Since Hive tech is always an inevitability in ZvP and ZvT, the cost of a Queen is only 100/100. Knowing this, do you think it is worth it to get one for parasite alone? Or do you find well placed Overlords to be more than sufficient for intel on enemy movements? Over the course of a game, one could easily expect to get at least 3-4 parasites off if one kept his or her queen alive (maybe a little bit harder against T, but against T you also have the luxury of infesting damaged Command Centres).
To be specific: What do you sacrifice by getting a Queen? How useful do you estimate parasite to be?
IMO, at least for low skill gamers such as myself, you have extra money floating around anyway, you might as well get a Queen. Unless you know a map pretty well, overlords tend to miss important things, not to mention dying. If Terran ends up researching restore, that alone could make the Queen worth it's cost.
TBH, I think the main reason units like Queens aren't used is simply because people just don't know how to hotkey them, especially if they have a very macro based hotkey setup. Personally, if I were using the unit very scarcely and for specific objectives, I would give it it's own special hotkey (9). However, if I intended to use it every battle, perhaps adding it in a group of hydra or lings would keep it closer to my army (and therefore it would be used more often.
This is just me, but I think that it would be more trouble then its worth, finding things to parasite without your queen being killed. It would probably more of a waste of apms then helpful unless you got 2 with ensnare; even then it would still be that much more work for you unless you had a decent amount of multitask to throw around. As a Terran player though, I know for fact that ensnared marines are really gay.
What others have stated... getting a queen gives you another unit to focus on and if you're having macro problems, I can't see it as being helpful. If you find yourself needing a queen, then other mechanics of your game are off.
What others have stated... getting a queen gives you another unit to focus on
I'm pretty sure if one used Queens often enough it wouldn't affect their focus at all. I've used Queens with broodling and ensnare to great effectiveness before, but in most games that's not exactly a viable option. I'm suggesting is a random 100/100 from your pocket worth the investment? What are you really slowing down that's so imperative? Is there something more effective that totally replaces parasite, making it pointless to get anyway? Those were the questions, not, are you so noob you can't control one Queen every time you see it has 75 energy, and then hide it away again? We're talking maybe 10 actions total every time you see your queen with 75 energy, that's not busting anyones balls.
I know you're not serious, but since you're insulting me, I'll humour that comment by saying it would be 10x more effective to ensnare the enemy's army during an attack ;P
ensensare the spider mine , then lure it with ling and start running with it , while watching the mine following it ^^ you might run with the ling into the eco line , and watch spider mine finishing the job XD
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.
then the protoss will start stasising the drones as payback!!
anyhow sure queens should and could be used a little bit more but i think players simply don't get them out of habit and while the cost is small, the overall benefit is pretty small too
there are precious few examples of pro games where you could look at it and say "if that zerg had just used queens they would have changed the outcome"
Well, people used to not get defilers out of habit. It was said the required too much focus, too much macro. Then pros started using them every game, and now everyone mimics them. I'm not saying the same thing WILL happen with Queens, I'm just saying it's a possibility I don't mind experimenting with in my own games
i say it's worth it. as for targets, you can always start with scv's and go from there: medic, sci. vessel. the downside is that almost everything you parasite will eventually die. as for skill requirements, it's not such a big deal because you have to parasite units before you move out (else it will be useless) so your controls should be free.
When standard Zerg reaches the "next level", several armies will always have a Queen. All you need is a little foresight and one Queen with Ensnare researched to have a huge effect against Terran or Protoss. I don't personally use them, but I think every Zerg should start making an effort to add a Queen to their army if they plan on staying Lair and playing a drawn out mid-game.
Now that macro games are popular in both ZvT and ZvP, Hydralisk openings are getting popular again too. I feel that skipping a Hive and over-expanding with the use of a Queen and HydraLuker is a very strong build, and these current maps are tailored to this build. That being said, playing 3 base Defilers with a LurkerLing midgame (against Terran) is equally strong.
I feel really strongly that if the game continues to evolve, Queens will become mainstream within a year.
just like ghosts, they'll be main stream. yeaaaap.
When going M'M against Protoss (in a more or less straight up game), if I see robo tech I go ghosts with lock down, if I see Templar tech, I go for Vessels with EMP. I don't think it'll ever be mainstream, but it shows ghosts aren't completely worthless.
Queens are definetly worth it for parasite alone if you're playing maps like Luna with a large center. It will, in late game, help you to locate and flank his army properly. On maps like PA where you can put ovies close to all bridges or other maps where overlords can easily keep track of his armies, they are not as useful.
Vs a protoss who's got a lot of sairs they're good too, as your overlord scouting will of course be minimal in those games.
don't underestimate the psychological effect of this on your opponent either. Many goes of and starts killing everything that's parasited. And WOOPS you got a one-hit-kill spell for 75 energy! And that's why should always target the most important and expensive units. If he doesn't kill them, you got free scouting of his army. And trust me, he will be aware of that and be a little paranoid. And there's always the off hand chance that he gets clumsy and lets a flying dropshipt or shuttle pass over a parasited unit which you then can take down.
And infesting CCs is always fun. If a terran decides to lift his CC and you got no hydras nearby, you can infest it if it's damaged enough :D This will make him annoyed, and hopefully, bother him enough to make him go clumsy from anger or something.. also, it's a nice show move.
Ensnare also owns, but requires a little more effort in microing (it has to be timed) and requires an upgrade. But still, ensnared marines trying to avoid lurker+swarm is fun
Ensnare could be very useful, I know someone who has a strategy called Zerg Christmas. He gets plague and ensnare (red + green =Christmas). But in all realism the reason queens are underused is because most players play Protoss (eliminating the possibility of any Zerg unit) and if they do play Zerg it is likely they map hack. Eliminating the use for something like parasites.
As a Protoss player, I wouldn't be really thrilled if a Zerg just parasited my temps. Like what am I going to do with a parasited templar? Don't like that thought one bit at all.
imo, just having one queen out with a group of lings scouting or something is useful because you can parasite a tank or two and know where their army is going most of the time since they cant just kill off that tank.
for protoss you'd be able to do the same, cept with high temps or shuttles? shuttles would be kind of hard to do though since there's usually a swarm of sairs coming along with it
On October 03 2007 03:18 alphablend wrote: Ensnare could be very useful, I know someone who has a strategy called Zerg Christmas. He gets plague and ensnare (red + green =Christmas). But in all realism the reason queens are underused is because most players play Protoss (eliminating the possibility of any Zerg unit) and if they do play Zerg it is likely they map hack. Eliminating the use for something like parasites.
I would just like to point out the possibility of getting rid of CC's for good in zvt. Take out an expo with your lurk ling and they lift only to land it 2 minutes later when he clears out your troops? send in some scourge if the cc isn't hurt enough, and a queen to finish the job especially in low lvl play where the terran might not notice a cc under attack until its weak enough to be infested. I forgot where, but I saw a relatively recent pro game (nada maybe?) where the zerg did just this with ling/ultra/defiler to make a cc lift then like 8 scourge and queen. Although I think the zerg was just showing off since he had more than enough scourge to finish the job but he pulled them back so he could infest.
On October 03 2007 03:18 alphablend wrote: Ensnare could be very useful, I know someone who has a strategy called Zerg Christmas. He gets plague and ensnare (red + green =Christmas). But in all realism the reason queens are underused is because most players play Protoss (eliminating the possibility of any Zerg unit) and if they do play Zerg it is likely they map hack. Eliminating the use for something like parasites.
didn't watched that game, but i think you are talking about chojja. And that Christmas thing makes me think of an ums... if it ever existed one like that (maybe a blizz one?) For parasited templars, i think that if you have a shuttle, you can load them and vision goes off. I am 99% sure that if you meld it into an archon, it's still parasited. I remember one game in which the toss killed everything i parasited... i was thrilled :D (low lvl game btw)
Oh, and yes, i think that in theorycraft, queen is better escorted with scourges for either finishing off CC for infest or ensnare for easier vessel kills.
On October 03 2007 03:18 alphablend wrote: Ensnare could be very useful, I know someone who has a strategy called Zerg Christmas. He gets plague and ensnare (red + green =Christmas). But in all realism the reason queens are underused is because most players play Protoss (eliminating the possibility of any Zerg unit) and if they do play Zerg it is likely they map hack. Eliminating the use for something like parasites.
*disclaimer* I am very new. I got StarCraft a couple of weeks ago and have yet to finish off the BW campaign. I have also followed the evolution of BW strategy from back when Zileas was the best, with a break from 2002-2005 or so, and have a rough conceptual understanding of the game. Please consider this more in the line of a newb query rather than an actual tactical suggestion. If this is not appropriate for this forum, please let me know and I won't post here. *end disclaimer*
The map Baekmagoji has a 5 - 1 TvZ score. So far none of the Zerg players, including Savior a couple of days ago, could counter Terran metal on this map. Why wouldn't broodling work here? If T has more tanks than Gols, it seems like it could be a resource efficient counter. Is the problem that Z simply gets over-run waiting for queens to build up 150 energy if he invests in any sizable number of them? Or do they get killed by Goliaths and/or Irradiate before being able to get enough broodlings off successfully? Or is the micro of trying to clone-broodling a dozen or more tanks simply not managable in a practical game? Basically, why doesn't this work? It seems like the insta-kill nature of broodling would mean that they could clear more tanks before dying than an equal number of mutas.
I've been wondering, would using Parasite on Science Vessels in TvZ be useful? It would force the Terran to upgrade restore or isolate that vessel, making it easier to kill. And if you keep using parasite, they'll eventually use up an Irradiate on your Queen if they can get it, which is cheaper than a Lurker (75/25 + 50/100).
On October 03 2007 05:43 JustinSane wrote: The map Baekmagoji has a 5 - 1 TvZ score. So far none of the Zerg players, including Savior a couple of days ago, could counter Terran metal on this map. Why wouldn't broodling work here? If T has more tanks than Gols, it seems like it could be a resource efficient counter. Is the problem that Z simply gets over-run waiting for queens to build up 150 energy if he invests in any sizable number of them? Or do they get killed by Goliaths and/or Irradiate before being able to get enough broodlings off successfully? Or is the micro of trying to clone-broodling a dozen or more tanks simply not managable in a practical game? Basically, why doesn't this work? It seems like the insta-kill nature of broodling would mean that they could clear more tanks before dying than an equal number of mutas.
I think it's just the fact that using Queens would take a huge amount of time to get used to, and so far progamers aren't at the stage where they can use them practically in a match without forgetting to use them ON TOP of macroing and microing and everything else they are already doing.
It's clear that Queens can be very effective in both ZvP and ZvT, but it's kind of like adding a whole new aspect of the game to the zerg player of keeping their Queens alive and using them whenever possible (I think it's kinda like getting used to controlling mass vessels in SKTerran, only instead of watching out for scourges/defilers, you have to watch out for Vessels irradiating or even EMP'ing you, or Marines/Goliaths chewing your Queens up, which from my point of view sounds even harder than protecting Vessels).
I too also think that Queens will eventually work its way into mainstream play, but sadly I won't be suprised if it doesn't happen anytime soon. Googo Savior learn Queen-play and come back and dominate the scene kthx.
ensnare is actually a pretty decent spell. There was a research by someone here on TL where it showed interesting numbers concerning the increased cooldown. The average was like 15% increased cooldown. So you spit that shit on a bunch of M&M and you're ahead in battle.
Queens could very well change the outcome of a game. 100/100 is a pretty fair price, and you don't have to use it, you can just set it in a typical overlord location and go back to it every year or so and parasite something. If you see a better use for it in the context of the game, well you already have a queen with energy available, so you can go ahead and use it.
It doesn't take a whole lot of multitasking ability to bring along a fast air unit along with your zerg army. Defilers, by comparison, are incredibly difficult to use, they are slow as shit and hold back your army, despite having incredibly powerful spells.
Imagine how much more devastating plague + muta would be to vessels if they were also ensnared, then they couldn't even get away.
On October 03 2007 05:43 JustinSane wrote: *disclaimer* I am very new. I got StarCraft a couple of weeks ago and have yet to finish off the BW campaign. I have also followed the evolution of BW strategy from back when Zileas was the best, with a break from 2002-2005 or so, and have a rough conceptual understanding of the game. Please consider this more in the line of a newb query rather than an actual tactical suggestion. If this is not appropriate for this forum, please let me know and I won't post here. *end disclaimer*
The map Baekmagoji has a 5 - 1 TvZ score. So far none of the Zerg players, including Savior a couple of days ago, could counter Terran metal on this map. Why wouldn't broodling work here? If T has more tanks than Gols, it seems like it could be a resource efficient counter. Is the problem that Z simply gets over-run waiting for queens to build up 150 energy if he invests in any sizable number of them? Or do they get killed by Goliaths and/or Irradiate before being able to get enough broodlings off successfully? Or is the micro of trying to clone-broodling a dozen or more tanks simply not managable in a practical game? Basically, why doesn't this work? It seems like the insta-kill nature of broodling would mean that they could clear more tanks before dying than an equal number of mutas.
The terran army is pretty irradiate heavy too. Sure broodling is fun but you'll not get many kills per queen in my opinion. That and the high micro intensity and very long reload time make them less viable. The time taken from paying for a queen and having them broodling ready is excessive. Personally I think that map is better suited to a guerrila zerg, hitting min lines with lurk drops, cutting off the choke with a lurk swarm drop and then flooding the main with hydra only to kill all the facts and retreat. Offering a terran a fight on even terms seems to be failing.
broodling requires 2x as much energy as irrad, but max damage you do is 150/100 for a tank, while one irrad kills lurker which is 125/125
i think getting a queen for parasite isn't bad, if you parasite something expensive, like gas or sci vessel, you force them to hide the unit (which kind of nullifies it) or kill it (which pays off for your queen) or micro the unit so they don't show their entire army. you might get them even to research restoration, which will pay off for your one queen.
and queens fly so fucking fast. they're like a super overlord, minus the detection.
On October 03 2007 03:35 MiniRoman wrote: As a Protoss player, I wouldn't be really thrilled if a Zerg just parasited my temps. Like what am I going to do with a parasited templar? Don't like that thought one bit at all.
Turn it into an archon?
Edit: I just tested it, the archon remains parasited, long live the queen.
On October 03 2007 03:35 MiniRoman wrote: As a Protoss player, I wouldn't be really thrilled if a Zerg just parasited my temps. Like what am I going to do with a parasited templar? Don't like that thought one bit at all.
Use it for the psychological effect?
Anyway, some people will kill their low units if you parasite them....kind of funny actually.
I personally used to use queens a lot, i think they are underused, on map slike luna just paraciting those birds, or random critters is very useful, i mean no one purposely attacks them and then they are spies, not to mention the intel yo ucan get from doing naything, i would hae to say the 100/100 is worth it, especially if you get one of those birds who fly's through the mains, that's a great spy right there. Maybe on the pro level where your macro and game sense are so good eveyrthing that isn't 100% necessary becomes a waste, it might be boarderline worthless, but on the average gamers level it could prove a valuable way to gain intel without sacrificing too many overlords.
Ensnare is a bitch. If you throw 2 ensnares on a maxed toss and then attack w/ your ult/lurk/crack force, it will be a sick sad sight. Ensnare marines and pork them with lurk/link. Etc. Ensnare is an amazing spell that is underused primarily because, in my opinion, zerg is in general going to dedicate more micro time to his lurkers/mutas because they can be so devastating without much additional support - and because defilers are so much better than queens, if you're going to dedicate micro time to a support unit, it would be best to use the defiler. But if you're speedy and can do it, queens are definitely useful.
Also, you can play ZvZ with hydras and get queens like Tsunami used to back in the day =D
I've been using Queens a bit my last few games. If anyone is still trying to figure out a good place to hotkey, and you're like me (4, 6, 7 hatches, 1 muta/ling/hydra 2-4 ling hydra 5 lurker/hydra/ling), just put your queens on hotkey 6. It's really easy to get them to where you need them with 1a2a3a4a5a6click regular spam.
I think queen is more powerful with a lurk/ling or hydra opening. the problem is in zvt it is very hard to stay in lair for a long time, esp. if terran has expo (95% of the time he will). therefore the gas you spend getting queen + ensare is better spent on drop or hive tech, so your defilers are out earlier. and since swarm is better vs MM, i'd rather have that. queens are probably much easier to work in in zvp where you can stay at lair for longer, and especially vs. sair reaver they can be very helpful with scouting and slowing him down. I have also theorycrafted about using ensare vs. sair dt, but your queens would probably get hunted like ol's.
personally, i think queens are a hella fun unit, so i like to try hydra or speedling/lurk openings followed by a queen, just for surprise etc.
I like queens for parasite(Just make 1 on a map where you cant ovie a cliff, if it gets 2 parasites off its pretty worth it) in ZvT.
But the only thing ive been able to effectively use ensnare for consistently is in a big army ZvP game, countering somewhere vs P while ensnaring their army and making response time absolute shit. Its pretty fun: ]
On October 03 2007 02:22 Chill wrote: When standard Zerg reaches the "next level", several armies will always have a Queen. All you need is a little foresight and one Queen with Ensnare researched to have a huge effect against Terran or Protoss. I don't personally use them, but I think every Zerg should start making an effort to add a Queen to their army if they plan on staying Lair and playing a drawn out mid-game.
Now that macro games are popular in both ZvT and ZvP, Hydralisk openings are getting popular again too. I feel that skipping a Hive and over-expanding with the use of a Queen and HydraLuker is a very strong build, and these current maps are tailored to this build. That being said, playing 3 base Defilers with a LurkerLing midgame (against Terran) is equally strong.
I feel really strongly that if the game continues to evolve, Queens will become mainstream within a year.
More and more pros are using queens in their games
At first it was just for show and rare nothing really game changing. I remember Iloveoov vs Jju on raid assault jju ensnared the wraiths. In zerg vs protoss pros are using ensnare. And yellow[arnc] vs canata on python he went queen to parasite canata's vessel to know where canata is.
On October 03 2007 13:30 PsycHOTemplar wrote: I've been using ensnare a lot ZvP recently. It's pretty much ownage
Well how's the difference between dark swarm and ensnare? Which has a better effect? Also it would be pretty nice to do pure hydra with queen to kill high templars but that's late tech anyways so it would be very late
I could never really make effective use of Dark Swarm, so it's about a billion times more effective for me. It's not very late, certainly it's earlier than defilers.
On October 03 2007 10:06 mahnini wrote: I've been trying to work in a Queen on my games on Luna to parasite the critters, though I always forget out of habit.
I think you guys took alphablends post in the wrong tone. Whatever. I think that its better to spend the 100/100 on something else (150/150 Ovie speed) and just leave overlords around and send zerglings in (25min) when you need some fast recon.
But queen could be somewhat useful to run around and scout like a sair does more so than using its spells like parasite (just likes sairs are mainly to scout and overlords can die as a secondary). They are pretty speedy.
Darkswarm isn't as effective vs toss. Its really only good for breaking canon masses.
imho a queen needs some kind of buff to be used more. Maybe a 2 armor bonus or something.
No strong players seem to use Broodling, so I'm sure there are compelling reasons why. Some of them seem like in theory they should be surmountable however.
I'm not sure, from a theory craft perspective, why Broodling stacks up that poorly against Irradiate. It's true that Irradiate takes half the energy and can kill a Lurker worth 125/125, whereas the best Broodling can kill is a 150/100 tank (barring Ultras), but Vessels also cost 62.5% more than queens in total resources (and all of that in gas). Broodling is also instant, while it takes a little while for a Lurker to die from Irradiate. Queens are also faster than Vessels. Irradiate is no doubt better, but it doesn't seem like a landslide.
I know that Liquid Drone has been one of the foremost advocates for queens in ZvT. In a post about a year and a half ago, he said that a primary reason Broodling was not useful was that if the queen was destroyed before the Broodling hit, it did not take effect, whereas Ensare did. I can see where that would make sniping one or two tanks with one or two queens very risky. If the Terran is going pure metal though, could he possibly kill 8-12 cloned queens before most of the broodlings hit? Or would cloning that many queens be too micro intensive to be practical? (At this stage, I've got trouble clonng my workers on start, so I don't know what is possible and what's not for someone who can actually micro). Or is committing that many resources to queens that will have to build up that much energy suicidal on its face?
One last question on broodling: I remember years back reading Zileas proposing that a "build more Templar" strategy by Protoss could be countered by "build more Queens" by Zerg. But to my knowledge, he mostly played Protoss with some Terran mixed in near the end, and knowledge of optimal play has progressed immeasurably since that time. Has anyone ever tried using queens to snipe Templar? If not, why not? Corsairs?
It's definitely not because of corsairs. Going queens implies you've gone mass hydra too, which means as soon as you ensnare corsairs they pretty much get raped by your hydra. I sniped some templar in my last few games. It works great in combination with parasite (really easy to clone). However, it's requires a stronger investment in queens, which may be better spent on ensnare.
On October 03 2007 14:50 JustinSane wrote: No strong players seem to use Broodling, so I'm sure there are compelling reasons why. Some of them seem like in theory they should be surmountable however.
They probably just don't want to rely on it, because relying on a spell that costs 150 energy on a unit that dies easily is uh, yeah. Not very dependable..
On October 03 2007 14:50 JustinSane wrote: I'm not sure, from a theory craft perspective, why Broodling stacks up that poorly against Irradiate. It's true that Irradiate takes half the energy and can kill a Lurker worth 125/125, whereas the best Broodling can kill is a 150/100 tank (barring Ultras), but Vessels also cost 62.5% more than queens in total resources (and all of that in gas). Broodling is also instant, while it takes a little while for a Lurker to die from Irradiate. Queens are also faster than Vessels. Irradiate is no doubt better, but it doesn't seem like a landslide.
I'm guessing it's because irradiate only costs 75 energy, meaning you can use it twice as often as Broodling, and it works on all zerg units, unlike Broodling, which can't attack air units. So that means he can irradiate two of your Queens in the timespan you can Broodling a tank. Then it doesn't help that a Terran's main force usually consists of mostly massive anti-air, meaning that sniping the tank with broodling without the Queen dying becomes a lot harder. In contrast, even though you can get a ensnare on Vessels, you still need the anti-air to kill them, and it's kind of hard to do that when there's marines, tanks, and goliaths under the Vessels. Plague/swarm helps with this though.
On October 03 2007 14:50 JustinSane wrote: One last question on broodling: I remember years back reading Zileas proposing that a "build more Templar" strategy by Protoss could be countered by "build more Queens" by Zerg. But to my knowledge, he mostly played Protoss with some Terran mixed in near the end, and knowledge of optimal play has progressed immeasurably since that time. Has anyone ever tried using queens to snipe Templar? If not, why not? Corsairs?
Yeah, from my experience, sniping Templars with Broodling works nicely. It works well in conjunction with parasite (allowing you to know where his units are making it easy to snipe), and also ensnare (very useful in many situations) and the fact that a lot of ZvP matches are macro-heavy, meaning you usually can get enough gas to support having several Queens without much sacrifice. Just watch out for Corsairs and Dark Archons (feedback).
On October 03 2007 01:33 PsycHOTemplar wrote: I know you're not serious, but since you're insulting me, I'll humour that comment by saying it would be 10x more effective to ensnare the enemy's army during an attack ;P
How could he lose mining time, when you ensnare his army? Are you drunk?
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Personally I've always wondered why Zerg pros don't incorporate Ensnare into their anti-mnm strats, or broodling templars. Broodling is too energy heavy probably, but ensnare seems like it would really devastate marine formations vs lurks/dswarm, whereas currently good terrans will fire->retreat->fire with stim making it easier.
On October 04 2007 02:14 XaI)CyRiC wrote:
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.
Irradiate in general seems a little unfair to me in ZvT since its such a versatile, catch-all spell that reduces the need to scout ahead and change counters. Every single Zerg tech unit is countered by a 75 energy spell on a fast, mobile flying detector with high HP. Irradiate single-handedly makes guardians almost useless agaisnt good terrans since it doesn't force a tech switch to wraiths/valks/gols at all unless the terran gets caught completely without vessels.
At least dswarm/consume, although extremely powerful raw, are on a slow-as-hell land unit with 80 HP, same with psi storm. I agree that Irradiate is definitely necessary in some form or another, but 275 dmg in an AoE seems too much. Even though ZvT is largely balanced, I feel that Irradiate cuts down the diversity of options in its present form, espcially at the lower skill levels.
Of course, at this point in the game nothings going to be done about it. But it seems like an oversight, particularly the mobility, speed and high HP of the vessel in comparison to the spells it has. Blizzard seems to have recognized this in Starcraft 2 by putting the irradiate equivalent on a slow ground unit, and removing the AoE.
On October 03 2007 10:06 mahnini wrote: I've been trying to work in a Queen on my games on Luna to parasite the critters, though I always forget out of habit.
I'm wondering on ensnaring muta+lings in a stack, does it matter if you're targeting a muta on top, a ling below or on the area they're gonna run into? Do both the flying mutas and the zerglings get ensnared in the area no matter what?
On October 05 2007 20:04 Aerox wrote: I'm wondering on ensnaring muta+lings in a stack, does it matter if you're targeting a muta on top, a ling below or on the area they're gonna run into? Do both the flying mutas and the zerglings get ensnared in the area no matter what?
Yeah so basically Ensnare goes through anything, much like how I remember when I was a noob playing Fastest map some guy nuked my Carriers while I was in the bathroom and he killed my Stargates along with it
I actually used lots of Broodling once in ZvT; I grabbed about 20 Queens and massed Broodling on an expansion and I ended up infesting the guy's CC by sheer numbers of Broodlings -_- I was surprised he didn't lift or anything haha
On October 05 2007 20:04 Aerox wrote: I'm wondering on ensnaring muta+lings in a stack, does it matter if you're targeting a muta on top, a ling below or on the area they're gonna run into? Do both the flying mutas and the zerglings get ensnared in the area no matter what?
Yes, everything is affected within the radius, regardless of stacking.
I was reading over this thread and noticed that pros still don't use queens, but after watching a match of nada vs savior, i think that ensnare could reek havoc on terran players. Once a defilers out, terran players are forced to back out at every encounter that the zerg have a swarm up. If the zerg were able to hold the terran units in the swarm they could inflict massive amounts of damage. Granted the queen would get irradiated, but that's just one defiler or ultralisk that isn't getting owned by it. Ensnare would also give the lurkers more time to get burrowed and inflict some real damage. Also, ensnare + scourge or ensnare + plague could destroy groups of sci vessals that are closely packed. I believe that ensnare could punish terran players much more severally for backing out of fights, losing fights, and going for irradiates when they don't have the m&m very very close by. Just my thoughts.
What boggles me is that Ensare reduces the fireing rate and speed of a stimmed marine back to what it would be like without stim. That alone is enough to warrant Zerg's using them - perhaps we'll see this as a natural evolution from the mutalisk strategies! (opening with lurker/queen)
dark swarm + ensnare + lings = very many dead marines... as a terran I'm glad queens aren't used much :D seems like queens would be a really good intermediate unit while the zerg's waiting for defiler tech to finish. every time I think about it, it looks weirder that the pros never use them...
I was just wondering if someone knew offhand if whether or not a Parasited unit still gives vision when it's in a Shuttle/Dropship/Overlord.
Someone mentioned how much it would suck to have a Parasited Templar earlier in the thread and I thought of it. I didn't read the rest of the thread though, so it may have already been addressed.
Parasited units don't give vision when they are in some sort of transport(shuttle, overlord, dropship) or in bunkers. On units outside transports it gives you the same sight range as the unit has and his detection ability if any. Also by parasiting units with cloaking and burrowing abilities makes them visible when they cloak or burrow, but this is obvious. But parasiting arbiters don't gives you vision of the nearby cloaked units.
If you ask me, it wasn't that much queen usage really, just the hella early infest, which was awesome!!11!!!! :D, but nothing much more than that...) So i think the statement of "RIDICULOUS" is exaggerated.
If you ask me, it wasn't that much queen usage really, just the hella early infest, which was awesome!!11!!!! :D, but nothing much more than that...) So i think the statement of "RIDICULOUS" is exaggerated.
Yeah but then he built infested terrans, sent them in to damage the new CC while distracting the T's army with lurkers, and aaaaalmost managed to infest the new CC too.
On April 08 2008 17:15 Plexa wrote: What boggles me is that Ensare reduces the fireing rate and speed of a stimmed marine back to what it would be like without stim. That alone is enough to warrant Zerg's using them - perhaps we'll see this as a natural evolution from the mutalisk strategies! (opening with lurker/queen)
It was also suggested a while back that queens work well in a group of mutas because they posses the same speed and reaction time while having an 11 sight range compared to the mutas 9. That alone + the odd parasite justifies the use of at least one queen. The fact that a queen cost less than a lurker is also an interesting point. Wasting your opponents irradiates on queens rather than lurkers along with the ability to ensnare + scourage to rape vessels seems like an economically viable counter to SK Terran. And then don't forget about ensnaring against stim...
I think one of the things that make the queen hard to use is that you have to wait for mana to regenerate to use them. You can easily compensate for this by building more than 1 queen, but by then you're committed to lair style without the units and you better have a plan when sci vessels start showing up in large numbers.
If you guys can humor a noob (I still haven't finished the campaigns yet for the original star craft), I've been watching a lot of ZvT replays and I've noticed that in skirmishes between an SK terran and a zerg with lurker/ling/defiler/scourges it usually ends up in a deadlock because of the marines quickly retreating away from the lurkers and swarms. I'm just wondering if ensnare would slow down the rines enough to finish them off, or, at least pick off 5-6 of them everytime they're retreating.
I play the computer now and then to try and master Savior's build (with my monstrous 50 APM) and I always incorporate a queen in my unit mix (Except after Hive tech and not in lair). I'm just wondering how well say a unit mix of 1-lurkers 2-hydras 3- lings/defilers 4-lings-Queens/scourges would do? So in a skirmish the terran would pick off the lurkers, defilers and hydras with his vessels but the Hydras would protect them or he'd have to exchange a few sci vessels for them (they'd be plagued or 1 or 2 would die), you'd use your queens like he uses his vessels and you'd ensare as many of his marines before going in with his lurkers/hydras/lings. You could also use the Queens to scout his flanks and tanks in an open map. But would the marines be slowed down enough for you to considerably win in that exchange?
I know I'm probably missing a few things (i.e. the terran would probably just micro 1 or 2 vessels to irradiate your big chunk of hydras-but then again that leaves a few lurks alive, or you could research burrow- or he'd just irradiate all queens on sight- but then a good player might use his queens like vessels and keep them behind a line of hydras/scourges in the group) but I'm just wondering if any of you have tried/mastered this kind of queen usage, or, if you have any replays containing queen usages in general. I also wonder how you'd deal with the mine/tank counter? That's why I keep 1-2 ctrl groups of lings in the group but I'm just wondering how they would fare against 6-8 well spread out tanks in an open map like Python, not to mention against a human being :D.
It's a good thing you're trying to think of new strategies in this old game, but I suggest you play a few ZvT against a human opponent before going too deep into theory. You should realize pretty quickly why a unit mix of lings/hydras/lurkers/defilers/queens/scourges isn't viable. (Hint: Handspeed is limited.^^)
Mixing in queens with your hydra/lurk or ling/lurk army can be very effective on the other hand, you could look through some old games of Chojja, he used to use Queens now and then.
After a few experimental games with a friend of mine (hydra/lurk vs skterran), I found a nifty trick where you ensnare the leading edge of the M&M ball. If you do it right, they'll start to shift around, then de-clump to form a straggly line perpendicular to the direction they were traveling. Also, if you've engaged, you can do the same thing, and it'll get you one or two more lurker volleys, as well as making it easier to clean up.
Unfortunately, my friend's not too great with vessel control, but it seemed feasible, at least when the vessel count is relatively low.
Hey Orome, thanks for the welcome. SC isn't new to me, in fact when I clawed open my newly bought star craft battlechest its minty new aroma and cover art brought me back to a time with n64s, modems, [NC]Yellow and my buying used SNES games at the comic shop. Granted, I never played multiplayer really, I never even beat the campaigns without cheats (ahh blacksheep wall, do you ever fail?) but I did enjoy watching everyone's zerg hero back then, Yellow, NEARLY dominate.
It's a good thing you're trying to think of new strategies in this old game, but I suggest you play a few ZvT against a human opponent before going too deep into theory. You should realize pretty quickly why a unit mix of lings/hydras/lurkers/defilers/queens/scourges isn't viable. (Hint: Handspeed is limited.^^)
Yes I agree, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here but I think it's a decent counter to SKterran, I mean, imo most of the time it's the marines flanking and retreating that prevents the zerg from winning the skirmish. I understand that handspeed is limited, but I was kinda hoping that maybe you know, one of you zerg players who are also great SKterrans (who have 300-400 APM) could own with this ). In almost every game I've seen the terran has a 100 APM advantage, so maybe there's some breathing room to allocate some APM to a queen or two. Oh and I'll definitely check out Chojja. (Right now I'm just downloading every 9/10 ZvT replay on gosugamers).
After a few experimental games with a friend of mine (hydra/lurk vs skterran), I found a nifty trick where you ensnare the leading edge of the M&M ball. If you do it right, they'll start to shift around, then de-clump to form a straggly line perpendicular to the direction they were traveling. Also, if you've engaged, you can do the same thing, and it'll get you one or two more lurker volleys, as well as making it easier to clean up.
That's interesting. Maybe someone should make a microwars zerg map that focuses on Queen micro.
ETA: Could someone tell me what a damage modifier is? (Damage-armor*modifier) I've searched but I can't find it. I want to know how to calculate damage per second so I can approximate how say, 24 hydras will do against 24 marines and compare that with 24 hydras vs 24 ensnared marines. Thank you.
If you're interested in queen play in general, you could pm Liquid.Drone and ask him for some of his old replays, he's one of the few players who implemented queens regularly ZvT.
good. I try to have them out before 8-9 minutes every zvt I play... then when the first attack comes that only contains a couple of tanks I can easily ensnare the rines and surround with lurker.. after that, load lurkers in overlords and ensnare scvs+lurker drop. that usually results in like 3-4 times as many scvs dead, even if he starts moving them instantly.
they're also the best counter to 2 factory users.. you often see people have 20+ mutas, well queens cost exactly the same and by parasiting every vessel and dropship (you can also ensnare them which practically ensures scourging) you'll always know when he's moving out. and when he starts assembling a whole bunch of units, that's when you bust out your group of 12 queens and clonebroodling up to 12 tanks. ^_^
and then he's dead.
and if you make queens you don't even have to kill each cc, just infest.. every single queen ability is made for fighting terran and i quite simply can't realize why they're not made more.. at the same time I have no idea how to counter them as terran, but I've never had anyone make queens against me so that doesn't seem like a big deal. :[
the thing is just that people havent realized that queens are just 100/100 instead of 100/150 which they used to be. or, they haven't realized how incredibly inexpensive 100/100 is for the spells given by the queen.. (and its a really fast flying unit too.. )
I mean lots of people on this boards (and other places) reactions are like "that's a lot of gas" but its not like watching people with 12 mutas is a weird thing.. 12 mutas+ spire costs way more and just swapping a couple of mutas for queens _is a great move_.
zerg always needs queens nest cause hive units are really amazing vs terran (ultra guardian and defilers can all turn the game around to zergs favour), so why not spend like 300/300 (which is _NOTHING_) on a pair of queens and ensnare upgrade?
good. I try to have them out before 8-9 minutes every zvt I play... then when the first attack comes that only contains a couple of tanks I can easily ensnare the rines and surround with lurker.. after that, load lurkers in overlords and ensnare scvs+lurker drop. that usually results in like 3-4 times as many scvs dead, even if he starts moving them instantly.
they're also the best counter to 2 factory users.. you often see people have 20+ mutas, well queens cost exactly the same and by parasiting every vessel and dropship (you can also ensnare them which practically ensures scourging) you'll always know when he's moving out. and when he starts assembling a whole bunch of units, that's when you bust out your group of 12 queens and clonebroodling up to 12 tanks. ^_^
and then he's dead.
and if you make queens you don't even have to kill each cc, just infest.. every single queen ability is made for fighting terran and i quite simply can't realize why they're not made more.. at the same time I have no idea how to counter them as terran, but I've never had anyone make queens against me so that doesn't seem like a big deal. :[
the thing is just that people havent realized that queens are just 100/100 instead of 100/150 which they used to be. or, they haven't realized how incredibly inexpensive 100/100 is for the spells given by the queen.. (and its a really fast flying unit too.. )
I mean lots of people on this boards (and other places) reactions are like "that's a lot of gas" but its not like watching people with 12 mutas is a weird thing.. 12 mutas+ spire costs way more and just swapping a couple of mutas for queens _is a great move_.
zerg always needs queens nest cause hive units are really amazing vs terran (ultra guardian and defilers can all turn the game around to zergs favour), so why not spend like 300/300 (which is _NOTHING_) on a pair of queens and ensnare upgrade?
Awesome quotes. I did see a Liquid Drone replay where he used a Queen or two pretty well against an M&M group. There's just something so very satisfying about seeing zerglings take out a large group of M&Ms when you know they SHOULD be slaughtered :D. However, I did notice his queen control was a little sloppy (it wasn't on the same level as his muta/scourge control) and his multitasking suffered a bit from Queen sniping, but it was still awesome.
As a noobie mcnoobster who can barely keep his mineral count below 5000 in the later stages of the match, right now I'm really just focusing on basics i.e. remembering to build my extractor and upgrade to lair tech! So I don't build queens in zvt anymore. But since zvp is a little less micro intensive I find that getting a bunch of queens there to be advantageous. You really see the Queen's power in zvp --ensnaring corsairs/archons/zealots/goons/templars and parasiting archons-- they're like the defilers of a zvp match imho.
On April 24 2008 11:37 MidnightGladius wrote: After a few experimental games with a friend of mine (hydra/lurk vs skterran), I found a nifty trick where you ensnare the leading edge of the M&M ball. If you do it right, they'll start to shift around, then de-clump to form a straggly line perpendicular to the direction they were traveling. Also, if you've engaged, you can do the same thing, and it'll get you one or two more lurker volleys, as well as making it easier to clean up.
Unfortunately, my friend's not too great with vessel control, but it seemed feasible, at least when the vessel count is relatively low.
I don't really see how that works. I thought it was good for T to form a line perpendicular to the lurks. Wouldn't that basically be spreading out his marines for him?
It seems to me like queens can be Really Good against terrans, but on my level there just isn't the multitask necessary to ensnare AND darkswarm AND flank AND burrow on time AND not have macro suck. If I had to drop one of those... usually it's the ensnare.
At the pro level the game is significantly different but I suspect that individual players are generally unwilling to spend valuable practice time on a queen-reliant strategy when it's generally untested and assumed to be worse than... whatever else you'd spend 300/300 on. So no one tries it and finds out that it's amazing, because they're busy trying to become the best / remain the best at what is considered "standard play." Clearly Liquid`Drone exists in that little sliver of the graph between where good multitask starts and where the pressure to win is greater than the pressure to innovate...
This has always been one of those great mysteries to me - my game intuition tells me that Queens are savagely underused by Zerg players, but then my other intuition tells me that progamers and their coaches spend way, way too much time analysing and thinking about game strategies to have totally overlooked their usage. Still, I fail to come up with any really strong reasons against having a few of them around for ensnare and parasiting critters or whatever. Sci vessels do for lurkers what Queens could do for tanks and nobody has to argue about how useful irradiate is - broodling still never gets used. The occasional strategic d-matrix often wins battles for terrans and I can't help but think that a bang-on ensnare might do the same for Zerg. The mystery persists...
you need really strong lair play for a queen to be effective imo. you can't be one of those zergs to techs to defliers quickly. and they are more effective in open maps
I think at the pro level queens (for anything but infest) simply aren't viable, I base this on the simple fact that there was a period a couple of years ago (around 2006 I think) when progamers, mostly chojja and savior (I think) DID experiment a bunch with queens for ensnare. And well they stopped doing it which I consider proof that for some reason queens aren't worth it at the highest level.
Below pro level they can obviously be worth it, I mean I have used them to amazing effect =p
This has always been one of those great mysteries to me - my game intuition tells me that Queens are savagely underused by Zerg players, but then my other intuition tells me that progamers and their coaches spend way, way too much time analysing and thinking about game strategies to have totally overlooked their usage. Still, I fail to come up with any really strong reasons against having a few of them around for ensnare and parasiting critters or whatever. Sci vessels do for lurkers what Queens could do for tanks and nobody has to argue about how useful irradiate is - broodling still never gets used. The occasional strategic d-matrix often wins battles for terrans and I can't help but think that a bang-on ensnare might do the same for Zerg. The mystery persists...-
Well to be fair, progamers and their coaches no doubt have spent countless of hours in the past analyzing and picking apart strategies and BOs but then why is it that no one before had ever consistently and successfully used Sairs, or defilers, or Nydus Canals, or even at some point science vessels? To truly capitalize on a novel idea someone must put in the effort to systematize and master it, and take it to the next level. And for whatever reasons, true or not true, programers don't see Queens as worth the effort.
I tend to agree with KonekoTyriin's reasoning:
At the pro level the game is significantly different but I suspect that individual players are generally unwilling to spend valuable practice time on a queen-reliant strategy when it's generally untested and assumed to be worse than... whatever else you'd spend 300/300 on.
It's just not a proven and reliable strategy in the pro-circuit and thus these guys aren't willing to funnel any of their valuable time away from mastering defilers or muta micro to something seemingly not worth the effort.
^ Even this is a great example - here with Guardians, but you could easily imagine that just for defence it would be amazing. Lure in an early M&M group then ensnare and bring out lurkers or whatever - even lings. Ensnare wreaks havoc on cooldown times as well, so a group of marines not only slows down, but they can't fire nearly as quickly either. Lings can devour an ensnared group of m&m and even, as in the above, a gang of mutas don't have to worry nearly as much as they would otherwise. Ensnare is only 75 energy, so you can cast 2 or 3 (energy upgraded) with one queen - that's exactly like storm.
Even compared to swarm, at least while attacking on open field, for example, I think ensnare might even be more effective. With swarm you have one safe spot where your lings and lurkers have to charge into and hide, but with ensnare you hit the attackers themselves and can chase them even if they try to run. Swarm would still be better, I think, when laying siege to bases, etc, where you have to hide from cannons and need to attack in one spot (buildings, etc) for a lengthy time. I think Swarm over your own buildings or at your choke when defending is also the way to go, but when crossing open ground and driving an opponent back to their base I'd almost be willing to bet that you could do better with ensnare.
The problem for zergs is the critical mass of mnm. The amount that you simply cannot approach because they can kill zerglings faster than zerglings can run towards them. Add in irradiates and defensive matrix and you're pretty much fucked as zerg. And this is where dark swarm comes in. Dark swarm is just as effective regardless of the terran army size. It allows you to engage without the huge firepower of the terran army being brought to bear. Imagine this situation in late game. Let's say you had 6 or so queens and great micro. You take off 1/3 of the firepower of the terran army and run in with your cracks and lurks. Chances are high you're still fucked simply because when he has 60 or so stimmed marines there you are not getting any closer with 500 zerglings than you are with 50. A group of mnm becomes exponentially stronger as the numbers increase. By the end game it is the ability of swarm to disregard all damage (rather than simply be a damage modifier the way ensnare is) that counters this.
True, I agree, but there are likely situations when both would be useful. Worthwhile, I would still think, to get a few queens early before hive tech finishes, before defilers finish, before consume finishes - when the m&m force is smaller - and put them to good use. Like mutalisks - you get them before vessels and use them to harass and contain. After that they're not really that necessary save to snipe the odd group of plagued vessels, etc. Same with Queens - they may give a bit of an edge while holding a contain and stalling for time to expand and tech. Ensnare would also be great when trying to catch those critical first vessels to come out - scourge can run circles around an ensnared vessel. Then your mutas have an extra 50 game-seconds to keep thrashing around. If you treat them well and keep them alive, your queens could go a long way, I think.
Any time you get a quick breath to spam your drones, why not parasite some critters? Facing that massive m&m group lategame? Get the swarm up, charge in with your cracklings, and then bust off an ensnare or two. If protoss players can throw down three storms in the heat of battle there's no reason a zerg player can't get off an ensnare or two - at least my humble reckoning seems to think so. I guess the only way to know, though, is just to wait and see what comes out of pro starcraft - maybe it'll catch on, maybe, like the ill-fated Valkyrie, it just never will.
On April 27 2008 22:13 jgad wrote: This has always been one of those great mysteries to me - my game intuition tells me that Queens are savagely underused by Zerg players, but then my other intuition tells me that progamers and their coaches spend way, way too much time analysing and thinking about game strategies to have totally overlooked their usage. Still, I fail to come up with any really strong reasons against having a few of them around for ensnare and parasiting critters or whatever. Sci vessels do for lurkers what Queens could do for tanks and nobody has to argue about how useful irradiate is - broodling still never gets used. The occasional strategic d-matrix often wins battles for terrans and I can't help but think that a bang-on ensnare might do the same for Zerg. The mystery persists...
well you can't really compare vessels to queens.. for one.. it's crucial for terrans, since they dont have any other form of detection other than static ones (and limited scans).. since they're gona get it anyway, why not upgrade them too
also... isn't brodling like 150 energy? do zergs really have that much time to wait for 150 energy to tap a couple tanks?
Vessels cost like 225 gas stanzzz, it's a pretty fair comparison.
Depending on the situation, Broodlinging tanks can either be pretty much worthless, or game breaking.
If you're attacking a Terran natural, and they only have one or two tanks, set up on a cliff, your attack becomes loads more powerful when you take those out.
If you're attacking the Terran blob, and they've got like 8 tanks and you only manage to get two, it's pretty much worthless (since broodling doesn't even work if the Queen dies before it hits).
It's a very situational spell in my experience, and is better for small scale break-ins than large scale battles.
I tend to agree. You don't always have time to wait for 150 energy, sure, and it isn't that every situation would be made better by having a queen, of course, but if you're trying to push the envelope - harassing with a tiny chunk of army or pulling out all the straws to defend, etc, then it can be an edge, I think, to have a queen in the mix to tip the balance in your favour. You could make a lot of the same arguments about fighting with workers - sure, nobody would like to do it and no, you can't really afford to lose any of them, but people do it because they have to and very often it works because a few drones can suddenly make a handful of lings go a lot further than they could without. Same with carriers - god, they take ages to tech, bloody forever to make and they cost an unbelievable fortune. I mean, who has time to wait around for all that crap? Mass speedlots ftw?
I mean - consider that broodling has a range of 9... that's more than a goliath with range (8), even more than a turret (7) and only one less than a tank's vision. It's not just "tapping a couple of tanks" - it's being able to do it with stealth, from unexpected angles, taking the enemy by surprise. How many times does an expo have like two or three tanks sieged with a few turrets around? Broodling the tanks (which you can do without worrying about the turrets - range!) and then mop up with lings/lurks/whatever. No mess, you lose minimal units, and your ground force is massively amplified in terms of the damage it can do. Bargain.
I tend to agree. You don't always have time to wait for 150 energy, sure, and it isn't that every situation would be made better by having a queen, of course, but if you're trying to push the envelope - harassing with a tiny chunk of army or pulling out all the straws to defend, etc, then it can be an edge, I think, to have a queen in the mix to tip the balance in your favour.
That you have to wait around for 2 minutes to ensnare is probably one of the strongest arguments against using Queens. It's impractical, not very convienent and messes up your timing. Not only that but your Queen would probably die before or after it used ensnare (though I've seen a few people like Liquid.Drone dodge weave around M&M's skillfully). So would it be worth it investing the resources, and more importantly investing your time to practice microing with Queens?
Well I think you can answer the first objection by comparing the Queen to a high templar rather than a carrier or a worker. HTs and Queens are both vulnerable, have low hps, are micro-intensive and you must wait for their mana to recover before putting them to any use. They're almost wholly useless on their own or with the wrong units. However, with the right unit combination they can both potentially sway a battle and the game in your favour.
With regards to the second objection, you would simply have to work on your Queen and unit micro. For example a skilled Queen user probably wouldn't even snipe with a Queen but instead he'd keep a few behind his hydra group or scourges and he'd engage the M&Ms normally i.e. swarming then moving his force in-- only while the M&Ms are backing away from the swarms and/or the science vessels are moving in to irradiate the defilers/lurkers/ultras would he move in his Queens to ensare the vessels or the edge of the M&M group.
On April 27 2008 22:13 jgad wrote: This has always been one of those great mysteries to me - my game intuition tells me that Queens are savagely underused by Zerg players, but then my other intuition tells me that progamers and their coaches spend way, way too much time analysing and thinking about game strategies to have totally overlooked their usage. Still, I fail to come up with any really strong reasons against having a few of them around for ensnare and parasiting critters or whatever. Sci vessels do for lurkers what Queens could do for tanks and nobody has to argue about how useful irradiate is - broodling still never gets used. The occasional strategic d-matrix often wins battles for terrans and I can't help but think that a bang-on ensnare might do the same for Zerg. The mystery persists...
It was used awhile back, before Savior management zerg was unleashed. If Savior hadn't been bojawa, one of the better zergs back then might have cracked the Queen nut. I don't really have the knowledge to back this up, but perhaps one could trace the unpopularity of the queen back to Savior's defiler usage.
Does anyone know if the "magic box" trick works with the ensnare spell? I' mean wouldnt it be wonderfull to have like 3 queens ensnaring most of the terran ball and the vessels over them, or at the side? If he tries to irridate queens you could just be on your way out of their range with waypoint useage.
And to those talking about combos: Don't you think queen would be great against SK terran thats always mobile and run away from swarm anyway? If your not dropping or attacking choke ofcourse.
i think queen would take away concentration (when not used at a very high level) it would be in the back of your mind 'must use queen'
i think queens best use in zvt is to infest command centre as it saves you needing to do another 600 dmg to it and ensures he cannot rescue or repair it
On May 16 2008 19:32 PobTheCad wrote: i think queen would take away concentration (when not used at a very high level) it would be in the back of your mind 'must use queen'
i think queens best use in zvt is to infest command centre as it saves you needing to do another 600 dmg to it and ensures he cannot rescue or repair it
when vessels come out forget it
I think the opposite about when vessels come out. Would'nt it be a perfect anti vessel "team" with 1 queen and the scourges. The vessels always have time to run away or roam around the map. Don't mind getting the queen irridated. You still have the time to cast the important ensnare with this tactic. I really believe it could work if you use it with some practice. And there very easy to use and especially before you get defilers. It won't mess your micro up after a couple of games.
Has to be said this is just my theories. I played for a couple of years ago and I started again like 2 months ago. So I'm going to try out my old tactics one again^^. I'll post som reps if i happened to succeed vs some "okey" players.
I think it's ignorant to not use them just cause the pro's don't. Maybe they just don't have the guts or time to practice it. Maybe stuck with the positives about the defiler. I'ts not that good with swarm in open areas. You can just hurt good players a little while they run away.
On April 28 2008 05:53 5HITCOMBO wrote: I think ultraling combos better with ensnare than lurkerling does. Lurkers and defilers go together; ultras and queens match well.
I don't think so. The main micro used by marines against lurkers is running the hell away. When they're ensnared, it's easy to get three of four lurkers surrounding the marines so that when they try to run away literally almost all of the marines die.
Obviously though, lurkers and defilers are a match made in heaven.
The question is, how does ultraling work with ensnare?
Anything works great with ensnare. Ensnare is brutal. If someone like ggplay incorporated ensnare into his dark swarm style, I think it's likely you'd see a whole new trend in zerg play.
Eri should chime in here. He's a queen lover from way back =O Also, this reminds me of Tsunami's ZvZ - hydra + queen ftw
On April 28 2008 05:53 5HITCOMBO wrote: I think ultraling combos better with ensnare than lurkerling does. Lurkers and defilers go together; ultras and queens match well.
I agree. There's a lot less work involved with ult/ling. You can fuck up your flank and still recover easily. The ults are gonna soak up all the hits. Lurk/ling, if you burrow in the wrong spot and he moves well, youre gonn have to reset.
By the time I go up to hive tech, I usually get ensare and at least 1 queen (sometimes 2), provided im not behind. 200/200 for the research and the queen is pretty negligible considering the potelly major impact it could have on a game, if you ask me.
Broodling...not so much. I find that a lot harder to use
broodling looks favorable for a really late game situation where every unit counts and energy based units become much more valuable. I remember reading that in the famous FBH vs Savior series, game 5 @ python, broodling was considered like a good idea to kill tanks in the cliff near the island expo.
I think that queens have been pretty much discussed around and that reps are the only new thing that could be added.
On April 28 2008 05:53 5HITCOMBO wrote: I think ultraling combos better with ensnare than lurkerling does. Lurkers and defilers go together; ultras and queens match well.
I agree. There's a lot less work involved with ult/ling. You can fuck up your flank and still recover easily. The ults are gonna soak up all the hits. Lurk/ling, if you burrow in the wrong spot and he moves well, youre gonn have to reset.
By the time I go up to hive tech, I usually get ensare and at least 1 queen (sometimes 2), provided im not behind. 200/200 for the research and the queen is pretty negligible considering the potelly major impact it could have on a game, if you ask me.
Broodling...not so much. I find that a lot harder to use
I don't agree, not from experience though So I might change my mind after a couple of games with this, but at the moment from thinking about it. It should be better with ensnare lurk/ling since your lurks wont die as fast with ensnared marines. And won't run circles around you=). And by the way, vessels does get slow from ensnare, right? I just can't remember if it had any effect on them.
I don't get it, How come no one has even mentioned spawn broodling?
I rarely see these used to counter tanks range in games.. and I find they work great for me.. I often get 1-2 queens to counter a lot of siege.. due to the terran's immobility it works great.. I don't see why pro's don't use them more often to compliment their army and take out a few siege easily without losing units..
On May 17 2008 05:24 NeoMesh wrote: I don't get it, How come no one has even mentioned spawn broodling?
I rarely see these used to counter tanks range in games.. and I find they work great for me.. I often get 1-2 queens to counter a lot of siege.. due to the terran's immobility it works great.. I don't see why pro's don't use them more often to compliment their army and take out a few siege easily without losing units..
Spawn broodling takes a research, lots of mana. A vessel gets irradiate a faster and can counter your queens easily. Queens themselves cost gas.
On April 28 2008 05:53 5HITCOMBO wrote: I think ultraling combos better with ensnare than lurkerling does. Lurkers and defilers go together; ultras and queens match well.
I agree. There's a lot less work involved with ult/ling. You can fuck up your flank and still recover easily. The ults are gonna soak up all the hits. Lurk/ling, if you burrow in the wrong spot and he moves well, youre gonn have to reset.
By the time I go up to hive tech, I usually get ensare and at least 1 queen (sometimes 2), provided im not behind. 200/200 for the research and the queen is pretty negligible considering the potelly major impact it could have on a game, if you ask me.
Broodling...not so much. I find that a lot harder to use
I don't agree, not from experience though So I might change my mind after a couple of games with this, but at the moment from thinking about it. It should be better with ensnare lurk/ling since your lurks wont die as fast with ensnared marines. And won't run circles around you=). And by the way, vessels does get slow from ensnare, right? I just can't remember if it had any effect on them.
It's certainly viable with lurk/ling (i had a decent zvt last night where i fended off at my choke with ensnare and a group of lurk and 2 ling groups), just kinda harder for reasons stated. Like if you snare him, and try to burrow around him and he moves out of the way, you have to unburrow, move closer again, while trying to get lings on the opposite end to trap him in...burning the ensnare time.
You cant outrun cracks/graded ults =p You get a decent angle and its just attack move really.
along with queens for zerg, if pros started playing the late game like the cpu does (mass 'missions' for individual ghost 'squads' in dropships all around the map, lockdowning and nuking constantly), I reckon the level of starcraft late game play could just completely overwhelm what it's like today.
I fully endorse this thread. I hate storms and how they mess up ANY zug army. If Queens prove effective HT-snipers or such, I won't feel bad playing protoss :-P I might even consider switching race. Zug is very interesting indeed.
I have had some success using queens along with a 3 hatch hydra build,
the only problem is broodlings takes such a lot of energy : ( you need to get your queens out pretty early to charge them up in time! but using them to snipe the HT's makes your hydras so much more powerful.
i always wondered about this. certainly when compared to overlord upgrade, a queen pales. but then agian, if you can use parasite multiple times on somewhat important units, the opponent is forced to throw that unit away. so if you keep it alive the queen might "pay for itself"... the other poster brings up a good point about actions.
i donno, i think it's worth it, even if you do ensnare... a group of m&m's ensnared and all dying sure beats using swarm like 5 times and only being able to claw at them. i donno.
Do you know what's awesome? Parasiting critters. They're random, but 99.9% of players never highlight critters so they work as ninja spies who always go around ignored!
On May 21 2008 10:58 gwho wrote: if you can use parasite multiple times on somewhat important units, the opponent is forced to throw that unit away.
Terran can always research restoration for medics, and in zvp you can't go hive that fast (no need for expensive queens nest yet) that it would be viable. last time zerg made couple queen vs me I just maelstormed them and gg-_-
On May 21 2008 10:58 gwho wrote: i donno, i think it's worth it, even if you do ensnare... a group of m&m's ensnared and all dying sure beats using swarm like 5 times and only being able to claw at them. i donno.
ensare does not save your expensive lurkers from tanks. you need swarm or you are just dead vs T.
On May 21 2008 11:40 Ozarugold wrote: Do you know what's awesome? Parasiting critters. They're random, but 99.9% of players never highlight critters so they work as ninja spies who always go around ignored!
Hehe, but what if you are playing vs reach? there's no critters then.
On May 21 2008 10:58 gwho wrote: if you can use parasite multiple times on somewhat important units, the opponent is forced to throw that unit away.
Terran can always research restoration for medics, and in zvp you can't go hive that fast (no need for expensive queens nest yet) that it would be viable. last time zerg made couple queen vs me I just maelstormed them and gg-_-
On May 21 2008 10:58 gwho wrote: i donno, i think it's worth it, even if you do ensnare... a group of m&m's ensnared and all dying sure beats using swarm like 5 times and only being able to claw at them. i donno.
ensare does not save your expensive lurkers from tanks. you need swarm or you are just dead vs T.
On May 21 2008 11:40 Ozarugold wrote: Do you know what's awesome? Parasiting critters. They're random, but 99.9% of players never highlight critters so they work as ninja spies who always go around ignored!
Hehe, but what if you are playing vs reach? there's no critters then.
On May 21 2008 10:58 gwho wrote: if you can use parasite multiple times on somewhat important units, the opponent is forced to throw that unit away.
Terran can always research restoration for medics, and in zvp you can't go hive that fast (no need for expensive queens nest yet) that it would be viable. last time zerg made couple queen vs me I just maelstormed them and gg-_-
On May 21 2008 10:58 gwho wrote: i donno, i think it's worth it, even if you do ensnare... a group of m&m's ensnared and all dying sure beats using swarm like 5 times and only being able to claw at them. i donno.
ensare does not save your expensive lurkers from tanks. you need swarm or you are just dead vs T.
On May 21 2008 11:40 Ozarugold wrote: Do you know what's awesome? Parasiting critters. They're random, but 99.9% of players never highlight critters so they work as ninja spies who always go around ignored!
Hehe, but what if you are playing vs reach? there's no critters then.
isn't that xellos?
I'm pretty sure it was Reach.
I think if you're playing Reach anyways, you're in trouble.
There's the original newspost, I think. The other 9 incidents mentioned are pretty memorable as well. Most of the other mentions of the game involve people not knowing the name of the zerg.
The only progame I can find is Chojja versus Nada in the Ace match of some teamleague (KTF versus Pantech) but there's no vod for it in TLPD
Really the application of queens can only be usefull at lower levels besides cc infesting always is a time savior...saver like ht snipeing i think brood is range of 9 unless its a well cliffed area where you can roam around also the zerg needs air superiority which is more so challanged then ever before atlest in pvz not so much tvz of else queens are just faster ovies one can shoot down
I think some of the less known progamers (not like Jaedong, Savior or July)use it in their games to kill some of defenses or even the tanks that accompany marines. I think if a popular player used it like Jaedong or Luxury it can be popular and many people will imitate it also I will watching for it
Queens are used so rarely that I think most people have given up on it. Yet, it can be used very well! For example, in ZvP, when P gets a huge number of corsairs, there is really no way to kill them (providing he has good micro against hydras). What I do in that case is ensnare them and then take them out with hydras.
I dont usually play pros (I am not a pro either), but when I go ZvT, and the Terran starts to make bc's, I start to research ensnare and get a queen running.
I think ensnaring BC's is an effective way to slow down their rate of fire and what not.
On May 25 2008 10:56 omfghi2u2 wrote: I think queens + hyrdas rape bc;s.
I dont usually play pros (I am not a pro either), but when I go ZvT, and the Terran starts to make bc's, I start to research ensnare and get a queen running.
I think ensnaring BC's is an effective way to slow down their rate of fire and what not.
But, I am not a pro so dont flame me.
If Terran goes BCs might as well get Defilers and plague-rape them then finish them off with some swarm hydras or something
Just played a ZvT where I went lurker/ling with queens, I parasited his science vessels and he killed them with his marines instantly. He ended up killing 8 of his own science vessels :\
On May 25 2008 18:48 Patrio wrote: Just played a ZvT where I went lurker/ling with queens, I parasited his science vessels and he killed them with his marines instantly. He ended up killing 8 of his own science vessels :\
lol , what a noob so the range on parasite is long enough to avoid any m&m that might be under the vicinity of the vessel? its been so long since i used queen spells i've forgotten the range of some of the spells
On May 25 2008 18:48 Patrio wrote: Just played a ZvT where I went lurker/ling with queens, I parasited his science vessels and he killed them with his marines instantly. He ended up killing 8 of his own science vessels :\
lol , what a noob so the range on parasite is long enough to avoid any m&m that might be under the vicinity of the vessel? its been so long since i used queen spells i've forgotten the range of some of the spells
Yeah the range of parasite is huge, dont think he even saw my queen
Funny strat ( do or die ) ; may not be new , but 'haven't heard about it , at least in some years ( less than 3 days registration , can't create new thread , so I post in this one because it's more or less about queen usage )
Just "kill" the cc while terran is at your door ^^ ( yes , I know this is a newbie game , but it's funny... )
On August 06 2009 01:06 Mzerg wrote: Funny strat ( do or die ) ; may not be new , but 'haven't heard about it , at least in some years ( less than 3 days registration , can't create new thread , so I post in this one because it's more or less about queen usage )
Just "kill" the cc while terran is at your door ^^ ( yes , I know this is a newbie game , but it's funny... )
[url blocked]
I have to say this is the biggest comeback I have ever seen.
It's like the Zerg made the best possible move considering the position he was in and the Terran responded with a critical failure.
What others have stated... getting a queen gives you another unit to focus on
I'm pretty sure if one used Queens often enough it wouldn't affect their focus at all. I've used Queens with broodling and ensnare to great effectiveness before, but in most games that's not exactly a viable option. I'm suggesting is a random 100/100 from your pocket worth the investment? What are you really slowing down that's so imperative? Is there something more effective that totally replaces parasite, making it pointless to get anyway? Those were the questions, not, are you so noob you can't control one Queen every time you see it has 75 energy, and then hide it away again? We're talking maybe 10 actions total every time you see your queen with 75 energy, that's not busting anyones balls.
if queens started out with 125 energy instead of 75, then spawn broodling would become very viable as a part of the game. the timing would be that the queens would be ready to kick some tank ass for the first terran push.
What others have stated... getting a queen gives you another unit to focus on
I'm pretty sure if one used Queens often enough it wouldn't affect their focus at all. I've used Queens with broodling and ensnare to great effectiveness before, but in most games that's not exactly a viable option. I'm suggesting is a random 100/100 from your pocket worth the investment? What are you really slowing down that's so imperative? Is there something more effective that totally replaces parasite, making it pointless to get anyway? Those were the questions, not, are you so noob you can't control one Queen every time you see it has 75 energy, and then hide it away again? We're talking maybe 10 actions total every time you see your queen with 75 energy, that's not busting anyones balls.
if queens started out with 125 energy instead of 75, then spawn broodling would become very viable as a part of the game. the timing would be that the queens would be ready to kick some tank ass for the first terran push.
I think that most of the time ensnare is a much better choice, unless you are broodlinging a tank that is particularly hard to kill, such as one that has been D-matrixed or one that is very far up on a cliff you're trying to climb with hydra or something.
On October 03 2007 02:06 NoDDiE wrote: ensensare the spider mine , then lure it with ling and start running with it , while watching the mine following it ^^ you might run with the ling into the eco line , and watch spider mine finishing the job XD
What others have stated... getting a queen gives you another unit to focus on
I'm pretty sure if one used Queens often enough it wouldn't affect their focus at all. I've used Queens with broodling and ensnare to great effectiveness before, but in most games that's not exactly a viable option. I'm suggesting is a random 100/100 from your pocket worth the investment? What are you really slowing down that's so imperative? Is there something more effective that totally replaces parasite, making it pointless to get anyway? Those were the questions, not, are you so noob you can't control one Queen every time you see it has 75 energy, and then hide it away again? We're talking maybe 10 actions total every time you see your queen with 75 energy, that's not busting anyones balls.
if queens started out with 125 energy instead of 75, then spawn broodling would become very viable as a part of the game. the timing would be that the queens would be ready to kick some tank ass for the first terran push.
I think that most of the time ensnare is a much better choice, unless you are broodlinging a tank that is particularly hard to kill, such as one that has been D-matrixed or one that is very far up on a cliff you're trying to climb with hydra or something.
your post is next to useless you revived this thread for us to watch a noob rep that you wanted to show off. post some constructive stuff, not just a replay with no description
And yes this is the strategy forum, but your post belongs in the blog section
What others have stated... getting a queen gives you another unit to focus on
I'm pretty sure if one used Queens often enough it wouldn't affect their focus at all. I've used Queens with broodling and ensnare to great effectiveness before, but in most games that's not exactly a viable option. I'm suggesting is a random 100/100 from your pocket worth the investment? What are you really slowing down that's so imperative? Is there something more effective that totally replaces parasite, making it pointless to get anyway? Those were the questions, not, are you so noob you can't control one Queen every time you see it has 75 energy, and then hide it away again? We're talking maybe 10 actions total every time you see your queen with 75 energy, that's not busting anyones balls.
if queens started out with 125 energy instead of 75, then spawn broodling would become very viable as a part of the game. the timing would be that the queens would be ready to kick some tank ass for the first terran push.
I think that most of the time ensnare is a much better choice, unless you are broodlinging a tank that is particularly hard to kill, such as one that has been D-matrixed or one that is very far up on a cliff you're trying to climb with hydra or something.
Queens don't start with 75 energy.
they do with the upgrade
50 without the upgrade, 62 with the upgrade.
Every spellcaster in the game follows this pattern, except the Dark Archon, which starts with 50 whether or not you have the upgrade. I know because I tested it. Just now.
I would think that getting one queen in every ZvT could be useful. For infested command center purposes. When you pressure the terran with lings/lurkers and damage the cc forcing a lift off you could just hit the queen hot key and right click on the cc and wait for the magic to happen.
I would say this is the most pratical way to use a queen but I don't do it, off course, because I suck. But I think better players could really try this out.
your post is next to useless you revived this thread for us to watch a noob rep that you wanted to show off. post some constructive stuff, not just a replay with no description And yes this is the strategy forum, but your post belongs in the blog section
- "constructive stuff" : a fun strat , you will enjoy even if it happened not to work
- "replay with no description" : I said that it's about "killing" the command center pretty early when terran is going to attack you ; if you can't read it's not my fault...
- "your post belongs in the blog section" : a strategy doesn't belong to the strategy section ??? oh... I think YOUR posts belong to the "I am the one to know" section...
I can't see anything constructive in YOUR post
and reviving a thread about queen to talk about a strat that involves queen : why not ? plus , I think there are newly registered people around there , and they may be interested in reading all that stuff : you can't understand , you're so pro you don't need to talk about anything , do you ? what are you here for , please ?
Actually I do get one queen in ZvTs just to parasite science vessels and to snipe command centers that have been lifted off. I might research ensnare in the odd game they go wraiths or I'm way ahead.
Two things that bother me however, is how easy it is to just forget about the queen somewhere and have it get irradiated, or that for about the same price of a queen, a Terran can research restoration to negate parasite.
For me the bottom line is that Queens are fun ^_^ Its satisfying every time to cast one of her spells or infest a CC. It's like casting feedback or lockdown - you could be losing the game, but you get a warm fuzzy feeling inside knowing it was all worth while to cast that one rare spell.
On October 03 2007 02:06 NoDDiE wrote: ensensare the spider mine , then lure it with ling and start running with it , while watching the mine following it ^^ you might run with the ling into the eco line , and watch spider mine finishing the job XD
Would this work>? o.0 ive never seen an ensnared spider mine.
I build a queen usually in ZvT simply because my midgame army is lurker ling and my lategame army is defiler/ultra/ling. Usually they lift a damaged CC around 800-900 HP, and if I have 2-3 scourge to spare, its' worth sacrificing them and infesting it. otherwise they just float and drop it when the MM/vessels come to the rescue. I usually won't do it if it costs more than 3 scourge though.
And at the same time you parasite a vessel, so you have vision of his vessels
On October 03 2007 02:06 NoDDiE wrote: ensensare the spider mine , then lure it with ling and start running with it , while watching the mine following it ^^ you might run with the ling into the eco line , and watch spider mine finishing the job XD
Would this work>? o.0 ive never seen an ensnared spider mine.
the only issue here is that for ensnare to work the unit (afaik, only tested it with zerg burrowed units) has to be unburrowed, else ensnare has no effect on it, so if you want to pull it off you should have high apm/good timing to ensnare the mine exactly when it unburrows and then guide the ling fast enough else your ensnared mine will blow off too early...
well, i don't think it would be cost effective IF you only use parasite but if you do as ZerO in the game where he used 5-6 queens to snipe the high templars I think it would be worth it,
best use of queens is against fantasy valkyrie play or against heavy wraith, an ensnare on either group basically means you've just gained a 1000+ mins/gas advantage on them. Other cost effective uses are if you go for a later game lurk contain zvp 2 queens and ensnare is cheap and adds a shitton of hits for each lurk, or zvt queens and ensnare/parasite are useful if used right. Just only build a few, and use them as scouts too, they have heavenly speed, if your careful you won't lose them.
You guys are talking about queens like they're NEVER used in pro games. Watch Zero vs Bisu in this year's OSL. I believe that Zero's use of spawn broodling is the reason he won that game
ZvT Queens against bio terrans is really really great, but they are unused for 1 reason: Queens ussually stay next to each other, so emp on queens would just ruin the whole plan. Now why queens are so great in zvt When terran is pushing, spawning broodlings on 1-6 tanks (all) puts him in seriously bad position. Ensnare. This things is marvelous against bio. Not only it slows them down 50% and slows firing rate by 18%, but it also negates all the stim effect. so basically ensnare slows stimmed marines by ~75% and their firing rate by ~45%. Just think about it, barely walking and twice slover firing rate. Zergling/hydra/lurkers, just sloughters the whole terran bio army. And all this is only for 1 queen's price. 100/100. So think about it, you can spend like 2000/1500 on aditional lurkers and lings and still lose, or you can spend 100/100, tech faster, and win. That speaks for itself. In some cases 1 Queen > 12 lurkers and 36 lings. Also queens are not used enough, because no real build order includes queens, and many people try to play as standart as they can, because they are afraid to get behind by making their own desicions/build orders. Thats the main reason why people don't use queens.
On August 09 2009 08:08 ProoM wrote: ZvT Queens against bio terrans is really really great, but they are unused for 1 reason: Queens ussually stay next to each other, so emp on queens would just ruin the whole plan. Now why queens are so great in zvt When terran is pushing, spawning broodlings on 1-6 tanks (all) puts him in seriously bad position. Ensnare. This things is marvelous against bio. Not only it slows them down 50% and slows firing rate by 18%, but it also negates all the stim effect. so basically ensnare slows stimmed marines by ~75% and their firing rate by ~45%. Just think about it, barely walking and twice slover firing rate. Zergling/hydra/lurkers, just sloughters the whole terran bio army. And all this is only for 1 queen's price. 100/100. So think about it, you can spend like 2000/1500 on aditional lurkers and lings and still lose, or you can spend 100/100, tech faster, and win. That speaks for itself. In some cases 1 Queen > 12 lurkers and 36 lings. Also queens are not used enough, because no real build order includes queens, and many people try to play as standart as they can, because they are afraid to get behind by making their own desicions/build orders. Thats the main reason why people don't use queens.
On August 09 2009 08:08 ProoM wrote: And all this is only for 1 queen's price. 100/100. So think about it, you can spend like 2000/1500 on aditional lurkers and lings and still lose, or you can spend 100/100, tech faster, and win.
I'm kinda curious... If majority of the zerg players do catch onto Zero's frequent Queen play how frequent Restoration would be used.
How effective would it be to just spam use Restoration on Ensnared Marines? Since Ensnare does completely negate Stim Pack, wouldn't be be useful to clean them up, or would it be better to use that 100hp's worth of healing?
I started reading this thread, i read first post, second post and think "god, I'm quite sure I read this thread already". Then i look at the date :|
On September 03 2009 19:08 MrHoon wrote: How effective would it be to just spam use Restoration on Ensnared Marines? Since Ensnare does completely negate Stim Pack, wouldn't be be useful to clean them up, or would it be better to use that 100hp's worth of healing?
Problem with restoration is - that is not AOE, so when you see it used, you see it only to counter lockdowns. It could be great skill to counter plague as well, but Z can cast it for mere 3 lings, and then you have to spend like 300-400 energy from medics and well... It requires more apm on T's part. Same for ensnare - you get (on average) like 6-8 rines ensnared and have to use 300-400 energy plus do more clicks than zerg. Also you probably have to stim and retreat in the meantime since Z is prolly attacking. Oh and ofc you have to irradiate at the same time.
On September 03 2009 20:04 RaiZ wrote: Restoration is good only for plagued Vessels or BC, or parasited importants units. Otherwise it'd just cost to much for nothing really.
well i guess there would be one situation for a Terran where it would be worthy to consider: in case the Terran had to switch from mnm to mech during the game he likely would have some spare medics left over which he could use only for healing scvs, so that restoration(or even optical flare in case of mass wraith) would give them a purpose again.
What's wrong with a queen. All you need is ensare and like 2-3 queens and your opponents have a huge problem to deal with. Since most (MOST) toss players around C,C+ level (like me lol) are 150 apm 1a2a3a nubs, the average C,C+ zerg, who have 200+ apm should have no problem annoying the shit out of toss players with queens.
Against terran, I can't say anything, cuz I don't know much about ZvT other than muta usage.
On August 09 2009 08:08 ProoM wrote: ZvT Queens against bio terrans is really really great, but they are unused for 1 reason: Queens ussually stay next to each other, so emp on queens would just ruin the whole plan. Now why queens are so great in zvt When terran is pushing, spawning broodlings on 1-6 tanks (all) puts him in seriously bad position. Ensnare. This things is marvelous against bio. Not only it slows them down 50% and slows firing rate by 18%, but it also negates all the stim effect. so basically ensnare slows stimmed marines by ~75% and their firing rate by ~45%. Just think about it, barely walking and twice slover firing rate. Zergling/hydra/lurkers, just sloughters the whole terran bio army. And all this is only for 1 queen's price. 100/100. So think about it, you can spend like 2000/1500 on aditional lurkers and lings and still lose, or you can spend 100/100, tech faster, and win. That speaks for itself. In some cases 1 Queen > 12 lurkers and 36 lings. Also queens are not used enough, because no real build order includes queens, and many people try to play as standart as they can, because they are afraid to get behind by making their own desicions/build orders. Thats the main reason why people don't use queens.
TBH, queens is insane in ZvT. Ensnare on MnM just completely nullifies stims which makes even hydras fit for taking em down. I bet someone good at Zerg could rape ppl with a hydra+queen combo.
On September 05 2009 13:09 peidongyang wrote: What's wrong with a queen. All you need is ensare and like 2-3 queens and your opponents have a huge problem to deal with. Since most (MOST) toss players around C,C+ level (like me lol) are 150 apm 1a2a3a nubs, the average C,C+ zerg, who have 200+ apm should have no problem annoying the shit out of toss players with queens.
Against terran, I can't say anything, cuz I don't know much about ZvT other than muta usage.
Lol do you know how hard it is to micro hydralisks and cast spawn broodling/ensnare at the same time? That and the resource hit is detrimental to most Zerg players. Queens get owned really easy by dragoons as well so they cant really get close enough and a 1a2a3a toss can probably use a few goons without much trouble to take out a queen about to do its dirty work.
I'm thinking ensnare especially could have some use in zvt lategame. Terrans are ever so oftenly forced to retreat their units momentarily against swarm/lurker/ling and ensnare should make this sort of micro a lot harder for T. Parasite seems like wasted effort simply because ol's all over is sufficient scouting.
On September 06 2009 05:09 hifriend wrote: I'm thinking ensnare especially could have some use in zvt lategame. Terrans are ever so oftenly forced to retreat their units momentarily against swarm/lurker/ling and ensnare should make this sort of micro a lot harder for T. Parasite seems like wasted effort simply because ol's all over is sufficient scouting.
And it would make the zerg micro absolutely impossible. Unless you have 400+ APM.
On September 06 2009 05:09 hifriend wrote: I'm thinking ensnare especially could have some use in zvt lategame. Terrans are ever so oftenly forced to retreat their units momentarily against swarm/lurker/ling and ensnare should make this sort of micro a lot harder for T. Parasite seems like wasted effort simply because ol's all over is sufficient scouting.
And it would make the zerg micro absolutely impossible. Unless you have 400+ APM.
On October 03 2007 02:06 NoDDiE wrote: ensensare the spider mine , then lure it with ling and start running with it , while watching the mine following it ^^ you might run with the ling into the eco line , and watch spider mine finishing the job XD
Would this work>? o.0 ive never seen an ensnared spider mine.
ensnare only works on unburrowed units, so it would take a lot of precision to do.
On September 06 2009 05:09 hifriend wrote: I'm thinking ensnare especially could have some use in zvt lategame. Terrans are ever so oftenly forced to retreat their units momentarily against swarm/lurker/ling and ensnare should make this sort of micro a lot harder for T. Parasite seems like wasted effort simply because ol's all over is sufficient scouting.
And it would make the zerg micro absolutely impossible. Unless you have 400+ APM.
why? ensnare could even be cast pre-battle?
it seems like you would be able to swarm > ensnare > send in units. but i dunno, i'm a T player with average mechanics.
I actually think this is a valid idea, especially vs terran, since the spawn broodling ability could be dramatic in messing up terran mech pushes, just wait for tanks to siege up and cast it in the middle, it not only destroys a few tanks but also gives the rest of your army some time to run in.
Spawn Broodling could be useful against a meching Terran before he gets mass irradiate out.
Let's imagine a situation where you have muta hydra and the T has tank goliath. The main goal here is to kill the goliaths so you can get to the tanks. Muta and Hydra put pressure only on the Goliaths because they can't touch the tanks. The tanks rip your hydras to shreds thus weakening you greatly.
However, if you had spawn broodling during the battle you could assasinate some of the tanks just as the battle begins, thus strengthening your hydra force. You will not have to worry about APM here; you only have to skillfully flank the Terran force, there are no defilers or lurkers that need your attention. A group of 4 queens could make you win the battle.
The great thing about pairing mutalisks with queens is that the goliaths will not fire your queens automatically, thus giving your queens time to do their thing. One thing you have to remember is that if T gets mass irradiate your mutas won't work anymore and neither will your queens. Another thing to consider is that you need to invest into the queens very early in the game. From the time you invest 100/100 into a queen it will be a bit under 3 minutes until you have 150 energy. I'm thinking 4 queens is the absolute maximum you can afford, maybe even less would be better.
Spawn Broodling is one of the coolest abilities Zerg has. It is a shame it isn't used more often.
broodling doesnt seem very viable against bio, but has potential vs mech. Ts who mech usually dont make vessels (until WAY later). therefore, you can broodling some stuff, either as a snipe or during battle with all that chaos going on. it might be difficult to snipe, since the charon boosters have long range, too, and there's more of them. during battle, theres mutas to absorb damage, so the queens can get closer.
plus, broodling can force enemy tanks to shoot their own stuff, whereas you cant really do that with lings (die too fast) or hydras (cant get close enough to force splash).
i wonder how good ensnare is vs mech. not quite sure about that.
parasite can help track down the location of the large blob.
infest cc is always good because ccs fly away and you can kill them before they get away, but that's more useful with lurker ling because hydra muta both have anti-air capabilities
Goliaths have the range of guardians too, and mech doesn't really need to run away, unless you've got dark swarm. For the purposes of ensnare, not so much, but for parasites it could really help to get flanks/force him to build medics and research restore.
On September 08 2009 15:04 29 fps wrote: i wonder how good ensnare is vs mech. not quite sure about that.
It doesn't reduce fire rate
It does? Don't know if you mean for all units or just mech, but it definitely does for most units. (I think archon is the one exception).
Uh, broodling was probably balanced against terran mech, as a way for them to punish clumped tanks. It's better for the purpose than psi storm, maybe stasis as well because the broodlings take extra hits.
On September 08 2009 15:04 29 fps wrote: i wonder how good ensnare is vs mech. not quite sure about that.
It doesn't reduce fire rate
It does? Don't know if you mean for all units or just mech, but it definitely does for most units. (I think archon is the one exception).
Uh, broodling was probably balanced against terran mech, as a way for them to punish clumped tanks. It's better for the purpose than psi storm, maybe stasis as well because the broodlings take extra hits.
you sure? 150 energy for one broodling auto kills one unit with possibly damaging others.
vs storm 75. so you can cast 2x the storms, cover a much bigger area do overall MUCH more damage.
status 100 nrgy. freeze 3+ tanks taking out of the action. much better use.
On September 08 2009 15:04 29 fps wrote: i wonder how good ensnare is vs mech. not quite sure about that.
It doesn't reduce fire rate
It does? Don't know if you mean for all units or just mech, but it definitely does for most units. (I think archon is the one exception).
Uh, broodling was probably balanced against terran mech, as a way for them to punish clumped tanks. It's better for the purpose than psi storm, maybe stasis as well because the broodlings take extra hits.
you sure? 150 energy for one broodling auto kills one unit with possibly damaging others.
vs storm 75. so you can cast 2x the storms, cover a much bigger area do overall MUCH more damage.
status 100 nrgy. freeze 3+ tanks taking out of the action. much better use.
Queens brooding is just so costly
Comparison between casters don't make particularly much since. They all take different tech levels/costs, have different non-casting-related stats, and they all complement their faction in different ways. Defilers are amazing, but Dark Swarm wouldn't help a Terran player...