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I agree that Zerg players have been under utilizing Overlord drops.
It might be partly because of the five reasons the OP provided in the poll, but I also think it's also because of the introduction of the Nydus Worm in ST2. Unlike Overlords, it really doesn't matter if the Worm dies, they can be throw away units. They are decently cheep, even compared to Overlord upgrade costs. But most importantly a single Nydus Worm can hold (and transport) any number of the Zerg player's army quickly.
It's fairly safe to say that if you could pull off a successful Doom Drop on your opponent with Overlords, then you could probably sneak a Nydus somewhere in his base just as successfully. And unlike with an Overlord drop, if your attack fails you will not be supply blocked back to 12 food.
IMO the Nydus transport is much safer, but less and less successful the higher the quality of the opponent is. That's why I'm guessing we will continue to only see such tactics used commonly in high level play.
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Well zergs have the nydus worm. That gotta count for something.
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On October 13 2010 16:18 MadVillain wrote:
Zerg don't have the luxury of deciding when to attack, we have to react and be ready for what the opponent throws at us at all times.
..........Not really. Zerg is actually commanding in bannelings burst.
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I am not using drops as Zerg because im plainly not able to maintain my macro when microing a drop. Not to speak of boxeresque mutli -drops while besieging the main with tanks and pulling off macro with his 3rd (or 4th?) hand...
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On October 13 2010 16:16 cHaNg-sTa wrote:
In BW, Zerg drops were arguably the least popular among the 3 races. Terran's drop mechanics are overall pretty similar and possibly even better now with the medivac acting as both a dropship and a medic. Protoss had very strong storm drop, DT drops, and reaver harass. All of these were for the most part almost always cost efficient.
Zerg, while not being worthless, had not so great drops in comparison because it's difficult to snipe buildings with any zerg unit besides maybe cracklings and hydras. But pathing for melee units always made this slightly difficult and hydras were fairly fragile to several units that Protoss and Terran units may have when there's no room to micro. Not to mention it was fairly difficult to execute a drop unless there was a large quantity drop (a la doom drops). Small drops only work early with lurker drops or MAYBE drops with a defiler.
Now drops are much harder to be cost effective. Not only do zerglings absolutely suck at taking out structures now (does Terran really need a +2 armor to structure upgrade? this seems a bit excess), but hydras are much more expensive and even more fragile as everything has more range and ton more hp now to defer zerg drops much more efficiently. No Lurkers or Dark Swarm doesn't make it any easier as well. You really need a huge drop that goes undetected for the most part to be effective, but with AA so much stronger in this game for Terran (and sensor towers help), it's hard to justify drops when you can just use mutaling mobility as a more reliable approach.
With that being said, I can imagine sneaky baneling drops on the mineral line being very good while fighting on the front.
I agree. Without units that can take out more units than they cost, like the lurker, or a unit that can make units more cost effective, like the defiler, i feel like drops in sc2 are more of a way to clear supply for higher tier units, or are an effective tool when you have a strong economic advantage against your opponent in the late game, since zerg units are not as cost efficient as protoss or terran, so doom drops when both players have a near equal economy will not be as effective, unless you can kill alot of stuff while being able to save your units.
Although banelings can take out way more than they cost, the problem is they are gone once they do their damage, so you have to rebuild them.
On another note, i do think drops are underused, and i think we will be seeing the pro zergs use them more the further they improve.
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Where is the "current maps don't provide the proper economic tension to get speed/drops and be safe" option. Only a few do :p
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Also, I think Zerg is the most prone to the "omg... that drop just went horribly wrong... I just lost the game because of that" drop syndrome. It's always a wild card when it comes to dropping with a Zerg, you never know what you're gonna get because you can't just hit and run with Zerg drops, it doesn't work like that. They can be decent, or they can just flat out lose you the game. It's just so hard to tell.
Flash vs. Jaedong in the past MSL had a game where this happened. It seemed like JD was a pure genius at faking the lurker push at the front and suddenly loading lurkeling into his overlords and dropping on a seemingly undefended Terran main. Somehow, this drop just turned out to be a lot less effective than it initially appeared, and I would even argue that it turned out disastrous for JD.
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Can most posters here please take into account that overlord drop without speed upgrade is retarded?
Overlord drop is viable late-mid game to harass, or mid-game when the enemy is turtling. It cannot be used early because if you go fast lair and instantly can spare 300gas you will be badly hurt if somebody decides to attack you during the overlord drop tech.
Making overlord drop viable around the time that you go to 3th base and have to macro like shit as Zerg to keep up in the game. And, even if you are capable to spare the extra apm to do drops, it is mostly easier and more effective to harass with other units. Or gain some map control.
So unless you have +150 apm- I would say 200 apm- overlord drop is not viable.
If you are a god like Cool, yeah you can do fancy stuff. 99.8% of the others can't.
Can all haters please keep their mouth shut? Pathetic to read all these yabba-yabba-yabba posts. All these in-a-perfect-world-it-is-all-sure-win theories make me sick.
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Overlord upgrades last 60 and 130 seconds, and cost total of 300/300 resources. Effectively enough for two extra hatcheries instead, and the result is more or less the same: You are at a great disadvantage for 130 seconds, until your investments start to kick in. Not only this, but you'll be at slight disadvantage even later, since overlords do not really do anything to increase your combat potential, unlike medivacs do.
As Zerg, you really do not want to continue being at disadvantage for any longer, after you already were at it the whole earlygame. And getting drops early equates to suicide, since you are already at disadvantage.
They do have their time and place, but sadly that time and place is lategame when both players have 3+ bases, or just slightly before. And most games are over by then.
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It is not the cost or research time but of the fact its a huge gamble. It is too ez to defend.
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Its easy to say that the upgrade is expensive. But tbh i think the problem is slow overlords and maybe the time it takes for the research.
You need to send twice as many overlords so that you have some decoys, and then its difficult to get your units transported back out again because the overlords are so damn slow, what, they got like 1.8 speed? Vikings are 2.75, medivacs are 2.75... It's just too clumsy and all-in.
The popular terran multidrops in different locations is strong because the medivac is fast (and heals o_o). The overlords are spotted 10 seconds before they're even in position.
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I've only really done it in 2v2's because I am bad enough at Zerg that I will get stomped in my 1v1 devision, but it seems pretty effective so far.
I'm really just talking about using drops to harass, not all in attacks against entrenched bases.
If you drop hydras, it's more like a thor drop than anything. The intent is to kill workers, not kill the other players army.
A single overlord worth of hydras kills workers a lot faster than a thor drop if you focus fire.
As far as the argument that losing overlords is way too costly because of the supply loss, you can build more than what you need for supply. You don't need to always skirt the edge of supply blocking yourself. If you do that, you basically get decent transports for 100 minerals a piece.
I think i saw someone say something about nydus worms. Against decent players nydus worms are only really useful for transporting things between your own bases. If you do put one in someone's base, they know exactly where your units are going to be in 20 seconds and although it is easier to control, it actually launches units much more slowly. Meaning a good portion of your units will die without being able to really do anything.
It's like building a supply depot or pylon to scout/warp units in. You don't want to rely on the supply given in case it gets destroyed, but it's really useful sometimes.
I might try something similar with banelings later.
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There are many factors why overlord drops are not used, I will make a list:
a) Unsuitable units: The only high range high dps unit is the Hydralisk. It is also not used against terrans, and against Protoss the timing window where Hydras can be very effective before storm/colossus arrive is small. Also 8 Hydras << 8 stimmed Marines + 4 stimmed Marauders + 2 Medivacs.
b) Long and expensive research: Investing 100/100 for better scouting is already tight early midgame, 200/200 more for drop is impossible. High research time means that you cannot spontaneously decide to drop after a decisive battle.
c) Slow overlord speed: Before the speed upgrade drop research is useless. After the upgrade an overlord has a speed of about 1.87, a medivac has a speed of 2.75, a huge difference.
That means:
-retreating is more difficult
-If the drop is seen, the opponent has more reaction time
-The time your main army is weaker is longer
d) Zerg has no defenders advantage, so an army is necessary to stay safe. If you load half your army in overlords for a drop and the opponent attacks, you lose the game. If your drop fails because the opponents army is at home and you drop, you lose that half of your army. Then the opponent attacks and you lose the game.
e)Economy: Early game a zergs economy is way behind, and the only stable gameplan is to gain a better and better economy to be even in midgame and ahead in lategame. Spending 300/300+units in midgame on drops does not help this plan, better get upgrades and stay safe.
In my opinion there are essentially three reasons for droping as a zerg:
-you are way ahead economically and just need a way to end the game
-you need to defend against cliffdrops (better to downvote the map...)
-Baneling-Bombing, which is actually viable
So what is the message to take home? Try out baneling bombing instead of mutalisk harass.
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Zerg drops are good, but you can't compare them to marauder drops. Marauder or hellion drops will do a garrenteed TONS of damage. Overlord drops costs a lot while they hardly do humungous amounts of damage, aside from maybe ultralisk drops or banelingdrops on MM.
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baneling drop is strong but its to hard to get it early enough
at the time when you would drop those overlord upgrades are way too expensive. you just buy them later when its not as useful to do baneling drops
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I don't think zerg drops are very common because the zerg lack a unit that is really strong when dropped. There's nothing like a hellion or a templar that can really wreck workers quickly in the zerg army, and zerg doesn't really have a good option for sniping buildings quickly either.
As a result, zerg drops are more about having metric tons of stuff in the drop than being cute and harassy. More required commitment to drops means less drops happen.
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On October 13 2010 16:07 Effen wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2010 15:52 Hypatio wrote:
Unlike medivacs, overlords don't heal units and you do not risk 8 supply if it dies, and 300/300 for drop-viable overlords is way too expensive early to mid game. haven't read many more inaccurate posts on tl before. 300/300 is the cost of 3 drop ships, not to mention the supply they take up, consuming the production abilities of your starport(s), etc. the cost for a terran to get 3 dropships can give zerg 20+. overlords are essentially free to use as a drop unit because you already have them made for other reasons. zerg drops are hands down the cheapest in the game.
Only if you are in the position to freely lose overlords, meaning that a drop can easily supply block you and so you will need to have extra overlords in any case, which costs money. This liability does not exist with medivacs. 300 gas is a lot to spend early in the game.
BTW, nothing in my post was inaccurate. The parts you disagree with are opinion at best.
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On October 13 2010 17:39 Sirion wrote:
There are many factors why overlord drops are not used, I will make a list:
a) Unsuitable units: The only high range high dps unit is the Hydralisk. It is also not used against terrans, and against Protoss the timing window where Hydras can be very effective before storm/colossus arrive is small. Also 8 Hydras << 8 stimmed Marines + 4 stimmed Marauders + 2 Medivacs.
b) Long and expensive research: Investing 100/100 for better scouting is already tight early midgame, 200/200 more for drop is impossible. High research time means that you cannot spontaneously decide to drop after a decisive battle.
c) Slow overlord speed: Before the speed upgrade drop research is useless. After the upgrade an overlord has a speed of about 1.87, a medivac has a speed of 2.75, a huge difference.
That means:
-retreating is more difficult
-If the drop is seen, the opponent has more reaction time
-The time your main army is weaker is longer
d) Zerg has no defenders advantage, so an army is necessary to stay safe. If you load half your army in overlords for a drop and the opponent attacks, you lose the game. If your drop fails because the opponents army is at home and you drop, you lose that half of your army. Then the opponent attacks and you lose the game.
e)Economy: Early game a zergs economy is way behind, and the only stable gameplan is to gain a better and better economy to be even in midgame and ahead in lategame. Spending 300/300+units in midgame on drops does not help this plan, better get upgrades and stay safe.
In my opinion there are essentially three reasons for droping as a zerg:
-you are way ahead economically and just need a way to end the game
-you need to defend against cliffdrops (better to downvote the map...)
-Baneling-Bombing, which is actually viable
So what is the message to take home? Try out baneling bombing instead of mutalisk harass.
Well said. The main reason is d) imo.
Zerg can't just drop one OL worth of units cause it won't make any damage (unless banelings bombing). He needs to drop A LOT of units, that means that your main army will be much smaller and opponent can just attack you and win right there most of the time. Maps really unfavours zerg drops cause it's pretty much impossible to retreat if opponent counter attacks you while you dropping.
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To sum up the actual facts in the comparison of medivacs to overlords.
Overlords;
*100 minerals per overlord
*200hp
*0.469 default speed. 1.875 with speed upgrade (100/100 and 60 seconds)
*Requires upgrade to carry units (200/200 and 130 seconds)
*(As a technicality, overlord drops require a lair (150/100) but since a lair is required for doing anything it can't be attributed as a cost of OL drops)
-Requires a larva
Less tangible factors:
Overlords have other uses, and can fulfill those after being used to drop. They are also already available without need of production, nullifying the cost and production time but risking a loss of supply if they die. On the other hand, if extra overlords are made instead, surviving overlords can be seen as a supply investment, or can be used for scouting and creep spread. It may be worth noting that the units zerg have available to drop may not be as strong. The zerg race may also have a lack of a defender's advantage and an economy not well suited for an investment in OL drops in the early game.
Medivac;
*100/100 per medivac
*150hp (+1 armor)
*2.75 speed, with roughly twice the acceleration of an overlord
*Requires a starport (150/100) and a factory (150/100) -- (This is significant, but it needs to be said that any reasonable build that employs medivacs will make some use of these buildings after construction, so the investment is there, but can not be attributed solely to the medivac)
*Takes 42 seconds of starport build time - (This is also significant in some way since quickly massing units may require additional structures. Think of it as being analagous to larva cost for zerg)
-Cost 2 supply.
+Can heal
Less tangible factors:
Rather than adding to infrastructure and logistics like the overlord, a medivac directly increases the strength of a bio army, in addition to their shared attribute of enabling drops. Creating a medivac can be seen as a direct addition to your army strength, and is a fundamentally aggressive move, while adding extra overlords, while not at all useless, does not increase your army strength. During small scale drops (harassment) with bio units a medivac also boosts the strength of the dropped group.
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Departing from objectivity and entering the realm of opinion I'd probably say that the overarching reason that zerg players generally do not use drops like terran do is the 1.87 speed of the overlords. A medivac is very fast, and lends itself extremely well to scooting into a sensitive area, dropping units, and then scooting out at the sight of danger. To put this in perspective - a marine has a speed of 2.25, meaning that they can actually outrun the overlords. It's extremely risky to take one overlord into your opponent's base to drop like you'd see a terran do, since if at any point you need to fly in reach of land, a small group of any anti air units will be able to outrun you and intercept you. This is why you almost exclusively see zerg drops used in the form of a 200 supply army being dropped with a dozen overlords. They're just too slow for doing anything gimmicky.
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I doubt it's the cost that really gets people.
It just takes a long time to research. By the time you're thinking "hey, I could use some drops now", you research them and then you don't even need them anymore because you're dead or something.
At least that's what I'm suspecting.
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EPT
