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(Not a full blown balance discussion)
First off, I am not an excellent player by any means, but I just thought about this and would like some feedback on what people think. And as everyone has probably heard, there are fewer Zerg players at the top of the ranks. I am not saying that this is an indicator that they are a weaker race, but I thought of some contributing factors to that debate.
In the early stages of a game, Protoss can Chronoboost out more workers to improve their economy. Terran can utilize MULEs for more resources. What do Zerg have? They have the Queen, but extra larvae does not show an instant economy boost. Sure you can produce more Drones, but that takes away from your army composition.
And another thing I thought of that doesn't seem too significant, but I think it can play a slight roll in this. When you set a rally point for the Command Center/Nexus, the SCV/Probe pop out on the closest spot to the rally point (most of the time the minerals).
However, for Zerg, sometimes the larvae are positioned on the opposite side of the Hatchery, and thus the Drones have to travel a slightly longer distance to the minerals.
So I would just like to know what you guys think. Do these slight differences between Protoss/Terran and Zerg really help to the fact that they are "weaker" ?
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The biggest part of playing zerg is knowing how to manage your larva. They may be harder for newer players but it certainly does not make them weaker.
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As a zerg player, I feel like with good macro you can easily be on par with the other races. You just have to be constantly producing drones. With the unique system of unit production, I think that Zerg even out with Protoss and Terran.
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Yeah, I guess it would help having the ability to spawn multiple workers at a time.
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Slight differences like these do not significantly contribute to a weakness in the Zerg race. It's actually a very characteristic quality of the Zerg race. StarCraft was never designed to be three races that play exactly the same with different skins. Each race has its own cons; it is up to the player to overcome these cons and to take advantage of those of the enemy.
Zerg is a more difficult race to play at lower levels, I think most can agree with that. Larva management plays a huge role, and Zerg is possibly the most mechanically demanding race out of the three. However, Zerg is a race with plenty of options and significantly greater mobility than that of the other races. StarCraft 2 is still in a very young state. Although we have discovered what we believe to be very solid, universal strategies, this may not even be the case a few months from now. The game will evolve, and the dominance will shift.
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Good point on the extra distance drones must travel depending on your starting location. I can see that having a slight disadvantage in a pro game.
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Zerg are on slightly lower footing with the other races on one base, but by far exceed the other races' macro ability when the base numbers start going up. No other race can make 14 workers simultaneously. Zerg may be weak (to Terran) but macro strength isn't the reason.
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I have found my zerg macro got better as I started to play it a bit more like the other two races. When I stopped doing waves of drones or zerglings and started mixing them together. After the initial only drone larvae. Throwing in a few drones with each hatch works well for me now!
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Factors like drones having to walk around the hatchery dont mean much. Zerg is just very vulnerable. Practically every build either leaves you vulnerable to harass/ early timing pushes. or late anti air. Defensive options are sorely lacking. And offensive options to break positions is nonexistent until much higher tech.
Macro and micro is obviously hard. Altho zerg micro is more about using ur units wisely and not throwing them away.
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I think you'd be better off removing your first sentence. You might get called idiot a little bit more, but on the other hand you'll get more responses.
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When you set a rally point for the Command Center/Nexus, the SCV/Probe pop out on the closest spot to the rally point (most of the time the minerals).
However, for Zerg, sometimes the larvae are positioned on the opposite side of the Hatchery, and thus the Drones have to travel a slightly longer distance to the minerals.
Yes, i noticed this too, it s a minor thing, but still, no reason not to be fixed
Why i believe Zerg is "weak"or harder to play is that Zerg does not have natural response to many builds or unit composition, and in many case you are not allowed to face his army even if the composition of your army is the best your tech allows. So there are cases when a T moves out with a ball of units and atacks towards you.
1. You got to have map control, 2. Avoid the army, backstab him. 3. pay attention that defensive or reinforcing tanks or other units do not rape half of your army, 4. produce from hatcheries which arent in the way of the attack. 5. try to save your woerkers/units/overlords stuck behind, but this is impossible in most of the cases so no big worries. 6. try to chip away from his army 7. when you ve both done enoguh demage try to win the fight, preferably with more units then before.
What terran has to do 1. A move into your natural-main. 2 try and crush your army after that
So it's not imbalanced if you want that way, cuz both have chances to win it, but the Zerg has to do a lot more stuff and if 2 not that good players play and just send their armies against each otehr the Terran will win most of the times.
That's just my perspective though, i'm sure all the terran think their race is very hard.
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On August 10 2010 15:21 nihlon wrote:
I think you'd be better off removing your first sentence. You might get called idiot a little bit more, but on the other hand you'll get more responses.
Well why I put it there is to imply that I am not all knowing about SC2.
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Terran MULE can BARELY come occasionally above the increased number of workers for a zerg. So, no, I think the economy is fine.
And this guy is just talking about a few things. Don't make this a full blown balance discussion.
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On August 10 2010 15:28 MythicalMage wrote:
Terran MULE can BARELY come occasionally above the increased number of workers for a zerg. So, no, I think the economy is fine.
And this guy is just talking about a few things. Don't make this a full blown balance discussion.
That is true. I didn't really think about that.
And thank you for adding the second point. I was not trying to make this a full blown balance discussion. xD
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Baa?21244 Posts
Zerg units are just not cost efficient since Protoss and Terran all have hard counters to Zerg units. The whole point of Zerg was to have weak, cost efficient units that can overwhelm the opponent, but now you have the same number of units, except your units die 10x as fast as his.
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First off the travel time around the hatchery is very insignificant. It does bug me sometimes but in the end it'll add up to only a few minerals. What you said about larvae and having to choose between drones/army does make zerg significantly weaker on a single base. But zerg almost always has more bases.
tldr; zerg is weaker but has more units + bases. Strength in numbers ^^
edit: oh also this isnt really true for Z tier 3. I rarely get to that phase in the game but when I do it seems completely OP
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On August 10 2010 15:34 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:
Zerg units are just not cost efficient since Protoss and Terran all have hard counters to Zerg units. The whole point of Zerg was to have weak, cost efficient units that can overwhelm the opponent, but now you have the same number of units, except your units die 10x as fast as his.
Ish. The main issue right now is that getting to max food takes like ten seconds. The supply costs for most units has increased, and because of that the supply cap should increase. 200/200 zerg won't beat 200/200 anything else, because 200/200 zerg should be cheaper. It's the way zerg works, and the biggest limiting factor is the supply cap.
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Another issue with the queen is that you must use spawn larva right on cooldown, otherwise you lose time and missed opportunities later on. Protoss can chain cronoboost and terran can chain mule if you let your macro falter, but zerg cannot burn off excess energy this way. if you let your queen obtain enough energy you can't use spawn larva twice on a hatchery until the hatchery has spawned its first set, thus wasted time and energy. Sure you can power creep with the energy but you already lost some of your ability to macro because you weren't perfect.
there are other balance issues, but since your talking about macro abilities between races, zerg is much more punishing to those less skilled.
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On August 10 2010 15:41 Havenomind wrote:
Another issue with the queen is that you must use spawn larva right on cooldown, otherwise you lose time and missed opportunities later on. Protoss can chain cronoboost and terran can chain mule if you let your macro falter, but zerg cannot burn off excess energy this way. if you let your queen obtain enough energy you can't use spawn larva twice on a hatchery until the hatchery has spawned its first set, thus wasted time and energy. Sure you can power creep with the energy but you already lost some of your ability to macro because you weren't perfect.
there are other balance issues, but since your talking about macro abilities between races, zerg is much more punishing to those less skilled.
I think that's balanced by being able to stockpile up to 19 larvae per hatchery. You killed my 200/200 army? Well I have another one within one production cycle.
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On August 10 2010 15:41 Havenomind wrote:
Another issue with the queen is that you must use spawn larva right on cooldown, otherwise you lose time and missed opportunities later on. Protoss can chain cronoboost and terran can chain mule if you let your macro falter, but zerg cannot burn off excess energy this way. if you let your queen obtain enough energy you can't use spawn larva twice on a hatchery until the hatchery has spawned its first set, thus wasted time and energy. Sure you can power creep with the energy but you already lost some of your ability to macro because you weren't perfect.
there are other balance issues, but since your talking about macro abilities between races, zerg is much more punishing to those less skilled.
Yes! I had noticed that as well. Good point there.
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EPT
