What's inherently wrong with Queens

Zerg relies on them for macro and creep spread, but they are also good at defending everything. This is a terrible design, especially if you consider that queens can 1V1 most EARLY game units then the problems starts.

Queens can transfuse, spread creep and inject. While also being a really good fighting unit early on, it denies pretty much everything, be it airborne or ground.
Queens needs to be tweaked in a way to allow build diversity, zerg are given free scout in T/PvZ until the 3-4mn mark, and with the addition of speed overlords at T1 it is pretty easy to see what’s coming for the first 5-6 minutes of the game.

I suggest we reduce the queen range by 1 (which was tweaked because of early LOTV maps + liberators abuse). This will help build diversity in TvZ and PvZ because as the game currently is, queens defend any air units pretty easily at high level.

To compensate for this change, BC should get a nerf of some sort to make up for the queen nerf (so that terrans don’t get free wins by building BCs), and maybe even a Protoss prism change / oracle change to compensate.

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Let’s just work through this.

  1. Queens can only deny air if they see it coming. Air can use it’s advantage skirt around them. Unless you have a spore crawler as well, air units can shrug off queens long enough to do damage.

  2. Queens are good at defending because of how larva works. Unlike terran and protoss, zerg can’t make units, supply, and drones at the same time. So queens allow a larva free way to defend so that zerg doesn’t fall behind in the econ war. Zerg also, can’t wall off as easily, so the queens can bully back early game threats to compensate. But they still have to be in position. Hellion and adepts still have the mobility advantage.

You keep talking about build diversity…but we have that. Protoss still open up with adepts and stargate or robo. We still see phoenix, oracles, warp prisms. Terran still opens up the same with reapers into hellions. We still see drops/banshees/liberators. The queen range was changed in 2016 and all it did was allow better defense of liberators. The reason why they are stronger vs air is because zerg has no other AA defense until lair.

This topic gets old because there’s no actual evidence to back it up. It seems it’s just people who don’t want to have to think vs zerg and wish they could just run them over. I was playing in the days when 4 hellions would keep a zerg player scared to death…glad that is no longer the case. They are still a threat, but queens can fight back against them instead of being hunkered down in your natural praying that they didn’t run by.

Build diversity isn’t supported because you can’t say that in the last 3 years we’ve had zero build diversity because that is false. Also, transfuse was nerfed so it’s easier to bully queens now than before.

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Queens extra range was a large contributor to the death of 211. I’d say it’s done the same to archon drop.

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The evidence is that Serral says that if he has 7 queens, he is safe against anything, air or ground. The evidence is that Zerg is dominant past diamond where they understand that queens can defend anything.

As Protoss or Terran, the response to each build order has to be different or you just die, as zerg you build queens, a bit of lings and spam the drone button.

And yes, queen extra range combined with archon drop nerf was what made it useless. 211 was dead from the moment zerg realized they just had to build lings and queens, and it seems that even transfuse nerf couldn’t help with that.

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You realize that the queen range was increased in 2016 and archon drops were used… in 2019…So it obviously didn’t cause the death of it

That’s like Special saying he feels safe if he has a cylone in his main and a siege tank at his ramp…better nerf terran. Like what A pro says he feels confident defending and you want to use that as a basis for anything. So if Parting says he feels confident defending against nydus attacks when he has 3 immortsl then immortals must be too strong? Not a very solid argument.

Also, Defense should always be strong. It’s the attackers job to look for hole in the armor. It’s not the defenders job to have inadequate defenses that the hole are just flashing lights to the enemies. I already pointed out how you can play around queens. Plus, we’re at the stage in the game where everyone has pretty much mastered the early game. It’s kind of hard to just straight out win in the early game. It’s a common trend to see early game harassment not be as strong across the board because everyone has figured out how to defend.

You build queens and hit the drone button…you do that you’re also crossing your fingers. Zerg makes a round of lings early game to help defend because if adepts show up…those queens are not stopping them. People who say zerg makes queens and spams drones don’t know the first thing about zerg.

You’re argument is ridiculous. No terran is going “Range 7 queens. Okay I can work with that…Range 8 queens oh no! Nothing will work anymore.” Especially since the change is 3 years old and we still see all the same opening basically and even some new ones.

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You are completely wrong, you won’t admit your race is broken and you are delusional man.
You are comparing apples to oranges. Saying immortals are good against nydus all in is like saying “Oh hey corruptors are good against phoenix”. That’s the PERFECT counter, queens are nowhere close to be the perfect counter to anything since they are here to be some kind of a macro mechanic while also defending a BIT. Building 7 queen is far from being a commitment into a tech path, it costs so little to the zerg while also helping his macro greatly, you cannot compare Queens to ANYTHING in the game, that’s as if Protoss could have chronoboost, but chronoboost also provides vision, and defensive options. Except we all know this would be broken.

7 queens defend EVERYTHING a terran / protoss can throw at you early on without having to even think about it. Protoss and Terran have to build units accordingly, while Zerg just builds lings and queens, but zergs also have creep as a mechanic and overlords are really good at scouting to be honest. Even past a certain point in the game they are still really good at scouting what the opponent is doing.

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It’s important also to highlight the incredible strength of creep. All Terran professions consider tumours to be so strong that they pay 270 minerals to clear a scan’s worth of creep. 1 queen will over her lifetime cause the Terran to bleed at least 540 minerals when she costs only 150 herself. The queen if she had no attacks would still be worth building for both inject and creep.

The BC should be reverted back to where it had to use energy for yamato and teleport and perhaps be given stronger base stats to compensate. It’s design would feel more fair to everyone and being that EMP is now a lot stronger, feedback doesn’t completely shut down the unit.

The prisim has already been nerfed to the point that archon drops have fallen out of the meta.

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Queens are too useful. They are a mobile base deffense, an economic unit, an expansion unit, and a production enhancer.

The problem with Queens, is that they are the center of the Zerg race. If they become bad, the whole Zerg becomes unplayable.

I would still like it to lose the extra AA range it got, since all the units and mechanics that made it necessary to give it that +1, have been nerfed.

Something else that we could explore is a T1 hydra, this would come at the cost of a huge queen nerf and a range nerf prior to upgrade combined with a smaller DPS.

After the upgrades, the hydras are back to their LOTV state (maybe making them better would be a good try ?)

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BC could use the Energy meter back, as a way to prevent TJ + Yamato combos that can make it a bit too strong.
It should get some sort of resilience buffs to compensate, however, since it is the only tankty Terran unit.

T1 Hydralisk would be a great idea. We would just need to nerf it’s range, and then give itthe BW range upgrade at Lair tech.

Zergling, Roach, Hydralisk as T1, does not seem like a bad combo either.

Actually you’re comparing apples to oranges. You are sayin, “Because terran behaves this way, Zerg must also behave that way.” As I’ve already pointed out, queens don’t stop everything…and they are actually kind of dead tech. Unless you are going ultras. Queens are not that useful in the later stages of the game. They tend to just waddle around laying creep until they get caught out and die. They are also limited by creep. and queens get weaker the more they do their job. The more you spread creep, the further out they get which opens up avenues of attack. Also, you need to have vision because it’s easy for hellions to run around them if they are in the wrong spot. You actually do have to think about it. If terran throws hellbats at you, you actually have to think and target the medicvac otherwise the hellbats kill. You actually have to think because if you don’t scout and 7 adepts show up and all you have is queens…the adepts don’t actually care and go right past them. This notion that Queens are this brain dead unit is ridiculous. Because if you actually play zerg, you actually have to scout the enemy and keep a heads up because If an oracle shows up or a BC and you didn’t see it coming or didn’t happen to blindly counter it…you’re queen aren’t going to save your mineral line.

You don’t actually have any data to back up what you say. You claim it’s the queen…but data doesn’t support that as in the three years since the buff we haven’t been at a loss for diverse opening. And you’re also ignoring the fact that players are getting better and the game is getting figured out. That naturally lends itself to early game attacks being able to do less and less. It’s not just against zerg it’s across the board.

You’re also ignoring the fact that there are different advantages. Yes, the queens are great defenders, but that also means zerg is back at their base giving the enemy more map control and space to do what they want. So while zerg has the defense advantage the terran has the map control advantage.

You scream that the race is broken…but if you actually look at things It’s like the same 5 players that are dominating. The rest of zergs are just doing okay. It’s like serral, raynor, dark and sometimes a couple other zergs sneak in there. But if the race was actually broken there would be a lot more zergs that are consistently dominating. Just because the best players in the world happen to play zerg is no indication that a race is broken.

Also, your attempt to use serral saying he feels confident using 7 queens as a bad thing is weird. That’s a sign of good game development. You want your players to be confident in their early game defense tools so that the game can move into other stage. If players are saying that they don’t feel confident defending, you have a problem because it will lead to bad games. You want your game to be able to consistently and reliably move out of the early game so that players can show off their skills in other areas and showcase different unit comps.

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Other possible solutions to nerf queens is to only allow it to build based on the amount of hatcheries you have.
2) require the queen to be built via larva. This will slow down economy slightly And provides a trade off. Like everything in sc2 there’s a positive / negative to ones action, a give and take. By creating queens it will use up valuable larva, production time, and defense. Everything will be slowed. This includes creep spread and injects. This might be a significant change.

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Nerf range, decrease health a bit, make it so Queens cannot heal other Queens.

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Archon drop was popular the entire time queens had extra range, same with 211. People are making up reasons for queens being OP because it’s gotten traction with whiners all of a sudden. Next week ravagers will be OP.

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No, the problem is that inject got nerfed and now queens are the only viable early game defence. If it’s actually the design that bothers you then give Zerg the extra larva back and nerf queens. But obviously you’d find something new to whine about then.

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The problem with the Queen is:

  1. It’s a Zerg unit
  2. A Zerg player used it at least once to win a game

That’s it. Nothing more is needed for it to be a “problem”.

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I’ve been whining about queens before they got their anti air buff. The truth is that it just took people a bit to realize that having a ranged equivalent of a drone with the stats of a zergling is broken.

Ah the good old ‘if you disagree with me, you are delusional’ kafkatrap.

Are you…nuts? Have you seen what an equivalent value of marines with stim do to queens? Just look at any progame with a marine+stim timing.

Voidrays pop them. Archons pop them. Hellbats annihilate them. Queens alone won’t defend everything, which is why Zergs routinely go roach against these builds. And then you have units like phoenix, that can essentially disable them permanently.

Agreed. The ‘prisim’ was overnerfed. Mostly (it seems) to reduce the power of immortals against Terran.

The issue isn’t that Zerg is too strong. It’s that the tools Protoss and Terran had to deal with them were nerfed - generally for PvT/TvP balance.

That said, Nydus and Festors took a fairly big nerf, let’s see how GSL 2020 shakes out. I don’t think anyone wants a repeat of the legendary Zerg droughts again. Well, I hope not.

Funny you say that…I think that ravagers have been sleeper borderline OP for a while. The major problem pros seem to be having with Zerg is with the sheer power of a roach/ravager counterattack as the third base is starting. It counters wall-ins and tanks so amazingly well.

That said…

There definitely seems to be a psychology at play here. Likely because Zerg are the ‘bad guy’ - people really don’t like to see them win. Which is why the ‘ZERG OP’ train appears the second they start winning tournaments and ‘ZERG ARE FINE LTP’ train arrives when they don’t win anything for a year.

Remember how Terrans defended openly broken stuff like siege mode tanks being moved by medivacs, or 5 Rax Reaper?

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