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I'm bumping quite an old thread but due to the removal of the overseer I think it might be time to start discussing things again.
I think the viper replacing the overseer brings along a couple of new problems. This is only based on theory though, but I'm fairly sure I'm right about it.
One can only imagine that the Viper is further up the tech tree than the overseer. I think we can all agree that a flying spell caster will at least be lair tech and probably need some kind of other building to be made.
Now the overseer was Zerg's only mobile detection and it was essential when taking a third base vs DT play. You could not get the third up if you hadn't removed the DT that was waiting at the expansion. With the the removal of the overseer and the addition of the Viper I think Zergs now have to wait significantly longer in order to take that third.
Other problems like scouting difficulties that derive from not having that overseer will be left out for now. What do you guys think?
Hello!
I've been thinking a lot about Zerg detection lately and I have come across some minor things that bug me. This discussion is exclusively about the ZvP matchup, since you don't really need detection in ZvT / ZvZ.
This isn't about DT rushes either, if you scout it in time you can get a spore crawler no prob.
First of all, let's take a look at what kind of detection capabilities Zerg got:
Spore Crawler - Static defense that loses detection when unrooted; requires evo chamber; only hits air and costs 125 (including the drone)
Overseer - Flying unit (fast but with crappy acceleration); costs 150 100; speed upgradeable
Infestor Fungal Growth
In comparision the Protoss detectors:
Cannon - Static defense; requires forge; hits both air and ground and costs 150
Oberserver - Flying unit; costs 25 75 (and more importantly robo build time), speed upgradeable
What would you need detection for in a ZvP as Zerg: DTs, Oberservers, hallucinated units
and as Protoss: All kinds of burrowed units (especially roaches), creep
The first thing that comes to mind is that Protoss only needs detection to combat defensive abilities, such as burrow and creep. Burrowed Zerg units that are able to attack (lurker) are not a threat in sc2. Banelings are a different story; if you burrow banelings against a protoss then your intelligence is questionable.
The biggest threat as Zerg are DTs, which can be used as part of the protoss army or as harassing units - both, though the same unit, need different kind of defenses to be dealt with. Sure you can use Overseers and Spore Crawlers for both situations but that's rather suboptimal (especially the spore crawler vs DTs in army solution).
Since we're talking about late game DTs usage here, there really isn't a timing for when they are gonna come - every toss likes to mix them in at different point in times and the early and mid game dictates the pace of the late game. This is a huge problem when dealing with DTs. As Zerg you have to prepare in advance in order not to be caught off guard. But it's hard to prepare when there are no timings so you cannot scout properly. You're left with planting spores and spines at all your expansions at random times when you feel it's time to do so. You need about 2 spores and 2 spines per base to deal with DT harass, which can be 12 to 16 drones in late game. But this is only a minor problem, he has to invest in DTs so I have to invest in static defenses to be safe.
The major problem I see is DTs being used as part of the protoss army. First of all it's very hard to figure that they are doing so, cuz DTs are kinda hard to see. If you know that there's a possibility of him doing that then oyu need something more mobile than static defenses - the Overseer. The Overseer is a fast, flying unit that got detection, however its acceleration is really bad.
At this point I'd like to compare the Overseer to the mobile detection capabilites of Protoss for one more time. This time we're interested in how easy it is to deny those detectors.
Overseer - Not cloacked, bad acceleration, expensive and takes a rather long time ro rebuild:
Observer - Cloacked, Cheap (however uses up robo time)
The overseer is farily easy to kill, especially with blink. If the protoss has DTs out then he also has a reason to kill it, which is very important. The Overseer is also VERY key in dealing with offensive stuff like DTs. The observer is fairly hard to kill, it's cloacked and there's not really a reason to kill it (sure it can be nice, but not that important) and its only use is killing defensive abilities.
Everytime the Overseer dies (which is almost immediately due to blink) oyu have to remake it, which takes a pretty long time considering that DTs are out killing your army. You can get several of them simultaneously, but truth is, Overseers are not for free. I consider 150 100 quite a huge investment. Sure, DTs cost money too, but DTs are able to kill stuff as opposed to the Overseer.
Fungal Growth can be good to deal with DTs, especially if he caught you with your pants down and you got no spores at all. It's very situational though. If oyu run out of that very important FG that is meant to soften up his army then you will lose the straight up fight. HTs are also very good at feedbacking infestors and if you try to fungal DTs he brought along with his army then you will waste FGs on DTs and zealots, since the ranged units will be further back and thus out of range. FG can't really be the solution to cloacked units. It's more an emergency scan for Zerg.
I think Zerg detection is too weak to deal with late game DTs with blink. Overseers are too expensive, accelerate too slowly and are very easy to deny.
What do you think? Should Overlords get detection with lair or maybe with overlord speed?
That way DT rushes would still be a viable option. Not sure what else Overseers would be useful for then.
edit:
Some people fail to see my point, I will elaborate a bit more:
Despite the urgency of having the best detection capabilities Zerg got the worst. As Zerg you will need to make 2 buildings to fend off DT harass, one that has detection and one that is able to attack. This is inferior to a cannon which can attack ground and has detection or to turrets given that Terran built a PF. Although Protoss has detection and defense combined in one building there's nothing Zerg got that would deal damage while being invisible (cloaked, burrowed). Having to build 2 buildings instead of 1 or 4 instead of 2 to be super safe is a disadvantage - although Zerg is the one threatened by cloacked units.
This directly transaltes to DTs used in armies. An overseer is fairly easy to kill, although Zerg needs that detection badly, while Protoss only needs detection to detect units that cannot attack while being burrowed or to kill creep. An overseer is easy to kill for several reasons: It is armored, blink stalkers deal more damage; it has slow acceleration speed, it's impossible to get away with it after a blink; it's uncloaked.
Zerg detection is just too easy to deny. You can either kill the 2 spines or the 2 spores, in both cases you will render the left over buildings useless.
Sure, the protoss player might lose a few stalkers when blinking, but FFs really minimize the damage and having 3 DTs laying slay upon your enemy for several seconds is worth losing a handful of stalkers (which, btw, tank and deal damage while being killed).
Also, if the overseer dies you lose the supply cap you gained from making that overlord, so oyu have to replace that overlord. If the Overseer dies it costs 150 100, if it doesn't all game long it only costs 50 100.
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I disagree. Having Detection all over the place by means of Overlords would make the fight for detection trivial. I think the reason Blizzard removed detection to begin with was to keep the games interesting and require more skill.
I do agree that overseers are easy targets, but that can be used as a trap for blink stalkers. Fungal + smart unit control (ie: running the overseer away xD) can lead to cool scenarios.
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Very true, the overseer is way overpriced compared to the observer and is overall weaker, I mean at least the obs is cloaked
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While I think overseers kinda suck, it seems like you just want the DT to not exist. I don't like this mindset of thinking the game is broken every time there is something difficult to deal with. Perhaps just play better?
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On April 26 2011 21:00 norterrible wrote:
While I think overseers kinda suck, it seems like you just want the DT to not exist. I don't like this mindset of thinking the game is broken every time there is something difficult to deal with. Perhaps just play better?
I dont want the DT to be nerfed in any way. I just think that the overall concept of the Overseer is bad and that there's a better solution.
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If you keep the overseer in the middle/back of the army, blinking to kill the overseer is kind of suicide. The protoss will lose much more than the zerg. Upgraded roaches eat upgrades stalkers alive. And if you add fungal it's just sad.
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Zerg detection is very hard to come by compared to Broodwar. Back then, every overlord had detection, and still corsair/DT was a legitimate strategy against zerg. I don't know why phoenix/DT isn't used nowadays.
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Vikings + banshees... they scan when they are near my army to kill my detector, and it's gg if I don't see it coming.
Same problem, sir.
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whenever I expo i just throw down 1 spine and 1 spore... kinda easy to deal with lategame DT imo if you remember
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kinda weird how from BW to SC2 they nerfed ovies so much, decreased speed AND removed detection :S.
I think that yeah on late game on like 6 base, DT can fuck up a zerg really bad.
Not sure if it needs patching, just its harder to defend a DT harras than it is to execute a DT rush
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On April 26 2011 21:00 norterrible wrote:
While I think overseers kinda suck, it seems like you just want the DT to not exist. I don't like this mindset of thinking the game is broken every time there is something difficult to deal with. Perhaps just play better?
And I don't like this mindset of thinking that every discussion must be dismissed with a "learn to play".
Seriously if you are not interested in the discussion or just flat out refuse it... don't read it, don't post in it... noone is forcing you to come here and spread hate.
Edit: also want to add that since the recent Infestor's buff it's harder to handle DTs with them because of the reduction of paralyzed time. I use DTs a lot and noticed how much better they are with this new fungal.
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This is one of the least talked-about aspects of Zergs massive loss of utility from BW to SC2. Both DTs and cloaked Wraiths saw most use against Zerg, who had overwhelming amounts of detection due to overlords.
Now Banshees are about 100x more useful than Wraiths and DTs are slightly less useful than before, but overlords lost their detection and now require a massive gas dump for the same thing.
Whenever people figure out how to consistantly abuse Zergs lack of detection, I think Zerg players are in for a world of hurt.
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This detection discussion seems to be getting more and more prevalent, however I never run into problems with DT's until P stall late-game by sending dt's throughout the map to do damage.
I don't really know what I think of the proposed changes you make or the current state of Zerg detection.
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We can also reveal cloaked units with Fungal Growth. Great against DT's since they are melee and have low health to begin with. I use Fungal as my main detection in late game.
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On April 26 2011 21:06 Goliathsorrow wrote:Show nested quote +On April 26 2011 21:00 norterrible wrote:
While I think overseers kinda suck, it seems like you just want the DT to not exist. I don't like this mindset of thinking the game is broken every time there is something difficult to deal with. Perhaps just play better? And I don't like this mindset of thinking that every discussion must be dismissed with a "learn to play". Seriously if you are not interested in the discussion or just flat out refuse it... don't read it, don't post in it... noone is forcing you to come here and spread hate.
No one is forcing you to respond to my post either, yet you decide to let me know how much you don't like it. He asked what we thought, I told him. Not a very useful discussion if only the people that like the idea respond. And what if we had a thread like this for every single aspect of the game? At what point is it time to just learn to get better?
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You mention FG in the beginning but somehow neglect it later...it's a form of mobile detection that is not that bad.
I agree that Overseer are not that good for their price, but when you have Ovi Speed and take care of your Overseers(so that they do NOT run in front of your army) it's not easy to snipe them with blink, especially if you already have FG.
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Where did you get 200/100 cost from? Overseers are 50/100, and you don't have to rebuild an overlord for morphing one into an overseer.
The benefit of an overseer is that you can morph one in anywhere on the map, provided you spread your OL's, which you should, and they also have underused abilities that grant extra scouting and stops production. With the speed upgrade, which is good in all MU's, they're insanely fast. Keep them in the back of your army and they seldom get sniped, and if they do, the toss loses DPS from their stalkers trying to kill it.
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On April 26 2011 21:09 norterrible wrote:Show nested quote +On April 26 2011 21:06 Goliathsorrow wrote:On April 26 2011 21:00 norterrible wrote:
While I think overseers kinda suck, it seems like you just want the DT to not exist. I don't like this mindset of thinking the game is broken every time there is something difficult to deal with. Perhaps just play better? And I don't like this mindset of thinking that every discussion must be dismissed with a "learn to play". Seriously if you are not interested in the discussion or just flat out refuse it... don't read it, don't post in it... noone is forcing you to come here and spread hate. No one is forcing you to respond to my post either, yet you decide to let me know how much you don't like it. He asked what we thought, I told him. Not a very useful discussion if only the people that like the idea respond. And what if we had a thread like this for every single aspect of the game? At what point is it time to just learn to get better?
I'm not pretending that everyone that post here likes the OP's idea but if you are gonna jump here with a "l2p" you could at least suggest a way to do that or solutions to the OP's problem or just even contribute to the discussion with your ideas.
I could have just PM'ed you about this but I felt like posting it directly on the forum was better since it's not the first time that I have to witness stuff like that, I'm sorry if I'm annoying.
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On April 26 2011 21:12 sushiman wrote:
Where did you get 200/100 cost from? Overseers are 50/100, and you don't have to rebuild an overlord for morphing one into an overseer.
The benefit of an overseer is that you can morph one in anywhere on the map, provided you spread your OL's, which you should, and they also have underused abilities that grant extra scouting and stops production. With the speed upgrade, which is good in all MU's, they're insanely fast. Keep them in the back of your army and they seldom get sniped, and if they do, the toss loses DPS from their stalkers trying to kill it.
You are right, morphing one is only 50 100, dunno where I got that from. Adding the Overlord cost this makes 150 100. Thanks
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I don't really see any problem with Zerg's detection. vT you really only need one in the early game (for cloaked banshees). vP you don't really need detection until late game at which point 150/300 should cover you for the rest of the game.
Even though I think it's stupid to compare the two different games, let's do it......I played BW and DTs in that game were more effective there because zerg didn't have the ability to mass drones, so we couldn't afford spores and sunkens that easily. I seldom saw wraiths, but since they can shoot air and we had no queens, I can see why OLs had detection in that game.
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EPT
