1 Month later... Is Queen Range still too strong [TvZ]?

to give a more accurate winrate of tvz after the patch:
[–]sheltered 27 points 7 hours ago*

I can give you TvZ from the GSL up and downs, the GSL qualifiers, and the GSTL if that helps?

There have been 112 games total played, Zerg have won 83 of them while Terran have won 29, giving Zergs about a 74% win rate.

On June 20 2012 16:10 stalife wrote:
I don't think the queen range is that bad to be honest (terran player here). I think the queen range buff actually revealed a rather hidden fault in the tvz matchup that was there before. The problem is that if terran allows zerg to macro up (even if terran were to macro up with 3 cc as well), zerg hits the max army timing (with hive tech) way too fast. Before the queen nerf, early aggression meant that zergs had to spend more resources on defenses because one hellion run by meant that queens cannot hit well-micro'ed hellions. This early aggression lead to more of a even footing on the overall matchup, therefore giving somewhat of an illusion that tvz is "balanced"

But I disagree with this idea that terran has to do something before the 12 minute mark to slow down zerg. It should be more or less even throughout all stages of the game. Terrans should not rely on gimmicky strats to slow down zerg. It sucks as a terran to rely on cheesy strats to gain some advantage early on... and on the other hand it sucks as a zerg to constantly battle all ins and coin flip on what defense to make. So in that regard, I fully support the queen range buff.

The real problem is that the zergs can safely get to hive tech with one single unit = infestors. They shut down virtually everything terran can throw at in the mid game with high cost efficiency that by hive hits at 12 minute mark, zergs can pop out 12 ultralisks and run over terran. This is ridiculous game design. The fungal growth is an overpowered ability that is more cost efficient than any other unit in the game. It has the ability to immobilize and kill units. This is not seen in any other races. Protoss has sentries that can immobilize, but not kill (unless you have a shit ton). Protoss has HTs that can kill AOE. With sentries and HTs, you can immobilize and kill (but it requires some decent clickings, and it's certainly not one single click). For terrans, you have ghosts. They can snipe (no AOE) to kill, but that's been nerfed. They can do AOE with EMP, but it does not kill regardless of how many EMPs you fire. Terrans however do have ravens that do AOE damage, but it does not immobilize the target. If it can somehow immobilize the target and hit it 100% of the time, sure it would be useful like the infestor, except it costs more gas + energy, and it's not instant hit like fungals.

I'm glad that the queen buff was introduced that the terrans no longer resort to early shenanigans to gain advantage. Before, the queens would be afraid to come out to spread out creep. Now they just come out to the open to spread creep because they no longer get countered by hellions. It's a right step forward.

On June 20 2012 17:30 Type|NarutO wrote:
I for my part who would always choose the macro game over any other strategy do believe that the range buff in particular was not needed. Hellions were no immediate thread that would lead the Terran to gain an insurmountable advantage early on, rather a threat to the Zerg.

Most Zergs in the current phase went for the fast double evolution chamber and following things worked well even against well controlled hellions:

- make 1 additional queen and move it along the spinecrawler to gain space & allow creepspread
- make 4-6 roaches to gain space and allow mapcontrol

I understand that you should not be forced to react in only 1 way by any means, because that will lead to your opponent having an advantage over you just for the reason he doesn't have to scout to actually know what you have to do.

Now we have a queen range buff with not just 4, but 5 range. Hellions have 6 range with their splash attack, but they can only attack targets in the range of 5. If Zergs want to creepspread, they still have to make the additional queen, but it takes no effort at all to drive away the hellions which should never happen in a game on high level. Hellions are still strong to gain and hold mapcontrol, but they are not good anymore to prevent creep spreading, because they can't deny the queens.

Before the nerf, the absolute map control and threat hellions granted Terran often led to powerful timings that are hard to scout for Zerg, now Zerg has the option to gain space and thus sneak out zerglings and gain information (in addition faster overlords) to spot incoming timings. Zerg never had a problem with not being able to defend allins, but with getting information to know they have to defend.

As Terran, a one who likes to macro I feel I have no option against Zerg right now. A good zerg will always be able to get a 3rd base relatively easy and more secure/faster than before. In addition to that, faster overlords usually lead to an ability to scout even though thats something a Terran could possibly deny, but still Zerg has a very good option to gain information and set up for possible timings now. Not just mapcontrol and denying creep is harder, but also hitting crucial timings.

How am I supposed to stop Zerg if I cannot put hurt on his economy. Once infestors hit the field, a good Zerg will have enough lings and options to spot and clear drops cost-efficient and even if not - the main attack can be defended or stalled cost-efficient / long enough.

I for my part, often choose to macro against it because I've learned the hard way, infestors are a defensive unit and it doesn't work to push them if you are no MMA with a multitasking like him. Ofcourse thats my own fault, but back to the macro. I often still have map presence with hellions and that "before nerf" timing-push towards the 3rd. I can't kill it now, but I can still show myself on the map. While doing that, I can set up my 3rd and possibly even 4th base while upgrading. That would put me in an advantageous position over Zerg one would think, but the truth is, it really doesn't.

3 fully saturated bases with ~75-80 workers will be near the amount of maximum saturation / income for Zerg. A 4th base would only mean a few more larvae and gasincome. While this is good, the Zerg can easily max out and get high tech units even on 3 bases, delaying his 4th base. While I can also get all my stuff, I feel that the Zerg hits a more dangerous army composition while he is building up, which should never happen or better spoken which Terran should never let happen.

Due to the increased information and defensive ability of Zerg, now Terrans cannot pressure and pick apart Zerg "AS EASILY" as before, if at all... Once Zerg has established a good infestor count which isn't too hard, because they only spend gas on upgrades rather than on anything else, your options to push him without a good tank count is very limited... once ultralisks hit the field, you have to be defensive.

Zerg will nearly ALWAYS be ahead on upgrades, so... right now, I feel Zerg is a tad to save and can play careless while Terran has to be spot on with everything, while still trying to be greedy. I'm not saying TvZ is unplayable by any means, but it certainly became very tricky and very hard by now.

On June 21 2012 05:43 avc wrote:

I believe it is part of making the match up better, it certainly improved aspects of the early game, the trouble is it's hard for most people to understand this without rallying behind their own race and being biased.

It's more for the greater good of the game, especially when you take into consideration some of Blizzard's plans for Terran in HOTS. It is very much just a piece of the puzzle though, in a way it's necessary to do things this way so they can push things back the other way after seeing how the game been affected.

Subtle changes are absolutely the name of the game and I think most game developers go too far too quickly and they do that too often (hello Riot Games!). They probably could have given a prospective Queen change more time to be played with in testing while rolling out the Overlord speed change immediately.

There's no doubt that Terran players have suffered some annoying nerfs, but it's always good to have a sense of perspective. Most nerfs don't come along in games without reason and the Terran race has been the most versatile, most popular, strongest and most successful race in the short history of SC2 for a longer period than any other race. This doesn't mean I think everyone should have a turn at being OP, I don't think any race should be OP. This thread is largely populated with silly short sighted knee jerk opinions and heavily biased opinions, these people form the "your race was strong for a year so mine deserves to be strong now" argument army.

The patch itself was not necessarily too drastic, it was more that the patch coincided with some dramatic shifts in Zerg playing styles against Terran and it's shaken things up dramatically as a result. It would be very wrong and short sighted to blame only the patch for how the match up is played right now, but it's certainly a contributing factor.

It's a habit of gamers to write off units/skills/abilities/features/items when they get nerfed, regardless of the reasons for the nerf or the severity of it. To keep it brief I'll just say that the Hellion, Ghost and Reaper are good examples of this, as well as Neural Parasite to give an example from another race. With time they usually learn to reassess things and try to use them again, but that can often take some time. We're only just seeing NP start to receive more attention and usage from certain players.

Ultimately I just think the patch is one step in solving the puzzle and improving the match up. It's likely that this change has had the desired effect on the early game which should pave the way for some tweaks on some of the lesser used late game Terran units, which is something I'd like to see. No one should forget the important effect the patch has appeared to have on ZvZ either, it's fast becoming the most exciting and enjoyable mirror match.

On June 20 2012 22:24 mrlie3 wrote:
Great OP, but one thing is missing in this: Overlord speed buff.

If you look at both queen range buff and overlord speed buff independently, they seem okay for balancing and only fixes minor issues: better protection against early aggression and better scouting. However, I think overlord buff had a MAJOR effect on TvZ as it compliments queen buffs. How?

First, as OP said, queen range buff enabled zerg to mass up queens without sacrificing drone productions, so zerg can get ahead in mid and late games. Then what strategy can terran do to KILL this mass queen no gas 3 hatch strategy? Yes, as OP also mentioned, it is any forms of allin from terran. eg. 1111 proxy rax scv allin, mass hellion allin, marauder/hellion allin, 4+ rax allin etc. All of these strategy punishes zerg for delaying gas and not getting any speedlings and/or banelings to counter them.

Now here comes the funny part: overlord speed buff enabled zerg to scout these allins much, much easier! So any sensible zergs, upon scouting most of these allins, will make spine crawlers and lings instead of drones to anticipate the allin, defend with 6+ queens, and win the game. So as you can see, two buffs, when it seemed okay individually, basically broke the current TvZ metagame. If terran has no way of punishing zerg going economic cheese, then its only option is now tripple CC build, which ironically is super weak to any zerg allins. Even without allins, zergs can now comfortably play zvt knowing that terran only has this build against theirs, so they will almost always force zvt to be late game scenario, which generally favours zerg.

And as stalife said, infestors are way, way too efficient unit in the mid game. So guess what? zergs now have, when played decently, has very high chance of defending early-game allins with queen, mid-game aggression with infestors, and win late-game with broodlord/corruptor/infestor composition. As many code S pros pointed out, terran cannot win against zerg if they are on equal level of skills for this particular reason.

I sincerely hope there is at least some buff to terran or rollback of queen range (or even to 4, so we can AT LEAST kite them) or nerf of infestor in the future.