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Poll: Should Zerg's early-mid game scouting be fixed?(Please read post)Yes, it happens at the most critical time in the game. (627) 62% No, zerg does not have a problem scouting at this point in the game. (281) 28% Poster is idiot, and I didn't read his post. >:( (54) 5% I don't know, I have no knowledge of Zerg and cannot make a fair judgement. (36) 4% No. it's not too important to know what your opponent is doing at this point in the game. (11) 1% 1009 total votes Your vote: Should Zerg's early-mid game scouting be fixed?(Please read post) (Vote): Yes, it happens at the most critical time in the game.
(Vote): No, zerg does not have a problem scouting at this point in the game.
(Vote): No. it's not too important to know what your opponent is doing at this point in the game.
(Vote): I don't know, I have no knowledge of Zerg and cannot make a fair judgement.
(Vote): Poster is idiot, and I didn't read his post. >:(
First of all I want to say that this is not a QQ thread. Feel free to bash me if you want, or agree with me, as I would like to know if others feel the same way. I looked through the threads and there was no real solution to this game critical problem. Please read through my situations to understand this thread in its entirety.
Many say that zerg has the best scouting. I do agree with this, as overlords can cover a lot of terrain, speedlings are cheap scouts and suiciding overlords is not as bad as losing an observer. Even changelings are useful every once in a while, that is untill they get a raven or observer, or just see their unit not responding.
Anyway there is a major flaw in their scouting in the early game. It's possible to get your drone in to scout any rush, however once it dies Terran and Protoss and easily block you untill you get speed overlords.
Here is a situation against Terran:
I start by sending my overlord across for future scouting. I get my drone into his base early in the game and find he is going a standard opener (the most normal thing in the world). So I try to keep my drone in his base as long as I can, usually dies when he walls in and gets a marine to kill it. Anyway, since I don't know too much I go for 13 gas 13 pool into 16 hatch, so I can get speedlings to defend early attacks and to scout up the ramp. So with my first lings I send them up his ramp and at the top I see 2 raxes, one with reactor, and about 10 marines. So I say good no problem, and go onto make enough lings to fend off his first assault.
Now I send my overlord into his base from before and it dies because it is so slow, and it only sees about 6 marines and a marauder. So, what would any decent zerg player do now? Prepare for MM. So that's what I do.
I send another ling up the ramp that sees nothing new maybe a few more MMs. And decide to send another slow overlord to scout.
After I have a good anti-MM army I feel pretty confident and I start to tech to lair. Now my overlord has arrived into his base, and I find that he is going for banshees with cloak. And there are 4 already there. So I throw up my Hydra Den ASAP and lose.
After seeing a small MM army, who wouldn't assume with tanks?
Now I think this is a flaw because:
- Zerg is a reactionary race in its purest form. It NEEDS to know what his opponent is doing and how to counter it.
-This happens at the what may be the most critical part of the game. You NEED to know if your opponent is going void rays or 4 gate. You NEED to know if your opponent is going banshees or MM and siege tanks. It is the critical part of the game, because if you tech the wrong way you will certainly lose during the first push.
Those two points are the reasons why I find there to be a flaw in Zerg's scouting ability early on in the game. After I get speed overlords, I don't have a problem however teching for fast overlord speed may mean that you are defenceless to an early push.
I don't want to QQ but does anybody else think that a slight increase in overlord speed would fix this early dillema?
tl;dr NO tl;dr, please read before you judge! I'm talking about that early-mid game where you make your tech choice.
EDIT 1: A lot of players are saying don't send your overlord from the front. I never ever do that. I usuall send my overlord(s) to the side of his base. I do that because I'm a DECENT zerg player. Now if I were facing a DECENT Terran player, then he would know this and would place his anti-air forces on the side ESPECIALLY if he is doing a cheesy build! More and more players are doing this!
EDIT 2: Go look at Chocobo's post on page 4. I think he answers many of your questions, even if they are just recapping my points
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If you vote yes, then can you suggest a possible fix. Nothing to DRASTIC. But I mean like boosting overlord speed to 1.3x current speed so it gets across map a bit faster and can actually see something before it dies.
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How about an increase to the sight range of Overlords?
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I would actually like the overlord to have a speed boost ability, maybe something like the phoenix old self destruct, only you gain speed for like 5ish seconds then explode
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Legit suggestions:
Boost unupgraded OL speed
Make OL speed upgrade T1
Not so legit but might still work:
Give changeling to OL (Though I doubt that would fix anything.)
Restore burrow to being a cheap and quick upgrade at 50/50. (allow for early drone to burrow scout?)
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I don't know about an increase in sight range, it would help, but getting your overlord across Xel'Naga Caverns would still take forever. And a self-destruct ability doesn't seem too Starcraft-like.
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suggestion: make it possible to get overseers with evo chamber instead of lair
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"suggestion: make it possible to get overseers with evo chamber instead of lair"
oooo I like that one
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Mystlord
United States10264 Posts
Not a Strategy thread. Moved to SC2 General.
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I've seen replays of Artosis where he gets around this quite easily by simply positioning two Overlords at opposite sides of the base and pinching them in together at the same time.
It sounds like in your example scenario you are delaying your lair by far longer than you need to anyway (after the first big marine push and you still haven't started it?) and that would leave you with limited options against banshees regardless of scouting. Starting your lair with your second 100 gas, even if you pull guys out of gas for a little while after ling speed, should let you get an overseer to scout with sooner if the overlord pincer isn't an option.
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I wish overlord speed was back to 50/50 
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On August 14 2010 11:58 Mystlord wrote:
Not a Strategy thread. Moved to SC2 General.
Thanks for not closing it  Usually have my threads closed because I said there was a slight problem with the game. You are a cool
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I read someones comment on here somewhere, about cutting lair build time in half. I think this would solve a lot of zergs problems, namely faster hydras for anti-air, faster overseer for scouting and contaminating dangerous buildings, mutas before your opponent has 4 thors, faster roach speed for increased mobility (can't attack T/P head on anyways because of tanks/colossus), and faster infestors for neural to help with colossus / tank / etc. Something to think about at least.
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On August 14 2010 11:56 Linden wrote:
suggestion: make it possible to get overseers with evo chamber instead of lair
Excellent idea.
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On August 14 2010 12:00 RoKetha wrote:
I've seen replays of Artosis where he gets around this quite easily by simply positioning two Overlords at opposite sides of the base and pinching them in together at the same time.
It sounds like in your example scenario you are delaying your lair by far longer than you need to anyway (after the first big marine push and you still haven't started it?) and that would leave you with limited options against banshees regardless of scouting. Starting your lair with your second 100 gas, even if you pull guys out of gas for a little while after ling speed, should let you get an overseer to scout with sooner if the overlord pincer isn't an option.
In my example, right after his initial push I scout him and see he has many marines and a marauder. This tells me he is continuing his pressure.
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On August 14 2010 12:00 RoKetha wrote:
I've seen replays of Artosis where he gets around this quite easily by simply positioning two Overlords at opposite sides of the base and pinching them in together at the same time.
It sounds like in your example scenario you are delaying your lair by far longer than you need to anyway (after the first big marine push and you still haven't started it?) and that would leave you with limited options against banshees regardless of scouting. Starting your lair with your second 100 gas, even if you pull guys out of gas for a little while after ling speed, should let you get an overseer to scout with sooner if the overlord pincer isn't an option.
I do the overlord pincer as well, and scouting is never a problem with me. The only time i am ever surprised by anything is if it is a well placed proxy.
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On August 14 2010 12:04 ariK wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2010 12:00 RoKetha wrote:
I've seen replays of Artosis where he gets around this quite easily by simply positioning two Overlords at opposite sides of the base and pinching them in together at the same time.
It sounds like in your example scenario you are delaying your lair by far longer than you need to anyway (after the first big marine push and you still haven't started it?) and that would leave you with limited options against banshees regardless of scouting. Starting your lair with your second 100 gas, even if you pull guys out of gas for a little while after ling speed, should let you get an overseer to scout with sooner if the overlord pincer isn't an option. I do the overlord pincer as well, and scouting is never a problem with me. The only time i am ever surprised by anything is if it is a well placed proxy.
But isn't losing your overlords that early on painful? And plus the issue here is that they take so long to get to their base especially on large maps like Xel'Naga caverns, so if they kill your first pincer, then you are pretty much blind for the next 2 minutes.
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On August 14 2010 12:00 RoKetha wrote:
I've seen replays of Artosis where he gets around this quite easily by simply positioning two Overlords at opposite sides of the base and pinching them in together at the same time.
That's all well and good but you realize you're sinking 200 resources into a maneuver that may not even pay off.
Also, the Overlords may die before seeing anything. Especially if you manage to get caught getting into position.
It sounds like in your example scenario you are delaying your lair by far longer than you need to anyway (after the first big marine push and you still haven't started it?) and that would leave you with limited options against banshees regardless of scouting. Starting your lair with your second 100 gas, even if you pull guys out of gas for a little while after ling speed, should let you get an overseer to scout with sooner if the overlord pincer isn't an option.
This is also an issue due to Zerg's patchy scouting. A Zerg player could scout a terran player and anticipate one thing but due to Terran's great flexibility a totally different build could be thrown at the Zerg player.
There are also timing pushes that would punish a Zerg player for sinking so much into scouting ability.
That being said I understand that it is not impossible for a Zerg to scout his enemy, it just seems a tad harder than it should be is all.
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Try not sending your overlords straight into his base where you expect an army to be massed. Send them in laterally, from a different angle. They are flying units, use them as such.
I've never had trouble scouting with overlords/speedlings. In fact I don't even use drone scouts anymore.
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On August 14 2010 12:12 GreatestThreat wrote:
Try not sending your overlords straight into his base where you expect an army to be massed. Send them in laterally, from a different angle. They are flying units, use them as such.
I've never had trouble scouting with overlords/speedlings. In fact I don't even use drone scouts anymore.
I always do that, but that is where a skilled player will keep his anti-air ESPECIALLY if he is doing a cheesy build, don't you think?
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EPT
