Units that sucked!

That's for people who understand that theres more to Starcraft than rushing ;D

 

If this were like WC3 nobody would be using zerglings past midgame. Also, nobody would be using footmen past midgame. If they did, they would just be raped by tier 2/3 units and be laughed at. So really no units completely suck. Don't know what kinda stuff someone would be smoking to thing zerglings suck but it must be expensive. especially hyperlings those uped zerglings tear through stuff when massed.

As for the dark archon, i don't think i've ever actually used it in multiplayer.

 

I was sarcastic about lings sucking to make a point that corsairs did not suck. Zerglings are near the top of the list on units that rocked.

Dark archons sucked pretty bad, although ironically all of its abilities were extremely potent and useful. They sucked for the same reason that scouts sucked, but to a greater degree. Time and tech req for DAs were just way too painful.

If we're basing any of this on real multiplayer games with random opponents on standard maps, not every unit is truly useful. Meaning, there are units that are useful on paper or under different scenarios, but are not really useful enough to justify their production(tech, time, and resource req) in competitive multiplayer.

This has nothing to do with the rush heavy nature of early-game. Rushing isn't everything but it is a part of multiplayer, it is made viable by the dynamics of SC gameplay. Rushing didn't make any unit suck, they sucked because they did. No rush 15 isn't real competitive multiplayer, you're adopting custom rules, it's like saying let's make a pair of 2's beat everything else in poker. Staying in your base quietly mining and teching up also isn't a consistantly viable strat in competitive multiplayer.

Face it, as awsome and balanced as SC was, some units really sucked like hell.

 

I know you were being sarcastic, I was continuing that. I guess the units had to suck to maintain balance.

 

zerg as a whole sucked simply because they depended so much on numbers. Zerglings especially, is supposed to be the bread and butter of zerg, but the problem is how do you make up ward of a hundred zerglings take advantage of their numbers when you can only select 6 foods worth of zergs at once? even if you do, they will go into a line en route and get obliterated by tanks/templars. Starcraft 1's controls weren't made with zerg in mind it seems! Zerg is too hard to control and too susceptible to splash attack, and guess what the most popular terran and protoss units do? The only popular unit in popular tournament games that isn't based on massing is lurker. They require some skill to place, but their problem is that their damage is low, they are slow to deploy, and are very vespene intensive, yet lurkers are the one unit that can keep a zerg player from getting completely dominated by massed marine/bat/medic and mass zealots early game. That is BULL!

 

The quantity over quality is what made the Zerg... well Zerg. Like the other two races with their special abilities and benefits, this is what got the Zerg where they are today. You ever hear of hotkeying groups? Besides who in their right mind would send hundreds upon hundreds of Zerglings if they know that the Terran/Protoss player is turtling up with Siege Tanks and the like. No one (with the exception of some...) that's who!

It really depends on how well you play and manage your units, I am practically a Zerg player and I have survived against "mass" tactics in Lost Temple and other maps using lings under the support of sunken colonies.

 

@ shirija

Congratulations, you just outlined what is the Zerg racial identity by game design.

If you came into playing the race that's supposed to consist of swarms of little flimsy weak units thinking that little micro will be necessary for you to play effectively... guess what? I might have some news for you.

Out of all the basic infantry units of all the races, lings are lovely all the way to the end, deep into late-game. If you expect to send some lings and have them mow through everything on their own just because they are Zerg's "bread and butter," then might I suggest not to leave home without power overwhelming.

 

I didn't say that the zerg suck because of their dependence on numbers, but that controls of 12 units per time is simply not effective enough to allow zerg's number to shine. It's not about micro either, it is just very hard to control hundreds of units in real time 12 at a time! You can't control the overlap of units by click and drag and as far as hot keys, I usually have 4 keys devoted to hatcheries so I can move around the map quickly and build in the middle of battle and 6 X 12 is only 72 units, that's 36 food worth of zerglings, and that's if you have enough free time to separate them into groups to give them individual numbers. The mass majority of zerg players do drag and select over selective areas to have select encompass as many units that weren't previously commanded as possible. This is extremely inefficient when it comes to zerglings.

Anyways, in conclusion, my beef with zerg is the old control, and not perhaps with the unit itself, but seeing how control is standardized across all races, the race is the only other place to place the blame. Now are you guys satisfied or would you need to flame more before the point is across?

 

What?

Cut the quote short, but you have a good point there. However I have to say that your posts sound like anybody would be using zerglings almost exclusively through the entire game. Not true, Zerg controls work fine and are similar to the other races with the exception of more units available to select. When it comes down to selecting units of a similar type, I just use SHIFT + DOUBLE CLICK and then attack order to the point of battle.

 

I'm sorry that this is out of the subject but I got a question. How do you do something where you want all your units to attack different individual units? Like say you have a bunch of ghosts and the enemy has a bunch of cruisers, how do you make it so that the ghosts lockdown their own individual Cruisers quickly?

 

When it comes to ground battles, and it pretty much always end up as a ground battle, the vespene to mineral income ratio could only be burnt of by havivng a great number of zerglings, so even though they are hardly used exclusivevly, they will definitely constitute the majority of the army. There is no other attacking unit that is below a 3:1 mineral to vespene count. As far as similar type units, if you use that method: when there's so many zerg units on the screen, shift click selects 12, you send them, but the next time you click, chances are quite a few of those are going to be the same as the ones you just sent off but aren't off the screen yet. If you send them off, it means less unit than 12 was sent off and that means a small amount is being sent off to attack. If you wait until they're off the screen, then that would be even worse than the first situation.

The ONLY method I know of where you can force a large amounts of units to attack is to have them all burrow, and ctrl select and unburrow. Burrowed and unburrowed units can't be selected at the same time with type select, so that method is valid. Problem is to burrow all the units it can be quite time consuming, and is just another example of why the controls of starcraft 1 is ill-suited for zerg. I'm praying that the new system will solve this problem, especially since they say thus far there's not even a unit cap on the tray.

 

In the old system you can't tell them to do so automatically and it's even harder when the units are stacked, with the new system, hopefully the spell will be like warcraft where you can select all of the same type of casters and select spell and target and the nearest one fulfilling the qualifications will attempt the cast.

 

Huh....I could've sworn i've seen it done before...then again, they were the pros, so I guess I shouldn't get my hopes up

 

You have to do this manually. It's usually a good idea to hotkey the caster units.

 

Alright, thx for the info. I'm new to multiplayer, so I'm trying to learn as much as I can right now 8) And btw, can you hotkey spells?

 

Yes, if by hotkey you mean shortcut. You can press L for lockdown for instance.

You can experiment hotkeying casters to match key spells. I often hotkey defilers to keys 3~7(4,5,6 mainly), and press W with my left pinky to cast multiple darkswarms quickly. Hitting L for lockdown with your left thumb or index finger might help you in doing it faster. Anyway, experiment for yourself, it's different for everyone.

 

All commands in the game have hot keys, a letter you press that would serve the same purpose as selecting them. When you have your mouse over them, one of the letter of the caption will be of a different color. That is the hot key.

For a complete list of commands, you could check gamefaqs.com, look for starcraft, and go to the guide part 1 by jchristopher. I used to look at his guides a lot back when starcraft was still fairly new. His guide should teach you all the details relating to starcraft.

 

scouts are the best protoss air unit at taking out battlecruisers if you don't have a lot of gas. if you do, carriers all the way. and scouts are too expensive. and there are land based units that do it better.

 

remy i thought u knew about sc!
how dare you say that about dark archons =(
BCs > scouts
dark archons > BCs
arbiter > BCs

 

I beg to differ Power, Dark Archons have some useful applications but no one really uses them enough to actually make a difference. Also, BCs destroy scouts, Arbiters are only greater than BCs when they actually have stasis researched, other then that... BCs eat Arbiters for breakfast.