 era, at worst the protoss will scout the lack of 3rd and put up 1 or 2 more canons.
Meanwhile burrow still take 1min40 and 100/100 to complete, which is a lot. So it could also do absolutely nothing.
This would brew great for early game defense with banelings and offence with roaches. Zvz will become very interesting with ling traps and burrowed Roach timing attacks.
making a change like that is too much in the early game. i think its fine at lair tech if anything shorten the time on it a little or atleast make it require and evo chamber if you want to experment it with tier 1
Wouldn't it be better just to make burrow cheaper and/or reduce its research time, but keep it at Lair tech? The point is to make burrow a part of the game at an earlier time...it could still be Lair tech, but just take 60 seconds. Or 40 seconds. And it could be like WG research and just cost 50/50. It doesn't have to be so exaggeratedly-early, and at least if there's Lair tech required the opponent could scout the hatcheries, see one of them is (upgrading too/finished) lair, and then play around burrow.
I'm with MorroW on all his arguments--I think it's too random for the game. We don't need more coinflips in this game.
On January 16 2013 14:39 ineversmile wrote: Wouldn't it be better just to make burrow cheaper and/or reduce its research time, but keep it at Lair tech? The point is to make burrow a part of the game at an earlier time...it could still be Lair tech, but just take 60 seconds. Or 40 seconds. And it could be like WG research and just cost 50/50. It doesn't have to be so exaggeratedly-early, and at least if there's Lair tech required the opponent could scout the hatcheries, see one of them is (upgrading too/finished) lair, and then play around burrow.
I'm with MorroW on all his arguments--I think it's too random for the game. We don't need more coinflips in this game.
The point of this buff is to give zerg an opportunity to be aggresive on hatch tech because right now it's not possible if you don't all in
On January 16 2013 14:32 TheAppetizer wrote: This would brew great for early game defense with banelings and offence with roaches. Zvz will become very interesting with ling traps and burrowed Roach timing attacks.
For ZvZ, mutas is the key. Spending gas on roaches and burrow delays mutas by a lot. The only way i see this is possible is if you do a timing all in with burrowed roaches before lair tech.
On January 16 2013 08:28 TheLunatic wrote: Give detection back to msc if this is gonna happen
Why? Just push with stargate tech or robo tech. Isn't that what happens anyway?
Also it's not as if burrowed banelings even do anything to protoss units anyway.
vVvTitan used to be able to hold 6 gate +1 with only burrowed banelings and zerglings on maps like xel naga.... They're really really good if you use them right.
PvZ... I think it's pretty straight forward what any protoss will say about what they think on this if it happens. I think there are many other avenues blizzard has not explored and is toying around with things that are just going to get tweaked again and again if they tinker with them.. Wasted time they could have been doing bigger better things for all races imo...
On January 16 2013 14:39 ineversmile wrote: Wouldn't it be better just to make burrow cheaper and/or reduce its research time, but keep it at Lair tech? The point is to make burrow a part of the game at an earlier time...it could still be Lair tech, but just take 60 seconds. Or 40 seconds. And it could be like WG research and just cost 50/50. It doesn't have to be so exaggeratedly-early, and at least if there's Lair tech required the opponent could scout the hatcheries, see one of them is (upgrading too/finished) lair, and then play around burrow.
The point of this buff is to give zerg an opportunity to be aggresive on hatch tech because right now it's not possible if you don't all in
@ ineversmile, i totally agree. That would be much more helpful imo.
@ Toads, yes, zerg needs more opportunities to be aggressive on hatch tech, burrow is defensive tho (if you dont commit to a roach allin/semiallin). Those allins where already playable without burrow but with speedlingfollowup instead. I cant see how burrow would be better regards that.
On January 16 2013 14:39 ineversmile wrote: Wouldn't it be better just to make burrow cheaper and/or reduce its research time, but keep it at Lair tech? The point is to make burrow a part of the game at an earlier time...it could still be Lair tech, but just take 60 seconds. Or 40 seconds. And it could be like WG research and just cost 50/50. It doesn't have to be so exaggeratedly-early, and at least if there's Lair tech required the opponent could scout the hatcheries, see one of them is (upgrading too/finished) lair, and then play around burrow.
I'm with MorroW on all his arguments--I think it's too random for the game. We don't need more coinflips in this game.
The point of this buff is to give zerg an opportunity to be aggresive on hatch tech because right now it's not possible if you don't all in
Oh you mean like all the various roach/bane pressure behind which you can take a third in TvZ (some are all-in, others aren't)? Or perhaps this the 9 minute roach/ling thing they have been doing in PvZ? Or doing a couple of rounds of injects of lings to snipe sentries when protoss takes a third?
Zerg needed/needs options at Lair tech, not Hatch tech. Possibly options that don't constrict map design as horribly as Roach max does.
Besides, as many people have pointed out, Burrow is actually a defensive tool. It makes no sense to give it to the strongest race defensively (at least in early game).
I hope this (possible) change reminds Zerg players Burrow is an awesome ability that is not used enough. It's waaaay underused imo. I'm always amazed Zergs can float 2000/2000 but not research Burrow for 100/100. Such a cool utility ability.
Ninja burrowed Infestors, saving Queens / Drones vs harassment (or at least forcing a Scan from Terran), microing Roaches (early on when it's still efficient), setting up Baneling land mines, burrowing Zerglings on expansion spots / strategic locations on the map. Let alone setting up the most epic ambushes of all time by burrowing an entire Zerg army and waiting for those poor Marines to walk into their doom. There is so much potential for cool stuff.
On January 16 2013 14:39 ineversmile wrote: Wouldn't it be better just to make burrow cheaper and/or reduce its research time, but keep it at Lair tech? The point is to make burrow a part of the game at an earlier time...it could still be Lair tech, but just take 60 seconds. Or 40 seconds. And it could be like WG research and just cost 50/50. It doesn't have to be so exaggeratedly-early, and at least if there's Lair tech required the opponent could scout the hatcheries, see one of them is (upgrading too/finished) lair, and then play around burrow.
I'm with MorroW on all his arguments--I think it's too random for the game. We don't need more coinflips in this game.
The point of this buff is to give zerg an opportunity to be aggresive on hatch tech because right now it's not possible if you don't all in
Oh you mean like all the various roach/bane pressure behind which you can take a third in TvZ (some are all-in, others aren't)? Or perhaps this the 9 minute roach/ling thing they have been doing in PvZ? Or doing a couple of rounds of injects of lings to snipe sentries when protoss takes a third?
Zerg needed/needs options at Lair tech not Hatch tech,. Possibly options that don't constrict map design as horribly as Roach max does.
Besides, as many people have pointed out, Burrow is actually a defensive tool. It makes no sense to give it to the strongest race defensively (at least in early game).
Hm, I gotta disagree with this. I think the question is not the techlevel, the question is whether it is available from two base economy (which may include a macro hatch or a third base, but not a high saturation level), hence, doesn't force you into macroing up defensively for 10mins. The thing is, lair tech gives you a huge amount of options already:
But the options 1) are all "mass unit" options, which in the face of "drones or units"-larva mechanism seems undoable if you pair it with such tech investments. The options at 2) are basically too expensive in gas to afford of two bases early. Basically, you can go 2base Infestor or Mutas but it still is going to take you 10mins to get up, because you need quite a bank of gas to get it going (additionally to the long tech times), so you are still only sitting around and wait for money/tech. Swarm Hosts have been and still are my hope, that there might be ways to go something like 2base fast lair with 3(maybe even only 2gas) and put on a little bit of pressure. Also there might be something like this for speed hydras, like 5 Hydras (and an overseer if you need highground vision) tearing down a forge or a barracks. Then there is burrow, a tool that is not really interesting for cheaper zerg units in medium and big engagements (so in the midgame), but really interesting when there are only very few troops on the battlefield (or in the lategame when you can do multipronged harass).
On a more general page, if you want early pressure to be viable for a race as explosive as zerg (so you can abuse each and any advantage your units have in a mass production attack), it cannot look like stalkers kiting marines (haha, I'm just gonna mass produce stalkers with larva), it cannot look like Dragoons (or tanks) outranging defenses like a bunker (haha, I have 5dragoons at the time you have two marines) and with the way air is designed in SC2 - extremly limited antiair - it cannot look like a banshee opening (haha, I have 3 banshees initially, defend this... lol). It must look like a "mass unit at your strongest point rush" - allin -, so that the opponent gets a huge advantage from holding it as the other outcome would be a straight up loss, or it might look like an advantage that the units don't get from actually fighting - like roach regeneration, saving units through burrow, forcing techs etc.
Some stuff might be overpowered initially (like roach regeneration or blocking the natural), but I do believe that you could solve those problems with minor adjustments.
Big J, of course "mass unit" strats should not work on 2bases (ie, using a build that gives you less production power). I don't understand your point.
Mine was, past the early game stage of various roach/baneling/whatever allins zerg can do (and there's plenty of those), their aggressive potential is either VERY limited for a long time (closer to 14 minutes than to 10) on maps where P can take an easy third, say Ohana (talking about only PvZ ofc), or outright unstoppable on maps with a harder third (i dare anyone to try and stop a roach max on Dual Sight, Abyssal City, Bel'Shir Vestige etc). If anything, Zerg "aggression" is too map dependent (again, at least in the PvZ matchup).
Zerg lair tech armies in the long run (ie, vs 3base economy) are really, really, really terrible, so because of map architecture and specific issues within a matchup (the reliance of P on forcefields to defend a third and the existance of stuff like roach max/roach drop) you end up in a situation where there's no opening to attack. Investing in Lair tech just delays the one tool Z has to win in the long term, and that is Hive.
Besides, Burrow is a much, much stronger tool defensively than it is offensively, so having it at hatch tech doesn't open up anything at all. Zerg is already arguably overpowered defensively (as in, there's hardly any viable builds in TvZ/PvZ that put on aggression consistently save for Immortal all-ins and maaaaaaybe an aggressive hellion/banshee), there's no need to further improve that.
On January 16 2013 14:39 ineversmile wrote: Wouldn't it be better just to make burrow cheaper and/or reduce its research time, but keep it at Lair tech? The point is to make burrow a part of the game at an earlier time...it could still be Lair tech, but just take 60 seconds. Or 40 seconds. And it could be like WG research and just cost 50/50. It doesn't have to be so exaggeratedly-early, and at least if there's Lair tech required the opponent could scout the hatcheries, see one of them is (upgrading too/finished) lair, and then play around burrow.
I agree with this idea. Burrow is such a cool ability, it would be great to see it become a bigger part of every standard build. Making it cheaper would accomplish a lot more than making it come earlier.
As a Zerg, there are many moments when I think "damn, I wish I had burrow"... but usually that happens because of something the opponent does (he moves out with marines, he harasses, etc), not something I do. There's no way of knowing whether burrow will be useful or not, meaning that it's not a good investment in the early/mid-game when 100 gas is a huge deal.
I think the best thing to do would be to make it cheaper. Like warpgate (an ability Blizzard wants to be a part of every game), it should cost 50/50.
I think we can all agree that Burrow in super-early game is a big investment due to cost and inability to make queens. Right now it takes 100", let's even assume it's OP and it gets nerfed to 120 seconds.
Referring to MorroW and other's posts, what kind of early aggression can it really stop/prevent at hatch tech that wasn't possible before? I mean, Lair takes 80 seconds, so I guess that compared to someone who rushes burrow in WoL/current HOTS that is the only time window (maybe 20" shorter as I said, if it turns out to be OP) in which Zergs will have a new tool. And even then we have to account the investment - like, I spend 100gas for burrow but I have 4 less banelings. So, is there something really gamebreaking in that time window? Thanks.
Well, you'd be paying for lair + burrow, that's more than just 4 less banelings. And if you scout a quicker lair with wonky gas timings/drone counts due to the fast tech, you'd be expecting some strange aggression and turtle up.
On January 16 2013 21:42 musai wrote: Well, you'd be paying for lair + burrow, that's more than just 4 less banelings. And if you scout a quicker lair with wonky gas timings/drone counts due to the fast tech, you'd be expecting some strange aggression and turtle up.
That is true but it's a different problem though, burrow research should have a clear animation so you can eventually scout and prepare accordingly.
Edit: about the 4 banes... I was referring to fast burrow at hatch tech as a defensive option. I'm not sure if a 100-120" research can be "reactive" in early game, but even then, 100gas means less banes/roaches so there is a bit of tradeoff.
On January 16 2013 19:45 Teoita wrote: Big J, of course "mass unit" strats should not work on 2bases (ie, using a build that gives you less production power). I don't understand your point.
Mine was, past the early game stage of various roach/baneling/whatever allins zerg can do (and there's plenty of those), their aggressive potential is either VERY limited for a long time (closer to 14 minutes than to 10) on maps where P can take an easy third, say Ohana (talking about only PvZ ofc), or outright unstoppable on maps with a harder third (i dare anyone to try and stop a roach max on Dual Sight, Abyssal City, Bel'Shir Vestige etc). If anything, Zerg "aggression" is too map dependent (again, at least in the PvZ matchup).
Zerg lair tech armies in the long run (ie, vs 3base economy) are really, really, really terrible, so because of map architecture and specific issues within a matchup (the reliance of P on forcefields to defend a third and the existance of stuff like roach max/roach drop) you end up in a situation where there's no opening to attack. Investing in Lair tech just delays the one tool Z has to win in the long term, and that is Hive.
Besides, Burrow is a much, much stronger tool defensively than it is offensively, so having it at hatch tech doesn't open up anything at all. Zerg is already arguably overpowered defensively (as in, there's hardly any viable builds in TvZ/PvZ that put on aggression consistently save for Immortal all-ins and maaaaaaybe an aggressive hellion/banshee), there's no need to further improve that.
Well, the core of my point is that the problem is not at which level the tech is, but that the techs are designed in ways that they don't work out to "equally cripply your opponent for the cost it took you to get them fast".
I completely agree with your points, minus early allins vs Protoss, as imo there really aren't any useful (and can't be any in WoL due to the scouting problem of Protoss). The crux however in my eyes is, that there is no "macro pressure" available for zerg. Sure on the maps where I can attack with 200/200 roach I can perform it. But that's not really the kind of thing I have in mind when I talk about "more aggressive options". I mean as a Protoss I think you can kind of agree how stupid it is when your only choices are some extreme allins or some extreme turtle play. (and for that reason Protoss got the MSC and the Oracle in HotS)
What I'm thinking about when I talk about early aggression is that kind of stalker contain on a Terran, opening with one or two banshees, doing a little bit of stargate pressure... all of that quite before 10mins. Basically stuff that doesn't put you in the best position that you could be, yet prevents your opponent from being in the best position that he can be.
It looks very grim for such zerg options (outside of ZvZ), at least in my experience and from what I have seen in progames. I mean, I have tried such styles (a few roaches early on to pick of a few units/workers or a building from the wall) and they all failed miserably to put me in an equal position. I surely don't want certain allins to become more powerful (roach/bling vs Terran), but in my opinion it could be nice to rush with 5 roaches+burrow and kill a little bit of stuff, force your opponent into a certain reaction and then not just lose them all because they are low health and cant shoot air, but instead regenerate them underground. I mean, EXACTLY this was the idea behind fast regenerating roaches in SC2.
For defensive purposes... maybe, maybe not. To be honest, in my opinion the fast burrow + fast speed is not really doable with 3bases, the mass queen is not doable if one of your hatches is producing burrow instead of queens. From my "economical approximation" the most reasonable scenarios for me that include an early burrow would be: 2base with burrow and fast lair on only 2 *maybe* 3queens 3base with burrow and 3queens And I believe in the second scenario you would much rather have ling speed and more queens.
To be honest, the only real concern I have with burrow on hatch (from a theoretical point of view) is that roach regeneration might be too high (5HP/sec right now) and that it could be too strong vs Protoss gateway first builds (no canon). Burrowed banelings... seems like way too expensive for me, as you base your defense on "I hope he walks over this".
On a last note, I believe that Vipers, speed Hydras and swarm hosts smooth out zerg midgame a lot. The reason why zerg aggression in the midgame isn't too good (at least in ZvP) is because your army strength doesn't transition well into the lategame. With those new options, (I hope) it does and therefore building Roach/Hydra at 10-12mins and using them doesn't seem bad anymore.
Maybe now people will actually bother to burrow micro, the reason no one even bothered burrow microing roaches in battle was because by the time burrow is done roaches are expendable.
On January 15 2013 23:00 Zelniq wrote: I don't think you all realize that this change wouldn't affect hardly anything. Not because burrow isn't useful, there's just so many more important things to get.
In the early game, are you really going to spend your relatively low resources on Burrow rather than ling speed, +1 attack, or Lair? Or prioritize it over queens? Or drones, or units/buildings for defense, banenest/roach warren, units for an attack, expansions.. The thing about burrow people don't realize is that in most every case, you're not going to be getting it over these other things that are generally more vital and helpful. Yes you should eventually get it cus its useful, but how often is it going to be a core part of your opening, more important than those upgrades I mentioned?
You don't exactly have a ton of resources to just spend on whatever you like, especially as lair finishes you'll be needing resources for whichever lair tech, like roach speed, bane speed, spire, infestor pit, etc. I mean its not exactly like people prioritize burrow at lair right now over those other things. I'm saying all this as a response to all the people getting a little carried away with how suddenly detection will become suddenly so necessary early on and such nonsense
It isn't about Burrow becoming a part of the standard 15 Hatchery, 16 Spawning Pool builds but the potential harassment and all ins it threatens from more aggressive build orders like 10 Spawning Pool or 11 Spawning Pool that can afford to take gas on either 14 or 18, build their first 2 Queens incrementally or build their first set of Zerglings faster. Even some of the 15 Hatchery, 16 Spawning Pool builds that stop at 2 Queens in order to apply pressure or a tier 1 all in can probably make use of Burrow to either sustain the attack or transition out of it.
Sometimes the threat of something is more important than the presence and not everybody heads for a macro game with Zerg, more options are never a bad thing.
i dont think burrow allin or harass is so strong that it makes people so afraid of it
and as for burrow stopping 7/8 gate allins..well you can already do that just by making units if you know it's coming too, and be so far ahead..i dont get what's the problem of having a strong defense vs an allin. it's not like people will always go burrow every game and that'll just suddenly make the allin terrible
But that is exactly the point! Zerg can already stop any kind of aggression that can be thrown at them by reacting correctly, so why do they even stronger defense against many all-ins? Shouldn't there be some skill required too when holding them? Especially with Burrowed Banelings versus Terran, the luck involved will be pretty ridiculous. If Terran scans and picks off a bunch of Banelings or doesn't walk over the Banelings they could straight up win. If Terran doesn't scan and walks over the Banes, they would simply lose.
In a lot of ways, this is like the MSC spell Photon Overcharge (or Purify or whatever it is called, they keep changing the name). Protoss could already stop the pushes it helps out against just fine, and those pushes required skill to stop. Now if you see a 2 rax (tech lab/reactor 2 rax expand) coming, you hit one button and your Nexus is perfectly safe. It is skilless and reduces the variety of the game. And as a Protoss player I hate it. I don't want to play a macro game, every game, with the same stupid unit combinations, and building the same defenses at the same drop locations every game... it gets dull really quick, especially when the 15-20 minute game is decided by one 10 second engagement where if either side makes one small micro mistake they lose.
I see the same thing happening here to a lesser extent with Burrow. This change further reduces the viability of many all-ins, and we both know the result isn't that they will be easier to hold, the result if that people won't do said all-ins anymore, and the variety of viable builds has just been reduced. As you said, Zerg can already hold the 7 Gate, so why does it need to be strengthened against it? Less variety is bad and leads to boredom.
Unless there is some all-in or pressure timing that is crippling Zerg here that I don't know about (and based on recent tournament results, Zerg is flourishing), I don't see why this change needs to happen.
On January 16 2013 14:39 ineversmile wrote: Wouldn't it be better just to make burrow cheaper and/or reduce its research time, but keep it at Lair tech? The point is to make burrow a part of the game at an earlier time...it could still be Lair tech, but just take 60 seconds. Or 40 seconds. And it could be like WG research and just cost 50/50. It doesn't have to be so exaggeratedly-early, and at least if there's Lair tech required the opponent could scout the hatcheries, see one of them is (upgrading too/finished) lair, and then play around burrow.
I'm with MorroW on all his arguments--I think it's too random for the game. We don't need more coinflips in this game.
The point of this buff is to give zerg an opportunity to be aggresive on hatch tech because right now it's not possible if you don't all in
Besides, as many people have pointed out, Burrow is actually a defensive tool. It makes no sense to give it to the strongest race defensively (at least in early game).
It's not at all, at least not on hatch tech, you dont throw 100/100 cash + 100sec that could be 2 queens just for défensive purpose, or you do it reactionary, like when scouting a 6gate, and you should be at lair tech when a 6gate hit anyway.
On January 17 2013 00:48 BronzeKnee wrote: But that is exactly the point! Zerg can already stop any kind of aggression that can be thrown at them by reacting correctly, so why do they even stronger defense against many all-ins? Shouldn't there be some skill required too when holding them? Especially with Burrowed Banelings versus Terran, the luck involved will be pretty ridiculous. If Terran scans and picks off a bunch of Banelings or doesn't walk over the Banelings they could straight up win. If Terran doesn't scan and walks over the Banes, they would simply lose.
I agree with your point about the increased randomness. But then we also have to mention how Widow Mines are way worse in that regard since they even auto-fire and are not self-destructing.
On January 15 2013 23:00 Zelniq wrote: I don't think you all realize that this change wouldn't affect hardly anything. Not because burrow isn't useful, there's just so many more important things to get.
In the early game, are you really going to spend your relatively low resources on Burrow rather than ling speed, +1 attack, or Lair? Or prioritize it over queens? Or drones, or units/buildings for defense, banenest/roach warren, units for an attack, expansions.. The thing about burrow people don't realize is that in most every case, you're not going to be getting it over these other things that are generally more vital and helpful. Yes you should eventually get it cus its useful, but how often is it going to be a core part of your opening, more important than those upgrades I mentioned?
You don't exactly have a ton of resources to just spend on whatever you like, especially as lair finishes you'll be needing resources for whichever lair tech, like roach speed, bane speed, spire, infestor pit, etc. I mean its not exactly like people prioritize burrow at lair right now over those other things. I'm saying all this as a response to all the people getting a little carried away with how suddenly detection will become suddenly so necessary early on and such nonsense
It isn't about Burrow becoming a part of the standard 15 Hatchery, 16 Spawning Pool builds but the potential harassment and all ins it threatens from more aggressive build orders like 10 Spawning Pool or 11 Spawning Pool that can afford to take gas on either 14 or 18, build their first 2 Queens incrementally or build their first set of Zerglings faster. Even some of the 15 Hatchery, 16 Spawning Pool builds that stop at 2 Queens in order to apply pressure or a tier 1 all in can probably make use of Burrow to either sustain the attack or transition out of it.
Sometimes the threat of something is more important than the presence and not everybody heads for a macro game with Zerg, more options are never a bad thing.
i dont think burrow allin or harass is so strong that it makes people so afraid of it
and as for burrow stopping 7/8 gate allins..well you can already do that just by making units if you know it's coming too, and be so far ahead..i dont get what's the problem of having a strong defense vs an allin. it's not like people will always go burrow every game and that'll just suddenly make the allin terrible
But that is exactly the point! Zerg can already stop any kind of aggression that can be thrown at them by reacting correctly, so why do they even stronger defense against many all-ins? Shouldn't there be some skill required too when holding them? Especially with Burrowed Banelings versus Terran, the luck involved will be pretty ridiculous. If Terran scans and picks off a bunch of Banelings or doesn't walk over the Banelings they could straight up win. If Terran doesn't scan and walks over the Banes, they would simply lose.
In a lot of ways, this is like the MSC spell Photon Overcharge (or Purify or whatever it is called, they keep changing the name). Protoss could already stop the pushes it helps out against just fine, and those pushes required skill to stop. Now if you see a 2 rax (tech lab/reactor 2 rax expand) coming, you hit one button and your Nexus is perfectly safe. It is skilless and reduces the variety of the game. And as a Protoss player I hate it. I don't want to play a macro game, every game, with the same stupid unit combinations, and building the same defenses at the same drop locations every game... it gets dull really quick, especially when the 15-20 minute game is decided by one 10 second engagement where if either side makes one small micro mistake they lose.
I see the same thing happening here to a lesser extent with Burrow. This change further reduces the viability of many all-ins, and we both know the result isn't that they will be easier to hold, the result if that people won't do said all-ins anymore, and the variety of viable builds has just been reduced. As you said, Zerg can already hold the 7 Gate, so why does it need to be strengthened against it? Less variety is bad and leads to boredom.
Unless there is some all-in or pressure timing that is crippling Zerg here that I don't know about (and based on recent tournament results, Zerg is flourishing), I don't see why this change needs to happen.
First of all, it should be far easier to stop toss all ins when they get completely scouted. The immo sentry all in is the best example of this, as even pros know it's coming for sure and still lose even though they make the right units with very good macro. When all ins get scouted the defender should always have a big advantage, meaning all ins from toss should be far riskier than they are now.
Simple pressure builds are way underused by toss, as is harass builds, simply because toss all ins are far too strong. You talk about macro games as if they all go the same way, which I guess they do most of the time because players in general are too slow to pull off 2+ location harass builds. I still remember Grubby using 2 warp prisms and a pylon to hit 3 locations at once for 5 minutes while taking a fourth and building a main army behind it. So if macro games are getting dull for you it's because you and the people you're playing aren't creative enough with your builds or are simply too slow to execute more creative play. And btw I'm not saying I do play fast enough to do those things either, but added variety will come with player development, and really good all ins are bad for the game.
I think this is fine, but if you want fast moving roaches or fast banes, you'll still be encouraged to tech to lair. But I like the idea of having a unit capable of early "cloak" for zerg, and this is fine I believe due to the increased early detection all the races have now (except terran, which always had the fastest early detect with the scan), what with spore colonies after pool w/o evo and moship core envision ability. And, it's not like the early burrowed units can attack while "cloaked", as the only zerg unit cpable of this is the infestor, which shouldn't be too much affected by this.
However, this is nice that we can even out the research, such that burrow is available right as the lair is done, or even before, rather than having to decide once the lair is done in which of the infinite ways to begin spending that new strange resource we never really used b4 lair, "gas"... lol
Also, this will be fun to use to potentially burrow a ling to prevent 6min natural expands. And burrow roaches will be able to hit super fast, limited only really by the research time they give it. maybe make it as long as the terran stim? IDk, testing must ensue to find the fairest research time. But I like this, the game will have more complexity of options now, and tournaments will be all the richer because of it. And let's be honest, early game zerg is quite boring, so why not jazz it up a bit? :D
The direction that Blizzard has been moving forward towards in giving all the races, as many tech upgrades, either free or not, in the early game. I don't like this. They are basically stripping down their hierarchy oh what and RTS game is. They are basically saying, "here is everything right away, go wild!" While that IS a way to design a game, its not what SC is.
End of the day, they will do what they want and see fit. Either we (the community) adapt or stop playing the game.
On January 15 2013 23:00 Zelniq wrote: I don't think you all realize that this change wouldn't affect hardly anything. Not because burrow isn't useful, there's just so many more important things to get.
In the early game, are you really going to spend your relatively low resources on Burrow rather than ling speed, +1 attack, or Lair? Or prioritize it over queens? Or drones, or units/buildings for defense, banenest/roach warren, units for an attack, expansions.. The thing about burrow people don't realize is that in most every case, you're not going to be getting it over these other things that are generally more vital and helpful. Yes you should eventually get it cus its useful, but how often is it going to be a core part of your opening, more important than those upgrades I mentioned?
You don't exactly have a ton of resources to just spend on whatever you like, especially as lair finishes you'll be needing resources for whichever lair tech, like roach speed, bane speed, spire, infestor pit, etc. I mean its not exactly like people prioritize burrow at lair right now over those other things. I'm saying all this as a response to all the people getting a little carried away with how suddenly detection will become suddenly so necessary early on and such nonsense
It isn't about Burrow becoming a part of the standard 15 Hatchery, 16 Spawning Pool builds but the potential harassment and all ins it threatens from more aggressive build orders like 10 Spawning Pool or 11 Spawning Pool that can afford to take gas on either 14 or 18, build their first 2 Queens incrementally or build their first set of Zerglings faster. Even some of the 15 Hatchery, 16 Spawning Pool builds that stop at 2 Queens in order to apply pressure or a tier 1 all in can probably make use of Burrow to either sustain the attack or transition out of it.
Sometimes the threat of something is more important than the presence and not everybody heads for a macro game with Zerg, more options are never a bad thing.
i dont think burrow allin or harass is so strong that it makes people so afraid of it
and as for burrow stopping 7/8 gate allins..well you can already do that just by making units if you know it's coming too, and be so far ahead..i dont get what's the problem of having a strong defense vs an allin. it's not like people will always go burrow every game and that'll just suddenly make the allin terrible
But that is exactly the point! Zerg can already stop any kind of aggression that can be thrown at them by reacting correctly, so why do they even stronger defense against many all-ins? Shouldn't there be some skill required too when holding them? Especially with Burrowed Banelings versus Terran, the luck involved will be pretty ridiculous. If Terran scans and picks off a bunch of Banelings or doesn't walk over the Banelings they could straight up win. If Terran doesn't scan and walks over the Banes, they would simply lose.
In a lot of ways, this is like the MSC spell Photon Overcharge (or Purify or whatever it is called, they keep changing the name). Protoss could already stop the pushes it helps out against just fine, and those pushes required skill to stop. Now if you see a 2 rax (tech lab/reactor 2 rax expand) coming, you hit one button and your Nexus is perfectly safe. It is skilless and reduces the variety of the game. And as a Protoss player I hate it. I don't want to play a macro game, every game, with the same stupid unit combinations, and building the same defenses at the same drop locations every game... it gets dull really quick, especially when the 15-20 minute game is decided by one 10 second engagement where if either side makes one small micro mistake they lose.
I see the same thing happening here to a lesser extent with Burrow. This change further reduces the viability of many all-ins, and we both know the result isn't that they will be easier to hold, the result if that people won't do said all-ins anymore, and the variety of viable builds has just been reduced. As you said, Zerg can already hold the 7 Gate, so why does it need to be strengthened against it? Less variety is bad and leads to boredom.
Unless there is some all-in or pressure timing that is crippling Zerg here that I don't know about (and based on recent tournament results, Zerg is flourishing), I don't see why this change needs to happen.
First of all, it should be far easier to stop toss all ins when they get completely scouted. The immo sentry all in is the best example of this, as even pros know it's coming for sure and still lose even though they make the right units with very good macro. When all ins get scouted the defender should always have a big advantage, meaning all ins from toss should be far riskier than they are now.
Simple pressure builds are way underused by toss, as is harass builds, simply because toss all ins are far too strong. You talk about macro games as if they all go the same way, which I guess they do most of the time because players in general are too slow to pull off 2+ location harass builds. I still remember Grubby using 2 warp prisms and a pylon to hit 3 locations at once for 5 minutes while taking a fourth and building a main army behind it. So if macro games are getting dull for you it's because you and the people you're playing aren't creative enough with your builds or are simply too slow to execute more creative play. And btw I'm not saying I do play fast enough to do those things either, but added variety will come with player development, and really good all ins are bad for the game.
The immortal sentry is the only example of hard to stop all-in after scouting. If you scout protoss doing any other all-in (at a decent time of course), it is very easy to stop (I think this is the reason protoss is struggling in the GSL, they have run out of new unique all-ins to "trick" zerg with. Maybe that is why Huk was able to get in, no one knows his set of all-ins he will try).
In WoL (MsC with TP will change this), you cannot do simple pressure builds. It's not because all-ins are too stong, it's because a simple pressure build is all-in. If you attack with just gateway units, you will get destroyed by a round of lings. You have to bring sentries to not lose every unit, but sentries are slow and expensive and you cannot lose them. The sentries cannot retreat, so if you do a pressure build, you better win the game with it because you cannot afford to lose the sentries.
Yes, there are exceptions, for example some people will do early zealot attacks. If zerg is diligent and knows this is coming, it is shut down so painfully easy that it is way too risky to do consistently. But again, zealots are slow, you do not retreat with the 500-800 mineral army in the early game. That's huge, you need huge damage to even consider it worth it.
I can't wait to see pre-burrowmove roaches being burrow micro'd in early aggression. I think that's the most powerful use of this tech. Roaches have a moderately higher burrowed regeneration rate even without tunneling claws, but I never felt like that was featured very often in WoL.
I think we'll see timings with an inherently slow and methodical, yet powerful attack. It's always good when you have units creeping their way up to a position in a strategic way, instead of just nom-nom-noming at breakneck speed.
I like the idea of having essentially 5 levels of roach aggression that actually play somewhat differently, and actually happen at much different timings. Naked, Burrow, Tunneling, Speed, Full-Ups.
On January 17 2013 02:51 LavaLava wrote: I can't wait to see pre-burrowmove roaches being burrow micro'd in early aggression. I think that's the most powerful use of this tech. Roaches have a moderately higher burrowed regeneration rate even without tunneling claws, but I never felt like that was featured very often in WoL.
I think we'll see timings with an inherently slow and methodical, yet powerful attack. It's always good when you have units creeping their way up to a position in a strategic way, instead of just nom-nom-noming at breakneck speed.
I like the idea of having essentially 5 levels of roach aggression that actually play somewhat differently, and actually happen at much different timings. Naked, Burrow, Tunneling, Speed, Full-Ups.
I can see burrow roaches being used to thwart Terran and Protoss FE by having the roaches peck away at a pylon/forge/bunker/depot and the. Burrowing the roaches that are injured and having them resurface. It definitely seems like it could provide a decent means for Zerg to cost effectively harass/punish FE without having to go all in like it is right now.
On January 17 2013 02:51 LavaLava wrote: I can't wait to see pre-burrowmove roaches being burrow micro'd in early aggression. I think that's the most powerful use of this tech. Roaches have a moderately higher burrowed regeneration rate even without tunneling claws, but I never felt like that was featured very often in WoL.
I think we'll see timings with an inherently slow and methodical, yet powerful attack. It's always good when you have units creeping their way up to a position in a strategic way, instead of just nom-nom-noming at breakneck speed.
I like the idea of having essentially 5 levels of roach aggression that actually play somewhat differently, and actually happen at much different timings. Naked, Burrow, Tunneling, Speed, Full-Ups.
I can see burrow roaches being used to thwart Terran and Protoss FE by having the roaches peck away at a pylon/forge/bunker/depot and the. Burrowing the roaches that are injured and having them resurface. It definitely seems like it could provide a decent means for Zerg to cost effectively harass/punish FE without having to go all in like it is right now.
Wouldn't that depend on the construction of the map? Narrow choked naturals would be covered by cannons and potentially high ground so being able to burrow there might not really do any good.
Also, this is all presuming they don't alter the research time if they move it down a tier. If made longer it might not be able to accomplish as much as you'd might expect.
Zerg should have easier time vs hellion opening (lol) and better scouting -> zerg becomes untouchable early game Zerg should have more offensive capabilities early -> zerg becomes more untouchable early game
meanwhile they forget about the late game problems terran have that desperately need addressing in HotS.
On January 17 2013 02:51 LavaLava wrote: I can't wait to see pre-burrowmove roaches being burrow micro'd in early aggression. I think that's the most powerful use of this tech. Roaches have a moderately higher burrowed regeneration rate even without tunneling claws, but I never felt like that was featured very often in WoL.
I think we'll see timings with an inherently slow and methodical, yet powerful attack. It's always good when you have units creeping their way up to a position in a strategic way, instead of just nom-nom-noming at breakneck speed.
I like the idea of having essentially 5 levels of roach aggression that actually play somewhat differently, and actually happen at much different timings. Naked, Burrow, Tunneling, Speed, Full-Ups.
I can see burrow roaches being used to thwart Terran and Protoss FE by having the roaches peck away at a pylon/forge/bunker/depot and the. Burrowing the roaches that are injured and having them resurface. It definitely seems like it could provide a decent means for Zerg to cost effectively harass/punish FE without having to go all in like it is right now.
I think you are underestimating 1) The cost of Burrow and it's effect on the strength of an early rush 2) the time it would take to get Burrow AFTER you make your 2 Queens, and the lateness of these rushes and 3) the ability for players to scout this very early on and react accordingly.
Yeah I really think this would be a horrible change. There is way too much early potential for it and on top of it like people said you can save all your stuff via burrow unless there is detection. Heck Protoss have already been complaining a ton of the NEED to go robotics tech every game which lowers play diversity. Should this also be the case against Zerg?! Especially considering the Zerg is the race that if they know what your doing they get a huge advantage because they can produce drones and units directly according to your build. The last thing I want is to have to go robo tech every game considering it's the most boring of all the options available.
On January 17 2013 03:53 Berailfor wrote: Yeah I really think this would be a horrible change. There is way too much early potential for it and on top of it like people said you can save all your stuff via burrow unless there is detection. Heck Protoss have already been complaining a ton of the NEED to go robotics tech every game which lowers play diversity. Should this also be the case against Zerg?! Especially considering the Zerg is the race that if they know what your doing they get a huge advantage because they can produce drones and units directly according to your build. The last thing I want is to have to go robo tech every game considering it's the most boring of all the options available.
I seem to remember something about the oracle detecting for a time. I hate opening robo as much as anyone else, so I think I WOULD agree if that were actually the case, when it's not anymore.
On January 17 2013 03:53 Berailfor wrote: Yeah I really think this would be a horrible change. There is way too much early potential for it and on top of it like people said you can save all your stuff via burrow unless there is detection. Heck Protoss have already been complaining a ton of the NEED to go robotics tech every game which lowers play diversity. Should this also be the case against Zerg?! Especially considering the Zerg is the race that if they know what your doing they get a huge advantage because they can produce drones and units directly according to your build. The last thing I want is to have to go robo tech every game considering it's the most boring of all the options available.
I seem to remember something about the oracle detecting for a time. I hate opening robo as much as anyone else, so I think I WOULD agree if that were actually the case, when it's not anymore.
Oracle does in fact detect cloaked units right now It was switched to the MSC, then put back on the oracle recently.
On January 17 2013 03:53 Berailfor wrote: Yeah I really think this would be a horrible change. There is way too much early potential for it and on top of it like people said you can save all your stuff via burrow unless there is detection. Heck Protoss have already been complaining a ton of the NEED to go robotics tech every game which lowers play diversity. Should this also be the case against Zerg?! Especially considering the Zerg is the race that if they know what your doing they get a huge advantage because they can produce drones and units directly according to your build. The last thing I want is to have to go robo tech every game considering it's the most boring of all the options available.
I seem to remember something about the oracle detecting for a time. I hate opening robo as much as anyone else, so I think I WOULD agree if that were actually the case, when it's not anymore.
Oracle does in fact detect cloaked units right now It was switched to the MSC, then put back on the oracle recently.
Well then, as I thought, both SG and Robo openings have viability and won't just get outright shit on by burrow/stealth.
On January 17 2013 02:51 LavaLava wrote: I can't wait to see pre-burrowmove roaches being burrow micro'd in early aggression. I think that's the most powerful use of this tech. Roaches have a moderately higher burrowed regeneration rate even without tunneling claws, but I never felt like that was featured very often in WoL.
I think we'll see timings with an inherently slow and methodical, yet powerful attack. It's always good when you have units creeping their way up to a position in a strategic way, instead of just nom-nom-noming at breakneck speed.
I like the idea of having essentially 5 levels of roach aggression that actually play somewhat differently, and actually happen at much different timings. Naked, Burrow, Tunneling, Speed, Full-Ups.
I can see burrow roaches being used to thwart Terran and Protoss FE by having the roaches peck away at a pylon/forge/bunker/depot and the. Burrowing the roaches that are injured and having them resurface. It definitely seems like it could provide a decent means for Zerg to cost effectively harass/punish FE without having to go all in like it is right now.
I think you are underestimating 1) The cost of Burrow and it's effect on the strength of an early rush 2) the time it would take to get Burrow AFTER you make your 2 Queens, and the lateness of these rushes and 3) the ability for players to scout this very early on and react accordingly.
1. Burrow can be taken in place of ling speed since they are the same cost. 2. There's nothing saying you cant research burrow after getting 2 queens out or even just making both queens on one hatch while researching burrow on one. For that matter theres nothing saying the Zerg cabt start off with one queen on 2 hatch and use te other 150 for the warren. We honestly don't know the possibilities yet until this is actually implemented 3. Scouting can be denied like always.
On January 17 2013 04:39 Existor wrote: They must make burrowed units visible. Maybe a small effect, like when infestors/roaches are burrow moving or small ground crack
Yeah. That would make a lot of sense. Especially as Infestors can cast IT underground.
On January 17 2013 02:51 LavaLava wrote: I can't wait to see pre-burrowmove roaches being burrow micro'd in early aggression. I think that's the most powerful use of this tech. Roaches have a moderately higher burrowed regeneration rate even without tunneling claws, but I never felt like that was featured very often in WoL.
I think we'll see timings with an inherently slow and methodical, yet powerful attack. It's always good when you have units creeping their way up to a position in a strategic way, instead of just nom-nom-noming at breakneck speed.
I like the idea of having essentially 5 levels of roach aggression that actually play somewhat differently, and actually happen at much different timings. Naked, Burrow, Tunneling, Speed, Full-Ups.
I can see burrow roaches being used to thwart Terran and Protoss FE by having the roaches peck away at a pylon/forge/bunker/depot and the. Burrowing the roaches that are injured and having them resurface. It definitely seems like it could provide a decent means for Zerg to cost effectively harass/punish FE without having to go all in like it is right now.
I think you are underestimating 1) The cost of Burrow and it's effect on the strength of an early rush 2) the time it would take to get Burrow AFTER you make your 2 Queens, and the lateness of these rushes and 3) the ability for players to scout this very early on and react accordingly.
1. Burrow can be taken in place of ling speed since they are the same cost. 2. There's nothing saying you cant research burrow after getting 2 queens out or even just making both queens on one hatch while researching burrow on one. For that matter theres nothing saying the Zerg cabt start off with one queen on 2 hatch and use te other 150 for the warren. We honestly don't know the possibilities yet until this is actually implemented 3. Scouting can be denied like always.
Yeah, especially if you are doing Roach pressure, you won't miss that extra larva nearly as badly.
On January 17 2013 02:51 LavaLava wrote: I can't wait to see pre-burrowmove roaches being burrow micro'd in early aggression. I think that's the most powerful use of this tech. Roaches have a moderately higher burrowed regeneration rate even without tunneling claws, but I never felt like that was featured very often in WoL.
I think we'll see timings with an inherently slow and methodical, yet powerful attack. It's always good when you have units creeping their way up to a position in a strategic way, instead of just nom-nom-noming at breakneck speed.
I like the idea of having essentially 5 levels of roach aggression that actually play somewhat differently, and actually happen at much different timings. Naked, Burrow, Tunneling, Speed, Full-Ups.
I can see burrow roaches being used to thwart Terran and Protoss FE by having the roaches peck away at a pylon/forge/bunker/depot and the. Burrowing the roaches that are injured and having them resurface. It definitely seems like it could provide a decent means for Zerg to cost effectively harass/punish FE without having to go all in like it is right now.
I think you are underestimating 1) The cost of Burrow and it's effect on the strength of an early rush 2) the time it would take to get Burrow AFTER you make your 2 Queens, and the lateness of these rushes and 3) the ability for players to scout this very early on and react accordingly.
1. Burrow can be taken in place of ling speed since they are the same cost. 2. There's nothing saying you cant research burrow after getting 2 queens out or even just making both queens on one hatch while researching burrow on one. For that matter theres nothing saying the Zerg cabt start off with one queen on 2 hatch and use te other 150 for the warren. We honestly don't know the possibilities yet until this is actually implemented 3. Scouting can be denied like always.
1. If burrow is taken in place of ling speed it's even easier to scout it, you just scout the lack of 3rd, which imply that he's taking his gas, and see that he doesnt have ling speed at the usual timing through Xel'naga. 2. I dont see anything wrong with that, but burrow still take a full 100 seconds to complete 3. If you cut zergling speed scouting cannot be denied
On January 17 2013 04:39 Existor wrote: They must make burrowed units visible. Maybe a small effect, like when infestors/roaches are burrow moving or small ground crack
Yeah. That would make a lot of sense. Especially as Infestors can cast IT underground.
You can already see burrowed units as they move. I'm not sure if you can see if it they are still however. I would only make it slightly more visible as I do like the surprise effect. Knowing where a burrowed unit is without detectoin (even if you can't attack it directly) is kind of lame.
On January 17 2013 04:39 Existor wrote: They must make burrowed units visible. Maybe a small effect, like when infestors/roaches are burrow moving or small ground crack
Yeah. That would make a lot of sense. Especially as Infestors can cast IT underground.
You can already see burrowed units as they move. I'm not sure if you can see if it they are still however. I would only make it slightly more visible as I do like the surprise effect. Knowing where a burrowed unit is without detectoin (even if you can't attack it directly) is kind of lame.
Yes you see them. But as you say, not very well. Of course, the purpose of something cloaked is to not be visible and I wouldn't mind if they made static cloaked units (like not moving observers) completely unblurry - observers that get spoted even though they are not moving is really lame imo... Basically, they should just add a little more visibility to burrow movements. It's right now too hard to spot in my opinion.
On January 17 2013 03:53 Berailfor wrote: Yeah I really think this would be a horrible change. There is way too much early potential for it and on top of it like people said you can save all your stuff via burrow unless there is detection. Heck Protoss have already been complaining a ton of the NEED to go robotics tech every game which lowers play diversity. Should this also be the case against Zerg?! Especially considering the Zerg is the race that if they know what your doing they get a huge advantage because they can produce drones and units directly according to your build. The last thing I want is to have to go robo tech every game considering it's the most boring of all the options available.
I seem to remember something about the oracle detecting for a time. I hate opening robo as much as anyone else, so I think I WOULD agree if that were actually the case, when it's not anymore.
It isn't permanent detection I thought though? Doesn't it cost energy? If so it doesn't seem a viable option if there is a threat of burrow roaches.
On January 17 2013 02:51 LavaLava wrote: I can't wait to see pre-burrowmove roaches being burrow micro'd in early aggression. I think that's the most powerful use of this tech. Roaches have a moderately higher burrowed regeneration rate even without tunneling claws, but I never felt like that was featured very often in WoL.
I think we'll see timings with an inherently slow and methodical, yet powerful attack. It's always good when you have units creeping their way up to a position in a strategic way, instead of just nom-nom-noming at breakneck speed.
I like the idea of having essentially 5 levels of roach aggression that actually play somewhat differently, and actually happen at much different timings. Naked, Burrow, Tunneling, Speed, Full-Ups.
I can see burrow roaches being used to thwart Terran and Protoss FE by having the roaches peck away at a pylon/forge/bunker/depot and the. Burrowing the roaches that are injured and having them resurface. It definitely seems like it could provide a decent means for Zerg to cost effectively harass/punish FE without having to go all in like it is right now.
I think you are underestimating 1) The cost of Burrow and it's effect on the strength of an early rush 2) the time it would take to get Burrow AFTER you make your 2 Queens, and the lateness of these rushes and 3) the ability for players to scout this very early on and react accordingly.
1. Burrow can be taken in place of ling speed since they are the same cost. 2. There's nothing saying you cant research burrow after getting 2 queens out or even just making both queens on one hatch while researching burrow on one. For that matter theres nothing saying the Zerg cabt start off with one queen on 2 hatch and use te other 150 for the warren. We honestly don't know the possibilities yet until this is actually implemented 3. Scouting can be denied like always.
1. If burrow is taken in place of ling speed it's even easier to scout it, you just scout the lack of 3rd, which imply that he's taking his gas, and see that he doesnt have ling speed at the usual timing through Xel'naga. 2. I dont see anything wrong with that, but burrow still take a full 100 seconds to complete 3. If you cut zergling speed scouting cannot be denied
1. How would it be easier to scout it? The only indication would be the spawning pool animation which can be denied with lings/queen 2. I'm not sure on the exact time it takes for ling speed to complete but I'm pretty sure it's 100-110 seconds. So it's the same amount if not earlier 3. Queen at the ramp and a set of lings
Obviously no 3rd will be an indication but my thoughts are going towards changing the early game meta where it becomes either not possible for T/P to hold the expansion against early roach aggression or it makes it so that it is economically not a good idea due to the damage the roach aggression incurs on their economy. Obviously the lack of a quick 3rd will be some indication of aggression but that's what Zergs want right now. Zergs are absolutely tired of 3 base play where try tech to hive in 13 minutes. Hopefully burrow at tier 1 will change that.
On January 15 2013 07:27 blade55555 wrote: Yeah burrow drones when 8 hellions go into them, then a scan and their dead anyway .
Scans during early-midgame harass are punishing to terran. Someone making 8 hellions pre-lair for a run by is taking a risk relying on doing damage, so it is more reasonable for them to save a scan for their all-in(ish) tactic. What this change does in such context is facilitate harsher binary conditions (ie: It is not worth it to scan when harassing with a hellion number without the capacity to 3 or 4 shot a burrowed mineral line, so the condition where a Terran player is attempting to actuate a safe, structured play-style (that is independent of all-in risks) no longer has the capacity to threaten the drone count of a zerg player who is at all above low masters (before the time in which burrow would generally be available). I feel like the offset of burrow's research cost will not be equivalent, but it will be interesting and exciting to experiment with.
On January 17 2013 07:19 freetgy wrote: i guess this change would effect ZvZ most.
Because in ling baneling wars, you won't be able to kill drones at all making attacking earlygame absurd.
Also burrowed banelings would effect zerglings most.
In ling/bling wars it is really hard to afford something extra like 100/100. I mean... great you burrow your stuff. I have more. If you unburrow your stuff dies, if you don't your base dies. And due to zergling highspeed it is way harder to hit them, than it is to hit something slow like marines.
Also manual detonation works on burrowed units anyways... And with spores not requiring an evo chamber, I think detection can be achieved resonably early.
On January 17 2013 03:53 Berailfor wrote: Yeah I really think this would be a horrible change. There is way too much early potential for it and on top of it like people said you can save all your stuff via burrow unless there is detection. Heck Protoss have already been complaining a ton of the NEED to go robotics tech every game which lowers play diversity. Should this also be the case against Zerg?! Especially considering the Zerg is the race that if they know what your doing they get a huge advantage because they can produce drones and units directly according to your build. The last thing I want is to have to go robo tech every game considering it's the most boring of all the options available.
I seem to remember something about the oracle detecting for a time. I hate opening robo as much as anyone else, so I think I WOULD agree if that were actually the case, when it's not anymore.
It isn't permanent detection I thought though? Doesn't it cost energy? If so it doesn't seem a viable option if there is a threat of burrow roaches.
I think it lasts for 30 seconds and for 50 energy cost. It isn't as good as Observer, but it still lasts long enough and can be used multiple times.
On January 15 2013 07:27 blade55555 wrote: Yeah burrow drones when 8 hellions go into them, then a scan and their dead anyway .
Scans during early-midgame harass are punishing to terran. Someone making 8 hellions pre-lair for a run by is taking a risk relying on doing damage, so it is more reasonable for them to save a scan for their all-in(ish) tactic. What this change does in such context is facilitate harsher binary conditions (ie: It is not worth it to scan when harassing with a hellion number without the capacity to 3 or 4 shot a burrowed mineral line, so the condition where a Terran player is attempting to actuate a safe, structured play-style (that is independent of all-in risks) no longer has the capacity to threaten the drone count of a zerg player who is at all above low masters (before the time in which burrow would generally be available). I feel like the offset of burrow's research cost will not be equivalent, but it will be interesting and exciting to experiment with.
1 scan to kill 20+ drones is worth it no matter what. If they have 8 hellion sand they are going into a mineral line they are going to die anyway, if the drones burrow the terran player should have a scan and a giant grin on his face as all the drones die because they can't split either once burrowed.
If it's only 4 hellions odds are they get in the mineral line before burrow is done anyway. It has a decent research time and isn't going to be started till like 6-7 minutes at the earliest in most situations.
I hate to do this, but hoenstly more aggression? Zergling speed is not aggressive enough in run-by situations? In both TvZ and PvZ, Terrans and Protosses players quiver at the thought of being surrounded by Speedlings. T and P stay in base until they feel ready to embark on a journey into the center map, usually only to be greeted with an impending approach by Speedlings and Roaches. If Blizzard honestly do choose to give Zergs more ways to be aggressive, all tournaments would revolve around both T and P getting mobile detection before moving out, thus slowing down the pace of the game and condemning any match up against Z to a game of chicken.
On January 15 2013 07:27 blade55555 wrote: Yeah burrow drones when 8 hellions go into them, then a scan and their dead anyway .
Scans during early-midgame harass are punishing to terran. Someone making 8 hellions pre-lair for a run by is taking a risk relying on doing damage, so it is more reasonable for them to save a scan for their all-in(ish) tactic. What this change does in such context is facilitate harsher binary conditions (ie: It is not worth it to scan when harassing with a hellion number without the capacity to 3 or 4 shot a burrowed mineral line, so the condition where a Terran player is attempting to actuate a safe, structured play-style (that is independent of all-in risks) no longer has the capacity to threaten the drone count of a zerg player who is at all above low masters (before the time in which burrow would generally be available). I feel like the offset of burrow's research cost will not be equivalent, but it will be interesting and exciting to experiment with.
I remember a game not to long ago where there were no mules where scanning was great and that no one complained they had to build workers what a world that was.
Also if you have 8 hellions in a mineral line you are doing a runby that is luck based to begin with you were not planning for a even macro game you are relying on this doing dmg now you just have to have 1 scan with it to be sure your attack works. I'm not understanding what is wrong.
I think it's a great idea. It will make the the early game more dynamic, which is nothing but good. It adds some fun traps and tactics for zergs that encourage micro, rather than the early game macro fests we see in WoL! And it allows zergs to use these tactics both defensively and offensively, to survive or deal damage, and rewards better players more.
If it is too powerful, they'll give the other races better ways to deal with it. So don't worry about how strong or weak it is at the moment. Just imagine the possibilities that a simple change like this opens up. It means more fun for players and for spectators. Will those stalkers walk right over the burrowed lings?!! Suspense is what makes things exciting to watch, and moving burrow to hatchery tech would add more suspense to zerg matchups.
On January 17 2013 07:19 freetgy wrote: i guess this change would effect ZvZ most.
Because in ling baneling wars, you won't be able to kill drones at all making attacking earlygame absurd.
Also burrowed banelings would effect zerglings most.
In ling/bling wars it is really hard to afford something extra like 100/100. I mean... great you burrow your stuff. I have more. If you unburrow your stuff dies, if you don't your base dies. And due to zergling highspeed it is way harder to hit them, than it is to hit something slow like marines.
Also manual detonation works on burrowed units anyways... And with spores not requiring an evo chamber, I think detection can be achieved resonably early.
Well 2 points, 1) If you just sit the banelings over the mineral line the opponent will either be completely denied mining unless he engages them. 2) If you detonate a baneling by pressing the detonate key the splash effects burrowed units.
On January 15 2013 07:27 blade55555 wrote: Yeah burrow drones when 8 hellions go into them, then a scan and their dead anyway .
You know a lot more than me blade (I'm a silver scrub) but I just wanted to note that when you burrow mining workers they are pretty well spread and it would take quite a while to roast them all. Yes it would be easily doable in a single scan, but it would take a lot longer than the speed at which you can kill a fleeing line of workers.
I have seen pro players split drones in every direction when hellions come in to minimise damage. Splitting like this would still be more effective than both fleeing in a single line or than burrowing, but it it also the most time consuming of your options. Burrow on the other hand would be less time consuming than splitting, require less baby sitting than fleeing in a line (because you don't need to dodge flames). So I feel that there will be times when burrowing is the best choice, altho that would be far from the majority of the time.
Just my 2 silver cents
Edit: And the title of this OP is still very misleading. Burrow is still not officially in. It's just being internally tested, and they have not even conclusively said that they will test it on the beta.
On January 17 2013 08:16 Fig wrote: I think it's a great idea. It will make the the early game more dynamic, which is nothing but good. It adds some fun traps and tactics for zergs that encourage micro, rather than the early game macro fests we see in WoL! And it allows zergs to use these tactics both defensively and offensively, to survive or deal damage, and rewards better players more.
If it is too powerful, they'll give the other races better ways to deal with it. So don't worry about how strong or weak it is at the moment. Just imagine the possibilities that a simple change like this opens up. It means more fun for players and for spectators. Will those stalkers walk right over the burrowed lings?!! Suspense is what makes things exciting to watch, and moving burrow to hatchery tech would add more suspense to zerg matchups.
That's the only reason I'm holding my tongue. Because burrow Roach/Ling and unkillable Drones in the current meta is just going to ruin the early game. Protoss is in dire need of some early love too (and air deathball nerf), seeing how Zealots are laughable in small numbers and utter shit at really exerting any control in the early game. As much as I love the MsC sitting on the 3rd expo and preventing an expand, there should be more dynamic involved.
On January 15 2013 07:27 blade55555 wrote: Yeah burrow drones when 8 hellions go into them, then a scan and their dead anyway .
You know a lot more than me blade (I'm a silver scrub) but I just wanted to note that when you burrow mining workers they are pretty well spread and it would take quite a while to roast them all. Yes it would be easily doable in a single scan, but it would take a lot longer than the speed at which you can kill a fleeing line of workers.
I have seen pro players split drones in every direction when hellions come in to minimise damage. Splitting like this would still be more effective than both fleeing in a single line or than burrowing, but it it also the most time consuming of your options. Burrow on the other hand would be less time consuming than splitting, require less baby sitting than fleeing in a line (because you don't need to dodge flames). So I feel that there will be times when burrowing is the best choice, altho that would be far from the majority of the time.
Just my 2 silver cents
Edit: And the title of this OP is still very misleading. Burrow is still not officially in. It's just being internally tested, and they have not even conclusively said that they will test it on the beta.
I agree with this post. I can't really see a time when you'd straight-up burrow instead of splitting workers. I imagine that's kind of good for lower leagues, but for the upper half (masters+GMs), splitting is still going to be stronger and safer. Maybe a split and then burrow might be pretty good, but burrow is just going to put your drones in a static, vulnerable position that, IF the terran player decides they can use a scan, can spell inevitable doom for the zerg player.
On January 15 2013 07:27 blade55555 wrote: Yeah burrow drones when 8 hellions go into them, then a scan and their dead anyway .
You know a lot more than me blade (I'm a silver scrub) but I just wanted to note that when you burrow mining workers they are pretty well spread and it would take quite a while to roast them all. Yes it would be easily doable in a single scan, but it would take a lot longer than the speed at which you can kill a fleeing line of workers.
I have seen pro players split drones in every direction when hellions come in to minimise damage. Splitting like this would still be more effective than both fleeing in a single line or than burrowing, but it it also the most time consuming of your options. Burrow on the other hand would be less time consuming than splitting, require less baby sitting than fleeing in a line (because you don't need to dodge flames). So I feel that there will be times when burrowing is the best choice, altho that would be far from the majority of the time.
Just my 2 silver cents
Edit: And the title of this OP is still very misleading. Burrow is still not officially in. It's just being internally tested, and they have not even conclusively said that they will test it on the beta.
Still even with burrowing your drones while splitting them they are still going to all be in the scan radius and are all going to die. It would be better almost not to burrow in that instance just so that you can hopefully run some away.
Also if you are trying to spli tand burrow do take into account that the hellions are in the mineral line. You don't exactly have a lot of time to split them all and then burrow. They will be dying as they split then burrow. Either way 8 hellions in a mineral line burrowed or not most or a ton are going to die unless terran for some reason doesn't have a scan or decides to be generous and not use it.
On January 15 2013 07:27 blade55555 wrote: Yeah burrow drones when 8 hellions go into them, then a scan and their dead anyway .
You know a lot more than me blade (I'm a silver scrub) but I just wanted to note that when you burrow mining workers they are pretty well spread and it would take quite a while to roast them all. Yes it would be easily doable in a single scan, but it would take a lot longer than the speed at which you can kill a fleeing line of workers.
I have seen pro players split drones in every direction when hellions come in to minimise damage. Splitting like this would still be more effective than both fleeing in a single line or than burrowing, but it it also the most time consuming of your options. Burrow on the other hand would be less time consuming than splitting, require less baby sitting than fleeing in a line (because you don't need to dodge flames). So I feel that there will be times when burrowing is the best choice, altho that would be far from the majority of the time.
Just my 2 silver cents
Edit: And the title of this OP is still very misleading. Burrow is still not officially in. It's just being internally tested, and they have not even conclusively said that they will test it on the beta.
Still even with burrowing your drones while splitting them they are still going to all be in the scan radius and are all going to die. It would be better almost not to burrow in that instance just so that you can hopefully run some away.
Also if you are trying to spli tand burrow do take into account that the hellions are in the mineral line. You don't exactly have a lot of time to split them all and then burrow. They will be dying as they split then burrow. Either way 8 hellions in a mineral line burrowed or not most or a ton are going to die unless terran for some reason doesn't have a scan or decides to be generous and not use it.
going to have to go against this one. since talking about t1 here, scan energy is a gamble that favors the zerg. even if a scan is available, burrowing the drones opens the "area" around the minerals for greater zergling/roach/queen maneuvability, and becomes infinitely harder for terran to manually click on burrowed drones to attack.
On January 15 2013 07:27 blade55555 wrote: Yeah burrow drones when 8 hellions go into them, then a scan and their dead anyway .
You know a lot more than me blade (I'm a silver scrub) but I just wanted to note that when you burrow mining workers they are pretty well spread and it would take quite a while to roast them all. Yes it would be easily doable in a single scan, but it would take a lot longer than the speed at which you can kill a fleeing line of workers.
I have seen pro players split drones in every direction when hellions come in to minimise damage. Splitting like this would still be more effective than both fleeing in a single line or than burrowing, but it it also the most time consuming of your options. Burrow on the other hand would be less time consuming than splitting, require less baby sitting than fleeing in a line (because you don't need to dodge flames). So I feel that there will be times when burrowing is the best choice, altho that would be far from the majority of the time.
Just my 2 silver cents
Edit: And the title of this OP is still very misleading. Burrow is still not officially in. It's just being internally tested, and they have not even conclusively said that they will test it on the beta.
Still even with burrowing your drones while splitting them they are still going to all be in the scan radius and are all going to die. It would be better almost not to burrow in that instance just so that you can hopefully run some away.
Also if you are trying to spli tand burrow do take into account that the hellions are in the mineral line. You don't exactly have a lot of time to split them all and then burrow. They will be dying as they split then burrow. Either way 8 hellions in a mineral line burrowed or not most or a ton are going to die unless terran for some reason doesn't have a scan or decides to be generous and not use it.
going to have to go against this one. since talking about t1 here, scan energy is a gamble that favors the zerg. even if a scan is available, burrowing the drones opens the "area" around the minerals for greater zergling/roach/queen maneuvability, and becomes infinitely harder for terran to manually click on burrowed drones to attack.
If a terran is going to run 8 hellions into a zergs mineral line why he wouldn't have a scan after this patch blows my mind. Losing 8 hellions and not getting any drones is going to be hilarious if terrans don't save a scan when they go for this.
You also have to realize at earliest 99% of the zergs will start the upgrade at 6-7 minutes, I believe the upgrade is 100 seconds so you won't even be able to use it until 8-9 minutes into the game.
This assumes zerg doesn't get speed/upgrades/lair first either. I don't see this upgrade being a big deal at all especially if it's only used for early game defense.
Soooo.....In my opinion, this burrow change is only an early game defensive buff and not an offensive one.
People are talking here about settng up traps and such: that's defensive. Explain to me how burrow is going to help vs bunkers and widow mines? Maybe only to regen roaches a bit in mid battle. It could allow for some early game offensive micro by the zerg.
Considering the other changes in Hots, burrow on tier 1 would give the swarm a lot more flexibility. We have to wait and see if baneling landmines or burrowed roaches become a balance issue. Since zerg tier 2 is so stacked anyway, it should be good to stretch the upgrades a bit over the entire tech tree.
On January 17 2013 16:48 Ketch wrote: Soooo.....In my opinion, this burrow change is only an early game defensive buff and not an offensive one.
If you do a roach-ling all-in, the burrow upgrade could help you to micro damaged roaches while staying on tier 1. Of course, tier 2 would offer roach speed, but still with burrow I could imagine some more options to all-in.
Even if it turns out that faster lair is generally preferable to early burrow, one would still have the option for a landmine surprise. It also just feels better (more diverse) than a Wol zerg in the early game.
Brings back memories from bw with two groups of lings in two parts of the opponents base burrowing one group while harassing with the other ect. Soo much fun was had.
Oh yeah ! I will necro my dumb build from bw with the fast burrow ling rush :p
On January 17 2013 20:28 Eatme wrote: Brings back memories from bw with two groups of lings in two parts of the opponents base burrowing one group while harassing with the other ect. Soo much fun was had.
What zerg needs far more than burrow, in my mind, is a hydra buff. I say this because pheonix voidray kills hydra, which is meant to be zergs anti air. Idk about you other zergs but I'm fairly sick of having to build infestors against pheonix.
On January 17 2013 23:00 knOxStarcraft wrote: What zerg needs far more than burrow, in my mind, is a hydra buff. I say this because pheonix voidray kills hydra, which is meant to be zergs anti air. Idk about you other zergs but I'm fairly sick of having to build infestors against pheonix.
Well, that's the way Starcraft antiair is designed. It sucks by design, due to too few units that can attack air and too many air units that are stable combat units... Air should be designed like in CnC (non-combat tactical units) or nearly any unit should be able to attack air and not being capable to do so should be left as a major drawback for extremly powerful antiground units like artillery.
So basically, the way starcraft air works, the only semi-good ground to air implementations are marines and stalkers. Imo Hydras shouldn't be zergs main antiair... they are just not interesting at all in that role. Though then the question arises, what should be zergs main antiair?
On January 17 2013 23:00 knOxStarcraft wrote: What zerg needs far more than burrow, in my mind, is a hydra buff. I say this because pheonix voidray kills hydra, which is meant to be zergs anti air. Idk about you other zergs but I'm fairly sick of having to build infestors against pheonix.
Well, that's the way Starcraft antiair is designed. It sucks by design, due to too few units that can attack air and too many air units that are stable combat units... Air should be designed like in CnC (non-combat tactical units) or nearly any unit should be able to attack air and not being capable to do so should be left as a major drawback for extremly powerful antiground units like artillery.
So basically, the way starcraft air works, the only semi-good ground to air implementations are marines and stalkers. Imo Hydras shouldn't be zergs main antiair... they are just not interesting at all in that role. Though then the question arises, what should be zergs main antiair?
Hydras are the only interesting anti air zerg has and they're really good at what they do.
Phoenix void ray works because it allows them to pick up some of your anti air, which is good play. Hydras don't stuck for that reason, just focus fire pheonixs that are picking up your stuff.
Corrupters are arguably the most boring, by design but best anti air in the game. They destroy everything.
On January 15 2013 08:12 Vindicare605 wrote: I do not like this idea one bit.
It's intended as a buff to aggressive openings but all this does is increase the power of Zerg defensively.
Early harassment is going to be pointless if Drones are able to burrow which forces out scans and observers. A large number of early game timings are going to be completely shut down by the possibility of Burrowed Banelings from Terran and Roaches that can burrow micro.
It's the same problem I have with the Mothership Core and the Widow Mine, it limits TOO much what can be done in each match up in the early game.
Borrow at tier one increases what can be done in the early game. Also borrowed lings can be offensively, since you can borrow a group of lings outside your opponents nat, and when he moves out counter with your borrowed lings, forcing him back and thus buying time.
On January 17 2013 23:00 knOxStarcraft wrote: What zerg needs far more than burrow, in my mind, is a hydra buff. I say this because pheonix voidray kills hydra, which is meant to be zergs anti air. Idk about you other zergs but I'm fairly sick of having to build infestors against pheonix.
Well, that's the way Starcraft antiair is designed. It sucks by design, due to too few units that can attack air and too many air units that are stable combat units... Air should be designed like in CnC (non-combat tactical units) or nearly any unit should be able to attack air and not being capable to do so should be left as a major drawback for extremly powerful antiground units like artillery.
So basically, the way starcraft air works, the only semi-good ground to air implementations are marines and stalkers. Imo Hydras shouldn't be zergs main antiair... they are just not interesting at all in that role. Though then the question arises, what should be zergs main antiair?
Hydras are the only interesting anti air zerg has and they're really good at what they do.
Phoenix void ray works because it allows them to pick up some of your anti air, which is good play. Hydras don't stuck for that reason, just focus fire pheonixs that are picking up your stuff.
Corrupters are arguably the most boring, by design but best anti air in the game. They destroy everything.
Hydras are extremely boring ground vs air units. Their weakness and most interesting part is that they have to hide behind beefier units - something that air units dont care about because they don't need to fight through that buffer and can go straight for the hydras. So it comes down to mass hydra (nothing else. Not unit composition. Just Hydras) vs air. And Hydras don't have any interesting control available. They don't outrange air units to pick them off. They are not hard to produce, so you just build a mass of them. They cannot kite very well and it wouldn't make sense to begin with as they are outranged by nearly everything in the air.
Balancing Hydras to be Zergs main anti air in lategame scenarios means that you press s-hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh and you win the battle by amove.
Edit: That doesn't mean I want Corruptors to be Zergs "solution" to massive airarmies. Corruptors should be mainly to deal with capital air ships and colossi. Imo it would be nice if they found a balance between corruptors to counter the big ones, hydra/Infestor/Viper/muta to be a reasonable force against the rest. Imo Zerg wouldn't even need to straight up win against air armies in a big battle (due to mobility), if there were more standard ways to whittle the army down with less expensive units. Sadly it is not possible, with hydras being the only "standard" zerg unit that can attack air.
Marines are pretty much the only "standard" terran unit that can attack air if you're looking at it that way. Marines also don't outrange air units and against air they rarely have any interesting micro, it's just stim and move under whatevers killing you (that's why maps need more dead air space to allow for air armies to work against bio).
It's just the way the game is and always has been. Zergs anti air worked exactly the same in Broodwar had it not been for the scourge it would have pretty much been pure hydra and even they didn't outrange most air units. The whole mass of one unit thing is what zerg has done since the beginning of Starcraft 1. Zerg can't have units that are super versatile due to how they're built, it would be massively imbalanced and make mass air even worse if Hydras could outrange the majority of air units.
It's why the infestor was so damn broken, there was no need or require to build anything else.
Pretty sure this was asked before, but how does this affect early detection? I imagine getting your expo burrow blocked early would be pretty impactful.
On January 18 2013 03:31 Novalisk wrote: Pretty sure this was asked before, but how does this affect early detection? I imagine getting your expo burrow blocked early would be pretty impactful.
• Rocket Turret/Engineering walling and you can kill zerglings easily • Explode 1 baneling to kill burrowed zergling and no problem again • Protoss always starting FFE with pylon and photon • Terran can do scan for first built Orbital Command instead mule
On January 17 2013 23:00 knOxStarcraft wrote: What zerg needs far more than burrow, in my mind, is a hydra buff. I say this because pheonix voidray kills hydra, which is meant to be zergs anti air. Idk about you other zergs but I'm fairly sick of having to build infestors against pheonix.
Well, that's the way Starcraft antiair is designed. It sucks by design, due to too few units that can attack air and too many air units that are stable combat units... Air should be designed like in CnC (non-combat tactical units) or nearly any unit should be able to attack air and not being capable to do so should be left as a major drawback for extremly powerful antiground units like artillery.
So basically, the way starcraft air works, the only semi-good ground to air implementations are marines and stalkers. Imo Hydras shouldn't be zergs main antiair... they are just not interesting at all in that role. Though then the question arises, what should be zergs main antiair?
Hydras are the only interesting anti air zerg has and they're really good at what they do.
Phoenix void ray works because it allows them to pick up some of your anti air, which is good play. Hydras don't stuck for that reason, just focus fire pheonixs that are picking up your stuff.
Corrupters are arguably the most boring, by design but best anti air in the game. They destroy everything.
Hydras are extremely boring ground vs air units.
Hydralisks are only boring because people are told to expect fanciful and interesting units for EVERYTHING. Thats not how a game like this can work, because if "everything is special then nothing is special anymore" and frankly you can overload the game with too many gimmicks as well. Blizzard is on the way to achieve this last point.
The Hydralisk is pretty close to what it was in BW and it wasnt exactly boring / useless there, so the excitement doesnt only come from the unit stats themselves but rather from people using the units in an exciting way.
Just my thoughts on your way of looking at the Hydralisk and you can have your point of view just as well, BUT a word of advice from an old pessimist here: If you dont expect much you prettey much ALWAYS have positive surprises in your life (except where the Blizzard dev team is involved) and it frankly is the same for units. Dont expect them to be funky and they become interesting at strange moments; expect them to be funky and you will be disappointed most of the time.
On January 18 2013 02:46 Qikz wrote: Marines are pretty much the only "standard" terran unit that can attack air if you're looking at it that way. Marines also don't outrange air units and against air they rarely have any interesting micro, it's just stim and move under whatevers killing you (that's why maps need more dead air space to allow for air armies to work against bio).
It's just the way the game is and always has been. Zergs anti air worked exactly the same in Broodwar had it not been for the scourge it would have pretty much been pure hydra and even they didn't outrange most air units. The whole mass of one unit thing is what zerg has done since the beginning of Starcraft 1. Zerg can't have units that are super versatile due to how they're built, it would be massively imbalanced and make mass air even worse if Hydras could outrange the majority of air units.
It's why the infestor was so damn broken, there was no need or require to build anything else.
Yes, it has always been bad.
There is nothing wrong with units that rely on airs core design - mobility+no terrain restrictions. (mutalisk, phoenix, banshee, corsair, drop ships) Also there are some units that may be interesting because of specific mechanics - Carriers having the "Interceptor vulnerability" that makes it behave like "mass low tier" in a combat and actually needs to be microed (BW). To a certain degree Broodlords/Guardians, because even though they are top notch combat units, they cannot attack air at all and therefore any AtA attacking unit is a good unit vs them. Maybe Tempests because they are very costinefficient vs low tier units - though that has to be figuered. And then we have units like BCs, VoidRays, maybe Tempests, maybe broodlords, that are mostly straight up combat units and force the game into having counters like Corruptors or Vikings (or VoidRays, Tempests themselves) that are exclusively good vs them. Else you couldn't counter something like mass BC, mass void ray, mass Broodlord if they are supported well enough.
So basically, there are units in the game like the BC which cannot be costefficient vs standard GtA units, so they have to be supplyefficient vs them or they are rubbish, but that means that there must be "BC-counter units" in the game. (same arguement goes for the other units that I named)
Just read any comment on "Mech vs Air". People don't want to be forced into building only Vikings, just because their opponent chooses to only build Carriers or Broodlords. And I don't think that Goliath's instead of Vikings and Thors make that so much more fun. Your whole strategy gets dumbed down to building Goliaths in that case, because the opponents air units are still all "invulnerable" vs everything else. + Show Spoiler +
People don't think it is very fun to be limited to only one very certain strategy/unit, because of the opponent's strategy. But that is what happens if you design air the way it is in Starcraft. The better way to do it (imo), would be to either only put noncombat air units in the game or to make (nearly) every unit capable of attacking air, so that yes, you might need a specific counter in the longrun against a specific airstrategy, but the units you already have are already good. And also units like the BC or the Voidray wouldn't have to be soooo terribly costinefficient if nearly every unit could attack them and could see more play.
On January 17 2013 23:00 knOxStarcraft wrote: What zerg needs far more than burrow, in my mind, is a hydra buff. I say this because pheonix voidray kills hydra, which is meant to be zergs anti air. Idk about you other zergs but I'm fairly sick of having to build infestors against pheonix.
Well, that's the way Starcraft antiair is designed. It sucks by design, due to too few units that can attack air and too many air units that are stable combat units... Air should be designed like in CnC (non-combat tactical units) or nearly any unit should be able to attack air and not being capable to do so should be left as a major drawback for extremly powerful antiground units like artillery.
So basically, the way starcraft air works, the only semi-good ground to air implementations are marines and stalkers. Imo Hydras shouldn't be zergs main antiair... they are just not interesting at all in that role. Though then the question arises, what should be zergs main antiair?
Hydras are the only interesting anti air zerg has and they're really good at what they do.
Phoenix void ray works because it allows them to pick up some of your anti air, which is good play. Hydras don't stuck for that reason, just focus fire pheonixs that are picking up your stuff.
Corrupters are arguably the most boring, by design but best anti air in the game. They destroy everything.
Hydras are extremely boring ground vs air units.
Hydralisks are only boring because people are told to expect fanciful and interesting units for EVERYTHING. Thats not how a game like this can work, because if "everything is special then nothing is special anymore" and frankly you can overload the game with too many gimmicks as well. Blizzard is on the way to achieve this last point.
The Hydralisk is pretty close to what it was in BW and it wasnt exactly boring / useless there, so the excitement doesnt only come from the unit stats themselves but rather from people using the units in an exciting way.
Just my thoughts on your way of looking at the Hydralisk and you can have your point of view just as well, BUT a word of advice from an old pessimist here: If you dont expect much you prettey much ALWAYS have positive surprises in your life (except where the Blizzard dev team is involved) and it frankly is the same for units. Dont expect them to be funky and they become interesting at strange moments; expect them to be funky and you will be disappointed most of the time.
Yes, but SC2 isn't broodwar and producing + moving 50hydralisks from A to B is very easy. As can be seen with 200/200 roach strategies. The same could be said about bio, but wait. Bio does rely on fancy micro, fancy drop play and fancy stim buttons. I'm not saying the game needs fancy buttons. But a unit needs interesting dynamics in its usage. I guess with speed+vipers the situation has gotten much better - for as long as the hydralisks stays somewhat weak in direct combat and can't just a move without pulling out units or poking back and forward (though it might be slightly too weak right now; not sure; people use it a lot in HotS, so it's going to be a question of figuering and balancing).
On January 17 2013 16:48 Ketch wrote: Soooo.....In my opinion, this burrow change is only an early game defensive buff and not an offensive one.
People are talking here about settng up traps and such: that's defensive. Explain to me how burrow is going to help vs bunkers and widow mines? Maybe only to regen roaches a bit in mid battle. It could allow for some early game offensive micro by the zerg.
Ok, I'll explain...think about it, in what situation is it smart to get that upgrade pre-Lair if you're being defensive? I'd rather get more roaches, banelings and queens for that cost, and get an earlier Lair (that is still the point of being defensive isn't it? affording better stuff).
The only time when getting an early burrow makes sense is if you're going for a roach timing; that may or may not be viable (or even OP, I don't really know but I highly doubt it).
Anyway that should impact absolutely nothing in ZvP, probably nothing in ZvT unless a strong roach timing emerges (I'll be sure to try it :p), and it might have some interesting implications in ZvZ. We'll see, it's not the biggest change obviously but it's a fun new toy to play with.
EPT
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/rgEzI.jpg)
