Hey there.
I know this thread may look similar to many of the others. But I did not see a ZvT comparison of SC2 and BW. I did not want to conclude that Z v T is totally worse than it was in BW, but I think this comparison will at least show why Z v T is so hard now in SC2. Sure of course I admit Zerg has some advantage from BW to SC2, so it is not totally worse.
The most serious problem is I have very little fun playing Z v T.
----
I just checked the sc2ranks and I am now no.5 Zerg in the US server. The first 4 Zergs are SLush, ostojiy, IdrA and Sheth (who plays Terran now). They are totally beasts,
definitely a lot better than me. BTW they are the only Zergs in top 40. Here I just want to present what I observed and thought of. Sorry for my poor English writing.
----
First I want to state my opinion of the current situation of Z v T. It is totaly broken.
Some may argue two facts:
(1) Idra has a very decent win ratio;
(2) Koreans are doing fine with zerg.
Those two facts lead to total misunderstandings.
I have two points to mention. One, Idra is definitely playing in a pro scene, while the terran players around his points are all ameteurs.
Two, Idra got those win-ratio very early in the release, when Terrans are not so imba. Terrans are improving very fast, while Zergs improvement is very slow.
During the first week of release, I have no problem playing with the Terrans who now rank at top 50 US and won a decent amount of games. During the second week, my win ratio against Terran drops, still not so bad. Now in the third week, it becomes a nightmare to play against Terran (I don't even want to mention that 70% of my opponents are Terrans since I got my position in ladder now). They are almost the same players, but now they are definitely more aware of how to abuse the Terran advantages.
I did not say the race Terran has changed since the release. I just say when it was first released, Terran players were not so abusive. They were not so aware of what they can do.For the Korean scene, I noticed that the number of top Zergs rapidly droped as well, which confirms my statement about Terrans getting better.
------
To sum up the reasons why Terran has this huge advantage. I would compare it to BW, in 6 different aspects.
1, As Sheth mentioned, Zerg has no ability to defend against sieging or to siege.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=140800
Thanks to Sheth, quite well stated post.
2, The Terran is very flexible with strategies, but Zerg is not.
In Z v T, Terran has at least 10 openning strategies that are considered effective against good Zergs. I just list some here:
reapers,
hellions,
banshees,
fast expand,
mass bio/marines,
ghosts/nukes,
tank rush,
pure mech,
dropships,
vikings...
What do Zergs have? They have speedlings or roaches. Basically we have to choose one of this. (don't mention baneling bust please. It is not effective against good Terrans) Neither of those two method is a threat to Terran. They are only defensive (that means the Terran can open as whatever he likes). And roaches are badly countered by nearly every strategy of Terran even when those strategies are not designed to counter roaches. So speedlings becomes nearly the only solution. Too few choices of Zerg, versus too many choices of Terran. We only have 1 base or 2 base openings, usually as a reaction to the Terran strategy rather than a choice by ourselves.
While in BW, things are different. Lurker is possible, muta is possible, speedling is possible, hydra is possible as well. Also 1 hatch is possible, 2 hatch is possible, 3 hatch is possible, fast upgrade is possible... Those are nearlly all possible against most of the Terran strategies, and they all lead to different mid-games.
3, The Terran mobility is too good comparing to the Zerg ground army.
I did not say Terran has a better mobility, which is obviously false. But Zerg needs a much better mobility in SC2. In BW, the slowest unit of zerg army is the upgraded hydralisk, which can outrun any terran army very easily. That means, if you are in bad position, you can choose to retreat and hold a better position. In SC2, the hydras and roaches are relatively slow off creep, and you can not have creep everywhere to attack at your desired directions. That makes Zerg extremely difficult to surround the Terran army and attack from several directions (which is common in BW). This point is very critical. Now terran has reapers and helions as very fast units, and they counter the fast units of Zerg (Zerglings and Banelings), so the Terran army is usually guarrenteed a moderate position when the fight begins. It is very different from that in BW, where T is always surrounded by Zerg units.
edit: I think he made it more clear than what I said
On August 15 2010 12:36 Neverhood wrote:
Finally, the other noticeable thing I feel like zerg is missing from BW is the mobility. OP makes an excellent point in that zerg players can no longer be as selective about where to engage the terran army. A decent terran will be very diligent at clearing out creep once it reaches the center of the map and the only zerg ground unit thats actually good off creep are lings....which got significantly worse since BW.
4, Zerg army is hard-countered, and Terran army is slightly-countered.
For each unit or unit combination of Zerg, Terran can find a very effective unit or unit combo to counter it hard. Ex. Muta - Thors/Ghosts, Broodlords - Vikings, Roaches - Marauders/Tanks, Hydra - Bio/Tanks/Thors, lings - Helions... unit combo: Muta&lings - bio/Thors&Helions, Roaches&Hydras - Marader&Tanks/Mech, Zerg everything together - Mech...
The only unit that is not hard-countered is the ultralisks, but it comes too late, and you can't use it along. Ultra&lings is slightly countered by mech.
On the other side, if you see terran goes hard marauders/mech, you don't have anything really counter them. Zerglings might be good against Marauders, Banelings good against marine, but the combo is only slightly good (or even) against Marau & Marines with good control due to the fact that Marauders consume all the damage and marines are really good DPS.
That raises the problem, that even if the Zerg knows exactly what the terran is going to do, it can not find a good counter to the Terran army. Recall in BW, the mech consists of two major units: Goliaths and tanks. If the T goes heavy on Goliath, the zerg will make more hydras. If the T goes heavy tanks, the zerg can make all mutas. Switch between those two units is very effective in Z v mech games. The reason is Hydras totally own goliaths and Mutalisks kill tanks free. But in SC2, I can't see any switch that is so effective. Changing from Muta to Roaches or Hydras does not help so much with killing Thors...
5, Zerg units are too weak compared to BW when they are in small number.
In BW, zerg is the race that uses the smallest food and fewest resource to generate a single effective unit. 2 hydras kill 1 dragoon or 1 tank, 4 zerglings kill 2marines or 1 zealot, 4 hydras kill 1 battlecruiser, etc... The zerg units only get beaten when the number of army is large. That is a perfect balance: when army is small, zerg is more resources effective, but it will sacrafice the economy to make army early game for zerg (not that bad for T and P!). When army is large, P/T is more resources effective, but Z has a better economy then.
edit: a good point
On August 15 2010 12:36 Elite00fm wrote:
OP your point 5 needs revision, zerg is stronger at low unit counts because of how T armies become exponentially stronger as they get larger, and since the majority of z units are melee/close range, T units standing in a ball protect each other from being attacked individually by z units, greatly diminishing the dps of a zerg army.
Now in SC2, Zerg units are really weak. 5 Hydras < 1 battlecruiser or 1 thor, 5 roaches < 1 thor. That means hydras and roaches are really resource ineffective against big things (In BW, those big things are ineffective because they have the ultimate power when you get more of them). Even facing small things their behavior is not as good as in BW. Zerglings are much weaker as well. This will make the zerg very difficult to survive after a big battle. In BW, if after a big battle, there are 5 marines left on the battle field, the newly-made zerg units will crash them + the newly-made terran units because in small number zerg dominates (also tanks are not in good position, medics and marines are not perfectly matched, etc). Now in SC2, if after a big battle, there are 5 marines left, with both side has the similar volume of reinforcement coming, Zerg dies.
6, The new AI helps Terran too much.
(1) In SC2 unit turn to get into a ball - good for tanks, ravens to kill zerg, also good for marauders to consume damage for marines, good for thors to block the tanks, etc.. Also good for Terran to reposition their reinforcement very quickly. It used to be a pain to let the newly-made Terran units to cooperate perfectly with the attacking army in BW.
(2) The auto-repair thing is terrible. Zerglings do not attack the repairing scv, so if a thor is being surrounded and auto-repaired, no zergling will do any damage to it unless you force them to attack scvs one by one. Not to mention that the scvs around a thor is very difficult to catch.
(3) Tanks do not waste DPS.. They are too smart to avoid self-damage now. If you spawn infested terran in the middle of a ball of Terran tanks, only one tank will fire, and it is not a big deal. In BW the tanks around the infested terran will all die instantly.
----
I do not enjoy playing Z v T now. Too few strategies, too long time of defending and reacting, getting destroyed so easily. It seems like I am a machine just sitting there defending all those reapers hellions banshees vikings dropships thors .... finally I have the freedom to choose to do something, then 2 minutes later I get owned. ............ It is not fun. Really not fun.
I will not switch race to terran like someone said, but I will keep complainting. We Zerg users choose Zerg for a reason, and all of us want Zerg to be playable again.
