Overlord SC1 vs Overseer SC2

I think that one way Overlord detection (and Overseer scrapping) can be balanced is if Overlord detection is made into an upgrade, like Ventral Sacs.
Of course, the new upgrading system where all Zerg units have 3 levels (starting at level 0) will make it tricky to balance. Ventral Sacs, Detection and Pneumatized Carapace (notice I skipped Antennae as that is the least important and can be merged with Detection anyway, if needed) would each and one have to be at one level each from level 1 to 3. Pneumatized Carapace can be the level one upgrade, Detection level 2 and Ventral Sacs can be unlocked when it is level 3.
Just a thought.

 

Having to research upgrades for Overlord detection isn't nearly as big of a problem when it is universal. The Overseer is a bigger nerf than it has to be, because it is an evolved aspect that must be upgraded into for every individual Overlord.

There are much better ways to go about changing things with Zerg. Blizzard just seem to go with the crappier way on most things with Zerg so far.

 

I always saw the SC1 zerg ovie as pathetically easy to counter. Ovies arn't that good against protoss as far as I've seen. Corsairs come early and I've seen pro zerg players get owned because of the ovie weakness ( slow movement plus having to bring it into the mix of action for transport or detection) which is not only an attack on a unit but your economy ( supply) so its very painful to loose overlords to little corsairs and it can shift the momentum of the game.

Here is a match between pros , Bisu ( one of the top protoss players) vs Savior ( arguably the best zerg player on the planet) and Bisu owns the game because of the ovie weakness of savior's. Savior had the game and the overlord loss cost him the game.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Jz4wxlKOkVI&feature=related
http://youtube.com/watch?v=wuqFHki48yE&feature=related

At least the Nydus worm offers transport without direct risk to economy. And overseers can sit farther away from the action and still detect well as detection expands for overseers that don't move.

 

Detection radius is not increased, it is only the sight. Thus, you still would need to pull Overseers into battle to detect things, but losing one in SC2 would be a greater liability than it was in SC1. Also an increased loss in food supply if I'm not mistaken.

Whether Nydus is better or worse than Ovie transports can not be said either way definitively. However, there are clear benefits of having Ovies as transports that the Nydus does not make up for.

 

What benefits? IIRC the worm can travel underground without restrictions, much like how an air unit does, and it's heaps faster than an ovi. Not to mention the fact that after unloading the units inside, the worm works like a nydus canal between its mouth and the nydus warren. Plus you don't lose supplies if it's killed, but free some up (4, I think).

 

"What benefits?" May I take a wild guess that you are not a Zerg player? It may be to your surprise, but there are quite a few benefits the Ovie has over the Nydus. And yes, I did say "clear" benefits, but apparently there'er not clear to just anyone. You ready?

AVAILABILITY: Once you research the universal upgrade, as early as the moment you hit tier 2, all your Ovies are all transports. You lose some? It's OK, you still got tons all over the place. You can pick up a few replacements and continue on your drop strat without delay.

TIMING: There is no need to account for transport build time, as you would already have many available. This means when timing is especially crucial, you can "pre-send" both the Ovies and the "droppees" to just outside the drop destination.

DECOY: Since you have so many, in the case that your drop intent might be discovered or just when it seem very unlikely that it would go unnoticed, you can still ensure drop success with an abundance of decoys readily available.

SELECTIVE DROPPING: It doesn't have to be all or nothing, especially if you don't have a safe/undiscovered drop zone for mass unload. You can selectively unload a single unit at a time, that is called tactical flexibility.

DETECTION: Are you unloading into a massive field of Lurkers or some DTs? Hmmm, sure wouldn't know with just your Nydus. As important as detectors are for defending against cloak strats at home, detectors are all but crucial at the frontlines.

NO-DELAY DROPPING: When every second of your drop timing will make or break your strat, and possibly your game, Ovie drop is better. 5 seconds or so spent on big dramatic announced entry for the Nydus, could well be what decides the success of the particular drop.

I don't know for sure 100% how the Nydus works, but if loading isn't as fast and convenient as other transports, that's one more plus the Ovie has over it. Substitute mobility as well as offering an additional tactical option right where your units are is another important benefit of air borne transports.

Now let's compare to what you came up with for the Nydus. My comments will be within angle brackets("<" and ">").

It has mobility arguably just as good as an air transport.
<Air transports still have an innate advantage in mobility. For instance, can you stay off in space or over waters with the Nydus? Terrain crossing isn't the only thing there is to mobility.>

"Heaps" faster.
<How much is "heaps?" Not quite familiar with that unit of measure. But even if the difference in movement speed is great, that still isn't everything. You're still hurrying to the DZ to stop and make a show before you get to business.>

After unloading, the Nydus function as a canal.
<That is after the 5 second scream fest and free target practice for the enemy. Will there be any decent players who would still not finish off the Nydus and leave you with a working canal? Who's to say?>

Frees up food supply when it's killed.
<That's not really a "benefit," it just means that it's anything else Zerg, or Protoss or Terran for that matter. I do agree that losing max supply when Ovies are kill is indeed a minus, a rather big one. However, it is in exchange for all the other benefits, such as it never taking up food in the first place. I can easily counter that by saying Nydus takes up food, but that's really not saying much. On the big picture, Ovie design was balanced and unique, it was specifically Zerg that went extremely well with, as well as is an important part of, the Zerg's overall racial identity.>

 

As for your aspects:
Availability: You're right in this, nothing to add here.
Timing/Decoy: Though you have many transports by the time you research the upgrade (the same time as you'd hatch a worm), the purpose of many ovies (barring decoy for now) is to bring masses of units where they're needed, in which a nydus canal excels by miles. The decoy bit is true though, and the ovi has an advantage there.
Selective dropping/Detection: The worm is a transport unit and most probably will be able to unload single units. As for detection, you don't have it included in the transport, but you can bring along some overseers without much trouble.
No-delay dropping: I have a feeling the screaming thing is just for show and will not be part of the final product, so the worm would have about 1 second cooldown before starting to unload units, which is not too bad if you consider the fact that the worm was never intended to replace the ovi with respect to being able to drop units at the very threshold of a base.

As for your points:
The worm moves in exactly the same fashion as an ovi, but has cloak. You can't say cloak doesn't make any difference.

As for the speed, it's interesting that you should say it doesn't matter. You sound like an experienced player yet you don't comprehend the huge difference move speed makes. Blizzard said currently the maps are the same sizes as in SC1, now imagine playing in a 4player 192x192 map (which, as you may know, is not even the largest size there is), speed is exactly what decides the fate of an expansion for example. Also note the huge difference leg enhanced zealots make compared to non-upgraded ones in a pro match... speed is crucial and determines the effectiveness of your timing, especially on large maps.

I've already addressed the screaming, and I'd like to repeat my point in saying the worm is not a direct mirror image of the transport ovi, it's not designed to drop units right where they're needed, which adds a unique character to it.

Supply was just a joke of course, but the maximum supply reduction during an ovi hunt favours the worm.

Zerg overall racial identity would actually benefit from the worm because Terran and Protoss already transport their units in the air and can drop right under the enemy's nose. Having the third race transport their units underground and make them drop away from the actual destination further amplifies the distinction between the races, which is one of the primary aims of SC2. Also, utilizing the ground in many ways suits the Zerg very well. They can burrow, deep tunnel, move, and now with the worm, transport underground. It completes the race nicely, in my opinion.

 

Nydus Worms are for 'instant transport'. They practically catch your enemy off guard to gainn advantage in the battle.
Both are to be used in different situations but you cannot say the Overlord is better than a Nydus just because it caters to many obvious needs.
What happens when an enemy has AA everywhere and you're low of supply?
that stops you from completing a success drop similar to the one you stated. A Nydus Worm can travel un-noticed around the battle field then funnel a large number of force into any avaible area of the enemies base, and once the load is empty it then suffices as a Nydus Canal, allowing you to continuously funnel units directly into the enemies base. And the fact you got the Nydus Worm into their base highlights the fact that area is poorly defended, which means the more units you get in that area the better.
Nydus Worm will be one of those units the enemy will fear as it would be hard to know when one is coming which adds to the Zerg's aspect of ambush. Also you saw in the videos on how there is some amazing micro possibilities with the Nydus Worm.
Lets say it got to a point where two large armies are about to battle it out and theirs seems slightly stronger, what do you do?
You can bluff charge and once the emey brings those Zealots to slow down your Zergling; BOOM a Nydus Worm pops out and unleashes Roaches and Banelings, and since thats unexpected all the enemies micro goes into getting the army away from danger thus retreating, as they are retreating you have 2 more Nydus Worms in wait which flank the enemy force securing a win.

As you can see both will have different ways of doing things, so one is not better than the other.

 

That's exactly what the nydus worm will not be able to do. Nydus canals, IIRC, had 250hp, ovies 200. The nydus worm will have hitpoints in between, which, frankly, is nothing if you make it pop up right in the middle of the enemy base. There will be at least a 1 second cooldown between surfacing and pumping out units, so I reckon you'll get at max 5 units out before the worm is killed.

Also, I forgot to add something in my previous post concerning move speed and the time needed to go from point A to B. If the worm is used skilfully and is surfaced well away from the point you need your units at (i.e., out of danger) travelling time ceases to exist because of the nydus canal function of the worm, and that is constant throughout the map. If you tried to fly your units with ovies from one corner to another, it'd take about 20 seconds.

 

How do you have any idea of the Nydus Worm's hitpoints? don't forget it took a lot of Zealots and 2 Colossus to take out the Nydus Worm in the Protoss showcase video, and it should of been almost instant but it wasn't. Of course the stats may have changed but thats what we have to work from.
And who says you pop it up directly into the line of fire? That would be plain stupid. You saw in the video how it was the edge of the base which was poorly defended.
Also you will be able to fnunel units to a chosen location, as we've seen it...
But from your point of view what will the Nydus Worm be used for? keep it short though, we don't need a text wall
___

Heres some more information on the Overlord and Overseer from Karune:

1) The tier 1 Overlord is very slow and does not have detection, though still essential for scouting throughout the game.

2) They are two different abilities. In generating creep, the Overlord essentially unloads a bunch of creep straight to the ground below it, which expands. Corrupting minerals takes some time to fully cast, but it creates a non-attacking creature that takes over that resource, and needs to be killed before those minerals are able to be gathered. Furthermore, you can corrupt resources that are already being mined, introducing potential Overseer raids to slow the enemy's production.

3)Neither abilities require energy. Creep generation does not have a cooldown whereas corrupt minerals has a small cooldown timer.

http://www.battle.net/forums/thread.aspx?FN=sc2-general&T=1059670&P=1

 

Dropping, of course, but primarily for its canal ability. The reason I'm emphasising the "not under their nose but further back" thing is because you won't be able to move it as easily as you could your transporting air units, and so it will not be a wise thing to surface it at the enemy base because they will kill off the worm before you can make use of the canal.

 

Remember in Sc1 how some bases would be pretty empty with not much defense, and there was always that area of the base which has nothing or not much?
By the time you may tech to Nydus Worm their base may very well be at that stage since they are protecting their natural expansion which blocks direct entrance to the main, that is the ideal situation for the Nydus Worm to come in use, exploiting weak defended bases.
Also you say they'd get destroyed as soon as they surface. By what? your forces won't be corralled in every base you have, they'd be at the frontlines.
I think Protoss will be the most susceptable to an ambush by Nydus Worm as for them every unit counts, meaning they;d probably be at frontlines.

Also you say its for dropping, you cannot just selected a loaded unit and it magically pops out from the Nydus as you could with an Overlord, the Nydus worm has to surface to unload whatever is waiting at the other end or inside.

 

I think people, or at least Kuvasz, are confused on what I said. I never said Nydus was suxxorz, screw it and go back to Ovies transporting. I said whether Nydus is better or worse is not definitive. Meaning, it can not be said with any certainty that the Nydus offer benefits that credibly compensates for the nerf on Ovie. My entire point was that despite cool things like cloak/stealth/tunneling, Ovie still has clear benefits over the Nydus.

In my personal opinion, the Nydus isn't really better than the Ovie in anything so far. All the benefits specific to the Nyuds mentioned in the posts above can be accomplished with Ovies as transports, as long as we're talking about actual in-game applications and effectiveness instead of specific mechanics.

In scenarios where surfacing the Nydus at areas of the enemy's base where it's poorly defended enough for it to survive long enough to function as a canal, you can easily Ovie drop up their ass just the same. And the mention of unloading Roaches and Banelings in an ambush, the same can be accomplished without the actual use of the Nydus. Anytime the ambush would work means that the enemy has no detection around, you can just use burrow your Roaches and Banelings instead. It's faster and more effective too, due to the absence of 5 second scream time and the fact that your units all pop out at once.

I disagree with you Kuvasz, in that I believe the "scream time" will never go down to as little as 1 second. If 1 second is viable, then you wouldn't really even need it. The scream time is there in the first place to balance the Nydus Wurm's(Worm? Wyrm? ......) cloak mechanic. I also must disagree with you in how you seem to believe Ovie drop and Nydus drop will be similar in timing. "Timing" is when something is possible in the game, usually dictated by tech. You have Ovies from the start, which means it is possible to have Ovies very close to drop zone even before you have Lair, you can't say anything remotely similar with the Nydus. If I'm not mistaken, Nydus requires Lair -> Nydus Warren(building) -> actual production of the Nydus Worms. That's not even close in timing, Ovies win out by far.

You people also seem to give the Nydus the benefit of the doubt and simply assume that just because it can move under cloak, it can bypass everything and freely roam the land, I really don't think so. Against any opponent even close to being worth their salt, that's just not how it's gonna go down. Everyone will have detectors, statc-D detecting at every corner. I'm not saying that the cloak would be useless, nor do I think so, but I feel seriously uncomfortable with everyone's "just bypass everything" mentality.

Although the Nydus has terrain crossing capabilities and the ability to cross over gaps, it all only bring its mobility close to that of an air unit's. At the end of the day, it is still a land based unit. When the path to the enemy's base is filled with enemy expo after enemy expo, it could get frustrating trying to find a clear path for the Nydus. IMO, if your Nydus is spotted, then it just loses all of its usefulness/advantages right then and there. With air borne transports, you sometimes would at least have the option of circling around where there is no land period(large areas of water or space).

I don't know if the surfaced Nydus's canal works both ways, but if it does, that's maybe the single most significant benefit that I do see in the Nydus. Whenever it is possible to pull off a canal(not just the drop), let's face it, anything else in the drop category would rape them just the same. The offensive application of the canal is nice, but it's just icing on top. However, in situations where you pulled off launching the Nydus as a canal(some distance away from enemy fire/units/buildings), but find that your own base is under attack, retreating your forward units back to defend your base, isn't something the Ovie could imitate. That would be a clear and definitive advantage of the Nydus since that isn't something the Ovie could replicate or make up in some other way. But that assuming it even works both ways, which I don't think I've read anywhere yet.

All in all, I personally would like to have both the Nydus and the Ovie as Zerg transports. I think that they are different enough to justify coexisting in the Zerg lineup as unit transports.

@ Psionicz, Earlier you said that Overlords dropped creep, I know you were just quoting Karune from b.net, but that's inaccurate info. At the very least, it directly contradict with the answer given to question #3 in Q&A Batch 36. Here is the direct quote:

I'm inclined to think that the Q&A is the correct info. Also, his #1 given on b.net is simply a load of crap. Early game econ is much faster now, players will be scouting much earlier and with more workers/units than in SC1. By the time any and all enemy bases are located, the Ovie just might make it to one. Now that the Ovie is completely useless, it only serves to become a huge early-game liability by providing free target practice and giving up valuable early supply. Might I add, all with no apparent benefit to justify it venturing out at all. I would love for Karune to sit me down and put me in my place, showing me the error in my ways, by coming up with hard facts on just exactly why a "tier 1 Overlord"(his exact words) would be "still essential for scouting throughout the game."

 

From lair on, you need to research two upgrades for the ovies to be of any real use. For a worm, you need a warren and you need to morph one. The two are about the same time in game.

Also, what's the use of having ovies close to the drop zone if you don't have a lair? I'm not good with reasearch times but lair+transportation upgrade is a lot of time, and the ovies would be sitting ducks in one place (especially since you don't have the speed upgrade).

You keep mentioning ovies. As I understand it, they're for being decoys and for dropping masses. Keep in mind that you only need decoys if your plans have been discovered by the enemy. I think a single cloaked worm has a better chance of eluding the enemy's attention than 10+ huge flying balloons. As for unloading masses, I think you'll agree that the canal beats any number of ovi since there's no capacity as such, and there's literally no travelling time, plus units cannot be intercepted while travelling from one point to the other.

As for the worm's mobility, it is the only way of transporting ground units. I know asymmetry among the races is prevalent, but the only way to make it fair with the Zerg is to make the worm move exactly like an air unit. Blizzard has already confirmed that it can move underwater and through space.

 

Preparation of course. You hide a couple of Ovies and units somewhere close to the opponents main, and you upgrade transportation. You won't need speed, because they won't have to travel far. They will just have to float over the water/cliffside next to the base. This strategy is hella fast and can be powerful if the other player doesn't notice in time.

 

Building a lair and researching tranportation isn't something I'd call fast
I see your point, but I still think couple of ovies and some units < 1 worm and unlimited units.

 

Remy. The information I posted was a Karune post on bnet.

 

Compared to getting a Shuttle or Dropship, you would. For instance, the fast Ovie drop would require a Spawning Pool, Lair and Ventral Sacs. Your Ovies and units would already be there when the upgrade is finished and the drop can be initiated.

But to get Dropships for instance, you would require the Barracks, Factory, Starport, Starport addon, then you would have to build the Dropship (notice that this will take even longer if you need multiple dropships for a bigger drop. Ovies are almost always numerous). Not only that, but then you would have to fly to the enemy base. This is nowhere as fast as the fast Ovie Drop is.

Unlimited units? How could they be unlimited? When doing an Ovie drop, you would have just as many units as when you do a Worm "drop". You would have plenty of Ovies around to transport your whole army.

 

Nitpicking, but you need Pneumatized Carapace, too.

Un-upgraded Overlords were used for scouting in the first game, I don't see what this would change if there are no new threats to air units early-game (there aren't).

Concerning the "unlimited units" statement, the Nydus Worms is certainly unlimited in terms of transport. The Overlord is limited by the units in the base when it departs, with the Worm, you only have to have the units around when the Worm surfaces: this means, if it leaves the base at the same time an Overlord would, there would be more units available for the invasion, and potentially continuous re-enforcements. This mechanic might actually be necessary, because the Protoss and Terran can already bring units in from the other end of the map without direct transport via warp-in and Drop Pods.

So, we've established that the Zerg have always been able to initiate large drops fairly quickly... but it doesn't do anything to further the argument that the Overlord is the superior transport.

Why not mention that the Overlord provided detection? Or the fact that a group of Overlords can be split up if engaged by air units and a Worm can't?

I am personally in favor of the Nydus Worm over the Overlord- the Zerg stop having to risk their supply every time they make a drop, the unit is invisible ...and while a good player would have detection in their base ...no player can be expected to have detection everywhere ...you can scout a Terran or Protoss drop with a worker or cheap ground unit, placed near the enemy base... a Nydus Worm would just slither by undetected! You really don't have advanced warning unless you have detectors stationed across the map.

 

I have never seen an ovi drop that was done with the whole of an army. However, I have seen nydus canals being used to move one's entire ground force, several times. The insane amount of micro that would be needed to do an effective full-scale ovi drop is just not worth it, in my opinion. The convenience of selecting your units and ordering them to move to the warren, after which they'd instantly be moved to the location you want to drop to, is much more desirable. Not to mention the diversity between the races which would be amplified, as I have mentioned earlier.