The Zerg Roach

They've already stated that a roach can take on a zealot and win because of its high regen rate(which is probably at least twice as fast as regular, meaning 2 Hp per second).

 

The Zealot won't be that effective against Roaches. They have powerful attacks, but there's usually a fair delay in between. The Roach has a decent amount of health and is always regenerating, even if it's not at a mind-numbing pace, so taking it on with a Zealot of Dark Templar might be harder than you originally anticipated.

You make a fair point about Roaches and Dark Swarm, but the Terran should be able to recover pretty easily to tactics like this. They can either run into the Dark Swarm, protecting themselves from the outside and enabling them to attack, or retreat, forcing the Zerg to come out of their own cover. Remember that Terran have Stim Packs and can heal, which would buy them a fair bit of time in these situations. Just a question, do area of effect attacks still work against units protected by Dark Swarm? If they do, which would make sense because it's no longer an issue of aiming at specific units when you've got an area of effect attack, you just have to aim in the general vicinity so a lot of bugs aren't likely to do too much, then Terran would still have counters to it for if their Marines were stuck in Bunkers or something.

 

Since they did in SC1, I see why not. It would be way too hard to kill anything in Dark Swarm if it blocked AOE especially with Terran. Unless you'd like to fight them with SCVs...

 

The model really needs a change. Perhaps something not flat and circular. The unit seems fitting for a "ling" or "lisk" in its name.


Periling
Versling
Irrelisk
Garmling/lisk

yeah, lame names. But you get the idea

 

I think the model itself is decent, it's just the animation that needs a change. It looks a little awkward right now, a bit too stiff and disjointed.

 

The big question in my mind is: can Ghosts snipe Ultras inside a Dark Swarm? If they can, then Roaches would be useful in late versus terran games for, perhaps, surviving both Plasma Torpedoes and Yamato-guns (on account of numbers) inside the Dark Swarm. If Ghosts cannot target Ultras inside DS (which I think would make sense) then Ultras are the undisputed choice for Zergs in late game, as they can still outnumber BCs for being far cheaper, and thus deplete the enemy's Yamato-gun arsenal, proceeding to slaughter the Terran through Dark Swarm. However, I still prefer the Roaches being susceptible to Plasma array/torpedoes (changes name so often I don't know anymore) and Ultras to Snipe + Yamato, to force the Zerg player to diversify their units to win.

 

@ Hodl pu. I don't see why the Roach needs a name change. It's been said repeatedly that the name suits the unit's role, and that breaks up the monotony of Zerg names. It would be boring if every Zerg unit's name ended in -lisk or -ling. I don't see anyone complaining that the Queen should be renamed, and its name suits it just as much as the Roach's name suits the Roach.
@ Overling. Ultralisks are different to Roaches. Saying that Ultralisks will replace Roaches in late game would be like saying that the Viking will replace Marines in mid game, which we all know won't happen.

 

What is the diference between Roaches and Ultralisks lategame ItzaHexGor?
Lets look:

Ultralisk:
High hp - tank
Medium dps
Splash damage - tank
= The ultralisk is a tank, because it has a high hp + splash damage that will be usefull against many weak units

Roach:
100 hp + high regen - tank
low dps - tank

Some will now say: no no no thats not true, because the diference is focus fire.
But wouldnt you focus fire ultralisks too? fighting against 5 20% ultralisk isnt as funny as fighting against 1 100% ultralisk. I cant really see roaches being usefull when ultralisks are out, especially because they arent cliffwalkers, and have a very low dps.

 

i still think that zealot can hold its ground agenst a roach. the reason i'm putting it out there like this is because of the over use of the zealot and it being the first unit you would have while it takes more to get to a roach so even when u do reach a roach a decent player would of had units in the higher tier to take a roach. but true still dont think a roach has a chance agenst a DT.

also i wanted to point out i think i seen some where that the roach is an armored unit and it the roach is armored that means a snipe from a ghost dose not do full damage making it even more troble sum to kill roach if u can 1 shot it.

 

No, it would not.
Jon played the game in Irvine and confirmed that Roach beats Zealot 1v1 hands down.

 

Meee the question is: What about 2vs2 and 10vs10?
How often do you fight 1vs1? But you do often fight 10vs10, where you can FF, and therefore own roaches.

 

I sti

Well I suppose it makes sense, a lot of words do. However, my taste lies with more abstract words. In fact, I wouldn't even mind if the Queens name was changed, but I'm just more biased toward the Roach. That's just me though, haha, a picky person.

Anyways, it wont matter much really though cause I doubt itll change. and

Concept > Model >Name

 

Ok, but dont the queen name suits the Queen concept?
How can you say that the queen should change name? It fits as much as the roach do, after all its the Terran who name the Zerg. Another point is that Queens will probaly play a huge part in the story (look at the video, queen hatching a new kerigan?), and so the roaches will.

 

Yes indeed it does. But like i said, there are MANY other choices. I know the point as well of the Queens and roach, it's just MY taste in wordings. I even hated some unit names in SC1, BUT I still loved the game. I'm only expressing my own personal opinions, I'm not trying to persuade you to agree.

anyways, let's talk to roach, not Queen in this thread, I only used it as a reference.

 

I agree with furrer. If the zealots all attack the roaches one at a time the roaches will die very quickly.

I don't think the roach regen will be high enough to actually make it "nigh invincible," but it'll be great for hit and run if it's fast enough. Run in, hit, run out, regen, run back in, repeat.

 

That would be good if you had three groups of them, just switch them out as needed, so the enemy doesn't have a seconds pause, but your roaches get rest.

 

Yep, and Zealots can't focus fire on one single roach. Regularly they only group about 2-3 zealots on the same unit, and perhaps with charge they end up surrounding them too, but roaches can Focus-fire much better. If a roach can kill a Zealot on 1 on 1 without loosing much HP, then I don't see how in groups, when Roaches are bound to have much higher numbers, Zealots would win.

I can see Stalkers killing roaches, tho.

 

Stalkers... 1 on 1 they might be able to take down Roaches, but I'm not too sure. I think stalkers had a medium firing speed and did somewhere from 10-20 damage. It depends on exactly how fast they regenerate, though. If it can make up for at least 60% of the damage before the next attack, they should be able to take them down. In groups stalkers should have an easier time seeing as they could focus fire and it'll take them down much more efficiently. I could see the Roach being a huge headache against Terran. Marines will deal no damage to it.

 

I think a lot of people might be overestimating the Roach's regeneration rate. Just because a Roach can convincingly beat a Zealot, it doesn't mean that they'd win against three or more Zealots. At the moment the Roach has 90 health and deal 10 damage, and Zealot have 160 health and deal 16 damage. With three Zealots attacking, each one would only have to deal 30 damage which requires just under two attacks, so hopefully the Roach would be able to survive this. If not, it's extraordinary regeneration rate would actually be quite laughable. However, by the Zealots third attack, the Roach would have to have regenerated 54 health. This is still plausible, but getting harder. By the fourth attack it'd have to have regenerated 102 health, and by the fith, 150. I'd keep going, but this's definitely at the impossible end of the scale. Also, seeing as the Roach and Zealot both have 'normal' attack speed, the Roach would have only dealt about 50 damage by this stage, which isn't even enough to get through the first Zealot's shields.
Those were just some quick progressive statistics of one Roach fighting three Zealots, so the following is for one Roach against one Zealot, where we've already been told that the Roach comes out on top. The Zealot would need just under six attacks to deal 90 damage, and the Roach would have only had to heal six health, being one health every attack, to survive this. By the seventh attack, the Roach would have needed to regenerate 22 damage, being just over three health every attack. By the eighth, it'd need 38, being over four each attack, and by the ninth, 54 or six health per attack. On the tenth attack, it'd need to regenerate 70 health being seven health per attack, on the eleventh, 86 or over seven per attack, 102 or eight and a half per attack on the twelfth and 118 or nine per attack on the thirteenth. Lastly, assuming that because the Roach is ranged it could fit in two attacks before entering melee combat, on the fourteenth and final attack, it'd have needed to have regenerated 134 health which is about ten damage per attack.
From the video's I've seen, Zealots would attack approximately once every two seconds, and, assuming the above information is correct, it means that Roaches would regenerate at about 5 health per second, which I think is about five times that of any other Zerg, meaning they'd only need 18 seconds to fully regenerate. This would be why they need concentrated fire to be brought down, because if they're left for a while, they'd be back up close to full health. They wouldn't need super-powerful weaponry to be taken down, just consistent damage.
This is obviously still subject to change and just a bit of calculated speculation, but all in all, three Zealots would be able to tear through a Roach and be able to move onto the next with a relatively small loss of health.
Also, I think that Stalkers will be a very effective counter against Roaches. The Stalkers have longer range, more health, a damage bonus against Armoured units (the Roach is classified as Armoured), and can easily kite.


Bonus 400 minerals for a great post

 

I was just gonna make a post like that, you beat me to it lol.

Remember, the Zealot does 8 damage per hand. And there is an animation where it attacks with both. Wouldn't that count as 16.

I think thats similar to the Ultralisk too, cuz one of them was only hitting a Viking with 1 claw at a time and it took many hits to kill it.
Another Ultralisk was hitting with 2 then killed it quickly with a strike from all 4 claws.

We need to know if thats a valid variable in combat where a unit uses two attacks.

To put it simple, I'd say 1 Roach : 2 Zealots.