Fixation: ZvT - why ball isn't fun anymore

Discussion in 'StarCraft 2 Strategy Discussion' started by quickvic, May 27, 2011.

Fixation: ZvT - why ball isn't fun anymore

  1. quickvic

    quickvic New Member

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    TvZ is unbalanced against T. Let me share you my thoughts on this.

    Part I

    Argument:
    - Terran cannot match the Zerg in expansion.
    *fact: hatch = 300, cc = 400
    *fact: queen = 150, cc->oc = 150. You can build as many queens as you want to inject larva, but you can apply only one upgrade to your cc.
    *fact: Queen can defend your base/expansions (and it'a a fair good anti-air), inject larva AND transfuse. And ALL spells are available without research.
    *fact: OC can scan(worthless in the early game) and MULE, but you need to spare a few units or somehow block access to mining area do defend a base/expansion.

    Argument:
    - zerg owns terran in scouting/map control
    *fact: the cheapest unit of the game is the fastest unit of the game. You name it.
    *fact: creep tumors are way too cheap for the benefit they bring. For the cost of a larva(25 energy) you got an area that prevents building on and multiply the swarm speed with dazzling amounts. Scan if worthy only if you can get two of these with one sweep and you take a high risk to get your units swarmed since you have to step on the creep.
    *fact: Overseer speed = 2.75(with upgrade), raven speed = 2.25. Viking(fastest AA terran unit) speed = 2.75. Coruptor speed = 2.9531. Mutalisk speed = 3.75 (!!!). Who will scout faster?

    Argument:
    - air superiority units for terran: dream on.
    NOTE: IMHO, terran AA it's a JOKE. What, shoud I run arround the map with thors to chase the mutas?

    Let's review the air units speed:
    *Terran air:
    Viking = 2.75
    Banshee = 2.75
    Raven = 2.25
    Medivac = 2.5 (they can't even keep up with stimed MM!!!)
    Battlecruiser = "Take it sluuw!"
    *Zerg AA units:
    Coruptor = 2.9531
    Mutalisk = 3.75 . Do you think I should send some flying helions after those?
    Queen = 0.9375x2.7(creep multiplier) = 2.53125. Slightly faster than a medivac, almost beats a banshee in 1v1. And I see no reason to get a queen off the creep.
    Hydra = 2.25x1.5(creep multiplier) = 3.375. They must be high-pressure farting or something.
    Infestor = 2.25x1.3 = 2.95. In translation: "If you dare to get your air near my creep at any time, I'll give you 'the mushroom' until my brethren comes here to enjoy your lazy a$$."

    Now on the other side:
    *Zerg air:
    Coruptor = 2.9531
    Mutalisk = 3.75
    Overseer = 2.75(upgrade)
    Overlord = 1.8749(upgrade). If you think this is slow, perhaps you should compare it with the speed of a supply depot...
    Broodlord = 1.4062
    *Terran AA units:
    Marines = 2.25x1.5(stim'ed) = 3.375. Clearly the cheapest response to a base raid from the air, if you're lucky to have your ball nearby when that comes...
    Viking = 2.75. And the Coruptors give'em the anal probe. Heck, even the mutas take a joy if they come in groups. Another nail in the coffin? Mutas build time = 33, viking b.t.= 42
    Battlecruiser = OH, the big a$$ battle ship. I can hear the coruptors screaming: "YEAH baby, shake that MASSIVE butt!" while the Infestors: "Hey Babycruiser, ya like me long neural parasite? Yo, give me some hammerhead, me know ya want to."
    Reaper = 3.8398. Nice, but +50 gas? No stim? Can't take two of them at a barrack? Build time = 45??? The freaking muta takes 33 to build and the only unit that really can chase them takes 45 seconds to build. Marines. Kudos to EonMaster: Reapers don't touch air. Guess that shows how this unit it's just an early scout/harass, with little to no use later in game. Never used them for other purposes, guess that's why I missed that fact. But... one can dream that one day those jumpin'jacks will be able to snipe an overlord or two.
    Ghost = 2.25. "Oh, snipe. Hey Overseer, would you just stand still, I'm trying to take a shot here."
    Thor = 1.875. "Yes, that is the alleged AA of terran", would someone say. Unfortunately, the only thing they can chase are Broodlord. And guess what: Thor gets bonus damage against ... light. So, yeah, nice anti-muta unit. If only those pesky zerg players wouldn't neuroparasite it when I really need it...
    Raven = 2.25. I believe this is the weapon of choice against zerg. I'm not sure why is so underused by terran especially in frontal attacks. It is a formidable support unit and I belive that a PDD + Vikings + Banshees combo would really give headaches to the zerg. Never saw that one, maybe someone is willing to try... Build time = 60??? Like, wtf is it a building or something? It should be at the same level with the Infestor at 50 b.t. in my opinion. Otherwise nobody will keep 200 gas locked for 60 seconds when roaches knock at your door and you badly need tanks/marauders to hold them off.

    I don't take my ideas as ultimate truths. I just tried to argument my vision on this match-up and my version is one-sided, since I favor Terrans as race. Please share your opinion and hopefully we may all learn from this thread. There is also a "Part II" of this, but I guess it should be enough from today.
    The reference for the numbers above is here: http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_StarCraft_II_units
    Please apologize me and correct me if any of those values are not valid at the time I posted this article.

    Thank you.
     
    Last edited: May 30, 2011
  2. Stirlitz

    Stirlitz Member

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    This has been analyzed quite a few times already, just use the search option. Comparing races one-by-one and not as a whole is completely invalid and has no actual worth. But atm I'm terribly busy and won't bother write another essay on why it's so, sorry, use the search option for zerg imbalance and stuff like that and you'll find many similar things...
     
  3. EonMaster

    EonMaster Eeveelution Master

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    Should add turrets. A few of those will stop muta harass cold unless they are dedicated to just massing mutas. Also, mutas aren't cost effective in battle.

    I can tell you don't use reapers, I play zerg and even I know reapers can't hit air.

    Viking counters zerg air except for mutas. Viking is cheaper and more massable than corrupter/broodlord and can attack ground without having to pay extra resources.

    As for the BC, use yamato. You complain about zerg abilities, and then dont even mention your own abilities. Yamato outranges NP and infestors are easy to target fire.

    Thor doesnt need to be fast. 1-2 attacks will greatly weaken the muta ball, making them too weak to be worth risking a harassment attack.

    Also, if they are massing zerg air, they aren't going to be getting enough roaches to be a huge problem like the one you mention in your raven argument.

    OP is just complaining about being outplayed by zerg.
     
    Last edited: May 28, 2011
  4. MeisterX

    MeisterX Hyperion

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    Actually he's got this one pretty much on the head of the nail. Mutas are cost effective just not against stim packed marines and as upgrades start to go up they get less and less effective.

    I posted about it in another thread if someone cares to find it :)
     
  5. Stirlitz

    Stirlitz Member

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    No, mutas are deffinitely not cost-effective against marines. Even only matching the mineral cost, unstimmed marines will beat mutas in a fight. Mutas cost more than 4 times the cost of a marine(assuming that 1 unit of gast is equivelent to 1.25 units of minerals - actually it's a little bit more, but in mining time this is the equivelency since a worker gets 5 minerals per trip and 4 gas per trip respectively).

    A flock of mutas attacking a group of marines 2 times their number(which means both groups will have the same mineral and supply cost but the mutas will have a huge gas cost too) will lose to the marines even unstimmed. The fact that 20 mutas can kill 5-10 marines without really taking a real loss other than hp doesn't make them cost-effective against them because that's strength of numbers not unit strength we're talking there.

    Immortals are a counter to marauders, meaning that they are very cost-effective against them{10 immortals can easily beat 25 marauders which cost more minerals more gas and more supply than the immortals} but if you have 30 marauders and attack a single immortal it won't get a single shot off thus you do more damage than you take, that's not cost efficiency, that's strength of numbers.

    Now, on the marine/muta case again, microing mutas to bait a stim off the marines, grab them away and exploit the lack of medvacs and the hp regen of mutas to do some dmg, kill a marine or two and withdraw while causeing a stim consists of a combination of micro and strength of numbers{since exploiting a ledge to move in and out of range of the marines just to land a shot and perhaps force a wasted stim will do damage to the first row of marines while the last row won't get to get a shot off plus apply the stim damage - but again, that's good micro not cost-efficiency}

    In the same way, you will engage a thor with magic-boxed mutas if you got like 20 of them and take no casualties, but that doesn't mean that mutas are cost-efficient against thors, it's just exploiting strength of numbers.
     
  6. quickvic

    quickvic New Member

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    No, it is not the usefulness as counters of some units against another that I wanted to highlight in this thread. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear enough about this.

    If you look at my post, you should have seen that I don't brag that much about cost-effectiveness or how strong it's a specific unit. My first concern in a tvz match-up is speed. Speed of the units, speed of the unit build, speed of the structure build. This is what I wanted to show in the previous review, this is what I believe.
    In my opinion, a unit is useful in the measure you can get it where you want it to be, when you want it to be and I think the zerg have a way to easy time with it, especially in the mid-late game.

    Besides, look at the way the terran is forced to build an army: the only units that can be build out of a "reactor" building are marines, helions, vikings and medivac.
    That's against an enemy that can switch the army composition in a flip of a coin. I don't see a reason to mass vikings against zerg, but if you think this is feasible, please show me how to do it. I personally love banshees but the amount of starport+techlabs required to have a useful mass of them before the zerg can figure out and spawn coruptors make them unlikely to happen lately in game. Helions, besides the way that they really kick arse if they reach the mineral line, they can't be use lately. By them selves, they are too weak and with the MM ball they can't be used effectively since their speed bring them behind the ball while "gun&run" micro occurs and they cannot hit much of a meat over the ball.
    This makes the marines + medivac the speediest thing the terran can bring in the field to hit on the zerg's fast spawned army. Marauders are the variance of choice in the MMM ball, they have stim, they have concussion, they are armored. You can't have an army of marauders only, since it takes to long to replenish your offensive and then they are so great when mixed with marines. Too bad to the other terran units.

    What I see here, as a fair option(not the only, though) in the mid-game for a terran, it's a strong ball of MMM. Which usually lock the potential of the Starport of making other units. You can't afford to build bashee/raven/BCs because, after a mid-map battle, when both sides lost armies, it takes four coruptors to snipe your medivacs since they are too slow to escape to the safety of a turret or a thor. And you really need to replenish that.

    That leaves the Factory as the other option to have new and powerful units next to your marines. That brings tanks and thors to the composition. The only issue is these units although fearsome by damage, greatly slow your movement on the ground. Tanks are better used in siege mode and mostly in choke points and thors takes forever to get them from your base to the enemy's doors.
    And that happens in a competition not only to secure expansions, but to prevent the zerg to spread the creep like crazy all over.

    Zerg is fast. Zerg is so fast, they shaft you and disappear before you can say "creep". You can't keep up with them by air and they just dance around you on creep. And they have hatcheries+queens from where they can spawn as many units as their larva production, of any type. They don't have to switch between buildings, maybe just for upgrades. Now if you have to micro-move, split and cast spells at the same time AND replenish your forces AND macro at the same, having to switch between all your buildings become such a heavy task that your chance to mis click the production of a tank/thor or the movement of your marines into the death wave of blings increases. Big time.

    What is the relevance of the MULES if you can't replenish your army in the field fast enough with the units of YOUR choice and not the enemies choice? Do terrans have another choice than to head on to the zerg's base to hit either the production or the tech builds? What is the fastest army composition to have you want to bounce it between zerg's front door and your critical expansion? What are the chance of a terran to take choke points with tanks near a zerg base to contain it?
    Since the terran have to initiate the attack, it is almost always the zerg choice to chose the place the battle will take place.

    It's either harass or take the zerg third base out without losing your natural. And that's only early to mid game. No come-back if you missed that opportunity. I don't think terran is a weak race. I just want the zerg to sweat more for their victory. Terrans do.
     
  7. Stirlitz

    Stirlitz Member

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    Ok, this was much more clear than the first post, sorry for the misunderstanding...

    I'm pretty much inclined to agree cause all of this sounds really reasonable to me, my only concern is that I've seen the TvZ win ratios and Z have never reached 50% in this matchup(http://i.imgur.com/eJge4.png) - dunno how accurate they are, and playing P my TvZ experience is non-existant as a player and limited as a spectator of vods, so I can't say much.

    What I can say is that Z is not as easy as it sounds because it has to balance one more resource(larva) - which is a big deal - and has to be careful where to engage, how to engage and when to make army and when to drone up...

    Asside from that, what I see happen most of the time is that what you said(the fact that zerg can choose to make an army of any kind of composition any time they due to the shared production) zerg players don't take advantage of.

    It's not once or twice that i've seen top zerg players replenish their armies and for some reason only make one kind of unit, like roaches. Where instead of 40 roaches they could have made 25 roaches, 10 hydras and 5 infestors and have a much stronger army composition - and I'm talking when they're replenishing maxed armies and have the money to choose their composition.

    On the other hand, I don't think that every race should have the same strengths and weaknesses. I'm fine with one race being slower, but having very strong fortified positions while another being more mobile and being able to poke here and there, but be weaker at direct asssaults, or having different kinds of production and a different ability to jungle that production.

    I think that there are things that are extremely strong with every race, that players know they are but still are not using them.
    For example, bringing a warp prism with your main army is always a good idea, and come to think of it it's just the cost of 2 zealots, but you won't need to bring a probe in and build pylons to reinforce, just keep the prism right behind your army, deploy a matrix and warp in units right in the heat of battle. this is extremely strong since you get to reinforce as if you got the defender's advantage(your units arrive instantly and don't have to walk in) and I rarely see pros use this strategy.
    Zerg has the ability to make any kind of army comp any time they got money yet still they keep spamming the same units over and over, and lack variation/efficiency, while terran don't use their ravens/ghosts enough even though they are awesome in any matchup, and I've almost never seen terran switch tech in the late game by swapping addons here and there to change their army composition after an army trade...

    I think things like these will start changing in the future. Somebody will start an innovation here or there with one race or another and the rest will have to keep up, but I don't think that currently there are many serious balance issues that are core problems of a race and not of the way people play the race currently...

    There are some issues that annoy me a little, but I think that the way the races are played(especially with the way the vods work - we see how pros do it and even if subconsiously try to mimic some of this and don't pick our own styles or experiment enough) is the top issue of balance at this stage...

    I could be wrong though, I remember Idra voicing some valid concerns about the core mechanics of Zerg in scouting, but I've not really much of an own opinion on that...
     
  8. quickvic

    quickvic New Member

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    Neither of the races are easy to play, that's for sure. I'm just bitter that terrans have to chose between barracks builds and "cheese/all in" builds like fast b-rush, banshee, thor drop, etc. Mech builds take so much time and cost so much gas(wich, by the way is not MULED, so you hunger for expansions) that makes you roll your eyes when you look at the numbers. I give you an example (yes, I know, I'm addicted to numbers... do be too harsh on me, please):

    What a terran do to build 4 Vikings concomitantly:
    2Starports+2Reactors
    2x(150//100 + 50//50) = 400 // 300 (min // gas)

    What a zerg need to build 4 mutalisk concomitantly:
    (1Hatch-to-Lair)+1Spire+Queen(inject)
    150//100 + 200//150 + 150//0 = 500 // 250 (min // gas)

    Pretty balanced, you would say.
    What if I need to switch to banshees?
    Well, that's 2 more Starports + 4 techLabs... I guess you know math.

    If the zerg want to switch to coruptors? Maybe I'm missing something, but all I can see is they just have to press a different short-key.

    This is just one example and I took only the resource costs in consideration. If you look at unit build time it will be obvious why terran cannot keep up the Mech production at the same level with the zerg reinforcements in the field. Most of the time they have to commit to a specific build and if that don't work, pack your bags and go swarm. It's crazy to switch mech and keep your positions in on the map because terran can't afford to lose eye contact to the front line while the zerg army is nearby. You want some more vikings to cope with 5-6 coruptors+a couple of broodlords that you just saw at the last scan swipe? Cancel your ravens, lift up the Starports from your techLabs and switch'em with the Barracks on the reactors. Don't forget to micro those marines, can't you see the ling-bling wants them toasted? C'mon, do it faster, I know you can...

    I thought the zerg should be the mobile one, protoss the tough one and terran the versatile one. But I don't see much versatility comming from that mountin. Not "any time" soon.

    As I said, I don't think terran is weak. It just cost to much to try something else when you commited to a specific build. If the zerg will get a boost on scouting early, it will be a mess.
     
    Last edited: May 30, 2011
  9. Stirlitz

    Stirlitz Member

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    You are missing a very core mechanic of the zerg there though and that's larva... If larva was unlimited then yeah, you'd be 100% right, but consider this:

    When the zerg needs an overlord it takes a larva to make, that larva could have been a worker or an attack unit. If the zerg wants to build a tech or defensive structure, they will sacrifice a drone for that, not just borrow it till the building is complete(like Terran) or have it take a stroll for a few seconds(like Protoss).
    When a zerg loses a drone they also lose another offensive unit to replace that drone, when the zerg loses an overlord it's the same again. You have a limited amount of larva to work with and it must be spread to Buildings(replenishing the lost drone), workers, supply and army.

    As a terran or protoss, you can lose 15 workers to a harass and then still be able to keep making workers and keep making units if you have the money, as zerg replenishing workers might be faster, but it comes at the cost of other units...

    That is something that both terran and protoss should take advantage of when fighting zerg, killing an overlord or two lings will also mean that one less drone will be created because of the larva it will take for the zerg to replenish that unit.
     
  10. quickvic

    quickvic New Member

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    Yes, you need to spawn larva to keep up your troops, no such great power comes without a trade. But keep in mind, 25 energy = 4 larvae after 40 seconds, plus a hatchery spawn it's own larva at 15 seconds interval (only when larva count per hatch is < 3). But you can use all the larva on a hatch to spawn units, and inject larva right after.

    This is what will happen after 40 seconds:
    The 2 injections will deliver 8 larvae; the hatchery is "larvaless" which will trigger it's own production of larva. That will be 2 more larva (each at 15 seconds) until the injections will get the larva amount above 3. That will sum up to 10 larva in 40 seconds at a cost of 50 energy, while the ex-larva(now eggs) are morphing into units.
    If you have just 2 queens, it will take under 50 seconds for each of them to inject again. Which means that shortly after you have 10 larva, you are able to place 2 more injections. This will virtually gives you 10 lines of unit production after each 40-50 seconds. which matches greatly with the production of 2nd tire zerg units that have build times around 40 seconds.

    That means you need 1 hatch/lair/hive and 2 queens (and good larva macro) to have 10 lines of production, so you're basically limited ONLY by your resource gathering rate.

    Can you tell me how many buildings(including CCs/OCs) a terran needs to keep a steady 10 line unit production? I took the liberty to make some calculations:
    1 OC will give you about 2.5 SCV (17 seconds build time) and a half of MULE (100 seconds for 50 energy) in 50 seconds. A half of a MULE = 1/2 * 3SCV = 1.5SCV . That would be the equivalent of 4 SCV in 50 seconds.
    1 Rax+reactor will give you 4 Marines(25 sec)
    1Starport+reactor will give you 2 medivacs(42 sec)

    So, 4 SCV + 4 rines + 2 vax = 10 units. That's 50 seconds. Again, how many buildings do I need? Now I dare you to make the calculations for those units that can't be produced from a reactor. Oh, shoe, I didn't count the fact that the MULE signs off after 90 seconds...

    My point is, yes, it is balanced until the mid-game. But when both armies grow sizes, the terran can afford less and less to have an eye-for-eye battle due to the the huge infra-structure he needs to keep up with reinforcements. The irony is, he is forced to get up and fight or get out-macro-ed.
     
    Last edited: May 31, 2011
  11. Nick1Nintendo

    Nick1Nintendo New Member

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    I'll be honest...I've NEVER seen anybody say that TvZ is unbalanced. At least, not unbalanced in favor of Z.

    Your logic about the Zerg having a good production cycle is sound, but I don't think you understand how incredibly difficult it is to maintain that production cycle. I'm a Diamond Zerg player (Masters in some categories), and my injections ALWAYS slip up later in the game, especially versus Terran where Muta harass is neccessary and requires a great deal of attention. The process of maintaining a Zerg base seems simple enough in paper, but it's easily 50% more difficult than Protoss/Terran upkeep, in my opinion. You have so much to keep track of that flawlessly maintaining your macro is impossible outside of the Grandmaster league.

    Well...of course you'll get out-macroed. That's how it's supposed to work. You can NOT just let Zerg sit back and macro up into mid/late game, because then they become unstoppable. You have to keep your economy on equal terms or pressure them into building army units instead of droning nonstop. That's how it's always worked. It's a core game concept.
     
  12. quickvic

    quickvic New Member

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    Why would you think the other races have such an easy live with the upkeep?

    It might be easier to spawn MULES and to group buildings-issue units, but to change/tune the army composition it's quite a challenge. You have to balance between the number of production buildings and the reactor-techLab switches and the transition to mid-game it's quite hairy since you need troops to harass, but you also need upgrades and you also need powerful units to control the land.

    Drones might be sacrificed for buildings, but SCVs don't mine either while they are building and terran needs at least twice more buildings than zerg (count in the supply depots).

    More buildings means less units(less money) in the time interval they are build and shortly after.

    Upgrades require a decision between giving up a line of production by switching OR to make another building for the techLab.

    There is a time window where a clever zerg can easy throw a terran off the balance and it's a little a terran can do about it. I may say I'm surprised that only a few zerg use this advantage against terrans.

    On a note about mutalisks: they are great for base raids if the terran don't have thors/turrets. But in my opinion, they show little value for constant harass with regard to their potential to scramble the terran's macro. You have to show mutas in the sky and make the terran build turrets that you don't really have to engage. They are simply great for sniping the medivacs sent to harass your expos.

    So if you have mutalisk and the terran knows it, they mostly will:
    - Spend money on turrets. Use SCVs from the mineral line to do it.
    - Really take into consideration to build Thors. Which are a lot of money and will reduce the tank amount in the composition by 2 tanks per thor. A lot less splash damage to your ground force.
    - Reconsider the medivacs + marines drops. Those are crucial to keep the terran on your level with the gathering. If you block those, they will have to engage your expos on the ground and, most of the time, on the creep.
    You've just dictated how your opponent should act. Now you just have to build the counters.
     
  13. Nick1Nintendo

    Nick1Nintendo New Member

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    I didn't say easy, I said easier. I started out playing Terran, and now, as a full-time Zerg player, I can assure you the macro is more difficult. Terran may have a few rough spots (such as the transition to mid-game that you mentioned), but Zerg has things that you HAVE to do consistently throughout the game to win. All of the races have to keep on top of their unit production. However, the unit production for Zerg is more complex because you have to constantly spawn larvae, then decide whether to use that larvae for overlords, drones, or army, and spread creep so that your army can be effective.

     
    Last edited: Jun 3, 2011
  14. Takaim

    Takaim Member

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    I don't have any crazy paragraphs to write based on facts and personal beliefs. I'm gonna troll this however. I hate zerg. :D IMO corruptors are way overpowered vs air and infestors are way overpowered in large groups vs everything.
     
  15. Stirlitz

    Stirlitz Member

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    No, Thors are just not as sick as they are against non-magic boxing mutalisks, but they remain cost-efficient even without magic box. Send in a few SCVs to repair and you can hold off an army...
     
  16. Nick1Nintendo

    Nick1Nintendo New Member

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    Even more reason that Z isn't OP vs T ^_^
     
  17. Stirlitz

    Stirlitz Member

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  18. quickvic

    quickvic New Member

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    Really, guys, let's not turn this discussion into another unit cost-efficiency and unit counter rant. EVERY unit has a counter in a head-to-head battle. It's just the other ways of using them will turn the tides of the game. I believe this is a irrelevant discussion if you do not take the unit usage, positioning and mobility into consideration. Attack and head-to-head micro are not the only attributes of a unit.

    If this it's about words, I didn't say "easy" as well. I said "such an easy live" compared to the zerg upkeep. A terran or protoss having to do ONLY a HALF of zerg's work to keep it up I think it's exaggerated.

    That's the transition to mid-game, usually marked by the terran starting to place/saturate his first expansion, as I mention previously.

    Can you show me how can I attack a base AND outrun the mutas at the same time with Reapers and Hellions?

    As I said, you've dictated the army composition of your enemy. Say the terran build 2 thors to handle your 6 mutalisks, that's 4 less tanks to handle with your ling/bling/infestor army. Matching the mutalisks in head-to-head battle is not relevant, since zerg will only engage ground forces with mutalisks ONLY in overwhelming numbers or desperate situations.

    I agree (as I did two of my posts ago) that larva macro takes it's tool in complexity of the zerg keep.
    But. Don't terrans have to decide between MULE and sweep scan? How much does it cost to have a +1 MULE every 100 seconds? I can tell you the price: CC+OC upgrade = 550 minerals. How much does it cost to have +8 larva every 100 seconds? I can tell you that too: 1 Queen = 150 minerals. Yeah, the max larva per hatch is 19, but damn that terran that let you stack larva like that...
    So you have lots of larva and it puzzles you what you should morph out of them? Guess the terrans are spawning marines, medivacs and tanks anyway, so they don't have to think too much what they really need in terms of army composition, right?

    There is more to it that it meets the eye. Zerg will build more drones due to the 15 seconds larva spawn on hatch. And it starts the game with 3 larva available. SCVs builds in 17 seconds. The problem is ANY delay in building an SCV due to harass, mis click, supply block or temporary lack of minerals propagates in the CC line of production, since it is sequential. If you stall in the drone production for any reason, you may get 2 or 3 of them morphing in parallel as soon as you get the resources. I don't have that option, even if I got the resources. By the time a terran will have the OC, zerg is already ahead in drones and mineral counting. The MULE will try to catch up, but it's the queen(s) that turns the balance in zerg's favor.
    The fact that the SCV is temporary gone counts in the amount of minerals he should be gathering being lost and the suply count that he keeps locked. A barrack takes 60 seconds to build and a supply takes 30 seconds. If I give 6 seconds per trip(tell me if is reasonable or not, I'm not sure) I'll have 50 minerals NOT gathered for each rax I make. And 25 for each supply I make. Your pool cost it's fully compensated after my first rax + 2 supplies. What about after?

    You're working on a unrealistic scenario. Which mentally sane zerg will hit on the terran's production buildings, when the expansions are more at hand to bash on? Hit one and drop their gathering by 50%. Or 33% if he's a good terran and manage to get his third and saturate it. The third is 90% a PF, since it's so hard to defend, which is less MULE and more static defence, which is money that will never attack you.
    You don't even have to drop his CC/OC/PF. If you destroy the mineral line you set back the terran so hard because his SCV live of production is sequential, so it will take forever to re-saturate his base. If you have 4 bases(not uncommon for zerg) and the terran drops one, you will lose 25% of income. If the terran has 2 bases (not uncommon for terran) and you drop half SCVs on one base, that's again 25% income lost. Taking a hit on zerg tech buildings it means that you get deep into his territory and that's possible if you win several battles with his army first. I have yet to see a efficient terran sneak attack to zerg tech building after mid-game, but my guess it's way too hard and risky to pull off and not set you back.

    Again, I think it is not relevant, since a zerg will not engage the turret just to prove the efficiency of it against mutas.

    However, showing muta will make terran build at least two of them per each base. Say, he has 2 bases, that's 300 minerals in static defense to have a minimum coverage of his gathering lines. Those money will never be used against your buildings. And the fact that I have my bases defended, it doesn't mean your mutas are useless now.

    Errr... should I take your word for it? I mean, I guess you're saying that is true IF the army size, composition and upgrades are at the same level and IF the map does not favor one race or another and IF they are about the same in the unit production rate... It's a long way and lots of "IFs" to get there, so this statement it's highly debatable.

    First, you talking about creep in general, while I specified a context and that was attacking your expos and the fact that

    you've already cut the air retreat. That involve loss of the element of surprise, slightly less time to reach the expo since I have to funnel through the ramp and cut of retreat by the fast reply of the zerg due it's mobility, which it will mostly result in losing all of the attach force on that location unless I bring a sizable amount of army above the ramp, leaving other areas of the map exposed.

    Now about creep in general. You would have got credit for that if it you couldn't spread creep on half of the map almost unchallenged until I have enough tanks to control the center of the map. I mean, let's compare scan sweep with your tumor ability:
    Scan:
    Pros
    - gives you instant vision anywhere on the map
    - gives you instant detection anywhere on the map
    - can't be blocked
    Cons
    - it is temporary and for a very short time.
    - require 100 seconds to recharge per OC
    - it comes with the cost of a so precious MULE (50 energy)
    - if you want to use it consistently, you need a minimum of 3-4 OC which is a lot of money [3..4] * 550 minerals

    Tumor:
    Pros
    - it is permanent
    - it's burrowed
    - gives you permanent vision of a location
    - allows your defensive buildings to root nearby and be used offensively
    - greatly increase the speed of your units by spreading creep
    - the cost of the caster(queen) is 1/3 from the cost of a OC
    Cons
    - require 50 seconds to recharge per queen
    - it comes with the cost of 4 larva(one injection) (25 energy)
    - if you want to use it consistently you need 3-4 queens which are are 450 - 600 minerals in total.

    My question does having temporary detection every 100 seconds beats acquiring permanent vision and speed boost on a location on the map every 50 seconds?
     
  19. quickvic

    quickvic New Member

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  20. Stirlitz

    Stirlitz Member

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