|
![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/fr/thumb/e/ef/Logo_Queen.png/532px-Logo_Queen.png)
Mandatory opening image
Hello everybody. The more I play at mid-high level (2600+ master, top 1000 eu), the more I get to realize the dramatic importance of having a shitload of queens from mid to late game, especially for large battles, as they are really good at 2 things : healing and tanking.
Here is a quick "guide" on this awesome unit, talking about those 2 main points. I'm hoping it will be a little of an eye opener for a majority of players, playing only with N or N+1 queens (N is the number of hatches).
I know it already has been discuted, at least a little bit earlier, but I definitly think this needs more dwelving.
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/images2/6/64/Queen.jpg)
Inject, b****
Transfuse
This spell has 2 main uses :
To help your muta harass and generally heal between battles
Having a few transfusions ready for healing your mutas if you are close by air can be a game breaker. Mutas are really fearsome only once in very large numbers. The difference with a 12 and a 15 mutas ball is not to be underestimated. It's therefore very useful to heal up your mutas between each harass wave.
Zerg are the only race "without" healers for harass forces. Toss have shields, Terrans have everything. But this is just an illusion.
To make your fighting army better
Zerg units really lack range. Transfuses helps your army to stay alive once it has connected. 6 Ultras + 20 transfuses (5 queens) usually do a lot more damages than 10 Ultras, as they will most of the time have an awesome surface area.
It also is really game breaking VS Toss. If you manage to have 2-3 queens mixed with your Roaches/Hydras when the attack occurs, you can increase their cost effectivness a lot.
A 200/200 army has a far longer run with 5-6 queens thrown in.
The last major use is for healing BLs late game. It's very cost effective. A single transfuse saves you more than 150/125. 150/125. And queen counters the BL counters, sooooooooooo... There is a wonderful synergy between those 2 units.
Tanking
175 Health. 1 Armor. Biological and Psionic.
I think this stats speak by themselves.
A queen can absorb FIVE tank shots, including splash. FIVE. For 150 minerals. They can also tank more than 20 Helions shots or 18 Marauder shots.
VS Toss, it's 6 Colossus hits, and she also absorbs the splash damage.
They are maybe the most cost effective tank in the game, AND THEY COST NEITHER GAS NEITHER LARVAES.
Has anybody here dropped queens here ? You really should give it a try. They only take 2 cargo space. I think any Zerg army with drops available should first load all ovies with 1 queen. She will drop first and be instantly focused. During this time, the rest of your army abuses their very high DPS.
Why is it underused ?
Predicted response : «Hey smartass, no pro has ever dropped a queen during GSL, therefore it sucks, you should get banned blah blah blah».
So, why hasn't it been used already ?
It's easy. Drops seems cheesy to most Z players. 200/200 is expensive for a half useful ability if you go, let's say, Ling Mutas Blings. Mixing queens into drops has surely crossed their mind, but it's really counter intuitive.
As such, getting queens to tank is the harder thing to do. But with good ovie creep spread (speed mandatory), it's really doable. On creep, they're as fast as slow Roaches after all.
Conclusion
![[image loading]](http://artblog.i.ph/photo/d/209-1/poison-tribute.jpg)
Another type of queen
Queens won't be the revolution Zergs have been waiting for. But I think people need to understand they are far from being a gimmicky unit in a battle. They are increasigly useful as time goes by, like every spell caster, but can also tank. A tanking spellcaster, and it is underused.
To all defending Zergs like me, please, give 10+ queens play a try. It really rocks (and they're an awesome anti air).
BOs stub :
+ Show Spoiler +9 Overlord
14 Hatchery
15 Spawning Pool
18 Overlord
18 Extractor (3 drones ASAP)
17 Zergling
18 Queen (at FE)
24 Spine Crawler (can be skipped for a 23 queen directly)
23 Queen
26 Overlord
28 Queen
31 Overlord
35 Metabolic Boost
35 Queen
37 Queen (lair if no immediate pressure, else keep your gas for Roaches)
39 Roach Warren
38 Overlord
38 Queen
40 Roach*8 if needed, else tech
Trans into (blings) drops or fast T3 to be really unpredictable.
GENERAL LAYOUT :
14 hatch 15 pool
Instant spine (needed 90% of the time)
Pump 4 queens, the first (expand) gearing up for a transfuse of the spine if needed, the second (main) putting a tumour.
Roach Warren.
2 Queens, and use your second flock of queen for larvae.
You're alive with massive anti air, lings speed (always good to have scouting and back teching), and a good econ.
Now proceed to auto win.
Replays (build still in the work, expect lots of misplay. Master 2500+ level) :
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-182039.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-182372.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-182639.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-182910.jpg)
|
I havent been using lategame transfuses a lot. But they have a LOT of potential.
However I do think that earlygame queens are amazing. Having the ability to transfuse eachother and overlords, on top of hatcheries is great. On top of that they aren't that bad air defense.
I am definitely going to incorporate more lategame queens in my ZvT. Not sure about ZvP or ZvZ though.
|
You had me at that first picture.
But actually, they are EXTREMELY powerful, and having them in your main army makes creep tumors even better. The only real issue I see with them is that they take quite a while to build (even with constant production), so multiple hatches are required. And multiple hatches + Queens = a shit ton of minerals.
EDIT:
On second thought, the incredible air protection + the MASSIVE amounts of larva that you gain from having multiple hatches per base and lots of queens is probably worth it. I mean, minerals go into hatches and queens, gas goes into air tech (muta harass ---> Broodlords?) mass upgrades (roaches and hydras benefit from the same upgrades as queens)?
Just some theory crafting :3
|
Yes, this "build" is designed to go for a fast 3rd AND 4th. Rather than building macro hatches, you use your existing hatches for queens, and expand like a mad man to increase your mineral income very fast, and later transition to mass gas.
I'm currently messing with 2 gas play (for 2 bases) into expand into 6 gas for Mutas (if they can counter the opponent composition) or BLs.
This is, i know, still a lot of theorycraft. But I hope to be able to provide good replays of this kind of play in a short time. I need to get my timings better, but freeing up gas with Z is just so good... Z upgrades really are among the best (+3+3 cracklings do wonders in small taskforces), and their T3 is just incredible...
|
Cool fact (i think it is true or i was just high) queens can shoot their spines at colossi.
Edit: Just confirmed that they can shoot their spines at colossi... good for range 7 and 9 attack...
|
On January 17 2011 05:58 leo23 wrote:
Cool fact (i think it is true or i was just high) queens can shoot their spines at colossi.
Yes, in fact, they can even kite them on creep if they don't have range 
|
I've heard lots of arguments against queens, but the fact is that queens are awesome. Seriously, watch a game or two and look at how often your hatches are just not doing anything. Think about how many queens you could work into a build. Were those six lings really worth it against those two colossus? No, a queen is much better.
Queens are extremely cost effective, and in many ways are much better than hydralisks as AA.
Queens rock.
|
Mass Queens can be a good option in ZvP, when P opens stargate. With that mass of queens you can easily defend any VR/phoenix harrasment and spread creep like a boss. Even if you're not that attentive to tumors, you'll have the WHOLE map under creep at 15:00.
By going Queen, you can skip hydra tech, and straight go infestor -> hive. Skipping hydras is the really awesome thing about this, as Toss will always follow up with Collosus.
So, if you sorta want to skip midgame and just passively macro to lategame, queens are the way to go.
(On a side note, if you're feeling cute, you can Nydus some Queens in the other's base and goop down tumors in there. Works better in ZvT, I suppose. Gets you nice scouting, buys you time if the opponent decides to clean them up, and also throws your opponent off. And having a Nydus is always cool)
Downside of going Queen is, that if they are obliterated, it takes longer to replenish them, than it would with larva units.
|
I agree queens have saved me so many times, for example when I see hellions come, and I don't have roaches as of yet, they can block the ramp to my main, and allow the spine crawlers to do more damage. And they help dramatically against 2 rax pressure, and of course void/banshee builds.
When you get dropped the queen auto attacks the drop ship, and help pressure the dropper.
They save u from a proxy 2 gate, and all this amazing stuff.
2.4 k Masters Zerg for whats it worth, my 2 pennies.
|
I don't play Zerg, but I think that some Zergs don't utilize creep as much as they can, even high level players that I've watched. Queens obviously are pretty bad off creep, but the solution to this is just more queens. Creep spreads ridiculously fast when you've got 4 tumors going at once, and as a Terran player I can tell you that creep is ridiculously annoying.
Overall I think queens are really annoying to deal with. In the early game they do very well vs. harass, and if you're making some to deal with that, you might as well make more. Personally I think that making queens vs void rays/phoenix instead of hydras could be good, but I'm not sure about that since I don't play either race. Just seems like hydras are really squishy units whereas queens can tank well, like you said.
|
Yeah, I've had a few games where I barely manage to hold off the big attack on close positions in lategame by having broods and mass transfusions with the queens. This buys me enough time for reinforcements from my faraway bases to arrive to help out.
I also saw a replay where a player did a roach drop with queen support against a protoss player. The queens were useful for killing the void rays the toss player was using, and he microed the queens by picking them up into overlords between shots, as well as transfuses.
|
From an outside perspective, another benefit to having multiple queens is that they cease to be obvious targets when you're doing harass. If I throw a few dts at someone's mineral line, and see a solo queen, I immediately think I can deny larvae easily by taking it out. If there's several queens, then I doubt it's going to work, or that killing drones is probably a better use of my time.
|
On January 17 2011 06:09 S.O.L.I.D. wrote:
I don't play Zerg, but I think that some Zergs don't utilize creep as much as they can, even high level players that I've watched. Queens obviously are pretty bad off creep, but the solution to this is just more queens. Creep spreads ridiculously fast when you've got 4 tumors going at once, and as a Terran player I can tell you that creep is ridiculously annoying.
Overall I think queens are really annoying to deal with. In the early game they do very well vs. harass, and if you're making some to deal with that, you might as well make more. Personally I think that making queens vs void rays/phoenix instead of hydras could be good, but I'm not sure about that since I don't play either race. Just seems like hydras are really squishy units whereas queens can tank well, like you said.
This is true, however, you underestimate the amount of attention creep spreading takes.
I would rather see a banshee kill my drones than a marine kill my creep tumours, thats how much I love them. If they kill my morphing creep tumors, I often can't be bothered to make a new queen and respread the creep because in the lategame I have so much more to worry about than just creep.
|
United States7166 Posts
yeah queens are definitely good
calling it now, in HotS the queen can morph into a matriarch with new abilities and more mobility
|
On January 17 2011 06:22 Chaosvuistje wrote:
I would rather see a banshee kill my drones than a marine kill my creep tumours, thats how much I love them. If they kill my morphing creep tumors, I often can't be bothered to make a new queen and respread the creep because in the lategame I have so much more to worry about than just creep.
At ~200APM, it's completly doable. But keeping a decent creep spread late game surely is the harder thing for a Z.
As such, never forget creep takes time to recede. If you can push back the ennemy army and have a few queens available, you need to drop a few creeep tumors back asap. I usually keep a queen alone in hotkey 9 for this task.
Also, once you have drops, don't underestimate Creep drops : one queen + one ovie, and here you go, creep tumours everywhere (opponent's third, backdoor,...)
|
On January 17 2011 06:30 mr_tolkien wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2011 06:22 Chaosvuistje wrote:
I would rather see a banshee kill my drones than a marine kill my creep tumours, thats how much I love them. If they kill my morphing creep tumors, I often can't be bothered to make a new queen and respread the creep because in the lategame I have so much more to worry about than just creep. At ~200APM, it's completly doable. But keeping a decent creep spread late game surely is the harder thing for a Z. As such, never forget creep takes time to recede. If you can push back the ennemy army and have a few queens available, you need to drop a few creeep tumors back asap. I usually keep a queen alone in hotkey 9 for this task.
Ofcourse. I won't deny that it is definitely doable. I just can't seem to remember adding additional creep tumors once my tumors died.
The creep receding though, I haven't thought about that. Maybe I could emergency 'patch' the creeptumorless creep with another queen. Gotta try that out some time.
|
Threads like these always make me want to switch back to Zerg.. too bad my fundamentals are too terrible.
Queens have huge potential; I really wish more players would utilize them to supplement their main army.
|
I'm just thinking of what you can do with mass gas and lesser minerals.
I guess you can just avoid getting gas for a long time, thus supercharging your mineral income (in terms of how much time/money you save on gas and drones). OR infestors and ugrades (I like this idea alot)
|
Zerg are the only race "without" healers for harass forces. Toss have shields, Terrans have everything. But this is just an illusion.
Don't they have regeneration? Just something to note.
Yes, Queens are hot shit. Didn't we recently see a game where a guy did an all-in push with hydras and like 5 queens after fending off a phoenix harass?
Was really beautiful ):
|
On January 17 2011 06:42 Torte de Lini wrote:Show nested quote +Zerg are the only race "without" healers for harass forces. Toss have shields, Terrans have everything. But this is just an illusion. Don't they have regeneration? Just something to note. Yes, Queens are hot shit. Didn't we recently see a game where a guy did an all-in push with hydras and like 5 queens after fending off a phoenix harass? Was really beautiful ):
What I think he means by, "healers," is something that's useful in short-term engagements (like a few seconds between pushes, or even during the fight).
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
