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[Disclaimer] This post might be interpreted as a balance post but my intention is really more a gameplay oriented post. And yeah, i play random.
One of my main issues with zerg is the lack of something droppable. But that isn't entirely true. In fact, Zerg has loads of good droppable units for herass and base razing. A baneling drop would almost be as awesome as a lurkerdrop if not even greater. A 16 ling drop for fast base razing and herass, awesome. But the main problem is the accessibility. It all comes down to this upgrade which i think is heavily overpriced:
![[image loading]](http://sc2pod.com/w/images/d/d0/Ventral_Sacs.png)
The Ventral Sacs upgrade for 200 - 200. Thats alot of $, and not to mention that you probably will need the OL speed for 100 - 100 too. Another problem with this hefty price for the overlord drop upgrades is that because of the price it basically shares the same role as the Nydus Worm, at least with the pricing of sacs + OL speed.
What i would love to see is the OL drop beeing used for smaller skirmishes while Nydus worms are used for big troop movements. What would happen if the Ventral Sacs upgrade were to be reduced to 50/50 (maybe, with build time increasement) - 200/0 - 100/100 - 75/75? I'm no numbers expert, but this upgrade needs to be looked at imho.
Or, maybe going crazy-style and remove the ventral sacs entirely because of its similar role to Nydus worm and change it to an upgrade to the individual overlord for 50/50 (overseer style) accessible after Lair is finished with a 25 second build time, and let it hold 4-6-8 units. Again, im no numbers expert, just examples. My point is, if it's easier to access maybe this could lead to a broader zerg mid game strategy, the good old drop harasses. I think this really would broaden Zerg as the only unit they have for base harassing is basically the mutalisk.
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Thing is, you pay a similar price for medivacs and prisms, but once you get ventral sacs, every overlord you own is now capable of dropping
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Not to mention the positioning. You'll probably have a "dropship" at nearly every angle without consciously planning ahead. Honestly, I think the price is fine.
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Prisms do not cost gas, 150 minerals only and Medivacs are Medics in addition to their drop function.
Drop it's cost to 200/100 and allow it being researched in Tier 1. If it is allowed to be researched in Tier 1, the Overlords will still be extremely slow but it'll allow Zerg to deal with cliff abuse in the early game.
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The price is definitely too high when there are maps like LT that pretty much require getting it just in case they drop your cliff.
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I think it is a great idea, in bw it would be OP but in sc2 it would match warp gate, warp prism, medivac, viking, colossus mobilty and could be a good counter to cliff drops instead of mutas, not to mention mule repairing and CC's that carry scvs.
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On August 20 2010 10:37 Disarray wrote:
Thing is, you pay a similar price for medivacs and prisms, but once you get ventral sacs, every overlord you own is now capable of dropping
True enough, but guess what Medivacs heal... and there already apart of your army Ventral sacs are a completely different assessment Prism also only cost 200 mins. This argument is not very good
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On August 20 2010 10:37 Disarray wrote:
Thing is, you pay a similar price for medivacs and prisms, but once you get ventral sacs, every overlord you own is now capable of dropping
This.
Toss and Terrans need to buy their shuttles individually, and replace them when they die (100/100 for medivacs, 200/0 for prisms). Granted, much like the overlord, they have secondary uses, which are usually their main uses, but nevertheless, 1 research allows all your overlords to act as shuttles and they are replaced for cheaper.
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Imho, the positioning isnt that dangerous and can be dealt with properly. If you position an slow overlord for a non OL-speed drop it is easily busted by any unit that can fire on air. Maybe it has unforseen consequenses in ZvZ but i don't think so. It also can be busted by buildings placed near your cliffs, the same way you deal with reapers, proxy pylons and so on.
The main point, though is that OL:s should be used for smaller skimishes rather than mass dropping which the nydus worm is capable of.
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On August 20 2010 10:39 Archaic wrote:
Not to mention the positioning. You'll probably have a "dropship" at nearly every angle without consciously planning ahead. Honestly, I think the price is fine.
Yeah? And then you're going to have to bring the overlord back to your units to pick them up
I don't see your point at all
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My thoughts:
1) The price is really steep, I still don't get why they upped OL speed.
It would help Zerg out in terms of scouting, so the Ol dies when it scouts but we get to see more.
It reduces the overall price of drop
The problem is I don't know what the issues were with a 50/50 Ol speed, maybe blizzard does want drop to be cheaper, but they didn't like the OL speed that early in the game.
2) I really don't like OL drop becoming on a Ol upgrade so you have to pay for it.
Why?
First off all, the big difference between nydus and drop is that drop can be used in combat, I really like going roach/ling/bling in the midgame, and the general idea for me is, I don't attack by running at them, I need to come from under them (burrow) or out of the air (drop).
Also with the nerfs to nydus I see the nydus less and less as an offensive tool, I see the nydus more as a tool to have instant troop movements across the map, to far expo's, to sneak troops away to flank them, etc
The only drop
While drop is more of an offensive tool. For various obvious reasons.
Overall: drop is fine, the only change I ever see to it is a change in the price, but that is all up to blizzard to decide that.
Zerg may have some issues, but we can't ask for to much, if it was up to some people we would have nydus'es on hatch that cost 100mins and drop on lair costing 50/50 + 50/50, that's all just a bit to much.
If zerg has issues OL drop isn't the first thing to look at imo.
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Personally, I'm fine with ventral sacs costing 200/200, I just wish the speed upgrade was back at 50/50.
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Maybe 150/150. Truthfully, Id rather see them rebalance nydus worms for defensive plays instead of offensive ones (built by drones for starters) and rebalance overlords for epic doom drops. But since no one will like this idea, they could start by making overlords less expensive before they can do anything (requiring 2 upgrades). Im a toss player BTW since every thread nowadays requires saying so.
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once you have ventral and speed, you'd have about oh i don't know 10 ovlords, and paying 200/200 for what for the other races is very costly each overlord, not including speed.
i suppose the more expensive thing is that, unless you have about 50+ overlords, you are putting a HUGE risk to your supply, it would take a LOT of time to build it back up. on 1, or 2 base
Overlords used to play such a diverse roll. for one, they were food, (not literally)they were a detector, they were a scout, (a role played better with speed boost) and a dropship (with two upgrades)
now, its whittled down to this.dropship, supply.Why you ask? because 2 of these roles were give to the overseer, which, with speed boost that affects it too, is MUCH quicker than a speed boosted overlord, which is no longer a detector, again detection was given to the overseer, making it an EVEN BETTER scout.
and overseers cost.. I think 100/50 (I may be wrong here)
so in many ways overlord was nerfed. Zerg can no longer be invincible to DT rushes, or wraiths.. but not all zerg players get AA.
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Just reduce the gas cost.
Can anyone do some math for cost in terms of TvPvZ transports?
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On August 20 2010 10:57 Thoreezhea wrote:
once you have ventral and speed, you'd have about oh i don't know 10 ovlords, and paying 200/200 for what for the other races is very costly each overlord, not including speed.
i suppose the more expensive thing is that, unless you have about 50+ overlords, you are putting a HUGE risk to your supply, it would take a LOT of time to build it back up. on 1, or 2 base
Are you implying that you would go for a 10 overlord doom drop off of 2 bases? I'm sorry but if you do, its pretty all-in if it fails either way, regardless of how long it would take to rebuild the 10 overlords from larvae.
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i like the ventral sacks cost. i mean cmon an unlimited supply of dropships for 200/200 - thats a pretty good deal but i do think that OL speed was good at 50-50
will help the scouting issue as well that them zergies keep complaining about
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Lowering the cost, time or tech needed for the OL upgrades would be great for zerg early game IMO
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Its hard to compare it to costs of a medivac. The medivac first off is a great healing unit. More importantly the cost of this upgrade might be too high because of the ridiculous amount of gas in multiple upgrades, buildings, and units that zerg has to buy into.
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The drop upgrade might be a little overpriced, but IMO the main problem is the research time. Even if you rush for lair and start drop as soon as you hit it, the Terran will already have sieged tank/thor on your cliff before the drop is even halfway researched. If they reduced research time to say 70 seconds (130 seconds is ridiculous), we'd actually see it out in time to respond to a drop if we aimed for it immediately upon lair (skipping mutas). This would also open up an opportunity for Zerg to punish Terrans for doing an ultra-greedy build (aka. 1-2 tanks sieged behind cliff while constructing their expansion safely), which is extremely common.
I personally think it's ridiculous that both Terran and Protoss can reach their drop tech at least a good minute before Zerg can even get theirs or even their first fliers up. This needs to be looked into if Blizzard keeps making maps with droppable cliffs like LT.
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EPT
