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Lack of attacking ability for zerg

Forum Index > SC2 General
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morimacil
Profile Joined March 2010
France921 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-12-24 02:45:59
December 24 2010 01:50 GMT
#1
Lately, there seems to be more and more early game attacks that are developped against zerg.
2gate pressure was around since a long time, but now there is the pylon wall-off at the ramp, early zealot+pylon walloff and cannons, 2rax bunker rushes, and so on.

In my opinion, these are showing up more and more, simply because players are starting to realize that zerg simply cannot counterattack.
Taking 5 SCVs and 5 marines, and moving out while having almost no map vision, and leaving your base with pretty much 0 defense seems a little suicidal at first glance, but once you start to realize that the zerg player cannot do any significant amounts of damage at all to your undefended base before at least T2 tech, then it starts to simply be logical.
Simply put, for a terran, there is almost no reason not to move out with the first early units.
You dont need them to defend, so if you dont attack with them, well they are basically just useless. So might as well force the zerg to put up some defenses, since you dont need any units to defend yourself.

The way I see it, since there is nothing to defend from, there is no reason for a terran or protoss to be sitting around with these units. Marines and zealots force an investment of at least equal cost to defend, and thus it is near impossible to come out behind. Even if you lose 5 marines, and dont kill anything at all, that means the zerg had to invest at least 250 minerals into killing them, and his investment in army is now useless, since he cant actually attack you and hope to do any damage at all.

Im looking at the old wikipedia stuff from SC1, and heh, it looks interesting for someone who never played much BW.
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Zerg_Two/Three_Hatch_Play
Zerg gets to pressure, then its terran, then its zerg again, then terran, then zerg...

Anyway, I just wanted your opinion.
Do you think like me thats its likely that terran and toss will use increasingly aggressive(some would even go as far as to say cheesy/abusive) openings against zerg, since they come at basically 0 risk of losing the game or getting put behind, but have a chance of crippling an unprepared zerg?
Do you think that this will be good for the game?
Do you think it would be more interesting if the occasional cheese/counterattack were to happen in the early game from zerg, or do you think that zerg being cornered as the macro race is good and will make for interesting games?
Do you perhaps think that some form of aggression from zerg before T2 will be developped as time goes by?
Or do you maybe think that Im blatantly wrong, and that a couple lings have great potential for backstabbing a terran or protoss player who is leaving his base almost defenseless in the earlyish game?

Edit:
I should have been more explicit, sorry.
This isnt about balance. At all. Please dont discuss balance, or whether you think the game is balanced or not in here.

When I asked if you think that it is good for the game for zerg to have little/no possibilities to attack early on, I meant that as in, good for the game from a spectator point of view, for example. Or creativity, or gameplay experience.

Balance has nothing to do with this. Its perfectly possible for zergs to be perfectly balanced without having the ability to attack before T2, so please do not discuss whether or not the game is balanced, or proposed changes to improve balance in this thread.
FrostOtter
Profile Joined September 2010
United States537 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-12-24 01:53:12
December 24 2010 01:51 GMT
#2
Banelings are my counterattack when something cutesy like that happens. Especially against terran...once you are in his base, it is over. You just have to get in.

Alternatively, there are some earlier pool timings that help in the early game.
FlamingTurd
Profile Joined April 2010
United States1059 Posts
December 24 2010 01:54 GMT
#3
Yea... leads back to the whole problem Z has of not doing enough damage per cost of unit. The stats all show increasingly lately Z is having problems, hopefully something will eventually be done about it. Sick of watching 80% tournaments won by T and the rest by P
Nerf MMMT!!! Liquid`Ret Hwaiting!!!
Najda
Profile Joined June 2010
United States3765 Posts
December 24 2010 01:55 GMT
#4
On December 24 2010 10:51 FrostOtter wrote:
Banelings are my counterattack when something cutesy like that happens. Especially against terran...once you are in his base, it is over. You just have to get in.

Alternatively, there are some earlier pool timings that help in the early game.


Yeah but it doesn't work at all vs toss because of forcefield, and it only works vs Terran when they don't scout it/make a terrible wall.
Barbiero
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
Brazil5259 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-12-24 01:57:37
December 24 2010 01:55 GMT
#5
You should watch some CatZ streams... he basically says "who the F*** invented that Zerg cant pressure early on." all the time, with play. He is like the god of early zerg play into transitions.

Also, every static ling in your army can be used for map control.
♥ The world needs more hearts! ♥
Red.
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
Spain228 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-12-24 01:59:13
December 24 2010 01:57 GMT
#6
Whenever the terran moves out with 5 marines and some scvs and the attack fails, i eat his depot with 4 banelings and the inside gets raped by 15 speedlings. that is the "early" counter imo

as for protoss yeah, no clue. Plus the overlord scouting its completely stupid, gets destroyed by 2 marines. meanwhile protoss have observers and terran has scans (but terran wants mules blah blah blah terran needs the mules blah, they still use it so many times).

I think something has to change soon.
"Truth is cold and tough; lies are warm and always give you an excuse"
FrostOtter
Profile Joined September 2010
United States537 Posts
December 24 2010 01:58 GMT
#7
On December 24 2010 10:57 Red. wrote:
Whenever the terran moves out with 5 marines and some scvs and the attack fails, i eat his depot with 4 banelings and the inside gets raped by 15 speedlings. that is the "early" counter imo

Yup, easy win. I love when terrans do that, especially if they leave the scvs behind (which sometimes happens).
Igaryu85
Profile Joined November 2010
Germany195 Posts
December 24 2010 02:03 GMT
#8
I think you have a point there but Red. has one too;).
I sometimes get frustrated at not being able to just go kill him...
but then again just get all the stuff you need against terran. Creep banelings their speed upgrade ling speed a couple of mutas and you basically can crush most not all but most of these one-dimensional terrans.
I ussually 14hatch against terran and there has yet to be a cheese invented by terrans that can really harm that if you used your overlords to scout and your drones to defend properly.
If you then can kinda keep him from his second base for a while you are in great shape.
Zerg can be agressive early on but I prefer just getting the better eco and then crushing them;)
Krejven
Profile Joined August 2010
Sweden105 Posts
December 24 2010 02:05 GMT
#9
On December 24 2010 10:54 FlamingTurd wrote:
Yea... leads back to the whole problem Z has of not doing enough damage per cost of unit. The stats all show increasingly lately Z is having problems, hopefully something will eventually be done about it. Sick of watching 80% tournaments won by T and the rest by P


Yeah I also get sick that Terran got 66,66% of the GSL wins while Zerg got 0%.
oh wait....
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
JBrown08
Profile Joined September 2010
Canada306 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-12-24 02:11:47
December 24 2010 02:09 GMT
#10
I think it honestly has more to do with the advantage zerg gains by not attacking. No other race has the ability to mass produce workers at will like zerg. So in strategy discussions most people agree that good zerg play revolves around making as many workers as possible.

It also has to do with the high ground mechanic. Protoss has observers and Terran has vikings/dropships/strong ranged units to bust a ramp. Zerg requires usually a slow overlord at the start to even think about attacking a ramp effectivley, and it takes forever to get to the attack location. Let alone once it gets there it easily dies to one marine.

Zerg also doesn't have any high range ground attack units. Until you tech to hydras (which require creep to be effective) everything is either low range/melee. We don't have Colossus, we don't have Seige Tanks. In order to attack as zerg you have to get into the face of the opponent, and proper building placement really stops the ability to get units in a proper placement to be effective.

Zerg is also entirely about unit positioning and flanks. An army of low range units and melee has to fight in an area where every unit can attack. If you miss micro in the slightest with hydra roach you could literally have 6 hydras firing and 50 other units behind them waiting. So why are you going to attack up a ramp, or in and unadvantageous position when your army only gains from proper positioning, and from having a mass worker advantage?

Edit: Oh I and I forgot the creep mechanic that really leads to a defensive mindset. Fights you can win on creed are greatly effected outside of your creep. It's really hard to gauge an effective attack when your units literally act differently on different parts of the map. No other race has that learning disability; their races react the same no matter what.
Subversion
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
South Africa3627 Posts
December 24 2010 02:09 GMT
#11
its because they can wall off a tiny choke on the high ground, so they can defend with very little.
FlamingTurd
Profile Joined April 2010
United States1059 Posts
December 24 2010 02:11 GMT
#12
Right because GSL is the only tournament around. Anyway taking Nestea and fruitdealer the winning % of Z in all of them was like 25%. Every tournament besides them besides a few total have been mostly T wins and a few P. Look at the stats. Also check out the trend of S. Korean proportion of races in top 200, pretty sad.
Nerf MMMT!!! Liquid`Ret Hwaiting!!!
mango_destroyer
Profile Joined August 2010
Canada3914 Posts
December 24 2010 02:13 GMT
#13
On December 24 2010 10:54 FlamingTurd wrote:
Yea... leads back to the whole problem Z has of not doing enough damage per cost of unit. The stats all show increasingly lately Z is having problems, hopefully something will eventually be done about it. Sick of watching 80% tournaments won by T and the rest by P


80%? Please show me evidence of this claim. Or are you full of turd? Where are these stats you speak of.
JBrown08
Profile Joined September 2010
Canada306 Posts
December 24 2010 02:14 GMT
#14
On December 24 2010 11:13 mango_destroyer wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 24 2010 10:54 FlamingTurd wrote:
Yea... leads back to the whole problem Z has of not doing enough damage per cost of unit. The stats all show increasingly lately Z is having problems, hopefully something will eventually be done about it. Sick of watching 80% tournaments won by T and the rest by P


80%? Please show me evidence of this claim. Or are you full of turd? Where are these stats you speak of.


Probably out of thin air, or at the very least accounting for every small "no one cares about NA tourny".
0neder
Profile Joined July 2009
United States3733 Posts
December 24 2010 02:17 GMT
#15
1 - Give Zerglings an attack buff. This would make marines less useful, tanks more useful (especially if their damage was buffed), and they could be made to overkill, balancing the damage buff.
2 - Zergs need to stop expanding so soon all the time if they want to be less predictable
Wr3k
Profile Blog Joined June 2009
Canada2533 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-12-24 02:21:53
December 24 2010 02:17 GMT
#16
Zerg can pressure natural expo's no problem with roach/ling. Why are you attacking a 1-base P/T up a ramp when hes got wall/sentries?

P and T 1 base builds actually have a huge risk against a good player. If you don't do damage/force much spending, you are at a macro disadvantage and at risk of getting run over by a superior number of units. Also, you can't expect not to get destroyed by forcefield if you let him make 6 sentries and save energy the entire game.

IMO another crappy zerg whining thread.
freestalker
Profile Joined March 2010
469 Posts
December 24 2010 02:18 GMT
#17
On December 24 2010 11:09 JBrown08 wrote:
I think it honestly has more to do with the advantage zerg gains by not attacking. No other race has the ability to mass produce workers at will like zerg. So in strategy discussions most people agree that good zerg play revolves around making as many workers as possible.


while this may be true (that you can spam 10 drones at once) the fact still remains that often other races have more workers or higher income (go mules) than zerg, if zerg is under a bit of pressure. Chronoboost is in no way a 'slow' making of workers. Also zerg loses quite a bit of workers for buildings. (let's see.. you want that quick expo? you might as well need pool,hatch,prolly 4 extractors, and some static defense for starters.. that is, 8 workers down right off the bat. etc etc..)
MythicalMage
Profile Joined May 2010
1360 Posts
December 24 2010 02:18 GMT
#18
You CAN counterattack with roaches in the midgame. And don't forget the longer the game goes on, the more opportunities there are for counter since the Terran becomse more spread out with harder to defend expansions.
Krejven
Profile Joined August 2010
Sweden105 Posts
December 24 2010 02:19 GMT
#19
On December 24 2010 11:11 FlamingTurd wrote:
Right because GSL is the only tournament around. Anyway taking Nestea and fruitdealer the winning % of Z in all of them was like 25%. Every tournament besides them besides a few total have been mostly T wins and a few P. Look at the stats. Also check out the trend of S. Korean proportion of races in top 200, pretty sad.


Is the problem the proportion of races or are we talking about balance here? Sure there might be alot of terrans in the ladder, but it has been like that since the start.

I just took a look at the global rank and voila, nr 4 place a zerg with 3,576 points, only about 40 points behind the nr 1 player.
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
MythicalMage
Profile Joined May 2010
1360 Posts
December 24 2010 02:20 GMT
#20
On December 24 2010 11:18 freestalker wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 24 2010 11:09 JBrown08 wrote:
I think it honestly has more to do with the advantage zerg gains by not attacking. No other race has the ability to mass produce workers at will like zerg. So in strategy discussions most people agree that good zerg play revolves around making as many workers as possible.


while this may be true (that you can spam 10 drones at once) the fact still remains that often other races have more workers or higher income (go mules) than zerg, if zerg is under a bit of pressure. Chronoboost is in no way a 'slow' making of workers. Also zerg loses quite a bit of workers for buildings. (let's see.. you want that quick expo? you might as well need pool,hatch,prolly 4 extractors, and some static defense for starters.. that is, 8 workers down right off the bat. etc etc..)

With MULEs a Terran can't even match a Zerg regularly making workers with larva inject. Especially since Zerg is almost always up a base or three. Regardless, the guy's point was correct, most of the time. While agressive( read creative) players like Kyrix can be aggressive, and win quite a lot, most players (read IdrA/Artosis) like to sit back and make as few units as possible.
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