Zerg has no late game against Terran

Ultras are so clunky they can barely move, and let alone get into position to take a remotely cost efficient engagement. Also, making any amount of Corruptors to counter Liberators, and then produce Brood Lords, is a 100% horrible decision because Brood Lords are countered by Thors at a 1:2 ratio; Thors to Brood Lords.

The only useful Zerg unit on Hive tech is the Viper, which means Zerg has next to no reason to get Hive except for upgrades or Vipers. This is why you see Zergs just executing early timing attacks, or spamming ling bane muta and trying to end the game before it reaches the late game, because Zerg T3 is trash and countered by everything that Terran has: Marauders, Ghosts, Liberators, Thors…etc. All the Terran units are fantastic against Zerg late game units.

I know it’s just wishful thinking, because everyone thinks Zerg is imba because Serral is a god, but it would be a great change if Ultralisks could walk over allied T1 units like Ling/Bane as this would at least allow the clunky Ultras to be remotely cost efficient in engagements. Terran always target priority and focus fire Ultralisk anyways, so it’s not a big deal for Ultras to walk over allied T1 units.

Also, it’s hilarious how horrible Brood Lords are in the meta against Terran. One Thor slaughtering two Brood Lords is just horrendous, and needs to be scaled back. I don’t know who thought this is balanced, but it’s pretty laughable. Zerg literally have no useful T3 units which makes ZvT late game a total joke.

This isn’t even to mention how Mules are absolutely busted in the late game, or how insane Tactical Jumping Battlecruisers are and how they can kill a Spire in four Yamato Blasts, or a Greater Spire in five.

Yamato Cannon needs to be nerfed against Structures because being able to teleport a T3 unit on top of tech while circumventing creep spread and map vision, and auto killing a Spire or Greater Spire, is just a joke.

I know that what I’m saying is falling on deaf ears though because Zerg has Serral and Reynor, and that means the “race is just fine.” Plus, this forum’s like 90% Terran that love to circle jerk around Zerg nerf posts. Whatever. I’ve said what I needed to, even if it’s meaningless.

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hahahaha… AHAHAHAHA. Wait you’re serious?
Have you ever had the pleasurable experience of getting fungaled while ling/bane rolls at you? Have you ever had your siege tanks abducted or blinded by vipers? Do you know just how much of an impact one ultra makes on a ling/bane push?

Oh but thor dumps on BL’s so terran IMBA. You know what dumps on thors? Lings… Straight up lings… You know what dumps on tanks? Lings… again. What dumps on bio? BANE…lings/infestors. What about liberators? Corrupters. What about Vikings? Corrupters. What about BC’s? Corrupters. What about hellbats? Banelings. But… but what about… MARAUDERS? Lings. BUT… BUT… what about… uh… MEDIVACS HUH? MEDIVAC OP! You’re right, medivac op. I can’t think of a single unit that can kill that thing. Oh wait, corruptors.

Planetary OP! - baneling runby
Mech army OP! - nydus/swarmhost or muta
Bio push OP! - ling/bane
Hellion harass OP! - queens or roaches
BC rush OP! - spore and like 4 queens (which you build already)

You know what actually feels pretty OP to play against as TvZ? Banelings A-moving from 2 directions into your marines. Good luck trying to split vs that if you’re not masters +

If that ever happens he just sacrificed 5 BC’s to snipe a greater spire. By this time (after seeing he’s trying to mass BC’s) you should’ve went for some corrupters. With tactical jump AND yamato down, those BC’s are toast.

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That is some great gold league theory crafting

Zerg’s late game is trash. Everybody knows it and that’s why Zerg players never play late game anymore.

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Exactly what I was thinking. It’s like they opened the Help menu, and saw that Thors are countered by Zerglings.

Edit: Wow, they literally are gold lol.

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Zerg have the ability to virtually expand unchecked most of the time, and their late game is built around having the funds to switch techs at a moment’s notice. All your brood lords die to Thors, well guess what, now you remax on hydra/viper and watch those yeets wreck the army that will take Terran 5 minutes to rebuild.

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Why even build the Brood Lords in the first place? They’re dead supply and have no utility in the matchup.

The Viper is the only good T3 unit, and Ultras and Brood Lords are genuinely useless, which means Zerg has no T3 Late Game against Terran. There’s no reason to even build a Hive other than for Vipers and Upgrades.

Before you say that Ultralisks are useful, here’s a list of Terran units that hard counter the unit, and since it’s so clunky it can barely (if ever) be cost efficient anyways: Marauder, Ghost, Widow Mine, Siege Tank, Cyclone, Thor, Liberator. (Plus, if I make Corruptors to deal with the Liberators, I’ve created dead supply after the air is cleared because Brood Lords are 100% useless.)

The only Zerg units that can even deal with Terran (especially in the late game) are Infestors, because we literally have to steal Terran units to win engagements lol, and Vipers.

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Yet another gold league statement

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Good terrans won’t leave the PF undefended, they’ll have at minimum a tank and depot line in front of the pf to stop this very thing.

Terrible in a straight up fight. You can snowball a lead if you get successful attacks early enough, but really easy for terran to stabilize and max out, then they are dead supply.

Banelings are getting nerfed really hard vs anything except marine/helbat

Slow as hell to respond unless you’re like walling off with queens and keeping drones on 2base…and when they mix in lib harass with it…ffs. Even speedlings would be a better choice here tbh.

The issue isn’t that you can’t deflect it, it’s that it’s basically no risk for terran to do this super annoying harass unless zerg was already roach/rav allining. And unless the terran is garbage the BC is always going to get away and they follow up with that hellion/BC/cyclone garbage.

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Zerg has late game. We got vipers, which are probably the strongest caster in the game. We have lingbane which is a fantastic way of getting cheap meatshields (lings) and leverage economic advantages in supply efficient units that force trades (banes). Broods against thors are pretty meh, but in other situations are decent, and corruptors are nice anti air.

However, it is not the units that mainly make up zerg’s powr lat game, its creep. Creep gives mobility and vision. More than certain units, its the expansion of creep that allows zerg to control the map and turn the game from a real time strategy into a tower defense for the opponent. Focus more on spreading creep and you will see that the control you have over the late game is much stronger, units like broods and lurkers become much better with queen support, which is also something else creep enables.

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Only saving grace tbh. Get to play the game of yoinking enemy units one at a time while you also run around looking for red dots.

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I just focus on that and creep honestly. And its working just fine for me.

Fair point. Generally I don’t see any depot lines past the 1st planetary, as by the time you get your 5th base you’ve probably been maxed for a while (hence the depots are more or less just an expensive mineral sink. Better off building another CC at that point.

Terrible in a straight up fight, but it’s not meant to fight. This comp forces mech to defend multiple angles; something it’s not meant to do. Also, taking losses from what are essentially free units is very difficult for mech, as everything is expensive and everything builds slowly.

To be fair, they shouldn’t be good vs siege tanks. I can understand having a unit that’s good vs pretty much everything - aka the marine - but those units should be pretty hard to use. I know the whole X unit just a-moves thing is old, but banelings quite literally just a-move. Maybe if their health was cut their armored damage could be raised making them riskier to use, but as of now banes shouldn’t be a good idea to use vs tanks.

They don’t need to respond fast, all they need to do is be in position/guard an entrance. If they try to run past you they’re losing a lot of those hellions and you’ll just kill them with zerglings at that point.

Oh it’s definitely a risk, a single BC is pretty trash in a straight up fight. It’s a huge investment in tech that doesn’t require a tech or unit response from the enemy zerg. At most you’ll build like 3 spores and lose 1 drone. Nowhere near equal the cost of a BC.

Sidenote: BC’s are trash in fights in low numbers and without yamato/upgrades, making them even a bigger investment if the terran goes past 2-3

If its an outlying base it’s more likely to be just an orbital getting mule hammered. “Throw lings at it” works but he’ll lift, clear the lings land. then re-mule. Meanwhile, your bases getting nuked/yamato’d/hit by speedshee/hellion and you’re losing the entire base.

Get blue flame on hellbats + 2-4 medivacs. Turns into a trade of locusts for medivac energy.

Banes are already cost-inefficent against non-hellbat factory units and they don’t hit air. People think they are counter everything because they are one of the most supply-efficient in the game, but spending 4x resources in banes to kill your army is not a good trade in the long run.

3 of your queens are injecting, one is spreading creep, you have what 3-4 roaches (any more and you hurt your economy too much) and maybe 1 more crutchy defense queen. That’s not enough to pathblock hellions out of your base.

It’s an investment but it’s not a risk because the BC is guaranteed to survive and there’s no real danger of zerg staging a counter attack unless he’s already planning to allin. “The investment is too big and terran falls behind”. If you turtle on 2base yes. But if zerg is making only queens/spores while putting all larve to replace drone losses he has NO ability to put on aggression. You can double expand and take a 4th on location what is zerg going to do?

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Maybe grant Ultralisks an ability to destroy cliffs creating a pathway

Or

Maybe a 10 unit range 1 second delay dash/charge attack that knocks enemies aside and can also deal lots of damage to a building.
Gains a shield half it’s health while channeling and then it’s takes damage equal to 75% of it’s health if it hits an enemy or terrain.
Making it a Kamikaze Frontline Siege Unit that would end games.

:thinking:

Literally every base zerg takes except their natural is contested in ZvT, and in ZvP their natural is contested too.

It’s almost like all these whiners who got zerg nerfed never knew what they were talking about and just needed to learn how zerg works before opening their mouths or something… Huh… crazy how that works…

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Not if he actually intends to keep the base as a mining base. More often than not, if there’s an orbital there, it’s been floated out to replace a base that was killed previously.

It’s not meant to be a good trade - ultimately the baneling and the zergling are the two quintessential Zerg units that play perfectly off the Zerg fantasy - maintaining a base and economic lead.

You should definitely have more than one creep queen. Minimum two, more often four, especially if you’re dealing with a BC and/or helion opener.

These are all terrible ideas, though I’m fairly certain they’re tongue-in-cheek.

The third base of a Zerg is often taken around 2:30. You can’t really field enough units in TvZ to contest that.

More often than not, it’s the fourth base onwards that get contested, though the third does get contested on the odd occasion.

Lol why do you think zergs have started taking their thirds that early? Because you can’t contest it and we got sick of dealing with your crap so we’re willing to take the hit to our creep spread for an earlier third.

And that’s not even really true, you still have tons of builds aimed at killing it.

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Primarily because:

  1. You get access to an additional source of larvae
  2. The hatchery has a lot of health and without a dedicated build specifically designed to deny a hatch that early, there’s not much you can do to prevent it from going down if you’re doing a fast expand yourself.
  3. it actually helps you spread creep (to a point) and you don’t generally need 4 queens prior to getting your third base unless you’re facing one of those dedicated 1 base builds mentioned.

There are a few more reasons that I can think of, but either way, you get the point. It’s been meta basically from the start of LotV.

I still don’t understand why Ultralisks can’t behave like Colossus where they can go above other ground units. A unit shouldn’t be balanced based on how stupid the AI is (heck, Colossus are pretty dumb even with that ability).

I don’t have a comment about TvZ as a whole though; it looks fine to me for the most part.

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Dude, we’re friends on bnet and I think you’ve played me before. You KNOW I’m actually masters, you think I don’t know how zerg production and build orders work? Experimenting with builds is one of the few things that I can still enjoy about this game.

  1. You don’t get that larvae for free. There’s two main risks you can take: 1, you have to delay your 4th queen so your creep is slower and if the terran is good with reaper/hellion micro and cancels your tumor it REALLY hurts. 2, you have to delay an overlord and if you lose one because you scouted early or there’s no good tower or they opened marine etc this also REALLY hurts. A good terran can snowball these things into a pretty decent lead early on if they recognize them and take advantage.
  2. Yeah that’s basically what I said. We take it so early to stop reaper/hellion from being annoying and denying it for basically 0 investment from the terran (you would’ve made those units anyway they were just looking for damage). And there are still MANY builds you can do to kill the third, so you really can’t say the third is not contested just because it mines for 30-60 seconds before it dies lol.
  3. This is just not true. Like I said above, a good terran can use reaper/hellion to kill your first tumor if you aren’t careful. Sometimes they don’t even need detection because most zergs try to place tumors in the same optimal positions and keep their queens nearby to defend the edge of creep, and you can drop a grenade and target the queen and get the tumor. That doesn’t just happen in pro games, it happens at my level and I’m not that good at the game lol m3 is not close to pro level.

And no, it has NOT been the meta since the start of LOTV. I’ve been over this before, there have been MANY corners cut in zergs builds gradually throughout LOTV but at the start bases were going down as late as 3:45 in ZvT for macro builds. Why? Because of the things I just explained. Also, you actually take a hit to your eco/larvae early on. I remember this being outlined by PiG in 2016 in a video about Guru’s build, which was an early prototype of the current meta ZvP build. You take a hit early on, and then a boost later once the larvae kicks in. If you’re facing something aggressive enough to exploit this then you are at a huge disadvantage. Nobody is doing that right now though because of map sizes and because zergs are getting really good at defending crap like that.

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