fully upgraded lings will beat an equal cost army of fully upgraded zealots, and in a Zergling runby scenario is it really necessary for zealots to trade inneficiently?, since a few banelings would already be a hard counter
3 Likes
if lings are able to surround a zealot - yes.
thats why toss players with a brain use terrain or forcefields to their advantage, so this doesnt happen.
obv zealots should lose against banes, since banes cost gas and are overall more expensive.
10 Likes
even when not surrounded and fighting in a ramp of even a tight chokepoint, zealots will not kill enough lings to trade 1:1. it takes a shield battery or a warp prism with intense micro to bridge the gap. this means that the protoss player will have to invest time and resources to counter a simple zerg a-move with equivalent tier 1 units, and not to mention that a similar investment by the zerg (lings to banelings) will demolish the protoss defense
5 Likes
but zealots cost 100 minerals, while zerglings cost 50 for 2
2 Likes
I just don’t get why blizzard would have ling armies trade efficiently with zealot armies late game, since zerg usually does inefficient trades supported by a larger economy.
2 Likes
Blizzard has shown us over and over again, through the actions of the Balance Team, that protoss is not supposed to be a legitimate race that can win trophies at the highest level, but a meme race full of units that cannot fight.
the chargelot was one of the last protoss bastions of decent DPS, and they are taking that away and compensating by giving them a meme in the form of the speed boost. I mean the new chargelots even look like memes - running at light speed across the map, only to charge onto a bio ball and do nothing to them.
6 Likes
The core problem is that the units are treated like their BW equivalents without the developers understanding why. So Zerglings still have adrenal glands seemingly only because they had it in bw.
Here’s the problem. The game micros for you with auto surround and smart pathing. With these two things, Zerglings are incredibly efficient with zealots. Without these two things, a good Protoss can take some amazing engagements vs Zerglings and it takes an immense amount of micro just to surround the zealots, not to mention how many free hits the zealots will get while the Zerglings make the attempt. It also helped that there was a 12 unit selection max, making it easier to micro more expensive and fewer units than swarm units like lings.
On top of all this, Speedlings in this game are significantly faster than speedlngs in bw, while zealots just… arent. They have charge, but that’s because the high supply medium speed melee model clearly wasn’t working in sc2 due to smart pathing, clustering of ranged units into a death all, etc. The melee Units just needs to be faster to make it work, and zealots are nowhere near fast enough without charge to get the job done. It’s also why charge damage was added in LOTV. Zealots just couldn’t compete.
With all that said, adrenal glands need to be removed from the game. The upgrade has no place in sc2. It was very helpful in BW where Lings were at a greater disadvantage than zealots due to no smart pathing and auto surround and 12 unit selection. Adrenal helped Zerg compensate for these setbacks, allowing a well microed Zergling group to trade against a less microed zealot group. In sc2, however, none of the restrictions exist for zerglings and they’ll always trade well vs zealots, particularly after adrenal. The upgrade just isn’t necessary any longer, and only contributes to zerg’s late game being as OP as it is.
So I agree that zealots should trade favorably with lings. Even without adrenal Zerg still trades favorably, especially after the charge damage change. But the adrenal removal would be a good start.
Edit: forgot to mention the addition of the roach and baneling. The roach is something of a hard counter to zealots and banelings are an ultimate solution to zealots like the Corsair was to mutas. With that in mind, zealots should most certainly counter lings, not just trade favorably. In fact this appears to be the intended design in SC2 when you look at the zealot’s in game card and it says strong against zerglings. It was certainly not the intended design in BW. So it’s rather quackey that they don’t. Of course, if zealots were strong enough to really counter lings, it would cause severe pvt issues due to how effective the current zealot is vs T. I can’t speak to how effective the speed lots that are in testing will be. Haven’t tried them.
9 Likes
The truth hurts so much.
2 Likes
Don’t worry, they are fixing it in the next patch by …nerffing the Zealot.
4 Likes
I dont really agree with this.
Marines got combat shield and are now a backbone unit in all matchups through most phases of the game, unlike in BW
Zealots got charge because developers understood that the BW zealot became nothing more than fodder when ranged units reached a critical mass. charge is absolutely required for them to get hits off.
This is a general feature of protoss units in general - they do not scale well at all and the ones that once did were nerfed into garbage (void ray, carrier)
Nah I think adrenal is fine in SC2. adrenal lings are a workhorse in a lot of historically balanced styles and matchups.
The problem is that people/the balance team think that chargelots are too strong for whatever reason, when they really arent.
Chargelots are great units but when you compare them to the Terran and Zerg counterparts they just don’t measure up.
Adrenal lings arent the only great basic unit - Stim/combat shield marines are bar none the best basic unit and are insanely good.
If you want to get rid of adrenal glands then you also have to get rid of stim and you basically disrupt the entire game because you don’t want chargelots to be strong.
6 Likes
I don’t agree with this. You would be right if banelings didn’t exist. But they do, and in conjunction so Zerg’s super strong economy, fungal growth and the ability for Zerg to remax in astounding numbers without the need to spend minerals on macro hatches, Zerg handles bio just fine without adrenal.
And notice how you said nothing about Zerg needing adrenal vs P. So if you earnestly believe Zerg needs more late game options vs bio, there’s a better way to handle it to balance both matchups. Make a stronger ultralisk. That way late game rather than rely on cracklings vs bio you’d use ultras, and Protoss aren’t overwhelmed with cracklings.
3 Likes
A ling bane style does not handle bio just fine as the game progresses and terran gets more mines, bigger bio balls, and planetary fortresses. Fungal is a meme in the ling bane style because ghosts exist.
Banelings also require gas while the 15 dps stim marine is mineral only. Why is it that a marine can dish out 15 dps both air and ground from 5 range while a ling has to stay at 10 dps melee range? As the game progresses, and armies become bigger, high dps and range scale up better than anything else. Adrenal is needed for the ling to compete against bio and all the support it gets at this stage.
Zerg ability to remax doesnt mean much when on the other hand, Terran lategame is supreme efficiency, unmatched scaling, and they have units like the mine that rack up double digit kills like nothing
Adrenal is a component in lategame ZvP as well to keep the protoss deathball honest by virtue of ling runbys.
Otherwise it’s just going to be a protoss deathball + zealot runbys choking out zerg.
Regarding your thoughts on zerg being able to kill bio - why does zerg have to rely on gas heavy units like banes and ultras to beat a 50 mineral only unit like hte marine? In any case, the ultralisk will always be trash as long as it takes full damage from powerhouses like immortals, liberators, thors, tanks, ghosts (snipe), disruptors, marauders, etc. buffing it so that it can handle those units will just turn it into a meme or broken.
I guess the liberator is being addressed but that doesnt change the fact that snipe, marauders completely wreck ultras.
adrenal gland zergling is hardly a problem imo, especially when u compare it to the stim marine.
1 Like
Do you really make a discussion about balance over the most basic units that have not been changed since the game came out? And for the question of a guy who is in gold? This forum already overcomes dementia
1 Like
please explain, using actual facts and reasoning, which part of this forum is invalid
That is irrelevant. It is still a joy to read and think and learn from two deep and intelligent posters such as Atlas and Beserker (if they do not agree on some points is beside the point).
It’s always refreshing to read such exchanges that are high-level and respectful and do not lower (like the majority of posts) in personal insults…
As about the remark for Gold player question, i would remind you an reply of Albert Einstein to somebody that asked about his success…
I pondered in a mature age about problems that children pose to themselves…
4 Likes
In theory? yes. In practice? yes In BW? well they did… However, in SC2 its not about balance its about ensuring that certain outcomes occur even at the expense of balance.
Then again that 1% of player base that the game is balanced for keeps growing yet players keep leaving… I cant figure that one out
A Zergling with Adrenal Glands in StarCraft II actually attacks slower relative to Zealots and Marines than a Zergling without Adrenal Glands in SC1, so they did balance cracklings for the new engine.
I think there is a stronger argument to be made that the Zealot needs changes than the Zergling, although the Zergling is undoubtedly a strong unit in StarCraft II.
To be fair, Chargelots also lost speed when they received the Charge ability.
The speed that Blizzard is proposing in the current balance test mod is the speed that Speedlots had in Brood War; and I honestly cannot think of a valid reason for Chargelots to be slower than that in any of the previous expansions.
That is false.
Stimpacks is far more significant for Bio than Adrenal Glands is for Zerglings. Adrenal Glands usually hits so late that Zerg has transitioned out of Zerglings (apart from harassment) before they even get it; so it is hard to argue the upgrade is necessary–I am not in favor of removing Adrenal Glands, but without some valid concern such as late-game armies having stronger counters to Zerglings (this was a valid concern in Brood War with Reavers, Archons, and larger Terran armies being more prevalent) you cannot really argue that it is necessary.
3 Likes
Banelings aren’t a hard counter considering splitting zealots makes banes much less effective and because banelings are more expensive.
Zealots typically get +1 faster than lings making them two shot them so there’s lots of scenarios were lings trade very poorly. Also zealot heavy comps have archons which just slaughter lings.
Splitting Zealots is much harder to do than splitting Marines because of their tendency to charge or run at the enemy the second that you leave them alone.
Banelings are still effective against practically all light units, although they are admittedly least efficient against Zealots assuming that the Zealots are compared to an equal cost/supply of other units and they are not clumped up more than other units.
That only really benefits mid-game timing attacks. In the long run, Zealots trade fairly poorly against Zerglings; so there is an argument to be made that they need a buff in that department; at least in the late-game.
1 Like
Zealots are the last tier 1 unit that need a buff. They’re strong in the early and midgame and fall off a bit in the late game but there’s no way you can buff them with heavy archon/storm based comps.
1 Like