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On July 23 2010 17:20 Salteador Neo wrote:
Zerg is only bad for bad players really. The difference is that the macro ability is much more punishing to these bad players than terran or protoss abilities. If you don't like it then don't play zerg duh.
But at high/pro level zerg is not underpowered at all. Thus, Z is not underpowered period.
Troll successful.
It's totally all the bronze and silver players complaining about TvZ ^_^
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On July 23 2010 21:57 STS17 wrote:
Thanks Raelcun for this excellent write-up. I've found nothing in here that I haven't said before in zerg QQ threads and it's nice to see it all in one place.
I think Zerg is a blast to play because of all the constant scouting you need to do to know when to switch form powering drones to making military units. You never get a chance to go "well, this is a macro game right now so I can just sit back and chill for a moment"
That being said, Zerg are just straight up boring to watch. I think this comes from the infancy of the game but there just seems to be so few micro opportunities for zerg to make battles more interesting then blob vs blob. Seeing roaches burrow to avoid damage mid battle is extremely uncommon, as is seeing things like zerg players pulling units back to avoid damage. It just makes the race seem dull from a spectators perspective but I feel that will change as people get more experience with the race.
Yeah, Zerg are definetely a lot more fun to play than they are to watch.
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On July 23 2010 21:57 STS17 wrote:That being said, Zerg are just straight up boring to watch. I think this comes from the infancy of the game but there just seems to be so few micro opportunities for zerg to make battles more interesting then blob vs blob. Seeing roaches burrow to avoid damage mid battle is extremely uncommon, as is seeing things like zerg players pulling units back to avoid damage. It just makes the race seem dull from a spectators perspective but I feel that will change as people get more experience with the race.
Well, ball vs ball sucks for the zerg every time, so obviously thats a big problem right there. But we will see some smarter positioning, flanking and so on once we go live.
I'd recommend watching some of those WTA vids off gomtv, there are some games with really sweet battles. Korean tho, can be a PITA :D
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Here's what I don't understand...
People reasoned that Zerg dominated early in phase 1 in Asia because:
1. Many SC1 pros were playing Zerg, so the caliber of player was higher.
2. The lack of unit diversity allowed Zerg players to become more familiar with their race faster. This seems logical: if there are less unit combinations to learn, one should be able to master all of them faster.
Now, people are saying that Zerg aren't high caliber anymore. People are saying we should wait until well into release so people can get familiar enough with Zerg to see some "smarter positioning, flanking and so on."
Does anybody else see the disconnect here?
What's interesting to me is that Zerg players somehow lost their skill and knowledge of their race around roughly the same time as the massive mech buffs and the roach nerf.
Personally, from a mostly platinum (and briefly diamond) Protoss perspective (but I enjoyed dabbling with T and Z), PvZ and ZvZ make sense. There's a logic to the back-and-forth. You can understand why each player is building what they're building (e.g. in PvZ, roaches to counter zealots, stalkers to counter roaches, hydras to counter stalkers, colossus to counter hydras, corruptors to counter colossus, more stalkers + thermal lance to counter corrupters, ultralisks to punish lack of immortal support for the stalker ball, etc.). I don't see the logic in ZvT, since it seems like there aren't really any clear counters in the Zerg arsenal for what Terran can throw at them early on (save banelings for masses of marines). Put differently, Zerg doesn't choose the best units for dealing with Terran's army composition -- Zerg chooses the units that suck the least against it.
From my limited ZvT experience, it seems like the Zerg player, from the outset, is at a disadvantage. Effective scouting, which is necessary for Z success, is easily frustrated until Lair tech with a decent wall-off (reactors and tech labs only give away so much, and you can only see what's at the choke without saccing a slow ovie).
The most frustration comes with the fact that Terran mech seems to hard counter all Zerg T1 and T2, and Terran can start to access mech tech (hellion harass, tanks) faster and safer than Zerg can reach T2 (reasonably). Harassment, due to the wall-off, must be mutalisks or some sort of baneling bust. Without harassment, Zerg can't tech to effective answers to mech (T3), because the push will arrive too soon. In some scenarios, they can abuse gimmicks that work about once per game to buy time (like roach burrow, baneling drops, doomdrops, nydus play, mutalisk harass, all of the above simultaneously, etc.). If the harassment fails at any point along the road to T3, Zerg loses to the early push. If T successfully harasses back on the road to T3 and slows down T3 tech, Zerg won't reach their response in time for T's push. If Zerg fails to out-expand Terran (WHILE teching to T3 and constantly harassing to contain T), Zerg will probably lose because it needs so much gas to fuel its T3 answers.
The best part is that T3 doesn't guarantee the win for Zerg -- it only guarantees a fighting chance against Terran's very robust T2. Not only that, but even the gimmicky stalling tactics can backfire -- a lucky scan or good marine micro can severely reduce the effectiveness of roaches, baneling drops and mutalisk harassment. You're basically hoping that the Terran looked away from his forces for a moment while you hit him.
But hey, I'm no pro. I just don't see how Zerg can effectively fight Terran with T2 forces. Maybe the answer is heavier Infestor play to stall for T3, like TLO's Infestor/Ling/Ultra? If that's the case, then why did Blizzard nerf Neural Parasite to 12 seconds? It seems like the deck is stacked against Zerg at the moment.
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It's one thing to make threads about how zerg are fine, but recognize that there are no threads from terran players about having trouble with Zerg. Is it because terran players are less whiney, or use smarter tactics, or are just plain better? Look at this matchup from terran's perspective- it's very straight forward, many ways to win, and if you lose you know why- you made some pretty big mistakes or got completely out macroed/out-played.
As far as what the zerg can throw at you, early ling run-bys are completely negated by a basic wall-off. Baneling bust is completely negated by double rax wall off and a single siege tank. Mutas are completely shut down by a few turrets and marines, or if you are really worried a thor or two. Drops/nydus are the next threat, but terrans are usually turtling before they make their huge push so units are nearby to stop it. If the game goes longer and zerg is able to tech up to t2.5/3, a zerg player may be throwing NP at you, or ultras, or brood lords, but these are all countered HARD by tanks, thors, and vikings (all T2). Basically, terran can be reasonably comfortable from start to finish no matter what zerg throws at them, and every TvZ is their game to lose.
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On July 24 2010 02:49 Toxigen wrote:
Now, people are saying that Zerg aren't high caliber anymore. People are saying we should wait until well into release so people can get familiar enough with Zerg to see some "smarter positioning, flanking and so on."
I totally agree with your post, but mine was simply a reply to the claim that zerg are boring to watch - blob vs blob battles. We already have massive fragile units, blob vs blob reduces their efficiency even further. Playing with those deeper positioning tactics definately makes the units more efficient and more interesting to watch.
I do hope thats not all we can do to stay alive tho 
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On July 23 2010 22:33 Subversion wrote:Show nested quote +On July 23 2010 17:20 Salteador Neo wrote:
Zerg is only bad for bad players really. The difference is that the macro ability is much more punishing to these bad players than terran or protoss abilities. If you don't like it then don't play zerg duh.
But at high/pro level zerg is not underpowered at all. Thus, Z is not underpowered period. Troll successful. It's totally all the bronze and silver players complaining about TvZ ^_^
Pretty sure most of them think the problem of that is in the terran part (tanks), not in the zerg being underpowered.
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I want to see open maps. I want to see terran and protoss without the ability to wall off.
I don't care about sim city. I just don't want them to have the option I don't have. They can walk to my mineral line.... give me a map that prevents them from stopping me from doing the same thing without a massive sim city.
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On July 23 2010 10:25 Sevenofnines wrote:Show nested quote +On July 23 2010 08:43 tfmdjeff wrote:
These are all reasons why I play Zerg.
I actually have no problems with zerg myself. It isn't underpowered, I feel that it's perfectly balanced, people just aren't playing it properly yet. Zerg as of now is only the macro race. You play it if you love having a huge economy, and being able to pump out units at an unrivaled pace. But i feel like that's the only aspect of Zerg that people are paying attention to. Nydus, contaminate, infested terrans, overlord drop harassment, baneling mines, all sorts of potentially useful strategies are being largely ignored because the current attitude towards the race is "I can win with macro and nothing else". Pretty much this, especially the end there. I sometimes feel that Zerg are focusing a bit too much on macro. If we take the most extreme case of this, suppose as a Zerg you had 6 fully saturated bases. Sounds great right? It is until you realize that you are definitely going to lose that game. It takes like ~30 Drones to fully saturate + a queen per each, so that's 192 food invested into economy and thus your pitiful 8 food "army" is going to get owned. On a more realistic case, suppose you had 3 fully saturated bases. That's "only" 96 food invested in the economy, but it still puts a limit on your maximum fighting force, one that can be exploited by other races that don't have Zerg's expansion rates. If you were fighting say... a 2 base meching Terran, he will have something around 60 SCV's. If you let him max out, his army will be 140 food of meching death vs your 104 or so food... Suffice to say, unless a lot of that is Broodlords or Ultras you will lose no matter how fast you can reinforce. The point I'm making here is that "macro" in regards to workers/bases can be a double-edged sword. When people say things like "OMG I totally outmacroed him. I had 4-5 bases to his 2 and he owned me even though we had equal food armies!" Well, you lost because you probably had way too many workers and were deceived by the food counts. As such, your actual fighting force was actually significantly smaller than his. For early game, Zerg needs to decide between workers or units in regards to larva. By mid-late game that choice involves not just larva, but the food cap as well. A good example of this is the Idra vs Tester Game 2. Link: http://day9tv.blip.tv/file/3903331/Idra was at 196 food before the last fight against ~178 of Tester. At the end when he GG's out, his food is at 111 (about 12:47 in the video) despite the fact that all of his units died. Even assuming he had queued up a bunch of units from his hatcheries during the fight, I'd still put his Drone + Queen count somewhere around 90 while Tester probably had ~55-60 Probes for 2 bases. Thus while the food counts would appear to have Idra outnumbering Tester, the actual fight was something like a ~120 food army of Tester vs 106 food from Idra. Add in that Collossi own Hydra/Ling and some excellent Force Field usage, and you have the result of that battle clearly in Tester's favor. Now perhaps Idra would have lost anyway even if he had the army size advantage due to the fight location, his unit mix, and Tester's great Force Fields. But we'll never know until next time. The advice most often given to Zergs (often against Meching Terrans...) is to "Macro up and take the whole map! Power drones and win via economy!". While this is certainly solid general advice, IMO people don't adequately counterbalance this by adding on "but remember to keep enough food cap space for a big enough army". I'd urge all Zerg players to consider the possibility that there is such a thing as too much macro and that maybe they are guilty of it at times.
You won't have 6 bases fully saturated. You want to shoot at 70-80 drones in the EG, You may have 6 bases but after 3 are fully saturated you ideally will just start to mine gas at the others. Also you won't have 30 drones per base, There comes to a point where your mineral production becomes less important than army production and pros/commentators have pegged that at 70-80ish late game. I would say 25-30 each for first 2 bases and less for each afterwards.
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On July 23 2010 17:30 Deckkie wrote:Show nested quote +On July 23 2010 08:44 Graven wrote:On July 23 2010 06:59 Deckkie wrote:
About the Tech switch
I think its a very big advantage.
Think about the ZvP game from the King of the Beta (think it was IdrA vs Huk ... not sure)
toss came with mass Collosis, and the Zerg could counter it relatively easy with Corrupters, because Zerg can tech-switch super fast. A terran or Protoss would have had much more problems with it.
Also When a Zerg player looses drones, he can make ten new ones in a blink. Terran and Toss need to make them one by one.
Conclusion Tech switch big advantage You really haven't thought through anything in your post. If you're Terran, you likely have a Starport regardless of strategy...if it's MMM, fast banshee, Ravens in Mech, etc. Terran see a Colossus, immediately swap their Starport to a Reactor and start pumping out double Vikings. Zerg, oppositely, can't get all their tech buildings in advance (for obvious reasons), so when Zerg sees a Colossus, they have to build a Spire, which takes roughly 17 minutes, and then change all their unit production into Corrupters, which are completely useless against the rest of the Protoss army and twice the cost of a Viking (the only reason Zerg players make Corrupters is lack of alternatives...they're a terrible unit). That you think Zerg can react and counter a Colossus faster than Terran is ridiculous. And that doesn't even include the point that Colossus don't hard counter all Terran ground like they do with Zerg, meaning unlike Zerg, Terran have several options of response. You're point about replacing Drones ten at a time isn't an inherent advantage as it costs larvae, meaning that you can't be fortifying your army. I find it amazing how Non-Zerg players view Zerg through rose-colored glasses in nearly every discussion. Yes your right, I did see Zerg through rose glasses, and have been told couple of times already how wrong I am, and Im sorry for that. But I do also think you might see terran through rose glasses as well. Terran has both factory's, raxes, and starports. and they have to build from all three of them. as terran you can not say: ohh I need some vickings lets first make ten off those and then ill go on with making bio/mech. And I have a question abut that (since I clearly dont know enough about Zerg) : dont you always tech to anti air in a basic build? or does that really weaken your ground army tech to much??
While I think the terran abilities are embellished slightly, it's not nearly enough to be considered "Through Rose colored glasses" If you want to make 10 vikings to supplement your army you would transfer your SP to a reactor and make 10 vikings in 2-3 minutes while making other units; In Zerg if you wanted to make an AA you would use 10 larvae plus possibly making the spire/den (that take 2.5 40 sec timings to recover. Furthermore if you have 10x larvae and 1000 + minerals and 500+ gas you are doing something wrong anyway, it's easier to pay for 10 vikings 2 at a time than it is for 10x zerg AA units (obviously you can do 2x Zerg AA at a time as well).
As far as teching to anti-air for your basic build... I wouldn't say that necessarily, quite a few builds tech to mutas and some tech to hydras but it's not because of a focus on AA, it's a focus on a more powerful unit than the roach or a good harassment unit (muta).
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On July 22 2010 07:11 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:Okay so I can't count how many QQ threads I've seen on Zerg being underpowered how it's uncreative it needs changes blah blah blah. Well I play zerg and I'm constantly around some of the best zergs around and generally I tend to disagree and I'm about to explain why. Tech SwitchesUnlike other races where you need to build a whole new production facility to make a new set of units such as a factory a stargate, the zerg only needs to wait on a single tech building and then every single hatch/lair/hive can produce that unit. This makes Zerg the undeniable king of Tech Switching, yes the tech buildings can take quite a while to build but this is to balance out the fact that as soon as it's done there can be 20+ of that unit hatching at any given time. This kind of rapid unit composition switching is unparalleled by the other races especially terran who has to deal with addons and switching them around if they want to change their unit composition even while dealing with the same units. MobilityThe zerg air army can be very frightening when used correctly, creep giving movement boosts when exploited allows for aggressive creep expansion letting the zerg dominate the map early on in the game. Later in the game Nydus networks allow a zerg to move their army from one corner of the map to the other in the blink of an eye. Fungal Growth used effectively can stop the mobility of their opponents completely. Zerg is capable of out maneuvering every other race in the game with the exeption of the use of mass recall by protoss but that has limited uses when compared to a good nydus network setup. Unit ProductionZerg has the capability to reproduce units faster than any other race with the queen mechanics, larva spit is so completely powerful and watching the top zergs at the moment you will see that even they don't miss larva injections. The zerg macro mechanic is tough to deal with as you have to manage every hatchery seperately requiring a lot more multitasking than warpins or dealing with add-ons. But when done effectively the rate at which a zerg can produce units is rather scary. ConclusionZerg has many mechanics that still have not been used to their fullest: - Larva Injection (yes pros still mess this up)
- Transfusion strategies
- Contamination
- Nydus Networks both offensively and defensively
So until this game is released and players get the time to REALLY get their hands on zerg and play with it and experiment then I don't think it's right to really be commenting on how zerg is broken it doesn't work yada yada. Previously people complained that Ultras werent usable and that they were the reason why zerg didn't have any units and now Ultras are being used in top level play somewhat. There might be a few more adjustments to zerg units down the road but for now saying "Zerg sucks fix it now" is a bit of an exaggeration.
Tech switches:
Granted Zerg can tech switch the easiest, their switches don't have as large of an impact when the other races switch because most of their units don't hard counter. Banelings hard counter marines and mutas hard counter units that cant attack air....thats about it.
Mobility:
I gotta agree FG is a really powerful spell since it restricts movement. Also slings make map control on certain maps really easy. However, that's not to say the other races are that severely handicapped in comparison. Just like sc1, dropships are very effective. And proxy pylons give a huge degree of mobility. As for nydus canal, I'd rather have warp prism.
Unit Production:
Yeah the larvae injection mechanic gives Zerg a huge amount of potential. Zerg can respawn armies like nothing but this is pretty much a necessity. In equal food battles (especially those that approach the higher food counts), Zerg armies just get decimated. The unit production advantage for Z is offset by the fact that their units are "expendable." Protoss chronoboost is also really helpful on warpgates. Maybe some P will start making extra nexuses when they have huge amount of minerals to augment their unit production.
Conclusion:
Just like how most complaints about Z being too weak are one sided and biased, your arguments for Z being good also don't really address the other side of the argument (their weaknesses). But since you don't really say Z is overpowered or anything, I can't disagree with your post.
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All races have unexplored possibilities but I think Zerg is still missing something on a fundamental level, like they need a new early game unit or a new spell-caster. Just something to throw some unpredictability into the mix of a Zerg army. There just aren't many options for Zerg right now.
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I like your point about contaminate. This is a VERY under used ability if you ask me, especially against targets like Thors and Tanks.
I also think there are a lot of burrow strategies that haven't been used very much. I have not seen a thorough use of baneling mines, something that I think could help against the very slow, immobile terran mech, or especially a bio ball or zealot/ templar heavy army.
The infestor's 'infested marines while burrowed' has begun to see some use, but I think it will see more.
And the roaches move while burrowed can be great for something as simple as a pincer attack.
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I think the infestor is completed as it is. Overseer I think would need another spell. I personally don't like the changeling ability because I think good player will end up killing them pretty fast and the overseer himself scout pretty good. Contaminate is great however, I use it a lot (usually make one overseer after teching to lair and only use contaminate). Ultra could use a little boost in usefulness. Nydus could be good, however usually getting overlord speed+drop matches that pretty good, nydus is faster if your exp are far away. I think corrupter could get another spell than the actual corruption but I think it's fine too.
I find for Z the unit role of many units kind of overlap but they all have some specialty. I would work on the overseer to give Z some fun stuff IMO.
For protoss I think especially carrier and mothership need a rework. It seems to me that it'll be pretty hard to get them unless it's a super large map and the carrier don't look that strong to me. DT kind of suck once your discovered I think, it's a pretty big investment.
Terran the only unit I don't like atm are reaper. They aren't that pricey and I'm sure they can be used good but it seems like late game they'll be largely useless. Other than that I think terran looks pretty fun.
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The problem with maps like Deseart Oasis. It's really pick my poison...
If I go FE early banshee eat me alive, if I make air defense earlly I get behind in macro.
It takes forever to get to his base on ground. While he can just fly over with Banshees and Medivacs.
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Not to mention its very difficult to scout early on to see if that banshee is coming. If you manage to sneak in a drone before the wall off your might catch an early refinery, but that doesn't prove he's going one way or the other. If you try to scout with an OL you're very likely to lose it which is a major set back in the early game.
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yeah exactly, there could be either a banshee or a couple of reapers.
the drone scout gets blocked because it takes forever on land to get there, and the OL would just get shot down by a single marine before you can see everything you need.
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Zerg's mobility & ability to quickly replenish an army is what I view as their biggest asset in SC2. I find them very powerful as many players are able to win with them in a straight up 1A style with Roach/Hydra, let alone if drops or other little tactics are used beforehand to whittle down the opponents army first.
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On July 23 2010 17:30 Deckkie wrote:Show nested quote +On July 23 2010 08:44 Graven wrote:On July 23 2010 06:59 Deckkie wrote:
About the Tech switch
I think its a very big advantage.
Think about the ZvP game from the King of the Beta (think it was IdrA vs Huk ... not sure)
toss came with mass Collosis, and the Zerg could counter it relatively easy with Corrupters, because Zerg can tech-switch super fast. A terran or Protoss would have had much more problems with it.
Also When a Zerg player looses drones, he can make ten new ones in a blink. Terran and Toss need to make them one by one.
Conclusion Tech switch big advantage You really haven't thought through anything in your post. If you're Terran, you likely have a Starport regardless of strategy...if it's MMM, fast banshee, Ravens in Mech, etc. Terran see a Colossus, immediately swap their Starport to a Reactor and start pumping out double Vikings. Zerg, oppositely, can't get all their tech buildings in advance (for obvious reasons), so when Zerg sees a Colossus, they have to build a Spire, which takes roughly 17 minutes, and then change all their unit production into Corrupters, which are completely useless against the rest of the Protoss army and twice the cost of a Viking (the only reason Zerg players make Corrupters is lack of alternatives...they're a terrible unit). That you think Zerg can react and counter a Colossus faster than Terran is ridiculous. And that doesn't even include the point that Colossus don't hard counter all Terran ground like they do with Zerg, meaning unlike Zerg, Terran have several options of response. You're point about replacing Drones ten at a time isn't an inherent advantage as it costs larvae, meaning that you can't be fortifying your army. I find it amazing how Non-Zerg players view Zerg through rose-colored glasses in nearly every discussion. Yes your right, I did see Zerg through rose glasses, and have been told couple of times already how wrong I am, and Im sorry for that. But I do also think you might see terran through rose glasses as well. Terran has both factory's, raxes, and starports. and they have to build from all three of them. as terran you can not say: ohh I need some vickings lets first make ten off those and then ill go on with making bio/mech. And I have a question abut that (since I clearly dont know enough about Zerg) : dont you always tech to anti air in a basic build? or does that really weaken your ground army tech to much??
Teching to AA is complicated in terms of timing. All early AA for Zerg is defensive (Queens and Spores), so if Zerg scouts air incoming, they'll make extra Queens, throw up a few spores and possibly lay down a Hydra Den (which is also defensive in the early game since Hydra are so slow off creep).
Here's the problem though...a typical Terran opening could be Hellion and some Marines, so what should Zerg do to respond? It's counter intuitive to go Lair and throw Spores up everywhere in case the next Terran move is Banshee. Terran can move a million different directions from that opening -- you could see MMM next (so even scouting a Starport is inconclusive); you could see heavy Mech; or you could see some Banshee harass. All three of those options require entirely different responses from Zerg, making real-time scouting crucial in those early/mid-game moments.
Oppositely, if a Terran sees a Zerg player coming at him with 5-6 Roaches early, they aren't concerned about a banaling bust follow-up or fast Muta. Zerg always need to be reacting; Terran do not.
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United States2033 Posts
I'd like to point out that I haven't seen anyone say Zerg isn't good. People complain about Terran Mech, not about Zerg being terrible.
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EPT
