Pumping Zerg casters

How would you do to pump the known Zerg casters? And by pumping, I mean increasing the effectiveness of their roles.

My complaints:

Defiler: usually gets hammered by Siege-tanks when trying to get near the enemy Terran to use Plague. Dark Swarm doesn't work with them (STs). Being ground units, and low HP ones, it's hard to use them.

Queen: ensnare doesn't mesh well with many strategies I can recall. Being an air-unit, she's got a decent mobility, but is left target able by anti-air attacks (the strongest ones). There aren't so many units worth dieing by SB, an ability that you would scarcely use. And infesting a CC is too hard to do compared to it's advantages.

Bright-side:

Queen: Banelings and closer overall speed among units might just make Ensnare more useful. Die-hard units such as Immortal could make SB a worthy ability (if only zergs didn't have so many fast hitters to take care of them already). And parasiting has become way more important now that detection has been nerfed.

Defiler: I see none so far. So many AoEs would make DS worthless. Protoss can use: Psy-storm, DT, Archon, Colossus, Planet Cracker, or plain old Zealots. Terrans can use Siege-tanks, Banshees, Thors and Plasma Rays. And plague would still count on that problem above mentioned: long-range instant kill.

Ideas to get started:

Well, Zergs have some sort of connection with the Void, as cerebrates had to be killed by Dark templars in order to stay dead. And now Kerrigan has added Psy-storm to her arsenal, enhancing her Psy-powers when converting to zerg. This opens new possibilities lore-wise. A creature with developed neurons could use shocks and electromagnetic skills, not all goos and gas. Or even camouflage, like Kerrigan herself used.

And strategically, I though of supressing some skills and merging Queen and Defiler into one. I wouldn't know what would come out, but Plague could have a new way of being used rather than slowly crawling towards the enemy. Giving it to the Queen could be too OP.

Well, this topic is for ideas to come, not to post ready ones. Let me just say that I expect not new unit ideas, but ways to change these old roles into new ones. Zergs need casters, how do you think they could/should be implemented, taking into account the game interface we've seen so far for other races?

 

I thought when attacking such a fortified base a diversion would be required for the defiler to sneak it. It's not practical to go against a pro or strategist and then assume he would not go for defilers first.

 

there's a way to make parasite useful, it might even make it OP. the main reason parasite wasn't that useful in sc1 is that the green wire frame and "parasite detected" warning made it too easy to spot. if parasite is "cloaked" and doesn't show up unless there's a detector nearby, then it would be much more useful.

 

Edited out quotes. Quoting a post directly above yours in its entirety is against forum rules. Please read the forum rules and refrain from quoting unnecessarily.

The parasite ability in SC1 was quite good because you could do things like parasite a worker which would not be picked up for a while even with the warning. I really like the idea of parasites only showing up with a cloak detector. Your forces in the field could be parasited and you wouldn't know until you returned to base (barring comsat sweep).

 

How about the mechanics being different for each race. Zerg have so many overlords, they would know. But Terran can only detect it with nomads and Protoss will see it as long as the unit is not alone.

Basically, biased towards Terran.

 

what i didnt understand was why you couldnt broodling probes, i thought probes were mechnical units

 

I swear you just noobified yourself, terranupmyheart

Broodlings required an organic mass, that contained minerals to incubate and hatch from it. Eggs don't hatch in machines because it's too hard to extract minerals from metal than from organic. Siege tanks had pilots, but not probes.

 

they are 100% mechanical, that's why you couldn't cast spawn broodling on them

 

Anyways, I see Plague as a terror for the Protoss, as they are the ones who can't heal, and rely a lot on cloak for defense. So what happens is that Zerg groups get trapped too faraway by scarabs, and blow up. Defilers don't get the chance of getting close to the Protoss defensive-cloaked-barrier, thanks to Reavers.

Plague is meant to be used on structures (high HP, and Terran ones usually burn down if not fixed quickly), which are usually kept inside bases and heavily guarded. Perhaps it's just my lacking of practice in this sense, but my diversions usually don't stop the Defiler from being killed. The Protoss enemy I play with mostly uses Psy-storm and Reavers for anti-zerg defense, and... well... I really haven't though of a good way to deal with Reavers and Psy-storm for the Zerg, or against a good set-up base defense. They kill me before I get there, and Plague doesn't help: it doesn't even get to be used, which I blame on the Defiler as a unit and not the skill.

The answer I though of was massing several groups of Mutas and raid his base from the side, in an attempt to kill his Nexus and Probes in one. But Psy-storm kills the Mutas' groups, which are also in range of tons of Photon Cannons when getting there. Photon Cannons don't suffer from Psy-storm and Probes eventually killed are a lesser economic damage compared to my Mutas. He holds around 4 HTs and tons of Photon cannons as base defense, and a static Reaver/Carrier/Arbiter defense on the front. The Photon cannons kill Scourges that come nearby. His counterattack comes with his Carriers as soon as I spend a lot of units trying to hurt him. Nearly perfect strategy for the Protoss vs. Zerg (with his micro and game-feeling, at least). I'm not telling the most details of this, or instead of a post this would be a book!

I wanted the Plague to have a way to be used without sacrificing the Defiler. It takes a lot of energy, and getting it back by eating Zerglings is far too complicated (read: boring). It's become the only Zerg unit that's hard to replace.

 

Use guardians to draw his units out. If he does not want to send his carriers and arbies in smash down his cannons until he does so. Then plague them.

(I've never played online before sadly. And my early game sucks so don't ask me whether I have done this before)

When he attacks you could scourge his shuttles (be wary of hallucinations) and target only his high templar. That's how one guy won in tournament. He smash down the high templar and retreated. Did it until he had so many units he just overwhelmed the protoss warriors.

 

A few scouts can take care of the guardians. And Guardians can't hit invisible ground units, protected by arbiters. Scourges pursuit Scouts to Cannon field and cannons kill them. These are some of the details I left aside. I guess if I had a Nydus worm I could take care of the set-up base, by appearing inside the cannons with tons of Ultras to hunt down the HTs.

Anyways, if you sacrifice Overlords you can distract the cannons and nullify them. This is an extreme tactic he advised me to use, since I had economical advantage (he was trapped inside his base and I had the rest of the map to harvest minerals), and Overlords don't take control to be made. Thus, innumerous Overlords can be done and thrown into enemy fire. However, that's one heck difficult tactics to pull, and only someone with a marvelous microing skill could do it with a good timing. If that was the answer, then PvZ really was much harder for the Zerg than the Protoss. I never really managed to beat him. His Protoss tactics were much more feasible than the Zerg tactics he suggested as counter. I also never though a good alternative to this.

 

Overling, I think you're over thinking the problem.

Your strategy in general is correct. You have taken control of the map, so use it to your advantage. You should have as many expansions as possible within the map and overwhelm your opponent with sheer numbers because of the amount of minerals you have. If you can get 5-6 expansions while he has only 1-2 you should win hands down pretty much no matter what he does because you can just keep building all day.

As he sits and turtles, continue to upgrade. Every upgrade you can get your hands on.

Then spend about half of your remaining supply and build mutalisks. Half of these mutalisks should be then mutated into Guardians. Don't worry about scourges as you don't need suicide units. Then continue to harass his cannons and base supplies with those Guardians. Take out any building you feel you can without taking too many Guardian losses. And if you do take losses, replace them. Just don't allow him to take out more than 3 units per psi storm and you'll be fine. Spread the units out outside of range of cannons, etc.. and simply let him fire away while you're pumping units.

Try to deal with the scouts (which if he was a decent SC player, he wouldn't be building) as they come. They're extremely expensive, and you have the economic advantage, so it's okay if you lose some hydras taking them out. Just don't chase them into the base.

Take out as many HTs as possible, and scouts. High value targets will make him feel the pain and he'll have more trouble producing Carriers.

If he still manages to get a group of Carriers out at you, morph the remainder of your Mutalisks, and all production at the time, toward Devourers. Do not attack unless they're in a solid group. These are not meant to be the killing blow, but they will definitely slow down the Carriers and give them an obstacle. Then use defilers/queens to either ensnare or plague them. You can also use scourge to bring them down quicker.

 

Hmmm, 3 Guardians per Psy-storm is a good hint! And 3 Guardians could really do a lot damage before being taken down. That's a very good idea! Thx! (I owe you a power-up)

This relieves me from the Z vs. P strategy. But back on topic, since I assume Plague was meant to aid in vs. protoss match-ups (by taking down irreplaceable HPs and revealing invisibility), it's still not meeting it's goal. Against Terrans it was preferable to use Dark-swarm, wasn't it? So Plague should be the use of Defiler for Protosses.

And now that the Reaver is gone, perhaps the it has a better chance of being used. But couldn't it still use a remodeling? Or substitution? DS never worked vs. Archons, DTs, Zealots and many more Protosses, so there should be an alternate skill, to make the 'DS using unit' (I don't know if Defiler will be back) still useful in both matches, right?

 

There's nothing complicated about Consume. You click the ability(or hotkey), click a zergling, bam! you got energy.

 

The complicated, to me, is bringing the zerglings with you to when you need it (though follow mode might work). Or worrying about bringing more to the Defiler when he needs, but happens to be far from the base. It's unpractical, imho. You have to keep spamming lings for this purpose, which is not always needed: HTs and other casters just wait and it's fine. While waiting for an opportunity to reuse the skills, energy refills itself. The situations where you make use of fast recharge (consume) are the ones where you just used your skill and is running to hide.

I always wanted to be able to consume enemy zerglings, btw. Would make the defiler a much more feared unit and could perhaps be balanced by making it a melee range skill, uncastable while your energy is full. I mean, how fearsome would that be, huh? It would have many more uses than spending minerals (as zerlings) to fast recharge your defiler's energy. And it could be restricted so it wouldn't work on more expensive zerg units: they would have to be small to be consumed. Just an idea. ^_^

 

defiler's energy also recharge by itself, but you have the added option of filling it up instantly, which is very powerful, since both its spells are devastating in the right circumstances, and can turn the tide of a battle

 

I agree with BnechbReaker, I don't see the conflict with consume...

 

Imagine 300 Zergling rush. Just consume 10 of them and you have 7 dark swarms. Enough to cloud a noob's main base to death.

If you have hydralisk instead it's so easy to smash down his carriers. If he runs his carriers you dark swarm over towers, run in there and continue attacking.

And consuming enemy zerglings is imba, since consume has no cool down. A pro could easily consume 6 zerglings per sec and decimate a whole rush with what, 6 defilers? Uber Imba

 

this may sound noobish, but what does dark swarm actually do?

 

of course consuming enemy would be imba, the spell was so good that you had to sacrifice some thing to use it, if you consume an enemy, not only does your defiler gain energy, you also kill an unit, which could even be an ultralisk

edit: dark swarm makes all ranged non-splash attacks deal 0 damage to units covered by the swarm