FYI the new broodlord is absolutely busted

General Discussion
1

This is coming from a zerg player. Holy cow, I can now literally a-click through terran armies while being behind 5 upgrades. Here is an example vs a 5600 mmr terran. He had 3/3 and I had 1/0 on my roaches/hydras. Holy moley, zerg is absolutely busted:

https://streamable.com/uairok

To contrast how this battle would’ve gone on the last patch, even with amazing micro from the zerg, is that the terran would rapid-fire snipe and the entire zerg army would instantly die for free and it’s like the zerg didn’t even have an army.

You can see in the replay he had far superior upgrades, similar army supply/value, and a defender’s advantage. It literally didn’t matter. I won with 170 supply to spare. I didn’t even have to cast bile on my ravagers and had tons of wasted supply in useless roaches. :joy:

Halfway through the battle I am like, “Oh, all my roaches are burrowed. Oops!”. How on Earth does a zerg win a late game fight and come out ahead in resources lost, especially with 30 supply wasted on roaches? Something is seriously wrong with the design of SC2.

2

The Brood Lord change had no practical effect on that battle:

  • The Brood Lords interrupt the Ghosts at the same range.
  • Fungal (which prevented any other attempts to Snipe) hasn’t been changed.
  • The net DPS of your units (including Hydralisks) is the same. Overall, it might even be slightly lower because the Broodlings don’t last as long.
  • The Thors haven’t gotten any better or worse at getting around units or engaging at chokepoints.
  • Cyclones still aren’t good in direct fights.

The fact is that your army, especially where you actually engaged the Terran, would have won by a similar margin without the patch.

1 Like
3

E-clowns strike again. The broodlord movement speed buff allowed me to catch him out of position, and allows the broodlord to get in range of a target quicker. This effectively increases the DPS of the broodlord because there is less of a delay between when the broodlord kills a unit and when it gets in range of a new target. This drastically reduces the probability that a ghost can get off a snipe without being interrupted. He had like 20 ghosts and he got off a total of 3 snipes.

On any other patch it would be literally impossible to win a late game fight against terran while having a massive upgrade disadvantage, and especially not while coming out ahead in resources lost.

The new broodlord is absolutely busted.

4

Do you see a fungal here ???

https://i.imgur.com/3aMElfh.png

I literally have to label the video for crying out loud and there’s a 99% probability e-clowns will still deny it. ~20 ghosts managed to get off 3 snipes, the zerg trades at an efficiency advantage for the first time in SC2 history while behind in upgrades and literal a-move micro, and people still deny that zerg is OP? :clown_face:

This game was won despite a highly terran favored map. This new patch buffed zerg to the flippin’ moon.

5

I actually watched the clip. You landed 2 Fungals on most of the Ghosts right near the start of the battle, and you continued to land fungals about when the previous ones wore off. There were practically no opportunities for the Ghosts to use steady-targeting.

Your own video shows that. Don’t try to gaslight people.

1 Like
6

The effective DPS of the Brood Lord hasn’t changed (or may even arguably be lower whenever the Broodlings time out).
Based on the positioning of both armies and the chokepoint on the Terran’s side, the Terran player would have still had trouble engaging even on the old patch.

7

Fungals would land in the previous patch. What changed is the brood.

8

You would have won that fight about the same given the same scenario last patch.

3 Likes
9

So you are telling me EMP nerf, snipe nerf, brood movement speed buff, hydra buffs, all had no impact on a battle between hydra, broods, and ghosts? That’s some genuine gold-league game analysis. :clown_face:

10

EMP wasn’t used in that fight. The opponent has to actually cast EMP before you can argue that it has some kind of impact.

That had no impact on the opponent’s ability to actually land Snipes. The range limit only applies if the Zerg player retreats, which you didn’t do. Instead, snipes were denied or canceled by Fungals or damage from other units.

No impact on the actual combat.

That also had practically no impact on the actual combat. The damage point change doesn’t really apply unless you are stutter-stepping or doing some other form of micro between shots. If units are continuously firing, then the damage point is taken off the next cooldown such that it has no practical effect on DPS.

Also practically no impact. The reduced broodling duration may have actually reduced your damage output somewhat in that fight.

You are making a mistake in assuming that just because you won “a battle” that everything about that battle must have to do with the patch; and that you would have lost without those very minor changes.

It is quite a significant leap in logic, and one which you have failed to actually demonstrate.

2 Likes
11

Because the broods were hitting the ghosts.

There is literally a picture of a ghost doing the snipe animation as broodlings are about to interrupt it. Do you have eyes, or am I talking to a chat bot?

Blizzard needs to nerf Zerg asap. I don’t know what I’ll do if Zerg becomes the “new protoss”. If zerg can wipe terran armies with simple aclick micro, it’s a huge design oversight. This might be worse than the mothership core.

12

Yeah right, that was an “A click”, definitely not the zerg catching the terran’s ghosts out of position with some good spellcasting.

I’d say the brood speed buff is what let the zerg initiate that fight so well and thus is a major cause of the victory, but good spellcasting, positioning and army composition are key here, T could have won with the same army comps and better control.

Snipe still absolutely ravages broodlords, the ghosts just got caught. Thors still outrange broods and tear them to shreds. Broods went from worthless to pretty good, they certainly aren’t insane. Compared to how depressing they were to use post thor range buff in the past, it’s pretty refreshing to be able to make them again.

Just git good terran boy.

13

Broodlings don’t stop EMP. The other player was busy microing his Vikings. He was likely to busy to use EMP, assuming he could even make out the location of your casters and decide where to throw it in the first place.

And there were 4 Fungals and a variety of other things that prevented the Ghosts from shooting, not just the Brood Lords. Those fungals hit nearly all of the Ghosts, preventing them from firing for the bulk of the fight.

The Brood Lord’s speed normally doesn’t matter when Brood Lords are targeted, since they have the same range as Snipe and they “will” interrupt the Ghosts automatically as long as they have detection.

14

Nah the ghosts would EMP the infestors if not for how fast the broods were swooping in and dropping the broodling waves. The millisecond the broods could see the ghosts, thanks to fungal, there were locusts dropping on them, and he couldn’t get in range to either snipe nor emp without being hit by a fungal. The moment the broods could see them, they changed their position rapidly, thanks to the movement speed buff, to target the ghosts. The brood was absolutely buffed on the previous patch.

I crushed ClownCrunch with this so hard that he cried that my late game zerg control was better than 6k zergs. All I was doing was stacking my broods, doing stutter step with them, and focus firing the nearest targets. If there wasn’t a target, I would drop a changeling and use it for a target. There was nothing difficult about this control. What changed? The brood is more micro-able. Reality check, ClownCrunch, zerg late game was massively buffed.

ClownCrunch’s unit comp was a lot better, too. He had liberator ghost thor. I crushed every single fight like he didn’t even have an army:

https://streamable.com/9tba0z

There was a moment in this video where the ghosts were on top of the broods without the aid of fungal. The fungal came after the broods being in position but there were already locust waves on the ground behind the ghosts. These are not maneuvers you could do with the old broodlord.

It killed literally every single ghost for the cost of like 1 broodlord. In the past, every single broodlord would instantly die to snipe in that same scenario. That’s just a fact.

A forum whine-terran told me a couple weeks ago that the “damage point buff” on the vikings was huge vs broodlords. It didn’t make a blasted difference in this battle. Vikings are absolutely awful.

Thors are absolutely awful, too. In theory, thors are supposed to beat broods like banelings are supposed to beat marines. In reality, marines hard counter banelings to an extreme, and the use of the baneling ensures a zerg is going to go bankrupt and fall behind in tech and upgrades. The brood is way more maneuverable than the thor, and you can stack your broods while thors don’t stack. Additionally, the thors have to compete with the broodlings AND the broods. All you have to do vs mass thors is making mass broods, a line of spore crawlers, then about 10 queens. You slow push with creep and do stutter step micro with the broods and transfuse them on occasion. It’s literally impossible for thors to win.

The brood movement speed buff makes broods stronger vs counter attacks, and allows the “deathball push” to converge on victory a lot faster than before. Normally, in both those scenarios, the terran would have more time. Both those were the biggest weaknesses of broods, and in the game vs ClownCrunch/the barcode both these scenarios were stressed.

Buffing the movement speed of the brood was a massive mistake. These things are absolutely insanely busted.

???

Do you have eyes? There are two videos here where broodling waves saved the infestor globs from EMPs multiple times.

I hate that Blizzard has turned zerg into an “ape” race. You can literally amove through terran late game armies now. Zerg is the “new” protoss. Why couldn’t the people who wanted to be protoss just pick protoss? Why does zerg have to be protoss!

15

Thrasher: You should play your style back from hots, it’s still viable even if you took a massive L from Upatree’s nuke.
Batz: noooooooo but tanks and liberators :((((((((((((((((((((((((
Balance team: here’s a minor broodlord change
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/sc2/t/fyi-the-new-broodlord-is-absolutely-busted/26656

16

Nope, roaches are for allining. If you try to macro with them, you are pulled apart by medivacs, your army can’t win fights vs plain bio even with upgrade leads, and tanks are a bonus on top of that which delete roaches for an insanely high trading efficiency.

The medivacs/liberators are annoying, the bio pushes are tough, but the real deal breaker is the tanks. Once he gets about 5 tanks, there is literally nothing you can do to stop his push. That means you need broods out in time to stop his first push, and the those timings are so far apart that it’s not feasible in the slightest. There’s like a 4 minute timing difference.

Yeah, well, tank counter-attacks were ironically a hard-counter to broodlord play. If the broods ever tried to move out, he would counter-attack with his ground army which is useless vs the broods. The brood push would be slowly picked away at using vikings, which he had plenty of time to get out just due to how slow the brood push moves. His tanks would kill 2 or 3 bases and the brood push would be ground to a halt.

Obviously this doesn’t apply to the maxxed out scenario were the zerg has the whole map and a 10k bank. The zerg has won no matter what in that scenario. I am talking about a brood tempo play where you get 3 to 5 of them and immediately push. It just doesn’t work, but the new “speed brood” might be able to do it, but certainly not off the back of roach play. Roaches are absolutely awful vs terran in macro plays especially.

Another difficulty this style faces is that a common response to roach plays is liberators, and that means he has air control right at the start. So you absolutely cannot do a brood tempo play because you’re making the unit his army already counters. This style could rely on queens for the air control, but that’s an awful idea since you can’t transfuse the broods anymore. So this “tempo” play is now delayed until you can get out anti air on top of getting out the broods. You’re talking infestation pit, hive, spire, greater spire, AND anti-air, just to beat some tanks for crying out loud.

Listen, if a build loses to UpATree, it’s a dumpster-tier build. That’s just the fact of the matter. If you get past the nuke, there are still a dozen hurdles preventing a victory. Terran has 10 paths to victory in that scenario for every 1 the zerg has.

Zerg’s strongest way to play is, factually, mass ling bane queen. There is no point in making any other unit UNLESS the terran turtles up, in which case you have to go broods. Absolutely nothing can produce an economic lead vs terran except this, and absolutely nothing has any capability of harassing terran except this. Absolutely nothing has an ability to deal with tanks, except this. Absolutely nothing has a chance at winning fights, except this. Absolutely nothing has a chance of trading efficiently, except this (and which it only does in a small portion of scenarios due to mismicro from the terran). Ling bane is the best zerg macro style by a very, very large margin, period, end of story.

Roaches can’t win fights. Roaches can’t trade at positive efficiency. Roaches can’t harass (they aren’t fast enough, don’t do burst damage vs the workers, and cost too much supply). Roaches are economically unfeasible due to the gas cost delaying upgrades and tech. Roaches can’t deal with medivac harass because they are too slow. Roaches are absolute dumpster-tier units.

Now, bring back burrow healing and we could talk about roaches being a viable unit. It would still be inferior to ling bane, but it wouldn’t be complete and utter trash.

17

Yes the biggest thing I took from this clip is batzy is still getting trolled by blizzard changing the burrow hotkey. Neohumanity is the best map for this playstyle. Good luck with ling bane on a map that’s as choked up as metalopolis.

But if it beats Berrycrunch and this 4500 terran who builds cyclones in the lategame while neglecting upgrades, it’s worthy of trolling battlenet with.

18

Yes, I absolutely hated that change with a burning passion. Just shift or control click the ones you want to command out of your selection bar for crying out loud.

I did end up finding a nice work-around. You rebind your hotkeys from ALT to CTRL. When you create a new hotkey, it removes those units from any other hotkeys. So if you want to burrow something, you box select them, rehotkey them, and then burrow them. This is nice for splitting and flanking and counter attacking, but not for a frontal assault where you want to do an attack that has burrowed and unburrowed roaches on a single hotkey. This is a common way to deal with forcefields and in that scenario the new burrow priority nonsense is still a pain.

God forbid you put multiple types of burrowed units onto one hotkey. Whoever at blizzard made that change is an idiot who had no clue how to properly implement hotkeys / selection priority.

Choked maps are even worse for roach ravager than for ling bane. Roach ravager has to somehow get on top of the tanks or the tanks delete the roaches with extremely high efficiency. This requires the bio out of position or the tanks unsieged. The only option is to get the bio out of position, and that requires flanking. You can’t flank on a choked map. You can’t get bio out of position on a choked map. He doesn’t have to spread his tanks on a choked map.

Listen, I tried mass roach ravager against ClownCrunch just yesterday. I had infestors and stole all his tanks with neural and he still won the first big fight just from shear bio. That’s with his tanks shooting his own marines and 2/2 roach ravager against 1/1 bio. Roaches are literal garbage. I can beat bio players with ultralisk rushes and swarm host memes but roaches are literally impossible to win with in macro games. They are easily the worst unit in the game by an extremely large margin. Mutalisks are garbage and I’d much rather make them than roaches.

By the time he reaches ~130 supply, the bio alone hard counters the roaches – the tanks are bonus. The only way you win with this trash is if you do a hard timing attack and manage to get on top of the tanks.

ClownCrunch is 5300 and the barcode terran is 5600. You’re never going to beat a 5k terran with a macro roach play.

Make the siege tank reveal what roach it’s going to hit, to allow counter split micro, and roaches might be OK. Bring back instant fungal, and roaches might be OK. Bring back infested terrans to help deal with tanks and drops, and roaches might be OK.

Part of what made roaches decent was the infestor had tools that made up for the roach’s weaknesses. You could spit out infested terrans on tanks, you could fungal a drop so it couldn’t retreat, etc. Drops were still extremely obnoxious, but at least you had a chance of dealing with them with the old infestor. Roaches are trash and there are no viable tech followups that aren’t better off the back of ling bane.

If you make roaches for a macro game, you make 8 or 12 just to hard-counter the possibility of a hellbat allin, and to keep him from making a BC. If he sees that many roaches, he will go banshee. That’s literally the only thing roaches are good for. After that stage, you want to get rid of them by trading them out somehow. Their supply cost absolutely gimps your army strength. 12 roaches is the equivalent of 48 banelings. You’re absolutely insane if you think 12 roaches will do better than 48 banes. Like, is this even a real conversation? That’s for 12 roaches – bnet clowns want me to make MASS roach because “snake does it!”. That’s the literal definition of insanity. Snake is the guy who reduces me to 1 base and then still loses the game. What kind of terran players are losing to a guy who can’t win a ZvZ game that ought to be a slam-dunk? You could roll your face across the keyboard and win from there. I have to give him credit for winning in unconventional ways, but let’s not pretend that his builds are good. They are not. I am like 4-0 against the poor guy and I am not even doing “real” builds myself. I clapped him with a 2 base lurker rush for example. That’s not a real build. What are these terran players doing to lose to mass roach? Is drug abuse rampant in the SC2 community? I know that smoking pot reduces your IQ massively. Have you seen the studies? Holy cow, it’s massive, in particular in the verbal reasoning department. Maybe a bunch of pot smokers are getting high and playing terran on the weekends? That might explain it.

Roaches are trash. You only make them to avoid dying to a hellbat allin. That’s it.

19

Nothing like a good barcode forum fight to get me in the right mood to start the week!

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By the way, if you want to see an example of this, you just watch Dark vs Ryung in the WardiTV korean bracket whatever. Dark rams in with roaches over and over again, and every time it’s an abject failure, UNTIL Ryun leaves his tanks undefended by sending all his bio across the map for a counter attack. Literally the only thing he had to do to not die was not do that one thing, but he did it. This is the kind of nonsensical play that I am talking about from terran players. Was this guy smoking something – could he see straight? Dark is on a useless tech that is invalidated as soon as you hit 2/2 upgrades, and all you have to do to win is not die then do a 2/2 push, and you leave your tanks undefended? What.

This is what I’ve been talking about with the quality of SC2 pro play going down. I don’t think a korean terran would ever die to roach plays in HotS. Polt didn’t have liberators nor super medivacs, and he made every roach player look like a joke. Polt wasn’t even a “top” terran.

Complaining about roaches is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Now, if you want to complain about broodlords, that’s totally legit. Broods can now amove through terran late game armies since the speed buff and EMP nerfs.