Why can Zerg barely keep up with Protoss economically?

General Discussion
1

Sounds like a troll post, but Zerg really struggles to keep up with Protoss economically with the buffed Chrono boost, and the larva nerf that happened a couple years ago. Blizz was tinkering around with auto-injects, reduced larva down from 4 to 3, and then scrapped the auto-inject idea, and never changed larva back.

Now, they’ve buffed Chrono boost, and Zerg is AT BEST, equal in economy with Protoss, and with all the early game harass options for Protoss, you’re bound to lose some drones, a few dead drones are basically built into the meta.

Also, since Protoss are often going for a two base timing attack with a third base down, if a Zerg over-drones even a little bit in an attempt to slightly exceed the brainless probe spam, Zerg auto-dies to an attack. In addition, after you’ve deflected a Protoss two base timing, even if it was a resounding success, you can’t counter attack their third base because Shield Batteries just shut down any counter aggression.

Even the threat of a two base timing attack with a warp prism, and its warp-in mechanic, is enough to force out a bunch of units for Zerg which are then useless because they have no counter attack potential.

It seems like Zerg is forced into some super early timing attack off 1 base to 1.5 base saturation, in order to stunt the growth of the Protoss, and any thought of going into a legitimate macro game against them is just a bad idea. There’s a reason that globally 40% of Grandmasters are Protoss players, and it’s largely attributed to the Shield Battery.

If a player deflects an attack, and has no ability to counter attack and deal some damage, where’s the fun of the game? Where’s the balance?

2

Then do not overdrone, know the builds and the amount of drones you must have to counter each one, but overall, if the P is on two bases, do not make more than 45 drones and not less than 35-36.

If the game goes past that phase, then your Z eco will be better than toss, the first 5-7 minutes are P favoured, then Z takes the control of the economy with mass drones.

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3

Zerg does overtake protoss in economy once 3 base injects come into speed. So don’t worry, its just a matter of time until you get the cash to swarm them.

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4

This is exactly right. You may even get slightly behind on workers. But once you have 3-4 hatcheries up and have scouted/defended his mid game tech, you can pretty much instantly shoot 20+ workers ahead. Especially if you deny his third. Then the Toss economy is going to be really behind, no matter how many workers he builds.

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5

Protoss has a slight econ lead but also needs to spend more into setting up production facilities and units are more expensive. Zerg’s econ catches up and surpasses the Protoss once the 3rd comes up, which is why glaive adept opening is almost the default go-to to prevent zerg from exploding in production/econ.

It’s just different races being different. If a race has a unit that does 500 dps and 1000 hp for 50 minerals, I don’t think they need to mine at the same rate as other races, just as an exaggerated example.

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6

Chronoboost is about 70% as powerful as it was in WOL and HOTS (1.4x as long, but double the energy cost for half as many uses).

It is wrong to call that a buff. Technically Chronoboost was nerfed harder than both Inject and Mules.

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7

They made Zerg a lot more cost effective over the last few years. It’s not what I’d have chosen for the state of the game, but that’s the direction they went.

8

Zerg has way more aggressive capabilities vs protoss than hots.

True protoss can get away with 3-4 minute third and stay ahead on workers off 2 base, but zerg also has a huge production boom once they get 3 hatch+injects going such that they can expand or produce units quicker whereas protoss has to invest in additional infrastructure.

No, this is the exact opposite of what happened. They gutted zerg’s most cost-efficient units in the broodlord and infestor in addition to nerfing nydus and queen to be worse than where they started. Really the only cost-efficient units zerg have left are swarm hosts and ravagers

You see this in pro play where zergs are now relying on getting an economic lead to overwhelm with cost inefficient units like banelings.

9

It’s been like this since 4.0. Zerg economy is nowhere near as strong as people say and Zerg does struggle to keep up. That’s why Zerg’s committed attacks are so bad. You basically have to keep whittling down Protoss economy to get them weak enough to be able to fight head on otherwise you’re pretty much always behind.

Which basically means Zerg makes more workers to get a better eco.

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10

Protoss is overpowered…

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11

Nope, chrono got nerfed the least. Nexus now starts with enough energy for a chrono which gives Protoss an earlier boost they didn’t have in HOTS.

12

Why can Zerg barely keep up? Because you have the advantage of taking your third at 2:30 while the earliest Protoss can take it is 4 mins. In terms of greed, your fourth can get as early as 5:30, but is most likely made before 6:30. A Protoss is lucky to get their 4th down before 7 minutes.

Zerg has the production power to have equal army at a Protoss’s doorstep while maintaining a slight economic lead. If you are being 2 base allin’d, the Protoss is 100% dead if you defended decently. If it’s a normal aggression like 4 gate adept, well, if they are multi-prong harassing you, you need to split your units too. That’s how the game works.

If Protoss didn’t have shield batteries, defending push/allins would be nearly if not entirely impossible. With the removal of mothership core, we would pretty much have no static defense to protect us from early game stuff. Don’t say forge/cannons. That doesn’t help.

I could go on, but Zerg has a slight lead over Protoss at every stage of the game, except the very start and late game. The last thing you should be complaining about is everything in between.

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13

Nope, Protoss is ahead in economy and army. That’s why Protoss has so many timings they can do while Zerg has almost none.

https://imgur.com/g29Jij4
https://imgur.com/jSJtsWC

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14

Common man, you cannot be serious. Zerg wins basically every tournament (zerg has a 61% tournament win rate in last 3 years). I’m sorry but zerg players have zero right to complain about balance. Watch what pro zergs do and try your best to follow their example. I would give anything to have a player like serral or reynor playing protoss.

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15

Serral and Reynor represent all Zerg players now? Winning tournaments is the most meaningless stat when talking about balance. All Zergs besides Serral and Reynor are getting smashed in the foreign scene.

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Serral, reynor, dark, rouge, soo, scarlett. All zergs whom have won tournaments in the last 3 years. So not just Serral and Reynor, though they make up the larger portion of them for sure.

Its asinine to say it means nothing. If they can win basically everything then the race is not imbalanced. Not saying its op, but its clearly not weak either…

17

This is exactly not what we are seeing in pro games…

Yes, zerg cheeses are extremly powerful (noregret, vanya, bly, scarlett, sharpshooter) but in general zerg Pros want the macro game. Average match length is like 12 Minutes or so ? They especially want to abuse ravagers. Also, they dont mind lategame as its still way Stronger than protoss lategame. Showtime, the best protoss in pvz says himself that he doesnt want to go lategame but its at least winnable compared to 2019.

In history its actually reversed. Protoss Pros want to all in. They are forced to do eco dmg or they are behind and they need high t2 or t3 to counter simple t1 units and t3 is still Bad af. I mean look at colossi, tempests and carrier :smiley: look at Them and laugh. And not to forget the -400/-400 memeship

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18

Exactly, less drones, less eco, equal amount of drones, equal amount of eco, more drones, more eco. That’s why you must not overdrone and keeping more or less the same amount of p number of workers,if P is allinning/timing you with 40 workers you can’t go much more than that because every larva used means less troops to defend.

Ahead in eco, is just a few more probes, and keep inmind their units are expensive and that is shown at the army value graph.P units are specialized, Z units are allrounders and pretty cheap, if the combat goes well, then you can trade cheaper units for expensive ones, any other unit than the zealot cost more than a roach.