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At my level of play (rather weak), queen pays of in some sitatutions.
a) Parasite; I mostly parasite enemy workers, which almost always goes unnoticed, and helps me in seeing (and reminding me of) muta harassment/lurker drop potential; at natural, you usually see part of enemy army.
b) Situational mid to late game, using Ensnare vs. m&m, rarely DT/corsair, and, especially effective, vs. carriers (cast on fighters, and watch them get picked of rapidly by your hydra).
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
On October 03 2007 01:27 GrandInquisitor wrote: Let's talk about how you should go ensnare their minline every so often and make back your investment by slowing down their mining.
GI I expect better from you.
2 days.
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Well I'm an avid Z user, and have been for the past 4 years.
Any game I can recall where I actually use a queen or two, I've never really regretted it. (This is only in ZvT) For 1, ensnare works wonders against m&m. It bogs down Marines really bad, they get chewed up by lings. Secondly, infesting CC's helps and is just down right funny. Especially if you start dropping infesteds. Thirdly, parasiting Vessels is a huge help. Over all I'd say their useful, its just to bad no one ever uses them. I once suggested that maybe they should come with Ensnare already, I think most people can agree on that one. Maybe queens would be used more often.
So overall I could say Queens are worth the small 100/100 investment. Even if you get ensnare it can do wonders in the right situations. People need to use them more often.
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During a Terran Han-Bang, the T usually has 2-3 Tanks right? More? 6? I'm just wondering about broodlings usefulness since Chill mentioned Hydra-Lurk Queen. I don't even know the spells range.
Watching Pros atm, I really think a lot of their games can benefit and succesfully utilize queen. Better than Chojja atm at least. Since the maps the new 2 player maps are huge and wide, I think Ensnare's flank usage is 10x better.
Also, since Z's are dying like flies again, I really think queen usage will be common soon enough.
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queens are goon for ensare, and broodlings for tanks ht etc etc, but i think parasite is useless unless u can parasite smth expensive like an archon or a carrier, maybe a tank if early game.
conclusion if u get to parasite smth expensive for ur opponent i guess its ok, but lord work much better cuz "scouting" with parasite units its kinda random, but the positive side of it is that u can scout places u can't scout with lords, but very randomly... in addiction he can always decide to kill his own unit : D plus queens come out with few mana - -" it sucks.
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Calgary25951 Posts
Broodling's range is huge. I don't care to look it up but I'd guess it's at least 10. Okay I lied and looked it up, it's 9. The problem with using Broodling is that you have to plan so far ahead to have 150 energy ready, and it's a huge investment to have enough Queens ready to make a dent. It only takes one Irradiate to kill a Queen, and then you have to rebuild it and let its energy build for 2 minutes again. If, instead of the +50 energy upgrade there was a double mana regeneration upgrade, it would be totally viable.
Ensnare, on the other hand, is underrated as hell and very cheap. I've been playing HydraLurker exclusively on ICC lately, just for the purpose of staying mid game and using Queens. I find, especially against Protoss, they are very easy to use. You just clone two or three to Zealots and Archons standing different areas of the army, and you can essentially get their entire army ensnared before you engage.
I think Broodling is basically useless, Parasite is useful against Protoss and maybe low level Terrans, and Ensnare is very useful against Protoss and Terran.
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On October 03 2007 23:33 Chill wrote: The problem with using Broodling is that you have to plan so far ahead to have 150 energy ready This is the reason why broodlings are almost never used. It takes such a time between the minerals and gas are bein chewed up by your queens until you can actually use them. Requires so much planning, and it also takes away resources which can't be used. It's like queuing units in gateways. It's not wasted money, it's just that it's better to spend it on something else at that moment..
Otherwise, broodling CAN have a crippling effect on an opponent.
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On October 03 2007 23:33 Chill wrote: Broodling's range is huge. I don't care to look it up but I'd guess it's at least 10. Okay I lied and looked it up, it's 9. The problem with using Broodling is that you have to plan so far ahead to have 150 energy ready, and it's a huge investment to have enough Queens ready to make a dent. It only takes one Irradiate to kill a Queen, and then you have to rebuild it and let its energy build for 2 minutes again. If, instead of the +50 energy upgrade there was a double mana regeneration upgrade, it would be totally viable.
Ensnare, on the other hand, is underrated as hell and very cheap. I've been playing HydraLurker exclusively on ICC lately, just for the purpose of staying mid game and using Queens. I find, especially against Protoss, they are very easy to use. You just clone two or three to Zealots and Archons standing different areas of the army, and you can essentially get their entire army ensnared before you engage.
I think Broodling is basically useless, Parasite is useful against Protoss and maybe low level Terrans, and Ensnare is very useful against Protoss and Terran.
I'm thinking that broodling against terran would be pretty useless for the most part. If you have 10 queens, and broodling 10 tanks, you're pretty much going to lose all of your 10 queens unless your enemy is really stupid. Against protoss, I think that it would be a lot more useful, but maybe more micro intensive.
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broodling is just too expensive for what it's worth. like chill said, ennare is best thing the queen has, parasite coming second. ensnaring a mnm group to me is better than brooding 1 tank.
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On October 03 2007 23:33 Chill wrote: It only takes one Irradiate to kill a Queen
I am not a zerg, but was always wandering, why can't zerg afford 1 queen for 1 tank to spawn broodling it (and even die after it). It seems worth it pricewise.. So is this that reason?
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Belgium6754 Posts
Its actually surprising how often you can pull off an infest in various games. Its my latest thing <3
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On October 04 2007 00:47 araav wrote:Show nested quote +On October 03 2007 23:33 Chill wrote: It only takes one Irradiate to kill a Queen I am not a zerg, but was always wandering, why can't zerg afford 1 queen for 1 tank to spawn broodling it (and even die after it). It seems worth it pricewise.. So is this that reason? Because of the time it takes between you spending a lot of money, and until those money become effective.
Let's say you build like 10 queens to kill his 10 tanks. That alone is, what, 1000/1000 plus upgrade which I don't know the price for, but let's say it's 200/200. That's a total of 1200/1200. Not too bad, to cripple a terran army and catch it without tank support. However, it will take one hell of a time to get those 150 energy! That's the problem. What happens if he decides to attack you? BEFORE you got that 150 energy? Then you sit there with 1200/1200 resource that can't be used in battle at all.
If you had however spent those 1200/1200 on ultras you woulda had 6 more ultralisk, to deal with his attack straight away.
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Isn't queen usage so rare because their really hard to micro effectively ? I mean while keeping your macro up and not fucking up with so many units ?
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On October 04 2007 01:30 FirstBorn wrote: Isn't queen usage so rare because their really hard to micro effectively ? I mean while keeping your macro up and not fucking up with so many units ?
If you can use defs, you can use queens ;]
It's just that defs have a much more profound impact on the game. That's not to say that queens aren't worht shit (ensare ftw) but hell, most times, i'd opt for the unit that can stave off an entire terran blob when I'm seriously outgunned than the one that's just gonna slow me down.
People just seem to lack knowledge of when their economy is able to use queens imo.
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Parasite can be a good clutch maneuver to keep track of sci vessels/dropships, but if you start relying on it, the Terran will obviously research restoration.
Queens aren't cheap and don't give the level of benefit that defilers do. For this reason they are often ignored.
A queen/defiler combo would be somewaht ideal for a 4+ gas Zerg in ZvT, but in reality, trying to control all of that at once is very, very hard and will likely result in a sacrifice of multitasking.
For ZvP, I'd only really consider using them against air/reavers. If you can slow that shit down, you can prevent escapes and more easily clone scourges onto his units. Remember, ensnare OES* affect attack speed. This is well researched and a detailed analysis has been posted on *THIS* forum in the past.
For ZvZ they can be highly beneficial... in the LATE game. If you're running around with 9 muts or so, dropping the gas for queen's + ensnare will cost you too badly. You will lose a critical muta fight and it will cost you the game. If it doesn't, then your opponent sucks or you were too far ahead for him to do shit to you anyway. However, LATE game when you've got like 3 groups of mutas, queens can be amazing. Remember, as I said, ensnare affects attack rate as well.
Also, if you DO go hydra in ZvZ (it's ill advised to open with hydras, but sometimes you will make a late game tech switch if the circumstances are right for it), then queens are a MUST.
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United States4471 Posts
1. Broodling seems pretty useless because of the huge amount of time it takes to build up enough energy to use it. The only use I can see for it is in those close very late game situations where both sides only have a few units. I remember watching a lot of reps where a P who was behind in econ ends up winning in late game situations with its casters, and thinking that Z could have won if they had gotten a few queens with broodling. The advantage was usually that casters' abilities can be used over and over again without needing additional resources, and so P usually could wait out a Z who kept trying to break through to take out the last base. Queens would have countered that as broodling, even as slow as it is, can also be used over and over.
2. People have mentioned broodling as a way to take out Templar in ZvP, but I was just pondering the idea of using ensnare to do the same thing. I can often pick off a few templar whenever the P isn't paying attention if I go hydra ZvP early on in the game. I imagine that this might be possible in mid-to-late-game as well if you ensnare most of the P army, run in with a control group of hydra, and then take out 2-3 HTs and run back out. The ensnares would impair both the movement and attack speed of the P army, so you could probably get a decent amt of HTs while only losing a handful of hydras if they don't expect it. This could potentially work for taking out any gas-expensive unit like Archons, DAs, Arbiters, obs, etc.
3. It's really annoying how easily queens are countered by SVs via irradiate. Everytime I've tried to use queens in ZvT, they got irradiated soon after the T realized how much damage they could do to his army.
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Belgium6754 Posts
Didnt chojja use broodling on ht's in that awesome game vs reach on Rush Hour, the one with the maelstrom on the billion devs
Was more for fun since they were teammates battling though, I think
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It is unfortunate that Monty Hall got dropped from the pro circuit. I am not convinced it was unfair to the entire Zerg race, and still feel it only hindered the cookie-cutter defiler-centered Zerg style. I believe maps like that, which frustrate conventional strategies, are the best hope for expanding the repetoire of the pros, and encouraging the use of uncommon units like the queen.
Seeing Silver's heavy air rush gave me a lot of hope. The defiler isn't a great caster to pair with air units, but the queen might do very well if Zerg heavy air is made feasible by the map.
Anyway, to clarify what I was saying before:
Consider using spawn broodling for broodling bombs rather than simply a one-unit kill. Maybe you don't want to target siege tanks. Maybe you want to target the marines providing their air defense. If there are enough sieged tanks together, every marine in the blast radius of the broodlings will evaporate. Without sufficient air cover, tanks are helpless against mutalisks or guardians, and ensnare can further interfere with the response to your coordinated assault.
Ensnare strikes me as especially useful against science vessels, making them less effective and more vulnerable. So much the better if you also splash marines guarding them.
Two unmentioned strengths of the queen: broodling against d-matrixed units (rare application, I know), and ensnare against cloaked units. A queen/mutalisk group can be a very mobile dark templar counter while your overlords are huddling away from the corsairs, and ensnare also hits the mobility-dependent corsairs where it hurts.
I think there's hope for the queen in all match-ups, but I doubt it will become a staple like the defiler.
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IMO, Queens are VERY strong vs a protoss going Reaver/Sair. Parasiting just 1 sair and 1 shuttle has a ridiculous amount of use. Everytime they move you're seeing exactly where they are going, and in turn their strategy is even harder to pull off. Plus ensnaring their sairs gives your hydra a lot of extra time to get some more shots in.
Broodling vs temps is pretty good, but its just a pain in the ass waiting for 150. I have seen a couple of semi pro reps where a Z make 3 or 4 queens, constantly broodlinging the toss's high temps, but it seems like a lot of extra work. They're probably worth it though, and sooner or later I bet we'll see them appearing more frequently in pro level zvp.
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United States20661 Posts
On October 04 2007 03:30 Xeofreestyler wrote: Didnt chojja use broodling on ht's in that awesome game vs reach on Rush Hour, the one with the maelstrom on the billion devs
Was more for fun since they were teammates battling though, I think
That game had every unit except infested
yes, including broodling.
I digress. I do think queens are somewhat underused. I think it was SiLveR [yes, that one] who tried to use queens in many of his ZvTs [attack CCs to <750 HP, infest] to varying degrees of success at the semipro/low pro level.
Of course, his ZvT is not held in the highest regard at the highest levels of the Korean pro circuit. However, it does not mean queens are infeasible at other levels. And even though SiLveR no longer tries to pull it off, other pros are utilizing queens.
a) GoRush vs sAviOr. This is an expansion of the infest idea, specially tuned to Desperado. Essentially does 750 damage for 100/100, and you even sometimes can keep the queen. Also if you're going fast hive, you'll make the nest anyways.
b) sAviOr vs NaDa, YellOw vs BoxeR. Being parts of series, these two games [first on RT, second on NJS] exemplify both the CC-killing aspect as well as the mental aspect. The simple fact that your CC was infested is a rather in-your-face insult.
c) Oversky vs go.go. Pure humiliation. Build 8+ queens and do absolutely zero with them except fly around and show off queen numbers. They didn't cast a single spell the whole game. They just flew around and got shot at. It's sort of like Jju's "consume ovie with 2 lurkers inside" in ZvT against ToSsGirL.
d) GoRush vs Terran, 1/3 of time. For actual infested Terrans. He's probably the only Z to use infested Terrans with any consistency. They're good for worker harass, if nothing else.
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