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United States342 Posts
Zerg, the swarm, always there to overwhelm you with numbers. This is a great concept and it's what makes Starcraft special, the different abilities of each race. But when one race can sit there and swarm you with t1 units all game, i feel as if there is something severely lacking in the game.
I understand the idea for the roach. A tanking unit that makes up for the dps dealing zergling for t1. My problem with it is when a zerg can build only roaches, and maybe a few other units, all game and still proceed to victory. If one can use a t1 unit the entire game as a part of their army, their defiantly is something wrong either with the unit, or how blizzard envisioned the counter of the unit to look like.
I will write this from a Protoss perspective as I am not to familiar with zvt
Now there are generally two answers to counter roaches that most people agree with, immortals or air units.
The air units that protoss have at their disposal are void rays, phoenix, and carriers.
Void rays many would consider cheesy, and even if they were voids are easily shutdown by corruptors because he can pump out a few before you reach a certain mass, or if needed he can build hydras.
Phoenix are no ideal counter to roaches because of the energy restriction, and also they are no real counter to the corruptor because of their lack of damage to armored units.
That leaves us with the carrier, the pinnacle of protoss might. Now if it really comes down to me having to mass carriers to win vs roach, there is something wrong with the dynamic of play.
Now most people write now are ready to rage on their keyboards that i should build immortals. That would be a great idea, for it the fact that they come out of the robo bay. Maybe if i sat back and built 4 robos i would be able to match the production of roaches, just maybe. Besides the apparent problem that zerg can pull a complete tech switch on you and run over your immortals (or colossus if you decide you would prefer to build them). The mobility of roaches are quite insane once they get roach speed. With better mobility they can just run circles around you, and this is with just roaches. Add in a few lings and then how is a protoss supposed to keep up with that.
Now don't take my word for it, heres a nice replay of it happening. If it is what blizzard intended for the zerg race, that they stick with t1 units instead of advancing through their tech tree, i guess they succeeded. If not, they better start looking at some changes.
http://www.mediafire.com/?pfquh8087v373e8
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Void rays many would consider cheesy
So that's a reason not to build them, and lose to roaches? Not sure this is the best way of looking at the game 
If making void rays forces zerg to switch from roaches to hydras or air, zerg can obviously not win that game by just massing roaches.
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did you just describe zerglings as DPS? they're cannon fodder, even late game their role is simply cannon fodder and distraction for actual DPS units.
you got outplayed is all. you suicided your army a couple of times. when you saw his mass ling, you should have made a couple of colossus and some more sentries. you wasted your sentries went you went guardian shield that one time. when he went mass roach, collo would have still helped, with the aid of sentries, etc. even if he burrowed having an observer would have just raped him.
i don't see how what the zerg player was imba or cheap.
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So you're complaining about Zerg having the mechanics that it was intended to have? Why don't you instead examine your own play rather than claiming imbalance?
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First off, its more expensive to tech to roaches than it is to tech to stalkers and sentries. Which are often core units, nobody complains if you win with gateway units.
Second, roaches need T2 tech to be any real use.
Third, "TX" is a really stupid label, the only one that's really important is hive tech, this isn't wc3 people.
Oh, and the reason roaches are so popular is because hydras and lings are really really easily aand very "hard" countered. (colossus, FF) and only "soft counter" P units. (hydra slightly better than stalker, ling bad vs zealot/sentry, good vs unprotected stalkers, both good against immortals but immortals are just as good as stalkers vs hydra/ling in a big army)
You have to realize zerg has 2 real options, muta/ling and mass roaches, to deal with midgame protoss.
If this is another immortal qq thread, from my experience playing protoss, I've downed 2 robos after scouting no spire (hallucination sure is cheap and low tech) and you don't have to make 4 robos. Having 4 immortals in your army makes a HUGE different, i'm talking you'll be able to take down 20 or more roaches with a gateway army to tank some damage. (Immortals take down like 4 a piece without help, and with guardian shield and zealots/stalkers to tank the insane immortal dps it gets better)
Going gateway vs roach but thinking you somehow need to go pure immortals if that doesn't work makes no sense.
Tech switching isn't that strong, once you commit to roaches, you already have a big enough gateway army to deal with muta and he has to react to your army, mutas aren't strong enough to defend the midgame attack, mutas are supposed to harass and delay that, after the window is gone they aren't that useful past a 200/200 sacrifice and rebuild kind of thing. Hydras would be the normal follow up or hive tech, after which its going to be gateway+immortal+colossus vs hydra/roach/corrptor or ultra.
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On November 24 2010 09:47 Bandino wrote:If one can use a t1 unit the entire game as a part of their army, their defiantly is something wrong either with the unit, or how blizzard envisioned the counter of the unit to look like.
I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say with this. Terran players use Marines for entire games. They never really become "bad". Protoss Zealots and Stalkers are always popular choices too.
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LoveTT just schooled Zenio mass roach with blink stalkers, Colossus and Sentry. I think chargelots, sentry and colossus would do just as well. Place some good ffs and the roach melt very fast. Immortals are only good against small number of roaches. This thread is getting closed soon.
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Your play was just awful during the whole game...
You don't know anything about zerg,you throw your army away and you claim imba when you got clearly outplayed?You can beat mass roaches with gateway units+ colossi while abusing force field.
Also corruptors get countered by void rays.
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On November 24 2010 09:47 Bandino wrote:
If one can use a t1 unit the entire game as a part of their army, their defiantly is something wrong either with the unit, or how blizzard envisioned the counter of the unit to look like.
You're not serious, right? That's how it's always been. That's the whole point of tier 1 units is to be the bread and butter of unit compositions. That's how marine/marauders are, that's how Zealot/stalkers are, and that's how Zerglings/roaches are. :/ I don't understand what you're getting at.
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the protoss late game army tht comes with stalers, chargelots n immos along with a frew colossi is extremely scary,, mass roachs or just T1 units just cant beat tht. The collosus will piss on everything when the immos n chargeltos n takin dmg.
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There needs to be a dedicated balance whine/discussion thread that is stickied in the SC2 general section..
Post balance camplaints anywhere else and you feel the mighty wrath of the ban hammer...
So bored of the balance debates when it usually comes down to your oponent simply played better than you :z
EDIT:
could be stickied in strategy too i suppose, just stop these threads from appearing every second day
:r
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On November 24 2010 10:12 Stormfell wrote:Show nested quote +On November 24 2010 09:47 Bandino wrote:If one can use a t1 unit the entire game as a part of their army, their defiantly is something wrong either with the unit, or how blizzard envisioned the counter of the unit to look like. I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say with this. Terran players use Marines for entire games. They never really become "bad". Protoss Zealots and Stalkers are always popular choices too.
^^ This. Every race uses 'T1' units basically for the whole game. Sure Zerg can win games with just their ling/roach, but Terran wins game with just their Marines, and Protoss can win games with just their stalkers. If it got late enough in the game, Zerg would be forced to tech up and make an 'end game army' as well.
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Void rays many would consider cheesy, and even if they were voids are easily shutdown by corruptors because he can pump out a few before you reach a certain mass, or if needed he can build hydras.
Ok...firstly why are void rays cheesy? A void ray rush might be cheesy, but just having them isn't. Secondly, not using them just cause other people think they're cheesy is a bad excuse. Does it stop Terrans from using cloaked banshees?
Thirdly, if he has to build hydras/corruptors/whatever then you've stopped him spamming only roaches all game so goal achieved?
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Every unit has something that can beat it. You can't say "he can beat voidrays" and therefore the unit isn't an acceptable strategy. Every unit can be killed reasonably easily by some other unit. By that logic no unit would ever be reasonable to produce.
In general, any time you think a strategy is unfairly good, stop and think - are professionals just using this strategy all the time and winning tournament after tournament with it? If the answer is no, then clearly something else beats it.
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I don't see how Zerg unit design has anything to do with playing a poor MU.....
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Try criticizing your own play before criticizing the game. Even after criticizing your own play, criticize it some more.. Keep doing that and I guarantee that you will find a solution before even having to resort to criticizing the game.
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Its not like Zerg wants to use roach imbalance. They just dont have lot of options. I personally hate roaches, but often you are forced to build them.
Let's take a look at the alternatives:
-Mutalisks: It is the main mid game alternative to roaches. Switching to mutalisks leaves you quite vulnerable, because they are expensive and kinda weak in small numbers.
-Hydras: Have very high DPS, but lack mobility and get CRUSHED by colossus.
-Lings: Easily countered by a lot of zealots, forcefields and colossi. Stuff most protoss have anyways. They are also very expensive on the larva side, so you will need extra hatches to rebuild your army
Roaches on the other hand dont have these problems: You can tech to them fast, they are cheep, mobile with the upgrade, durable, dont need a lot of larva (thus are reinforced fast) and are not countered by standard protoss tech.
You also don't take the upgrades into account: Roaches are only versatile with upgrades which need "T2". Basically it's 3 upgrades you need (Burrow, burrow movement, speed). All three cost time (2 of them come from the same tech structure) and resources.
The thing is: As versatile roaches are, they are not particularly strong against anything. You just need more stuff, as day9 would say and you're fine. Immortals help, but its not like building immortals will "counter" roaches and instantly win you the game.
Stalkers, zealots, marines and marauders work in a somewhat similar fashion. They are core units. Always good to have, useful throughout the game, improveable with upgrades and not too specialised. Would you rather like to have a rock/paper/scissors game where you always have to counter everything with a specific unit to even have a chance? A game full of void rays, reapers, banshees and banelings would be 90% guesswork.
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"You can just mass roaches and straight up win"
Stopped reading right there. Are you serious? The TIER 1 UNIT, 50 MINERALS, starting unit for Terran in equal mineral sized armies past like 6 I think the number was beats roaches WITHOUT combat shield NOR stim pack. P.S.: Roaches have less dps, less overall health when counting shields, and less range than the stalker. Use them with sentries to fight roaches in smaller numbers and have fun. Also: if you're opponent is stupid melee heavy, there's no reason not to get void rays. That's like refusing to build banelings against mass marine because you don't want to seem like baneling bust is the only route.
But as others have said: Tier 1/1.5 units are suppose to be the bread and butter of each race. And they are. Gateway units are needed to win games, plain and simple. If you don't have zerglings and banelings in your army than you best have roaches else you lost. Plain and simple. And if you don't have marines OR marauders than you're just going to get magic boxed.
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On November 24 2010 10:21 Najda wrote:Show nested quote +On November 24 2010 10:12 Stormfell wrote:On November 24 2010 09:47 Bandino wrote:If one can use a t1 unit the entire game as a part of their army, their defiantly is something wrong either with the unit, or how blizzard envisioned the counter of the unit to look like. I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say with this. Terran players use Marines for entire games. They never really become "bad". Protoss Zealots and Stalkers are always popular choices too. ^^ This. Every race uses 'T1' units basically for the whole game. Sure Zerg can win games with just their ling/roach, but Terran wins game with just their Marines, and Protoss can win games with just their stalkers. If it got late enough in the game, Zerg would be forced to tech up and make an 'end game army' as well.
listen to these guys. A unit "tier" is an arbitrarily assigned label used as a measure for how fast you can get units of that type. these "tiers" are by no means objective (upgrades anyone? are speed roaches T1 or T2?) and not very comparable between the races, so cut them out of the balance discussions please. all races can mass a given low tech unit and win. P and T can even do so and be safe against air.
Also, im getting tired of this myth of imba fast techswitching. think about this for a minute! Whatever you use to fight the Z roach army, this is the very same army that the techswitch must go up against and "counter". but since the focus on roaches means that the Z will probably have gotten the roach upgrades like speed and +melee attack and +ground carpace and maybe not have focused so much on, say, +air attack and such. so when the switch happens, the Z not only opens up a timing window where his new choice of units will be few in numbers, they also automtically transfer the upgrade advantage to you. also, tech switching is not something you just do, you dont just wiggle your nose and wish upon a star and then a cloud of mutas appears in your base. the Z needs the infrastructure and the resources and you can deny a useful switch by applying adequate pressure. remember, a spire is 8 roaches worth of gas, what do you think is more important when the P army starts knocking on your front door? what you describe will not happen unless you either let it happen or cant stop it from happening, so you are either making a mistake or you are behind already and cant really complain that he proceeded to kill you.
get out of your hard counter mentality.
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EPT
