I agree bring back scourge but nerf its dmg heavily.
Abduct can no longer work on air units. If you want to add scourge. Abduct+Scourge is insanely OP.
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- You have two good support casters that can make any Zerg army significantly deadlier. The game would be broken if you had these tools and didn’t need them.
- Every effective Skytoss army includes support from High Templar or other support units.
They don’t. Scourge were “balanced” in StarCraft I by the bad AI, area damage units, and in many cases by the opposing air unit’s ability to outrun and out-micro them.
In order for Scourge to be balanced, every air unit must be explicitly designed around them (or protected by a splash-to-air unit). Otherwise, Scourge will either be completely useless or completely overpowered against other air units and compositions. It is not possible to balance that unit in StarCraft II.
Zerg players really just want to amove.
Come on, if Z is really that bad at anti-air, they’d use microbial shroud out of sheer desperation.
Enjoy.
All relevant upgrades were researched.
Detailed guide in 2 steps:
Step 1: Move away when Voids activate their overcharge.
Step 2: Do not attack interceptors. Attack with shift individual carriers and void rays (focus carriers for conviniency). Drag half of corruptors and attack with shift carriers from different side/different group to reduce overkill and increase efficiency.
- Note 1: As Protoss adds more elements (micro, High Templars and more) you add more relevant elements from yourself.
- Note 2: Ultralisks are not necessary to win the fight, they represent supply that could be used for different units, kill ground buildings, High Templars, or even hydralisk support.
- Note 3: Getting larvas is important. But late game is concerned. Find relevant guides.
- Note 4: There is more resource cost in Zerg army. However, you can get rid of ultralisks and overseers (just one shot mothership in the begining) to reduce costs. Then resource cost of both armies is similar, if not lower for Zerg. Also Zergs are entitled to have better economy because of design of their race.
- Note 5: Works even if Protoss doesn’t throw resources and supply into getting tempests, even if he get void rays instead.
- Note 6: I am aware I started attacking voids with 1 void. Didn’t significantly change outcome of the battle, though.
- Note 7: About more early game situations, check Scarlett vs McCanning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6lgOVvbfL4
- Note 8: As presented in the video, Overseers can tank some long range damage as well. If you struggle, you may add overlords to the composition. Just remember to keep them in different hotkey on a follow behind your units, or to alt select them alt any free hotkey, move aside, after a-moving. It will greatly increase difficulty for Protoss to focus fire as well.
- Note 9: Remaining corruptors may be used to morph into brood lords, kill Protoss Air reinforcements and destroy Nexuses. Consider remaxing with more ground agressive unit.
- Note 10: We all know Protoss is easiest race. They will be too busy by doing aggressive a-moves, to micro. (Irony mode on:Look at me. I am a mindless Protoss player. If you faced me with Zerg-related problems, I’d play like Bronze.) Just check note 1, it makes my post a bit more universal. Even if Void Rays movement and attack behaviour is strange, Corruptors still outrun all Protoss units in this composition.
- Note 11: Void Rays are Protoss’ best air unit to deal with Corruptors. 28 supply of Corruptors kills 32 supply of Void Rays, when both sides do focus fire (where Voids cannot overkill, and Corruptors do overkill a bit = waste dmg potential). But balance is pretty thin. If you get just under the mass of corruptors you need, you will lose pretty hard.
If you are too slow and using shift-attack (shifting before 1st target is dead, so that corruptors will not change their command into general “stay in this area and shoot everything (interceptors) around” state, please note, I repeat the process many many times, in case I missclicked in the area, not on the unit, to prevent corruptors starting hitting interceptors) is out of your skill, then consider using mass hydralisks, a-move them and hope they will win. Perhaps they can kill all interceptors and voids, and be in strong enough numbers to finish rest of the fleet. But hydralisks are worse than corruptors in terms of dealing with air units (overall).
[Note this is not a direct comment to author of the thread, but to a person who cannot replicate corruptor “micro” from video.] Also if you are considering this part (a-move only), then I suspect you are a slow player, that will have problems with all sort of air compositions like Battlecruiser, Vikings/Liberator, or mobile ones, like mass mutalisk, oracle and banshee, regardless of their in-game balance related interactions. Also, don’t look at my APM. Huge APM spikes are common in low leagues during battles or creating units, average APM remains low.
The key is, Corruptors are so strong, Protoss’ reliable answers to mass corruptors (in Golden Armada situation) are ground-based units like High Templar and Archons, which can be countered by other Zerg units.
Now we are back to the question:
Why Protoss is forced to add casters (HTs) when Zerg don’t need to?
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Actually isn’t. If there are no Brood Lords or other counters, just add 2-3 Archons.
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Actually isn’t. You may decide not to try to win, after such a long and beautiful fight that lasted over 15 minutes. It is your right and decision. I am certain most of your opponents will accept it.
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Because corruptors only shoot air (are not flexible unit), and must be better at that than Hydralisks. Mutalisk fill different role in the meta, so that leaves Corruptors and Vipers alone as units that must be able to kill Protoss air and leaving everything to Vipers would not be a good design.
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Because it is difficult to create right amount of Corruptors, and it is risky investition. If they make slightly not enough, they die hard. If they make a bit too many, they are left with expensive army not capable of ending the game on it’s own.
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Because Zerg has overall little anti-air choice in late-game. This way Protoss is forced to include ground units, and that promotes late-game micro fights we see and may not enjoy. However, the winner is determined by overall skill, not by the fact, that one composition/race beats another.
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Because that forces Zerg to add his own counters and casters, or it is game-ending move.
If your opponent outmicros you, then he was overall better and deserves the victory for staying alive and putting fight long enough to get to this point in the match.
Since Zerg don’t need Scourge, there is no point in introducing the unit, unless you’re planning huge balance changes and introducing a new, big expansion (not the case).
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seriously zerg lacks air units, i think there should be another air unit, maybe not scourge but something
It would be more like “StarCraft III” considering just how many units would have to be scrapped, replaced, or completely redesigned just to enable Scourge.
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Or you know, just nerf scourge dmg. Assuming they have the same speed as on liquipedia, they can be kited by air units of all 3 races: phoenix, corruptor, and liberator.
Yes. But now you change topic from
you absolutely need vipers and good micro back and forth with corruptors and hydra because you are dead
To “it would be cool if Zerg has wider choice of air units”.
Since Blizzard isn’t planning on adding new expansions to the game, I am afraid it will not happen.
No they cannot.
First of all, the speeds listed for Brood War are on a different baseline; where the StarCraft II equivalent to the Scourge’s speed would be 5.25 in LOTV faster speed or 3.75 on normal speed. Scourge are faster than every air unit except Phoenixes, Mutalisks, and boosted Medivacs.
Second, Liberators and Corruptors have attack delays that would prevent them from effectively kiting Scourge even if they were slightly faster.
Third, the ability for a few units to kite Scourge does not balance them in other situations; because that capacity cannot be used to protect other air units. It only allows those few units with the mobility to kite Scourge to operate without a significant amount of support.
Scourge cannot be balanced in StarCraft II. The races do not have the tools to consistently protect their air forces; and far too many air units are simply unable to protect themselves from Scourge. In Brood War it was the opposite. Every air combat unit except a few notable exceptions (Carriers, Guardians, Devourers) had some mechanism to deal with Scourge; and both Terran and Protoss had air units (Corsairs/Valkyries) that could consistently protect other air units from Scourge after they reached a certain critical mass.
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Then you can nerf scourge speed to 3.75. It’s that easy.
If they have 3.75 movespeed they can kite them fine. As could voids and mutas.
Well they have the capacity to kill the scourge before they deal any damage, thereby protecting the air units. Thors, mines, storm, pb, and fungal would all wreck scourge before they deal damage if you cannot get a sufficient count of liberator, corruptor, or phoenix. Do you think scourge would keep its 100+ bw dmg or something? You can easily bring it in line to baneling levels, 20 (+15 vs light).
They really can. 3.75 movespeed and 20 (+15 vs light) damage, 25/50 cost, 0.5 supply, morph from zergling with spire tech. There ya go, it’s that easy.
Your reading comprehension is atrocious.
No, Scourge would still be a problematic unit based on their ability to obliterate air armies, and the lack of options to protect air armies from them. That doesn’t change even if you slow their speed down; and it results in scourge either being useless or overpowered with no reasonable balance point in between.
Only Mutalisks would reasonably be able to kite.
Corruptors and Liberators both have long attack delays and acceleration issues could prevent them from kiting Scourge effectively even with that mild speed advantage.
Kiting with Void Rays shouldn’t even be a consideration:
- The speed advantage would be non-existent until they are upgraded, and then they still have the same attack delay and acceleration problems.
- The Void Rays beam attack will further restrict micro. It is one of the worst attack designs possible for attempting to kite.
- Void Rays require Prismatic Alignment to deal with Corruptors and other units they are intended to counter. They have no capacity to survive against Scourge and still perform their role.
No, they don’t. Whenever Zerg masses Scourge they can simply overwhelm any normal air army.
Air units with a reliable capacity to kite can protect themselves by kiting scourge for very long distances across the map without any losses. Such that they can deal with any number of Scourge no matter how many are massed. Other units can only be reasonably protected by high amounts of air-to-air splash; which simply isn’t present in StarCraft II the way it was in Brood War.
The Thor’s splash radius is 0.5; and air units naturally split further than that within a second. It is a terribly ineffective tool at dealing with air units unless the opponent is explicitly trying to stack them up; and like most of the options on your list it would require the air units to always hover over a ground army for protection.
Those have limited mobility and a long delay that make them relatively ineffective tools for trying to protect slow air armies from Scourge.
In some cases those spells might kill Scourge, but they would be fairly unreliable.
You need a large pool of casters present to be able to stop scourge with any consistency; and you wouldn’t be able to field air units (other than Phoenixes and Mutalisks) against Zerg without that pool.
If they didn’t they would actually be useless; since they are suicide units. Suicide units need to be more than cost-effective when they hit; but then the relative lack of defenses against Scourge in StarCraft II would make them broken.
Scourge are single-target; so that damage is ridiculously low.
On the other hand, if you gave Scourge splash they would be blatantly overpowered at those numbers. Zerg’s production capacity makes it far too easy to mass Scourge; and air play does not have collisions, forcefields, terrain, and the numerous other defenses against splash that help keep Banelings from getting out of hand.
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No yours is.
If you think 3.75 speed scourge with 20(+15 vs light) splash in say a 0.5 radius would “obliterate air armies” you need to get your head checked. My version of the scourge would not be useless either, 35 vs light air splash allows it to be used vs mutas and phoenixes if the opposing player is not paying attention, or in a surround, or compliment corruptors as they dive carriers, but it certainly would not be cost effective vs non-light.
They would kite them fine 100%, you must be really bad at kiting if you think corruptors and liberators would not be able to kite a 3.75 speed melee unit.
I think you need to go into the unit tester and actually try kiting with voids. They kite forward and function very similarly to mutas, stack them, move, hold position, wait for attack animation, move. They can kite without losing acceleration as long as they go forward, maybe they have a bit of trouble changing direction but vs a melee unit chasing them at 3.75 speed they shouldn’t even get hit with proper control.
No they can’t. It’s called air splash. You can say how bw had more all you want, but the game has sufficient options from all 3 races to deal with scourge: thors, mines, fungal, pb, storm, and liberators.
Thors are made vs SH for the exact reason that they can one-shot groups of locusts, which naturally stack, and the same would be true vs scourge.
Mutas are even more mobile and mines are made specifically against them, not to mention mine splash would one-shot scourge.
I was under the assumption that they would deal splash under a small radius, say 0.5. No, this would not be op because scourge would:
- Cost twice the gas cost per baneling.
- Be more fragile than banes by 10hp.
- Be more susceptible to stacking and thus more vulnerable to splash.
- Deal damage in a significantly smaller radius than the baneling.
- The only thing that have no mean to protect themselves from scourge in BW as i recall is Overlord, Guardian, Dropship.
- Units that are hard-countered by Scourge are high-profile units such as Devourer, BC, Carrier. These are self-explanatory as those are units Scourge is meant to be used against.
- Units that are favorable targets of Scourge for resource trade is Scout. Believe it or not, a Scout is as costly as a voidray.
- Science Vessel, Arbiter and Queen have ways to deal with Scourge.
- Wraith is fast enough to outrun Overlord and while being invisible Scourge can’t attack them without Overlord.
- Observer is not a favourable target for Scourge.
- Shuttle has the same speed as Scourge when upgraded.
- The rest of the units: Muta, Valk, Corsair are scourge counters.
Meanwhile the rest of SC2 air are helpless against Scourge where Scourge can just dive into a BC or Carrier or Mothership and there is almost nothing that can be done. Even worse if Scourge surround them.
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I agree with most of your statements, but I’ll point out some minor points I disagree on.
Slight disagreement there.
In practice, the Carrier and Devourer’s attacks were terrible for fighting Scourge. Devourers required 2 hits to kill a Scourge and had an atrocious attack rate.
Carriers had to launch their interceptors and their interceptors were relatively slow to change targets and focus them down; so they could not effectively defend themselves.
On the other hand, the Battlecruiser’s laser one-shot scourge and traveled so quickly that fleets rarely wasted any shots against them. An individual Battlecruiser or two might be taken down by Scourge; but larger fleets could shoot down a very large number of Scourge before any of them hit. It would be very expensive to build up enough Scourge to inflict damage on a Battlecruiser fleet. It was also both difficult to control that many Scourge at once, and difficult to prevent such a large group of Scourge from wasting shots on the same “dead” Battlecruiser.
If Protoss researches the Scout speed upgrade, then Scouts can beat Scourge using the same micro that Mutalisks and Wraiths use.
It was stupid that Scouts needed that upgrade to match the micro potential of the other units. That is one of the factors that made Scouts a weak unit.
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They can certainly be balanced for SC2. They had 110 damage (Explosive), 25 HP, were blind and had high move speed.
Sight was a big thing in SC1. Medic Blind and so on. Also the damage was different. It was really hard to click on 1 individual scourge.
Hahaha first thors, no you can’t deal with protoss air.
Sweet zerg tears
Only if my pheonix have area of effect.
I haven’t played against other people in SC2, I only play coop
But I did play SC1 and scourges weren’t that great.
75 gas per pair; a-moving makes them suicide into interceptors.
They were good for placing around your base where drop ships/shuttles would come from. Maybe they were also good in the hands of exceptionally skilled people. But the cost of scourges and the micro involved would likely make vipers the easier choice.
You’d be better off asking Blizzard to bring back defilers. Plague would be a very good way to counter deathball in general, not just air.