Brood Lord

By know Terran simply get freaking Vikings as soon as they see them, and Protoss either have blinking stalkers or void rays or have mass sentry with force fields to keep back the broodlings.

 

that's -3 attack, still good, but freakin pump the HP, are they really massive units? 225? wtf?

 

The Broodlord is not overpowered. It is a well balanced unit which has less HP than the Battlecruiser or Carrier, needs less space ( 2 + 2 population ) and is quite expensive. It is basicaly the new Guardian as the Corruptor replaces the Devouer.
But this is not the point. Anyone who has played SC 1 and has been a good player or at least has watched matches between strong players should know that Battlecruisers were never used as they were with poor value ( as in SC 2 as well ), Carriers were better on the side of tactics, but were used in 1 of 50 games. I personally never used and will not use any of these units because they are expensive, easy to kill and are hard to get. If there are two strong players, the game will be over far before the use of Broodlords or any of the massive ships.
The Terran has the excellent Viking, a very good Air-Air unit, costs 2 and a half times less than a Broodlord, you can easily kill the BL and then take the Vikings down so the Corruptors won`t damage them and you could repair.
Protos has the High Templar, any good Protoss should have at least 5-6 of these ( I ve used up to 12 ), a psi storm cast by 3 templars at the same time had devastating effect on Zergs in SC 1 - I see it has the same here. Broodlords are slow, so - its easy.

 

Are the carriers weak compared to the carriers in BW?

 

# of interceptors and damage are the same, didn`t look at the shield/hitpoints but If they are the same - yes they are underpowered, because many units have higher health in SC2. But again, in order to have these kind of ships/Zerg high class units, you must go for them and nobody will wait for you to build them Any map with a cliff will make the Terran superior, as was Lost Temple ( until I got a solution for its superiority, which is unavailable in SC 2 ).
Looking at the units and races, I would say ( my personal opinion ) the Terran is stronger than the other two races because it has better defence and the Reapers. Reapers will slow down enemy development, and now tthere are no lurkers, so drops become an issue. Killing Zerg drones will kick him out of the game because he cannot build and gather at the same time, then you go with 1-2 tanks, 2 SCVs and marines and he is out. Protoss cannot penetrate the "first attack" defence, because they have no Corsairs anymore, a drop of marines with two Medivacs will slow him and you can have them really fast - barracks, factory, starport, Medivacs need little time to build. When dropped, marines get healed by medivacs and can use stim packs, they will die but Protoss cannot recover

Now I hope you see why I say the Broodlord is fine, if you want to entertain yourself how superior units you have - you can have it - but after you have defeated/conservated your opponent. So - I voted that it is just fine at 25dmg. They may give it more, its expensive and slow.

 

I've seen the brood lords in pro matches at least 2-3 times out of 50 games, it really only happenes between more evenly matched oponents.

Also most units are now balanced since its the end of beta.
(...WTH happened to lurkers?)

 

Lurkers were dropped and no one really knows why. Someone said the attack looked silly with the new 3d graphics. I think that's a pretty cheap excuse myself. They could have revamped the unit and made it pretty slick.

 

http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Lurker#StarCraft_II

No one used it apparently.

 

Probably because it's a T3 unit but I bet they're a better option than Ultras back then.

 

Thanks for the article there. It's interesting that it confirms the Lurker has a seige unit that can outrange defensive structures. I'm thinking people didn't utilize them because they were at a higher tier than in BW and a lot of games didn't last long enough to make tier 3 units worth getting. Also, people wanted to test out new strategies with roaches and banelings which is probably another reason why you didn't see many Lurkers, because people already know what they do. It's interesting they only did internal testing, and didn't allow players in the Beta to sample all the units before making the cuts. I agree they are probably a better option than Ultras too.

 

Lurkers were very strong units in SC1, very effective against Protoss and Terran in the beggining of the game and also very effective on drops behind the minerals. But the fact they have been removed due to balance issues, come on.

 

We're getting offtopic =/

My only gripe with BLs is they are too high up the tech tree, zerg really need em earlier.

 

I mainly used Lurkers for drops, holding position, or defending my base, like the video below. I casted Dark Swarm because I thought he was bringing dragoons with his zealots. Without those Lurkers holding the fort, his 50 zealots would be hacking and slashing at my precious Zerg buildings. I trust leaving them in charge more so than some ultras that will lumber around like drunken elephants. You also have the advantage of taking out their observation unit(s), leaving them helpless to your defense.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rm3sYLFVtfE

 

More so back on the BL subject I think that the third teir should only be used if the enemy is going third teir as well, other wise unless it's late game and you're 1-2 bases ahead then I would recomend third teir. (aka broodlords, ultras aren't that great as they seem to be countered pretty well, I saw a pro korean game where the Terran went mech and the Zerg eventually went (after lots of zerglings) a heavy roach/ultra...but he got owned, but it was a very entertaining and he fought well even though his units where being countered, (and it was a very long game)) anyway the only thing wrong with BL's is that they aren't very accessable and they are very spendy, these two things aren't strong points for the Zerg either. (correct me if I'm wrong but I see Zerg as a more agresive mass units race with spells that help their units to over come the enemy, so high cost not extreemly massable and easily accessable units wouldn't be in their favor.(I'm not saying that this can't be pulled off though))

 

I think going straight for Tier 3 units will make you very vulnerable for the first 15 minutes or so, it is very easy to harras such players and in order ot have the T3 units ASAP, this means they cannot spend much resources on defence and units, thus becoming vulnerable to early attacks. I think they will loose the game 99% of the time.
At the end - the BL costs 250 min. 250 gas and needs 4 population. But there is something else nobody counts in this thread - you can`t attack with Broodlords only, this was the issue with the Guardians in SC1. So you need Corruptors as well - so, for a unit that can fight air and ground, you pay the price for a Corruptor + the price for a Broodlord and you need 6 control For the same price a Terran may have 3-3.5 Vikings per Cor/BL combo - and he wins. Protoss needs just a few zealots, stalkers and 5-6 High templars - the slow speed of the BL will be deadly when under Psi storm.

 

Wow I didn't know they used 4 control. Why 4 instead of 2? The Brood Lord is the only Zerg seige unit so I hope they don't nerf it too much.

 

Why 4??? 2 for the Corruptor + 2 for the Brood lord mutation...

 

No idea. I'm not sure why the roach is 2 supply either. They should definitely receive a good buff for that. I think you pretty much have to get brood lords if the Terran player has lots of tanks. How else are you going to get past the tanks?

 

Roach is to supply cuz they felt people simply massed them, and this effectivly cuts that mass down to half of what it used to be, how that's balanced don't ask me.

And tanks...hmm

if they don't have to heavy of anti air you could do a zergling or baneling drop with overlords.
you could unburrow roaches ontop of the siege tanks as long as their isn't any ravens out.
You could choose any atg unit (duh) even if they would get owned by OTHER unIts, ur talking about the tank.
You could sneak up with infested and either mind control them or spawn mass infested Terran all around them so the splash kills'em and it's free of minerals to you (other then the infester)

so Zerg really only have indirect counters to tanks at least.

 

Unfortunately, I do not think this would be that easy The problem with tanks comes in the second Terran attack, he will have 2-3 tanks guarded by marines and SCVs which will build bunkers for the marines and missile turrets. The Roach couldn`t get there because you won`t have the needed upgrades that fast and because a few Blinks of the Command center will give the SCV time to build a missile turret. Drop with Overlords is also hard to complete.
I think the only solution ( and quite good one ) will be an attack with Zerglings shortly followed by a few stacks of Banelings. Terran will be vulnerable to such attack. Terran army is ranged, most of it ( like Marines, Reapers and Tanks ) with either low damage or shooting slowly. You need speed and quick armor upgrade in order to counter it - Zealot`s charge upgrade + an early protoss armor upgrade or fast Zerglings followed by Banelings.