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United States2095 Posts
Hello,
I'd just like to point out several observations I've had in relation to Zerg in SC1 and SC2.
Choke Points (200/200 Army Fights)
In sc1, it was viable for a 200/200 army of zerg units to go up and attack either a terran or a protoss who was simply defending in their base. This 200/200 Army if it included Defilers would definitely be able to at least stop the terran or protoss from mining or pushing out and attacking except through dropship. With solid micro the attack could possibly destroy their whole 200/200 army of defense.
For those of you not familiar with SC1, Dark swarm allowed all zerg units burrowed underneath the area it was cast on to not take damage.(In ZvT The only thing that could hit them would be Firebats or Irradiate, I'm not talking about ZvP here) They also had an ability called Plague, which would bring every unit it was cast upon (except a few) down to 1 hp. These AoE (Area of Effect) spells allowed Zerg to match up with the Terran and Protoss equally in end game tech.
If there was ever a small choke, think Destination and those 2 little ramps into the natural base,(If you don't know destination, simply think the area leading up into Steppes of War's Natural Expansion) the zerg could defend it very well with lurkers and sunkens, our 2 ranged damage dealers. If you threw in Defilers you could defend or attack from those two little ramps. I'm not going to discuss that you could attack with Guardians, because you can do the same with BroodLords. However in SC2 there is no unit that provides a solid "Choke" fight vs. Protoss or Terran. To explain this point better, if you can fit 10 units across and your 10 units will be fighting the opponents 10 units you will have problems. There is no unit composition of Zerg's that will come out on top with these 10 unit vs. 10 unit fights. I'm considering both sides have equal upgrades and a fairly even level of tech. The reason this is so, is because of the incredible range of both Protoss and Terran.
Zerg's several ranged units are as follows : The Roach (3) The Hydralisk (5-6) The BroodLord (9?) The Infestor (5-9) The Mutalisk (5?) and The Queen (3-6). The main abilities these units can use are simply to attack. Hydralisks have high DPS, roaches have high armor (1 lol), Infestors have a strong AoE bind and a mind control ability, Broodlords have the best ability to constantly produce dps and tank units. With a proper combination of units, Roach Hydralisk BroodLord and Infestor vs. Protoss or Terran you will have a very strong ranged force. If you toss in ultralisks as tanks you will have the strongest zerg army at attacking a fortified position.
Now lets discuss what other races can do, that will enable them to turtle comfortably no matter what you as a zerg throw at them.
Terran : The Wings of Liberty have apparently freed the terran to have a unit to counter each of the zerg's units. They have Marauders with Tanks, Thors, Vikings and Planetary Fortresses to defend. These units when used with any sort of micro (Healing / Sieging / Stim) Will be able to stop a much MUCH larger zerg force. Tanks have such a large range as with vikings that no matter what unit composition you throw at him, he can remain in his position and hold Especially well if your attacking a small choke point. His tanks will deal AoE damage, his Thors will tank all of your damage, along with marauders. (Both of those units can heal faster then a roach burrowed (Think medivacs, scvs)). I havn't even mentioned the Planetary fortress in defending.
While attacking a planetary fortress you will literally need a HUGE army to defeat it. The terran can simply heal it while moving his army to pick off your units as they have concaved around the Planetary. My point here is that against a terran in an equal space their units will almost always have the advantage. Zerg's CANNOT push terran's in a proper choke back!
Protoss : This I don't see as quite as much of a problem as I do with terran. I feel like Protoss doesn't have too strong of a counter to broodlords, ultralisks and hydralisks if properly proportioned. However I will say that with Immortals, Storm, and Collosi they can defend a small choke area Very Very well. So it is possible to push a Protoss player back and do some damage. We can also dropship against protoss. We cannot dropship against terrans, because with several sentry towers the terran will be able to see the drop coming and plan accordingly. I think the match up of ZvP is fairly well balanced and we will have to see how early game works out, and how large armies will fight.
The point of my observations, is that in SC1 Zerg had a viable unit to delay mining and push a terran or protoss player back. The defiler allowed the zerg's army to have almost equal strength or higher strength then that of the Terran or Protoss. I feel that if Zerg doesn't get something that will allow us to both attack and defend small choke points (Broodlords? Yes in ZvP, Not so in ZvT -- Ranged on Vikings is exceptionally long)
then the Zerg vs. Terran match up will continue to deteriorate into Zerg's such as myself whining about more things then just choke points.
Thanks for reading, Sheth
For a Replay Showing the Choke Advantage Here's One :
http://www.root-gaming.com/replay/sheth-vs-silentassassin-kulas-revine
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I agree with this. This was somewhat talked about or implied here. This is actually a really important issue because it dictates the style of a Zerg player. In order to play aggressively and harass, you need some kind of fallback defense or else the opposing player can just ignore the harass and roll over you. However, since Zergs don't have that, you get the straightforward 1a style of play everyone is so fond of complaining about. This is only compounded by the extremely short rush distances of most maps in the pool.
Quoting myself from the other thread:
OP brings up a very good point with a lot of implications. One of the implications is that it really hurts play such as overlord doom drops and spamming nydus worms (for all you Terran players who like to whine that Zerg players aren't innovative at all and just 1a a big roach/hydra ball).
The reason is that while I'm busying attacking his base with my army, he simply rushes straight into mine and can kill it faster since I have no units like the defiler or the lurker to help delay for my overlords that move slow as sin or my nydus worm that's leisurely pooping out a unit at a time.
SO yeah, while Terran is nicely sitting back behind an impenetrable line of tanks and turrets and PFs and is happily dropping his MM ball willy nilly, Zerg is given what, burrowed banelings as replacement lurkers that aren't even relevant past the early game? And they don't even have a chance of seeing defilers or lurkers for another one and a half years? Really?
In order to do cutesy drop play, you need some sort of defense mechanism so if he decides to counter you, you don't just fall over and die. All of the races had this in Brood War. So why is Zerg lacking this in SC2, when the drop capabilities the race has are even greater?
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Definitely agree with everything you said. This is what leads to us Zerg players just not pushing into chokes and macroing/expanding until the enemy attacks.
We basically MUST wait until they move out of their choke and confront them in a more open area, but this just gives them ALL the initiative. We can get 200/200 faster, but we can't push the choke, so we must wait for them to push out when they have 200/200, and our 200/200 usually falls. Of course we can rebuild faster, but that doesn't change the fact that we are completely passive, due to our inability to attack through chokes.
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If a Terran is turtling, just mass expand. He will eventually be forced to come out and fight you, which is when you throw everything you have at him, and then use that amazing Zerg macro mechanic to overwhelm him.
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i always lose to terran. they make me angry cause when i check my replay, i have more drones to scv more units more everything and they just turtle. the best thing to do is mass expand but when they get 200/200 they are unstoppable. the best thing that i did was become a terran player only recently and now im losing all matches in plat league cause my terran and protoss sucks
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Sad but true, this ends up causing the zerg player to mass expand, all over the place, get a 200/200 army, then wait till he has enough min/gas to replace his entire army then quickly attack/drop lose his entire force, and rebuild it 20 sec latter, and reattack. Only from the almost 400 food he can get from mass larva does he stand a chance at the end game (other then maybe broodlords). Really one of the only ways (other then maybe broodlords) of killing off a good turtling terran that can get 2/3 bases.
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It's a good post, but it's incomplete. The fact that Zerg can't think about attacking the base until he's already won makes every Z player play a totally defensive style of play. T can do all sorts of harass with banshees, hellions, reapers, medivacs, cliff drops, cliffside tanks, etc.
T also gets access to these techs much much earlier. Terran usually builds rax at 12, and a fast factory will go down around 15-16. Zerg usually does 14 pool, and is forced to spend the first 100 gas on ling speed or risk losing for free to reapers or hellions. The point of this is that Terran can get the starport up before Zerg's Lair has finished morphing - he doesn't need to sacrifice anything for this because Zerg has to invest in several anti-harass expenses that he cannot see coming and therefore must expect. Zerg is also expected to sacrifice a couple overlords for an attempt at scouting information (which can be denied with just a couple marines).
Zerg's harass is mutalisks, drops, nydus, and burrow move. This isn't hard - drops are only really good after you kill the Terran army because otherwise he can just run to your base and destroy it before you can destroy his. If you pull back, the overlords are slow enough that you won't get there in time and will lose your natural. Zerg needs a natural to be on par with a 1-base terran, so this is crippling.
Mutalisks are pretty easily answered by missile turrets, marines, or thors. This is effective to make T build a few units he doesn't want to, but with the exception of thors, none of the answers cost gas. Zerg has to invest 200 gas for a spire, and let's say 400 for a minimum of mutalisks to force this mineral investment. Terran's limiting factor in all army compositions are gas, so this really doesn't do anything either.
Nydus is a joke - as long as he spreads his supply depots around, one marauder can get there within 10 seconds and start firing and kill the nydus. I've had SCVs pulled off when the nydus is halfway done and kill it before it finishes. The Nydus gains 10hp a second, which is ridiculously easy to match.
Burrowmove is 100% countered by a single missile turret or raven. Investing a lot into an attack like this only to lose everything because the T player isn't an idiot is enough to discourage most Zerg players from relying on this. Again, 100 minerals counters an attack that costs a huge amount of gas.
Zerg can win this match, but my point is that he HAS to play defensive and react to every move the Terran makes for a chance to beat it. One wrong move and he loses - one wrong move for the Terran and the Zerg simply isn't stopped for now. Zerg cannot win early game against a competent Terran, so the Terran is given many many chances to win before the game finally comes down to an even fight.
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I agree with what is being said here. The only thing that may be able to defend a choke is burrowed banelings and that is a big risk since all good terrans scan before pushing anyway. If no spells are added all heavy choked maps will not favor zerg well in the future of SC2.
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Me and my friend were talking about this issue just last week.
Since Terrans have BC's which are the late game "omgrapetastic" option. In which you can make a few of..
Toss has a solo mothership with super "tech" advantages...
What does zerg have? you could argue broodlords or ultras, but they dont have that "unique" characteristic that seperates them from the other 2 races.
What if the zerg has something to expand their supply? Of course we could debate forever by how much, but lets just say...35?
It feels very swarm like. It would solve alot of issues players have with the roach supply count and such.
The only problem would be to figure out what that something would be. Something air? something unit? some building, like post-hive?
Of course we didn't put TOO much thought into this, but thats what the forums(and you guys) can do for us 
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Agreed 100%. The fact that we can rebuild faster has no effect on the game when the battles are taking place at OUR side of the map. It doesn't help that some of our best units are suicide units (baneling). If the game is to be final balanced in this current state, the map pools need to reflect wide open areas in the center where maneuvering can occur. Currently the lack of hydra speed and short roach range, among other things, make zerg very defensive throughout the whole early/mid game aside from baneling busts.
A case in point, i recently played a far lesser terran opponent on Oasis. I far outmacroed him and had a much better army. However, until i got brood lords it was impossible to break his ramp without throwing the game away. He did well to delay the inevitable with drops and such, but it was just a slow slow painful game. A slightly better opponent might have won that game even with my being so far ahead.
I don't mind that the current balance stays this way. It's just that the current maps dictate the style zerg must play to survive. Hopefully after the tournament patch, the pool will eventually get better and/or 3rd party maps will take over in tournaments.
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One could possibly argue the case for muta for stopping mining, but they are so easily countered, you really only ever get one attack with them.
As a zerg player I can say that it's very hard to break choke zones. T can sit and turtle the whole time then just walk his way out, leap frogging tanks as he does.
Burrow is nice trick, but since only 2 units can move while burrowed it doesn't leave a great number of options, and once a single turret has been placed remotely near the choke, all your units have now dug their own graves (literally).
Nydus is one thing that i feel is the most underused of the breaking strategies, and really there's good reason to forgo it, first is the need of sight, not really a huge problem, but when vikings are flying around OL won't get close enough to provide the necessary vision, second issue is the time to spawn a nydus worm, the twenty seconds is more than enough time for almost any small group of units to kill it, and once spawned and that shriek goes off, the enemy knows that a nydus is present and merely has to find it. The final problem i feel is the time it take to unload the units, this isn't a balance issue just an observation that units can get killed just as quick as they exit the nydus.
It feels like Zerg have become a straight forward race, where you can really only attack then rebuild to attack again. Blizzard has said that this is what they wanted Zerg to be, a race that can out rebuild a whole army quickly. I just feel that as being very wrong.
well that was a bit more than i thought i was going to write but I think it sums up my feeling about breaking the choke/turtle of terrans.
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The point is, we can't comfortably engage a turtled position. I had a 40 minute game with a much much worse opponent. I had a runby in his base, which he survived, although I killed quite a number of SCVs. I held back, macroed to 200/200, and attacked his base with my Roach Hydra Ling army. He crushed it. I was on 5 base + Gold, he was on 2 base, and I constantly denied him any expansions. I hit 200/200 again, this time Ultra Ling. Crushed by his turtle. Finally 200/200 again, about 15 Ultralisks finally took him down, and I had to Overlord Drop them in.
Granted, I probably could have ended the game earlier with better tactics, multiple attack fronts, Brood Lords, but it shouldn't be that I can reach 200/200 first and have done economic damage to slow him down, but can't penetrate his defense until I mass max upgraded Tier 3. All he had were Thors and Tanks and he still held off with 2 bases.
Zerg doesn't have attacking units. They have counter attacking units. Our units are fragile, so we require constant army resupply. We can't march up anywhere without taking significant damage if they turtle unless we are terribly ahead. So zerg is passive.
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On August 03 2010 11:00 vica wrote:I had a 40 minute game with a much much worse opponent.
Same here - his first 4 buildings after the wall in were rax with tech labs all pumping reapers. I built 4 mutas and he built 16 missile turrets in response. The game still evolved well into T3 because he was competent enough to spot drops and nydus.
At one point I caught his bio/thor army perfectly with roaches+infestors, and I NP'd 4 thors. It took long enough to kill the marines that all the NPs timed out and he came ahead in that battle.
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I pretty strongly agree with the points made in this thread, although it seems to me that there are deeper design issues for the race as well. Zerg units are pretty damn bland. For a race that has a struggle is straight-up fights, one would expect to see units with diverse abilities that allow for tactics that can annoy/harm the enemy without needing to directly engage. But this is not so. The zerg have one primary caster, the infestor whose abilities do add some variety into the mix. However, aside form that there's only the queen whose abilities are macro oriented) and the overseer (whose abilities are to assist scouting and perhaps delay key buildings a slight amount). The rest of the zerg units are very straightforward attackers.
Terran on the other hand has a huge variety of flexible units. There are the vikings which have huge anti-air range and can land on the ground to reinforce or harass. The banshee is an air-to-ground attacker which is extremely useful if the enemy has no detection because it can cloak. Medivacs are both a dropship and medic in one. Reapers are fast ranged units that can jump over cliffs. Ravens are detectors that can cast powerful support abilities such as auto-turrets and seeker missles. Ghosts can cloak, snipe key units, and call down nuclear strikes. The list goes on but I hope this highlights the ridiculous fact that much of the terran army's vast variability hasn't even been explored because 1a2a can secure victory most of the time. Imagine when further strategies are explored!
Next lets look at the protoss. There are collosi which can fire over huge distances and ignore terran. Dark templar which are permanently cloaked and do huge damage, high templar that can cast huge psionic storms or deplete the enemy energy, phoenixes which can fire while moving and lift ground units into the air (rendering them ineffective for a decent duration), immortals which are great for tanking damage due to hardened shields, sentries which can create force fields to disrupt enemy attacks and block chokes, warp prisms which are both dropships and moving pylons (made even more devastating due to warp gates), stalkers which can blink, and of course the mothership with its mass cloaking and recall abilities.
Now let me reinforce these points with the fact that the zerg army has the fewest attacking units. Yes, the same race that has the least unit abilities and flexibility also has the fewest units that can be used in a fight. This, I think, is why so many zerg player are getting frustrated when people are telling us to "wait for the metagame to develop" and "explor more diverse strategies". The fact of the matter is that we havent been given much to work with in the first place. We are trying to explore more strategies and we are trying to develop new techniques, but it seems to me that our units have very little flexibility to work with and that saddens me. I love the concept of the zerg race but they lack the depth that I think they need to be viable.
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United States2095 Posts
Floop, PLEASE think a bit more before your posts. Your post had NOTHING to do with the OP, and ofc a 200/200 roach / hydra army isn't going to win any 200/200 fights.
Please don't make a baneling army vs. terran.(Obviously do so if hes making a ton of marines) Wasting your supply on banelings vs. tank heavy, thor heavy or even marauder heavy armies is purely bad. Vs P Its even worse, sure its better then just zerglings, but you shouldn't be making zerglings in your best 200/200 army. I didn't even discuss zerglings in my entire OP, because I know there not useful in 200 vs 200 fights.
Floop stop posting zerg advice, you don't even play the race.
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On August 03 2010 12:10 Sheth wrote:
Floop, PLEASE think a bit more before your posts. Your post had NOTHING to do with the OP, and ofc a 200/200 roach / hydra army isn't going to win any 200/200 fights.
Please don't make a baneling army vs. terran.(Obviously do so if hes making a ton of marines) Wasting your supply on banelings vs. tank heavy, thor heavy or even marauder heavy armies is purely bad. Vs P Its even worse, sure its better then just zerglings, but you shouldn't be making zerglings in your best 200/200 army. I didn't even discuss zerglings in my entire OP, because I know there not useful in 200 vs 200 fights.
Floop stop posting zerg advice, you don't even play the race.
Ok I'll just edit it out. Clearly you're not very open to discussion so I won't bother.
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United States2095 Posts
I think its just the way you say stuff Floop. You made it sound like my point was stupid because I don't make banelings. I'm always open to discussion, just I don't want people to bash my ideas, with posts that aren't right. Banelings do not help in dealing with choke points. Takes a bazillion banelings to break either a PF, or a Thor or to even reach a tank. I geuss the point isn't about 200/200 combinations in the open, but in a choke. You know?
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I think zerg vs mech would be more even with neural parisite restored and possibly an increase in drone health. As a terran player I think it is pretty unbalanced right now. Infestors make good defenders I think with neural parisite permanant.
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You have to be clever when you attack. You can't 1a with a 200/200 army against an entrenched position doesn't make anything unbalanced. The zerg army is a lot more mobile than terran and non-gateway protoss units. You need to use tactics to your advantage.
I've broke tank lines with burrowed infestors and spam infested terran to splash them to death. Use overlord drops and multi-prong attacks to force slow moving units to be unable to defend.
If you don't use infestors then you're really doing it wrong because a few NP and fungal growths can turn the tide of a battle in a huge way. Especially with ultralisks.
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EPT
