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With 1.3 about to go live in about 2 hours time on the NA server, I feel like a huge meta-game shift will happen in ZvP. If you haven't heard already, Infestors received a controversial buff; here are the exact details in the patch notes.
ZERG
Infestor
Fungal Growth
Stun duration decreased from 8 to 4 seconds.
Damage increased by +30% vs. armored units.
Now, you may ask? How is that a buff or how is that going to change ZvP?
First of all, I am a 3.1k Master Zerg. I am by no means a 'pro'. But I do believe that my understanding of the game is sufficient enough to make an argument and open this thread for discussion. I have watched all of MrBitter's videos (ackk, yes that's a lot of video watching -_-) and watch as much GSL/TSL/User Streams as much as possible.
Upon downloading the new patch 30 mins ago. I opened up an offline game and played against a Protoss AI. I got some infestors and just started nuking random protoss units. I nuked some probes and thought 'wow, sick, it deals damage pretty quickly'. Then I started nuking other units and found that Fungal is ridiculously powerful against armored units.
I started thinking 'how will this affect all of zerg's matchups?' And I remembered reading through something yesterday. It was apart of Idra's interview with MLG.
MLG: Patch 1.3 on the PTR currently has the Infestor's Fungal Growth changed; it now deals damage in four seconds rather than eight, and deals extra damage to armored units. How do you think this will change Infestor usage in Zerg matchups?
Idra: It's going to be a massive change for Zerg. I think Infestors are going to be overpowered against Protoss now, and it's going to completely change ZvZ as it'll nullify Roaches beyond timing attacks. ZvT might not change too much, simply because Mutas are so good and it might not be worth the gas to get Infestors before the lategame. But Fungal is going to be ridiculously good now.
I was skeptical about him calling Infestors 'overpowered'. But after having tested it moments ago, I do feel that this mentality is somewhat warranted. 3-5 Infestors engaging a slow moving typical Protoss deathball (3-4 colossus with stalkers/sentries, maybe 2-3 voids) is going to be nuked to low health in about 10 seconds. Every single unit in that deathball is armored (except sentries but they are not there for the DPS anyways). If you are lucky, the fungal will hit the toss' observer and then the infestors can burrow and get away unharmed. The zerg army can just come in almost 1/2 shot everything.
This discussion will be about what you guys think about this Infestor change and about developing a solid build for this style of play against the standard 3gate expand where toss expands after 6-8 sentries, gets 4-5 gates then adds robo and pushes around 2-3 colossus while getting 3rd up (incontrol style).
Right now, I have developed a pseudo build for this style. Zergling into Baneling into Infestor into Ultralisk. I feel like it'll be a strong and robust build against the aforementioned protoss style of play.
Typical Zerg opening (14gas/14pool 21 expand, 15gas/15pool, etc.)
Zergling speed
Evo Chamber
+1 melee
Baneling nest
3rd/Lair
Infestors
Constant melee/carapace upgrade
Spire for corruptors (if large number of void rays)
Hive
Ultras (or Broods?!?!)
Obviously the timings aren't worked out but the tech path is entirely different than how I ZvP am accustomed to playing (roach, hydra, corruptor, broodlord). If the toss decides to play 1 base, go DTs, 1 base phoenix, etc. (some gimmicky non-standard) then obviously this build doesn't work.
Zergling speed and +1 will deflect any early aggression. After that banelings will help against and mid-game timing before colossus (6-gate/5-gate pressure) - also, if the toss is turtling there is option of research overlord speed/drop. Then you can start carpet bombing mineral lines and clumped sentries.
Then you transition into Infestors. If toss decides to push or anything while you are waiting for Ultras then you can simple nuke everything - it stops their movement and does massive damage to armored units. Once ultras are out, forcefields become useless while ultras combined with fungal growth just obliterate any stalker/sentry/colossus centric army composition. Burrow may help too as you can burrow infestors and start harassing mineral lines (as the toss makes observers this cuts down on colossus numbers).
Again, this build is not set in stone nor is it fine tuned. I want to leave this to zerg players to try this tech path and see what they can come up with. What toss timing pushes does this style have problems with? Is the Infestor actually viable now with this buff? When is the best time to get a 3rd?
I'll be playing ladder and practice games against toss a lot. I'll be paying close attention to zerg streams and any updates. I'd like to hear your thoughts, discussion and builds in this thread. I want to hear about your experiences and I really hope this style will usher in a new era of ZvP where Zergs actually feel like the old ZvP of the BW days!
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Do you think this will have a similar effect to ghosts using EMP on the Toss deathball/ Psy-storm being used on hydra lines? It would be nice for Zerg to have an AOE that didn't require banelings.
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As a protoss player I can't say I like this change. However, I realize that Zerg has needed a buff to be able to kill the deathball for a while now. I feel like we might be seeing more 6 gate +1 timing attacks and less 13 minute colossus pushes. Seems like protoss late game isn't the best anymore in any matchup with more Terrans switching to Mech and the infestor being able to own deathballs. However, the HT may still get use as an anti infestor/ghost spellcaster. Guess we will just have to wait and see.
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Yea it will be interesting to see how zvz develops. Fungal is already really strong in that matchup, and with it now demolishing roaches there could be more emphasis on hydras/lings (which are also countered well by fungal.) Hard to say.
Against protoss its hard to say but I can see the blink stalker ball becoming less effective and yea, there will be more usage of infestors for sure. Gas will become even more critical for zergs in these matchups.
Against terran I feel like there won't be any change, infestors I feel are less effective because against a marine ball the fact that they are held for only 4 seconds is actually better, and there aren't really too many armoured units with low enough HP that a couple fungals will be game-changing.
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Ive been practicing a new build vs Toss pre patch in preparation for the infestor buff. Ironically it's been doing very well even without the buff, so I cant wait to get some games in post 1.3. Basically early double evo sling/bling into sling/sbling/corrupter (or muta) into sling/sbling/ultra with corrupter support. My fav thing about bypassing the roach/hydra route altogether is that you have sooo much more map control and the ability to tech switch easily, since one can often hold 5 bases to the protoss 2 or 3.
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I think it could lead to a waaaayyy more dynamic matchup. I doubt it will be OP (taking IdrA's words with a pinch of salt) but it will be way less just collossus stalker ball with the occasional tech to HT, I can't wait in all honesty to see what will happen ^^ Although I expect a lot of 2 base timing pushes to begin with for like the first two weeks.
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Zerg aoe is going to get a lot more scary post-patch, that's for certain. We'll definitely be seeing more infestors fielded in all matchups, and combined with either baneling drops or just speed banes.
Instead of builds to hit right before spire (5-6 gate), we're likely to see a slight shift so it hits a shred earlier, in time to shut down infestor play. Should be a very quirky little shift in the metagame.
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Hadn't even considered the implications of the change vs roaches. Very interesting!
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Sweden326 Posts
Basicly what the new infestor is gonna be able to do is.
1# Stop VR rushes
2# Stop Blink stalker rushes
3# Zergs are gonna be able to do Roach infestor rushes and just fungle the immortal
4# 4 Gate will be much weaker if you have infestors out.
So this was a genius move by Blizzard to fix ZvP
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Funnily enough, I'm super giddy about this change even though I only offrace zerg every now and then. It might bring some much needed dynamic to the ZvP match-up when zerg finally has a good way to punish the deathball.
Even if the counter becomes spreading out your army (as protoss), that means lings, roaches and banelings all become much more effective. Very interesting change, and hopefully it'll balance out the somewhat broken match-up.
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It's definitely a buff ZvP, and will help vs the deathball. But I think we will actually see less infestors ZvT, since the long stun vs marines was its main use in that matchup. Won't do much versus tanks/thors still.
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On March 23 2011 01:45 PeaNuT_T wrote:
Basicly what the new infestor is gonna be able to do is.
1# Stop VR rushes
2# Stop Blink stalker rushes
3# Zergs are gonna be able to do Roach infestor rushes and just fungle the immortal
4# 4 Gate will be much weaker if you have infestors out.
So this was a genius move by Blizzard to fix ZvP
you cant get infestors out in time for blink rushes, or 4gates.
Infestors are going to be pretty decent against robo play for sure.
But then again, mutas were already pretty decent against robo play, and we had to stop using them to not get crushed by 6gates.
Remember than all builds that were designed to abuse the timing before mutas get up, can do the same, but more easily against infestors.
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I didn't read about this change until earlier today. I'm not a particularly high level player (mid diamond but only like 50 games under my belt) and I'm mostly an observer. I feel like instead of watching these absurd ball-o-death-push games we might see a shift to Warp Prisms being used for more mobile, spread out attacks. Nothing is cooler than a warp prism drop into a base, then warping in a bunch more units. Thoughts?
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I think that toss will simply need to get hallucination more often and scout better, having X unit at the right time against strategy Y is already important in PvZ and will be even more so. For instance, infestor/ling builds will probably just die to being 5/6 gated in the same way that mutaling builds do and getting faster colossi would be better against builds that get roaches first. Sentries will definitely be vulnerable to fungals but replacing FF with HT storm/FB when you have 3-4 bases and are rolling in gas might not be too bad.
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Fawking Goomba, you will see infestors replace banes in the vs Terran match up, first of all its harder to avoid fungal than it is to avoid banes, 2 fungals will now kill marines in like 5 seconds instead of 10.
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Time for the Phoenix to shine?
Maybe Infestor-sniping phoenix timing pushes will come into fashion.
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On March 23 2011 01:45 PeaNuT_T wrote:
Basicly what the new infestor is gonna be able to do is.
1# Stop VR rushes
2# Stop Blink stalker rushes
3# Zergs are gonna be able to do Roach infestor rushes and just fungle the immortal
4# 4 Gate will be much weaker if you have infestors out.
So this was a genius move by Blizzard to fix ZvP
Dont get you're thought proces there, you need atleast 2 saturated bases too even think about infestors imo.
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It might force protoss to split up the deathball, making the overall ball weaker and easier for zerg to take on. Which makes for a more interesting dynamic in the matchup I think, with the protoss trying to bait the fungals and not lose it all by having everything clumped up.
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On March 23 2011 01:53 Redunzl wrote:
Time for the Phoenix to shine.
Exactly. I think this is the real story in ZvP. It was hard enough to stop these buggers with the 8 second immobilization. Now the fungal does half that while dealing the same puny damage, albeit a bit faster.
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On March 23 2011 01:45 PeaNuT_T wrote:
Basicly what the new infestor is gonna be able to do is.
1# Stop VR rushes
2# Stop Blink stalker rushes
3# Zergs are gonna be able to do Roach infestor rushes and just fungle the immortal
4# 4 Gate will be much weaker if you have infestors out.
So this was a genius move by Blizzard to fix ZvP
4gate??
if you have infestors when you are attacked with a 4gate, i do believe the game is over even if you have built 10 infestors and all but one are sniped because you didnt watch.
I think infestors will be overpowered against protoss, as pretty much all units P want to make are armored and have to move in a single ball. Templar micro will be important, possible to overcome infestors with feedbacks or just plain storming... will see.
And i dont know how the timings would work out for templar vs infestor builds.
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EPT
