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On August 04 2014 12:33 r691175002 wrote:
This talk about the viability of the 11-11 rax kind of misses the point IMO.
A viable cheese will always exist in every matchup, because the cheese is what prevents a player from opening with unlimited greed. If no cheese exists, a player will simply perform a greedier opening as there is no risk of dying.
If the 11-11 rax was nerfed, all that would happen is zergs would open greedier until terrans are able to kill them again, and the matchup settles upon a new equilibrium where zerg has an economic edge going into the midgame.
Zerg is about cutting as many corners as possible, and reading your opponent just right so that you always put out the maximum number of drones possible. Of course they will open as greedy as possible, and occasionally flop because of it. The relevant question is whether a "safe" opening for zerg puts them on even ground with the terran, and in the current state of the game I believe it does.
Zerg is about cutting corners as much as possible, because the game gets tinkered into that direction over and over again.
Instead of giving Zerg a strong space control tool, such tools get nerfed or created so that they are useless for attacking (see the Broodlord, the Infestor and for the second part of the sentence the Swarm Host).
Instead of making the game about fighting on equal income, droning/swarming and Zerg base denying (in form of zergling speed and mutalisks) stay overly strong.
It's a question of balance, and not of Zerg being Zerg. If you make it so that Zerg can hold a Soul Train without having to be the greediest fuck possible to squeeze out enough units before, but instead just give them a decent sentry counter, then you will see Zergs play like that. But if your reward for not droning up up up is that you cannot hold anything, then Zergs will always play like that.
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On August 04 2014 06:42 MorroW wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2014 06:18 Big J wrote:On August 04 2014 06:05 MorroW wrote:On August 04 2014 06:03 Big J wrote:On August 04 2014 05:45 MorroW wrote:On August 04 2014 05:36 NarutO wrote:On August 04 2014 05:32 LSN wrote:Lets see how all this is gonna unfold. I just noted some simple observations. Naruto wants to fight, so I gonna pick this up and answer it adequately: I am really the last person to go that way, but once again its simply a matter of you being a person that never has played on pro level nor high level at all that is making assumptions and trying to argue points that can only be made and understood if you actually experienced it. Even as former pro its not always easy to grasp what pros are doing or thinking or predicting movement and you talk like ... you can observe and see the matrix like neo. So you wanna say you can judge about my knowledge of the game more than I can judge about the game itself? I have never been a progamer and nor have you when closely looking at it. If that was required, anyhow, every developer needed to be a pro-gamer. Furthermore your knowledge seems to be not that great when you ask me why zerg attacks against terrans become less cost efficient in a meta that shift towards zergs needing generally more units to hold terran attacks. I have been a pro - like it or not. No closely looking at it will help. Same pattern as every time. I write an essay adressing your arguments and counter them. You pick the line you like and try to dismiss me with it. Go ahead and point out the flaws in the arguments I made or stop brining up a discussion you seemingly don't want to take. i read your arguments and they are impenetrable my friend 11 11 rax can kill a zerg on certain maps if zerg doesnt scout properly. early aggression and scouting is part of the game. when i reaper expand i send out a scv scout to see zergs base if hes doing something funny. for example if zerg goes 14pool and makes 6 lings, dodges the first reaper in the middle of the map (with help of the overlord) he will get a guarantee cancel on my command center in the natural base. so by not scouting as terran you can be punished even with a reaper expand, with 14cc you also have to scout to be safe. so why is it so weird that zerg has to scout as well to be absolutely safe in early game LSN? hyun wasnt playing roach antics beacuse he thinks macro game is not viable. he does it beacuse thats what hyun does. his playstyle was been this way forever and watching him play normal zvt on nimbus and catallena was quite sad, it looks subpar to the zergs i meet on the ladder. then you watch him play his own playstyle on like merry go round and he kills bunny with 2-2 roach hydra timing even though bunny saw it coming and had siege tanks, goes to show that hyun is clearly just better at that playstyle also saying a widow mine 25/75 shouldnt be capable of killing 17 lings instantly is hilarious because thats exactly what terran has to deal with - all game long in every matchup against storm and banelings. this is just how the game works with aoe and your forced to keep good attention on your army at all times Not calling imbalance or anything like that, but note that a widow mine does this kind of splash to everything - ground, air, armored, light - and has a main target damage value too. While a baneling only does this kind of damage to light, ground units and has no such high damage capability against main targets, for a compareable price. And I hate to repeat myself, but you are not forced to play with marines in TvZ. So you can completely skip on the watch-out-for-banes play, if you dont like it. you can avoid to deal with widow mines by playing roach hydra if thats what your having trouble against. if terran keeps making widow mines against you then you should be winning in the long run. but then you have to deal with siege tanks instead how is anything of this imbalanced? what are you implying I'm not implying racial imbalance. What Im saying is that some units are plainly much better than others and that I think there is a point to not wanting a single 75/25 unit killing 17banelings (850/425). For the same value of marines to get killed by banelings, the baneling costs need to be much higher. Similarily to how you dont want Immortals to counter tanks THAT hard. They can still counter, but in a more reasonable manner. Of course you can always just play bio or try to not play the things that mines arent good against, I just think there is a strong relationship between having units that are too strong against certain units (not races) and the amount of variety these races have. i agree but that is a design-matter and not a balance-matter. the design of this game is a trainwreck from its fundamentals up in my opinion. back to the widow mine though. the widow mine needs the be strong enough to punish a zerg for not microing very hard the same way terran gets punished by not microing hard. before this patch most zergs were just attacking into my army and the widow mines would do decently, where as now they do amazingly. zergs will start microing like they did before the patch, send in clumps of ling bane on move command into the terran army and cause friendly splash damage as well as put widow mines off cool-down. use stacked mutalisks and pick off lone widow mines that are abit too unprotected by the bio forces. now i can actually notice the difference of my zerg opponents micro control where as prepatch they all just seemed to attack carelessly. you have to keep in mind that the widow mine can be that much stronger than banelings because widow mines build out of factory and banes out of zerglings. widow mines must be borrowed and units have to walk into them where banes are mobile. micro control is forced by having ridiculously overpowered aoe, thats just how the game is designed since it lacks certain fundamental mechanical aspects to make great micro significant compared to worse. if widow mines dont punish bio getting stormed or bio clumping against banes in a similar fashion a zerg with worse micro control than the terran will go unnoticed. but if you dont agree with this design logic and wished that the game would be even less rewarding for great players or you think mechanics and micro should shine in different aspects than dodging aoe then im sorry to tell you, sc2 wont change
I think this kind of AoE damage is only necessary for Terran because they cannot expand fast enough. The real deal in TvZ is that Terran is economically behind once a Zerg gets his 3.5base saturation against a Terran on 3bases with the main being outMuled soon.
That's why Zergs could run into mines more freely, because the greater economy allows for slightly worse trades. That's what blizzard should have focused on fixing, instead of creating unit relations that need this metagame to be fair and that - in my opinion - do hardly help Terran bio to take on a Zerg that manages to survive the midgame.
I understand that mines and banelings have different methods of production, but again, the core of the matter is that Zerg can afford the mass banelings and Terran cannot afford the mass mines that easily (e.g. 3factory mines comes very late). It's not like mines only have mobility disadvantages, they also have range advantages, are cloaked and not autoattacked if something else is around. There is a lot of advantages to the way they combat as well, especially when upgraded.
As you say, it is a matter of design. But it is also a matter of balance, since, as we see from patches as the last one, there could have been different solutions as well that would lead to a different gameplay, with mines still being a decent option.
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On August 04 2014 14:15 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2014 12:33 r691175002 wrote:
This talk about the viability of the 11-11 rax kind of misses the point IMO.
A viable cheese will always exist in every matchup, because the cheese is what prevents a player from opening with unlimited greed. If no cheese exists, a player will simply perform a greedier opening as there is no risk of dying.
If the 11-11 rax was nerfed, all that would happen is zergs would open greedier until terrans are able to kill them again, and the matchup settles upon a new equilibrium where zerg has an economic edge going into the midgame.
Zerg is about cutting as many corners as possible, and reading your opponent just right so that you always put out the maximum number of drones possible. Of course they will open as greedy as possible, and occasionally flop because of it. The relevant question is whether a "safe" opening for zerg puts them on even ground with the terran, and in the current state of the game I believe it does. Zerg is about cutting corners as much as possible, because the game gets tinkered into that direction over and over again. Instead of giving Zerg a strong space control tool, such tools get nerfed or created so that they are useless for attacking (see the Broodlord, the Infestor and for the second part of the sentence the Swarm Host). Instead of making the game about fighting on equal income, droning/swarming and Zerg base denying (in form of zergling speed and mutalisks) stay overly strong. It's a question of balance, and not of Zerg being Zerg. If you make it so that Zerg can hold a Soul Train without having to be the greediest fuck possible to squeeze out enough units before, but instead just give them a decent sentry counter, then you will see Zergs play like that. But if your reward for not droning up up up is that you cannot hold anything, then Zergs will always play like that.
Yep - Zerg HAS to cut corners (like not all they cut, but most of them have to be cut) to do the "catch-up" early on.. Zerg having to cut corners is "partially" a Terran design's fault also.. There's too much "destructive power" for Terran early on..
Including the Cloak on Banshees - that is just the "icing on the top".. speaking of which - that's the EXACT one corner that shouldn't be cut.. Make a damn Overseer (when Lair finishes) or one spore regardless of what's going on.. Like - no scouting at all is not a problem as much as IMO not being prepared to cloak AT ALL..
Same thing with DTs, I really cry when seeing some good player (like Scarlett for example) lose games just cause of not having a single spore (it can be easily re-rooted and moved, so it's not a problem to blindly make one at least IMO).. The Banshee (or DT) problem isn't that you lose Drones, BUT that cause you lose QUEENS..
Speaking of which - SAVE THE QUEENS NO MATTER WHAT DAMN IT.. (Even if it takes to make Blind Spores).. Like - you sacrifice a lot of pieces when playing chess to save the Queen, do the very same thing with Zerg, you don't lose cause of losing drones, but you instantly lose the game if you lose your Queens, it's really plain simple.. Better lose 10 Drones (not a good one, but if you choose an evil, choose this one) than losing 2 Queens overall
Still think you better have 56 workers (or even 54) and a spore (and having your QUEENS ALIVE) rather than having 62 (picking an arbitrary number here) workers overall, like - don't be THAT greedy (unless you're 100% certain that Terran has 3 CCs from earlier on)
Cut corners, but out of all the "dumb losses" that may be there possible, you should at least prevent the "dumbest one" (even blindly at the cost of having worse chance of winning for a while later on) overall
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After watching MMA vs Snute, I really think Swarm hosts need more risk. Long range burrowed siege units that let out high dps free units not very well designed.
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On August 04 2014 05:28 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2014 05:15 Faust852 wrote:So, you know that 6p might cost the game even against terran if they CC first or even reaper if well executed and not scouted? Casual reaper means nothing. A terran can lose to 10 speedling harass if he doesn't react like he should so your argument is stupid. I edited about the roach stuff : About hyun's roaches... He does that every single game, ofc Bunny made blind tanks to defend it. And for the WM, 17 it is kinda the ideal shot you can have, and it's usually thanks to focus fire. So yes it deal a big amount of damage but it's also 2 supply that will die after almost everytime and it's the only viable AoE we got against glingbanemuta. And about the muta/thor relation : It's not impossible to keep an eyes on your muta, just check Snute play, he micro them perfectly and almost never lose muta to thor. It just come to control. Before the patch, all the control were to the terran, now it's split between both race : fair isn't it ? So all in all I don't see any imbalance, the best player won. Snute rekt MMA in macro game, and Bunny said he feared to play macro against Snute so he cheesed him. Hyun was terrible in the finale, and his style was predictable from far so Bunny played accordingly and won with better control, better macro and better preparation. That's all. For Naruto : LSN has admited not playing the game for years and barely watching it. So the best player didn't win, but lost to random luck-strategies? I rather think that Bunny was the best player.  But people make a much bigger deal out of it than it is. Bunny has been playing amazing for a while know and a slightly more favorable balance for him (compared to before to prefix) is really more than enough for such a strong player. People are quick to forget that Terran foreigners didn't win since Thorzain, because suffering of UPness at the end of WoL, while in HotS not a single foreigner has won a Premier Tournament - which includes Terrans - and Terran hasn't been doing greatly regardless of foreign or Korean in the last months. Really, this differentiation between foreigner and Korean Terran needs to stop. When a race is in trouble, it's weaker players are in trouble too, which means the foreigners. Korean Terrans can go abroad and crush foreign Premier Tournaments, but people like Lucifron at the end of WoL couldn't take titles, while without a skewed balance they might have (seeing how close some got).
Hey, don't read me wrong :p I loved Bunny, he is an absolute beast, micro AND macro. But he said himself that he wasn't confidant in macro against Snute, and that's 100% understandable, this guy isn't a beast, he is a demon. But being a demon i macro game doesn't make you the better player overall. See how he deals with proxy 2 rax and you understand why he deserved to lose this bo5. That was aweful from A to Z. The first time he started to react correctly with drone pull, but then he decided shit, going on the other side of the map with ALL of his workers, canceling a queen... Weird as fuck, I know diamonds that deal with it better :p
The 2games, he went back to his weird style with 2/3 spines and sac his nat. Appolo said it was a really good way to deal with proxy 2 rax, but i'm 100% certain it isn't. Meh, I'd say it was okayish before the patch because being behind from a Z POV was ok but not anymore. He really need to step up his early game and he admitted it himself on twitter.
So, in this serie, Bunny was superior against Snute, and he anyway seems better overall against him sincce they are 12-5 in score IIRC. And Bunny showed he can rekt toptier zerg in macro, even though HyuN didn't play well at all :p.
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Just saw the Bunny vs Hyun series. Bunny deserved to win the series, especially in game 5. Hyun could have won game 5 but he threw it away by engaging Bunny off creep. You can see Bunny trying to bait Hyun to engage off creep and Hyun lost his patience and bit the bait.
Also, watch how Bunny deals with banelings. Bunny will send a few marines forward to bait the banelings and try to kill them while microing his main marine group back to stay away from the baneling splash. Conversely, Hyun needs to learn how to bait the widow mines better by sending a zergling ahead to eat the widow mine shot. Just watch the Hyun vs Yoda match in the IEM Toronto qualifiers a few days ago and you will see Hyun clearly A-moved about 20 banelings into a widow mine - Hyun didn't bother to split his banelings or send in a lone zergling to tank the widow mine shot.
Hyun certainly doesn't deserve to win if he doesn't change his style of play and use more micro. Just look at Life vs Flash at the MLG finals before the widow mines were nerfed - you can see how Life micros and sends a single zergling in to get the mine to go off before committing his army further.
I don't want to say some Zerg players are lazy, but refusing to micro a bit more because you are used to the old balance that didn't require too much baneling micro against widow mines is not a good excuse. The top Terran players are already forced to micro and split marines against banelings, it's only fair if Zerg players have to micro a bit too. It's obvious that Hyun is used to the old balance because in the game against Yoda, he sent those 20 banelings grouped together, didn't bother to split the banelings, and didn't bother to send a zergling in to tank the shot, etc. If Hyun had taken lessons from Life, he would have qualified for IEM Toronto and won against Bunny.
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A viable cheese will always exist in every matchup, because the cheese is what prevents a player from opening with unlimited greed. If no cheese exists, a player will simply perform a greedier opening as there is no risk of dying.
Far from the truth.
A normal agressive build keeps the player "honest". Scouting the opponent, seeing the greed, going agressive can punish the opponent.
An rts game doesnt need cheese, although maybe its impossible to remove it but there are several things to keep a player honest.
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On August 04 2014 19:35 SatedSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +It's a question of balance, and not of Zerg being Zerg. If you make it so that Zerg can hold a Soul Train without having to be the greediest fuck possible to squeeze out enough units before, but instead just give them a decent sentry counter, then you will see Zergs play like that. But if your reward for not droning up up up is that you cannot hold anything, then Zergs will always play like that. Two-base Zerg is actually just fine against two-base Protoss all-ins. If you go for 1/1 melee upgrades and Infestors before taking a third base then you can hold any two-base all-in better than you can with any three-base opening. You also set-up a very strong Zergling/Ultralisk/Infestor mid-game that allows you to deny bases and force the Protoss down tech-paths that are exploitable by a Brood Lord or mass Mutalisk switch later in the game. The obvious weakness is against a fast third-base from Protoss, but if you scout that then you can adjust your timings to take an earlier third and get later Infestors so that they're ready for any three-base timing instead of any two-base timing. There are fast three-base styles for going Ling/Ultralisk (Scarlett showed some good games with this style against puCK in last night's IEM qualifier), but going for a slower two-base style will 100% crush a two-base all-in from Protoss. All I'm saying is that you don't need to be the "greediest fuck possible" in order to hold a two-base Protoss all-in. Other styles exist and they've been shown to work against Protoss styles that don't take a fast third-base. EDIT: I've even played a guy on NA (high Masters) who would always open double-upgrade Ling/Infestor on two-base behind a wall of Spine Crawlers. He'd then go straight up to Hive on two-bases and wouldn't take another base unless I myself expanded. If I did expand, he would double-expand and play the game out from there. It was an awkward looking style, but Ling/Infestor/Ultralisk is such a strong unit composition that playing on even footing didn't seem to bother this guy. He certainly wasn't going to lose easily to any two-base all-ins... which is a problem for me since I don't like playing macro vs. Zerg =P
I haven't seen that kind of style since early HotS at the prolevel, and I think it has it's reasons. (as you say, taking thirds against it has been figured out by Protoss players, while it wasn't even dominatingly good to begin with when Protoss players weren't capable of those reactions)
And I think the general consensus amongst Zerg players against Immortal/Sentry allins is that you won't get up tech units like infestors (or mutas for basetrades) or upgrades at 9:30, not even to start about both, which is when the earliest variations of these rushes hit.
Also, in my opinion when you open robo for Sentry/Immortal and scout a two basing Zerg, going into the Colossus/Immortal/Sentry twobase push will make it even harder to stop, since it crushes Infestors and Hydras and Zerg doesn't have the larva for roaches.
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On August 04 2014 21:08 SatedSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2014 20:27 Big J wrote:On August 04 2014 19:35 SatedSC2 wrote:It's a question of balance, and not of Zerg being Zerg. If you make it so that Zerg can hold a Soul Train without having to be the greediest fuck possible to squeeze out enough units before, but instead just give them a decent sentry counter, then you will see Zergs play like that. But if your reward for not droning up up up is that you cannot hold anything, then Zergs will always play like that. Two-base Zerg is actually just fine against two-base Protoss all-ins. If you go for 1/1 melee upgrades and Infestors before taking a third base then you can hold any two-base all-in better than you can with any three-base opening. You also set-up a very strong Zergling/Ultralisk/Infestor mid-game that allows you to deny bases and force the Protoss down tech-paths that are exploitable by a Brood Lord or mass Mutalisk switch later in the game. The obvious weakness is against a fast third-base from Protoss, but if you scout that then you can adjust your timings to take an earlier third and get later Infestors so that they're ready for any three-base timing instead of any two-base timing. There are fast three-base styles for going Ling/Ultralisk (Scarlett showed some good games with this style against puCK in last night's IEM qualifier), but going for a slower two-base style will 100% crush a two-base all-in from Protoss. All I'm saying is that you don't need to be the "greediest fuck possible" in order to hold a two-base Protoss all-in. Other styles exist and they've been shown to work against Protoss styles that don't take a fast third-base. EDIT: I've even played a guy on NA (high Masters) who would always open double-upgrade Ling/Infestor on two-base behind a wall of Spine Crawlers. He'd then go straight up to Hive on two-bases and wouldn't take another base unless I myself expanded. If I did expand, he would double-expand and play the game out from there. It was an awkward looking style, but Ling/Infestor/Ultralisk is such a strong unit composition that playing on even footing didn't seem to bother this guy. He certainly wasn't going to lose easily to any two-base all-ins... which is a problem for me since I don't like playing macro vs. Zerg =P I haven't seen that kind of style since early HotS at the prolevel, and I think it has it's reasons. (as you say, taking thirds against it has been figured out by Protoss players, while it wasn't even dominatingly good to begin with when Protoss players weren't capable of those reactions) It's definitely seen less at the pro-level, but I think that's because players who like that style have figured out ways of opening fast three-hatch into that style instead of opening two-base Lair. Like I said, Scarlett played some really strong-looking games against puCK last night and I can't imagine many Immortal/Sentry all-ins that would do well against Scarlett's build assuming Scarlett was able to get good positioning with her Zerglings. There's only so many Forcefields a Protoss can cast and upgraded Zerglings are pretty damn good against Immortal/Sentry once the Forcefields run out. Show nested quote +Also, in my opinion when you open robo for Sentry/Immortal and scout a two basing Zerg, going into the Colossus/Immortal/Sentry twobase push will make it even harder to stop, since it crushes Infestors and Hydras and Zerg doesn't have the larva for roaches. I played against Slivko a few months ago and he tried to go for a two-base Lair into SH/Infestor composition that I reactively crushed with a double Robo Colossus all-in (4 Colossi), but I think that's specific to SH-based compositions. Locusts aren't very good at fighting Colossi because Locusts can't get a surround on the Colossus/Stalker ball. I don't think I would've had the same success against the aforementioned two-base Hive -> double expand style (which may or may not work at pro-level, but does work at high Masters/low GM level according to the person I played) or a two-base Mutalisk style. As was pointed out, taking a fast third-base is better against both those styles; but I also think that both those styles can easily adjust their Lair and third-base timings if they scout signs of an early third-base from the Protoss. It's not as if you're locked into going up to Mutalisks or Infestors or even Hive before taking a third-base if your scouting information tells you that there isn't a two-base all-in on the way. Of course, this is just from my own experience of the Protoss side of things. I have a much harder time succeeding with two-base all-ins against people who are willing to turtle up and tech on two-bases than I do against Zerg players who try to make an overwhelming number of low-tech units on three-bases.
I don't disagree with your view on Meleebased styles and their viability with 3base builds. Nor have I said something like that. soO's 3base double melee upgrade style is another great example, where you usually only build a roach warren for safety purposes, but unless some allin is happening, you rely on a minimum of these units.
Note that the "better do it off 3bases than 2" goes back to what my comment was originally about: that the Zerg player tries to build an inequality in economy and squeeze out as many drones as possible until the "mining ceiling" is reached. And only then starts being aggressive, because then he can be wasteful and skip on effective (siegebased) attacking.
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On August 04 2014 16:27 xelnaga_empire wrote:
Also, watch how Bunny deals with banelings. Bunny will send a few marines forward to bait the banelings and try to kill them while microing his main marine group back to stay away from the baneling splash. Conversely, Hyun needs to learn how to bait the widow mines better by sending a zergling ahead to eat the widow mine shot. Just watch the Hyun vs Yoda match in the IEM Toronto qualifiers a few days ago and you will see Hyun clearly A-moved about 20 banelings into a widow mine - Hyun didn't bother to split his banelings or send in a lone zergling to tank the widow mine shot.
Hyun certainly doesn't deserve to win if he doesn't change his style of play and use more micro. Just look at Life vs Flash at the MLG finals before the widow mines were nerfed - you can see how Life micros and sends a single zergling in to get the mine to go off before committing his army further.
I don't want to say some Zerg players are lazy, but refusing to micro a bit more because you are used to the old balance that didn't require too much baneling micro against widow mines is not a good excuse.
While the purpose behind it may be similar, using single or small groups of ranged units to bait melee units in a melee army is probably less apm-intensive, less difficult and less prone to fail than using single melee units to bait a ranged unit in or close to a ranged army.
Not saying this is a balance problem, it may actually help solve one (that of a zerg army being easier to control before the introduction of widow mines), I just thought the comparison and implied criticism was a bit unfair.
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On August 04 2014 22:08 SatedSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2014 21:19 Big J wrote:On August 04 2014 21:08 SatedSC2 wrote:On August 04 2014 20:27 Big J wrote:On August 04 2014 19:35 SatedSC2 wrote:It's a question of balance, and not of Zerg being Zerg. If you make it so that Zerg can hold a Soul Train without having to be the greediest fuck possible to squeeze out enough units before, but instead just give them a decent sentry counter, then you will see Zergs play like that. But if your reward for not droning up up up is that you cannot hold anything, then Zergs will always play like that. Two-base Zerg is actually just fine against two-base Protoss all-ins. If you go for 1/1 melee upgrades and Infestors before taking a third base then you can hold any two-base all-in better than you can with any three-base opening. You also set-up a very strong Zergling/Ultralisk/Infestor mid-game that allows you to deny bases and force the Protoss down tech-paths that are exploitable by a Brood Lord or mass Mutalisk switch later in the game. The obvious weakness is against a fast third-base from Protoss, but if you scout that then you can adjust your timings to take an earlier third and get later Infestors so that they're ready for any three-base timing instead of any two-base timing. There are fast three-base styles for going Ling/Ultralisk (Scarlett showed some good games with this style against puCK in last night's IEM qualifier), but going for a slower two-base style will 100% crush a two-base all-in from Protoss. All I'm saying is that you don't need to be the "greediest fuck possible" in order to hold a two-base Protoss all-in. Other styles exist and they've been shown to work against Protoss styles that don't take a fast third-base. EDIT: I've even played a guy on NA (high Masters) who would always open double-upgrade Ling/Infestor on two-base behind a wall of Spine Crawlers. He'd then go straight up to Hive on two-bases and wouldn't take another base unless I myself expanded. If I did expand, he would double-expand and play the game out from there. It was an awkward looking style, but Ling/Infestor/Ultralisk is such a strong unit composition that playing on even footing didn't seem to bother this guy. He certainly wasn't going to lose easily to any two-base all-ins... which is a problem for me since I don't like playing macro vs. Zerg =P I haven't seen that kind of style since early HotS at the prolevel, and I think it has it's reasons. (as you say, taking thirds against it has been figured out by Protoss players, while it wasn't even dominatingly good to begin with when Protoss players weren't capable of those reactions) It's definitely seen less at the pro-level, but I think that's because players who like that style have figured out ways of opening fast three-hatch into that style instead of opening two-base Lair. Like I said, Scarlett played some really strong-looking games against puCK last night and I can't imagine many Immortal/Sentry all-ins that would do well against Scarlett's build assuming Scarlett was able to get good positioning with her Zerglings. There's only so many Forcefields a Protoss can cast and upgraded Zerglings are pretty damn good against Immortal/Sentry once the Forcefields run out. Also, in my opinion when you open robo for Sentry/Immortal and scout a two basing Zerg, going into the Colossus/Immortal/Sentry twobase push will make it even harder to stop, since it crushes Infestors and Hydras and Zerg doesn't have the larva for roaches. I played against Slivko a few months ago and he tried to go for a two-base Lair into SH/Infestor composition that I reactively crushed with a double Robo Colossus all-in (4 Colossi), but I think that's specific to SH-based compositions. Locusts aren't very good at fighting Colossi because Locusts can't get a surround on the Colossus/Stalker ball. I don't think I would've had the same success against the aforementioned two-base Hive -> double expand style (which may or may not work at pro-level, but does work at high Masters/low GM level according to the person I played) or a two-base Mutalisk style. As was pointed out, taking a fast third-base is better against both those styles; but I also think that both those styles can easily adjust their Lair and third-base timings if they scout signs of an early third-base from the Protoss. It's not as if you're locked into going up to Mutalisks or Infestors or even Hive before taking a third-base if your scouting information tells you that there isn't a two-base all-in on the way. Of course, this is just from my own experience of the Protoss side of things. I have a much harder time succeeding with two-base all-ins against people who are willing to turtle up and tech on two-bases than I do against Zerg players who try to make an overwhelming number of low-tech units on three-bases. I don't disagree with your view on Meleebased styles and their viability with 3base builds. Nor have I said something like that. soO's 3base double melee upgrade style is another great example, where you usually only build a roach warren for safety purposes, but unless some allin is happening, you rely on a minimum of these units. Note that the "better do it off 3bases than 2" goes back to what my comment was originally about: that the Zerg player tries to build an inequality in economy and squeeze out as many drones as possible until the "mining ceiling" is reached. And only then starts being aggressive, because then he can be wasteful and skip on effective (siegebased) attacking. I just wanted to point out that these styles have worked at the pro-level (even if they have fallen out of favour) and so the idea that Zerg has to be the "greediest fuck possible" isn't really true. I'm not advocating that Zerg players should all switch to the absolute extreme opposite of "greediest fuck possible" (which would be the two-base Hive -> double-expand build that I mentioned encountering), but I don't think that Zerg needing to be the "greediest fuck possible" to hold two-base all-ins is a true statement. Especially given that in my experience as a Protoss who leans heavily on two-base all-ins, it is two-base Lair styles that scare me much more than three-base styles that attempt to mass low-tier units.
So your 2 bases all-ins don't work that well against a zerg who plays safe on 2 bases ? Thanks goodness !
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I wish Blizzard would buff the siege tank and make mech viable in TvP.
The following changes should be made:
-Additional 3 range to siege tank
-Lategame upgrade that allows siege tank to do bonus shield damage.
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I wish hellbat would be considered armored instead of light, or have it's bio tag removed so it isn't healed. It synergizes with infantry armies better than mech armies, which makes little sense. It's a nightmare to defend in TvT if it's some early cheese that your build order is pretty weak against.
I saw the hellion spam drop coming, so I got marauders, given that it is in the Unit Counters table of the blizzard helpfiles, and yet... light unit for reduced damage, getting constantly healed, able to nuke a mineral line or at the least cause significant structural damage and then just walk away while the turret produced to deal with it lacks the range upgrade and is relatively useless.
This unit has been problematic from day 1, from all appearances, and I'm starting to see why. Exactly what does the terran army have which can counter hellbat but more hellbat? I'm seriously considering moving back to brood war at this stage. At least then you could use goliaths to deal with vultures, which couldn't transform into a medic-healed unit with high health.
On August 05 2014 15:16 Loccstana wrote:
I wish Blizzard would buff the siege tank and make mech viable in TvP.
The following changes should be made:
-Additional 3 range to siege tank
-Lategame upgrade that allows siege tank to do bonus shield damage.
I use siege tanks to limited effectiveness in TvP. Mostly what you want to do is stagger the formation so that you have depth rather than a spread out line that is in perfect AoE field for colossus. The longer the fight lasts, the more useful the tanks become, as P army gets smaller. It really helps to use terrain for best effect.
In a way, you can think of early attack upgrades as doing bonus damage vs shields, because shields are typically the last thing protoss upgrades, which means that any upgrades you get for damage are that much more effective.
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On August 05 2014 17:48 Socup wrote:
I wish hellbat would be considered armored instead of light, or have it's bio tag removed so it isn't healed. It synergizes with infantry armies better than mech armies, which makes little sense. It's a nightmare to defend in TvT if it's some early cheese that your build order is pretty weak against.
I saw the hellion spam drop coming, so I got marauders, given that it is in the Unit Counters table of the blizzard helpfiles, and yet... light unit for reduced damage, getting constantly healed, able to nuke a mineral line or at the least cause significant structural damage and then just walk away while the turret produced to deal with it lacks the range upgrade and is relatively useless.
This unit has been problematic from day 1, from all appearances, and I'm starting to see why. Exactly what does the terran army have which can counter hellbat but more hellbat? I'm seriously considering moving back to brood war at this stage. At least then you could use goliaths to deal with vultures, which couldn't transform into a medic-healed unit with high health.
micro, like all the other races have to against them
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On August 05 2014 18:03 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2014 17:48 Socup wrote:
I wish hellbat would be considered armored instead of light, or have it's bio tag removed so it isn't healed. It synergizes with infantry armies better than mech armies, which makes little sense. It's a nightmare to defend in TvT if it's some early cheese that your build order is pretty weak against.
I saw the hellion spam drop coming, so I got marauders, given that it is in the Unit Counters table of the blizzard helpfiles, and yet... light unit for reduced damage, getting constantly healed, able to nuke a mineral line or at the least cause significant structural damage and then just walk away while the turret produced to deal with it lacks the range upgrade and is relatively useless.
This unit has been problematic from day 1, from all appearances, and I'm starting to see why. Exactly what does the terran army have which can counter hellbat but more hellbat? I'm seriously considering moving back to brood war at this stage. At least then you could use goliaths to deal with vultures, which couldn't transform into a medic-healed unit with high health. micro, like all the other races have to against them
Micro doesn't cut it when you're both good at micro, especially since it simply means you're taking damage or losses and they just fly away.
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Banelings should lose the creep speed bonus in LotV. The difference between performance on and off creep is too much in comparison with other units and it makes games too dependent on never giving zerg time to get creep around their third or fourth base.
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EPT
