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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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;)
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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....
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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.
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its because they can wall off a tiny choke on the high ground, so they can defend with very little.
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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.
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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.
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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".
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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
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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.
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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..)
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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.
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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.
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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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On December 24 2010 11:17 0neder wrote:
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
I take a little issue with your second statement. Terran players like to say that they have to pressure with 2 raxs because the zerg player expos early. When in reality this happens to be a little disingenuous.
If a zerg doesn't expo early and Terran does the same push; it is doubly effective. You just don't have the creep spread/larva to defend effectively. People automatically assume the expo is just for the early resources, when in reality the value is the extra larva. You don't have to saturate right away if pressure is comming. You also will benefit from having the expo at the natural when you defend instead of building it in base.
Now against toss it is a different story, and I highly doubt every zerg 14 hatches against toss on every map.
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On December 24 2010 11:05 Krejven 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 Yeah I also get sick that Terran got 66,66% of the GSL wins while Zerg got 0%. oh wait....
Yea 2 former brood war progamers stomping everyone else proves balance. How many of the final 4 in the last 3 GSLs have been Terran btw??
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On December 24 2010 11:31 SubtleArt wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2010 11:05 Krejven wrote: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.... Yea 2 former brood war progamers stomping everyone else proves balance. How many of the final 4 in the last 3 GSLs have been Terran btw??
Statistics like that don't mean anything. The sample size and skill differential is too great. The game is far more based on skill than on balance, as shown by FruitDealer.
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On December 24 2010 11:31 SubtleArt wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2010 11:05 Krejven wrote: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.... Yea 2 former brood war progamers stomping everyone else proves balance. How many of the final 4 in the last 3 GSLs have been Terran btw??
Doesn't it? Two good zerg players came and "stomped" all competition shows that the class most people said could not win had great potential.
Where have we seen this before? Oh yes one of the greatest players in bw history, boxer, came in as an underdog playing Terran (which most people said was UP) and changed the way terran played the game.
Now one can consider how long after Starcraft broodwar had been released this happend? How long have SC2 been out? a few months, that's it.
Edit: GSL is the biggest tournament with the most skill and should there for be valued higher than American and European tournaments where only a few selected "pros" (who most of them can't even manage to qualify to GSL) attend.
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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.
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On December 24 2010 11:45 morimacil wrote:
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.
I'm not so sure that Zerg doesn't have the opportunities...I think that we will see more aggressive zerg play as the game develops-- right now we are all just finding what is safest and what leads to the most wins, and for zerg players that is the reactionary macro game. I'm sure the macro game will remain strong (although it will undoubtedly develop more), but I think we will see more aggressive strategies as well as people experiment-- not to mention changes from future patches/expansions.
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Its hard to counterattack the oppenent's base as zerg but its very easy to mop up fleeing troops with speedlings and take a massive economic advantage to punish early game pressure. When I first started playing whenever I beat back an attack I'd conter with speedling roach and do nothing but pump troops that die in vain trying to crush the oppenent's defenses. This didn't work of course but as soon as I learned to mop up the attackers and use my remaining troops to spot and switch to econ, my zerg game flourished.
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this is why i go so heavy muta in ZvT
i find counterattacking with muta is so much more effective because:
- muta are fast as hell
- you can get right up inside his base and pick off reinforcements as they come out
- can break a wall much easier since you have high ground vision
- cant be hit by tanks and PFs which wreck ground counterattacks
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This all goes back to how Zerg is slow as crap off creep outside of speedlings, and concussive shells/FF makes it very discouraging to even try to pressure with roaches.
However, this isn't really a big issue imo. 3 Hatch muta was the most common build in brood war, and there's rarely any sort of huge pressure besides when the Terran may try to break the sunken line. It was generally too unsafe to attempt it. Then your first real engagement is the Terran fending off mutas until science vessel. If anything, what makes early aggression so powerful for Terran is how good worker AI is for Terran which goes great with marines (melee+range) while Mules just make it even easier for Terran to maintain economy. Keep in mind that early aggression also existed in BW in the TvZ MU, it's just less all-in since you can't pull as many scvs and they don't fight as well.
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what fucking game are some of you people playing. no zerg units arn't good at attacking but you sure as hell can punish T/P for having no army. I've lost count the amount of early aggression i've dealt with then got to there base and just completly smashed right through their defences "never would have tryed with a full strengh army their"
Zerg arn't supposed to be aggressive their supposed to defend,defend then defend some more then move out with superior numbers and reinforcements and crush your opponent,
Early game zerg units really arn't that cost effective but as the game progresses they become more and more cost effective. If you want a super aggressive race play protoss instead of making stupid posts
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On December 24 2010 12:22 TrANCE, wrote:
what fucking game are some of you people playing. no zerg units arn't good at attacking but you sure as hell can punish T/P for having no army. I've lost count the amount of early aggression i've dealt with then got to there base and just completly smashed right through their defences "never would have tryed with a full strengh army their"
Zerg arn't supposed to be aggressive their supposed to defend,defend then defend some more then move out with superior numbers and reinforcements and crush your opponent,
Early game zerg units really arn't that cost effective but as the game progresses they become more and more cost effective. If you want a super aggressive race play protoss instead of making stupid posts
Either you are very drunk, or very stupid. Your spelling is atrocious and your grammar is sub par. If your point is that zerg is not designed to be an aggressive race you could of articulated it in a number of different ways.
As of right now, I am unsure of what your actual point is. This is very confusing as if you read the thread you would of noticed my defense of the non-aggresive zerg player.
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I dunno, I've seen enough roach busts and baneling break-ins to realize that zerg has plenty of earlygame aggressive strategies.
However, the idea for protoss and terran aggression is that they force us to make units, rather than letting us do what we want to do. Protoss and Terran don't have to choose between the two, so it doesn't really have the same effect.
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blizzard put no thought into the zerg race and when zerg wins vs another race (besides zerg) its because the zerg player is inherently better there is no point making threads like this because they will go nowhere. Other races simply have better responses/counters to other units, for example vikings "counter" colli better than do corruptors due to their inherently longer range. not to mention, zerg isn't well... "zergy"--in sc2, you get 200 food way to quick as day9 said to beat a 200 protoss army you need a 300 zerg army (when your units die you immediately are full again b/c 4-6 base w/ constant larva injects) and in BW a 70food zerg army was equivalent to like a 100 food toss army. In other words: zerg is too exploitable it doesn't have answers to early game pressure lings are shit when compared to BW, which allowed for zerg to end a lot of early game pressure as it stands zerg doesn't have an answer and most likely won't zerg is starting from behind as soon as the game starts and has to jump ahead and capitalize on their opponent's mistakes. a continuation of the the "starting from behind" with this being said, it is easier for terran/protoss to "checkmate" so to speak zerg, lets say a protoss opens 2 stargate phoenix (then expand) - with these they will pick off queens/overlords and force most likely hydras (Seeing corruptors are way too slow to catch them) then, now that the protoss controlled the zerg's tech path they are already tech switching to the protoss warpgate/colli deathball.
edit: also, allins in sc2 are made way too powerful by warpgate/chronoboost/mules
mules = around 5 workers
warpgate = insta reinforcements
chronoboost = allows insanely fast tech (4gate allins, blink stalker allin etc)
when these are compared to larva inject, only during the late game does larva inject seem "op" due to zergs being able to "throw units" at the problem, however, by that time in the game the zerg was most likely not contained and given a free ticket to expand-land, which is only the terran/protosses fault
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It was already like this back in BW. The difference is that in SC2 T and P almost always 1-base. In BW, Terrans would generally 1 rax CC and Protosses would FE stargate...
I remember some PvZ's by Stork in which he 1-based, and Zergs didn't get much freedom to counter too, because ramps are so strong.
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On December 24 2010 11:25 JBrown08 wrote:
If a zerg doesn't expo early and Terran does the same push; it is doubly effective. You just don't have the creep spread/larva to defend effectively. People automatically assume the expo is just for the early resources, when in reality the value is the extra larva. You don't have to saturate right away if pressure is comming. You also will benefit from having the expo at the natural when you defend instead of building it in base.
You know, I've been wondering about that. Especially given how Zergs no longer need as much gas as quickly as in Brood War, wouldn't an in-base second hatch provide the necessary larva supply while being a lot more defensible?
I've never played Zerg 1 vs 1, so I wouldn't begin to know if this is feasible, but it always seemed reasonable to me.
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On December 24 2010 12:41 Fanatic-Templar wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2010 11:25 JBrown08 wrote:
If a zerg doesn't expo early and Terran does the same push; it is doubly effective. You just don't have the creep spread/larva to defend effectively. People automatically assume the expo is just for the early resources, when in reality the value is the extra larva. You don't have to saturate right away if pressure is comming. You also will benefit from having the expo at the natural when you defend instead of building it in base. You know, I've been wondering about that. Especially given how Zergs no longer need as much gas as quickly as in Brood War, wouldn't an in-base second hatch provide the necessary larva supply while being a lot more defensible? I've never played Zerg 1 vs 1, so I wouldn't begin to know if this is feasible, but it always seemed reasonable to me.
It is applicable in certain circumstances, but honestly you gain no defensive capabilities from it. So in the end you are better placing it at your natural so that you can use it later. I have tried many hatch in base strats, and I've even seen IdrA go ramp hatch on Scrap Station against QXC in the EG Master Cup after an expo block, and it that case it makes sense. You should not always early expo, but when you face that pressure you always need that larva.,....and the creep spread also helps so the logical choice is your natural.
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you know...its not like protoss and terran just magically get armies early. They commit to an early attack and invest in it, its just as easy to decide to make a bunch of zerglings early and roll
The issue mainly comes with"standard"comfortable play. Most zerg, for obvious reasons, want to develop a strong early economy. Being attacked early is uncomfortable and annoying.
Terran and protoss, however, have early strategies that revolve around getting some sort of units. So scouting early aggression just means making more units.
Zerg, on the other hand, feel as if their game is being disrupted so the reaction is more vocal because zerg just done want early units most of the time.
Also, as far as the effectiveness of early units is concerned, if everybody started out with marines then this would not be the game we all love
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I think this really only pertains to TvZ. You can definitely take the fight to Protoss once ling speed is up.
Against terrans, there are a number of factors in play. The ease of wall-off (with burrowable depots and easy ling-tight walls) makes ling aggression non-existant. Lack of range early ensures that you can't harrass a wall. Bunkers are now salvageable, so static-D isn't really much of an investment. Siege tanks make your short range units (all of them) terrible in chokes.
Lastly, and most importantly, the marine. In Broodwar, you couldn't move out with your first few marines, because they weren't cost-effective against lings (even without speed, I believe). The attack animation of SC2 marines is really, really fast, and enables them to move-shoot very effectively. Effectively enough that you can be extraordinarily cost-effective against slow lings. Once speedlings are out, you remain cost-effective, due to the size of the marine force that's been massed. There isn't really a reason to stay in your base with the marines. Simiarly, terran late-game is considered weak, so terran players are inclined to be aggressive early in hopes of winning quickly.
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This thread reminds me of a zerg style I tried to implement back when I was starting to play. I tried to open with a baneling bust, and then if that didn't win I'd take whatever damage I could inflict and then sprint drones until I could reach the next tier of attacking units, such as muta, and while they are harassing I could finish droning and take my 3rd, basically alternating between heavy army and drone production during each timing attack.
What eventually happened was that I realized the only way these attacks could ever be useful is if I did guaranteed damage to the mineral line. If you try and make a bunch of army so that you can hold off an attack and counter attack after, you are pretty much going all-in. This is because the other races can afford to produce workers while they pressure; if zerg pressure wants to accomplish anything, they have to cut drones which means if that pressure fails to deliver then the zerg is very far behind. If early aggression only ends up killing a few marines or buildings, a macroing player will stomp you. There is so much more risk for early aggression as zerg than there is for terran or toss, that's part of design and why I think you're not very likely to see early zerg aggression very often. A good example of this was watching Kyrix vs. Foxer in whatever GSL season they battled, foxer could afford to send in sooo many marines and kyrix gradually ran out of steam because he couldn't keep up that aggression without cutting his drones and putting a time limit on his own game. Terran, on the other hand, is obviously designed for early aggression because MULE makes up for cutting scv production.
TL;DR: Zerg can force itself to mass produce units at almost any point in the game, even early game, but the reason they usually wait is so that they can do this with their top tier units instead of drawing the line at their first tier and hoping to inflict serious damage with it (unlikely, due to the weakness of zerg early tier compared to other races). It is less due to lack of creativity than it is due to personal interpretation of game mechanics and how they were intended by the developers to function for each race, IMO.
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that is the price of taking an early expansion. when protoss nexus before gateway early roaches are ferocious and there is no way to deal with them except well placed cannons that get sniped very easily by 5-6 roaches. if you don't have plans to throw down an early hatchery all of a sudden these "blind" rushes become instant death..
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I'm not either actually and obviously my e button on my phone is playing up and ov typing on a phone. It's a post on a thread about sc2 not a English exam, I'm not saying anything about your posts.
My answer was obviously aimed at the thread creator or have you hijacked this thread now? answering every post with a reply...It's all well and good being a theorcrafter on TL but i'm giving you the answer from a 2700+ Zerg player on Eu,Na prospective, take it as you will
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On December 24 2010 10:55 Zephirdd wrote:
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.
Yeah, but CatZ isn't that amazing of a player. I know it makes me sound like a dick, but it's true. He's never gotten any real tournament results (or even top 5 placement) and the Zergs that have don't play like him, yet they're much more successful.
Note: I'm not saying he's bad by any means, he's just not AS good. It's also worth noting the main reason his strategies are sometimes successful is because no one expects them, not because they're very powerful. If they became more mainstream they wouldn't work.
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On December 24 2010 13:13 TrANCE, wrote:
I'm not either actually and obviously my e button on my phone is playing up and ov typing on a phone. It's a post on a thread about sc2 not a English exam, I'm not saying anything about your posts.
My answer was obviously aimed at the thread creator or have you hijacked this thread now? answering every post with a reply...It's all well and good being a theorcrafter on TL but i'm giving you the answer from a 2700+ Zerg player on Eu,Na prospective, take it as you will
Well let me personally apologize to you good sir. I meant no offense if that is the state of your phone at the present time. It was merely a misunderstanding and I hope in the future no such occurence occurs.
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On December 24 2010 12:56 KillerPlague wrote:
that is the price of taking an early expansion. when protoss nexus before gateway early roaches are ferocious and there is no way to deal with them except well placed cannons that get sniped very easily by 5-6 roaches. if you don't have plans to throw down an early hatchery all of a sudden these "blind" rushes become instant death..
I may not understand this part of the game well, but as a zerg on one base can't you only produce at most 7 units every 45 seconds? and to keep up with the economy of a protoss or Terran doesn't about half of those need to be drones? To me any one base play from zerg would seem like an all-in and a weak one at that. I always thought the point of the early hatch as zerg was to boost your larvae count, and since you are building another base to do this, it might as well be at the expansion. IMO the reason zerg lack any T1 aggressive options that are not easily countered and basically all in is the lack of a valuable T1 ranged unit that actually has the range to effectively shoot wall ins.
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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
Building a hatch inside main instead of the nat accomplishes what? It's not about predictability, it's about necessity. If I see a zerg hatch in his main I can pretty much guarantee a GG as long as I don't blunder. The only thing you can do off of 1 base is baneling bust or roach push, which can both be easily stopped.
1 base is even more predictable because it limits your options. If I don't see a quick Z expo I can just fortify my ramp, and the longer he waits to expand the better it is for me.
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On December 24 2010 11:33 MythicalMage wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2010 11:31 SubtleArt wrote:On December 24 2010 11:05 Krejven wrote: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.... Yea 2 former brood war progamers stomping everyone else proves balance. How many of the final 4 in the last 3 GSLs have been Terran btw?? Statistics like that don't mean anything. The sample size and skill differential is too great. The game is far more based on skill than on balance, as shown by FruitDealer.
Actually i think your being a bit deluded and didn't weigh in the facts of the matter..
Fruitdealer TOTALLY dominated BETA he was the zerg to watch.. He was A FAV going into GSL 1 it wasn't like some magical poney ride where everything came together with pixy dust, he dominated beta was the leader in developing zerg stratergys but now zerg has been pushed to a certain boundry it is very hard to see the next step.
He even said himself hes very great at games when they firstcome out.
This game really has a huge skill element at it but when it starts reaching the top level balance starts having a good say in the outcome.
Unlike BW you can't just "outmacro" cyborg mode the other opponent which was a blunt way to show who was better, now you have to with each race play a certain way with a larger degree of the luck element then in BW (Obviously this is a drastic oversimplification i know how much skill was involved in broodwar in all aspects just pointing out that in the modern broodwar era that Macro was the distinct way of sorting the cream from the custard)
Also some of the idiotic things done by blizzard.. such as delaying the "wall ramp off" patch .
Buffing protoss when statistically they rape terran and hold there own against zerg.
Sorry for pointing this out just i feel that its a bit of a joke that this is actually a viable stratergy and even if you pool first you will be fucked, mabye im still but i dont recall something in BW that made you like automatically 50% or more likely to lose then before simply by 200/350 minerals
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In my experience as a 1900 Terran, Zergs will typically harass with mutalisks, and follow up with a baneling/zergling attack (or some variation depending on your opponent's composition, and how hard they're turtling).
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I generally play a very aggressive zerg style. I usually start with early ling pressure but that's usually denied because of a wall off. If there isn't a wall off then I usually will win with that early pressure.
Depending on what my oppenents are doing I usually will go roach/hydra or muta ling/bling in mid game. Muta harrass is always a good aggressive strategy. If you do attack a turtling toss with Roach/Hydra then bring a couple overseers so you can attack easily from there ramp and break the wall. But against terran its very hard to break through a turtling terran, your going to have to harrass with what you can whether its a nydus in the main, zerglings burrowed in expos, muta harrass. Sometimes infestors work very well as long as you didn't go with mutas, most of the time they wont have turrets in expos so infested terrans will work pretty well. Against terran you have to take any advantage you can.
In late game it usually will just become my army vs your army situation and who ever wins that will win the game usually. Just make sure you have stayed a step ahead of the terrans units and countered them correctly.
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If I quash an early attack by the terran and still have zerglings left over then what happens next is not so nice for the terran. Even though zerg cannot directly counterattack it is still not smart for terran to loose his entire army so early because then I feel safe to pump 7 drones with my next larvae cycle. By the time the terran player gets enough of an army to attack again I'll have even more zerglings. Sc2 zerg is not an aggressive race. The way a zerg player can be aggressive is by building drones. The more drones a zerg player has, the more aggressive he can be at tier 2.
For protoss it's the same way. If his initial attack fails then I feel safe enough to pump 7 drones and then some. I can then use these to put up some static defense at my natural if I don't feel safe later on.
I do feel that both terran and protoss players have tricks that are very hard to fight off as a zerg player.
When terrans attack early it is usually accompanied by scvs. This type of attack is not done because people know that zerg don't have a way to counterattack. This attack is done because in addition to being an aggressive move, it is also an economic move. Even if terrans are down 4 scvs, in a low economy situation the terran player will always come out on top with the mule. This is the reason we see so much early terran aggression. As they say, you can kill 2 birds with one stone be aggressive and come out with a better economy than your opponent.
As protoss the pylon wall is really effective because there's nothing much that a zerg player can do against it once the pylons start building. If you pull drones as a zerg player you may be able to kill the pylon before it finishes making, but it's a small chance because you can't even halfway surround the pylon. If protoss places a cannon there and zerg has fast hatched it almost always has to be cancelled. If zerg went pool first, then zerg still suffers because it forces zerg to make units to take out the pylon and cannon instead of making drones. It also causes the hatchery to go down later.
Zerg lacks the ability to make moves such as this where there's very little opportunity cost to doing such moves and only hurts you if you fail.
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zerg has many aggressive strategies, the reason zerg players are so defensive i think is because its soooooooo much easier to defend than it is to attack as zerg because if you dont deal a ton of damage your army gets crapped on and you dont have the economy that you SHOULD have.
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On December 24 2010 12:56 KillerPlague wrote:
that is the price of taking an early expansion. when protoss nexus before gateway early roaches are ferocious and there is no way to deal with them except well placed cannons that get sniped very easily by 5-6 roaches. if you don't have plans to throw down an early hatchery all of a sudden these "blind" rushes become instant death..
Roach rushing off of one hatch like that is usually all-in or at least cheesy. Zerg needs an extra hatch for larva (to make lots of units to attack with), and many times there is almost no advantage to making it an inbase hatch. It's not like zerglings work well with ramps or anything.
A Nexus does not make zealots or stalkers. It really isn't that comparable and gives the impression that you don't know how zerg works at all in comparison to the other races.
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On December 24 2010 11:05 Krejven 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 Yeah I also get sick that Terran got 66,66% of the GSL wins while Zerg got 0%. oh wait....
I just want to point out what a stupid, flawed argument this is.
A. More terran players have advanced than zerg players (I believe)
B. This is over a series of patch and balance changes.
C. Terran players have made all 3 finals (as opposed to 2 zerg players)
D. A sample pool of 3 series is pretty fucking awful for setting up a confidence interval.
E. There are lots of more flaws, but come on terran players who are crying for imbalance - if you want to complain about it, use better examples than this. At least try to support your argument.
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Zerg have a lot of options for early aggression, which is making it very hard for the enemy to expand freely without the expansion getting sniped by a horde of roaches or a swarm of zerglings. Oh, and don't forget banelings rolling into your base, blowing up the wall. Yes, a wall denies most attacks on the main base, but with aggressive play you can keep him on this one base until you have T2. A Terran can't attack a Wall at equal strength before T2 either (though at T2 Terrans and Protoss can abuse it if the enemy walled off, which is why most don't wall in TvP/PvT, but at T1 a wall works even against terrans and protoss).
At T2 Zerg can do very strong drops - which are IMHO far underused - and nydus worms are always an option, too. There is nothing more fun than dropping a ball of roaches and hydras into his base, sniping a few buildings, loading all units back into overlords and flying away before he can put up a fight. Carpet-Bombing is also a strong option, it's like a Reaver-Shuttle without the need to drop and load the Reaver all the time. Sneak-attacks with burrowed roaches and infestors are also very dangerous if the enemy lacks detection. Last but not least for T2, mutalisks can be devastating if used correctly, forcing the enemy to go Thor/Marine(/Hellion), just so you can drop a lot of lings and banelings on him.
At T3 you have broodlords and ultralisks (though usually not at the same time), and each of those two units can wreck any defense with the right support.
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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
GSL 1 + 2 when zerg were considered the weak race, zerg are fine so stfu and stop spreading the crap please.
L2P ISSUE.
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On December 24 2010 16:31 Boxxer 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 GSL 1 + 2 when zerg were considered the weak race, zerg are fine so stfu and stop spreading the crap please. L2P ISSUE.
Zerg was at it's weakest in GSL1, and at it's strongest in GSL 2, before people adjusted to the Zerg buffs.
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On December 24 2010 11:20 MythicalMage wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2010 11:18 freestalker wrote: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.
Balance QQ, oh how I love thee.
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I just believe the current problem is the map pool. If you had such small maps in BW, I'm fairly sure the same situation (or roughly the same) would happen (although lings are better in BW if i'm not wrong - never really played it unfortunately but i still watch quite a bit of it).
With bigger, more macro-oriented maps, cheesy rushes automatically become way more dangerous although not impossible.
But yeah, it also doesn't help that T and P just HAVE to do units since they can't produce that many workers at once, while zergs simply tend to overdrone believing they can crap out an army of equal force in a single round of larvaes. At least I tend to do that, and even quite a lot of top players I see in tournaments do that as well.
[Edit] Small addition about the whole GSL1 and 2 thing, just have a look at the statistics - yes 2 zergs won but they clearly outplayed their opponents both times, has nothing to do with balance. Just like GSL3 winner outplayed his opponent big time. IF you want to talk about statistics, just have a look at the number of P/Z players in ro16-ro8 in all seasons and compare them to T, I haven't done it myself but at least then you'll have a better argument.
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On December 24 2010 11:17 Wr3k wrote:
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.
Terran and Toss can quite easily wall off or at least get a good choke with two bases on a number of 1v1 maps, including Scrap, Shakuras, LT, DQ, Blistering, etc. Xel'Naga caverns is really one of the only few 1v1 maps where zerg can effectively harass enemy expansions, which is the reason it's so popular.
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early zerg aggression is so easily countered by a half decent player. And so easily scouted, if your going one base and havent womped an expo its obvious somethings up.
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Well simply put zerg is a macro race, very strong late game because of the ability to easily trade armies, that's what you have to play for, if you don't like it then swap races.
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Terran are allowed to do this sort of stuff, because in the current metagame, 99.99% of zergs are like hypnotized and want to have a mAcRoGaM3. So terrans/protosses know they are safe for the first 15 minutes of the game, so you will obviously see some strange tactics when one race use economic cheese in 99.99% of his games.
The amusing thing is : if you 1 rax, the zerg will not make units, and so he'll have the same very hard time to defend your early 5 marines "push" than he'll have to defend a 2 raxes.
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We can't? we have roaches. But people are too nerdy about their first larvae to spend them on attacking units, which may or may not succeed. Also, loosing 10 marines and 5 scvs in a bunker rush is a big loss, unless u killed like 30 lings or a hatch etc. I know that it hurts ur eco a bit, but here u have it!
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Zerg has no early game options. You can win by surprising someone with a lame rush or hidden tech (a lame opponent who cant scout baneling bust), but anyone using their race fully is immune to zerg attacks.
Your job, as zerg, is to fast expand without dying, and then outproduce and outexpand your opponent. If you are really good you also put feelers everywhere on the map so you know exactly what your opponent is doing. Then you just constantly reproduce whatever you lose.
The hard part is the very first thing, fast expand without dying. There are just so many different flavours of early aggression and no way to scout them reliably. 1 rax with a bunker at the front could mean 2rax all in or a banshee rush, and there's no way to find out early enough without attacking and losing some potential economy, or throwing away an overlord.
So if it's a close position map and you can't 14 hatch, you're gonna have to pull some 1base shenanigans in order to expand early. Balanced or not, that's how it is. It frustates me a lot sometimes and it seems like I have no easy answer to their easy attack, which is basically a guaranteed advantage vs fast expand, unless they horribly horribly fail.
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I hope I now understood your post right;).
If you ask me it is cool that zerg are probably not designed for serious early agression except for all ins. Because you can play the defensive Swarm and if someone stirrs your calm you can attack him like an angry bee swarm and crush them all;)
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On December 24 2010 18:38 darkscream wrote:
Zerg has no early game options. You can win by surprising someone with a lame rush or hidden tech (a lame opponent who cant scout baneling bust), but anyone using their race fully is immune to zerg attacks.
Your job, as zerg, is to fast expand without dying, and then outproduce and outexpand your opponent. If you are really good you also put feelers everywhere on the map so you know exactly what your opponent is doing. Then you just constantly reproduce whatever you lose.
The hard part is the very first thing, fast expand without dying. There are just so many different flavours of early aggression and no way to scout them reliably. 1 rax with a bunker at the front could mean 2rax all in or a banshee rush, and there's no way to find out early enough without attacking and losing some potential economy, or throwing away an overlord.
So if it's a close position map and you can't 14 hatch, you're gonna have to pull some 1base shenanigans in order to expand early. Balanced or not, that's how it is. It frustates me a lot sometimes and it seems like I have no easy answer to their easy attack, which is basically a guaranteed advantage vs fast expand, unless they horribly horribly fail.
You just described how Zerg is supposed to be played, I don't understand why it sounds strange to you that Zerg work this way, your not supposed to get an easy ride to late game.
QQ I'm a Zerg and I have the strongest late game but I also want the strongest early game as well 
That's all Zerg sounds like in this thread TBH, I wish people would stop whining all the time and just play the damn game instead, if Zerg spent more time spreading the creep instead of spending all their time spreading the crap I'm sure they'll be a lot better at this game.
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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
yepp like gsl 1 and 2
You fail to realise that if terran and protoss does not put pressure on the zerg, he can expand and A move your base while laughing at your economy.
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early full out pressure against a zerg = not a well guarded easy for 6 lings to slip in ramp. Think they can annoy the eco line enough.
And in bw, yes zerg was aggressiv first with 9 pool etc, they throw out 6 lings and keep the terran contained in his base. That kinda changed as terrans moved out with a single vulture to snipe drones and lings. And even before as a terran you learned get your 2 medics maybe a firebat as well and then move to the zerg. And zerg had to put up sunkens in time or would instantly lose.
Also you needed a few lings also.
If you see sc2. A zerg doesn't even have to build lings, because he can have so many larva he can instantly produce an well sized army. The neglection of getting spines or roaches to early makes it easier for the other races to simply run over zergs, but even if their lings get destroyed by the opponents unit combo, they have good chances of staying in game.
Thats something i dislike at the game atm, that a zerg is unpunished for a fe, even if you get spines you can use these later at your third to prevent harassment. I may be wrong on this one though.
I liked at bw that you only needed to go out to your enemys base and he will build 2 sunkens and you did your damage and you can simply move back. Now i always have to fear that i will lose my marines on the retreat, because they are slow and weak to lings (even with micro).
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Australia326 Posts
On December 24 2010 12:37 majestouch wrote:
blizzard put no thought into the zerg race and when zerg wins vs another race (besides zerg) its because the zerg player is inherently better there is no point making threads like this because they will go nowhere.
-snip-
a continuation of the the "starting from behind" with this being said, it is easier for terran/protoss to "checkmate" so to speak zerg, lets say a protoss opens 2 stargate phoenix (then expand) - with these they will pick off queens/overlords and force most likely hydras (Seeing corruptors are way too slow to catch them) then, now that the protoss controlled the zerg's tech path they are already tech switching to the protoss warpgate/colli deathball.
edit: also, allins in sc2 are made way too powerful by warpgate/chronoboost/mules
mules = around 5 workers
warpgate = insta reinforcements
chronoboost = allows insanely fast tech (4gate allins, blink stalker allin etc)
when these are compared to larva inject, only during the late game does larva inject seem "op" due to zergs being able to "throw units" at the problem, however, by that time in the game the zerg was most likely not contained and given a free ticket to expand-land, which is only the terran/protosses fault
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Absolute garbage. You actually believe all this, especially the bolded?
Mules and chronoboost are the respective abilities which allow T/P to keep up with the potential economy (note, potential) advantage of Z (drone production). It's very misleading when you take things out of context and use it to frame your argument.
Other random things like... corruptors are slower than hydras?
The funniest bit is you blame T/P for letting Z get to the late game (in your last sentence), yet you condemn early pressure/ all-ins.
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You could say literally the exact same thing about protoss or terran...
It seems you're looking at this only from zerg's perspective.
Also it seems you're unfamiliar with the fact that zerglings are now faster than god and can counter attack extremely easily...
On some large maps speedlings can counterattack, kill all workers at one base and then be back to defend the attack before any damage was done (if they move out at the same time)
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early 2 base allows zerg to play a game of attrition against the pressure put on them. T and P have to put early pressure on zerg because it's extremely difficult for them to keep up with Z end game. Spine crawlers are very strong against t1 units and creep spread from that second base allows zerg to reach choke points and deploy spine crawlers to support troops with shorter ranges.
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As unfair as it might sound, Once you have your speedlings in your enemies base his economy is doomed if he has no infantry near.
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I think these protoss wall-offs ae ridiculously powerful. The protoss then fast expands with a forge and builds one cannon at your choke to protect the pylons. You have to sit on one base against 2 bases for such a long time that it's already gg in the most cases. Just go ahead and watch FruitDealer against HongUn. Especially if Toss rolls you over with some of these weird 2 base unit compositions you can't do a shit.
What to do against it? - The bad solution: FE with a patroling drone at your choke, the better solution: doinf the opening JulyZerg does, 14gas 14 pool. You don't get your economy up that quickly but you at least stay in the game.
I think there's more hope against terran, since banelings own marines pretty larvae efficiently and oyu can produce more drones. But I also think terran all-ins are way to powerful, you simply don't know when it's coming and SCVs are stronger than drones and marines are ranged, if it fails no prob, he got MULEs to push or to build up again.
I also don't think that terran is at a disadvantage late game against Zerg. I think Jinro shuts all the naysayers up. Ever played metalopolis agianst a decent terran? - He cuts the map in half (late game meta favors terran) and steamrolls all your hatches while you cant basetrade against these fortified terran positions.
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Im terran and I get rolled by zerg all the time. Cant see what the fuzz is about xD
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On December 24 2010 10:50 morimacil wrote:
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.
If you beat an early attack that is your queue to start maintaining map control and hopefully expand, no? 
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On December 24 2010 11:05 Krejven 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 Yeah I also get sick that Terran got 66,66% of the GSL wins while Zerg got 0%. oh wait....
http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/sc2-international/individual-leagues
Because three individual games (the finals) out of thousands played on a top of level matters?
Seriously, I don't feel the imbalance when I'm playing but it's so very, very obvious that choosing Terran gives you a huge advantage if you're going for a successful SC2-career while going Zerg is a huge disadvantage.
Zerg hasn't won since October the 25th in the European and American tournaments monitored by Teamliquid. It blows my mind how anyone can call this game balanced or even worse - call Zerg OP.
EDIT: And click the god damn link, look at the ******* statistics. Arguing with Terran players is like arguing with god damn creationists.
I'm so frustrated, I don't see how people can focus on such a small sample as the GSL winners, I don't see how people can focus on their own experiences from playing the game because it's STUPID. Statistics don't lie - and these statistics are overwhelmingly clear.
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If you beat an early attack that is your queue to start maintaining map control and hopefully expand, no?
Lots of posts like this saying "you can macro!"
And indeed, we can. Im not saying zerg lacks the ability to macro, quite the opposite in fact.
Its just that if for example, a terran plays against a protoss opponent, and wins an engagement, he then has the ability to use that advantage to attack, expand, or tech. Same thing for toss.
For zerg however, its just expand or tech, at least until really late in the game.
Im not asking for advice on how to play a macro game. Im asking if you think its fun to only have that option, if terrans and protoss think its fun to not have to worry about being attacked until they take their third, and if you think that in the long run, the games will be most exciting to watch when everyone knows what the zerg is going to try and do long in advance.
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I think maybe we will get some more options with the next Game expansion, but for the duration of WoL i think zerg players must accept that we are just not the race to attack early.
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On December 24 2010 19:32 -orb- wrote:
You could say literally the exact same thing about protoss or terran...
It seems you're looking at this only from zerg's perspective.
Also it seems you're unfamiliar with the fact that zerglings are now faster than god and can counter attack extremely easily...
On some large maps speedlings can counterattack, kill all workers at one base and then be back to defend the attack before any damage was done (if they move out at the same time)
or you can make a zealot and all those zerglings are now useless
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The problem isnt that zerg doesnt have an option to counter attack, its that their hatch first builds dont so terran and protoss have learnt to exploit this. Opting for the 11 pool 18 hatch build which is proven to be just as economical as a 15 hatch 14 pool allows the zerg to completely crush and bunker antics and take the momentum of the game in their favor. Even if you cant bust the terrans front just posing a presence will stop the terran from expanding without feeling he needs a huge army first. And if they dont wait until they have a huge army you are already in a position to punish him for moving down his ramp.
It is far from the truth that zerg cant counterattack, its just the current builds zergs are attempting to abuse aka. hatch first, cannot counter attack effectively but they do not really need to counter attack because they are already gaining an advantage in fast expanding, so in actual fact the pressure terran and protoss pile on is the only thing they can do to keep even as they cannot expand so fast and be so safe once zergs economy kicks in.
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It's simply because the other 2 races get's stomped if they don't make any kind of timed attack vs zerg that will have an impact on the zerg economy which is really early allready pumping out drones and their early tier being fairly cost effective ( more so then protoss imo , but that is another discussion ) .
To be honest if ur protoss and u go for a fast expansion build don't u expect urself to be vulnerable at least a bit !? . You really shouldn't be suprised if u go for an early hatchery build and ur opponent decides maximum aggresion build that u will lose a lot to the guy who goes for maximum aggression . Spine Crawlers are also the best early game unit errrmmm cannon but they are so good that they are like human towers in war 3 , which also were considered units ( lol ) .
Spine Crawlers shouldn't require only a spawning pool in the first place but an evolution chamber . It cost Protoss also a forge to start making cannons . Cannons and Spine crawlers are remotely around the same cost , difference being u can move Spine Crawlers .
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On December 24 2010 21:01 IdrA wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2010 19:32 -orb- wrote:
You could say literally the exact same thing about protoss or terran...
It seems you're looking at this only from zerg's perspective.
Also it seems you're unfamiliar with the fact that zerglings are now faster than god and can counter attack extremely easily...
On some large maps speedlings can counterattack, kill all workers at one base and then be back to defend the attack before any damage was done (if they move out at the same time) or you can make a zealot and all those zerglings are now useless
The Master has spoken;).
He probably wasnt aware of the possibilty of just blocking the ramp;).
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On December 24 2010 21:07 Zacsafus wrote:
The problem isnt that zerg doesnt have an option to counter attack, its that their hatch first builds dont so terran and protoss have learnt to exploit this. Opting for the 11 pool 18 hatch build which is proven to be just as economical as a 15 hatch 14 pool allows the zerg to completely crush and bunker antics and take the momentum of the game in their favor. Even if you cant bust the terrans front just posing a presence will stop the terran from expanding without feeling he needs a huge army first. And if they dont wait until they have a huge army you are already in a position to punish him for moving down his ramp.
It is far from the truth that zerg cant counterattack, its just the current builds zergs are attempting to abuse aka. hatch first, cannot counter attack effectively but they do not really need to counter attack because they are already gaining an advantage in fast expanding, so in actual fact the pressure terran and protoss pile on is the only thing they can do to keep even as they cannot expand so fast and be so safe once zergs economy kicks in.
Not having early creep at the expo for a spine crawler is painful though. Marines are so strong versus slow lings and two rax pressure is really hard to hold off without a spine and with only one hatchery producing. Same thing with 14 gas 14 pool which one would expect to be the "safe" build.
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mmh I dont know I have my ling speed relatively soon even if I hatch first which I allmost allways do against terran. So I only have to worry about a few rines trying to get bunkers up with help of their SCV brethren. But that can ussually be stopped with a few drones.
Kinda think you are too greedy if you have probs with this early rine pressure.
Feels like if you expect it to come it isnt that hard to handle.
I do nonetheless hate these marine terrans;)
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On December 24 2010 21:12 Gigaudas wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2010 21:07 Zacsafus wrote:
The problem isnt that zerg doesnt have an option to counter attack, its that their hatch first builds dont so terran and protoss have learnt to exploit this. Opting for the 11 pool 18 hatch build which is proven to be just as economical as a 15 hatch 14 pool allows the zerg to completely crush and bunker antics and take the momentum of the game in their favor. Even if you cant bust the terrans front just posing a presence will stop the terran from expanding without feeling he needs a huge army first. And if they dont wait until they have a huge army you are already in a position to punish him for moving down his ramp.
It is far from the truth that zerg cant counterattack, its just the current builds zergs are attempting to abuse aka. hatch first, cannot counter attack effectively but they do not really need to counter attack because they are already gaining an advantage in fast expanding, so in actual fact the pressure terran and protoss pile on is the only thing they can do to keep even as they cannot expand so fast and be so safe once zergs economy kicks in. Not having early creep at the expo for a spine crawler is painful though. Marines are so strong versus slow lings and two rax pressure is really hard to hold off without a spine and with only one hatchery producing. Same thing with 14 gas 14 pool which one would expect to be the "safe" build. The problem is the zerg arsenal of units IMO.The roach is outrun by most terran/protoss units until you get the speed upg.The banelings a very terrible replacement for the lurker and etc.
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In some ways I can understand what your saying with the whole zerg has little to no attack in the beginning. But, that only becomes what your starting position is. Are you going early macro i.e 15 hatch? Are you going 6 pool. It really all depends on the setup. And Lings are the fastest unit in early game. Though they are easily killed and can be micro'd, you can micro back. Not to mention the amount of larva/units you can make plus the fact that banelings are right around the corner. If you are having trouble holding off the early attacks I suggest you not fast expand. Zerg can always apply pressure, especially as I stated before, the ling is the fastest unit. And they are cheap!! You can run around their base and make them spend their money just like they do to you. So, no I don't feel that anything drastic will be done to the zerg in order to make them more valuble and attack-heavy in early game. Zerg has always been the race that you have to work your ass off and struggle to survive in the begining. But in mid/late game its the complete other way around.
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QQ I'm a Zerg and I have the strongest late game but I also want the strongest early game as well
I'd willingly give up my "strongest late game" if it meant having viable early-game attack opportunities. The "way the Zerg is supposed to be played" sucks, plain and simple.
A race should not force such a constricting playstyle on players.
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well at my own experience i can beat my friends that are 26xx(zerg) and 2xxx(random) diamond with my offrace terra in a TvZ but i cant win as often with my mainrace Z (iam about 17xxdia right now).
Its retarded - 3 well positioned marines deny all scouting and then you have like 20 different allins you can go for as terran and each allin requires the zerg to have the perfect counters on the field. And even if you got the pefect unit mix to defend an allin you still need good micro. Lets say you microed perfect and have 10 lings left you cant do shit with them maybe you can kill some rocks but you arent able to harm your opponent in any way.
There are some gimmicky strats that can apply a lot of pressure but once your opponent scouted them its basically a freewin for your opponent if he knows whats coming. Also many early allins are counterd by standard builds e.g. every toss that dies to a roach rush is horrible - even if you didnt see that coming you should have at least 2 stalkers ready and can kill the 5-7 roaches with decent micro and pulling ~6 probes and you should come out ahead after it.
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United States1697 Posts
All you people saying that "LOL NO THOUGHT WAS PUT INTO ZERG DESIGN LOLOL" are just retarded sheep. Zerg early aggression would be literally unstoppable off double hatch, simply because of the way the larva mechanic works. Its also the same reason why units like mutas are not as cost effective as the counterparts in other races. When I make a stargate, I can only make 1 void ray every 60 (? not sure) seconds even if I have 100000 resources saved up. But once I make a Spire, the only limiting factor is the number of larva I have and the resources (mineral/gas) currently available. If mutas were too good as their cost, then muta rushes would simply be unstoppable, because of the production capacity that zergs have. Most competent zergs understand these concepts.Sure there may be some holes in ultra early game zerg defenses, but I dont buy this entire "lolol zerg cant attack" bullshit. If blizzard listened to your retards and made zerg an offensive race, they would surely compensate by nerfing your macro mechanics, and you will begin QQing again.
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On December 24 2010 19:32 -orb- wrote:
You could say literally the exact same thing about protoss or terran...
It seems you're looking at this only from zerg's perspective.
Also it seems you're unfamiliar with the fact that zerglings are now faster than god and can counter attack extremely easily...
On some large maps speedlings can counterattack, kill all workers at one base and then be back to defend the attack before any damage was done (if they move out at the same time)
Do you often leave your expansions entirely undefended? Because Zerglings are pretty bad at attacking things that can attack back. And good luck trying to snipe tech with Zerglings, as opposed to something that does damage like a Marine or Marauder drop. Which also, by the way, are able to get around that wall that will still be in place if your opponent is at all decent. Go ahead, attack a Zealot in a choke.
If you're going to QQ you might as well choose something that isn't a result of low skill.
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If you are having trouble holding off the early attacks I suggest you not fast expand. Zerg can always apply pressure, especially as I stated before, the ling is the fastest unit. And they are cheap!! You can run around their base and make them spend their money just like they do to you.
Im not having trouble with early attacks, but that isnt the point. I know how to defend, what Im talking about here isnt defending, its the fact that there is little else you can do than defend.
And I cant seem to run around a terran's base with lings, even though they are fast.
Mostly because just getting past the wall is a 700-350 investment in banelings, which is pretty gigantic in the early game.
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Yes but once again the topic is still the same. Protoss can 2 gate or 4 gate pressure or just send 3 stalkers at the begining of the match, where you can possibly have just 4 zerglings and mass droning if you didnt see this coming.
terran can 2 rax and put some pressure if theres close spawn positions in the map, plus some scvs to absorb dmg and throw down some bunkers.
YES zerg is allowed to drone so much, but, is that the only way to go? fast expanding or at least expand right after pool is a must for zerg nowadays, otherwise they will stomp you no matter what. Havent you never played against a noobie zerg that just takes the main with 2 spines and throws roach warren and lair? thats like getting a candy from a baby.
The problem is that speedlings do nothing against terran because of the wall off. Speedlings do nothing against protoss since theres a zealot guarding the entrance, and unless you want to waste 15 zerglings to go in, which i think no one did before, you cannot do anything.
Baneling bust is pretty bad if the opponent sees it comming, and it even leaves you worse than you did, cause you wasted units for nothing.
Roaches do nothing also in the early pressure. YES they can attack some protoss buildings if they forge+FE but you cannot destroy everything.
Is the "mass droning" an excuse for not being able to get fun at the begining of the matches? is a must to go muta everygame to be able to go throu that walloff of 2-4 mere units?? i think thats boring, and zerg is what i like.
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On December 24 2010 21:34 Piledriver wrote:
All you people saying that "LOL NO THOUGHT WAS PUT INTO ZERG DESIGN LOLOL" are just retarded sheep. Zerg early aggression would be literally unstoppable off double hatch, simply because of the way the larva mechanic works. Its also the same reason why units like mutas are not as cost effective as the counterparts in other races. When I make a stargate, I can only make 1 void ray every 60 (? not sure) seconds even if I have 100000 resources saved up. But once I make a Spire, the only limiting factor is the number of larva I have and the resources (mineral/gas) currently available. If mutas were too good as their cost, then muta rushes would simply be unstoppable, because of the production capacity that zergs have. Most competent zergs understand these concepts.Sure there may be some holes in ultra early game zerg defenses, but I dont buy this entire "lolol zerg cant attack" bullshit. If blizzard listened to your retards and made zerg an offensive race, they would surely compensate by nerfing your macro mechanics, and you will begin QQing again.
By the time you have a second hatch up and running it's not that early anymore. And Zerg tech is balanced by long build times and predictability.
And when you contradict yourself, by first saying that Zerg aggression would be too good if their units were good at attacking and then by saying that you don't buy that Zerg can't attack, you look like a fool. especially if you make sure to come across as an asshat in the first sentence.
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On December 24 2010 21:38 morimacil wrote:
And I cant seem to run around a terran's base with lings, even though they are fast.
Mostly because just getting past the wall is a 700-350 investment in banelings, which is pretty gigantic in the early game.
Err, each Baneling is 50/25, and it takes 5 to get through a depot. That's 250/125 in Banelings to get through the wall, unless they've walled with production buildings. 700/350 is 14 Banelings, way more than you should need just for the wall.
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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?
Yes, i absolutely believe that any early game attack made against zerg is perfect strategy at its best.
Do you think that this will be good for the game?
No i think this will just degrade the game untill heart of the swarm or legacy of the void. Effectively zerg are playing 3 quarters of a race where the only strategies that are effective come from the mid to late 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?
I certainly hope that changes to the zerg race in the expansions will help them get in some more early game "cheesy" openings that can win the game.
Do you perhaps think that some form of aggression from zerg before T2 will be developped as time goes by?
We already have the kyrix zenith style baneling agression before lair but this can be defended fairly easily by getting A tank, or 4-5 sentries.
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? Only against lesser skilled players. Zerg is an incomplete race atm due to blizzard design and short maps i hope it gets better but right now id rather shoot myself in the foot than play another game on ladder ;/ Just look at how much Ret struggles, he should switch imho.
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The only choice Zerg can make early game is when to build the spawning pool.
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You have lings,roaches and blings with queen and crawler for defense,what else you want for tier 1? Flying banelings?
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I don't know why the swarm is whining so much.
I think that T is attacking so hard and often in the beginning, because they are afraid of the late and midgame. As a T you realy have to be able to keep your production running, to have a chance against a fast remaxing Z.
I also don't see the problems with counterattacks, I would say I see that the swarm almost never sends in 10 speed lings to kick some scvs.
+ Everyone has seen these greedy zergs, who just expand all day long. A 2rax push against an too early expansion with a Z in "i wan't macrooo"-mode is working great.
i.m.o.: Zerg is not at its best level so far. And I don't think that one should "buff" and "nerf" in an naive way. "roaches to week? givem more dps and range" will effect the whole metagame. I don't want blizzard to play with the metagame.
Zerg screamed that tanks are i...a, blizzard nerfed it (probably right decision) but than zerg "discovered" how nice they can drop banes or lings on tanklines.
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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
yea its not like Zerg has won any major tournament like say, the GSL... oh wait a minute!
stop bullshitting
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On December 24 2010 15:47 Comeh wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2010 11:05 Krejven wrote: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.... I just want to point out what a stupid, flawed argument this is. A. More terran players have advanced than zerg players (I believe) B. This is over a series of patch and balance changes. C. Terran players have made all 3 finals (as opposed to 2 zerg players) D. A sample pool of 3 series is pretty fucking awful for setting up a confidence interval. E. There are lots of more flaws, but come on terran players who are crying for imbalance - if you want to complain about it, use better examples than this. At least try to support your argument.
It was a stupid argument because it was a stupid statement.
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Zerg early aggression would be literally unstoppable off double hatch, simply because of the way the larva mechanic works.
Well it seems like in BW, early aggression was possible a lot more, but not unstoppable, if scouted, and the appropriate reaction was there.
If you take for example roaches in the beta: it wasnt impossible to defeat an early roach attack, but you did have to scout it, and respond appropriately. Ofc, the roaches caused a lot of other problems later in the game, but early game, it was an attack that was actually able to pressure someone who wasnt prepared. It would still fail miserably against marauders, stalkers, and immortals though.
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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
I'm not really sure where you draw those stats from, but Terrans have, at the moment, the worse tournament performance of all the races. In fact, the pro gamers around have already started complaining about it - as the so called "metagame" evolves, T are falling increasingly behind.
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On December 24 2010 22:00 Pulimuli 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 yea its not like Zerg has won any major tournament like say, the GSL... oh wait a minute! stop bullshitting
Thank god for stating that. Close the thread theres nothing wrong with Zerg. They won TWO GSLs !!!!!
When was the last time any Zerg won anything besides that ...
The discussion is not about results but how the game is actually being played.
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People should watch the build Trump did one and a half week ago in TvT where he went a super eco build, simulair to how most zerg want to play. His attitude was "This is how I like to play, I don't have to win I just don't have to loose".
Zerg by going an super eco build forces an reaction from his opponent. Either he can sit back and get rolled over by the zergs eco or he attempts to do damage so he can keep up.
A terran bunkerrush is not meant to kill the zerg, it's to hurt the economy. To force the zerg make units and potentially deny a expansion. Notice the difference between this and this topic. Here the author wants to bust (or burst :D ) through the terran wallin and attack his main yet this is not something any race can do easily. Terran against protoss -> forcefields, Protoss against terran -> hard to break through the wall, terran / protoss against zerg -> can only attempt to strike at his eco at the expansion because the zergs forces are superior (if it wasn't the terrans would not need to build bunkers or protoss having to cannonrush behind the mineralline).
If a terran goes 1 base why would you want to bust his ramp? Then you should go for the economy game where you outmacro him. If he goes early expansion? Woho we can attack without having to push up and ramp and through a wall.
People say that going a baneling bust is an "all in" (all in is a terrible word in a game where it's not over until the last building is gone). Well duhh.... it's an attempt to end the game right then and there. Should it be possible to make an attempt at ending the game without risking something? I would love to see a game where an early push from a terran where he goes an pretty early expansion and demolish a zerg main hatchery.
The strategy most zerg complain about now adays is the 2 raxx + scv push, it's just like baneling busts and other early pushes, it puts you behind in economy if it fails. Yet zerg wants to keep making drones and be safe, well you can't have it both ways.
In TvT (if we take the playstyle Trump used he forced his opponent to make a move, because if he didn't he would fall behind in macro. If zerg goes baneling bust and the terran hold it off, the zerg will be behind. If the terran goes a push with scvs and the zerg hold it, the terran will be behind. Most zergs when it comes to the 2 raxx push claim that it costs them so much eco to fend it off, but they don't realize how much eco it costs the terran.
You can't have the cookie and eat it at the same time.
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I didn't read the thread, but here's my take.
Why can't zerg put on early pressure? Because that's not how zergs play SC2.
Why does it happen in SCBW? Because the maps are bigger.
To explain:
Zergs go for macro openings. They try and get that second hard up asap in their natural and play for macro, defending when the pressure comes. The pressure almost always becomes because 1) It's effective and 2) There's no real impetus for T or P to go for a macro opening because they can 1 base pretty effectively.
In SCBW, the maps were bigger, early pressure was more difficult because it takes longer to get to the opponents base. They have time to go for a macro oriented opening, and then also get some units out to defend an early push.
You will in fact often see some pressure from zerg, like the 7RR. This is one base play. ZvP can also often be early pressure because typically zergs don't go for a totally macro opening (pool first or one base openings at high level).
Because terrans in SC2 can both macro up well, including while taking off SCVs, they can wall in, they can 1 base really effectively AND maps are small, putting on early pressure becomes viable, while it's difficult for zerg to counter because they would rather go for a macro opening, and if they don't, T has a nice wall anyway and can macro harder. This makes early pressure very effective for T, and leads to Z trying for a more macro game since they can't get an early advantage. A lot of this is due to the maps, and not due to the units themselves, and also due to the effectiveness of the terran 1 base strats and their ability to easily wall in. That's why ZvP is also different.
Don't blame the game/unit balance when it's more about the maps and T ability to macro and 1 base very effectively early on while locking themselves up when a Z decides to go for a macro opening.
Also with short distances, it's much easier for a terran to scout any early pressure from a Z, also making it less effective, especially when you consider how well bunkers can be used (since they end up being free if they don't get destroyed, although you lose a bit of econ when you have to make them).
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I'm always play only defensively and react to attacks until i have tier 3 and either Broodlords or Ultralisks, maybe you can put a bit pressure earlier with Mutalisks, but you cant really attack in my opinion.
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the new zerglings just aren't as good as the old ones. that changed Z a lot. I'd really like to see better zerglings again. (and less zergling-killer splash)
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been watching catz.root stream and there is plenty of opportunity to put on early aggression and its not like he only plays scrubs(been doing it myself lately as well). He does it all the fing time. So with that in mind it's simply up to the player wether he wants to put on early aggression or favor economy. Maybe not to the extent that a terran or protoss can 1base for days but still, you dont need to go fe every single game because "that's how zerg plays". Although an expansion within the first 6 minutes is necessary otherwise its getting a bit all in. So stop trying to use the game and how it's "supposed to play" as a crutch and actually go out there and try different things.
To answer op, there might be a lack in attacking ability for zerg early game but that lack is actually in units being used, there just aint that many(ling and bling and roach). But there is still plenty enough to actually get something done.
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i find alot of issues are the map releated quite a alot of them 3rd expo is hard to achive, forcing 2base play with denial of 3rd which zerg needs to macro out of the cost effectiveness of p/t units
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Speed lings and bainling busts are early attacks that are absolutely outragous to defend against as terran. To say you have no early counter attacks is kinda short sighted if you ask me. If a terran does do 5 rines/5 scv's why dont you have just 12 lings and a queen? Maybe Zerg is to preoccupied with power droning to notice the early "quasi" cheese bum rush coming in.. 1 spine crawler neutralizes this threat almost completely then You can counter with bainling/ling while he rushes to get tech units to deal with you. Because if you fast expanded like every other zerg your +1 base to him and doing well economically. We can discuss balance all day long. But Right now the only part of the game terran really shines is early game befor a max 200/200 army becuase of the easy ability for a zerg to max again quickly after an encounter. bainling/ling/muta is pretty standard comp for zerg and does well against pretty much ANYTHING a terran can play against zerg. It only gets worse the longer the game go's on due to zerg flying in 12-16 mutas raping your mineral line and expanding on an all ready large economic advantage.. I guess thats enough of my rant for now.
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On December 24 2010 22:39 Meldrath wrote:
Speed lings and bainling busts are early attacks that are absolutely outragous to defend against as terran. To say you have no early counter attacks is kinda short sighted if you ask me. If a terran does do 5 rines/5 scv's why dont you have just 12 lings and a queen? Maybe Zerg is to preoccupied with power droning to notice the early "quasi" cheese bum rush coming in.. 1 spine crawler neutralizes this threat almost completely then You can counter with bainling/ling while he rushes to get tech units to deal with you. Because if you fast expanded like every other zerg your +1 base to him and doing well economically. We can discuss balance all day long. But Right now the only part of the game terran really shines is early game befor a max 200/200 army becuase of the easy ability for a zerg to max again quickly after an encounter. bainling/ling/muta is pretty standard comp for zerg and does well against pretty much ANYTHING a terran can play against zerg. It only gets worse the longer the game go's on due to zerg flying in 12-16 mutas raping your mineral line and expanding on an all ready large economic advantage.. I guess thats enough of my rant for now.
you see the 12 lings + 1 crawler. you fall back. I spend all my larva on units. I am behind in drones and you have mules. So what am I supposed to do now ?.
Trying to counter-attack is pointless. Oh wasnt that the whole point of the discussion
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On December 24 2010 21:59 schI2ler wrote:
I think that T is attacking so hard and often in the beginning, because they are afraid of the late and midgame. As a T you realy have to be able to keep your production running, to have a chance against a fast remaxing Z.
Please stop.
The reason T are so aggressive at the start is because it wins them the game so often, it has nothing to do with them being afraid of a late game Z.
On topic:
I'm not sure if Blizzard intended for Zerg to be the reactionary race when they designed SC2, but it definitely doesn't feel like Zerg.
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On December 24 2010 22:44 smileyyy wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2010 22:39 Meldrath wrote:
Speed lings and bainling busts are early attacks that are absolutely outragous to defend against as terran. To say you have no early counter attacks is kinda short sighted if you ask me. If a terran does do 5 rines/5 scv's why dont you have just 12 lings and a queen? Maybe Zerg is to preoccupied with power droning to notice the early "quasi" cheese bum rush coming in.. 1 spine crawler neutralizes this threat almost completely then You can counter with bainling/ling while he rushes to get tech units to deal with you. Because if you fast expanded like every other zerg your +1 base to him and doing well economically. We can discuss balance all day long. But Right now the only part of the game terran really shines is early game befor a max 200/200 army becuase of the easy ability for a zerg to max again quickly after an encounter. bainling/ling/muta is pretty standard comp for zerg and does well against pretty much ANYTHING a terran can play against zerg. It only gets worse the longer the game go's on due to zerg flying in 12-16 mutas raping your mineral line and expanding on an all ready large economic advantage.. I guess thats enough of my rant for now. you see the 12 lings + 1 crawler. you fall back. I spend all my larva on units. I am behind in drones and you have mules. So what am I supposed to do now ?. Trying to counter-attack is pointless. Oh wasnt that the whole point of the discussion
Maybe you should not over react to an attack you know what it takes to stop 5 rines and 5 scv's if you fail to macro thats your problem not a terran problem.. he hurt him self just as bad taking 5 scv's with him as you did making army instead of drones. Its not all about what you had to do to defend it its about what the attack or lack of scv mining time cost him. Stop making narrow sighted sarcastic posts and think befor you speak.
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On December 24 2010 22:46 DizzyDrone wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2010 21:59 schI2ler wrote:
I think that T is attacking so hard and often in the beginning, because they are afraid of the late and midgame. As a T you realy have to be able to keep your production running, to have a chance against a fast remaxing Z.
Please stop. The reason T are so aggressive at the start is because it wins them the game so often, it has nothing to do with them being afraid of a late game Z.
You both are right. Theres a TvZ, the game starts and the T sees a fast expand from zerg. then, what is his toughts?
1. I can play a long term game being aware of: muta baneling. speedling ultralisk. broodlords ultralisc speedlings.
2. I can go with 5 marines and 7 scvs while throwing mules to get my economy back and kill him "easier".
They fucking go to the early pressure because its easier and its a win. Same goes with protoss with 3 gate blink stalker 4 gate etc etc.
BIG MAPS PLEASE
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People that use GSL as an example need to realize that FD got super lucky. If you watched his sets you'd see that his opponents gave away free wins plenty of times. One was baneling bust and one was 6 pool, 2 were following a banshee harass that basically would have been easy wins had the Terrans followed up correctly, accompanying this is the crappy marine micro.
Nestea, well, I have no clue how this guy won. I'd have to agree with Idra on this one. If you watched season two, the only thing nestea delt with was crap Terrans and a bunch of all-ins.
Im also glad people are also realizing that zvp is just god awful.
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On December 24 2010 22:50 Red. wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2010 22:46 DizzyDrone wrote:On December 24 2010 21:59 schI2ler wrote:
I think that T is attacking so hard and often in the beginning, because they are afraid of the late and midgame. As a T you realy have to be able to keep your production running, to have a chance against a fast remaxing Z.
Please stop. The reason T are so aggressive at the start is because it wins them the game so often, it has nothing to do with them being afraid of a late game Z. You both are right. Theres a TvZ, the game starts and the T sees a fast expand from zerg. then, what is his toughts? 1. I can play a long term game being aware of: muta baneling. speedling ultralisk. broodlords ultralisc speedlings. 2. I can go with 5 marines and 7 scvs while throwing mules to get my economy back and kill him "easier". They fucking go to the early pressure because its easier and its a win. Same goes with protoss with 3 gate blink stalker 4 gate etc etc. BIG MAPS PLEASE
The point isnt that zerg can be attakced though.
Its more that from the zerg side, the idea of "I can try to outmacro him or I can try to go and kill him" when scouting something like an early expo from the opponent doesnt really happen at all. Because the only real option is to outmacro him if he walled his ramp.
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There are ALLWAYS 3 ways to deal with a Fast expand regardless of race Becuase the hach/nexus/command center is a net loss for 2-3 minutes until it has paid for itself.
1. Early pressure. Early expand means less army you have to deal with pressure and he hopes to win befor your advantage can kick in.
2.Expand your self and prepare for a macro game.
3. Get some cute tech units and abuse your tech advantage.
If 1 or 3 happens to you and you lose. You failed to the weakness of your strat and build. Who's fault is that really?
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On December 24 2010 22:44 smileyyy wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2010 22:39 Meldrath wrote:
Speed lings and bainling busts are early attacks that are absolutely outragous to defend against as terran. To say you have no early counter attacks is kinda short sighted if you ask me. If a terran does do 5 rines/5 scv's why dont you have just 12 lings and a queen? Maybe Zerg is to preoccupied with power droning to notice the early "quasi" cheese bum rush coming in.. 1 spine crawler neutralizes this threat almost completely then You can counter with bainling/ling while he rushes to get tech units to deal with you. Because if you fast expanded like every other zerg your +1 base to him and doing well economically. We can discuss balance all day long. But Right now the only part of the game terran really shines is early game befor a max 200/200 army becuase of the easy ability for a zerg to max again quickly after an encounter. bainling/ling/muta is pretty standard comp for zerg and does well against pretty much ANYTHING a terran can play against zerg. It only gets worse the longer the game go's on due to zerg flying in 12-16 mutas raping your mineral line and expanding on an all ready large economic advantage.. I guess thats enough of my rant for now. you see the 12 lings + 1 crawler. you fall back. I spend all my larva on units. I am behind in drones and you have mules. So what am I supposed to do now ?. Trying to counter-attack is pointless. Oh wasnt that the whole point of the discussion
But this is not true.
The terran falls back, you make 2 injects/rounds of drones and you're ahead by 10 workers in no time. The T fake attack delayed you, yes, but zerg must stop acting like if they can't drone non stop to 70 drones "they're behind", that's just not true.
T can make 2 workers in 50 seconds while you can make 10, so the "omg i'm behind by 3 workers i'm dead" is a little excessive.
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There are ALLWAYS 3 ways to deal with a Fast expand regardless of race Becuase the hach/nexus/command center is a net loss for 2-3 minutes until it has paid for itself.
1. Early pressure. Early expand means less army you have to deal with pressure and he hopes to win befor your advantage can kick in.
2.Expand your self and prepare for a macro game.
3. Get some cute tech units and abuse your tech advantage.
If 1 or 3 happens to you and you lose. You failed to the weakness of your strat and build. Who's fault is that really?
You misunderstand, or you just didnt read.
This thread isnt about zerg expanding, and dying to early pressure.
This thread is about zerg being unable to do number 1 on your list to an opponent, at least before they reach T2.
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Attacking early sets the zerg back for several reasons:
First of all when you wanna attack you need units (obviously) and when youre training units you're not training drones, drones you need because zerg units are not cost efficient.
The other races are able to wall off so most of the time your attack won't do a shit unless you invest a lot in it aka you make banelings, which can't really be considered as early as bunker pushes or w/e.
A push that is not a bling bust has to come very early or the opponent will have walled off, and such early attacks set the zerg back quite much and are easy to fend off.
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On December 24 2010 23:30 morimacil wrote:Show nested quote +There are ALLWAYS 3 ways to deal with a Fast expand regardless of race Becuase the hach/nexus/command center is a net loss for 2-3 minutes until it has paid for itself.
1. Early pressure. Early expand means less army you have to deal with pressure and he hopes to win befor your advantage can kick in.
2.Expand your self and prepare for a macro game.
3. Get some cute tech units and abuse your tech advantage.
If 1 or 3 happens to you and you lose. You failed to the weakness of your strat and build. Who's fault is that really? You misunderstand, or you just didnt read. This thread isnt about zerg expanding, and dying to early pressure. This thread is about zerg being unable to do number 1 on your list to an opponent, at least before they reach T2.
If you can't pressure someone its a problem with your play not the race. If you die from early pressure you died from early pressure. adjust your strategy. Don't FE if you read early agression hold off and go 1 base roach or bainling/ling which does very well against barracks units from T. There are options only limited to the imagination of the player. You can't just say.. Oh well zerg can't put out early pressure becuase he only has speed lings and a few bainlings. thats bs. if anything the scariest thing that can happen to any race is have a group of bainlings roll into a group of marines then have a dozen or so lings run into the base and harass the mineral line.
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On December 24 2010 23:30 morimacil wrote:Show nested quote +There are ALLWAYS 3 ways to deal with a Fast expand regardless of race Becuase the hach/nexus/command center is a net loss for 2-3 minutes until it has paid for itself.
1. Early pressure. Early expand means less army you have to deal with pressure and he hopes to win befor your advantage can kick in.
2.Expand your self and prepare for a macro game.
3. Get some cute tech units and abuse your tech advantage.
If 1 or 3 happens to you and you lose. You failed to the weakness of your strat and build. Who's fault is that really? You misunderstand, or you just didnt read. This thread isnt about zerg expanding, and dying to early pressure. This thread is about zerg being unable to do number 1 on your list to an opponent, at least before they reach T2.
No, this thread is about zerg early expanding.
Zergs usually try and early expand. That means they can't pressure. The natural response of other races is to do one of the three things listed.
Hence zerg plays defensive.
Zerg can do #1, they just can't do #1 when they early expand, and they can't really do it when the opponent doesn't early expand (same as an opponent can't really do it to them if they don't early expand, but they do usually early expand).
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I don't know, I beat protoss all the time with fast mass speedling off of 2 bases. Top 200 zerg, so if it works for me it should work for other people.
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On December 25 2010 00:02 Newguy wrote:
I don't know, I beat protoss all the time with fast mass speedling off of 2 bases. Top 200 zerg, so if it works for me it should work for other people.
This hasn't to do anything with what the topic's about.
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It costs a zerg 700minerlas and 350gas, at least, to be able to actually attack in a terran base, thats how much 14 banelings cost.
if anything the scariest thing that can happen to any race is have a group of bainlings roll into a group of marines then have a dozen or so lings run into the base and harass the mineral line.
The most frustrating thing is having a dozen banelings roll into some marines, and then having 20 lings unable to damage a base, because 2 marines, 2 SCVs, and a wall negate them completely.
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On December 25 2010 00:05 morimacil wrote:
It costs a zerg 700minerlas and 350gas, at least, to be able to actually attack in a terran base, thats how much 14 banelings cost.
oh i could attack terran bases at the cost of 200/200 (not only talking about nydus here) and since they took so much faith in the wall it was a quick fight.
Zerg t2 is just so awesome as you get a trillion of options to attack. Seeing t2 tech from a zerg always means prepare for alot, but on the other not really as 98% of the zergs will only go for 2 things.
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On December 24 2010 23:53 Lonyo wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2010 23:30 morimacil wrote:There are ALLWAYS 3 ways to deal with a Fast expand regardless of race Becuase the hach/nexus/command center is a net loss for 2-3 minutes until it has paid for itself.
1. Early pressure. Early expand means less army you have to deal with pressure and he hopes to win befor your advantage can kick in.
2.Expand your self and prepare for a macro game.
3. Get some cute tech units and abuse your tech advantage.
If 1 or 3 happens to you and you lose. You failed to the weakness of your strat and build. Who's fault is that really? You misunderstand, or you just didnt read. This thread isnt about zerg expanding, and dying to early pressure. This thread is about zerg being unable to do number 1 on your list to an opponent, at least before they reach T2. No, this thread is about zerg early expanding. Zergs usually try and early expand. That means they can't pressure. The natural response of other races is to do one of the three things listed. Hence zerg plays defensive. Zerg can do #1, they just can't do #1 when they early expand, and they can't really do it when the opponent doesn't early expand (same as an opponent can't really do it to them if they don't early expand, but they do usually early expand).
No? This thread is about the authors thoughts on how hard it is for a zerg to put pressure on a terran and protoss main.
The fun thing is how zerg talk about terrans going fastexpansion and cant do anything about it due to ramp and wall. Well newsflash, there are most of the time no ramps to the expansion nor do they usually have a full wall defending it. Sure you might not be able to put pressure on his main but the expansion is not inside the main, its outside. (except a few maps where its behind the main)
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What I dont get is that you say that putting early pressure with 5 marines and 5 scv's causes no damage to the Terran?
I play Protoss myself but isn't if obvious that if he pulls them off the line and the attack fails the Terran caused massive damage to his economy. The terran or protoss has to do damage with their early pressure if they go for 1 base or they will be behind.
And the way I see it it wouldn't be good if a zerg could fast expand and put pressure on a 1 basing zerg or toss, if a zerg goes an in base hatch he should have enough larvea to get blings to bust and put early pressure. You can't expect to have the best of 2 sides (fast expand and early pressure) Like a terran or toss makes offers to pressure early so does zerg to expand early.
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On December 24 2010 23:53 Lonyo wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2010 23:30 morimacil wrote:There are ALLWAYS 3 ways to deal with a Fast expand regardless of race Becuase the hach/nexus/command center is a net loss for 2-3 minutes until it has paid for itself.
1. Early pressure. Early expand means less army you have to deal with pressure and he hopes to win befor your advantage can kick in.
2.Expand your self and prepare for a macro game.
3. Get some cute tech units and abuse your tech advantage.
If 1 or 3 happens to you and you lose. You failed to the weakness of your strat and build. Who's fault is that really? You misunderstand, or you just didnt read. This thread isnt about zerg expanding, and dying to early pressure. This thread is about zerg being unable to do number 1 on your list to an opponent, at least before they reach T2. No, this thread is about zerg early expanding. Zergs usually try and early expand. That means they can't pressure. The natural response of other races is to do one of the three things listed. Hence zerg plays defensive. Zerg can do #1, they just can't do #1 when they early expand, and they can't really do it when the opponent doesn't early expand (same as an opponent can't really do it to them if they don't early expand, but they do usually early expand).
Zergs can't do #1 without going all-in. Baneling busts are all-in. 7RR causes substantial economic damage to the Zerg. The Zerg have no ability to pressure their opponents early without going all-in.
The simple fact is that the Zerg need the larva from a second Hatchery. Whether it's in-base or at the natural, the Zerg have to throw one down, or they are effectively screwed.
That's 300+ minerals that a Zerg player must spend early-game. That substantially inhibits their ability to apply pressure, forcing them to play defensively. Add to that the simple fact that Terrans and Protoss can easily defend themselves from the humble Zergling thanks to wall-ins, and the Zerg are effectively screwed out of being able to do anything early game that isn't all-in.
On December 25 2010 00:17 FeyFey wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2010 00:05 morimacil wrote:
It costs a zerg 700minerlas and 350gas, at least, to be able to actually attack in a terran base, thats how much 14 banelings cost.
oh i could attack terran bases at the cost of 200/200 (not only talking about nydus here) and since they took so much faith in the wall it was a quick fight. Zerg t2 is just so awesome as you get a trillion of options to attack. Seeing t2 tech from a zerg always means prepare for alot, but on the other not really as 98% of the zergs will only go for 2 things.
I don't care that Zerg T2 is awesome (and I don't agree that it is. It is effective, unlike Tier 1, but far from awesome). I'd give up an "awesome" Tier 2 to get a halfway-decent Tier 1 and the ability to apply early pressure.
The fun thing is how zerg talk about terrans going fastexpansion and cant do anything about it due to ramp and wall. Well newsflash, there are most of the time no ramps to the expansion nor do they usually have a full wall defending it. Sure you might not be able to put pressure on his main but the expansion is not inside the main, its outside. (except a few maps where its behind the main)
Terrans build their CC in-base, behind the wall. When the CC moves out, they also move Marines out to secure it. Thanks to the general crappiness of Zerg Tier 1, there isn't much you can do about it without cutting Drone production a lot.
Also, if the Terran does take his expansion, and you don't have your expo up already, you've lost.
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The fun thing is how zerg talk about terrans going fastexpansion and cant do anything about it due to ramp and wall. Well newsflash, there are most of the time no ramps to the expansion nor do they usually have a full wall defending it. Sure you might not be able to put pressure on his main but the expansion is not inside the main, its outside. (except a few maps where its behind the main)
matalopolis and xel naga caverns.
thats the 2 maps in the current map pool where terran or toss cant easily wall off the natural. I wouldnt call that "most of the maps"
"And the way I see it it wouldn't be good if a zerg could fast expand and put pressure on a 1 basing zerg or toss, if a zerg goes an in base hatch he should have enough larvea to get blings to bust and put early pressure."
You dont actually get more larva with an in-base hatch than you do with a hatch at the expo. its the same amount.
I wouldnt call bling bust "early pressure". Its more like an all-in, because if a terran walls off properly (no extra cost, just have to plan it out a little), then it costs you 700-350 to get in and then you have lings, and can start pressure. But since it costs you over 1k ressources just to get into his base, you dont have the option to retreat at minimal cost, you have to go in, and you have to do tons of damage. Thats not pressure, thats an all-in.
oh i could attack terran bases at the cost of 200/200 (not only talking about nydus here) and since they took so much faith in the wall it was a quick fight.
Zerg t2 is just so awesome as you get a trillion of options to attack. Seeing t2 tech from a zerg always means prepare for alot, but on the other not really as 98% of the zergs will only go for 2 things.
Yes, thats at lair tech. I specifically mention in the OP: "before T2". Once you get at lari tech, you have nydus, mutas, hydras, speed roaches, drops, and so on, the opponent is probably trying to get a third, tons of stuff you can do to pressure or harrass or attack. At T3 too.
The whole point is, before T2, your opponent is free to have as few defenses as he wants, as long as he places his buildings in a walloff, and he is safe from anything except an easily scoutable all-in.
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Wow. this thread is all over the place.
The ramps on all the maps are def. one issue. If we are talking about pressure a main(not a natural) it is sorta insane how easy it really is for terran and toss to hold off a zerg 1 base push. It is easy to scout so you know it is coming and if you defend it Zerg is pretty much done, gg.
However I have had some success with 1 base zerg play and it usually is after I get early pressure(perhaps cannoned, or bunkered etc) and my opponent expands thinking I'm going to try to macro. But it has to be where they expand thinking I will too and I don't usually, so it just works as an element of surprise it isn't a good option each game.
The real problem I find with the 1 base attacking deal is the threat of air. I think Zerg could actually do a really nice 1 base ling/roach army with say a +1 timing except you are totally screwed if you get there and 1 banshee pops or 1 void ray. Not only will the attack not work, but then you lose everything trying to retreat back to your base cause the roaches are so damn slow in t1.
I always wonder what the game would be like if hydras were a t1 75/25 unit like in bw with the range and speed upgrades(would def be nerfed of course), and the roach was a t2 unit that was made a bit bulkier/beefier sorta on the spectrum of an immortal or tank. Obviously it would fundamentally change the game, but I just keep going back to my biggest problem with my zerg play being stuck in the early or mid game away from my base far from my queens and air showing up. And it is just really tough to scout at times.
Personally, I'd love to see roach speed upgrade available at T1. Stim is available at t1.. (I also believe blink and charge should be cheaper and easier to get faster for the record). If that were the case you could do more t1 attacking cause you could hit and run a bit more and if it didnt work you wouldn't lose everything. That to me would be the simple change that would allow more t1 attacking options, you could also reinforce much faster.
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theres nothing different between SC2 and SC1 in regards to zerg early pressure, in fact you have more options in SC2 by far than u did in SC1. imo be grateful, each race has strengths weaknesses.
its not part of your races strong part. instead of crying imbalance maybe learn how the game is supposed to be played. you think blizz just inadvertently forgot?
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No, this thread is about zerg early expanding.
Zergs usually try and early expand. That means they can't pressure. The natural response of other races is to do one of the three things listed.
Hence zerg plays defensive.
Zerg can do #1, they just can't do #1 when they early expand, and they can't really do it when the opponent doesn't early expand (same as an opponent can't really do it to them if they don't early expand, but they do usually early expand).
Please read the thread topic please.
Zerg cannot do #1 when they don't early expand. The production rate of one hatchery is laughable. 1 Hatch zerg does not have the production capability to apply any early pressure. Throwing down a second hatch in main might, but even then, why not just put it at your expo? No advantage comes from staying one base.
Also, T and P can be just aggressive vs a 1 base zerg because the zerg lacks larva. And If the Z hatches in main, the ramp will not prove any more of an advantage. It just makes containment that much easier.
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Perhaps it is easier for non zerg players to understand why the second hatch has to be built if they try to think of it as 2 barracks/2 gateways instead of a CC/nexus.
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On December 25 2010 01:15 PhiliBiRD wrote:
theres nothing different between SC2 and SC1 in regards to zerg early pressure, in fact you have more options in SC2 by far than u did in SC1. imo be grateful, each race has strengths weaknesses.
its not part of your races strong part. instead of crying imbalance maybe learn how the game is supposed to be played. you think blizz just inadvertently forgot?
Im not crying imbalance.
Im asking for other player's opinions on if they think its a good thing that there is essentially "a way the game is supposed to be played" to put it in your words, instead of players having more freedom to choose what they want to do (such as attack, for example).
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I think an important thing most people miss is that for zerg the expansion aint about economy but rather to get higher production of everything.
BUT the problem I would say is that zerg players are greedy, they think that they should be able to do nothing but drones and still hold off an early attack where a terran pulls scvs. People claim that 10 lings and a spinecrawler is alot, but they don't consider the fact how much of the terrans economy goes into the push.
Going an economy game that zergs like is bound to be weak against early attacks but that is a risk you take. You trade early game security for macro later into the game.
It seems that zergs only can see black or white: I either go macro with making as few attacking units as possible or I do an All in.
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On December 25 2010 00:05 morimacil wrote:It costs a zerg 700minerlas and 350gas, at least, to be able to actually attack in a terran base, thats how much 14 banelings cost. Show nested quote +if anything the scariest thing that can happen to any race is have a group of bainlings roll into a group of marines then have a dozen or so lings run into the base and harass the mineral line. The most frustrating thing is having a dozen banelings roll into some marines, and then having 20 lings unable to damage a base, because 2 marines, 2 SCVs, and a wall negate them completely.
If it actually happened that way, reinforce with more lings turn a few of those into bainlings and bust the wall down. 2 rines will NOT be able to stop bainlings from hitting the depot or what have you. I have never seen 14 well used bainlings NOT get access to a terran base. UNLESS the terran saw it coming a long way in advance via scouting and built additonal stuctures to reinforce the wall off. You claim you need an extra hachery? really? Is a queen not basically an extra hacherty.. 150 minerals... is alot less then 300. Bottom line is your siting worst case scenario's not the common way thing's go in a game.
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ever seen dimaga or madfrog play?
(i recommend them if you havent, theyre two most entertaining foreign zergs to watch)
This notion that zergs cant counterattack is false.
The zerg race have some of the best units in the game to counter attack with.
roaches speedlings mutalisks do i need to say more?
It depends on your composition as zerg tho, if you use the slower parts of Z its no wonder you find it hard to counter attack.
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On December 25 2010 00:17 FeyFey wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2010 00:05 morimacil wrote:
It costs a zerg 700minerlas and 350gas, at least, to be able to actually attack in a terran base, thats how much 14 banelings cost.
oh i could attack terran bases at the cost of 200/200 (not only talking about nydus here) and since they took so much faith in the wall it was a quick fight. Zerg t2 is just so awesome as you get a trillion of options to attack. Seeing t2 tech from a zerg always means prepare for alot, but on the other not really as 98% of the zergs will only go for 2 things.
There is so much fail here I don't know where to begin how about the lack of a coherent thought?
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Bring back lurkers haha. Z is really open early game, but thats half the fun of playing Z. Once you break the contain it's really easy IMHO to get your econ up and B-ling bust your way to an easy win.
Against Terran I always use the 11 Pool 18 Hatch w/ a 14/15 gas. It's super flexable. ^_^.
Hopefully I contributed something useful.
-Pandablunt
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On December 25 2010 02:56 PandaBlunt wrote:
Against Terran I always use the 11 Pool 18 Hatch w/ a 14/15 gas. It's super flexable. ^_^.
Hopefully I contributed something useful.
-Pandablunt
Yeah, at the cost of economy. GG
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On December 24 2010 11:09 Subversion wrote:
its because they can wall off a tiny choke on the high ground, so they can defend with very little.
i don't think the importance of this can be understated, this really allows both protoss and terran to be able t defend with a few units, where as the zerg has to depend completely on attack units and numbers in order to stay safe in the early game, often at the sacrifice of economy which can set them back as the game goes on longer. as for the early pushes that terran players are doing right now i think its just a shift in the meta game and that as time passes zergs will learn the safe build to go verses terran that can hold this push without to much economy loss.
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On December 25 2010 05:21 Noev wrote:
as for the early pushes that terran players are doing right now i think its just a shift in the meta game and that as time passes zergs will learn the safe build to go verses terran that can hold this push without to much economy loss.
Yeah, same as when Zergs figured out a safe build versus reapers without heavy economy loss. Oh wait.
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balance balance rabble rabble balance rabble....seriously though, it's not surprising terran/toss eventually picked up on the fact that zerg can't do much in the early game where they are essentially forced to fast expand by nature of the game.
Thus they concluded moving out with their 4 to 8 early units is always a good idea as it slows zerg down tremendously. Unless the game changes in some drastic way via changes to zerg defense or terran/tosses ability to ealry pressure I doubt you'd see that change anytime soon.
Just watch the Gisado games where IMMvP basically 2 rax's all the zerg out one by one. Which isn't a balance comment as much as just how effective really early pressure is, especially with the mostly small map sizes.
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On December 25 2010 05:21 Noev wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2010 11:09 Subversion wrote:
its because they can wall off a tiny choke on the high ground, so they can defend with very little. i don't think the importance of this can be understated, this really allows both protoss and terran to be able t defend with a few units, where as the zerg has to depend completely on attack units and numbers in order to stay safe in the early game, often at the sacrifice of economy which can set them back as the game goes on longer. as for the early pushes that terran players are doing right now i think its just a shift in the meta game and that as time passes zergs will learn the safe build to go verses terran that can hold this push without to much economy loss.
I think you misunderstand something. This thread isn't about holding off the pressure. Nor is it about counterattacking after early pressure. It's about wanting the Zerg to be able to apply pressure. Wanting the Zerg to be able to be aggressive early-game.
Right now, this is not possible without going all-in.
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On December 25 2010 05:24 Oleksandr wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2010 05:21 Noev wrote:
as for the early pushes that terran players are doing right now i think its just a shift in the meta game and that as time passes zergs will learn the safe build to go verses terran that can hold this push without to much economy loss. Yeah, same as when Zergs figured out a safe build versus reapers without heavy economy loss. Oh wait.
They nerfed it what else do you want? They also nerfed our early aggression options by making us have to get a supply depot befor a rax. I wouldnt count on to many more changes to terran at this point. Becuase the game is pretty balanced all ready. Only people who don't think so are zerg fan boys who wanna have them be supreme over all other races. Honestly Zergs do well in high end competition. You gotta ask your self if your having any problems with the race maybe its not the race maybe its you. every race wants something nerfed about the other races. Terrans want psistorm nerfed and ling/bainling/muta efficency nerfed. zerg wants lurkers back and hydra upgrades. zerg wants voidray nerfs on protoss and likely collo death ball nerfs on protoss. protoss wants rauders not to be able to stim protoss wants a stim nerf all together. The fact is many of these options wont even be touched by blizzard becuase nerfing 1 race throws a huge wrench in the works.. the trinity of balance all go's out of whack. That being said relax and play the game.
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I stopped reading after I read "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".
I don't think I need to say anything against that statement, anyone who has played the game knows it's complete bs.
On your other argument that T and P can just move out with the first units they make, you should also consider that zerg have really fast really cheap units that come out 2 at a time and cost as much as a worker, so obviously you're gonna lose your marines and zealots if you just rush the first few to the zerg base, and after that even if you manage to defend the counter attack without taking too much damage you have given map control to the zerg.
Sure zerg can't be as aggresive as T or P, but they can macro a lot better which is what they are ment to do.
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Roachling all-ins from Zerg still work a significant proportion of the time. You can look at the Gisado ZvP special for evidence of this. Or you can look at Fruitdealer in the YGosu for roachling all-ins working on Terran.
You don't have to make it an all-in of course. Early roaches can pressure both Zerg and Terran pretty well. It's pretty well understood in ZvP, but a roach/ling/bling composition early game can put a lot of pressure onto a Terran (like Zenio does or NewDrug tried).
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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
What tourneys are you watching if you think that's the case?
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On December 24 2010 21:09 metalsonic wrote:
Spine Crawlers shouldn't require only a spawning pool in the first place but an evolution chamber . It cost Protoss also a forge to start making cannons . Cannons and Spine crawlers are remotely around the same cost , difference being u can move Spine Crawlers .
yeah, give spinecrawlers detection, air attack and sure. also, let zerg be able to build evo chamber before pool, and I have no problem with it. Oh, and let overlords drop creep since beginning of game.
edit-
don't forget to apply this to everything and we'll have terran and 2 tosses with different skins! gg.
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So what exactly are you trying to ASK here? Of course Terran needs to be stronger in early game, since there are no medics unlike Brood War. So what if you don't apply pressure? Zerg has more miners before the OC comes out, and pulling off 5 SCVs isn't helping the situation either.
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On December 24 2010 10:54 FlamingTurd wrote:
Sick of watching 80% tournaments won by T and the rest by P
GSL has had 2/3 zerg winners. A lot of those zerg hold off early all ins and end up winning, even after FE.
On December 24 2010 10:57 Red. wrote:
protoss have observers and terran has scans
Good overlord placement, or tech like toss and get a changeling?
Anyways, I think Zerg is perfectly fine to watch and play. Any Zerg that doesn't expect an early all in didn't scout properly, so they should be punished. I enjoy watching games where the Zerg gets attacked early, it usually shows you insane micro and sometimes you learn a new way to hold off some cheesy all in you've been getting raped on the ladder with.
With Zerg's ability to get such an economic advantage, it should come with the greatest risk.
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On December 25 2010 05:30 NicolBolas wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2010 05:21 Noev wrote:On December 24 2010 11:09 Subversion wrote:
its because they can wall off a tiny choke on the high ground, so they can defend with very little. i don't think the importance of this can be understated, this really allows both protoss and terran to be able t defend with a few units, where as the zerg has to depend completely on attack units and numbers in order to stay safe in the early game, often at the sacrifice of economy which can set them back as the game goes on longer. as for the early pushes that terran players are doing right now i think its just a shift in the meta game and that as time passes zergs will learn the safe build to go verses terran that can hold this push without to much economy loss. I think you misunderstand something. This thread isn't about holding off the pressure. Nor is it about counterattacking after early pressure. It's about wanting the Zerg to be able to apply pressure. Wanting the Zerg to be able to be aggressive early-game. Right now, this is not possible without going all-in.
Well that might actually be true that the ramps have a lot to do with it, I imagine that if more ramps were scrap station sized for example, then early aggression from zerg would be more viable against an underdefended opponent, and moving out with your first few units just to force the zerg to make lings would actually be a little more of a risky play, without actually having to change any of the races directly.
Sure zerg can't be as aggresive as T or P, but they can macro a lot better which is what they are ment to do.
Again, I think you misunderstand the point of the thread. Probably because you didnt actually readi it 
the idea is precisely to discuss if its good or not to have a race be meant to play a certain way, without other good options.
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Right... you realize it also costs Terran's and Protoss's an equal cost investment to defend... And zerg can easily defend with creep transportation.
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With Zerg's ability to get such an economic advantage, it should come with the greatest risk.
The idea isnt to have less risk as the zerg player. The idea is in fact to have slightly more risk for the other players. Not to make it so that other races cant attack zerg, but to make it so that both players have the opportunity to attack.
Also, note that by doing early aggression, zerg players would pretty much be giving up the ability to get an economic advantage, because it goes both ways for zerg. You can either make almost all drones, or you can make almost all units, but not both. Currently, you dont really want to switch to making units before the very endgame, unless you have to, to defend. If attacking was a possibility, then due to zerg mechanics, it would always come at the cost of that economic advantage.
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Zerg isn't the race you want if you want to play aggressively early, it's simple as that. That's not how the race is designed or intended to be used and I have no problem with that. I do have a problem with how easy it is for Terran to apply strong pressure with no economic drawbacks. Marines are just too good right now so that is possible, I feel like after early game though, T is really really hard to play against Z so if Z had an option of early aggression without all-in as well as having late game macro we'd be in a broken system.
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if Z had an option of early aggression without all-in as well as having late game macro we'd be in a broken system.
Indeed, if that was the case, we would be in a broken system.
However, due to zerg larva mechanics, that wouldnt really be possible.
What would however be possible with some slight adjustment (possibly just to the maps) would be for zerg to have the option of aggression, OR to macro.
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With all the whining going on the teamliquid forums the past few months Blizzard should just take out two races and have one race. Hey look! a perfectly balanced game!!
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I really think that blizzard's initial intention with Queen larva inject was to give zerg the option of not being forced to build another hatchery. Somewhere along the lines though, they forgot that a queen is not as sturdy as a hatchery, so if you lose your queen to early pressure and you didn't expand, you're basically fucked, making it much more risky to just build 1 queen instead of a hatch and then just trying to apply some pressure.
Maybe if the queen had more hp/armor, but less damage output, we'd see an entirely different early game from zerg?
Edit: Also, back in the beta when the Roach was only 1 food, you didn't have to commit as many minerals and larva to overlords as you do now, and as a result is was easier to power drones or units, and thus applying more safe pressure to your opponents. Early roach pushes were a lot more common.
The problem was however, that when the late game arrived, there were simply too many roaches on the map for people to deal with it, and it was inevitable that they had to bump up their supply usage to 2.
However, there never came a compensation for this early game "nerf" - as it was basically a change that was aimed at the late game. A logical response would have been to make larva inject a little faster or make the normal larva spawn pick up speed while under the effect of larva inject or something, to compensate for the extra larva and minerals that you use on overlords (which you subsequently can't use for drones/units).
(while one can argue that the roach range buff was the response, but that is not making up for those extra larva lost that make it safer to expand instead of early pressure, because if your roaches dies, you're still screwed on larva).
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There is alot of whining not just from zerg players but from players in general who think they found some injustice to there race and are trying to fix it by adjusting some other races mechanics or units. Most of these threads degrade into useless banter about what Overpowered is and is not and horrible mechanic and unit changes to nonissues that only exsist in the OP's head. Bottom line is if your not happy with the state of the game and you can't make valid smart efficient adjustments to the gameplay that doesnt swing the balance of power drastically in favor of a unit/strat or race then you shouldnt make a suggestion and leave it to more knowledgable and neutral people who are not biased by the fact they play X race. Blizzard will sort shit out and tinker with it until its where the community AND blizzard thinks it should be.
I have 1 question Why is anyone bitching about zerg larva mechanics. what makes zerg hard is also what makes zerg good. They can make a F-ton of workers or a F-ton of fighting units. they can't do both all of the time. If they could it would be rather annoying right? People evolve the game evolves learn when you can power drone and when you cannot. protoss/zerg can max out an army faster then terran chrono/warpgates and inject larva are beasts if done properly. Terran does not have this luxury without a MILLION production buildings.
What would you change about the zerg larva mechanics? can you suggest a valid fix that doesnt ruin the game?
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On December 25 2010 08:00 Meldrath wrote:
I have 1 question Why is anyone bitching about zerg larva mechanics. what makes zerg hard is also what makes zerg good. They can make a F-ton of workers or a F-ton of fighting units. they can't do both all of the time. If they could it would be rather annoying right? People evolve the game evolves learn when you can power drone and when you cannot. protoss/zerg can max out an army faster then terran chrono/warpgates and inject larva are beasts if done properly. Terran does not have this luxury without a MILLION production buildings.
What would you change about the zerg larva mechanics? can you suggest a valid fix that doesnt ruin the game?
Yeah sure, that's the upside of the larva mechanic, but that's late game you're talking about. The OP is asking whether it's good or bad FOR THE GAME that Zerg can't be as aggressive early on.
I'm not saying it's unbalanced, but the larva mechanic is without a doubt forcing ZvT or ZvP matches into being more streamlined, because T and P knows that they have a better chance of winning in the early game than in the late game VS a good zerg. If Zerg had the ability to chose to either macro OR be early aggressive, then we'd probably see more variation in the games, and not so many marine/scv all in's.
If they tweaked something that made it so that zerg would be more evenly powerful over the course of a game, then it would be a different story than the current.
It's not about balance, it's the question about wether it's more or less interesting, and if it makes SC2 a better or a worse game.
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On December 25 2010 07:54 Tritonus wrote:
Edit: Also, back in the beta when the Roach was only 1 food, you didn't have to commit as many minerals and larva to overlords as you do now, and as a result is was easier to power drones or units, and thus applying more safe pressure to your opponents. Early roach pushes were a lot more common.
The problem was however, that when the late game arrived, there were simply too many roaches on the map for people to deal with it, and it was inevitable that they had to bump up their supply usage to 2.
However, there never came a compensation for this early game "nerf" - as it was basically a change that was aimed at the late game. A logical response would have been to make larva inject a little faster or make the normal larva spawn pick up speed while under the effect of larva inject or something, to compensate for the extra larva and minerals that you use on overlords (which you subsequently can't use for drones/units).
(while one can argue that the roach range buff was the response, but that is not making up for those extra larva lost that make it safer to expand instead of early pressure, because if your roaches dies, you're still screwed on larva).
This is actually really fallacious logic. You get more larva with 4 range Roaches than with 3 range Roaches because you need less Roaches to have an army of equal power, and can spend the larva on Drones that you would have spent on Roaches if they hadn't been buffed.
On December 25 2010 05:09 Oleksandr wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2010 02:56 PandaBlunt wrote:
Against Terran I always use the 11 Pool 18 Hatch w/ a 14/15 gas. It's super flexable. ^_^.
Hopefully I contributed something useful.
-Pandablunt Yeah, at the cost of economy. GG
You should try actually knowing what you're talking about before you post. It's really helpful.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=173430
11 Pool 18 Hatch is super flexible and safe, and sacrifices very little economy. The more you know.
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On December 25 2010 06:20 morimacil wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2010 05:30 NicolBolas wrote:On December 25 2010 05:21 Noev wrote:On December 24 2010 11:09 Subversion wrote:
its because they can wall off a tiny choke on the high ground, so they can defend with very little. i don't think the importance of this can be understated, this really allows both protoss and terran to be able t defend with a few units, where as the zerg has to depend completely on attack units and numbers in order to stay safe in the early game, often at the sacrifice of economy which can set them back as the game goes on longer. as for the early pushes that terran players are doing right now i think its just a shift in the meta game and that as time passes zergs will learn the safe build to go verses terran that can hold this push without to much economy loss. I think you misunderstand something. This thread isn't about holding off the pressure. Nor is it about counterattacking after early pressure. It's about wanting the Zerg to be able to apply pressure. Wanting the Zerg to be able to be aggressive early-game. Right now, this is not possible without going all-in. Well that might actually be true that the ramps have a lot to do with it, I imagine that if more ramps were scrap station sized for example, then early aggression from zerg would be more viable against an underdefended opponent, and moving out with your first few units just to force the zerg to make lings would actually be a little more of a risky play, without actually having to change any of the races directly.
This basically only applies to ling run-arounds, which are complete bullshit as the only defense is a good partial wall-off.
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WoW, thxs Tritonus, glad to see one person so far managed to get the point I was trying to get across. Judging by most other responses, I gess I actually suck at putting my thoughts into a clearly understandable post though
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There are many other viable strategies than just a super early hatch. People need to start trying other Zerg openings instead of this 14/14 or whatever the exact numbers are. Blizzard did not make a game where Zerg only has one possible opening with a possibly to win. Experiment please.
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On December 25 2010 09:38 vict1019 wrote:
There are many other viable strategies than just a super early hatch. People need to start trying other Zerg openings instead of this 14/14 or whatever the exact numbers are. Blizzard did not make a game where Zerg only has one possible opening with a possibly to win. Experiment please.
Personally, everytime I try and refine a 1-base zerg build it inevitably ends to ''so if I just make another hatchery in my base at that point...'' which slowly becomes ''might as well put it at my natural''.
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On December 25 2010 05:30 NicolBolas wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2010 05:21 Noev wrote:On December 24 2010 11:09 Subversion wrote:
its because they can wall off a tiny choke on the high ground, so they can defend with very little. i don't think the importance of this can be understated, this really allows both protoss and terran to be able t defend with a few units, where as the zerg has to depend completely on attack units and numbers in order to stay safe in the early game, often at the sacrifice of economy which can set them back as the game goes on longer. as for the early pushes that terran players are doing right now i think its just a shift in the meta game and that as time passes zergs will learn the safe build to go verses terran that can hold this push without to much economy loss. I think you misunderstand something. This thread isn't about holding off the pressure. Nor is it about counterattacking after early pressure. It's about wanting the Zerg to be able to apply pressure. Wanting the Zerg to be able to be aggressive early-game. Right now, this is not possible without going all-in.
I think this isn't true. Most zerg players are conditionned by nestea or idra. They think if they don't have 3 bases and 70 drones at the 8 minute mark they are behind (exageration here, but the point stand)
Most zerg players think going a build like 11 pool 18 hatch is allin (lol) or put them a lot behind in eco (haha). Where most other races fast expo timing is around 35 food.
Yeah, staying on one base to 20-30 food is less economical than a 14hatch/14pool. But it's far from being an allin. It's really a misconception, I think zerg players should play terran or toss to have a feel of their macro timings. Then realise that a zerg will have, most of the time, 20 more workers than a terran or 10-15 more workers than a protoss at the 8 minute mark when they do 14h/14p. It's nearly an econ cheese. I agree this is the best, most rounded build, but if you want to be more agressive, perhaps you should stop wanting to 14h/14p at the same time ?
You have to balance both. Players like Kyrix or Fruitdealer are showing that a delayed expand with a lot of aggression is possible. But the keyword is delayed expand. Zerg can make something like what, 25-35 drones in 3 minutes with 2 hatchs and 2 queens ? They are very flexible and can recover very fast from an aggressive opening.
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On December 25 2010 12:18 MrCon wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2010 05:30 NicolBolas wrote:On December 25 2010 05:21 Noev wrote:On December 24 2010 11:09 Subversion wrote:
its because they can wall off a tiny choke on the high ground, so they can defend with very little. i don't think the importance of this can be understated, this really allows both protoss and terran to be able t defend with a few units, where as the zerg has to depend completely on attack units and numbers in order to stay safe in the early game, often at the sacrifice of economy which can set them back as the game goes on longer. as for the early pushes that terran players are doing right now i think its just a shift in the meta game and that as time passes zergs will learn the safe build to go verses terran that can hold this push without to much economy loss. I think you misunderstand something. This thread isn't about holding off the pressure. Nor is it about counterattacking after early pressure. It's about wanting the Zerg to be able to apply pressure. Wanting the Zerg to be able to be aggressive early-game. Right now, this is not possible without going all-in. I think this isn't true. Most zerg players are conditionned by nestea or idra. They think if they don't have 3 bases and 70 drones at the 8 minute mark they are behind (exageration here, but the point stand) Most zerg players think going a build like 11 pool 18 hatch is allin (lol) or put them a lot behind in eco (haha). Where most other races fast expo timing is around 35 food. Yeah, staying on one base to 20-30 food is less economical than a 14hatch/14pool. But it's far from being an allin. It's really a misconception, I think zerg players should play terran or toss to have a feel of their macro timings. Then realise that a zerg will have, most of the time, 20 more workers than a terran or 10-15 more workers than a protoss at the 8 minute mark when they do 14h/14p. It's nearly an econ cheese. I agree this is the best, most rounded build, but if you want to be more agressive, perhaps you should stop wanting to 14h/14p at the same time ? You have to balance both. Players like Kyrix or Fruitdealer are showing that a delayed expand with a lot of aggression is possible. But the keyword is delayed expand. Zerg can make something like what, 25-35 drones in 3 minutes with 2 hatchs and 2 queens ? They are very flexible and can recover very fast from an aggressive opening.
I think your misconception is in thinking that it really matters a lot whether a zerg goes 14hatch/14pool or 11hatch/18pool. It really does not, both of those builds are economical if you keep droning, but that means you cannot by any means be aggressive. You can, however, choose to start pumping units out (with both builds), at which point you WILL drop behind in economy and will need to be able to do real damage with those units to justify that.
And if terran/protoss keep pumping workers and mules constantly as they should, I actually think zerg can just about manage to keep up with economy at 8min point if he tries to defend some early aggression at the same time with minimal army.. Only after 15 minutes or so of constant defense you will be actually able to pull ahead in economy due to the larva mechanics and only IF you have not over-committed in making too many units to defend before that. This means every attack a zerg does before this mark HAS to do damage, or you will end up behind in economy, because you have invested larvae to units that did nothing for you.
This larvae-mechanic differs from protoss and terran mechanics, which basically have to make workers constantly while opting to power (build unit production buildings or teching or what ever) or build his army. When they decide to start building their army, they should start applying pressure at that very instant versus a zerg, who is then FORCED to make units and can't actually pull ahead in economy, more likely will over-commit just a bit and fall behind for a while. This happens to some degree even if you just show your army and don't even actually attack, where as an attacking zerg has to commit to some degree to try to do actual damage so his investment in units is not in vain.
It is kind of wrong to say zerg early pressure builds are all all-ins, but it is kind of right as well. If you don't deal damage, you will fall behind, which is not the case for other races who will make those units anyway and progress normally towards mid/end-game. Furthermore, other races will get opportunities to kill a greedily droning zerg at any point if they poke actively. If the zerg over-commits to early/mid-game units, he can't really breach a turtling terran or protoss with them and the game is quite easily won 10 minutes later by falling back and macroing/turtling for a while.
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On December 24 2010 18:57 Boxxer wrote: QQ I'm a Zerg and I have the strongest late game but I also want the strongest early game as well
Why the shit do people keep saying this? Seriously. What's "strongest late game"? How is this measured? Who decided it? I'm quite curious. My personal experience isn't really very relevant- I'm not playing at the level where it would matter, but it seems for any race your late game is absolutely and completely dependent on coming out of the mid game with an advantage (in either tech or food). Not some magic "I saved larva that means i win" idea.
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People think Zerg early game is weak because eco builds are standard. I've seen a lot of 1 base 12 pool zerg play that's pretty much retard strong.
I play 14 hatch or 14 pool 15 hatch in 99% of my games and I know that going that BO means my early game is weak because that's just the nature of the build. Watch Sen or Catz go more aggressive builds and tell me going for heavy early pressure is weak.
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God, I'm not even going to bother reading all nine pages of this discussion.
Look, if you're smart and playing zerg, you will learn how to use them and their units to your advantage. If you instead opt into whining, you will continue going on forever, the same way this thread has gone on nine pages. Like I said I don't care to read through another thread about people who don't know how to play. Has, after nine pages, this thread come to any kind of conclusion? I'll bet no.
Of course if you like you can start posting replays of the great fuck-ups preventing the zerg from being your, what was it you wanted? easy-win race.
Seriously I dare you to post up replays of things that didn't work and we'll tell you why they didn't work and what you can try instead. if you're smart, you'll quit your bitching and learn to play.
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The amount of disgusting posts from all sides without acknowledging the OP's concern is simply astounding. I could understand the OP perfectly.
To OP: What if wall-off is possible for Zerg like T & P? For example, if Blizzard changes all the maps' mains to the size of Xelnaga, and the whole main for zerg will be fully covered by creep at the beginning of the game. So that zerg can wall its main with a building (say an evolution chamber or a pool) and a spine once pool is constructed. Spine uprooting time reduced so that units can go in and out with reasonable timing. (but of course needs to be carefully adjusted so that spines won't be abused offensively)
Would that help 1-base play of the zerg race? I'd think that will at least give some high-ground advantage to 1-basing zerg, while denying scouts from the opponents?
Now it's not exactly more options for attacking, but it'll give zerg more security in early game and will allow zerg can actually play strategically, instead of being stressed of unexpected attacks from T or P?
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Thought we were past the whole Zerg hysteria 'omg my race sucks and everything T/P has is better' phase by now? Z plays different than T which plays different than P. It's part of the game and it's what made BW great and what makes SC2 great.
The last thing we want is for Bliz to go in WoW: Cataclysm direction with SC2 (homogenization).
A little more on topic, Zerg CAN go early aggression. No one CHOOSES to. As others have said, Z has the most choice by far for econ or aggression.
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On December 27 2010 16:26 oxxo wrote:
Thought we were past the whole Zerg hysteria 'omg my race sucks and everything T/P has is better' phase by now? Z plays different than T which plays different than P. It's part of the game and it's what made BW great and what makes SC2 great.
The last thing we want is for Bliz to go in WoW: Cataclysm direction with SC2 (homogenization).
A little more on topic, Zerg CAN go early aggression. No one CHOOSES to. As others have said, Z has the most choice by far for econ or aggression.
Your off-topic comment was probably not needed (there are gazillion of them in this thread already), and your on-topic comment is downright false, I don't know how you could say that with a straight face. I rarely see zerg wins a game with early aggression at high-level replays when it goes for such aggression. I thought it's commonly accepted that zergs tend to win longer games? While T can win against Z in 7 mins.
I believe Blizzard mentioned that a race being too weak/dominant at a certain stage of game is not what it wants. Sure the 3 races are different but it doesn't mean that they can't be balanced through out the many phases of the game. If zerg's late game is too strong then it should be toned down. If zerg's early game leaves no strategic options then that should be addressed as well.
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1. Zerg is like a virus. You can fight it at the beginning.. but once it becomes immune to your failed attempts, it will spread like wildfire and you're FUCKED.
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People love this game for the diiferences in the game mechanics.......... one of them being the lack of wall off for zerg balanced against superior flexibility and macro potential. If you take an expo before 18 food.......... guess what you are being greedy. An earlier pool would allow you to build spinecrawlers earlier to defend your soon to be 2nd base ( omfg its 3 food later no waiiiiiiiiiiiii) and still even against the greediest of T and P put you way ahead in bases. When i play zero i generally go the 11 P 18H because guess what... its safe and sacrifices very little in econ.. Too bad most of you zerg are the most rediculous greedy players on the planet. and expect a 15h 14p to be uncounterable. I love ZvZ because most of you idiots are like LOL LETS 15h 14 pool and i just baneling and its over because you are rediculous.
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Zerg has plenty of "attacking" ability. Who cares if lings aren't able to bust a wall? If you have enough lings left over after an engagement from destroying a Protoss or Terran early/midgame attack, you've probably already won. If you're Protoss or Terran and you move out and happen to have too few units against Zerg, you can't retreat. You just lose all your units and then lose the game because Zerg can make 20-30 drones as you're replenishing your army to match his.
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I was giving this alot of thought. Sure zerg want to be up one base above their opponent not only for the extra income but for the larva. However there are probably some aggressive 1 base builds with a delayed natural. Sure this isn't always good.
But I think some zerg just FE simply because they see the pros do it without any knowledge of how to hold of/scout out cheese or high pressure attacks. (Of course this is not relevant to everyone)
Zergs from what I see FE everytime regardless (ignoring zvz) Terrans and toss aren't dumb they could play in the dark with a 2 gate or 2 rax opening and encounter a FE 95%. Even playing in the dark your scouting worker who is ascertaining the location of your opponents base will at least see the hatch go down.
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On December 27 2010 17:47 Saracen wrote:
Zerg has plenty of "attacking" ability. Who cares if lings aren't able to bust a wall? If you have enough lings left over after an engagement from destroying a Protoss or Terran early/midgame attack, you've probably already won. If you're Protoss or Terran and you move out and happen to have too few units against Zerg, you can't retreat. You just lose all your units and then lose the game because Zerg can make 20-30 drones as you're replenishing your army to match his.
if you have enough lings left over after an engagement early it means you lost cuz you have less drones than you could and the lings are now useless anyway.
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On December 27 2010 18:52 IdrA wrote:Show nested quote +On December 27 2010 17:47 Saracen wrote:
Zerg has plenty of "attacking" ability. Who cares if lings aren't able to bust a wall? If you have enough lings left over after an engagement from destroying a Protoss or Terran early/midgame attack, you've probably already won. If you're Protoss or Terran and you move out and happen to have too few units against Zerg, you can't retreat. You just lose all your units and then lose the game because Zerg can make 20-30 drones as you're replenishing your army to match his. if you have enough lings left over after an engagement early it means you lost cuz you have less drones than you could and the lings are now useless anyway.
Having lings left over doesnt mean that you have lost, i just means u are at perfect macro mode, but for people who arent aiming for complete perfection a few lings left over is better than not enough lings in the first place.
Also having units left over gives zerg a unique timing window in which they can swarm and apply pressure to the slow reinforcing protoss and terrans. If zerg wins a big fight is almost garaunteed that they can cause some damage to the opponent, its not as if terrans only attack with half their army and then leave some siege tanks at home just in case.
Yes, these attacks are far more game winning in the late game but the potential is there in the early game too, because your production isnt quite up to scratch but neither is the terrans or protoss', it is definately crushing to lose a game from a zerg who gets some lings in your base and picks off reinforcing marines and tanks one by one as they prop from the buildings. Its not like zerg who instantly surround your units if you happen to be near a hatch when all the units pop.
Also having lings left over means u dont need to make quite so many to defend the next attack, meaning that you can make more drones! So its not quite as bad as you make out having some units on the field before they are sent to fight.
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On December 27 2010 19:45 Zacsafus wrote:Show nested quote +On December 27 2010 18:52 IdrA wrote:On December 27 2010 17:47 Saracen wrote:
Zerg has plenty of "attacking" ability. Who cares if lings aren't able to bust a wall? If you have enough lings left over after an engagement from destroying a Protoss or Terran early/midgame attack, you've probably already won. If you're Protoss or Terran and you move out and happen to have too few units against Zerg, you can't retreat. You just lose all your units and then lose the game because Zerg can make 20-30 drones as you're replenishing your army to match his. if you have enough lings left over after an engagement early it means you lost cuz you have less drones than you could and the lings are now useless anyway. Having lings left over doesnt mean that you have lost, i just means u are at perfect macro mode, but for people who arent aiming for complete perfection a few lings left over is better than not enough lings in the first place. Also having units left over gives zerg a unique timing window in which they can swarm and apply pressure to the slow reinforcing protoss and terrans. If zerg wins a big fight is almost garaunteed that they can cause some damage to the opponent, its not as if terrans only attack with half their army and then leave some siege tanks at home just in case. Yes, these attacks are far more game winning in the late game but the potential is there in the early game too, because your production isnt quite up to scratch but neither is the terrans or protoss', it is definately crushing to lose a game from a zerg who gets some lings in your base and picks off reinforcing marines and tanks one by one as they prop from the buildings. Its not like zerg who instantly surround your units if you happen to be near a hatch when all the units pop. Also having lings left over means u dont need to make quite so many to defend the next attack, meaning that you can make more drones! So its not quite as bad as you make out having some units on the field before they are sent to fight.
You missed his point completely. He's basically saying if you have lings left over you produced too many lings too early and thus hurt your economy so you might not be able to produce enough fighting units for the next attack because you produced too many too early.
As a Zerg early game you want to try survive everything with as little commitment as possible. Having an over-commitment is terrible for you and hurts.
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It's not that Zerg can't early pressure, it's that Zerg elect to take their almost-guaranteed super-early expansion.
No, Zerg can't early pressure AND take their almost-guaranteed super-early expansion. Sorry about that.
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On December 27 2010 20:01 Numy wrote:Show nested quote +On December 27 2010 19:45 Zacsafus wrote:On December 27 2010 18:52 IdrA wrote:On December 27 2010 17:47 Saracen wrote:
Zerg has plenty of "attacking" ability. Who cares if lings aren't able to bust a wall? If you have enough lings left over after an engagement from destroying a Protoss or Terran early/midgame attack, you've probably already won. If you're Protoss or Terran and you move out and happen to have too few units against Zerg, you can't retreat. You just lose all your units and then lose the game because Zerg can make 20-30 drones as you're replenishing your army to match his. if you have enough lings left over after an engagement early it means you lost cuz you have less drones than you could and the lings are now useless anyway. Having lings left over doesnt mean that you have lost, i just means u are at perfect macro mode, but for people who arent aiming for complete perfection a few lings left over is better than not enough lings in the first place. Also having units left over gives zerg a unique timing window in which they can swarm and apply pressure to the slow reinforcing protoss and terrans. If zerg wins a big fight is almost garaunteed that they can cause some damage to the opponent, its not as if terrans only attack with half their army and then leave some siege tanks at home just in case. Yes, these attacks are far more game winning in the late game but the potential is there in the early game too, because your production isnt quite up to scratch but neither is the terrans or protoss', it is definately crushing to lose a game from a zerg who gets some lings in your base and picks off reinforcing marines and tanks one by one as they prop from the buildings. Its not like zerg who instantly surround your units if you happen to be near a hatch when all the units pop. Also having lings left over means u dont need to make quite so many to defend the next attack, meaning that you can make more drones! So its not quite as bad as you make out having some units on the field before they are sent to fight. You missed his point completely. He's basically saying if you have lings left over you produced too many lings too early and thus hurt your economy so you might not be able to produce enough fighting units for the next attack because you produced too many too early. As a Zerg early game you want to try survive everything with as little commitment as possible. Having an over-commitment is terrible for you and hurts.
I didnt miss his point, sorry if it came over that way, what i am saying is that he is exaggerating a ton, its not gg if you have some lings left over. Don't forget the terran had to spend money to make his units too, and if you crush him with units left over and he didnt do much damage, then you have essentially gained a timing window in which to attack him, this is on top of the economic damage it cost him to make the units and have his push fail.
Yes it is true that zerg cant just put on pressure by busting a ramp, much like protoss or terran can, (well bling busts work on occassion and its usually gg if they arent prepared, just like zerg is sometimes underprepared) but they have a unique timing in which they can punish the way in which terran more so than protoss reinforce, if you dont have enough units to hold off a wave of zerg units, you will never be able to cope with the pressure a zerg can put on with consecutive waves.
Essentially wall-ins are the only way protoss and terran arent dominated by zergs reinforcement mechanics, they dont wall in because it gives them an advantage, you wall in because its neccessary, but even wall ins arent infallable. You dont see terran and protoss walling against T or P because it isnt neccessary and its more of an advantage to have your ramp free for traversing when you know there isnt a chance of dying from an attack right away.
If terran and protoss couldnt wall off zerg would be able to win easily by just sending wave after wave at them in the early game, wall ins help mitigate this pressure, but trust me terrans and protoss feel super uneasy at expanding to an open natural like xel'naga's. Its not just zerg who feels hot under the collar about attacks you cant see coming.
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I think the reason Zergs aren't applying pressure early on is because they can't make fighting units and drones at the same time. Larvae is a resource, and a scarce one in the early game.
You see the 5 roach rush? You cut drones at like 15 because at some point you have to stop making drones in order to make something else.
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not true
watch a few korean zergs replay or pro games casted by someone
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I agree with the OP, but I think the problem could be best solved with better balanced maps with bigger ramps. If it is harder/take longer to wall-in the enemy cannot apply pressure without danger. Attacking should always bring some risks. So you either walloff good and fast, or you don't, but if your attack fails you are vulnerable. But thats just something blizzard can do, in the meantime Z have to refine defensive play and to develop metagame to become more resistant against any kind of cheese/pressure. While there is a principal end to this learning (for instance the FE is the best build vs. foxer style aggression and macrowise cannot be improved), I don't think the zerg have already arrived at that point.
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I'm not sure why I'm posting this, 100 people have already but I just want to reinforce the idea that...
If a Terran or Protoss decide to go on the offensive in the early/early mid-game, and manage to trade army for army(resource costs included), they can come out of it pretty damn even. If a Zerg goes on the offensive and trades army for army, it puts him behind since he could have droned up and defended at a later point and come out of that exchange with a bigger economy.
I would go so far as to equate it to pullling scv's to use in your attack, and if you don't do any economic damage then you're just going to be farther behind in the worker count. There is a greater necessity to do economic damage to your opponent when playing offensively, and thus a greater risk compared to the other races.
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On December 27 2010 22:54 Tachion wrote:
I'm not sure why I'm posting this, 100 people have already but I just want to reinforce the idea that...
If a Terran or Protoss decide to go on the offensive in the early/early mid-game, and manage to trade army for army(resource costs included), they can come out of it pretty damn even. If a Zerg goes on the offensive and trades army for army, it puts him behind since he could have droned up and defended at a later point and come out of that exchange with a bigger economy.
I would go so far as to equate it to pullling scv's to use in your attack, and if you don't do any economic damage then you're just going to be farther behind in the worker count. There is a greater necessity to do economic damage to your opponent when playing offensively, and thus a greater risk compared to the other races.
That's actually a pretty flawed comparison
If you can trade your army for his army containing sentries/tanks by all means go for it, providing you have an economy behind it. If it was always possible for Zerg to trade army for army Zerg would win about 95% of games. If you could only kill those sentries before they come at you with 200/200 ;_;
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Having a kill move is definitely easier (and more noob friendly) than having to use your advantage the take more expansions and win later. Assuming it is the right time to make a kill move, you win the game and don't leave any room to mess up later, I think the style that's hard for a lot of zerg players is that when they get what should be a winning advantage, the game still has to go on for 10-15 more minutes pretty often, that's a lot of room for mistakes. For other races vs Z it's quite often that when they get a winning advantage they can execute a kill move in 5 minutes because zerg has a relatively weak defenders advantage (basically only re-enforcements).
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On December 24 2010 10:57 Red. wrote:
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.
Its been like that since BW. I don't see the problem in scouting abilities.
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On December 27 2010 22:21 DarkRise wrote:
not true
watch a few korean zergs replay or pro games casted by someone
What's not true? Care to elaborate on this post a bit?
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On December 27 2010 23:22 salazar001 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2010 10:57 Red. wrote:
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. Its been like that since BW. I don't see the problem in scouting abilities.
Agreed. With overlord speed you basically have the opportunity to scout whenever the hell you want to. Plus speedlings to poke front... I really feel any Zerg saying they lack scouting ability is not playing Zerg correctly.
For instance, if you see your overlord scout dying to 2 marines (and you only see those 2 marines), then expect tech or an expansion. Might want to prepare for banshees but scout his natural, and so you are prepared for both. Wow I just revolutionized your ZvT, you can thank me later.
Keep in mind that observers come out late, and even later if you didn't open robo. But because of the sure lack of scouting and the possibility of cloaked units, I guess Protoss has to mostly open robo...
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On December 27 2010 23:50 Barca wrote:
For instance, if you see your overlord scout dying to 2 marines (and you only see those 2 marines), then expect tech or an expansion. Might want to prepare for banshees but scout his natural, and so you are prepared for both. Wow I just revolutionized your ZvT, you can thank me later.
This might work in bronce league, but anybody above bronce league won't use more than 2 marines, as there is no need to. So seeing an overlord dying to 2 marines means absolutely nothing, it could be tech, it could be an expansion, it could also mean he has a huge marineforce in his base, waiting for stim to finish. Basically the overlord scouted 2 marines, which is..not that helpful at all. I see no reason to thank you, as you haven't really revolutionized anything beyond the bronce league.
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On December 27 2010 23:07 ChickenLips wrote:Show nested quote +On December 27 2010 22:54 Tachion wrote:
I'm not sure why I'm posting this, 100 people have already but I just want to reinforce the idea that...
If a Terran or Protoss decide to go on the offensive in the early/early mid-game, and manage to trade army for army(resource costs included), they can come out of it pretty damn even. If a Zerg goes on the offensive and trades army for army, it puts him behind since he could have droned up and defended at a later point and come out of that exchange with a bigger economy.
I would go so far as to equate it to pullling scv's to use in your attack, and if you don't do any economic damage then you're just going to be farther behind in the worker count. There is a greater necessity to do economic damage to your opponent when playing offensively, and thus a greater risk compared to the other races. That's actually a pretty flawed comparison If you can trade your army for his army containing sentries/tanks by all means go for it, providing you have an economy behind it. If it was always possible for Zerg to trade army for army Zerg would win about 95% of games. If you could only kill those sentries before they come at you with 200/200 ;_;
That's just the thing though, until you get into the mid-game, you are playing catchup with your econ the entire time. If you hinder that even more then your opponent will have a superior econ and just roll you later on in the game, sentries or not.
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Ok fair, I won't discuss balance but you sure did. Your ending statement stating it has oh absolutely nothing to do with balance was cute.
Yes zerg has no way of killing someone who knows what they are doing before tier 2.
End.
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On December 27 2010 23:54 Rflcrx wrote:Show nested quote +On December 27 2010 23:50 Barca wrote:
For instance, if you see your overlord scout dying to 2 marines (and you only see those 2 marines), then expect tech or an expansion. Might want to prepare for banshees but scout his natural, and so you are prepared for both. Wow I just revolutionized your ZvT, you can thank me later.
This might work in bronce league, but anybody above bronce league won't use more than 2 marines, as there is no need to. So seeing an overlord dying to 2 marines means absolutely nothing, it could be tech, it could be an expansion, it could also mean he has a huge marineforce in his base, waiting for stim to finish. Basically the overlord scouted 2 marines, which is..not that helpful at all. I see no reason to thank you, as you haven't really revolutionized anything beyond the bronce league.
Assuming the overlord is being attacked by only 2 marines your overlord will make it to about midway through the base. If one doesn't work for you that's fine then use 2. The only scout cheaper than that (at the moment) assuming every 1 gas counting as 2 minerals would be the scouting rax as a scan sacrifices a mule.
Sure terrans might opt to scan you without hesitation but this does prevent them from building as many units. And even if the toss/terran hide their force you will at least see their production facilities. Also there is usually very little a scouting scv or later scouting scv won't notice if they are not on lair tech yet. Until lair tech is achieved the zerg have very limited places of building buildings efficiently.
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On December 28 2010 00:19 terranghost wrote:
Assuming the overlord is being attacked by only 2 marines your overlord will make it to about midway through the base.
No.
On December 28 2010 00:19 terranghost wrote:
If one doesn't work for you that's fine then use 2.
200 minerals and 2 larvae to know he has 4 marines? Not worth it.
On December 28 2010 00:19 terranghost wrote:
The only scout cheaper than that
Again: For anybody above bronce league that is no scouting at all.
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On December 27 2010 19:45 Zacsafus wrote:Show nested quote +On December 27 2010 18:52 IdrA wrote:On December 27 2010 17:47 Saracen wrote:
Zerg has plenty of "attacking" ability. Who cares if lings aren't able to bust a wall? If you have enough lings left over after an engagement from destroying a Protoss or Terran early/midgame attack, you've probably already won. If you're Protoss or Terran and you move out and happen to have too few units against Zerg, you can't retreat. You just lose all your units and then lose the game because Zerg can make 20-30 drones as you're replenishing your army to match his. if you have enough lings left over after an engagement early it means you lost cuz you have less drones than you could and the lings are now useless anyway. Having lings left over doesnt mean that you have lost, i just means u are at perfect macro mode, but for people who arent aiming for complete perfection a few lings left over is better than not enough lings in the first place.
Tell that to Blizz balancing team who created SC2 Zerg. Against most all-in builds you do need to be perfect. GG
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On December 28 2010 00:32 Rflcrx wrote:Show nested quote +On December 28 2010 00:19 terranghost wrote:
Assuming the overlord is being attacked by only 2 marines your overlord will make it to about midway through the base.
No. Show nested quote +On December 28 2010 00:19 terranghost wrote:
If one doesn't work for you that's fine then use 2.
200 minerals and 2 larvae to know he has 4 marines? Not worth it. Show nested quote +On December 28 2010 00:19 terranghost wrote:
The only scout cheaper than that Again: For anybody above bronce league that is no scouting at all.
+1
User was warned for this post
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On December 27 2010 22:54 Tachion wrote:
I'm not sure why I'm posting this, 100 people have already but I just want to reinforce the idea that...
If a Terran or Protoss decide to go on the offensive in the early/early mid-game, and manage to trade army for army(resource costs included), they can come out of it pretty damn even. If a Zerg goes on the offensive and trades army for army, it puts him behind since he could have droned up and defended at a later point and come out of that exchange with a bigger economy.
I would go so far as to equate it to pullling scv's to use in your attack, and if you don't do any economic damage then you're just going to be farther behind in the worker count. There is a greater necessity to do economic damage to your opponent when playing offensively, and thus a greater risk compared to the other races.
Wrong. At the beginning of the game, you drone your ass off. Why? Because your opponent has no units - he can't do any damage. Then, he starts getting his ball. You're forced to make units.
Let's say he's on 1 base. You cut drones at a particular point in time to stop his attack. You trade armies. You have 2 base to his 1. Can he expand? No, because even though he has plenty of workers, he's on 1 base. Your income is still higher, and you can reinforce faster. Even if he does manage to expand, you can build 2 rounds of drones, and you've won the game because he can't apply pressure.
Let's say you're both on 2 base. You trade armies. Now what? He can't pressure you because he has no army. You can make a round or two of drones. Now you're far ahead in economy, and you're soon to be ahead in army as well.
The problem is either you're regurgitating common beliefs, or you just don't know when to drone. It's not to say that you're wrong that you'll get more economy by making drones instead of units. It's just flawed to think that trading armies as Zerg is a bad thing. Also, sometimes you can't always "defend at a later point" because Zerg is a very positional race. For example, on Shakuras Plateau, if you wait for a Protoss to get all the way up to your natural before you start defending with roach/ling/crawler, you've pretty much lost.
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On December 28 2010 04:32 Saracen wrote:Show nested quote +On December 27 2010 22:54 Tachion wrote:
I'm not sure why I'm posting this, 100 people have already but I just want to reinforce the idea that...
If a Terran or Protoss decide to go on the offensive in the early/early mid-game, and manage to trade army for army(resource costs included), they can come out of it pretty damn even. If a Zerg goes on the offensive and trades army for army, it puts him behind since he could have droned up and defended at a later point and come out of that exchange with a bigger economy.
I would go so far as to equate it to pullling scv's to use in your attack, and if you don't do any economic damage then you're just going to be farther behind in the worker count. There is a greater necessity to do economic damage to your opponent when playing offensively, and thus a greater risk compared to the other races. Wrong. At the beginning of the game, you drone your ass off. Why? Because your opponent has no units - he can't do any damage. Then, he starts getting his ball. You're forced to make units. Let's say he's on 1 base. You cut drones at a particular point in time to stop his attack. You trade armies. You have 2 base to his 1. Can he expand? No, because even though he has plenty of workers, he's on 1 base. Your income is still higher, and you can reinforce faster. Even if he does manage to expand, you can build 2 rounds of drones, and you've won the game because he can't apply pressure. Let's say you're both on 2 base. You trade armies. Now what? He can't pressure you because he has no army. You can make a round or two of drones. Now you're far ahead in economy, and you're soon to be ahead in army as well. The problem is either you're regurgitating common beliefs, or you just don't know when to drone. It's not to say that you're wrong that you'll get more economy by making drones instead of units. It's just flawed to think that trading armies as Zerg is a bad thing. Also, sometimes you can't always "defend at a later point" because Zerg is a very positional race. For example, on Shakuras Plateau, if you wait for a Protoss to get all the way up to your natural before you start defending with roach/ling/crawler, you've pretty much lost.
I think his statement is more about the early game but you are right about points later in the game. In fact many cases army trades are better for Zerg than other races.
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army trades (assuming pop count is similar) is pretty much always beneficial for the zerg player
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On December 28 2010 04:32 Saracen wrote:Show nested quote +On December 27 2010 22:54 Tachion wrote:
I'm not sure why I'm posting this, 100 people have already but I just want to reinforce the idea that...
If a Terran or Protoss decide to go on the offensive in the early/early mid-game, and manage to trade army for army(resource costs included), they can come out of it pretty damn even. If a Zerg goes on the offensive and trades army for army, it puts him behind since he could have droned up and defended at a later point and come out of that exchange with a bigger economy.
I would go so far as to equate it to pullling scv's to use in your attack, and if you don't do any economic damage then you're just going to be farther behind in the worker count. There is a greater necessity to do economic damage to your opponent when playing offensively, and thus a greater risk compared to the other races. Wrong. At the beginning of the game, you drone your ass off. Why? Because your opponent has no units - he can't do any damage. Then, he starts getting his ball. You're forced to make units. Let's say he's on 1 base. You cut drones at a particular point in time to stop his attack. You trade armies. You have 2 base to his 1. Can he expand? No, because even though he has plenty of workers, he's on 1 base. Your income is still higher, and you can reinforce faster. Even if he does manage to expand, you can build 2 rounds of drones, and you've won the game because he can't apply pressure. Let's say you're both on 2 base. You trade armies. Now what? He can't pressure you because he has no army. You can make a round or two of drones. Now you're far ahead in economy, and you're soon to be ahead in army as well. The problem is either you're regurgitating common beliefs, or you just don't know when to drone. It's not to say that you're wrong that you'll get more economy by making drones instead of units. It's just flawed to think that trading armies as Zerg is a bad thing. Also, sometimes you can't always "defend at a later point" because Zerg is a very positional race. For example, on Shakuras Plateau, if you wait for a Protoss to get all the way up to your natural before you start defending with roach/ling/crawler, you've pretty much lost.
Well Saracen about your last statement: With so many of the maps/ spawn positions having this 15 second rush distance, you are already fucked even if you bring the protoss army to battle right outside his natural, because unless you destroy his army in the process of the army trade he is just going to waltz into your base right afterwards and start killing your economy/ production. There is literally no breathing room for zerg to remake his forces to bring the toss to battle again... Either way, you are fucked if you plan to apply this "second wave" theory after you trade your armies.
I really think zerg should get 300 supply limit when up against protoss if these are the sort of maps we are to get.
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On December 28 2010 04:47 JiYan wrote:
army trades (assuming pop count is similar) is pretty much always beneficial for the zerg player
Really? Early game that seems somewhat larva wasteful. If you lose your army, don't you have to replenish it instead of drones in case they attack (since non-zerg can build up and still get workers)?
EDIT: Ahh saw the saracen post. makes a lot more sense.
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On December 28 2010 04:39 Numy wrote:Show nested quote +On December 28 2010 04:32 Saracen wrote:On December 27 2010 22:54 Tachion wrote:
I'm not sure why I'm posting this, 100 people have already but I just want to reinforce the idea that...
If a Terran or Protoss decide to go on the offensive in the early/early mid-game, and manage to trade army for army(resource costs included), they can come out of it pretty damn even. If a Zerg goes on the offensive and trades army for army, it puts him behind since he could have droned up and defended at a later point and come out of that exchange with a bigger economy.
I would go so far as to equate it to pullling scv's to use in your attack, and if you don't do any economic damage then you're just going to be farther behind in the worker count. There is a greater necessity to do economic damage to your opponent when playing offensively, and thus a greater risk compared to the other races. Wrong. At the beginning of the game, you drone your ass off. Why? Because your opponent has no units - he can't do any damage. Then, he starts getting his ball. You're forced to make units. Let's say he's on 1 base. You cut drones at a particular point in time to stop his attack. You trade armies. You have 2 base to his 1. Can he expand? No, because even though he has plenty of workers, he's on 1 base. Your income is still higher, and you can reinforce faster. Even if he does manage to expand, you can build 2 rounds of drones, and you've won the game because he can't apply pressure. Let's say you're both on 2 base. You trade armies. Now what? He can't pressure you because he has no army. You can make a round or two of drones. Now you're far ahead in economy, and you're soon to be ahead in army as well. The problem is either you're regurgitating common beliefs, or you just don't know when to drone. It's not to say that you're wrong that you'll get more economy by making drones instead of units. It's just flawed to think that trading armies as Zerg is a bad thing. Also, sometimes you can't always "defend at a later point" because Zerg is a very positional race. For example, on Shakuras Plateau, if you wait for a Protoss to get all the way up to your natural before you start defending with roach/ling/crawler, you've pretty much lost. I think his statement is more about the early game but you are right about points later in the game. In fact many cases army trades are better for Zerg than other races.
I see. This is true early game before you have enough drones to support full rounds of drones (like against 2 stalker pressure or early marine pressure).
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To OP: What if wall-off is possible for Zerg like T & P?
Now it's not exactly more options for attacking, but it'll give zerg more security in early game and will allow zerg can actually play strategically, instead of being stressed of unexpected attacks from T or P?
No, I dont think that would be a good idea.
I think it would be good if zerg had more options for early aggression like the other races. Your idea wouldnt change that, it would just make it easier to defend. Defending and playing a macro game as zerg is already possible right now, thats what mostly everyone is doing. Im talking about giving zergs a different option, not about helping zergs do the same thing they do now, but easier.
Zerg has plenty of "attacking" ability. Who cares if lings aren't able to bust a wall? If you have enough lings left over after an engagement from destroying a Protoss or Terran early/midgame attack, you've probably already won. If you're Protoss or Terran and you move out and happen to have too few units against Zerg, you can't retreat. You just lose all your units and then lose the game because Zerg can make 20-30 drones as you're replenishing your army to match his.
Thats not the ability to attack. Thats the ability to drone to get an economic lead.
When you have an army advantage, you can usually use it to:
Attack
Expand
Tech
(thats simplifying it obv.) Droning up would be the same as expanding, you use your bigger army to get an economy advantage to extend your lead. Thats a good option. Other races can do it too. If you win a huge fight as terran, and its really one sided, instead of going straight for the main, you can also just chill after you killed and expo, and take your own expo to extend your economic lead. And ofc, you have the option to attack.
Zergs from what I see FE everytime regardless (ignoring zvz) Terrans and toss aren't dumb they could play in the dark with a 2 gate or 2 rax opening and encounter a FE 95%.
Zerg make all units from larva. Making a hatch gives you the ability to mine more, and make more drones, sure.
But incidentally, it also gives you the ability to make more lings, roaches, or whatever army units you decide to make.
Using 350 minerals in the early game to make an expo, and thus to be able to build more units, isnt any greedier than making 2 gate or 2 rax. Its the same investment really, and the same outcome: the ability to make more units.
Making all of those as drones would be greedy. Making all of those as lings would be aggressive.
Thats the interesting part of zerg, and its larva management. Or at least, thats what its supposed to be.
But since making all of those as lings wouldnt really allow you to apply pressure unless you go all in, and make banelings/roaches too, well you have to try and play greedy.
You nearly always have to play greedy.
If you are for example terran, and you see a toss going one gate DT rush.
What exactly do you know? Well, you know that he invested his money into tech. not army, and not economy.
So, what can you do to counter it? Well, since hes already going for tech, you cant really catch up on that front. You can go for army though. You know hes going to be weak on that side till his DTs come online, so you can just try to attack, and do damage now. Or, you could take an expo, and try to protect yourself against the DTs.
You scout tech, you have the option of aggression, or economy.
In that situation, as a zerg though, you cant really go for aggression, so you go for economy. Try and get a lot of drones, and defend against the DTs. Economy isnt the weaker option, thats not the issue, so its still balanced. But you only have 1 option instead of 2.
Another example. Imagine a terran building 4 orbital commands in his base, trying to go for the massive economy advantage. You are protoss, and you scout it. What are your options? Well, you know hes going to be ahead of you in economy, but behind on tech, and army for now. Trying to take 3 bases would be foolish, since you know he is already going to be ahead in economy. But you can go for army, and just kill him now while he invested so much in his orbitals. Or you can go for tech, since his is going to be late, and greet his masses of marines with late stim and combat shields, with coloxen, or high templars for example.
But as zerg! Well in such a situation, you still cant attack without going all-in.
You can still try to go for the tech, and greet his huge marine push with a couple of infestors.
And again, going for the economy here wouldnt be a great idea. You cant really compete with that.
For terran and toss, there are 3 basic options to extend an advantage.
And 2 options as a response.
For zerg though, there are only 2 options to extend an advantage, and only 1 option to respond, because the option of attacking, the "just go and friggin kill him" option, isnt a very good one until later in the game, unless your advantage is already gigantic.
That doesnt make zerg worse than the other races. The remaining option is still a very good one
It just makes zergs a little more limited during the early game, a little more predictable, and a little more boring.
To everyone who says: zergs are just too greedy, you could play off one base and attack too!
Really, ask yourself what you are more afraid of? How often do you lose to zergs who get a gigantic economic lead into a terrifying lategame? And how often do you lose to zergs who make 1 base speedlings or roaches, and attack you head on through your choke? Second option really isnt very scary. So getting the huge economic advantage is almost always the best option. Thats why zergs play greedy.
I dont want greedy play to be easier or better for zerg.
Id love to have a second option though.
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Im not actually even suggesting any changes to the units, buildings, mechanics, or anything like that either.
Im pretty confident that changing maps would be enough.
Just imagine a map that has no chokes, no ramps, just open space and expansions.
Imagine zergling attacks on such a map. Would be pretty powerful. Terran would probably have to build everything super tight together, wall of as many parts of the mineral field as possible, and probably even build a bunker right away once the rax is up, to help wall off, and to put in some marines. Moving out would be incredibly difficult, because ling counterattacks could end up doing a ton of damage, and would be incredibly easy.
Now imagine the opposite, a map with a tiny choke as the only entrance to the main, with a ramp, and thus high ground, and that choke can be clocked by a single rax, depot, or bunker. That would be incredibly difficult for zerg to attack into with any effectiveness. Roaches wont be good there, lings neither, and banelings are really the only option.
Now thats both extremes. Right now, maps tend to favor the tiny ramps with high ground, and an easy wall off, single entrance, and an expo that also has a single entrance, with a slightly wider ramp, and often still high ground.
Im pretty sure that it doesnt have to be one, or the other. Its a lot easier for zerg to do successful attacks in the midgame, on blistering sands, with the 2 possible entrance points, compared to for example lost temple. Attacking the expo on metalopolis or xelnaga is actually possible in the early midgame for zerg, since its quite open, compared to again, something like lost temple.
Im pretty sure its possible for a middle ground. A sweet spot.
Somewhere between the incredibly open, where you cant stop lings no matter how much effort, and the tiny high ground ramp/chokes.
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On December 28 2010 04:32 Saracen wrote:Show nested quote +On December 27 2010 22:54 Tachion wrote:
I'm not sure why I'm posting this, 100 people have already but I just want to reinforce the idea that...
If a Terran or Protoss decide to go on the offensive in the early/early mid-game, and manage to trade army for army(resource costs included), they can come out of it pretty damn even. If a Zerg goes on the offensive and trades army for army, it puts him behind since he could have droned up and defended at a later point and come out of that exchange with a bigger economy.
I would go so far as to equate it to pullling scv's to use in your attack, and if you don't do any economic damage then you're just going to be farther behind in the worker count. There is a greater necessity to do economic damage to your opponent when playing offensively, and thus a greater risk compared to the other races. Wrong. At the beginning of the game, you drone your ass off. Why? Because your opponent has no units - he can't do any damage. Then, he starts getting his ball. You're forced to make units.
Let's say he's on 1 base. You cut drones at a particular point in time to stop his attack. You trade armies. You have 2 base to his 1. Can he expand? No, because even though he has plenty of workers, he's on 1 base. Your income is still higher, and you can reinforce faster. Even if he does manage to expand, you can build 2 rounds of drones, and you've won the game because he can't apply pressure. Let's say you're both on 2 base. You trade armies. Now what? He can't pressure you because he has no army. You can make a round or two of drones. Now you're far ahead in economy, and you're soon to be ahead in army as well. The problem is either you're regurgitating common beliefs, or you just don't know when to drone. It's not to say that you're wrong that you'll get more economy by making drones instead of units. It's just flawed to think that trading armies as Zerg is a bad thing. Also, sometimes you can't always "defend at a later point" because Zerg is a very positional race. For example, on Shakuras Plateau, if you wait for a Protoss to get all the way up to your natural before you start defending with roach/ling/crawler, you've pretty much lost.
I certainly don't disagree with what you said, because you mentioned that you're supposed to drone your ass off in the early game which was my focus. There is a big difference behind making 20 units and just parking them outside your opponents ramp because you can't do anything with them, and defending with those 20 units and using them all up to defend. If you wait as long as possible to make your attacking units, your drones will get out faster and have more time to mine, giving you a better economy.
I do think it possible for a zerg to be aggressive, but in my opinion it has to be at some point after your opponent takes his expansion. If your opponent is staying on 1 base, it means he's going to be doing some timing/tech attack which you absolutely have to defend, and trying to break a ramp early on is very all-inish since it requires such a big commitment.
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On December 27 2010 22:54 Tachion wrote:
I'm not sure why I'm posting this, 100 people have already but I just want to reinforce the idea that...
If a Terran or Protoss decide to go on the offensive in the early/early mid-game, and manage to trade army for army(resource costs included), they can come out of it pretty damn even. If a Zerg goes on the offensive and trades army for army, it puts him behind since he could have droned up and defended at a later point and come out of that exchange with a bigger economy.
I would go so far as to equate it to pullling scv's to use in your attack, and if you don't do any economic damage then you're just going to be farther behind in the worker count. There is a greater necessity to do economic damage to your opponent when playing offensively, and thus a greater risk compared to the other races.
I had to make an account just to reply to how blatantly wrong this post is. I lurked for the last couple years but this one finally convinced me to make an account.
Trading your army as a zerg is the best thing you can hope for against a player of equal skill, it enables you to start throwing wave after wave of units against him without any advantageous way for him to respond. It blows my mind that you think this puts the 'zerg' at a disadvantage, when everyone knows that zerg armies are much cheaper and easier to replenish than P/T units could ever dream of being.
It's nothing to the zerg to throw away a few zerglings at the start, but to a protoss, those first few sentries or stalkers are everything. It's impossible to recover from the loss of resources and army strength if you lose your early game units, ESPECIALLY if the zerg fast expanded (as though there are zergs that don't do this lol). You should never be behind in worker count.
If you completely destroy a terran or protoss army, the last thing you are is 'behind.'
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It's nothing to the zerg to throw away a few zerglings at the start, but to a protoss, those first few sentries or stalkers are everything. It's impossible to recover from the loss of resources and army strength if you lose your early game units, ESPECIALLY if the zerg fast expanded (as though there are zergs that don't do this lol). You should never be behind in worker count.
If you completely destroy a terran or protoss army, the last thing you are is 'behind.'
This is extremely false. If you do not drone properly you will fall behind very quickly. Making units is not drones, and in the beginning of the game, it's vital to get a solid economy going. Terran and Protoss can make units and drones at the same time, so they sacrifice nothing econ-wise by attacking with early units. That's just a fact. They will have the same number of probes and scvs regardless of whether or not they attack or defend or whatever.
The production advantage only works if you have the macro to back it up, which early game you do not. "Trading armies" is not ideal for zerg until they are outmacroing you.
I don't understand why people make a big deal out of zerg FE. We need the larva no matter what, and there's no advantage to an inbase hatch. There's nothing greedy about a zerg FE.
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On December 28 2010 10:36 DoubleReed wrote:Show nested quote +It's nothing to the zerg to throw away a few zerglings at the start, but to a protoss, those first few sentries or stalkers are everything. It's impossible to recover from the loss of resources and army strength if you lose your early game units, ESPECIALLY if the zerg fast expanded (as though there are zergs that don't do this lol). You should never be behind in worker count.
If you completely destroy a terran or protoss army, the last thing you are is 'behind.' The production advantage only works if you have the macro to back it up, which early game you do not. "Trading armies" is not ideal for zerg until they are outmacroing you.
Very well said. If you pump a bunch of lings or roaches in the early game, and the Terran/protoss hold you off with equal resources/units lost(but no damage to their economy), then you are going to find yourself very far behind since they were making probes/scv's that whole time and you have crap for drones in comparison. This drastically changes the further you progress into the game, but I really don't think Zerg has any place being aggressive until the midgame.
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