Hello. I’m no GM, but I watch quite a bit of the pro scene. In the recent group C of GSL, Tasteless suggested the counter to broodlord-infestor was to never allow the zerg to reach this army composition. I ask the community the following questions:
- is late game versus broodlord-infestor unwinnable for terran?
- if this situation is indeed unwinnable, what can or should be done to rectify it?
My personal thoughts as an interested observer are that certain phases of the game might be advantageous for one race, as much as 60-40 or even 70-30, but should never be a forgone conclusion.
Thors are supposed to be effective versus broodlords, right? However, when I have seen them in action in the pro scene, they never seem to perform well. (Time vs Soo in GSL vs the World, Maru vs Solar game 1 of the first match of GSL group C).
Thors already received a range buff, but they seem to underperform. BCs could yamato the broodlords, but they are likely to get neuraled and easily killed. Ghosts could steady target, but again, with fungal and the tendency to clump, and the time needed to fire, this is very risky. What, if anything, could or should be done?
Final thought: I don’t think I am racially biased - if terran were too strong in a certain phase or needed a nerf to compensate for any adjustment in broodlord infestor, I would be all for it. I just don’t like watching long TvZ matches where the terran has basically no chance.
6 Likes
They should buff the Liberators AA mode damage. From 5 to 6.
Why?. Because since Terran lacks AOE killing spells, they need some form of AOE splash against Air. Mines are too short range which causes them to die and Thors AA splash mode is useless against things that are not muta’s.
Lets look at the balance history of the Liberator AA attack vs the Thor AA splash attack.
Liberator AA attack gets nerf.
Thor AA splash attack and base armor gets buffed as compensation.
Thor AA splash attack and base armor gets nerfed.
Liberator AA attack is still crap and could use a buff.
3 Likes
It is unbeatable by both Terran and Protoss at the moment.
19 Likes
It is not. The same casters said that the best late game army in their eyes was BC late game, by the way.
Reynor vs Soul in GSL vs the world has examples on how to approach the composition. The key is ghosts, they are very good with the new enhanced shockwaves, and ranged liberators.
Infestors have been just nerfed not even a month ago. And a pretty big nerf to boot. Also, terran in particular was buffed heavily. In Maru vs Solar, even though the zerg army was bigger, Maru could slowly gain ground zoning with nukes and ranged liberators. What seems to be the best composition at the moment to fight infestor broodlord is ranged liberator, ghost and BCs. You just can’t go pure BC or mass thor and hope to counter a balanced composition, you need a balanced composition of your own.
5 Likes
can you guys stop watching pro matches and then talk about comps, go play ladder you’ll realize it isn’t the same for you as it is for them.
1 Like
Zerg players about Infestor-Broodlord since 2010:
Carrier-HT? Nerfed
Mass Raven?. Nerfed after being reworked since AAM should have been a DoT spell.
TJ BC’s?. TJ is likely getting nerfed either by requiring vision, having a longer cooldown or being similar to Recall where the BC is vulnerable in both warping in and warping out stages or being put behind an upgrade to stop the TvZ BC rushes.
Broodlord-Infestor?. Still going strong after 9 years of SC2 solely because of how powerful Fungal as a spell is against everything and because of how the Broodlord is designed to block pathing with free units.
How to rework the Broodlord
This is how I would do it, to make Broodlords a better support unit.
- Base damage increased from 20 to 30.
- Upgrade scaling increased from +2 to +3
- Movement speed increased from 1.97 to 2.07
- No longer spawns broodlings on impact, instead any unit that the broodlord attacks will spawn broodlings after death.
3 Likes
This thread specifically references e-sports. I will never be a pro sc2 player, but I still love to watch. I’ve repeatedly noticed users trying to dismiss other users simply because they are not pros or gms. Such “logic” is of course fallacious.
From Wikipedia’s “Tu quoque” article:
“It is a fallacy because the moral character or actions of the opponent are generally irrelevant to the logic of the argument. It is often used as a [red herring] tactic and is a special case of the [ad hominem] fallacy, which is a category of [fallacies] in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of facts about the person presenting or supporting the claim or argument.[[4]]”
3 Likes
Casters have no clue about the game, they are here to entertain the game but don’t have a deep knowledge about the game. How many times have we seen them saying something when just in front of them on the supply count, the production tab it says otherwise ? Countless.
The reality is Terran lategame is super strong, and the only comp that can beat that is broodlords/infestors, and lot of patience. But instead of admitting the strength of the two side, people act like terran lategame is weak and zerg only beat that easily.
It’s exactly like on HOTS people complain about SH vs deathball, SH got nerfed but deathball untouched, and it results on a massive imbalance…
25 broodlords beating 15 thors is a balance issue ? No, it’s normal. People here ask for free win for Terran in lategame, not balance, like always. Terran don’t want the other race to have any chance of winning…
1 Like
i just wish people would talk about their own problems i guess… but i guess let’s complain about other peoples problems
1 Like
It’s not like BL/Infestor is some super gosu high skill comp. Like Carrier skytoss you a click your air ball and fart out a few spells if you need them. If the pros are hard pressed to beat it, mere mortals are definitely not having a good time right now.
1 Like
I guess it is my problem. I play now and then, but I care far more about the pro-scene and e-sports than my piddly matches. My livelihood may not depend on the balance, but I still want to see close, competitive games that keep me in suspense.
3 Likes
well when i play broodlord infestor at master 2 level, it doesn’t look like solar that’s for sure… so i doubt it’s your problem
the problem is… zerg with infestors is too strong… zerg without infestors is too weak! unfortunately, infestors are the only answers to all shortcomings of zerg late game… yes, they’re too good against everything, but I think if they’re going to be nerfed, balance team should find another way to buff zerg army somewhere else… I don’t have a clue where, but I hope they’ll find a solution
I think a lot of people ask questions when they really only want opinions that are similar to thier own thoughts. I try not to waste my time in discussions that the other person won’t listen and has made up thier mind.
Saying Terran had “no chance” to win just makes me believe you only think in extremes and I can’t take it seriously.
I think it’s not cool that Terran and Protoss can bring different openings and Zerg is stuck on ling/bane for 7 mins. Zerg early anti air sucks. So if Zerg needs to remove some of it’s late game power then give us some more options in out tech tree in the early game/mid game.
3 Likes
Bring back SC1 Irradiate spell, give it to the Raven in place of AAM, that way Terran can get free damage, the same way the Zerg does, with (Parasitic Bomb, Fungal, or Protoss PSI Storm)
Buff the Ultralisk with an Skin Upgrade option. Similar to Moutain Gaint in WC3, doesnt take damage from spells, or a high reduction to spell damage.
Remove Tactical Jump from BC’s
It’s beatable, especially with the huge EMP buff. Just send 1 or 2 ghosts forward instead of all of your army to emp the infestors. This is especially good if they’re burrowed as they clump up more. If you land 2 emps you’ll wipe out their energy and Z is forced to retreat as they have N army supply that is just sitting there, useless.
Alternatively, don’t try to break the siege, just keep harassing them until they have nothing to fall back to or they’re forced to split their army up. That army comp isn’t one that can suffer being broken into groups.
Don’t listen to the whiners. On even skill level, there’s nothing “OP” about infestor broodlord.
2 Likes
You don’t grasp the distinction between player and spectator, do you?
So I’m watching Maru vs Solar [2019 GSL S3] Ro.16 Group C Match1 Maru vs Solar - YouTube and game 1 has some pretty interesting things and interesting commentary by Tastosis
-
They mentioned the synergy of broodlings obstructing everything, and after watching a ton of them float forth and zip down to do ‘free’ damage, I started to wonder why the broodlings weren’t able to be targeted on launch like swarm hosts. Has making broodlings able to be shot by air attacks while deploying ever been tested? This would weaken brood lord ‘kiting’ other units because you’d be able to shoot down at least some of the broodlings, but it might also overnerf it if you can always shoot down all the broodlings with whatever composition.
-
There was a point where Maru tried dropping 2 thors, and Solar reacted by neural parasite on both and having them attack each other. It appeared that neural parasite lasts long enough for 2 thors to kill each other. I found this alarming because that suggest that late game terran really can’t do multipronged attacks or harassment without giving them away for nothing. It also suggests that when Z can neural a couple of big units it is REALLY painful. Not only is that unit not shooting at the Z anymore, but it’s shooting back at the T. In other RTS, just removing a high supply unit from the fight for a short time is valuable (polymorph in WC3 for example). Adding a unit’s full DPS for the current amount of time might be a bit much, even if the spell has more risk. I would experiment having the neural parasite reduce move and attack speed when used on massive units to make it less swingy.
I solicited opinions. One can have a belief, yet remain open to additional information and other possibilities.
Edit: The stupidity evidenced in this thread alone is mind-boggling. I suppose I have no one to blame but myself, thinking rational conversation possible on an online forum.
2 Likes
