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Hi,
I just want to check the validity of a certain observation I made:
Are Zerglings largely dead in HOTS ZvT?
Aside from the fact that Zerglings were never that strong vs Mech (although we for example saw in Life vs Mvp Life basically not making any Roaches in the early in the WoL GSL finals) Zerglings seem to be less and less viable in general vs Terran in HOTs due to the fact that both new Terran units basically HARD counter zerglings.
1) Battle Helllions absolutely murder Zerglings. I feel even small balls of Battle Hellions are completely unengageble with Zerglings. Even when fungaled. With Blue Flame it's not even a questions any more. Unlike Normal Hellions you won't trade inefficiently vs them. You will get outright massacred. This seems true for Mech on the one hand and also Bio Balls with Battle Hellions mixed in.
2) Widow Mines are a huge pain in the ass to mass Zerglings Forces as a Widow Mine is able to kill about 30 Zerglings in one volley if they run up clumped. You also have no way to reliably kill Widow Mines with a Zergling armies as you risk getting a huge clump of zerglings killed. Due to the fact that you can never be sure whether a terran has widow mines or not because he can produce the low amount he needs easily in an unreactored factory it makes every fight with zergling/baneling extremely risky. If the Terran kites his army into the mines he risks losing some of his bio due to splash but he may also kill a huge chunk of your ling baneling losing you the battle instantly.
If both of these units are combined zerglings feel completely unviable but even one of these unit tends you to largely stop zergling production.
Do zerg players agree with me or have you found ways to make mass ling play viable again? At the moment I feel it's nearly always better to go for a roach based army with Infestors against Bio and Hydras with fast Vipers against Mech.
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I think going only zerglings is dead, but then again this never worked in WoL if you only went mass ling.
I think ling/bane with some roaches mixed in is the best way to play vs bio/battle hellions. It is very dead vs mech though roach/hydra/viper is best response to mech right now.
If you go just pure zerglings you could do it with some banes mixed in with infestors I imagine, but I dunno haven't made a single infestor in hots and it's nice to win all my games so far without it and my few losses were not because I didn't make infestors :D
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On November 27 2012 18:52 blade55555 wrote: I think going only zerglings is dead, but then again this never worked in WoL if you only went mass ling.
I think ling/bane with some roaches mixed in is the best way to play vs bio/battle hellions. It is very dead vs mech though roach/hydra/viper is best response to mech right now.
If you go just pure zerglings you could do it with some banes mixed in with infestors I imagine, but I dunno haven't made a single infestor in hots and it's nice to win all my games so far without it and my few losses were not because I didn't make infestors :D Thanks for your input. Yes. I'm not talking about PURE ling although this was pretty viable in WoL at some point. Surviving the midgame on nearly pure upgraded zerglings to have a lot of gas for hive tech units. I remember some games where Stephano and TLO stayed on pure lings for a very long time in game but of course you want to add some infestors if the Terran decides not to move out fast but go with like 140 Supply. Though I'm talking about armies with mainly zerglings as a core unit in general. At least for me (Mid Master in Hots but that doesn't say much as I'm getting matched with GM, Masters, Diamonds and sometimes even Platinums) Zerling based armies like Ling Infestor or Ling Bling Infestor not to mention Ling Bling Muta seem extremely fragile due to these new units. Battle Hellions and Widow Mines on the opposite don't do much vs Roach Hydra armies. I even feel that Battle Hellions are sometimes worse because of their short range against roaches.
My general feeling going into a ZvT is that I cannot open fast third surviving on lings and Queens because Certain pushes absolutely shredder lings. I don't like Roach Ling Baneling as well because it feels trading efficiently is always on the Terran. If he microes badly you can absolutely roll him but with good micro he will trade nearly always more efficiently than he should as you have zero micro potential. Roach Hydra on the other hand seems pretty strong to me suddenly. I never thought I could trade roach hydra efficiently against Bio.
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Heavy Zergling builds are only slightly less effective vs Mech in HOTS as they are already in WoL.
Helbats are not usually worth building if you're going for a bio/mech force, they don't have any real staying power beyond the Zerglings and are very fragile vs any other unit in the Zerg arsenal.
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From what I've seen in my TvZ's so far, mass ling is can still cause a ton of damage. Yes pure ling against a good tank line, blue flame hellions and marines won't work (and it shouldn't) but there are many instances where the marine count might be too low or hellions are few enough that you can just swarm/zerg the opponent's army.
If the zerglings could get a decent surround on the enemy army, I'm fairly certain you could try it unless it's a massive siege line / mech army.
Marines in small numbers, Hellions in small numbers, Tanks and Thors can all get surrounded and picked off. Only when they're together in strength do zerglings turn to fodder.
Ofcourse, it also strongly depends on your micro/positioning and the Terran's micro/positioning whether or not the lings can get a surround or not.
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On November 27 2012 19:53 Thezzy wrote: From what I've seen in my TvZ's so far, mass ling is can still cause a ton of damage. Yes pure ling against a good tank line, blue flame hellions and marines won't work (and it shouldn't) but there are many instances where the marine count might be too low or hellions are few enough that you can just swarm/zerg the opponent's army.
If the zerglings could get a decent surround on the enemy army, I'm fairly certain you could try it unless it's a massive siege line / mech army.
Marines in small numbers, Hellions in small numbers, Tanks and Thors can all get surrounded and picked off. Only when they're together in strength do zerglings turn to fodder.
Ofcourse, it also strongly depends on your micro/positioning and the Terran's micro/positioning whether or not the lings can get a surround or not. This is exactly my point. Getting a surround in WoL normally guarantees either a win in the battle or at least an efficient trade. Not with Battle Hellions. Even surrounded Battle Hellions destroy Lings hard. Widow Mines can turn the attempt to surround into a massive blood bath for the zerg.
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On November 27 2012 18:52 blade55555 wrote: I think going only zerglings is dead, but then again this never worked in WoL if you only went mass ling.
Ling infestor into 3-3 crackling ultra infestor was very popular for some time (mostly pre queen patch)... Do the battle hellions make this useless?
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Battle Hellions Hellbats definitely make lings seem a lot less viable, but currently they are not used often. Browder has stated that Battle Hellions Hellbats are going to be getting another buff in the next week or 2 as part of the continued efforts to make mech play more viable. Depending on how this goes both lings and zealots could become a much worse investment.
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I just did some testing in the Unit Tester and the results are quite insane to be honest.
I tested 10 clumped Hellbats (thx Decoup) on an open field vs Speed Lings. The Zerglings were amoved into the Hellbats and surrounded them quickly. Preparing a full surround did not signficantly change the results:
10 Clumped 0-0 Red Flame Hellbats trade evenly with about 140 0-0 Speed Lings (either 3 Hellbats or 11-17 Lings survive) 10 Clumped 0-0 Blue Flame Hellbats trade evenly with about 250 0-0 Speed Lings (either 2 Hellbats or 2-15 Lings survive)
Pretty much proves that Lings are useless when a certain number of Hellbats is mixed in.
Fun Fact: 20 Clumped 1-1 Blue Flame Hellbats beat 400 3-3 Crack Lings with about 6-9 Hellions surviving.
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Keep in mind that Hellbats are pretty much specifically designed to deal with exactly a Zergling surround. Bonus damage vs light, splash damage and cone damage and an upgrade that deals extra damage to Light.
I have no doubt they could deal with Zerglings attacking them, but I'm wondering how effective they would be at saving your tanks and marines from the Zerglings. Just because they could deal with being attacked doesn't specifically mean they are also good at preventing them from doing damage to anything else.
If a Tank got surrounded the Hellbat would first have to slowly waddle over, get in range and then start killing the lings by which time that Tank is likely dead.
You could probably draw similar numbers for Thors vs Immortals.
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On November 27 2012 19:26 Vindicare605 wrote: Heavy Zergling builds are only slightly less effective vs Mech in HOTS as they are already in WoL.
Helbats are not usually worth building if you're going for a bio/mech force, they don't have any real staying power beyond the Zerglings and are very fragile vs any other unit in the Zerg arsenal.
... am I getting this wrong? But it seems that you'll just get Hellbats in pretty much any situation where you'd previously get Hellions. Meaning pretty much every game. I don't know, to me it seems to be a pretty huge deal. Lings are supposed to be a core army unit. And now you can 100% hard counter them to the point of uselessness.
ZvT sure changed a lot, and I'm not complaining about balance as people will just need to adapt and change their builds a lot. But for now if anything Zergs are even more encouraged to turtle, since Roach/Ling/Baneling aggression is weaker, and Mutas are even more gimmicky. This is the opposite of what I was hoping for in ZvT (a more open, aggressive game ala 2011 ZvT).
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I'm thinking that banelings will be more commonplace against mech, to get rid of the hellbats before the zerglings enter the fight. Hellbats are pretty much always clumped up because that makes them much stronger against lings so banelings should work pretty well, if they can get in range without dying to siegetanks that it. Will be interesting to see how it works out.
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Well, terran finally has a unit that actually destroys light units with splash, like colossus. The thing is its cheap, but it has low range as a counterpart. Engaging on creep in WoL (even with tanks) was nearly impossible without getting crushed by any ling/bling/infestor army, and I feel like hellbats are a tentative to fix that (because honestly, spreading creep is so easy, and denying it so hard and slow..). The problem is that it is low tier tech compared to colossus, and cheap. The good thing is that it's easily countered by roaches. I'm not too fond of the fact that it could potentially remove lings from ZvT, but on the other hand, you'll have a mid game techswitch available; Terran overmade marauders? switch to lings, and if he overmakes hellions, mass roaches. The really odd thing about hellbats is that medivacs heal them, making them a very tanky unit. I would rather see a new unit healing mech.
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On November 27 2012 21:24 Thezzy wrote: Keep in mind that Hellbats are pretty much specifically designed to deal with exactly a Zergling surround. Bonus damage vs light, splash damage and cone damage and an upgrade that deals extra damage to Light.
I have no doubt they could deal with Zerglings attacking them, but I'm wondering how effective they would be at saving your tanks and marines from the Zerglings. Just because they could deal with being attacked doesn't specifically mean they are also good at preventing them from doing damage to anything else.
If a Tank got surrounded the Hellbat would first have to slowly waddle over, get in range and then start killing the lings by which time that Tank is likely dead.
You could probably draw similar numbers for Thors vs Immortals. Who says you need to play Marine Tank Hellbat? You would much more likely play something along the lines of Marine Marauder Hellbat Medivac or full Mech. A midsized Bio Ball with Hellbats and Medivac repair doesn't trade against Zerglings at all. The zerglings just die. Hellbats are also not nearly as prone to Fungal as Marines or Hellions.
A Marine dies to 2 Fungals. A Hellion dies to 3 Fungals. A Marauder dies to 5 Fungals. A Hellbat dies to 6 Fungals.
And no. Thor vs Immortal is not nearly as absurd as Hellbat vs Ling. The ratio of unmicroed Hellions vs Lings is worse than 1:1. 40 Lings normally win vs 10 unmicroed Hellions.
But the Ratio of Red Hellbats vs Lings is 1:3,5 and for Blue Hellbats 1:6,25. The Resource Ratio for Immortas vs Thors is about 1:1,2 mineralwise and 1:2 gaswise.
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a really effective unit comp I've seen is roach/hydra and get vipers. The viper cloud reduces siege tanks to melee T_T its so OP
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As far as I can tell, with my ladder experience in HotS as a masters terran, zerglings are completly dead, due to the reasons you mentioned. In my opinion this is very bad for the MU because zerglings are/were great in TvZ if the zerg micros well.
The solution, in my eyes, is to nerf widow mines and hellbats to a level, where a skilled zerg can handle them with good micro.
Just my 2 cents Greetz
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The key is to trigger Widow mines without a 30 ling mob and to avoid Hellbats with them. The engagement works almost the same still, but it takes more preparation and gives the opponent more time to react. That way it is harder to get them off guard. It just got harder to execute and maybe other unit combinations are easier now. Personally I think it is a good thing, that an opponent can stay on lower tech to delay your tech. It makes a matchup more complicated and adds alot of decisionmaking. Zerg became really hard to punish with the map layout and their defensive buffs, so nothing could slow down their tech significantly.
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On November 27 2012 22:25 FeyFey wrote: The key is to trigger Widow mines without a 30 ling mob and to avoid Hellbats with them. The engagement works almost the same still, but it takes more preparation and gives the opponent more time to react. That way it is harder to get them off guard. It just got harder to execute and maybe other unit combinations are easier now. Personally I think it is a good thing, that an opponent can stay on lower tech to delay your tech. It makes a matchup more complicated and adds alot of decisionmaking. Zerg became really hard to punish with the map layout and their defensive buffs, so nothing could slow down their tech significantly. It's true that intelligent engagements can render the widow mines rather ineffective. I would generally consider them the smaller problem as they are indeed pretty random and can potentially even harm the own terran army. They initally thwart ling play though as they can be borrowed everywhere and you can not constantly micro your lings not to take damage from the mines. Hellbats though are ALWAYS an utter hardcounter to zerglings to the point where lings can't even be used as fodder for ultralisks to get close.
Mutas are also extremely unattractive at the moment because of the threat of widow mines. It doesn't feel like Zerg is underpowered at the moment it's just that ZvT feels even more one dimensional than before. You can either opt for an aggressive army with Roach Hydra Viper or you can just turtle to Broodlord Corruptor Infestor. Something Terran has got nothing new to deal with. While Roach Hydra Viper seems pretty attractive at the moment I feel a Roach Hydra Midgame can be relatively well abused though with heay tank Pushes and Drop play once the Terran expects this style to be standard.
On November 27 2012 22:11 Fibbz wrote: As far as I can tell, with my ladder experience in HotS as a masters terran, zerglings are completly dead, due to the reasons you mentioned. In my opinion this is very bad for the MU because zerglings are/were great in TvZ if the zerg micros well.
The solution, in my eyes, is to nerf widow mines and hellbats to a level, where a skilled zerg can handle them with good micro.
Just my 2 cents Greetz The problem is that Terran is already short on new units and nerfing the only two will lead to the exact same WoL ZvT. Just that Zerg has Vipers additionally late game which are GOOD! Also Hellbat and Widow Mine are not really good units overall. I feel they are actually rather bad vs Zerg mid- and late game. They just counter Lings far too hard. 3 to 4 burrowed Widow Mines have never discouraged me to run had front into a terran army with a roach composition. Sure they will do damage but they also weaken the Terran army through their cost and supply and are very likely to die in the fight.
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actually i still saw use for the Zerglings in ZvT, mostly to counterattack, however i am deeply concerned about Mutas. I tried it in meny meny games but 2 widdow mines near the minerals shut it down entierly ... This is even more so true to Drops in TvT. Browder stated in a intervie that they want to buff medivacs to compensate wich made me facepalm so hard =(
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On November 27 2012 21:49 Nimix wrote: Well, terran finally has a unit that actually destroys light units with splash, like colossus.
FYI, Colossus do NOT do extra damage to light. This is a myth that seemingly EVERYBODY believes. Check liquipedia. They just do so MUCH damage, and most light units are squishy.
While the cost-effectiveness is pretty crazy on hellbats vs lings, I think the proper answer is "don't engage hellbats with lings". Use Banelings. 4 banelings kill hellbats, which already clump up pretty badly. They now can't just run away from the banelings, since they're so slow, and they clump up much more, making banelings more effective. Hellbats also only have 2 range, which means that they are GOING to get hit by any banelings that they kill.
A big enough marine/medivac ball can't ever be killed by zerglings, even with a full surround. It's the same thing. You have to use banelings to start being cost-effective. Zerglings are still perfectly effective in ZvT in WoL, even when marine balls with medivac support absolutely murder lings by themselves.
Also, lings against mech with enough BFH already melted pretty instantly to tanks+blue flame, so how is this any different?
Widow mines are, unfortunately, just an annoyance... they're easy to deal with by sending 1-4 lings ahead of your main force to soak up the shot.
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