I'd really like some high tier zergs opinions in why zerg's aren't using contaminate.
An overseer costs 50/50 and no supply. What does contaminate? it prevents you from spending your minerals on what you want for 30 SECONDS and it makes a terran UNABLE to REPAIR the building. Contaminate energy cost= 125 energy. And overseer starts with 50 energy.
So many people whine about the new unit in Hots "oracle" what does the oracale? it prevents you from mining. What does contaminate? it prevents you from spending the minerals and gas on what you want.
This spell can allow zerg players to create their own timing windows and also delay current meta game timings and all ins, so this can basically change the meta game. You actually don't need alot of overseers. You can contaminate different tech structures such as roboes to delay 2 base collosus all ins, you can delay upgrades from your opponent, this can even allow you to catch up and get ahead in upgrades if you're on top of your contaminates.
Of course the overseer can also give you good scouting by moving it and using the changelings.
This is a thing that i've NEVER seen in a competetive match or on ladder or anywhere, but this just seems very strong to me. I may be totally wrong about this, it's just something i came to think of, i was thinking about the oracle and i realised that the overseer is actually very similar, prevents you from spending your minerals, the oracle prevents you from getting your minerals, seems similar to me and strong. And also the overseer is cheap, especially in lategame when zerg gets a good bank. You can do tons of tricky stuff with this since you can contaminate every building i think. The overseer is also very fast and if you get the speed upgrade it gets a 2.75 movement speed. SICK!
Sorry for long post and for curious people: I'm High master Terran on EU.
NOTE: I WAS WRONG SCVS CAN STILL REPAIR CONTAMINATED BUILDINGS. Sry for that ^-^
I would say people don't even think about it. It definitely is worth using in the midgame, but I don't think it has much merit lategame when there are 30 gateways/barracks. Zerg though, it may or may not be very effective depending on the moment(s) you contaminate, since they might have a lot of larvae saved up anyway.
Using it to prevent immortals from coming out when you're expecting a 2 base allin could be pretty neat. I do agree it should be used, and would strongly disagree with anyone if they said it's not good enough or worth the cost.
Yeah but entomb encases several minerals while contaminate stops one building. High-profile buildings are also often in harder to reach locations than minerals. I think people have kind of forgotten about contaminate though tbh.
I think top players will start using it, especially in combination with timing attacks. Right now most people's actions and, more importantly, attentions are used doing all the normal things - injects, creep, overlords spread, etc. Wait till people get even better at this game!
Contaminate should be used more there is no questiion about it, I remember this game DRG vs NaNi if I'm not mistaken on Dual Sight if I'm not mistaken, DRG delayed Collossus tech forever with Overseers and destroyed NaNi.
I used it once in a while before the nerf. Now I just dont stumble over a few high energy overseer like i used to. But at the time it was more like a "might as well" thing than a planned strat. I think there was a funday monday a long time ago that were focused on contaminate, it was pretty sweet.
any core building is in the back where you have to pass through the entire army. It can be used but you're probably going to lose the overseer every time you attempt to use it. 150/150 and having to remake the overlord doesn't seem that incredible besides a few situations. If a guy is sitting in his base teching to collussi I'm pretty sure he has enough stalkers to stop overseers from contaminating.
I could see it most useful on a PF to stop it from being repaired.
Other than that... dropping changelings for scouting purposes seems more useful (or, at least, it's done more frequently in pro games than contaminate).
Regardless, eventually I'm sure we'll see the pros keep overseer's energy low, one way or another.
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
Wait until pros start using it in every game, it won't be so mediocre then.
Hahaha, what the hell? Shouldn't you take this raven gud bs to some other thread to have your "arguments" get destroyed there?
Ravens are fine, just because you don't/ can't use them doesn't mean they are bad. HSM is excellent, PDD is a good support spell, auto turret provides a harass capability and it's a detector. What else do you want, for it to fly!?
On topic, I play Z and I honistly just forget about contaminate, I didn't know about the repair thing but now I'll make an effort to use it. I would have thought ZvZ would see the most use, followed by PvZ (delay warp gate on an FFE while going mutas to justify the fast lair?
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
On topic: I have a hard time understanding this as well. 50/50 for being able to delay siege tech, colo range, blink, storm or production in general seems like a great ability. But no one ever blamed sc2 zerg players for being too innovative and for right reasons.
for the price of ONE RAVEN you can say yourself dozens of scans saving you thousands of minerals
with those minerals you can have a much larger army and without there speed bonus the zerg cant win, especialy when you HSM all there infesters
everything LOOKS good on paper, if you honestly think no zerg has ever tried to use contaminate your foolingyourself, there was a period in Zvz people used contanimate alot but they stopped because the spell is not useful
I'm having a fantasy about some kind of 2 base lair roach bust with contaminate on the bunker, unfortunately I think even with the old overseer the timings wouldn't have worked out, and the roach bane ling would just be superior in every way.
On August 11 2012 05:36 wcr.4fun wrote: any core building is in the back where you have to pass through the entire army. It can be used but you're probably going to lose the overseer every time you attempt to use it. 150/150 and having to remake the overlord doesn't seem that incredible besides a few situations. If a guy is sitting in his base teching to collussi I'm pretty sure he has enough stalkers to stop overseers from contaminating.
And yet we continually see pro zerg players swoop in with their overseers to get a scout of the entire tech path and swoop out unscathed. Contaminate doesn't even really have a cast time, so there's almost no reason it shouldn't be used.
I had no idea about the fact it disables repair. I wonder if many Zerg pros realize this, if they do I'm shocked they don't use it against PFs more often.
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
On topic: I have a hard time understanding this as well. 50/50 for being able to delay siege tech, colo range, blink, storm or production in general seems like a great ability. But no one ever blamed sc2 zerg players for being too innovative and for right reasons.
for the price of ONE RAVEN you can say yourself dozens of scans saving you thousands of minerals
with those minerals you can have a much larger army and without there speed bonus the zerg cant win, especialy when you HSM all there infesters
everything LOOKS good on paper, if you honestly think no zerg has ever tried to use contaminate your foolingyourself, there was a period in Zvz people used contanimate alot but they stopped because the spell is not useful
"can't win" eh? You must be a professional Zerg to make that kind of statement, and Zerg's must have a near 0% winrate. Interesting concept.
I think contaminant would be abetter spell if it canceled unit/upgrade of its target but cost 200 energy to do it (one shot chance). It's role would be huge in delaying upgrades etc, or at least perm slow the upgrade by 50% or something, right now? What you stop it for 30 or so seconds, big deal.
The problem with incorporating it with timing pushes and such is that it takes so long to gain the 75 energy required. Of your lair in ZvP finishes at 8:00 (common time), you still have to morph an overseer and let it gain energy. By then it may be about what, 9:30-10:00? That won't stop a +2 blink all-in or immortal sentry push. I only use it to delay motherships and colossi late game.
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
On topic: I have a hard time understanding this as well. 50/50 for being able to delay siege tech, colo range, blink, storm or production in general seems like a great ability. But no one ever blamed sc2 zerg players for being too innovative and for right reasons.
for the price of ONE RAVEN you can say yourself dozens of scans saving you thousands of minerals
with those minerals you can have a much larger army and without there speed bonus the zerg cant win, especialy when you HSM all there infesters everything LOOKS good on paper, if you honestly think no zerg has ever tried to use contaminate your foolingyourself, there was a period in Zvz people used contanimate alot but they stopped because the spell is not useful
The italic part is so ironic that if irony was made of strawberries we'd all be drinking a lot of smoothies right now.
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
On topic: I have a hard time understanding this as well. 50/50 for being able to delay siege tech, colo range, blink, storm or production in general seems like a great ability. But no one ever blamed sc2 zerg players for being too innovative and for right reasons.
You have to get it in there alive and gas is very very precious for zerg is why. Just -_-. Ravens are also pretty good ^_^.
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
On topic: I have a hard time understanding this as well. 50/50 for being able to delay siege tech, colo range, blink, storm or production in general seems like a great ability. But no one ever blamed sc2 zerg players for being too innovative and for right reasons.
for the price of ONE RAVEN you can say yourself dozens of scans saving you thousands of minerals
with those minerals you can have a much larger army and without there speed bonus the zerg cant win, especialy when you HSM all there infesters
everything LOOKS good on paper, if you honestly think no zerg has ever tried to use contaminate your foolingyourself, there was a period in Zvz people used contanimate alot but they stopped because the spell is not useful
"can't win" eh? You must be a professional Zerg to make that kind of statement, and Zerg's must have a near 0% winrate. Interesting concept.
I think contaminant would be abetter spell if it canceled unit/upgrade of its target but cost 200 energy to do it (one shot chance). It's role would be huge in delaying upgrades etc, or at least perm slow the upgrade by 50% or something, right now? What you stop it for 30 or so seconds, big deal.
Lets make something REALLY OP... If you do that you'll see 2-3 overseer sent every 3 min to stop Warpgate completely all game long... Or any Upgrade of attack or armor... Think before you say something.... It would be way too strong...
Contaminate stopping repair is news to me. I think the first instance of that in a pro game will definitely be a pimpest play. Stopping repair on PFs is pretty big considering how Zergs have been struggling against that for years.
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
On topic: I have a hard time understanding this as well. 50/50 for being able to delay siege tech, colo range, blink, storm or production in general seems like a great ability. But no one ever blamed sc2 zerg players for being too innovative and for right reasons.
for the price of ONE RAVEN you can say yourself dozens of scans saving you thousands of minerals
with those minerals you can have a much larger army and without there speed bonus the zerg cant win, especialy when you HSM all there infesters
everything LOOKS good on paper, if you honestly think no zerg has ever tried to use contaminate your foolingyourself, there was a period in Zvz people used contanimate alot but they stopped because the spell is not useful
"can't win" eh? You must be a professional Zerg to make that kind of statement, and Zerg's must have a near 0% winrate. Interesting concept.
I think contaminant would be abetter spell if it canceled unit/upgrade of its target but cost 200 energy to do it (one shot chance). It's role would be huge in delaying upgrades etc, or at least perm slow the upgrade by 50% or something, right now? What you stop it for 30 or so seconds, big deal.
That would be hugely overpowered. In pvz for example the Zerg could just keep blocking colossus range and blink which already costs a lot of gas and takes a lot of time to complete and both the stalker and colossus are not Good without these upgrades. Being able to cancel key upgrades like that goes too far.
Because the time when Overseers can be useful to delay timings are non-existent in the current metagame. It takes a while to get 125 Energy on an Overseer and you simply do not have an Overseer with 125 Energy before 9 minute mark (if the Protoss is doing the Immortal/Sentry push), therefore, it cannot be used for that, and most Zerg players like to put down a Changeling to determine what tech is the opponent going.
In ZvZ, it has its use, but every piece of gas you can muster in ZvZ is very important as counter-attacks are easily carried out by either player and Zergs cannot wall in.
Plus, you need to perfectly time the Overseer in enemy's base to delay some tech like Storm or Thermal Lance, which is a flip-coin situation, if I see something being researched and my Overseer is nearby, I just poop the Contaminate, but it's not like I am planning to do it, it's more of a chance of it happening.
Yeah, the problem is that after morphing an overseer you have to wait for it to gain that 75 energy, which takes a long time. And after using it you need to wait even longer before you contaminate again- unless you want to morph lots of overseers, but that's hard to justify. They cost gas, deal zero damage, and exist solely to go on suicide missions.
And as nice as it sounds to "create your own timing," 30s is an awfully small window to hit.
I think we'll see people use it a bit more in the future, but it would need a buff to become reliably useful.
Contaminate should be used more but then again, there are more important things to do. Contaminate can be strong if targetet at key structures or upgrades but there is no way to be sure. Delaying stim for 30 sec is great, delaying a marine isnt. But if it is true that a contaminated building cannot be repaired (which is new to me, as it normally doesnt prevent anything except production research - you can still land/lift while contaminated) the overseer could become a key unit in assaults at planetarys.
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
On topic: I have a hard time understanding this as well. 50/50 for being able to delay siege tech, colo range, blink, storm or production in general seems like a great ability. But no one ever blamed sc2 zerg players for being too innovative and for right reasons.
for the price of ONE RAVEN you can say yourself dozens of scans saving you thousands of minerals
with those minerals you can have a much larger army and without there speed bonus the zerg cant win, especialy when you HSM all there infesters
everything LOOKS good on paper, if you honestly think no zerg has ever tried to use contaminate your foolingyourself, there was a period in Zvz people used contanimate alot but they stopped because the spell is not useful
"can't win" eh? You must be a professional Zerg to make that kind of statement, and Zerg's must have a near 0% winrate. Interesting concept.
I think contaminant would be abetter spell if it canceled unit/upgrade of its target but cost 200 energy to do it (one shot chance). It's role would be huge in delaying upgrades etc, or at least perm slow the upgrade by 50% or something, right now? What you stop it for 30 or so seconds, big deal.
That would be hugely overpowered. In pvz for example the Zerg could just keep blocking colossus range and blink which already costs a lot of gas and takes a lot of time to complete and both the stalker and colossus are not Good without these upgrades. Being able to cancel key upgrades like that goes too far.
200 energy takes a very long time to accumulate, you're saying that early game they're going to mass 10 overseers and sit there for 5 minutes and somehow all the upgrades will be primed at that exact time and the Protoss will do nothing to stop them?
If we're going to theorycraft, start logically doing it.
edit: and anyway, I offered different suggestions, and it was just a rough idea.
I tried contaminating a PF in unit tester map, but scv's could still repair it. Don't know if it's just a kink for the map but honestly i've never heard of this before.
well, they didn't use them before because it was too expensive to get more than 1 overseer. now contaminate costs too much for it to be worth it. :/ the changeling is just too much more useful tbh.
I'd think in a stalemate game where you get a lot of extra minerals/gas mass overseer would be very useful. Could send a fleet of them to contaminate and have a bunch to do their extra damage move in the big battle at the same time. No resupply from the opponent and weaker units..
long time ago day9 asked his viewers to contaminate in their funday monday games. went pretty well.
in itts current state its hard to use because of the high energy-req so basicly its a onetime use for each overseer. but blocking only 1 buildings inst that effective unless its a hatch. so, from my pov, contaminate is a nice thing to use, but it need a little rework, like reduce cost to 100. because massinv overseer isnt a good thig too, the zerg will lose the drop capacity than. rebuilding the overlords is quite an investment when you want to use both.
Contaminate doesnt stop repair, doesnt stop the pf from shooting, the only thing it delay is maybe a tank or an upgrade comes out 30 seconds later. This maybe good BUT 125 energy takes forever and the 50 gas isnt worth it.
i remember one of Idra´s GSL matches against Zenio, where both used contaminate to delay their opponents injects. dont knwo why they stopped using it, would make zerg too easy i guess °_^ jk
On August 11 2012 05:24 Wakimomo wrote: SECONDS and it makes a terran UNABLE to REPAIR the building.
Wow.
I can honestly say that i had no idea it kept buildings from being repaired.
That would make it extremely helpful when trying to push a PF or some expo you're trying to snipe
You had no idea because its a fake statement. Tried and tested. If it did stop repairing z v t would be revolutionized with many roach + bane busts being impossible to defend.
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
On topic: I have a hard time understanding this as well. 50/50 for being able to delay siege tech, colo range, blink, storm or production in general seems like a great ability. But no one ever blamed sc2 zerg players for being too innovative and for right reasons.
for the price of ONE RAVEN you can say yourself dozens of scans saving you thousands of minerals
with those minerals you can have a much larger army and without there speed bonus the zerg cant win, especialy when you HSM all there infesters
everything LOOKS good on paper, if you honestly think no zerg has ever tried to use contaminate your foolingyourself, there was a period in Zvz people used contanimate alot but they stopped because the spell is not useful
You mean it was nerfed because it was too useful and people started going insane amounts of overseers in ZvZ. After the nerf people stopped using it because it became pretty much useless.
On TLO's stream the other day ZvP on Ohana... went late game and he made about 6 overseers and kept delaying the mothership rebuild... was sooo awesome to see
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
On topic: I have a hard time understanding this as well. 50/50 for being able to delay siege tech, colo range, blink, storm or production in general seems like a great ability. But no one ever blamed sc2 zerg players for being too innovative and for right reasons.
for the price of ONE RAVEN you can say yourself dozens of scans saving you thousands of minerals
with those minerals you can have a much larger army and without there speed bonus the zerg cant win, especialy when you HSM all there infesters
everything LOOKS good on paper, if you honestly think no zerg has ever tried to use contaminate your foolingyourself, there was a period in Zvz people used contanimate alot but they stopped because the spell is not useful
You mean it was nerfed because it was too useful and people started going insane amounts of overseers in ZvZ. After the nerf people stopped using it because it became pretty much useless.
Are you sure you know what you are talking about? I thought they made overseer cheaper so its a bit more useful and contaminate cost higher as a result(coz cheaper overseer + old low contaminate could be too good), not bcoz mass overseer was any good
On August 11 2012 06:13 syriuszonito wrote:I thought they made overseer cheaper so its a bit more useful and contaminate cost higher as a result(coz cheaper overseer + old low contaminate could be too good), not bcoz mass overseer was any good
as far as i know, overseer used to cost 100 gas and contaminate was 75 energy, right? I even remember when overseer used to drop infested terrans...
Why the hell is the OP saying it prevents something from being repaired? contaminate prevents abilities from being used by the structure, not ON the structure.
It's not used much anymore because it costs so much energy — makes for slower timings and just more difficult to use. I don't like that change and really don't think it was necessary. Aside from that, it reduces the number of overlords that drop creep or transport units.
Contaminate's always been a rather crappy ability along with corruption (much worse), I wish they would renovate it to something completely new. AT the least make contaminate work on any unit, not just structures — that would be a reasonable change.
People should start using it, you just can hide like 5 overseers and then come to the enemy base and start spamming it, its not that bad specially early game where the enemy may not have enough defense
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's insanely more expensive than overseers. Not just resource wise, but even more costly in time. I'm not saying ravens don't have a place in t v z, but I am saying you cannot compare its lack of use to the lack of use of contaminate. Figuring out how to get ravens into the metagame is way more complicated than using contaminate. Agreed completely with the OP btw, the strategic depth behind overseers is quite massive people just need to tinker with it.
On August 11 2012 06:22 darkrage14 wrote: Confirmed, it does NOT stop repair, but it does stop CC scanning/MULEs
I dread for protoss players if the Stephano style roach aggression also had contaminates going off on the robo to delay immortal production. THere are so many other uses for the spell and it's so cheap resource wise to get out on the field (though quite expensive in time).
contaminate was useful a long time ago when it was 75 energy because you didn't have to wait so long for the energy to build up and could contaminate 2 buildings on a single pass if you waited. Very good for delaying grades but the nerf of 125 energy made it take too long and by that time the player has moved on to more macro/positional maneuvers. I'm sure there is a place for it to come back but it requires much more preparation to build up the energy and forethought, at the moment the overseer is utilized for quick scout intel or defensive decloaking vision. I wouldn't be sad if they removed the glorified scouting unit, its something you get because you have too not because its going to help like an infestor - although I'm sure you could build a strategy around lings and overseers but that's very situation.
It's the same reason why every Protoss doesn't cannon rush against Zerg. All you think about is "Think how much I can set my opponent back", but completely ignore how much you're setting yourself back to do it.
Think of all the tech that you'd want to slow down. Now think of the timing for it to hit with standard play. Now subtract 4 minutes from that time. That's when you need to start morphing Lair tech, including the gas investment.
That basically means that you're not stopping any important Toss tech timings, and you're still pushing it for Terran.
And unlike rushing Infestor tech or Spire tech, you're rushing for a delay tactic, which provides no way of actually dealing damage, or defending against units.
If the argument was that late game Contaminates could be useful for slowing remaxes and 3/3 upgrades, I'd agree. Delaying timings? Not a chance. Delaying Blink by 30 seconds sounds cool, but the early gas and rushed lair basically means your defence will be crushed by a normal 6-gate, no Blink required.
I use Contaminate, but in the lategame or even midgame, every units of gas counts. I dont feel that making several Overseers is worth it, because theyre too slow, and getting OL speed just for that purpose is usually not affordable in an even game.
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
Wait until pros start using it in every game, it won't be so mediocre then.
Hahaha, what the hell? Shouldn't you take this raven gud bs to some other thread to have your "arguments" get destroyed there?
Ravens are fine, just because you don't/ can't use them doesn't mean they are bad. HSM is excellent, PDD is a good support spell, auto turret provides a harass capability and it's a detector. What else do you want, for it to fly!?
On topic, I play Z and I honistly just forget about contaminate, I didn't know about the repair thing but now I'll make an effort to use it. I would have thought ZvZ would see the most use, followed by PvZ (delay warp gate on an FFE while going mutas to justify the fast lair?
Please don't say that the raven is fine! HSM sucks, and let me explain why: - 125 energy, 1 raven can launch it only 1 time in a battle, and it takes forever to get to the 125 energy. - in the perfect world, where the zerg doesn't fungal the ravens, you can cast the HSM's, and GUESS WHAT: it takes 2 HSM's to kill 1 broodlord. Yes, it takes 2 ravens to kill 1 broodlord. I can ask my opponent to clump up his broodlords, but smart zergs don't do this.
The fact that zergs are not using contamine says a lot to me. Contamine on important buildings like starports and factories is strong. But hey, not a single zerg did this to me. Why? Because I guess that stephano needs to show it to them. It took untill stephano before the infestor ling style became a used strategy. It took untill stephano before the 12:00 roach max in zvp became a used strategy.
How long will it take before zergs start dropping burrowed infestors and speedlings (lategame)? How long will it take before zergs will split their units (atm it's all nestea style: everything in 1 hotkey and 1a in a tight ball, so tanks have a party)?
On August 11 2012 06:26 WolfintheSheep wrote: It's the same reason why every Protoss doesn't cannon rush against Zerg. All you think about is "Think how much I can set my opponent back", but completely ignore how much you're setting yourself back to do it.
Think of all the tech that you'd want to slow down. Now think of the timing for it to hit with standard play. Now subtract 4 minutes from that time. That's when you need to start morphing Lair tech, including the gas investment.
That basically means that you're not stopping any important Toss tech timings, and you're still pushing it for Terran.
And unlike rushing Infestor tech or Spire tech, you're rushing for a delay tactic, which provides no way of actually dealing damage, or defending against units.
If the argument was that late game Contaminates could be useful for slowing remaxes and 3/3 upgrades, I'd agree. Delaying timings? Not a chance. Delaying Blink by 30 seconds sounds cool, but the early gas and rushed lair basically means your defence will be crushed by a normal 6-gate, no Blink required.
This is pretty much spot on.
Although I would like to see an attempt at a mass overseer strategy once Zerg reaches the doom composition vs Protoss with a huge bank...
On August 11 2012 05:24 Wakimomo wrote: SECONDS and it makes a terran UNABLE to REPAIR the building.
Wow.
I can honestly say that i had no idea it kept buildings from being repaired.
That would make it extremely helpful when trying to push a PF or some expo you're trying to snipe
lol, now i imagine some sick 2 base roach all in with anti-repair shit.
you dont ahve to repair tanks to make them own roachs
besides how are you supposed to get lair, get an oversee, get contaminate, still have a dangerous amont of roachs before they have tanks and marauders?
There was actually a game in which Coca used mass contaminate against Naniwa if I'm not mistaken. It was in the MLG where Coca ended up in the finals against Bomber, maybe Raleigh in 2011 or the one after. I think he made a lot of overseer and spammed contaminate on Naniwa's building right before pushing with infestor, to delay some important things.
Now, it was at a time where Coca outplayed completely every protoss so maybe he was able to do everything he wanted anyway, but I remember that I was completely shocked during this game.
Contaminate is good vs midgame robos/twilight council/factories
and good for lategame PFs, ebays, starports, or to prevent opponent's remax.
If you both have a lot of bank (which actually happens a lot in long games). Go past max and make ~10 overseers or however many are managable. Have ovie speed ofcourse, and look for key structures. You can run changelings through his base if you need to find the structures. Like nothing is worse than a mothership that takes 3x as long to come out because you keep harassing with overseers.
Overseers are pretty awesome actually! Very underused imo. Ive been making a lot more past week and havnt turned back.
On August 11 2012 06:36 ColtraneL wrote: There is actually a game in which Coca uses mass contaminate against Naniwa if I'm not mistaken. It was in the MLG where Coca ended up in the finals against Bomber, maybe Raleigh in 2011 or the one after. I think he made a lot of overseer and spammed contaminate on Naniwa's building right before pushing with infestor, to delay some important things.
Now, it was at a time where Coca outplayed completely every protoss so maybe he was able to do everything he wanted anyway, but I remember that I was completely shocked during this game.
hongun used carriers early in the GSL and won a game with them doesnt make them viable
especially since 2 years later noone figured out an effective build aside from extremely late game PVZ
it has some good uses, just keep flying 2 in and use it on both starports and robo's. it can delay the other races counter to broods which can win games
On August 11 2012 06:36 ColtraneL wrote: There is actually a game in which Coca uses mass contaminate against Naniwa if I'm not mistaken. It was in the MLG where Coca ended up in the finals against Bomber, maybe Raleigh in 2011 or the one after. I think he made a lot of overseer and spammed contaminate on Naniwa's building right before pushing with infestor, to delay some important things.
Now, it was at a time where Coca outplayed completely every protoss so maybe he was able to do everything he wanted anyway, but I remember that I was completely shocked during this game.
hongun used carriers early in the GSL and won a game with them doesnt make them viable
especially since 2 years later noone figured out an effective build aside from extremely late game PVZ
I don't think it is quite the same thing. Building carriers is a huge part of your build, but using contaminate is a simple action which can in some situations give you the win.
I don't say that the fact that Coca crushed a protoss in one game with it makes it viable as a strategy, but it points out that this ability shouldn't be overlooked, it can definitely be useful in many games.
Because I don't like gimmicky plays. And that is what the contaminate ability is all about. Energy expensive, gimmicky and rely on weird plays. Most people would rather be a solid standard player.
On August 11 2012 06:36 ColtraneL wrote: There is actually a game in which Coca uses mass contaminate against Naniwa if I'm not mistaken. It was in the MLG where Coca ended up in the finals against Bomber, maybe Raleigh in 2011 or the one after. I think he made a lot of overseer and spammed contaminate on Naniwa's building right before pushing with infestor, to delay some important things.
Now, it was at a time where Coca outplayed completely every protoss so maybe he was able to do everything he wanted anyway, but I remember that I was completely shocked during this game.
hongun used carriers early in the GSL and won a game with them doesnt make them viable
especially since 2 years later noone figured out an effective build aside from extremely late game PVZ
This was also before the contaminate spell was made to cost 125 mana... though CoCa's use of it was pretty awesome. He used it to make a roach/hydra push work by delaying the blink upgrade, and then delaying the warpgate reinforcements as he attacked.
I saw TLO use it to great effect on his stream! He did it vP and delayed the mothership for a long time so it didn't have enough energy for a vortex when he pushed with his brood lords. Really brilliant play! Maybe he will use it more if you tune in to his stream in the future. : )
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
On topic: I have a hard time understanding this as well. 50/50 for being able to delay siege tech, colo range, blink, storm or production in general seems like a great ability. But no one ever blamed sc2 zerg players for being too innovative and for right reasons.
for the price of ONE RAVEN you can say yourself dozens of scans saving you thousands of minerals
with those minerals you can have a much larger army and without there speed bonus the zerg cant win, especialy when you HSM all there infesters
everything LOOKS good on paper, if you honestly think no zerg has ever tried to use contaminate your foolingyourself, there was a period in Zvz people used contanimate alot but they stopped because the spell is not useful
ravens cost supply and waaaaay more resources than overseers.
Don't know if this is the real reason, or if it's been said before, but my guess is this:
They just don't need to.
If you can win another way, you're not going to waste practice time trying to develop something new. Right now Zerg is doing pretty alright in the metagame, so you're not likely to see any revolution here. In BW, revolutions would come when a race was doing poorly, which forced someone to come up with a new way to use an old unit, or a new BO, or a novel way to use an underused mechanic (looking at you defilers, ensnare, etc) to change the way the metagame worked.
As long as zergs don't need it, they aren't going to use it, because developing something new takes time away from practicing what you know will work.
On August 11 2012 06:51 LaughingTulkas wrote: Don't know if this is the real reason, or if it's been said before, but my guess is this:
They just don't need to.
This is pretty much spot on. Whenever zerg has problems with something, the problems get nerfed. There's no need for zerg players to do anything new or out-of-the-box.
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
On topic: I have a hard time understanding this as well. 50/50 for being able to delay siege tech, colo range, blink, storm or production in general seems like a great ability. But no one ever blamed sc2 zerg players for being too innovative and for right reasons.
I love this hidden balance whine. Sweet Terran tears.
On topic : I use contaminate. It's pretty strong in ZvZ, but rather luck dependent in ZvT and ZvP - and I can understand people not wanting to spend gas on a gamble that rarely ever does anything. Now for that PF thing - I didn't know, and I will try sounds very situational though, as Ultralisks cleave through scvs, Banelings ignore repair and Broodlords kill them from a distance while keeping damage, and PFs already counter lings and ITs without the help of scvs - so in the end it only ever helps roaches, which you don't really want anyway by the time PFs come into play.
I don't think that contaminate actually works against planetary fortresses or bunkers. Its best uses are hitting pathogen glands when it it over 30/80 or getting collosi range/blink before a big attack.
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
On topic: I have a hard time understanding this as well. 50/50 for being able to delay siege tech, colo range, blink, storm or production in general seems like a great ability. But no one ever blamed sc2 zerg players for being too innovative and for right reasons.
I love this hidden balance whine. Sweet Terran tears.
Saying that a unit is bad is not a balance whine. Either present your case (http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=359152¤tpage=50) or shut the hell up.
But saying Overseers are OP but Zerg are too stupid to use it certainly is.
On August 11 2012 06:51 LaughingTulkas wrote: Don't know if this is the real reason, or if it's been said before, but my guess is this:
They just don't need to.
This is pretty much spot on. Whenever zerg has problems with something, the problems get nerfed. There's no need for zerg players to do anything new or out-of-the-box.
Sometimes I wish there was a league and race icon next to everybodys nicks so you could avoid reading that balance bullshit written by scrubs
On August 11 2012 06:51 LaughingTulkas wrote: Don't know if this is the real reason, or if it's been said before, but my guess is this:
They just don't need to.
This is pretty much spot on. Whenever zerg has problems with something, the problems get nerfed. There's no need for zerg players to do anything new or out-of-the-box.
Shall we continue the raven discussion and other balance issues in another thread? Thank you.
I was thinking, is it possible to prevent a PT from building with contaminate? It could be useful for the purpose of delaying it while your lings come in and try to destroy it.
I think there are a lot of things that on paper seem really strong that people simply don't use too often. The longer SC2 lives I think the more we will see the true power of these things.
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
On topic: I have a hard time understanding this as well. 50/50 for being able to delay siege tech, colo range, blink, storm or production in general seems like a great ability. But no one ever blamed sc2 zerg players for being too innovative and for right reasons.
for the price of ONE RAVEN you can say yourself dozens of scans saving you thousands of minerals
with those minerals you can have a much larger army and without there speed bonus the zerg cant win, especialy when you HSM all there infesters
everything LOOKS good on paper, if you honestly think no zerg has ever tried to use contaminate your foolingyourself, there was a period in Zvz people used contanimate alot but they stopped because the spell is not useful
... NO ? often you see terrans in late with to much gas and then go mass ravens ^^ if you take gas a LITTLE earlier you can go a raven and its just the gas its nearly cost so less minerals its not even worth to tell and tousends of scans ? 2-3 scans and you got the money (min gas tech) back and also its way more usefull then scan ^^
also they not stop using it because it wasnt usefull (contaminate zvz) but because there are EASIER ways to win
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
Wait until pros start using it in every game, it won't be so mediocre then.
Hahaha, what the hell? Shouldn't you take this raven gud bs to some other thread to have your "arguments" get destroyed there?
Ravens are fine, just because you don't/ can't use them doesn't mean they are bad. HSM is excellent, PDD is a good support spell, auto turret provides a harass capability and it's a detector. What else do you want, for it to fly!?
On topic, I play Z and I honistly just forget about contaminate, I didn't know about the repair thing but now I'll make an effort to use it. I would have thought ZvZ would see the most use, followed by PvZ (delay warp gate on an FFE while going mutas to justify the fast lair?
Please don't say that the raven is fine! HSM sucks, and let me explain why: - 125 energy, 1 raven can launch it only 1 time in a battle, and it takes forever to get to the 125 energy. - in the perfect world, where the zerg doesn't fungal the ravens, you can cast the HSM's, and GUESS WHAT: it takes 2 HSM's to kill 1 broodlord. Yes, it takes 2 ravens to kill 1 broodlord. I can ask my opponent to clump up his broodlords, but smart zergs don't do this.
The fact that zergs are not using contamine says a lot to me. Contamine on important buildings like starports and factories is strong. But hey, not a single zerg did this to me. Why? Because I guess that stephano needs to show it to them. It took untill stephano before the infestor ling style became a used strategy. It took untill stephano before the 12:00 roach max in zvp became a used strategy.
How long will it take before zergs start dropping burrowed infestors and speedlings (lategame)? How long will it take before zergs will split their units (atm it's all nestea style: everything in 1 hotkey and 1a in a tight ball, so tanks have a party)?
Except top-tier Terrans disagree with you.
And no, Stephano did none of that. DRG was a better ling+infestor user during that period, and the 12:00 roach max was perfected by Stephano, other Zergs were trying to make a similar style work; the problem is that it has a short window of time that it was effective, and Stephano was able to make it happen during that short window.
As for splitting units: Zerg units are melee or really short ranged for the most part. Splitting melee/short range units decreases their dps. Splitting marines/marauders does not decrease their dps. That is why you don't see Zergs doing it often; splitting your banelings often results in them just dying before they hit anything. DRG, Stephano, and several other Zergs have been splitting units when it's a good idea for a long time.
Stop trying to make your race look superior, it's retarded.
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
Wait until pros start using it in every game, it won't be so mediocre then.
Hahaha, what the hell? Shouldn't you take this raven gud bs to some other thread to have your "arguments" get destroyed there?
Ravens are fine, just because you don't/ can't use them doesn't mean they are bad. HSM is excellent, PDD is a good support spell, auto turret provides a harass capability and it's a detector. What else do you want, for it to fly!?
On topic, I play Z and I honistly just forget about contaminate, I didn't know about the repair thing but now I'll make an effort to use it. I would have thought ZvZ would see the most use, followed by PvZ (delay warp gate on an FFE while going mutas to justify the fast lair?
Please don't say that the raven is fine! HSM sucks, and let me explain why: - 125 energy, 1 raven can launch it only 1 time in a battle, and it takes forever to get to the 125 energy. - in the perfect world, where the zerg doesn't fungal the ravens, you can cast the HSM's, and GUESS WHAT: it takes 2 HSM's to kill 1 broodlord. Yes, it takes 2 ravens to kill 1 broodlord. I can ask my opponent to clump up his broodlords, but smart zergs don't do this.
The fact that zergs are not using contamine says a lot to me. Contamine on important buildings like starports and factories is strong. But hey, not a single zerg did this to me. Why? Because I guess that stephano needs to show it to them. It took untill stephano before the infestor ling style became a used strategy. It took untill stephano before the 12:00 roach max in zvp became a used strategy.
How long will it take before zergs start dropping burrowed infestors and speedlings (lategame)? How long will it take before zergs will split their units (atm it's all nestea style: everything in 1 hotkey and 1a in a tight ball, so tanks have a party)?
Except top-tier Terrans disagree with you.
And no, Stephano did none of that. DRG was a better ling+infestor user during that period, and the 12:00 roach max was perfected by Stephano, other Zergs were trying to make a similar style work.
As for splitting units: Zerg units are melee. Splitting melee units decreases their dps. Splitting marines does not decrease their dps. DRG, Stephano, and several other Zergs have been splitting units when it's a good idea for a long time.
Stop trying to make your race look superior, it's retarded.
Which top-tier terrans use ravens as often as pro tosses use hts and pro zergs use infestors?
...? That's irrelevant. They use them because they aren't bad. As someone who frequently uses ravens at a pretty decent level of play I can tell you that they're far from bad; they require more set-up than ht/infestor, that's why you don't see them as often.
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
Wait until pros start using it in every game, it won't be so mediocre then.
Hahaha, what the hell? Shouldn't you take this raven gud bs to some other thread to have your "arguments" get destroyed there?
Ravens are fine, just because you don't/ can't use them doesn't mean they are bad. HSM is excellent, PDD is a good support spell, auto turret provides a harass capability and it's a detector. What else do you want, for it to fly!?
On topic, I play Z and I honistly just forget about contaminate, I didn't know about the repair thing but now I'll make an effort to use it. I would have thought ZvZ would see the most use, followed by PvZ (delay warp gate on an FFE while going mutas to justify the fast lair?
Please don't say that the raven is fine! HSM sucks, and let me explain why: - 125 energy, 1 raven can launch it only 1 time in a battle, and it takes forever to get to the 125 energy. - in the perfect world, where the zerg doesn't fungal the ravens, you can cast the HSM's, and GUESS WHAT: it takes 2 HSM's to kill 1 broodlord. Yes, it takes 2 ravens to kill 1 broodlord. I can ask my opponent to clump up his broodlords, but smart zergs don't do this.
The fact that zergs are not using contamine says a lot to me. Contamine on important buildings like starports and factories is strong. But hey, not a single zerg did this to me. Why? Because I guess that stephano needs to show it to them. It took untill stephano before the infestor ling style became a used strategy. It took untill stephano before the 12:00 roach max in zvp became a used strategy.
How long will it take before zergs start dropping burrowed infestors and speedlings (lategame)? How long will it take before zergs will split their units (atm it's all nestea style: everything in 1 hotkey and 1a in a tight ball, so tanks have a party)?
Except top-tier Terrans disagree with you.
And no, Stephano did none of that. DRG was a better ling+infestor user during that period, and the 12:00 roach max was perfected by Stephano, other Zergs were trying to make a similar style work.
As for splitting units: Zerg units are melee. Splitting melee units decreases their dps. Splitting marines does not decrease their dps. DRG, Stephano, and several other Zergs have been splitting units when it's a good idea for a long time.
Stop trying to make your race look superior, it's retarded.
Which top-tier terrans use ravens as often as pro tosses use hts and pro zergs use infestors?
They are really good in ZvZ and still surprised its not standard by now (Although I can count a stupid amount of times I've lost all my lings to a bane because I was using contaminate...)
On August 11 2012 05:24 Wakimomo wrote: SECONDS and it makes a terran UNABLE to REPAIR the building.
Wow.
I can honestly say that i had no idea it kept buildings from being repaired.
That would make it extremely helpful when trying to push a PF or some expo you're trying to snipe
I actually wasn't aware of this either. That is pretty awesome because those PF's can be a real annoyance for Zergs until they get enough number of ultras.
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
Wait until pros start using it in every game, it won't be so mediocre then.
Hahaha, what the hell? Shouldn't you take this raven gud bs to some other thread to have your "arguments" get destroyed there?
Ravens are fine, just because you don't/ can't use them doesn't mean they are bad. HSM is excellent, PDD is a good support spell, auto turret provides a harass capability and it's a detector. What else do you want, for it to fly!?
On topic, I play Z and I honistly just forget about contaminate, I didn't know about the repair thing but now I'll make an effort to use it. I would have thought ZvZ would see the most use, followed by PvZ (delay warp gate on an FFE while going mutas to justify the fast lair?
Please don't say that the raven is fine! HSM sucks, and let me explain why: - 125 energy, 1 raven can launch it only 1 time in a battle, and it takes forever to get to the 125 energy. - in the perfect world, where the zerg doesn't fungal the ravens, you can cast the HSM's, and GUESS WHAT: it takes 2 HSM's to kill 1 broodlord. Yes, it takes 2 ravens to kill 1 broodlord. I can ask my opponent to clump up his broodlords, but smart zergs don't do this.
The fact that zergs are not using contamine says a lot to me. Contamine on important buildings like starports and factories is strong. But hey, not a single zerg did this to me. Why? Because I guess that stephano needs to show it to them. It took untill stephano before the infestor ling style became a used strategy. It took untill stephano before the 12:00 roach max in zvp became a used strategy.
How long will it take before zergs start dropping burrowed infestors and speedlings (lategame)? How long will it take before zergs will split their units (atm it's all nestea style: everything in 1 hotkey and 1a in a tight ball, so tanks have a party)?
Except top-tier Terrans disagree with you.
And no, Stephano did none of that. DRG was a better ling+infestor user during that period, and the 12:00 roach max was perfected by Stephano, other Zergs were trying to make a similar style work.
As for splitting units: Zerg units are melee. Splitting melee units decreases their dps. Splitting marines does not decrease their dps. DRG, Stephano, and several other Zergs have been splitting units when it's a good idea for a long time.
Stop trying to make your race look superior, it's retarded.
Which top-tier terrans use ravens as often as pro tosses use hts and pro zergs use infestors?
...? That's irrelevant. They use them because they aren't bad. As someone who frequently uses ravens at a pretty decent level of play I can tell you that they're far from bad; they require more set-up than ht/infestor, that's why you don't see them as often.
On August 11 2012 07:41 Scrubwave wrote:
On August 11 2012 07:39 Skwid1g wrote:
On August 11 2012 06:32 Snowbear wrote:
On August 11 2012 05:38 FlaminGinjaNinja wrote:
On August 11 2012 05:34 Scrubwave wrote:
On August 11 2012 05:33 apm66 wrote:
On August 11 2012 05:30 Scrubwave wrote:
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
Wait until pros start using it in every game, it won't be so mediocre then.
Hahaha, what the hell? Shouldn't you take this raven gud bs to some other thread to have your "arguments" get destroyed there?
Ravens are fine, just because you don't/ can't use them doesn't mean they are bad. HSM is excellent, PDD is a good support spell, auto turret provides a harass capability and it's a detector. What else do you want, for it to fly!?
On topic, I play Z and I honistly just forget about contaminate, I didn't know about the repair thing but now I'll make an effort to use it. I would have thought ZvZ would see the most use, followed by PvZ (delay warp gate on an FFE while going mutas to justify the fast lair?
Please don't say that the raven is fine! HSM sucks, and let me explain why: - 125 energy, 1 raven can launch it only 1 time in a battle, and it takes forever to get to the 125 energy. - in the perfect world, where the zerg doesn't fungal the ravens, you can cast the HSM's, and GUESS WHAT: it takes 2 HSM's to kill 1 broodlord. Yes, it takes 2 ravens to kill 1 broodlord. I can ask my opponent to clump up his broodlords, but smart zergs don't do this.
The fact that zergs are not using contamine says a lot to me. Contamine on important buildings like starports and factories is strong. But hey, not a single zerg did this to me. Why? Because I guess that stephano needs to show it to them. It took untill stephano before the infestor ling style became a used strategy. It took untill stephano before the 12:00 roach max in zvp became a used strategy.
How long will it take before zergs start dropping burrowed infestors and speedlings (lategame)? How long will it take before zergs will split their units (atm it's all nestea style: everything in 1 hotkey and 1a in a tight ball, so tanks have a party)?
Except top-tier Terrans disagree with you.
And no, Stephano did none of that. DRG was a better ling+infestor user during that period, and the 12:00 roach max was perfected by Stephano, other Zergs were trying to make a similar style work.
As for splitting units: Zerg units are melee. Splitting melee units decreases their dps. Splitting marines does not decrease their dps. DRG, Stephano, and several other Zergs have been splitting units when it's a good idea for a long time.
Stop trying to make your race look superior, it's retarded.
Which top-tier terrans use ravens as often as pro tosses use hts and pro zergs use infestors?
Zerg units are melee
Mother of god... lings, blings, ultras. Oh, and broodlings.
Roaches might as well be melee, like I said in my edit. Zergs already split their corruptors and BLs, what else do you want them to split? Hydras which they never make?
I'd say that how often and how much of a unit is used in match-ups is a pretty good indicative of how good the unit is.
I like how you dodge any logic, reasoning, or questions and spout out pointless 1 liners. No, it isn't. If that was the case hydras would have been a good unit in ZvP when the standard was Roach/Hydra/Corruptor. People innovate and strategies change. And the raven really isn't all that rare to see, even now. Like I said, it takes time to make a raven fleet, not all games gives you that time. Some end early, some require you to pour your resources into other things. Situational =/= bad.
timing wise, the contaminate takes a long time to accumulate the energy. contaminate used to be pretty common when overseers started with more energy. i do agree that contaminate for UPGRADES and other RESEARCHES can be very devastating
Contaminate used to be quite common and popular in ZvZ before the nerf. Overseers used to be used to check for spire play, and while doing so they would usually delay the hatchery from spawning larvae. Later on, excess gas would often be invested into extra overseers which would swoop in regularly to delay larvae. Then the energy cost was nerfed, and playstyles have changed as well:
- better indirect scouting (watching the front of the base, looking for the 3rd timing) means rushing to lair for overseer scouting is less critical - delayed gases for more mineral income in the early-midgame, this delays lair timings and also means less excess gas to spend on overseers. - faster third and macro hatches reduce the impact of missing an occasional inject - more queens and/or muta play can give overseers problems
Also, I just ran a game against the AI to test how long it took to get an overseer ready to contaminate. From when I started the overseer to when it had enough energy took 2m31s. That is a long to time have to invest your 50 gas without any return. If you use the overseer to scout (as most do) it will likely take damage preventing you from doing a second pass later on to do the contaminate.
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
Wait until pros start using it in every game, it won't be so mediocre then.
Hahaha, what the hell? Shouldn't you take this raven gud bs to some other thread to have your "arguments" get destroyed there?
Ravens are fine, just because you don't/ can't use them doesn't mean they are bad. HSM is excellent, PDD is a good support spell, auto turret provides a harass capability and it's a detector. What else do you want, for it to fly!?
On topic, I play Z and I honistly just forget about contaminate, I didn't know about the repair thing but now I'll make an effort to use it. I would have thought ZvZ would see the most use, followed by PvZ (delay warp gate on an FFE while going mutas to justify the fast lair?
Please don't say that the raven is fine! HSM sucks, and let me explain why: - 125 energy, 1 raven can launch it only 1 time in a battle, and it takes forever to get to the 125 energy. - in the perfect world, where the zerg doesn't fungal the ravens, you can cast the HSM's, and GUESS WHAT: it takes 2 HSM's to kill 1 broodlord. Yes, it takes 2 ravens to kill 1 broodlord. I can ask my opponent to clump up his broodlords, but smart zergs don't do this.
The fact that zergs are not using contamine says a lot to me. Contamine on important buildings like starports and factories is strong. But hey, not a single zerg did this to me. Why? Because I guess that stephano needs to show it to them. It took untill stephano before the infestor ling style became a used strategy. It took untill stephano before the 12:00 roach max in zvp became a used strategy.
How long will it take before zergs start dropping burrowed infestors and speedlings (lategame)? How long will it take before zergs will split their units (atm it's all nestea style: everything in 1 hotkey and 1a in a tight ball, so tanks have a party)?
Except top-tier Terrans disagree with you.
Like taeja? Who made 0 ravens in the lategame in his game against idra on entombed (asus rog)? Or are we talking about gumiho, who also doesn't build them?
A good zerg will never let the ravens get to 125 energy. You need a damn sick economy to support raven production (starports, upgrades for the raven), and then you need a sick amount of time to build up the energy. It just doesn't work, unless the zerg fucks up. Then when you got them to 125 energy, you need 2 HSM's to kill 1 broodlord. You also need a zerg that doesn't fungal the ravens. And after casting the HSM, the raven is 1) dead, 2) useless.
it is a question about mind micro, you can do alot of things, the question is can you remember them all in the midst of a battlefield. You could run in 2 banelings into expansions that you know are undefended and burrow them there if the opponent pulls workers, getting rid of those takes alot of effort ... and if they don't notice and 1 mineral move their workers in the right spot for your banelings ... You can produce Broodlings with an active creep tumor (attack cancel repeat, if you are fast you can send 3 waves of broodlings to the opponents army no need for infested terrans to draw tank fire, you can attack like swarm hosts that way and the first 9 range are invulnerable and can pass cliffs and airspace), or shoot attack creep tumors when the opponent attacks to create broodlings pre fight (voidray precharge like ftw !). The list is pretty much endless and shows how much potential each unit still has. But most training revolves around not thinking. While these neat tricks tax your mind pretty heavily. Like keeping this one raven alive, because every minute it stays alive it will save you money and add valuable scouts in form of auto turrets. Or in combo with banshees you have complete mapcontrol until t2 of the zerg is out a few minutes. You could even put medivacs on one control group and kite away fungal damage, so no marine will die. (otherwise medivacs will focus till their marine is full and you lose all marines - your medivac count). Not that you should a move marines against fungal anyway, since magic box moving + hold posi will negate fungal from being usefull against marines.
So yes there are alot of cute moves, but they are low on the priority list and often there is so much going on for the players that they don't get that far down on their list. Guess people prefer to make only a few things but those perfect. But don't worry we will get there, it took a year including the beta, for zergs to start using burrow a bit.
I remember a quite fun game on Tal'Darim Alter where I Spine Crawler rushed a FFE'ing Protoss player, since I got the fast Lair anyways i morphed 2-3 Overseers and because I was able to delay Warpgate by destroying the Cybernetics Core with the Spine Crawlers first, and then when he made another Cybernetics Core in his base i used the previously morphed Overseers to Contaminate Warpgate forever so in the end I just overwhelmed him with Roaches while he QQ'd about Overseers being imbalanced! ^ – ^ Good Times !
Not sure why it's really not used that much though, I mean could definitely see this as an answer to some of the Sentry-Immortal timings that Zerg are struggling with at the moment.
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
On topic: I have a hard time understanding this as well. 50/50 for being able to delay siege tech, colo range, blink, storm or production in general seems like a great ability. But no one ever blamed sc2 zerg players for being too innovative and for right reasons.
I love this hidden balance whine. Sweet Terran tears.
Saying that a unit is bad is not a balance whine. Either present your case (http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=359152¤tpage=50) or shut the hell up.
I was more talking about your comment on Zerg innovation. But well, whatever man, it is as off topic as all of your posts.
Also, I just ran a game against the AI to test how long it took to get an overseer ready to contaminate. From when I started the overseer to when it had enough energy took 2m31s. That is a long to time have to invest your 50 gas without any return. If you use the overseer to scout (as most do) it will likely take damage preventing you from doing a second pass later on to do the contaminate.
Dont forget that the Energy at the beginning is most often used for a scouting changeling, so it will take longer than 2:31. In addition to a quite late lair, most crucial upgrades (stim, combat shields, warpgate tech, siege tech, blue flame, cloak,..) are already done
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
Wait until pros start using it in every game, it won't be so mediocre then.
Hahaha, what the hell? Shouldn't you take this raven gud bs to some other thread to have your "arguments" get destroyed there?
Ravens are fine, just because you don't/ can't use them doesn't mean they are bad. HSM is excellent, PDD is a good support spell, auto turret provides a harass capability and it's a detector. What else do you want, for it to fly!?
On topic, I play Z and I honistly just forget about contaminate, I didn't know about the repair thing but now I'll make an effort to use it. I would have thought ZvZ would see the most use, followed by PvZ (delay warp gate on an FFE while going mutas to justify the fast lair?
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
Wait until pros start using it in every game, it won't be so mediocre then.
Hahaha, what the hell? Shouldn't you take this raven gud bs to some other thread to have your "arguments" get destroyed there?
Ravens are fine, just because you don't/ can't use them doesn't mean they are bad. HSM is excellent, PDD is a good support spell, auto turret provides a harass capability and it's a detector. What else do you want, for it to fly!?
On topic, I play Z and I honistly just forget about contaminate, I didn't know about the repair thing but now I'll make an effort to use it. I would have thought ZvZ would see the most use, followed by PvZ (delay warp gate on an FFE while going mutas to justify the fast lair?
On August 11 2012 07:07 Starshaped wrote: I think there are a lot of things that on paper seem really strong that people simply don't use too often. The longer SC2 lives I think the more we will see the true power of these things.
No (too much energy now), no (costs too much money, dies way to easily, is too noticeable, unloads zerglings slowly), no (not that underused when motherships are built), maybe (forcefield and guardian are just as strong or likely stronger than hallucination), no (not underused, but still a terrible ability even if it's strong)
Y'know, I didn't know about the repair thing, but thats really awesome, if a Terran doesn't go heavy on Missile Turrets you can go in with the Contaminate to prevent repairs and forcibly open up a hole in their defensives for your Mutalisks.
Thats a really big deal, I do wonder why nobody uses Contaminate, it probably comes down to not being used to using it and using it generally doesn't fit into their mindset, but its something more Zergs could really stand to do, 30 seconds of delayed production time and an unrepairable building is a great thing, especially for something as paltry as an Overseer.
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
Wait until pros start using it in every game, it won't be so mediocre then.
Hahaha, what the hell? Shouldn't you take this raven gud bs to some other thread to have your "arguments" get destroyed there?
Ravens are fine, just because you don't/ can't use them doesn't mean they are bad. HSM is excellent, PDD is a good support spell, auto turret provides a harass capability and it's a detector. What else do you want, for it to fly!?
On topic, I play Z and I honistly just forget about contaminate, I didn't know about the repair thing but now I'll make an effort to use it. I would have thought ZvZ would see the most use, followed by PvZ (delay warp gate on an FFE while going mutas to justify the fast lair?
The ravens shoot brood lings out of the air .
Incorrect, this was fixed back in beta.
Yes, still you find tons of Zerg posts claiming it still does. You find even more that promote the power of PDD to stop roaches.
@FlaminGinjaNinja If HSM is so excellent, we Terrans would trade it for your fungal every day. Just say the word.. we also take the complete spell package... just saying...
On August 11 2012 08:06 xeqwist wrote: Not sure why it's really not used that much though, I mean could definitely see this as an answer to some of the Sentry-Immortal timings that Zerg are struggling with at the moment.
Any overseers made on typical 3 base zerg builds wouldn't be able to contaminate anything until about the 11 minute mark, which I strongly doubt would be early enough.
Sentry immortal builds already do somewhat poorly against zergling-baneling-muta, so I don't really see much necessity to somehow come up with an alternative.
Y'know, I didn't know about the repair thing, but thats really awesome, if a Terran doesn't go heavy on Missile Turrets you can go in with the Contaminate to prevent repairs and forcibly open up a hole in their defensives for your Mutalisks.
Thats a really big deal, I do wonder why nobody uses Contaminate, it probably comes down to not being used to using it and using it generally doesn't fit into their mindset, but its something more Zergs could really stand to do, 30 seconds of delayed production time and an unrepairable building is a great thing, especially for something as paltry as an Overseer.
SO MANY IDIOTS posting so many different things, but namely posts such as this (i'm not attacking this poster, but rather all people who made dumb posts without mentioning names aside from him). The thread is about why contaminate isn't used — try reading it before you say " durr I just dunt know why these zergs don't use contamun8!"
Aside from that, if you did your own research and/or read other posts you'd know that contaminate does NOT prevent repairing — the OP is just misinformed and spreading terrible information.
personally I hardly use it because I don't have the energy, and when I do I find changelings a lot more useful. I just reflexively always hit c when I select my overseers and then rally the changeling around their base.
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
Wait until pros start using it in every game, it won't be so mediocre then.
Hahaha, what the hell? Shouldn't you take this raven gud bs to some other thread to have your "arguments" get destroyed there?
Ravens are fine, just because you don't/ can't use them doesn't mean they are bad. HSM is excellent, PDD is a good support spell, auto turret provides a harass capability and it's a detector. What else do you want, for it to fly!?
On topic, I play Z and I honistly just forget about contaminate, I didn't know about the repair thing but now I'll make an effort to use it. I would have thought ZvZ would see the most use, followed by PvZ (delay warp gate on an FFE while going mutas to justify the fast lair?
Please don't say that the raven is fine! HSM sucks, and let me explain why: - 125 energy, 1 raven can launch it only 1 time in a battle, and it takes forever to get to the 125 energy. - in the perfect world, where the zerg doesn't fungal the ravens, you can cast the HSM's, and GUESS WHAT: it takes 2 HSM's to kill 1 broodlord. Yes, it takes 2 ravens to kill 1 broodlord. I can ask my opponent to clump up his broodlords, but smart zergs don't do this.
The fact that zergs are not using contamine says a lot to me. Contamine on important buildings like starports and factories is strong. But hey, not a single zerg did this to me. Why? Because I guess that stephano needs to show it to them. It took untill stephano before the infestor ling style became a used strategy. It took untill stephano before the 12:00 roach max in zvp became a used strategy.
How long will it take before zergs start dropping burrowed infestors and speedlings (lategame)? How long will it take before zergs will split their units (atm it's all nestea style: everything in 1 hotkey and 1a in a tight ball, so tanks have a party)?
Except top-tier Terrans disagree with you.
Like taeja? Who made 0 ravens in the lategame in his game against idra on entombed (asus rog)? Or are we talking about gumiho, who also doesn't build them? .
TaeJa uses Ravens, it's a newer thing but late late late late late late late late late game vZ (like think split metropolis) he starts replacing supply with them. Get's HSM and all the fun stuff (building armor, etc). Just because he did not use them vs IdrA does not mean he does not use them.
Contaminate can be used on a nexus building a mothership, but idk if its possible to get an overseer that deep in the protoss base aside from maps like daybreak and ohana.
quite simply, the thought doesn't enter most zergs minds because they just don't NEED to. why haven't terran REALLY pushed for a late-game air-mech composition? or an air-bio composition? because they don't NEED to. Why do 99% of protoss players not go for heavy harrass drop based play? because they don't NEED to.
innovation is split between raw creativity and desperation; in short, zerg don't contaminate because neither of those are a factor currently.
-
however, well-timed contaminates (rather than just random go in hey let's slow him down a bit) would be awesome to see.
I just realized that contaminate is kinda the same thing as entomb. Entomb prevents you from getting resources and contaminate prevents you from spending them.
On August 11 2012 08:46 AndAgain wrote: I just realized that contaminate is kinda the same thing as entomb. Entomb prevents you from getting resources and contaminate prevents you from spending them.
Except entomb would be significantly better, because with contaminate at least you still accumulate the minerals. If you can't accumulate minerals with entomb, your production will also stop. Unless you're cashfloating a decent amount, I suppose.
On August 11 2012 06:51 LaughingTulkas wrote: Don't know if this is the real reason, or if it's been said before, but my guess is this:
They just don't need to.
This is pretty much spot on. Whenever zerg has problems with something, the problems get nerfed. There's no need for zerg players to do anything new or out-of-the-box.
Sometimes I wish there was a league and race icon next to everybodys nicks so you could avoid reading that balance bullshit written by scrubs
Please let this be a thing! Everyone has to link their Bnet profile to TL. It's better than linking facebook with redtube.
I think in the midgame its one of the few things that is really really unexplored. LIke ppl said stopping plus 1, holding up a robo from producing anything, shutting down a hatchery seems like an awesome ability. I guess in the lategame you might as well use it if you have the overseers there but i dont think zerg ever really gets to the point where they have gas that cant be spent elsewhere. Also it could be an apm issue as well
On August 11 2012 08:46 AndAgain wrote: I just realized that contaminate is kinda the same thing as entomb. Entomb prevents you from getting resources and contaminate prevents you from spending them.
Except entomb would be significantly better, because with contaminate at least you still accumulate the minerals. If you can't accumulate minerals with entomb, your production will also stop. Unless you're cashfloating a decent amount, I suppose.
Yeah, but entomb only delays mining: you will just get your resources later. What contaminate does (in essence) is to cause you to float resources which is effectively the same thing as not having them.
On August 11 2012 06:51 LaughingTulkas wrote: Don't know if this is the real reason, or if it's been said before, but my guess is this:
They just don't need to.
This is pretty much spot on. Whenever zerg has problems with something, the problems get nerfed. There's no need for zerg players to do anything new or out-of-the-box.
Sometimes I wish there was a league and race icon next to everybodys nicks so you could avoid reading that balance bullshit written by scrubs
Please let this be a thing! Everyone has to link their Bnet profile to TL. It's better than linking facebook with redtube.
That's been brought up many times and every time the conclusion is it will only lead to pissy elitism and that it is much easier to ignore a few dumbasses.
I would guess that it simply requires too much APM if you were to add it on top of what zergs already need to do. Zerg already seems to have its hands full macroing up and constantly scouting. Add in sending several overseers to the main base, ensuring they don't die, and making sure you keep up a chain of contaminations. Of course they could do it, but it'll probably take away APM from other tasks, which may end up being more important overall. But I guess I can't really say that, I'm not sure how much its actually been practiced. Would probably need to ask the pros
I would agree that using it on a PF would be quite useful but what you're saying is delay your opponent so that you may hit with your timing. Well your timing will be off by quite some time since we're talking early game here and you need to get both lair and an overseer quite early for this to work. Sure they can be explored more, but there are several games where greedy protoss players have been punished by early lair (muta-build) with an overseer that delays an upgrade or even warpgate. Before asking yourself questions about certain units abilities then why not look at the very basics first. There's for example no reason to ever miss an inject if there is no big fights ocurring, yet this happens all the time in pro games. I'd say building random overseers early game or crafting an entire strategy around one or two comes after those things are mastered.
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
Wait until pros start using it in every game, it won't be so mediocre then.
Hahaha, what the hell? Shouldn't you take this raven gud bs to some other thread to have your "arguments" get destroyed there?
Ravens are fine, just because you don't/ can't use them doesn't mean they are bad. HSM is excellent, PDD is a good support spell, auto turret provides a harass capability and it's a detector. What else do you want, for it to fly!?
On topic, I play Z and I honistly just forget about contaminate, I didn't know about the repair thing but now I'll make an effort to use it. I would have thought ZvZ would see the most use, followed by PvZ (delay warp gate on an FFE while going mutas to justify the fast lair?
Please don't say that the raven is fine! HSM sucks, and let me explain why: - 125 energy, 1 raven can launch it only 1 time in a battle, and it takes forever to get to the 125 energy. - in the perfect world, where the zerg doesn't fungal the ravens, you can cast the HSM's, and GUESS WHAT: it takes 2 HSM's to kill 1 broodlord. Yes, it takes 2 ravens to kill 1 broodlord. I can ask my opponent to clump up his broodlords, but smart zergs don't do this.
The fact that zergs are not using contamine says a lot to me. Contamine on important buildings like starports and factories is strong. But hey, not a single zerg did this to me. Why? Because I guess that stephano needs to show it to them. It took untill stephano before the infestor ling style became a used strategy. It took untill stephano before the 12:00 roach max in zvp became a used strategy.
How long will it take before zergs start dropping burrowed infestors and speedlings (lategame)? How long will it take before zergs will split their units (atm it's all nestea style: everything in 1 hotkey and 1a in a tight ball, so tanks have a party)?
Except top-tier Terrans disagree with you.
And no, Stephano did none of that. DRG was a better ling+infestor user during that period, and the 12:00 roach max was perfected by Stephano, other Zergs were trying to make a similar style work.
As for splitting units: Zerg units are melee. Splitting melee units decreases their dps. Splitting marines does not decrease their dps. DRG, Stephano, and several other Zergs have been splitting units when it's a good idea for a long time.
Stop trying to make your race look superior, it's retarded.
Which top-tier terrans use ravens as often as pro tosses use hts and pro zergs use infestors?
...? That's irrelevant. They use them because they aren't bad. As someone who frequently uses ravens at a pretty decent level of play I can tell you that they're far from bad; they require more set-up than ht/infestor, that's why you don't see them as often.
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
Wait until pros start using it in every game, it won't be so mediocre then.
Hahaha, what the hell? Shouldn't you take this raven gud bs to some other thread to have your "arguments" get destroyed there?
Ravens are fine, just because you don't/ can't use them doesn't mean they are bad. HSM is excellent, PDD is a good support spell, auto turret provides a harass capability and it's a detector. What else do you want, for it to fly!?
On topic, I play Z and I honistly just forget about contaminate, I didn't know about the repair thing but now I'll make an effort to use it. I would have thought ZvZ would see the most use, followed by PvZ (delay warp gate on an FFE while going mutas to justify the fast lair?
Please don't say that the raven is fine! HSM sucks, and let me explain why: - 125 energy, 1 raven can launch it only 1 time in a battle, and it takes forever to get to the 125 energy. - in the perfect world, where the zerg doesn't fungal the ravens, you can cast the HSM's, and GUESS WHAT: it takes 2 HSM's to kill 1 broodlord. Yes, it takes 2 ravens to kill 1 broodlord. I can ask my opponent to clump up his broodlords, but smart zergs don't do this.
The fact that zergs are not using contamine says a lot to me. Contamine on important buildings like starports and factories is strong. But hey, not a single zerg did this to me. Why? Because I guess that stephano needs to show it to them. It took untill stephano before the infestor ling style became a used strategy. It took untill stephano before the 12:00 roach max in zvp became a used strategy.
How long will it take before zergs start dropping burrowed infestors and speedlings (lategame)? How long will it take before zergs will split their units (atm it's all nestea style: everything in 1 hotkey and 1a in a tight ball, so tanks have a party)?
Except top-tier Terrans disagree with you.
And no, Stephano did none of that. DRG was a better ling+infestor user during that period, and the 12:00 roach max was perfected by Stephano, other Zergs were trying to make a similar style work.
As for splitting units: Zerg units are melee. Splitting melee units decreases their dps. Splitting marines does not decrease their dps. DRG, Stephano, and several other Zergs have been splitting units when it's a good idea for a long time.
Stop trying to make your race look superior, it's retarded.
Which top-tier terrans use ravens as often as pro tosses use hts and pro zergs use infestors?
Zerg units are melee
Mother of god... lings, blings, ultras. Oh, and broodlings.
Roaches might as well be melee, like I said in my edit. Zergs already split their corruptors and BLs, what else do you want them to split? Hydras?
You claim Scrubwave is dodging the question (how?) yet entirely dismiss his argument by saying its irrelevant how often a unit gets used. You finally counter later on that the Raven is a situational unit that takes time and an investment of resources.
Yet unlike the other two main casters of the other races which also take time and investment resources, they are easily far more prevalent and far more used.
The question, why don't pro's use ravens more often IS important and relevant because in answering it, we can actually do something about it. Is it because they just don't see it usefulness, then perhaps we could send in your replays to coaches for ideas. If its because its situational usefulness is too narrow, then perhaps a change is necessary to expand those moments.
On August 11 2012 08:52 FabledIntegral wrote: I was not even aware it stopped repair.
On August 11 2012 08:46 AndAgain wrote: I just realized that contaminate is kinda the same thing as entomb. Entomb prevents you from getting resources and contaminate prevents you from spending them.
Except entomb would be significantly better, because with contaminate at least you still accumulate the minerals. If you can't accumulate minerals with entomb, your production will also stop. Unless you're cashfloating a decent amount, I suppose.
Yeah, but entomb only delays mining: you will just get your resources later. What contaminate does (in essence) is to cause you to float resources which is effectively the same thing as not having them.
Getting the minerals later has never been a valid argument. Same argument that has been used for mules.
I have thought about its use in ZvZ maybe if you are going for a third while your opponent only two-bases it could be used to slow down possible attacks, I haven't actually tested it. But I have seen many people saying it simply takes to long to build up energy for it to be effective as a part of a build. But it's interesting, if it would be useful in any matchup I think it would be ZvZ.
One way you could also use maybe it is as a late game finisher in ZvZ if you are still both stuck on roach/hydra/infestor and you attack and just contaminate all his hatches while you continue to remax. But it also feels that many times you could put that gas on things that are more reliable and I think that's why people stay away from making like 6 Overseers late game ZvZ.
On August 11 2012 09:10 wangstra wrote: Yet unlike the other two main casters of the other races which also take time and investment resources, they are easily far more prevalent and far more used.
On August 11 2012 08:42 Picklebread wrote: I saw a game where TLO made like 4 overseers when his lair finished and then swooped in later and delayed +1 by like 90 seconds. Its pretty good.
Yeah but 4 overseers = 200/200 cost, that's expensive - you're delaying a 100/100 upgrade, but not only that, you had to spend the 200/200 before the opponent spent the 100/100.
On August 11 2012 08:34 Silencioseu wrote: Does contaminate disable PF?
It pauses/disables abilities on a structure (aside from attack which isn't really an ability)
Corruption used to disable a structure from attacking entirely (but not bunkers as far as I know because it's not the bunker that is attacking) a long time ago, but I guess blizzard though it was too stale or OP or something. Regardless corruption is really bland and stale now and needs to be changed (contamination too somewhat too)
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
On topic: I have a hard time understanding this as well. 50/50 for being able to delay siege tech, colo range, blink, storm or production in general seems like a great ability. But no one ever blamed sc2 zerg players for being too innovative and for right reasons.
for the price of ONE RAVEN you can say yourself dozens of scans saving you thousands of minerals
with those minerals you can have a much larger army and without there speed bonus the zerg cant win, especialy when you HSM all there infesters
everything LOOKS good on paper, if you honestly think no zerg has ever tried to use contaminate your foolingyourself, there was a period in Zvz people used contanimate alot but they stopped because the spell is not useful
first off, your raven argument is just silly and not even worth a discussion especially since this is not a thread discussing why people should use ravens. second of all, there is no reason for zergs not using contaminate other then the fact that they do not have the apm... you so quickly call terrans bad for not using the raven while justifying that zergs do not use the overseer because it is a bad spell even though for limited resources you can deley an upgrade or important units such a collousus. how could that be a bad thing
On August 11 2012 08:42 Picklebread wrote: I saw a game where TLO made like 4 overseers when his lair finished and then swooped in later and delayed +1 by like 90 seconds. Its pretty good.
Yeah but 4 overseers = 200/200 cost, that's expensive - you're delaying a 100/100 upgrade, but not only that, you had to spend the 200/200 before the opponent spent the 100/100.
Not exactly cheap.
yeah but the question isnt how much the upgrade costs but how much delaying that upgrade is worth
He get it all wrong... First of all overseer dont cost 50/50 , its cost 150/50 and when you lose them you get supply block.. Its really easy to lose overseers in mid game .. , terrans got stim , toss blink..they can snipe them easy
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
On topic: I have a hard time understanding this as well. 50/50 for being able to delay siege tech, colo range, blink, storm or production in general seems like a great ability. But no one ever blamed sc2 zerg players for being too innovative and for right reasons.
for the price of ONE RAVEN you can say yourself dozens of scans saving you thousands of minerals
with those minerals you can have a much larger army and without there speed bonus the zerg cant win, especialy when you HSM all there infesters
everything LOOKS good on paper, if you honestly think no zerg has ever tried to use contaminate your foolingyourself, there was a period in Zvz people used contanimate alot but they stopped because the spell is not useful
first off, your raven argument is just silly and not even worth a discussion especially since this is not a thread discussing why people should use ravens. second of all, there is no reason for zergs not using contaminate other then the fact that they do not have the apm... you so quickly call terrans bad for not using the raven while justifying that zergs do not use the overseer because it is a bad spell even though for limited resources you can deley an upgrade or important units such a collousus. how could that be a bad thing
The raven argument is funny because every now and then we get someone who doesn't play 'zerg/terran/protoss' saying 'why don't zerg/terran/protoss use this unit?'. Since they don't play the race themselves, they don't really understand the realities of the flaws of the unit. I mean if you're genuinely trying to understand why a unit doesn't get used, then it's a valid question to ask. Too often though (as we see here), these threads are about, 'oh because the unit is awesome but zergs/terran/protoss don't know how to innovate', or 'because zerg/terran/protoss are stupid' etc. In which case 'Why don't you use the Raven?' is a valid retort in my opinion.
Contaminate looks ok on paper. It's too late for any early game timings. Can be used in the late game at times. I mean, one overseer is cheap, and it only costs energy, so there doesn't seem to be a downside. But maybe the APM cost simply isn't worth the payoff. That's enough of a downside in and of itself.
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
On topic: I have a hard time understanding this as well. 50/50 for being able to delay siege tech, colo range, blink, storm or production in general seems like a great ability. But no one ever blamed sc2 zerg players for being too innovative and for right reasons.
for the price of ONE RAVEN you can say yourself dozens of scans saving you thousands of minerals
with those minerals you can have a much larger army and without there speed bonus the zerg cant win, especialy when you HSM all there infesters
everything LOOKS good on paper, if you honestly think no zerg has ever tried to use contaminate your foolingyourself, there was a period in Zvz people used contanimate alot but they stopped because the spell is not useful
first off, your raven argument is just silly and not even worth a discussion especially since this is not a thread discussing why people should use ravens. second of all, there is no reason for zergs not using contaminate other then the fact that they do not have the apm... you so quickly call terrans bad for not using the raven while justifying that zergs do not use the overseer because it is a bad spell even though for limited resources you can deley an upgrade or important units such a collousus. how could that be a bad thing
im trying to point ouut to the OP that maybe they dont use contamintate becuase they already did in practice and jsut realised its 100% not worth it?
I think that Overseers could be a great choice against Protoss. If a Protoss is building Colossi out of a single Robo, every contaminate delays each Colossi by 30 seconds, which could quickly add up. It's something that people should use, but they don't.
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
On topic: I have a hard time understanding this as well. 50/50 for being able to delay siege tech, colo range, blink, storm or production in general seems like a great ability. But no one ever blamed sc2 zerg players for being too innovative and for right reasons.
for the price of ONE RAVEN you can say yourself dozens of scans saving you thousands of minerals
with those minerals you can have a much larger army and without there speed bonus the zerg cant win, especialy when you HSM all there infesters
everything LOOKS good on paper, if you honestly think no zerg has ever tried to use contaminate your foolingyourself, there was a period in Zvz people used contanimate alot but they stopped because the spell is not useful
i hate to be a smartass, but technically you're saving minerals by using scans and not building raven since mules just gather money and not actually create it
On August 11 2012 10:21 askTeivospy wrote: i hate to be a smartass, but technically you're saving minerals by using scans and not building raven since mules just gather money and not actually create it
Don't worry, you're definitely not being a smartass. In fact you're being the opposite.
I'm actually surprised it isn't used more in ZvZ since Zerg only has 1 production structure. Contaminate was really popular when IIRC nestea used it in one of his ZVZ matchs but he stopped using the tactic and so did most people. I have been meaning to use it more often especially against meching terrans not really sure why I don't actually.
There's only so much APM to go around. Even the faster players in the world just aren't fast enough to do everything. Injecting, macroing, moving your army, scouting, and fighting battles are all much more important. I'm sure as players get better and better years down the road this sort of thing will happen more.
On August 11 2012 07:07 Starshaped wrote: I think there are a lot of things that on paper seem really strong that people simply don't use too often. The longer SC2 lives I think the more we will see the true power of these things.
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because the raven is an expensive unit, and often out of our tech path. Our starports are often reactored to get medivacs or vkings out quickly. The Raven on the other hand is expensive gas and mineral wise. And it has like 3 upgrades all of which are not very cheap. And you need a ton of energy to get anything. That is why terrans do not use it.
In pvz, zerg could probably just time it the same as muta harass, invest 200/200 in 4 overseers and shut down blink, robo, and forge upgrades for quite a while. Making roaches the whole time and taking a 4th.
Does anyone remember the game in the gsl between zenio and Idra where Idra got owned as Zenio rushed to lair and made 6 overseers and just larva blocked idra...that was some cash shit
On August 11 2012 10:53 OptimusYale wrote: Does anyone remember the game in the gsl between zenio and Idra where Idra got owned as Zenio rushed to lair and made 6 overseers and just larva blocked idra...that was some cash shit
It was Idra's first GSL I believe. I wouldn't say Idra got owned. He just made a huge error, and forgot to block his ramp. If he had blocked his ramp, then he should have won easily.
I really dont know why overseers cant drop creep. why would spending 50/50 to upgrade a unit take away its previous ability. and doesnt seem like it would be imbalanced, kinda weird
On August 11 2012 10:50 Reborn8u wrote: In pvz, zerg could probably just time it the same as muta harass, invest 200/200 in 4 overseers and shut down blink, robo, and forge upgrades for quite a while. Making roaches the whole time and taking a 4th.
When you go Mutas, your opponent can't kill you because you force a base race.
When you go Overseers, you're opponent's best option is...to just go kill you.
You can only really use the overseer for scouting when your opponent forge FEs. This will probably allow you to be able to deny the forge twice on the attack upgrade if they're going for some sort of all in timing attack.
Not sure if it still works, but another interesting play is to use nydus to defend your 3rd. You can take an early 3rd, as long as it's the farthest from your opponent as possible, and use the nydus to transport your units very quickly between the 2 bases for defense. Your main expo will probably be defended by a few spines, while your 3rd will have the ramp advantage (you must know timings very well if you're going to try this build).
On August 11 2012 11:23 Nymphaceae wrote: You can only really use the overseer for scouting when your opponent forge FEs. This will probably allow you to be able to deny the forge twice on the attack upgrade if they're going for some sort of all in timing attack.
Not sure if it still works, but another interesting play is to use nydus to defend your 3rd. You can take an early 3rd, as long as it's the farthest from your opponent as possible, and use the nydus to transport your units very quickly between the 2 bases for defense. Your main expo will probably be defended by a few spines, while your 3rd will have the ramp advantage (you must know timings very well if you're going to try this build).
i dont think its possible to have contanimate in time to defend an all-in like that without sacrificing econ/army for the insanely fast lair
On August 11 2012 11:23 Nymphaceae wrote: You can only really use the overseer for scouting when your opponent forge FEs. This will probably allow you to be able to deny the forge twice on the attack upgrade if they're going for some sort of all in timing attack.
Not sure if it still works, but another interesting play is to use nydus to defend your 3rd. You can take an early 3rd, as long as it's the farthest from your opponent as possible, and use the nydus to transport your units very quickly between the 2 bases for defense. Your main expo will probably be defended by a few spines, while your 3rd will have the ramp advantage (you must know timings very well if you're going to try this build).
i dont think its possible to have contanimate in time to defend an all-in like that without sacrificing econ/army for the insanely fast lair
I haven't played seriously since Dec. 2010, but I will try to explain my scenario.
You go 14 pool 16 gas.
They go forge FE.
You will be able to force a few cannons, and put the protoss into the blind. On some maps, in which the expo has a very wide choke, in which it would take a lot of cannons to defend the entire base, you can get away with cancelling your expansion, and going straight to a lair. Just spine crawler rush the protoss expo. It's really hard for the tosses to defend, since you should have zergling vs their probes trying to kill your spine crawlers.
If they built more cannons, their economy should be slightly delayed, so that the overseer that would normally set you back 50/50 would end up putting you about equal with them. When you contaminate their forge with +1 upgrades, then you should have the defensive advantage, since you're delaying their timing attack.
Most of the games I would win would be by getting to 5 base zerg with a nydus. You want to try to force the protoss to get the least mobile units that they have (immortals), and then avoid the fights completely by backdooring them with the nydus. In the end, I would still barely win, by building about 10k minerals worth of spines, and massed out corruptors with a few spores, while backdooring with a nydus and ling.
On August 11 2012 11:23 Nymphaceae wrote: You can only really use the overseer for scouting when your opponent forge FEs. This will probably allow you to be able to deny the forge twice on the attack upgrade if they're going for some sort of all in timing attack.
Not sure if it still works, but another interesting play is to use nydus to defend your 3rd. You can take an early 3rd, as long as it's the farthest from your opponent as possible, and use the nydus to transport your units very quickly between the 2 bases for defense. Your main expo will probably be defended by a few spines, while your 3rd will have the ramp advantage (you must know timings very well if you're going to try this build).
i dont think its possible to have contanimate in time to defend an all-in like that without sacrificing econ/army for the insanely fast lair
I haven't played seriously since Dec. 2010, but I will try to explain my scenario.
You go 14 pool 16 gas.
They go forge FE.
You will be able to force a few cannons, and put the protoss into the blind. On some maps, in which the expo has a very wide choke, in which it would take a lot of cannons to defend the entire base, you can get away with cancelling your expansion, and going straight to a lair. Just spine crawler rush the protoss expo. It's really hard for the tosses to defend, since you should have zergling vs their probes trying to kill your spine crawlers.
If they built more cannons, their economy should be slightly delayed, so that the overseer that would normally set you back 50/50 would end up putting you about equal with them. When you contaminate their forge with +1 upgrades, then you should have the defensive advantage, since you're delaying their timing attack.
Most of the games I would win would be by getting to 5 base zerg with a nydus. You want to try to force the protoss to get the least mobile units that they have (immortals), and then avoid the fights completely by backdooring them with the nydus. In the end, I would still barely win, by building about 10k minerals worth of spines, and massed out corruptors with a few spores, while backdooring with a nydus and ling.
i believe it was said earlier it takes 4 minutes to go from starting lair to contaminate
so youd have to start morphing your lair.... at the time Stephano usually takes his first gases
the amount of econ youd have to cut to delay one minor upgrade for 30 seconds its absolutely ridiculous, especially since you have to cut those drones blind
Because it's useless and quite expensive energy-wise. You are better off making a couple changelings instead (which are actually quite awesome, they are like overlords placed around the map except they are free so you dont mind losing them, they are zerg's sensor tower).
By the point of the game where you'd have overseer/s with the energy to contaminate, it's so late in the game that that gas would either be spent scouting, or for quicker broodlord tech, hive tech, etc, and that 30 seconds really isn't that much time anymore.
Lair generally also comes too late for zerg to stop any timing pushes too. Zerg relies more on hatch tech to defend 2 base all-ins or pressures, and besides, it costs a shitton of energy. So you are intentionally not dropping changelings, so you are probably more in the dark than before (where you could simply play a more optimal game because you know exactly what's going on). So you may delay the opponent's push for a bit, but you probably had to pump units early because you don't know exactly what is going on.
it's just a weird set of circumstances (okay I really need to know what T/P is doing, my lair finally finished, but I'm going to not drop changelings to scout so if the terran is possibly doing some timing push that will hit in about 4 minutes now, which is about 6 minutes later than most timings pushes would occur since most timing pushes hit before lair finishes for zerg, I will contaminate him for 30 seconds, although terran will still be able to move out he just won't have an upgrade finished or just have a couple fewer units, but I'm hurt more because I had to overcompensate for being in the dark and have less drones/later tech!).
In ZvZ it's 'okay', but with the move toward fast thirds in ZvZ being standard (you can't even play 2 base zerg anymore, really, even in zvz), and macro hatches, it's just not really going to do much damage, especially since ZvZ is not really larva intensive (either roach based, or massing infestor into ultras and you have a ton of hatches anyways and relying more on spines). And changelings are arguably more useful in ZvZ than in the other match-ups, so that makes contaminate still less likely to be used.
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
On topic: I have a hard time understanding this as well. 50/50 for being able to delay siege tech, colo range, blink, storm or production in general seems like a great ability. But no one ever blamed sc2 zerg players for being too innovative and for right reasons.
i can say the same about overseers, but u would complain, ravens are fucking good, players like bomber showed it
On August 11 2012 08:42 Picklebread wrote: I saw a game where TLO made like 4 overseers when his lair finished and then swooped in later and delayed +1 by like 90 seconds. Its pretty good.
Yeah but 4 overseers = 200/200 cost, that's expensive - you're delaying a 100/100 upgrade, but not only that, you had to spend the 200/200 before the opponent spent the 100/100.
Not exactly cheap.
yeah but the question isnt how much the upgrade costs but how much delaying that upgrade is worth
You're right, but the 200/200 essentially prevents you from getting your own upgrade (unless you're mining a shitload of gas, which means you're sacrificing way too many minerals) so it's not worth anything.
1. we rarely have the 125 energy in time to delay a tech 2. it is rare that they do not have units to kill it relatively quick 3. if you are facing protoss that 50 gas (2 roaches) can be the difference from surviving and dieing the inevitable 2 base push 4. using energy for a changeling can give you much needed scouting information, which is much more useful based on the aforementioned untimely death of the overseer
the overseer is often too slow to make it to the desired location and back safely, thus you're usually risking the overseer's life for 1 single contaminate. A 50/50 investment, then seeing minimal benefit from that investment a min and a half later. Plus you lose supply ( 150/50 loss). Essentially, if you're going to use a style that mixes in contaminates, you'll want overlord speed (100/100 upgrade). But if you're getting that and lets say 4 overseers, then now you've invested 300 gas, which is equivalent to any tech switch in the early and mid game.
This makes it only viable in the late game, but at that point you're gas stricken and having to wait a min and a half on potentially slowing down 3-3 upgrades can lose you the game vs a 3 base push.
It's a difficult ability to mix in, but if you're ahead it's a great way to diversify your lead. Going into the mid-game with an economical lead allows you to make this investment to give you a technological lead ( upgrades or unit comp).
So I wouldn't say it's entirely worthless, but it's best used when ahead. Most players tends to play standard and safe to just stay ahead rather than trying something unorthodox as quadruple overseer play though. That's why it's rarely seen in the highest level
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Ravens are amazing in TvZ. The only issue is that they insta lose to Infestors. I don't have an issue with the dmg that FG does. Plague in BW was worse, but the fact that FG can be chained makes Ravens a huge liability. I would rather invest all that gas into transitioning into a more Mech heavy lategame.
I use overseers all the time against Terran. The thing is it's actually not often possible to time it to delay a particular tech simply because it is now 50 energy more meaning you need to make it 3 times the duration in advance as you used to in order to have enough energy to cast it in time. If that means you need to speed up your lair significantly then you're just hurting yourself more than you're hurting your opponent. The only time it can be reliably effective is in ZvZ when you contaminate the infestation pit to make your opponent spawn his first batch of infestors with 50 energy.
Against Terran however it has a very important and game changing property, which is its ability to let you kill PFs by stopping SCV's from repairing and by preventing orbitals from lifting off for 30 seconds so you can easily kill it with a ground army if your opponent is out of position. You often can recycle overseers you built to spot banshees or prepare them in advance if you know your opponent is going mech and you'll be able to do it as a counter attack with roaches.
Wow I never knew that contaminate made it impossible to repair, incoming speedling + overseer attacks on planetary's...Thanks for this post, i've been trying to rekindle my Zerg strategies and adding offensive contaminate's into my play will def. help, thanks~!
I think the reason most Zerg's don't use contaminate is because it takes up multitasking time and ability, and a lot of the time you will try to contaminate something and the overseer will get sniped before doing so, and then you won't try again, atleast that is how it has been for me T_T. Gl hf ~!
i lost a game today because the zerg player saw i was meching and stayed on 2 base and hit a ridiculous timing with a muta switch. he gooped my 2 tech labb'd factories and just rolled me as my thors were stuck at 3/4 complete. i'm masters, for what little its worth.
that said, it was my fault, but it was still cool and very creative.
I think contaminate is mainly not used because of energy cost making it so that you need to invest in a sizable amount of overseers in the midgame, the only time where it is both (semi)affordable and very useful. Most people probably feel that their gas would be better served elsewhere, but I think there may be a niche (admittedly, probably a small one) for a few overseers in the zerg army. As for the lack of repair thing, I don't think that was common knowledge. If it does become common knowledge, I would expect contaminate to be used MUCH more often when harassing/busting stuff.
On August 11 2012 05:36 wcr.4fun wrote: any core building is in the back where you have to pass through the entire army. It can be used but you're probably going to lose the overseer every time you attempt to use it. 150/150 and having to remake the overlord doesn't seem that incredible besides a few situations. If a guy is sitting in his base teching to collussi I'm pretty sure he has enough stalkers to stop overseers from contaminating.
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
On topic: I have a hard time understanding this as well. 50/50 for being able to delay siege tech, colo range, blink, storm or production in general seems like a great ability. But no one ever blamed sc2 zerg players for being too innovative and for right reasons.
for the price of ONE RAVEN you can say yourself dozens of scans saving you thousands of minerals
with those minerals you can have a much larger army and without there speed bonus the zerg cant win, especialy when you HSM all there infesters
everything LOOKS good on paper, if you honestly think no zerg has ever tried to use contaminate your foolingyourself, there was a period in Zvz people used contanimate alot but they stopped because the spell is not useful
The raven LOOKs good on paper too if you didnt have to build a techlab. And halt medivac production for a period. And cost 200 gas that is desperately needed for upgrades and tanks in the midgame. And require a individual upgrade for HSM. And have 3 less range than fungal.
On August 11 2012 08:42 Picklebread wrote: I saw a game where TLO made like 4 overseers when his lair finished and then swooped in later and delayed +1 by like 90 seconds. Its pretty good.
Yeah but 4 overseers = 200/200 cost, that's expensive - you're delaying a 100/100 upgrade, but not only that, you had to spend the 200/200 before the opponent spent the 100/100.
Not exactly cheap.
Post from Page 3 I made...
On TLO's stream the other day ZvP on Ohana... went late game and he made about 6 overseers and kept delaying the mothership rebuild... was sooo awesome to see
When its that late late game, and maxed out armies zvp, the mothership is almost a necessity. So it would definitely be worth the investment in his situation.
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
On topic: I have a hard time understanding this as well. 50/50 for being able to delay siege tech, colo range, blink, storm or production in general seems like a great ability. But no one ever blamed sc2 zerg players for being too innovative and for right reasons.
for the price of ONE RAVEN you can say yourself dozens of scans saving you thousands of minerals
with those minerals you can have a much larger army and without there speed bonus the zerg cant win, especialy when you HSM all there infesters
everything LOOKS good on paper, if you honestly think no zerg has ever tried to use contaminate your foolingyourself, there was a period in Zvz people used contanimate alot but they stopped because the spell is not useful
The raven LOOKs good on paper too if you didnt have to build a techlab. And halt medivac production for a period. And cost 200 gas that is desperately needed for upgrades and tanks in the midgame. And require a individual upgrade for HSM. And have 3 less range than fungal.
don't forget the time it takes to build up energy to do something more than tickle zergs
On August 11 2012 12:54 GGzerG wrote: Wow I never knew that contaminate made it impossible to repair, incoming speedling + overseer attacks on planetary's...Thanks for this post, i've been trying to rekindle my Zerg strategies and adding offensive contaminate's into my play will def. help, thanks~!
Pretty sure 5 posts after OP, it was said that it does not prevent repair. Why are you spouting this?
On August 11 2012 13:30 .Sic. wrote: maybe cause it takes like 3.5 minutes to regen the energy
This.
I don't see how this is even a question. 125 energy to contaminate a building for 30 seconds? It's a horrible gimmick. It's somewhat useful if you're forced to make 6-7 overseers but, other than that, Dustin Browder's philosophy that farms can't have useful skills due to the imbalance is pretty evidently displayed here. However, I think he's wrong.
On August 11 2012 13:30 .Sic. wrote: maybe cause it takes like 3.5 minutes to regen the energy
This.
I don't see how this is even a question. 125 energy to contaminate a building for 30 seconds? It's a horrible gimmick. It's somewhat useful if you're forced to make 6-7 overseers but, other than that, Dustin Browder's philosophy that farms can't have useful skills due to the imbalance is pretty evidently displayed here. However, I think he's wrong.
Changelings are also 10 times better. I would rather see my opponent's unit composition or position (even for a split second) 3 times in 3.5 minutes rather than waste it on one contaminate. Information will get you a lot more cost effective engagements and save you more than the 1 marine you delayed (marines take 25 seconds to build).
I personally dont use it because for the same price as enough overseers to disable a techlab i could destroy the techlab with mutas or drops. If you look at the math it will never be cost efficent to disable structures in the lategame. Sure overseers dont take supply but neither do more production facilities. Contaminate is only useful for baulking specific upgrade timings or if overseers are already being used for detection/changelings.
Id like to amend this after reading about TLO's mothership delaying trick. That is a good example of a smart way to use contaminate. Note however that it only works because the protoss is limited to 1 mothership at a time.
On August 11 2012 13:52 FeUerFlieGe wrote: I thought it would be much more useful since they decreased the cost of Overseers. Surprised it isn't used more.
But they increased the energy cost (double) making it useless and cost inefficient. It's now useless to delay warp gate timings.
On August 11 2012 13:51 Ralethon wrote: I personally dont use it because for the same price as enough overseers to disable a techlab i could destroy the techlab with mutas or drops. If you look at the math it will never be cost efficent to disable structures in the lategame. Sure overseers dont take supply but neither do more production facilities. Contaminate is only useful for baulking specific upgrade timings or if overseers are already being used for detection/changelings.
Stim and combat shields generally finish by like 9:30~10:00. To delay it with overseers you would need to get your lair by 7:00... which means you are gonna start your lair at 5:40. Let me just totally fuck up my early game economy and have less workers than terran just so I might be able delay stim for 30 seconds, when I could have just not went for the contaminate rush and held off the stim timing with a lot more units.
The problem is that rushing for lair to use contaminate still wont stop a 4 gate, and its not worth getting to delay 6/7/8 gates.You'll still be dealing with any pressure within a minute or 2 ingame after using contaminate, this is true from any race. Most pro players have their important structures fairly well guarded. Yes its useful if you're doing a quick scout through your opponents base but its not hard for any skilled player to leave a few anti air units behind once they catch on. I would also argue changelings are a much better use of the energy, but thats me.
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
Wait until pros start using it in every game, it won't be so mediocre then.
Hahaha, what the hell? Shouldn't you take this raven gud bs to some other thread to have your "arguments" get destroyed there?
Ravens are fine, just because you don't/ can't use them doesn't mean they are bad. HSM is excellent, PDD is a good support spell, auto turret provides a harass capability and it's a detector. What else do you want, for it to fly!?
On topic, I play Z and I honistly just forget about contaminate, I didn't know about the repair thing but now I'll make an effort to use it. I would have thought ZvZ would see the most use, followed by PvZ (delay warp gate on an FFE while going mutas to justify the fast lair?
The ravens shoot brood lings out of the air .
Incorrect, this was fixed back in beta.
It was "fixed" but I've always thought that was a very lame 'fix'. I GUARANTEE Ravens would be used a lot more if they actually got rid of broodlings and took away the damage like they do every other unit with a projectile attack. And thats even without any buff to HSM or anything else. It baffles me why broodlords are somehow immune to that. Oh well I guess.
I have used it from time to time and it works quite well if you can snap it off. It's not too bad if someone builds something new near you. I did use it a couple times to stop colossus or immortals.
Personally, as a mech Terran, I think it is under-used. I remember several months ago (I'm high master T) I won a large engagement and was down to around 130 supply after being 200/200. My opponent used contaminate on all my factories while he re-maxed; a seeming equal exchange won him the game with contaminate. And, yes, I checked the replay...there was no doubt, we were on even footing until this tactic was used.
I wish i still had the replay, but alas, I dont save many games i lose.
There are quite a few reasons it is not used as often as it could be, but it is used.
At least on NA high diamond up to mid masters, i see alot of zergs using it against me in the midgame when they overseer scout. But they only seem to do it once or twice, they forget or get tied up in doing everything thing else. Its just not an ability that they have fit into their lategame yet.
Zerg players already have a lategame that crushes Terran/Protoss lategame, so they are not currently 'innovating' strategies in the lategame. No use to change a metagame that favors them after the 10 minute mark. And as I said before, it does see use in the midgame, but only slightly.
As zergs infestor/gglord is figured out/countered/nerfed/whatever, we will possibly see it more. Back in the early stages of SC2, it was used in ZvZ effectively for 2 base all-ins.
Its got potential. But they wont use it till its needed or untill they get free apm
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
Wait until pros start using it in every game, it won't be so mediocre then.
I'm gonna try to remember this so I can laugh when it's proves to be so wrong.
Its used in super lategame TvT. Its also used in the 1/1/1.
The problem with SC2 is that we like to act like a hivemind and say 'this unit is terrible'. The unit is not bad, it requires APM that alot of terran players can't pull off, and terrans are stuck in the same metagame from beta. If its not bio or mech, or bio-mech, then they think its bad.
It will get used more, especially after the recent buffs. The unit is nowhere near as bad as people think.
Even just making 1 raven in the lategame, and using auto turrets for harrass is good. But terrans instead like to rely on drops. Auto-turret is so underused its not even funny. It doesn't make sense to me. I used to practice with a terran who used ravens all the time, and they can really fuck you up, even if prepared for
edit: think super lategame, when a terran is about to drop a protoss with 4 marauders in a drop ship. That drop could be 3x as good if a raven was following the dropship.
Saw on Stephano Stream that his Enemy used 3 Changelings to block Stephanos Ramp. Stephano was attacking like crazy, so his enemy placed 3 changelings on the ramp and prevent the reinforcements to come to his base. Sure Stephano saw this really fast, but i guess its worth a try maybe.
But all in one, ya.. Contaminate is way underused.. on zvz its nice too..
On August 11 2012 22:55 pAnatiC wrote: Saw on Stephano Stream that his Enemy used 3 Changelings to block Stephanos Ramp. Stephano was attacking like crazy, so his enemy placed 3 changelings on the ramp and prevent the reinforcements to come to his base. Sure Stephano saw this really fast, but i guess its worth a try maybe.
But all in one, ya.. Contaminate is way underused.. on zvz its nice too..
It would definitely be very effective in zvz if your opponent is sitting on a shit ton of larvas! Delaying 20+ roaches would be so effective.
NOTE: I WAS WRONG SCVS CAN STILL REPAIR CONTAMINATED BUILDINGS. Sry for that ^-^
wow, i am glad i can still repair my pfs with that lol :D else it would be pretty darn good against pfs.
Zerg already has so many ways to take out a PF anyways. Regardless I hope we get to see some innovative rushes involving contaminate or at the very least some pros can just make a few overseers during a standard macro game and harass buildings/tech all game.
On August 11 2012 22:55 pAnatiC wrote: Saw on Stephano Stream that his Enemy used 3 Changelings to block Stephanos Ramp. Stephano was attacking like crazy, so his enemy placed 3 changelings on the ramp and prevent the reinforcements to come to his base. Sure Stephano saw this really fast, but i guess its worth a try maybe.
But all in one, ya.. Contaminate is way underused.. on zvz its nice too..
That game was against Tgun.
Meanwhile, Stephano was wrecking his base, so I don't know useful that tactic turned out.
On August 11 2012 23:26 MigzR wrote: It could mess a lot of timings in builds
But it messes also your own timings due to lack of gas so your wasting APM for delaying you and your enemy which is pretty bad. Also it just gets killed because most terrans and toss just put marines/stalkers to the air entrance of their main. Also you are delaying yourself NOW when you collect less gas and your enemy LATER which is actually the worst part about contaminate (And thats why the nurf made it really bad). The nurf just made it efficient in too little situations so little that its even waste of time thinking about it.
- You typically want only 1-2 overseers near the enemy bases, the rest of the overseers with your army or in your defenses, so you usually only have 1-2 contermination spells ready to use.
- The fact that it "just" delays production and nothing else ( NOT blocking repair, NOT stopping a PF from shooting, etc.) makes it pretty mediocre.
- in ZvT and ZvP there are no really juicy targets, except for very special things like delaying Stim / Siege Mode or Ext. Thermal Lance / Mothership building
- Then again 30s stalling is pretty easy to bypass with doing other useful stuff.
- In ZvZ its really good on Hatcheries and should be used more.
- Mass conterminate with 20+ Overseers can be a nice gimmicky play to do a "gtfo of my game, bro"-move (like offensive mules).
- To be really good in any matchup the spell should work more like D-Web from sc:bw corsairs.
On August 11 2012 23:36 Topdoller wrote: That fact it stops repair is amazing, the number of times i have seen a Zerg throw half an army away on PF due to repair i have lost count.
Very underused spell in my opinion
Apart from that fact being wrong :D
All I can say is that there's so much more other important stuff to do than that, that you often don't really have the time for it or think about it.
Also it takes quite some time before an overseer has 125 energy, so you will rarely ever actively try to go for contamination. It's more of a "oh I'm near/in your base anyways with that overseer and happen to have enough energy, might as well use it for that!"
Btw. spawning 2-3 changelings for some more scouting can be helpful too (and is less dangerous for your overseer).
I would prefer to have the overseer over the oracle, being able to stop the robo from building is huge, or stopping a nexus from making a mothership. It is one of the most underused abilities in the gamea long with the thors ability and ravens abilities.
I just had time to skip through the first and the last two pages, but one of the main arguments against specifically including contamidate in your gameplan (instead of just using it when the opportunity comes up suprisingly, which is what most people do) didn't come up there, so here it is: Overseers without speed upgrade are extremly easy to snipe - Marines, Stalkers and Vikings are pretty much always near at the stages of the game where contaminating big upgrades may still be viable. Waiting for energy and being nearly sure that you'll lose 150/50 and 8 supply to delay something for 30 seconds just isn't worth the effort/cost.
Maybe they should be used more in ZvZ, yeah, but I actually think the last contaminate nerf was aiming exactly at that - in addition to the tendency to be on 4 hatches in a time when you would have had 2 hatches in the meta 6 month ago, overseer harass ist kind of a nice gimmick, but really nothing you are able to make a main part of your strategy.
I have used contaminate in lots of my games, especially against Z, but being in Gold league, it often isn' t my slow APM...
If I was faster and practiced at it I think it could become a VERY viable skill. The thing is that Overseers don't create supply so you have to get another Overlord to replace them, and the cost becomes 150/50
Contaminate is like the best thing ever to fight mech. Gives you sooooo much time until those thors come out to defend the third, which makes me able to level the base with a mass roach attack.
In ZvP they are good against Collosus builds but in the lategame they would probably be very strong as well if you mass them high enough.
i feel that the spell is greatly underused, but most players with decent gameplay think of other stuff as more important. Apart from the ressources, directing and using contaminate takes time, so why do it if you think better macro or creepspread or unit positioning will be more rewarding? However i think, it will become more of a factor, as players have more time to do small stuff when mechanics improve.
i feel the usage priority, apart from tactical moves like taking down a PF, should be zvz->zvp->zvt, just judging by the likelihood that your opponent will take it down. Protoss doesn often enough leave his base empty enough to be not able to hunt down a speed overseer when he doesnt suspect muta.
next thread to go up is 'why doesn't zerg use drops more?' -.0
the answers to all of these questions is opportunity cost. Yes, we are all aware what the overseer does, but executing its mediocre abilities costs apm and resources. As many have pointed out, these things are almost always better spent on other things.
On August 11 2012 23:48 paddyz wrote: I would prefer to have the overseer over the oracle, being able to stop the robo from building is huge, or stopping a nexus from making a mothership. It is one of the most underused abilities in the gamea long with the thors ability and ravens abilities.
The Thors ability is trash though, why it is an upgrade and not baseline boggles the mind(Only use it has in TvP but you dont go thors there anyways.)
And Autoturrets are just worse then PDD in pretty much every possible situation, outside from the raven being way to expensive to get to.
On August 12 2012 02:45 RogerChillingworth wrote: next thread to go up is 'why doesn't zerg use drops more?' -.0
the answers to all of these questions is opportunity cost. Yes, we are all aware what the overseer does, but executing its mediocre abilities costs apm and resources. As many have pointed out, these things are almost always better spent on other things.
that summarizes it pretty adequate. The follow up questions should obviously be: Is the opportunity cost of using contaminate currently judged right and will it be less a factor if mechanics evolve. Im arguing here, that the actual ressource cost of 150/50 isnt very big but the apm loss is rather substantial to many players. I´d answer the questions with no and yes.
On August 12 2012 02:45 RogerChillingworth wrote: next thread to go up is 'why doesn't zerg use drops more?' -.0
the answers to all of these questions is opportunity cost. Yes, we are all aware what the overseer does, but executing its mediocre abilities costs apm and resources. As many have pointed out, these things are almost always better spent on other things.
that summarizes it pretty adequate. The follow up questions should obviously be: Is the opportunity cost of using contaminate currently judged right and will it be less a factor if mechanics evolve. Im arguing here, that the actual ressource cost of 150/50 isnt very big but the apm loss is rather substantial to many players. I´d answer the questions with no and yes.
Doubt the APM loss is that significant - people can spam changelings all the time.
The resource cost is huge - 50/50 + time. The gas cost of 50 is very large - I would argue that one infestor is typically better than 3 overseers. The fact is each overseer can only contaminate once really as well, and the reward comes a long time after the cost.
Contaminate used to be amazing, especially in zvz. I had this two base roach rush strat that involved hitting when infestors were about to pop. I would make a bunch of roaches and contaminate their energy research. If they didn't notice, it was 100% game over because they spent a bunch of money on energyless infestors. It was still good even if they did notice because they had to cancel all their larva.
Now, its not as good because it costs too much energy:-(
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
On topic: I have a hard time understanding this as well. 50/50 for being able to delay siege tech, colo range, blink, storm or production in general seems like a great ability. But no one ever blamed sc2 zerg players for being too innovative and for right reasons.
for the price of ONE RAVEN you can say yourself dozens of scans saving you thousands of minerals
with those minerals you can have a much larger army and without there speed bonus the zerg cant win, especialy when you HSM all there infesters
everything LOOKS good on paper, if you honestly think no zerg has ever tried to use contaminate your foolingyourself, there was a period in Zvz people used contanimate alot but they stopped because the spell is not useful
actually it was used when it was 75 energy...but since then takes too much time to get energy
On August 12 2012 02:45 RogerChillingworth wrote: next thread to go up is 'why doesn't zerg use drops more?' -.0
the answers to all of these questions is opportunity cost. Yes, we are all aware what the overseer does, but executing its mediocre abilities costs apm and resources. As many have pointed out, these things are almost always better spent on other things.
that summarizes it pretty adequate. The follow up questions should obviously be: Is the opportunity cost of using contaminate currently judged right and will it be less a factor if mechanics evolve. Im arguing here, that the actual ressource cost of 150/50 isnt very big but the apm loss is rather substantial to many players. I´d answer the questions with no and yes.
Doubt the APM loss is that significant - people can spam changelings all the time.
The resource cost is huge - 50/50 + time. The gas cost of 50 is very large - I would argue that one infestor is typically better than 3 overseers. The fact is each overseer can only contaminate once really as well, and the reward comes a long time after the cost.
Spamming Changelings is not the same... you have to control your overseer like a (slower) mutalisk flock, have to fly from tech building to tech building and take a close look if its upgrading or producing something worth spending you energy on.
I use contaminate a lot, its a really strong ability people just overlook. Im sure you could use it to stall pushes, and in zvz its really strong for roach wars. Thats ones of the few things people still havent made use of.
On August 12 2012 03:12 Scrubwave wrote: I find it ironic that people say that the overseer's cost is huge (50 gas) and tell terrans to make ravens.
Gas is actually useful as Zerg. You don't often see Zergs floating 1k+ gas with 0 minerals. Where Terran it isn't exactly uncommon.
Also it always seemed like a gimmicky strategy to me. Why wouldn't an opponent just get extra production. If any timing is going to be delayed, so what, Zerg is going to be delayed as well.
On August 12 2012 03:12 Scrubwave wrote: I find it ironic that people say that the overseer's cost is huge (50 gas) and tell terrans to make ravens.
Terran float 3-4K gas late game and normally say "That's just how terran is, nothing to spend it on". That's why zergs say start adding some extra starports and add ravens which are really good vs Late game zerg comps bar ultralisks.
Yes it's 50gas, and that's 50gas towards an infestor or a broodlord, all I'm saying is we have more important uses for our gas late game.
And the only viable use of overseers I could see that's realistic, is perhaps getting them out early vs protoss late game as you're getting them anyway vs mothership play, and try to slow down the mothership as much as possible.
I've thought about this so much aswell. Just as you push you send in 4 of them and contaminate everything, you hope you can trade army and when your second wave is out you crush him cause his macro is 0 when you fight
I've always wondered that too. If you can stop production of a key unit or upgrade so you can exploit a timing window, surely it would be worth it. Pump out Roaches while you Contaminate their Robo and what exactly are they going to do?
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
Wait until pros start using it in every game, it won't be so mediocre then.
I'm gonna try to remember this so I can laugh when it's proves to be so wrong.
Ya, I remember when toss used to say the same thing about mothership and warp prism. I'm already totally sure that ravens are the future of lategame tvz.
Contaminate is just lackluster, there's hardly any instant satisfaction from it in the longterm it seems to have a minimal effect whereas I can just drop changelings and potentially gain a lot of map vision.
On August 12 2012 04:43 branflakes14 wrote: I've always wondered that too. If you can stop production of a key unit or upgrade so you can exploit a timing window, surely it would be worth it. Pump out Roaches while you Contaminate their Robo and what exactly are they going to do?
As has been said repeatedly before, you either don't have Lair tech and Overseers in time to stop most timings, or rushing those timings means that your economy and defence is weakened so much that Immortals (or whatever tech you delay) are completely irrelevant.
On August 12 2012 04:21 DwD wrote: I've thought about this so much aswell. Just as you push you send in 4 of them and contaminate everything, you hope you can trade army and when your second wave is out you crush him cause his macro is 0 when you fight
This sounds like a really good idea with the stephano style build in ZvP. I think it would make the stephano style even stronger... contaminating gateways and robotics facilities so he cannot make immortals , ect... I think that would make the stephano style build way stronger, especially since the overseer cost, I think it could be worth it. Nice input.
I also asked about 5 months ago why Zergs didn't drop from overlords. I was told I didn't understand Zerg. However, after being a 1450 zerg, drops are pretty damn good, and once again I wondered why Zergs didn't use this amazing ability.
The same applies with movable burrowed banelings. As a zerg retreats on creep, keep burrowing banelings as you go. This is not done nearly enough, and yet no good reason is there why Zergs do not do it.
In the end, Zergs do not take these measures because they do not need to. You can win most engagements with a simple flank and A-move.
Let's also remember when Zergs said "Ultras are terrible units. They need to be buffed." Then months later, they finally tried using them with infestors. This composition is my go-to in TvZ because even the best Terrans often cannot beat it.
It's always been interesting to me that Zergs complained before actually innovating and whined and received buffs before actually improving their play. Zergs should be repeat contaminating robos in ZvP and also against mech ZvT and delay the mech.
On August 12 2012 06:04 zmansman17 wrote: I also asked about 5 months ago why Zergs didn't drop from overlords. I was told I didn't understand Zerg. However, after being a 1450 zerg, drops are pretty damn good, and once again I wondered why Zergs didn't use this amazing ability.
The same applies with movable burrowed banelings. As a zerg retreats on creep, keep burrowing banelings as you go. This is not done nearly enough, and yet no good reason is there why Zergs do not do it.
In the end, Zergs do not take these measures because they do not need to. You can win most engagements with a simple flank and A-move.
Let's also remember when Zergs said "Ultras are terrible units. They need to be buffed." Then months later, they finally tried using them with infestors. This composition is my go-to in TvZ because even the best Terrans often cannot beat it.
It's always been interesting to me that Zergs complained before actually innovating and whined and received buffs before actually improving their play. Zergs should be repeat contaminating robos in ZvP and also against mech ZvT and delay the mech.
Ultras did get buffed =) First they fixed the attack radius, then they nerfed it a bit/minus the damage, then they reduced the built time by 30-40 seconds (i dont remember how much exactly off the top of my head). Also we dont use contaminate anymore because it got nerfed. When people say "i saw x player using contaminate in zvz a long time ago and it worked well!" doesnt realize that those games are probably pre 125 energy patch. The recent games you can hit about 1-2 contaminate with your overseer but you cant just revolve your strategies around mass contaminating (due to energy/gas cost). So you might still see contaminate, just not as much because it takes forever to accumulate the energy needed to use the spell.
On August 12 2012 02:45 RogerChillingworth wrote: next thread to go up is 'why doesn't zerg use drops more?' -.0
the answers to all of these questions is opportunity cost. Yes, we are all aware what the overseer does, but executing its mediocre abilities costs apm and resources. As many have pointed out, these things are almost always better spent on other things.
Except that drops are much more amazing than overseers. Since the overseer cost change, you can make twice as many overseers to have the same number of contaminates. It costs a bit more minerals, but more importantly, the first round of contaminates is significantly later. I can almost never contaminate an infestation pit and hit a pre-infestor timing anymore. I used to do this regularly in ZvZ.
Ultras did get buffed =) First they fixed the attack radius, then they nerfed it a bit/minus the damage, then they reduced the built time by 30-40 seconds
They created a bug that created crazy splash when attacking large buildings, then they nerfed the damage, and then they severely nerfed the splash radius against everything in order to fix the splash bug that only applied to buildings. Then they buffed the build time by 15 seconds which was very nice.
Also somewhere in there, they buffed the ultralisk so that it could attack sensor towers.
On August 12 2012 03:12 Scrubwave wrote: I find it ironic that people say that the overseer's cost is huge (50 gas) and tell terrans to make ravens.
Terran float 3-4K gas late game and normally say "That's just how terran is, nothing to spend it on". That's why zergs say start adding some extra starports and add ravens which are really good vs Late game zerg comps bar ultralisks.
Yes it's 50gas, and that's 50gas towards an infestor or a broodlord, all I'm saying is we have more important uses for our gas late game.
And the only viable use of overseers I could see that's realistic, is perhaps getting them out early vs protoss late game as you're getting them anyway vs mothership play, and try to slow down the mothership as much as possible.
One simple answer to the gas floating, marine good unit. If you use contaminate you cant make changlings but it think it can be good against some all ins but its not game breaking to use, and you should only use it if it doesn't hurt creep spread, inject or anything with the macro.
I got super stoked when you said that SCV's can't repair something that has been contaminated. Then you had to edit it . I think if that was true for contaminate, it would be used sooooo much more, especially on breaking a PF.
I think Zergs should use contaminate a lot more. Get 5 overseers and slime the hell out of mech Terran, or double Robo Protoss.
There's no good excuse why this isn't done more other than convenience. Since most Zerg players are already winning with much more basic, less micro-intensive strategies. In my experience, this doesn't even take much time to do, nor does it take many resources. Overseers got buffed, so they cost even less and yet this still isn't being done.
Contaminate is unused because the energy is already spent on Changelings so that the Zerg player can get a more accurate scout, most of the time. Accurate scouting is pretty key. However, I agree that saving energy especially versus Protoss could turn out to be very valuable. Most 2base all-ins rely on single buildings: Robo and Twilight Council, usually. Delaying Blink or the Warp Prism or an Immortal will result in a much slower, weaker push.
The Kespa players will utilize contaminate as they have more strategic thinking due the the fact that they are bw pros and that their apm is really high.
Acritter pretty much hit the nail on the head. The majority of the time you move to overseer to do some scouting there just isnt enough energy accumulated because youre dropping changelings throughout the game so you do another fly over, drop a changeling or two and then leave the overseer alone for a bit. It rarely gets up to the energy needed to use the spell. In theory you could do something mass overseer late game, but there's already so much going on that it becomes a very trivial thing to consider on a very long to do list. Not to mention that late game you flat out have better harassment options anyway. Infestors, mutas, ling runbys all offer better pay offs for successful harass. The only edge the overseer has is it's free supply, but still making a bunch of overseers requires resources that you'd rather have banked, or invested into your current army or tech.
On August 14 2012 00:02 Sporadic44 wrote: Acritter pretty much hit the nail on the head. The majority of the time you move to overseer to do some scouting there just isnt enough energy accumulated because youre dropping changelings throughout the game so you do another fly over, drop a changeling or two and then leave the overseer alone for a bit. It rarely gets up to the energy needed to use the spell. In theory you could do something mass overseer late game, but there's already so much going on that it becomes a very trivial thing to consider on a very long to do list. Not to mention that late game you flat out have better harassment options anyway. Infestors, mutas, ling runbys all offer better pay offs for successful harass. The only edge the overseer has is it's free supply, but still making a bunch of overseers requires resources that you'd rather have banked, or invested into your current army or tech.
They nerfed the energy they start with IIRC when they lowered the cost. It was either that or contaminate costs more.
On August 14 2012 00:02 Sporadic44 wrote: Acritter pretty much hit the nail on the head. The majority of the time you move to overseer to do some scouting there just isnt enough energy accumulated because youre dropping changelings throughout the game so you do another fly over, drop a changeling or two and then leave the overseer alone for a bit. It rarely gets up to the energy needed to use the spell. In theory you could do something mass overseer late game, but there's already so much going on that it becomes a very trivial thing to consider on a very long to do list. Not to mention that late game you flat out have better harassment options anyway. Infestors, mutas, ling runbys all offer better pay offs for successful harass. The only edge the overseer has is it's free supply, but still making a bunch of overseers requires resources that you'd rather have banked, or invested into your current army or tech.
They nerfed the energy they start with IIRC when they lowered the cost. It was either that or contaminate costs more.
No, they increased the cost of contaminate, and Overseers still start with 50 energy.. Contaminate cost 75 energy when Overseers were 50m/100g. Now it's 125 energy, but a 50m/50g Overseer cost. If they didn't change this, ZvZ would be the dumbest thing ever.
On August 13 2012 23:57 archonOOid wrote: The Kespa players will utilize contaminate as they have more strategic thinking due the the fact that they are bw pros and that their apm is really high.
A late entry, I don't get why they never use it either. I understand that it is not really worth it using contaminate in the mid-game, because of the overseer probably dying and or requirement of dropping changelings, but even some zergs sometimes poop 4 changelings out of their overseers instead of darting into the base and just contaminate something + poop one changeling out!
That said, I do see a couple of opportunities for overseers to help zerg win games.
1. When the protoss is building a mothership the zerg could benefit greatly from pooing on his nexus a couple of times and delaying the mothership and allowing the zerg to spam up some static defense of take more bases (assuming the midgame didn't cripple the zerg into slow tech or something). Most zergs already have a couple of overseers at this time, so it shouldn't even dig into their gascount (50 gascost meh...) or be that taxing on their APM.
2. Ultra late game, where both sides are banking a ton of minerals and gas. In this scenario the protoss army will always be inferior to a well-spread broodlord / infestor army, why his reinforcements are important, which most likely will be either mass gateways for stalker warpin or 5-7 stargates pumping vrays / carriers. Anticipating that the protoss will have to replace his army at some point and morphing 10 overseers should not hurt a zerg in the very late game, since all upgrades are running the army has been built and a bank is building anyway (10 overseers = less than one minutes gas-intake, I think). So morphing these and contaminating 10 gates or 5-7 stargates + the nexus rebuilding a mothership should help zerg topple over protoss more easily in this phase of the game!
On August 13 2012 23:57 archonOOid wrote: The Kespa players will utilize contaminate as they have more strategic thinking due the the fact that they are bw pros and that their apm is really high.
Say what...?
I kindda agree with him, the Kespa players are coming in with a fresh mindset and are known to be very articulous in their builds. It would surprise me if all the Kespa zergs looked at contaminate and saw no use at all.
On August 13 2012 23:57 archonOOid wrote: The Kespa players will utilize contaminate as they have more strategic thinking due the the fact that they are bw pros and that their apm is really high.
Word, dawg.
They also will use Caduceus Reactor way more effectively, because they have more APMs due the the fact that they are high strategists and that their BW is really pro thinking.
Contaminate was very often used in ZvZ to prevent larvae from spawning and in ZvP to delay colossus/psi storm research forever, It got nerfed becaused of that and now it costs an absurd amount of energy. That's why it's ot used anymore.
On August 11 2012 05:39 Shunjal wrote: Inject, Tumor movement, and general gameplay taking much of the APM.
I wish pros would use Contaminate and Transfuse a bit more effectively.
Well Contaminated doenst need that much APM. You fly in as you would do for scouting, and contaminate the sbuilding. its like 2 - 5 clicks more than a normal scout.
On August 11 2012 05:36 wcr.4fun wrote: any core building is in the back where you have to pass through the entire army. It can be used but you're probably going to lose the overseer every time you attempt to use it. 150/150 and having to remake the overlord doesn't seem that incredible besides a few situations. If a guy is sitting in his base teching to collussi I'm pretty sure he has enough stalkers to stop overseers from contaminating.
overseers can fly behind the base
It's getting rarer on modern maps for that to be an option. Cloud Kingdom Ohana etc. have no way to get back there without an overfly and very little space to hide in. I think its predominantly a map balance reaction to the mass muta strats from a few months back but its a shame as ling infestor in TvZ makes for uglier games than the old mutabling styles.
I've seen it used it ZvZ in conjunction with a roach timing but can't remember by who.. Two contaminates and the timing worked out so well it looked ridiculous.
On August 14 2012 00:32 hifriend wrote: I've seen it used it ZvZ in conjunction with a roach timing but can't remember by who.. Two contaminates and the timing worked out so well it looked ridiculous.
it was used in the past a lot, i think it even got nerfed...
I agree, imo at the highest level zergs have not utilized contaminate to its fullest, not at all. Imagine: 1. Frontal attack, to draw attention. 2. Small drop (but with a large number of empty overlords) in the main or/and other bases with production. 3. Bring a bunch of overseers with the drop to contaminate stuff. The point is - whenever you are bringing other units they can buffer for overseers to contaminate freely and leave the scene safely, so they can repeat that again later for free.
Basically, the best use of contaminate involves multi-pronged action, control groups and higher APM, but I expect the pros could pull it off pretty nicely, if they wanted to work on such tactics.
I feel like this thread is about 75% low tier players theory crafting about why contaminate is so awesome.
It takes time, attention, and APM that (most of the time) could be put to better use somewhere else. It is a nice thing to use if you get the chance, don't get me wrong; however, building "strategies" around contamination timings is bunk. It's a cute way to beat your platinum friend and not much else.
If the BW gods come in with 750 APM and make use of contaminate, I will be a fan. It's just not as amazing or essential as people are making out here.
On August 14 2012 01:13 IPA wrote: I feel like this thread is about 75% low tier players theory crafting about why contaminate is so awesome.
It takes time, attention, and APM that (most of the time) could be put to better use somewhere else. It is a nice thing to use if you get the chance, don't get me wrong; however, building "strategies" around contamination timings is bunk. It's a cute way to beat your platinum friend and not much else.
If the BW gods come in with 750 APM and make use of contaminate, I will be a fan. It's just not as amazing or essential as people are making out here.
I don't see what's not awesome about it. There's a good amount of time that you're gonna have 1-2 overseers around the base of your opponent. It takes such minimal APM and attention to actually do it, and it really hurts the opponent. Sure, you could argue that the energy could be used for other stuff but the skill itself isn't bad.
On August 14 2012 01:13 IPA wrote: I feel like this thread is about 75% low tier players theory crafting about why contaminate is so awesome.
It takes time, attention, and APM that (most of the time) could be put to better use somewhere else. It is a nice thing to use if you get the chance, don't get me wrong; however, building "strategies" around contamination timings is bunk. It's a cute way to beat your platinum friend and not much else.
If the BW gods come in with 750 APM and make use of contaminate, I will be a fan. It's just not as amazing or essential as people are making out here.
I don't see what's not awesome about it. There's a good amount of time that you're gonna have 1-2 overseers around the base of your opponent. It takes such minimal APM and attention to actually do it, and it really hurts the opponent. Sure, you could argue that the energy could be used for other stuff but the skill itself isn't bad.
As I mentioned, I like the skill. It's fine and useful. I just think people are being overzealous in their praise, and that the various strategies posited here, built around contamination timings, are frankly absurd.
On August 14 2012 01:13 IPA wrote: I feel like this thread is about 75% low tier players theory crafting about why contaminate is so awesome.
It takes time, attention, and APM that (most of the time) could be put to better use somewhere else. It is a nice thing to use if you get the chance, don't get me wrong; however, building "strategies" around contamination timings is bunk. It's a cute way to beat your platinum friend and not much else.
If the BW gods come in with 750 APM and make use of contaminate, I will be a fan. It's just not as amazing or essential as people are making out here.
I don't see what's not awesome about it. There's a good amount of time that you're gonna have 1-2 overseers around the base of your opponent. It takes such minimal APM and attention to actually do it, and it really hurts the opponent. Sure, you could argue that the energy could be used for other stuff but the skill itself isn't bad.
As I mentioned, I like the skill. It's fine and useful. I just think people are being overzealous in their praise, and that the various strategies posited here, built around contamination timings, are frankly absurd.
IMO that's true. Strategies built around the contamination skill seems way too far fetched and something you'd try on a much lower skilled friend to mess around.
I don't understand why Zerg don't use contaminate on Factories/Robo bays...like seriously delaying a tank/colossus for 30 secs can mean defeat or victory in close games. It's def. worth the APM it would cost to use...
On August 14 2012 01:34 SoniC_eu wrote: I don't understand why Zerg don't use contaminate on Factories/Robo bays...like seriously delaying a tank/colossus for 30 secs can mean defeat or victory in close games. It's def. worth the APM it would cost to use...
I mean, they don't need to atm in the current metagame
Zerg needs a good 300 APM, they already do so much, you basically need to be a top tier zerg in the world. If you are maybe masters league and try to use contaminate then you might miss tumors, injects, units, watching out for drops, and just other silly things.
On August 14 2012 01:46 Soohard wrote: Zerg needs a good 300 APM, they already do so much, you basically need to be a top tier zerg in the world. If you are maybe masters league and try to use contaminate then you might miss tumors, injects, units, watching out for drops, and just other silly things.
tumors and injects are repetitive things that everyone of every race needs to do, units/drops/etc are stuff that everyone needs to do. I don't understand why this makes zergs special.
On August 14 2012 01:46 Soohard wrote: Zerg needs a good 300 APM, they already do so much, you basically need to be a top tier zerg in the world. If you are maybe masters league and try to use contaminate then you might miss tumors, injects, units, watching out for drops, and just other silly things.
tumors and injects are repetitive things that everyone of every race needs to do, units/drops/etc are stuff that everyone needs to do. I don't understand why this makes zergs special.
So true, Protoss gets shit on for being an easy race but I think it's a huge disadvantage to have to look at a pylon to build combat units while the other two races don't. Compound this with the fact that if you are in battle losing units you have to look away to warp in more while your opponent, if not Protoss, can focus just on the battle and spend a few thoughtless moments hitting a few hotkeys. I can't just hit a hotkey to build a pylon or supply depot, I actually have to look at a worker and place it. Zergs don't need to look at their base to do anything repetitive but injects/tumors.
On August 14 2012 01:34 SoniC_eu wrote: I don't understand why Zerg don't use contaminate on Factories/Robo bays...like seriously delaying a tank/colossus for 30 secs can mean defeat or victory in close games. It's def. worth the APM it would cost to use...
Because what you are postulating is completely overblown; games can't be won based on the contaminate ability. You don't have enough energy to delay much of anything, and if you do, it means you have too many overseers and no gas for decent units needed to defend a simple push.
On August 13 2012 23:38 zmansman17 wrote: I think Zergs should use contaminate a lot more. Get 5 overseers and slime the hell out of mech Terran, or double Robo Protoss.
There's no good excuse why this isn't done more other than convenience. Since most Zerg players are already winning with much more basic, less micro-intensive strategies. In my experience, this doesn't even take much time to do, nor does it take many resources. Overseers got buffed, so they cost even less and yet this still isn't being done.
I think it boils down to this. Zergs dont need to change at the moment, maybe later down the line in HOTS we will see it used more as people minmax and use those Overseers more.
Fuck, we did not see dark swarm/defilers used for quite a while in broodwar which is so weird considering how sick it makes zerg lategame in that game.
Man... there's still so many idiots who aren't reading any (or enough) or the explanations/answers as to why contaminate isn't being used. Summary: — Can't be used until maybe 11 minutes into the game for economical builds, maybe somewhat earlier for 2 base tech builds (which never really occurs at high level though) — Delays production of something (no cost to the opponent) for a cost of the user of 50/50. — Reduces the number of transporting and creep-spreading overlords
Looking into the 2nd point into more depth, it takes 222 seconds to regenerate enough energy to disable a building for 30 seconds, so slightly over 7 overseers to disable one building constantly. 7 overseers obviously costs 350/350. Mathematically/logically speaking it's almost never in a zerg's best interest to be using an ability that is so inefficient.
— The opponent will find other ways to spend their money — upgrades, other unit production, or maybe just wait it out (which is viable since the zerg has 50 less minerals and gas that he could use in an attacking army) — The opponent will likely catch on to the overseers during or after the first one is used, making loss of overseers and/or inability to contaminate much more probable after doing it a few times. If they have defense vs mutalisks, they may not need to build any more defense at all to deal with overseers. In games where the opponent gets medivacs and stimmed marines, phoenixes, blink stalkers, or even vikings, getting overseers will put the zerg in potentially pretty deep trouble.
On August 14 2012 16:38 Xapti wrote: Man... there's still so many idiots who aren't reading any (or enough) or the explanations/answers as to why contaminate isn't being used. Summary: — Can't be used until maybe 11 minutes into the game for economical builds, maybe somewhat earlier for 2 base tech builds (which never really occurs at high level though) — Delays production of something (no cost to the opponent) for a cost of the user of 50/50. — Reduces the number of transporting and creep-spreading overlords
Looking into the 2nd point into more depth, it takes 222 seconds to regenerate enough energy to disable a building for 30 seconds, so slightly over 7 overseers to disable one building constantly. 7 overseers obviously costs 350/350. Mathematically/logically speaking it's almost never in a zerg's best interest to be using an ability that is so inefficient.
— The opponent will find other ways to spend their money — upgrades, other unit production, or maybe just wait it out (which is viable since the zerg has 50 less minerals and gas that he could use in an attacking army) — The opponent will likely catch on to the overseers during or after the first one is used, making loss of overseers and/or inability to contaminate much more probable after doing it a few times. If they have defense vs mutalisks, they may not need to build any more defense at all to deal with overseers. In games where the opponent gets medivacs and stimmed marines, phoenixes, blink stalkers, or even vikings, getting overseers will put the zerg in potentially pretty deep trouble.
Yes, delaying the normal unit production is not that useful but contaminate can seriously disrupt timings.
ZvP: If you scouted that the opposing protoss is building up for a timing push, a contaminate on his immortal/colossus production or even the range upgrade can delay his push by 30 seconds, giving you another 30s to get units to defend and maybe finish some critical upgrades. He won't attack without the units he is waiting for, even if he replaces them with warpgate units. You pay 50/50 and get a lot of time in return.
ZvT: If it really denies repair (i haven't seen that and haven't tested it) then yes, it can be great to snipe Planetary Fortresses, but it's too situational.
ZvZ: Contaminate on hatcheries is so extremely strong in the matchup where every larva counts. Contaminate, build lots of Units and attack 30-60s later for an big timing and he doesn't have the larva to defend.
The reason why it's not used is because there are so many other areas where progamers still have to improve and there was no noteable pro who used contaminate regularly instead of just as a 1-game gambit. Think Ultralisks, noone used them except to lose won games until one pro started using them properly and suddenly they are a common sight and are now considered viable.
On August 14 2012 16:59 Morfildur wrote: Think Ultralisks, noone used them except to lose won games until one pro started using them properly and suddenly they are a common sight and are now considered viable.
Wrong. They were not used -> got buffed -> used -> got nerfed -> noone used them -> got slightly buffed again -> viable
Nothing to do with some magician using bad ultras like a bonjwa
For me it's not just about using contaminate once in a game, that is something any zerg should do, when they have energy for it, but that's just not game changing.
What interests me about contaminate and the fact that the unit is supply cost free is.. There's specific timings, where this would just be so crucial. 1) Delaying mothership, when you're already maxed. 2) You see the protoss air transition, when he battles to free up supply, send in like 20 overseers and just contaminate any stargate. 3) delay upgrades on timings attacks 4) Planetary Fortress 5) Stop orbitals from lifting, killing with ultras or w/e 6) ZvZ, delay enemy lair, burrow roach rush Just on top of my head.
On August 14 2012 19:04 ejozl wrote: For me it's not just about using contaminate once in a game, that is something any zerg should do, when they have energy for it, but that's just not game changing.
What interests me about contaminate and the fact that the unit is supply cost free is.. There's specific timings, where this would just be so crucial. 1) Delaying mothership, when you're already maxed. 2) You see the protoss air transition, when he battles to free up supply, send in like 20 overseers and just contaminate any stargate. 3) delay upgrades on timings attacks 4) Planetary Fortress 5) Stop orbitals from lifting, killing with ultras or w/e 6) ZvZ, delay enemy lair, burrow roach rush Just on top of my head.
1) You have to find the nexus the mothership is made in, avoid any defense and contaminate. Nice if you get it work but a 30s delayed mothership isnt a big deal as you are most probable already maxed and waiting for toss to move out.
2) If they transist, they do it before and while fighting. A single Phoenix, VR, Carrier kills your entire Overseer "fleet" (and 1000 gas + 160 Supply with it)
3) there is not timing to delay with contaminate, as your first contaminate (if you used no changeling, which you most certainly will!) comes at around 11 or 12 Minutes in the game.
4) What? Planetary Fortress? It doesnt stop if from shooting and it doesnt prevent repair, so what would you do with a planetary?
5) Contaminate doesnt prevent lifting
6) To do that, your enemys lair must be WAY later than yours. About 2 or 3 minutes later. Wont happen.
1) You have to find the nexus the mothership is made in, avoid any defense and contaminate. Nice if you get it work but a 30s delayed mothership isnt a big deal as you are most probable already maxed and waiting for toss to move out.
2) If they transist, they do it before and while fighting. A single Phoenix, VR, Carrier kills your entire Overseer "fleet" (and 1000 gas + 160 Supply with it)
3) there is not timing to delay with contaminate, as your first contaminate (if you used no changeling, which you most certainly will!) comes at around 11 or 12 Minutes in the game.
4) What? Planetary Fortress? It doesnt stop if from shooting and it doesnt prevent repair, so what would you do with a planetary?
5) Contaminate doesnt prevent lifting
6) To do that, your enemys lair must be WAY later than yours. About 2 or 3 minutes later. Wont happen.
Just like the Colossus is a bad units, because of Vikings/Corruptors.
wtf are you talking about? Half of your points dont even work mechanic wise and the other half wont hit any worthwile timing. Contaminate was used when it was 75 energy, that meant you could actually delay a toss 2 base timing, or even a crucial terran upgrade (stim, CS, siegemode) or "just" upgrades. But with 125 energy, all this is already done when you have enough to contaminate.
Besides that the changeling is far superior. Thats like saying "why do you feedback the medivac? Storm it!". Its not the overseer is not used (it is), its contaminate thats underused because it becomes available too late and is inferior to the other spell
On August 14 2012 16:38 Xapti wrote: Man... there's still so many idiots who aren't reading any (or enough) or the explanations/answers as to why contaminate isn't being used. Summary: — Can't be used until maybe 11 minutes into the game for economical builds, maybe somewhat earlier for 2 base tech builds (which never really occurs at high level though) — Delays production of something (no cost to the opponent) for a cost of the user of 50/50. — Reduces the number of transporting and creep-spreading overlords
Looking into the 2nd point into more depth, it takes 222 seconds to regenerate enough energy to disable a building for 30 seconds, so slightly over 7 overseers to disable one building constantly. 7 overseers obviously costs 350/350. Mathematically/logically speaking it's almost never in a zerg's best interest to be using an ability that is so inefficient.
— The opponent will find other ways to spend their money — upgrades, other unit production, or maybe just wait it out (which is viable since the zerg has 50 less minerals and gas that he could use in an attacking army) — The opponent will likely catch on to the overseers during or after the first one is used, making loss of overseers and/or inability to contaminate much more probable after doing it a few times. If they have defense vs mutalisks, they may not need to build any more defense at all to deal with overseers. In games where the opponent gets medivacs and stimmed marines, phoenixes, blink stalkers, or even vikings, getting overseers will put the zerg in potentially pretty deep trouble.
Yes, delaying the normal unit production is not that useful but contaminate can seriously disrupt timings.
ZvP: If you scouted that the opposing protoss is building up for a timing push, a contaminate on his immortal/colossus production or even the range upgrade can delay his push by 30 seconds, giving you another 30s to get units to defend and maybe finish some critical upgrades. He won't attack without the units he is waiting for, even if he replaces them with warpgate units. You pay 50/50 and get a lot of time in return.
ZvT: If it really denies repair (i haven't seen that and haven't tested it) then yes, it can be great to snipe Planetary Fortresses, but it's too situational.
ZvZ: Contaminate on hatcheries is so extremely strong in the matchup where every larva counts. Contaminate, build lots of Units and attack 30-60s later for an big timing and he doesn't have the larva to defend.
The reason why it's not used is because there are so many other areas where progamers still have to improve and there was no noteable pro who used contaminate regularly instead of just as a 1-game gambit. Think Ultralisks, noone used them except to lose won games until one pro started using them properly and suddenly they are a common sight and are now considered viable.
It's not that simple. Overseers aren't some purely beneficial unit built for free that can be massed at no cost or expense to the rest of your build.
Even just examining the ZvP example, flying into a base risks losing your overseer. If you do it once he's gonna leave a stalker or two for the second time around. Which means, do you use only one overseer, or three? Or four? He can commit resources that are less important than your gas for the builds you both are going.
The all-in's you mentioned arrive between 10-10:30. In the case of standard 3 hatch into roach, your lair doesn't finish til 8-8:30 giving you less than two minutes to scout the all-in (assuming you didn't before). To build the overseers IN time, you have to start them right away to gain any benefit in delaying his timing within the minute and a half they're able to contaminate, and also having the appropriate amount of energy to do it. Now your upgrades and roach production are delayed as well.
Then theres the possibility that if you undercommit to the overseers (ex: you built 2) and he deflects them only being able to cast one contaminate or less, well, then you have now just committed 100 gas that delayed one of your upgrades and costed you 4 roaches for the push putting him ever slightly more ahead. Committing to any amount of overseers, especially early on requires you to wrap your build around them and make trade-offs in resources elsewhere i.e., less roaches, slower upgrades. If you get a slightly faster gas/lair, then you'll have less drones which ultimately slows down your production and probably adds up to losing the same amount of roaches/slower upgrades.
contaminate is only really useful for stalling upgrades and timings, but it takes a long time to get that much energy. For example in zvp, contaminate will not come in time for a standard 2 base push unless you rushed to lair for some weird reason
wtf are you talking about? Half of your points dont even work mechanic wise and the other half wont hit any worthwile timing. Contaminate was used when it was 75 energy, that meant you could actually delay a toss 2 base timing, or even a crucial terran upgrade (stim, CS, siegemode) or "just" upgrades. But with 125 energy, all this is already done when you have enough to contaminate.
Besides that the changeling is far superior. Thats like saying "why do you feedback the medivac? Storm it!". Its not the overseer is not used (it is), its contaminate thats underused because it becomes available too late and is inferior to the other spell
Thanks, that's a much better answer.
To kinda state my overall point with the post, i will just say that contaminate, will probably see more use vs timings and in rare situations, rather than just doing it, because you can.
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
On topic: I have a hard time understanding this as well. 50/50 for being able to delay siege tech, colo range, blink, storm or production in general seems like a great ability. But no one ever blamed sc2 zerg players for being too innovative and for right reasons.
Still 100 times better than an overseer ;-) Why the noob terran comment btw? Did you recently get smashed going mass thor?!?
People used to do overseer strats before the nerf. The math just doesn't compute anymore incase beginners are wondering. You also need lair so during the time it would be good, while opponent has few buildings, you cannot have it. Lategame you just have alot of more productive actions to take. Maybe there is some mid game timing to be found. However if it is found blizzard would just nerf it anyway ^^
If they gave the overseer a little bump it might be used for more than detection & scouting.
People used to do overseer strats before the nerf. The math just doesn't compute anymore
Remember the patch also decreased gas cost from 100 to 50. That means that gas wise, you can get more contaminates out of pr. 100 gas you spend. But i see what you mean, it takes more time for the overseer to get to the contaminate.
the answer is pretty simple. u need ALOT of overseers for contanminate to be effective, especially in the mid-late game. they are good for delaying tech and upgrades, but only for so long.
The only thing I can think of where it might be usefull is if in ZvP you kill the mothership and have a few overseers left, you contaminate the Nexus building the new Mothership, so you can delay it even more.
On August 14 2012 01:46 Soohard wrote: Zerg needs a good 300 APM, they already do so much, you basically need to be a top tier zerg in the world. If you are maybe masters league and try to use contaminate then you might miss tumors, injects, units, watching out for drops, and just other silly things.
tumors and injects are repetitive things that everyone of every race needs to do, units/drops/etc are stuff that everyone needs to do. I don't understand why this makes zergs special.
So true, Protoss gets shit on for being an easy race but I think it's a huge disadvantage to have to look at a pylon to build combat units while the other two races don't. Compound this with the fact that if you are in battle losing units you have to look away to warp in more while your opponent, if not Protoss, can focus just on the battle and spend a few thoughtless moments hitting a few hotkeys. I can't just hit a hotkey to build a pylon or supply depot, I actually have to look at a worker and place it. Zergs don't need to look at their base to do anything repetitive but injects/tumors.
Well if you camera hotkey your closest pylon to the fight you can recall that location warp in your unit hot key them while warping in then go back to your main army and continue that fight. I do agree that is difficult but Zerg has to do the same thing for larva injects, and Terran has to do the same thing for rally points
But I don't think contaminate is used as much just because the changeling can give you scouting info on possible tech or tech switches which in the current meta is more important, but I would love to see more contaminate
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Are you kidding me...? Cause they are terrible units? They move extremely slow, not aided by the fact that they have atrocious acceleration, and only really have one offensive spell which can be dodged with ease. PDDs are useful, and thats basically what you only use ravens for, but its usually not worth the cost. Auto turrets are nice if you enjoy the feeling of trying to destroy a aircraft carrier with ping pong balls.
I'll tell you why... same reason I hate the Oracle's entomb. Because it's boring. Sorry, but it's just not that fun to contaminate stuff. It's not fun to through a monkey wrench into the works. So while entomb may pay off enough that people will use it, I promise you nobody will fall in love with the ability.
Contaminate, definitely a good ability in the overall scheme of things. Same for entomb. But... no fun for either side of the fight.
THe problem with contaminate isn't the ability (its good), its the fact that it isn't worth the apm vs army management, injects, spending larva, infestors, creep tumors, etc.
WCS just had some contimanation going on in ZvZ. I think as the game progresses it will continued to be used more. Also if it did prevent repair, that might make it imbalanced, would be interesting to watch though.
On August 14 2012 19:45 rd wrote: The all-in's you mentioned arrive between 10-10:30. In the case of standard 3 hatch into roach, your lair doesn't finish til 8-8:30 giving you less than two minutes to scout the all-in (assuming you didn't before). To build the overseers IN time, you have to start them right away to gain any benefit in delaying his timing within the minute and a half they're able to contaminate, and also having the appropriate amount of energy to do it. Now your upgrades and roach production are delayed as well. .
Actually, it takes 2.5 minutes for overseers to gain enough energy to contanimate from the moment they've started morphing (133s for the energy plus 17s morph time).
There's really no timing to make an overseer specifically for contaminate until well into the mid/late game.
Sure, late game, contaminate the Nexus so the mothership doesn't come out, or maybe contaminate the starport(s) of a Terran when you go for Broodlords. But even then, it's 50/50 per extra overseer 2.5 minutes ago, those 30s better be something really crucial.
On August 14 2012 00:02 Sporadic44 wrote: Acritter pretty much hit the nail on the head. The majority of the time you move to overseer to do some scouting there just isnt enough energy accumulated because youre dropping changelings throughout the game so you do another fly over, drop a changeling or two and then leave the overseer alone for a bit. It rarely gets up to the energy needed to use the spell. In theory you could do something mass overseer late game, but there's already so much going on that it becomes a very trivial thing to consider on a very long to do list. Not to mention that late game you flat out have better harassment options anyway. Infestors, mutas, ling runbys all offer better pay offs for successful harass. The only edge the overseer has is it's free supply, but still making a bunch of overseers requires resources that you'd rather have banked, or invested into your current army or tech.
Why not make a few more overseers, it's not like they are very expensive. The cumulative energy that they will gain is worth the small expense. Especially if you know your opponent is going for a timing attack, a few early overseers may pay for themselves.
On August 14 2012 00:02 Sporadic44 wrote: Acritter pretty much hit the nail on the head. The majority of the time you move to overseer to do some scouting there just isnt enough energy accumulated because youre dropping changelings throughout the game so you do another fly over, drop a changeling or two and then leave the overseer alone for a bit. It rarely gets up to the energy needed to use the spell. In theory you could do something mass overseer late game, but there's already so much going on that it becomes a very trivial thing to consider on a very long to do list. Not to mention that late game you flat out have better harassment options anyway. Infestors, mutas, ling runbys all offer better pay offs for successful harass. The only edge the overseer has is it's free supply, but still making a bunch of overseers requires resources that you'd rather have banked, or invested into your current army or tech.
Why not make a few more overseers, it's not like they are very expensive. The cumulative energy that they will gain is worth the small expense. Especially if you know your opponent is going for a timing attack, a few early overseers may pay for themselves.
Because the Zerg are not getting the gas that early, and if they are, then you are setting yourself behind, if we're talking about metagame of ZvP then you are getting your gases at around 6 minutes, here is what you need to spend your gas on: Zergling speed - 100 gas Lair - 100 gas 2x upgrades - 250 gas
That's 450 gas spent only on upgrades, then you'd need another 50 gas spent for each Overseer you want to make.
Late game, they are useful, but once the opponent has shitton of production buildings, it is useless to waste additional APM on going around the Marines/Stalkers just to freeze 1 Barracks/Gateway, doing that on a Nexus would be great, but once you use it once, the Protoss will have defenses next time.
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
Wait until pros start using it in every game, it won't be so mediocre then.
Yep, because after 2 years noone figured that out.
Keep waiting.
Pros don't want to have to try new things, they want a comfortable little stagnant metagame.
Sure, because most builds we see weren't created by pros. If you really think there is some kind of magical flower around ravens, argue why you think so, no "somebody will figure it out".
On August 16 2012 17:29 furo wrote: they dont use it because they sit behind 40 spines and make infestor/bl
I understand you think thats bad? I mean they are playing the game but in fact its their JOB. So choosing most winning scenario is best for them. Contaminate strategies were and always will be gimmicks, because thats the nature of this strategy. I would say risk/reward scenario of this strategy is equivalent to how much we have seen it being done and its not my fault OP never encountered it because it only shows he was exposed to low variety of play.
Ah and people are getting wrong impressions, PROS are aware of those strategies they are simply not CHOOSING them, if you have watched streams in 2010 2011 you would know they were experimenting with almost everything in the game.
By the time you have enough energy and overseers for contaminate, your opponent has his tech and enough units to prevent contaminate or ensure trying to contaminate is a suicide mission.
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Because it's very mediocre if not bad.
Wait until pros start using it in every game, it won't be so mediocre then.
Yeah man, Raven are insane. With viking support they melt broodlord lines. Also they would help counter the mass muta style that Leenock is showing lately. Missiles FORCE the mutas away and PDDs stop them from attacking. Its incredible.
On August 11 2012 05:27 Forikorder wrote: why do terrans not use Ravens?
much more important question
Switching a starport from reactor to techlab requires too much apm for foreigners. As for koreans, they are starting to use it.
With zvz being the slugfest it is and given how it's still very far away from being figured out people just need more time, we will see it being used a lot eventually.
On August 28 2012 03:21 Sea_Food wrote: Building an additional gateway cost 150/0 recourses. You need 9 overseers to keep avrage 1 building contaminated at a time. This cost 450/450.
it will never be worth it to get overseers just for contamination.
Hey genius, you don't need to perma-contaminate a building...you could, hrm, you know contaminate one or two buildings to delay a certain timing early/mid game?? Like delaying the 2tech-labbed factories that are pumping the first two Thors of a meching-terran who opened banshee-hellion buying you enough time to rape his economy with mutalisks?? This would actually result in a instant-win pretty often.
I've actually feared having that happen to me as the Thors are out jussssst in time to defend the first wave of Mutalisks but the Zerg players would rather get stomped and bitch about how mech "takes no micro" (as opposed to zerg units).
it used to be good then blizzard nerfed it, now it takes way too long for overseers to get enough energy and by then you're already doing something else and have forgotten
People really seem to think that ravens are amazing... Turret doesn't do much damage or have much health so it's kinda useless and takes way too much energy and is too difficult to mass cast unlike infested terrans Pdd isn't effective against much since it can't block more than one missile at a time, the energy runs out super fast, and it doesn't even effect most units in the game HSM is good but takes a bit too much energy considering how slow ravens regen and their max capacity. Detect is great but ravens are very expensive to produce.
Anyway I (and most people I would guess) have never faced a zerg that uses contaminate to it's full potential so it's really hard to judge its practical strength.
On August 28 2012 03:50 Maxd11 wrote: People really seem to think that ravens are amazing... Turret doesn't do much damage or have much health so it's kinda useless and takes way too much energy and is too difficult to mass cast unlike infested terrans Pdd isn't effective against much since it can't block more than one missile at a time, the energy runs out super fast, and it doesn't even effect most units in the game HSM is good but takes a bit too much energy considering how slow ravens regen and their max capacity. Detect is great but ravens are very expensive to produce.
Anyway I (and most people I would guess) have never faced a zerg that uses contaminate to it's full potential so it's really hard to judge its practical strength.
its the best tool we have against broodlord late game, until zerg learn to split that is
On August 28 2012 03:21 Sea_Food wrote: Building an additional gateway cost 150/0 recourses. You need 9 overseers to keep avrage 1 building contaminated at a time. This cost 450/450.
it will never be worth it to get overseers just for contamination.
Hey genius, you don't need to perma-contaminate a building...you could, hrm, you know contaminate one or two buildings to delay a certain timing early/mid game?? Like delaying the 2tech-labbed factories that are pumping the first two Thors of a meching-terran who opened banshee-hellion buying you enough time to rape his economy with mutalisks?? This would actually result in a instant-win pretty often.
I've actually feared having that happen to me as the Thors are out jussssst in time to defend the first wave of Mutalisks but the Zerg players would rather get stomped and bitch about how mech "takes no micro" (as opposed to zerg units).
Cool didnt know that the first Thors get out after the 12 Minute mark (thats when you will have contaminate ready to use)
I honestly don't know why it isn't used more, during late game tvz it could be used so effectively vs a meching terran. Mech being notoriously bad for quickly producing armies could be made even worse by contaminating factories - you get a good engagement vs a mech army and instantly remax as zerg should do while using 4-5 overseers and contaminate a fair few factories and attack, terran won't have a big enough army and you win.
Same could apply on maps like metalopolis where it is more common for ultra late game BC / Raven / viking compositions to be used where if a zerg should be able to trade fairly well by microing and split corruptors then contaminate all the starports where they would then gain an insurmountable advantage.
btw. Contaminate should prevent buldings from repairing, that would add nice possibility for zergs so planetary fortress is easier to destroy. And it makes sense imo
On August 28 2012 04:12 Sc2Null wrote: It's mostly due to the fact it costs 125 energy and overlords/seers dont tend to stay alive too long to accrue that energy.
i agree, i feel that the overlords are too fragile plus most terrans have turrets that will definitely kill the overlord anyway. losing overlords for a game damaging attack is ok for me. but losing it just for temporary delay on a building? not so much. unless it is a late game where i am starting to accumulate a fat bank.
if we could just contaminate units, that would be fun.
As I see it, the oberservers usually haven`t got enough energy in order to delay mid-game timings. They are very underused in the late game though (e.g. when a Toss tries to (re-)build his mothership, then a few contaminates can change the outcome of a the game.
So by the time I get lair (which is delayed because I need to build 2-4 extra queens early on to keep me from dying early) I have to morph in an overseer (or 3), research speed (so they don't die immediately), and hope that the protoss/terran hasn't killed me yet?
I see contaminate all the time in zvz. If you can contaminate all their hatcheries right after you go in for an exchange, it makes it stupid easy to remax and kill.
Coz it was too good so they nerfed the shit out of it. I remeber a game day 9 cast on a daily. It was a ZvZ and one player constantly contaminated the other players only hatch, which mean he had NO larva. It was awesome!
EPT
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/HfJlX.gif)
sounds very situational though, as Ultralisks cleave through scvs, Banelings ignore repair and Broodlords kill them from a distance while keeping damage, and PFs already counter lings and ITs without the help of scvs - so in the end it only ever helps roaches, which you don't really want anyway by the time PFs come into play.
