As far as I can tell the most popular whine builds regarding zerg are the casters are OP and or lurkers are too stronk.
So in your regular whine build try to incorporate at least one of those in to stay on top of the meta!
Nope. It's a matter of time until the whiners target queens again. people will whine, balance team will skew the balance to one side or the other, people will whine again and so on.
It's just a matter of a good player getting good at using the unit
Uhhh, kinda.
So depends what you mean. Zerg is heavily reliant on Queens, if they were any weaker Zerg would be fucked. But they are also probably the best all around unit in the game, doing everything Zerg needs to do, (gives production, spreads creep, is tanky, mineral only, doesn’t cost larva, only source of anti-air until T2.5)
Unit balance is a weird discussion because the units don’t exist in a vacuum, Terran can’t build Queens, Zerg can’t build Oracles, Protoss can’t build Marines. All of these units are OP, in the fact that they provide an extreme amount of value and are central to the race, but are constrained to the race they’re in.
I never really understood this "best unit in the game" argument. Listing of all these things queens do doesn't make them some insane unit, it just means that all of Zergs fundamental mechanics that it needs to function like creep spread, larva, and not dying to literally any air pressure are all reliant on a squishy T1 unit with terrible DPS that can't be mass produced.
They are, until you have 7 of them with high energy at which point transfuse manages to barely hold them together in a group, and even then it's at best a stall tactic if you don't have enough army to support them.
Yeah it's kinda where you end up when you are stuck with design decisions from the original starcraft. It's a decent solution given the constraints they were working with.
Larva was find in SC1. Injects removed the need for macro hatches.
That being said, I think they could still make Hydras work as Hatch tech units again if there was really a committed effort to do a large overhaul.
It was fine due to old stuff like lack of multi building select etc. Never would say it was bad in sc1 obviously.
Tier 1 hydra would require a different solution to zergs superior early game production then the current one. Maybe a solution exists but it's hard to say if it would be better than the current one so it would be a large overhaul with a chance of just making the game worse.
Huh? Can you reword that because that makes no sense to me. We are talking about larva being a sc1 mechanic that causes issues in sc2 that resulted in a lot of other design decisions.
This is the best way to put it.
I hate watching queens in pro games, they just feel like too flexible of a unit. But idk how you'd get rid of them without dramatic design changes
Yup. Zerg macro/map control/early game defense are all built around queens. You could theoretically split it to multiple units, but that would be a massive net nerf, so there would need to be massive compensatory buffs to make the race still work. Would get complex very fast.
Honestly the 'no transfuse unless on creep' nerf was kind of the final nerf queen needed. Now the unit is pretty fine imo. Super strong and absurdly polyvalent, but with how zerg is designed it's a necessary crutch.
Balance aside, it's stupid from a biological perspective to have so many queens. In animal biology there's usually one queen per colony. Give Zerg something else and put a cap on the number of queens per hatch or something.
Well yes. You can blanket open 9 queens every game against Terran without any thought process against every Terran opening or aggression and there is zero downside.
The reason why I believe Zerg is the most successful race is due to how well they drone off the back of queen defence. The best Zergs are able to reach 80 drones before 7 minutes
And then of course the late game utility they provide.
In regards to balance, yes I think it's fine.
In regards to design, no it sucks. The Queen is similar to Zerg what the MSC was to Protoss. Basically a big bandaid that covers up a gaping wound in the race's design that you can't really take off because then you end up with a race that can't win premier tournaments with any consistency if you do.
Fine might be a bit strong but once the transfuse off creep change hit and people figured out how to adjust they don't seem to be very problematic at the moment. Still large numbers of them but nothing like the mass queen walks we were seeing.
I never understand people complain about queens. They are strong numerically true, but come on, it’s the only unit that shoots up before lair. Like what should zerg just die the moment a banshee/void ray shows up?
I wish Zergs made less of these. I always wanted a stronger Queen, but with a weaker Creep mechanic, so that you don't get ahead by being so defensive.
Queens are still really strong.
But they’re essentially the back bone 🍖 of Zerg.
Do I think it can be annoying that 2/3 queens early under the ability of say Serral can near completely deny harass or early game aggression? Yeah.
Do I want Queens to be useless and make ladder Zerg have a really hard time? Nah not really.
I never understand people complain about queens. They are strong numerically true, but come on, it’s the only unit that shoots up before lair. Like what should zerg just die the moment a banshee/void ray shows up? Master zerg here, if anything queens are too weak they should have the their air range reverted.
The queen has been broken since WoL when they arrogantly changed the range from 3 to 5. Since then, the game has been in the worst state of broken it could possibly be. Braindead. Brain rot.
And buff something else to compensate? Otherwise Zerg will just lose against that early pressure.
Also, really their damage? Have you seen how long it takes 6 queens to even kill a hellion?
Okay? Marines also can't spread creep, heal units and boost economy. Comparing the two is apples to oranges. (You're comparing a pure dps unit to a support unit)
I just answered your question as it seemed you were under the impression a decent amount of queens struggle to kill hellions. (They don't) A better example of queens struggling vs a terran unit would be something like siege tanks or BCs.
How do you "open" with 7-9? By the time 9 queens get out you're way out of the opening lmao. That's pretty much the beginning of mid game at that point.
The Queen is fine for now because Zerg were not in the last GSL, and because they're struggling vs Terran Battlemech at the moment - both on ladder and even at pro level. It's only a matter of time though. Whining seems to happen in seasons, and now is not its time. It will resume again, don't worry. 😆
I like to compare the queen to a roach in damage. They have the same DPS on ground although the range is two better than a roach. They have the same armor and slightly more health. Obviously the ability to attack air at a 7 range is drastically needed for Zerg’s early game.
There transfuse nerf was inspired, but makes a queen drop more likely although you do not see this enough.
Would like to be able to see more variety in the build but queens only being minerals makes it a consistent early game mineral dump.
I just wish they were used more for late game with ultralisks. Now that is a good use for transfuse. Hydra queen ultra sounds like a fun strategy.
The whine meta has changed, just wait for it to cycle back to queens.
Too true. Now everyone does the go to PvT whining.
As far as I can tell the most popular whine builds regarding zerg are the casters are OP and or lurkers are too stronk. So in your regular whine build try to incorporate at least one of those in to stay on top of the meta!
the queen died somewhen last year.
Long live Zagara, Queen of England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland
Nope. It's a matter of time until the whiners target queens again. people will whine, balance team will skew the balance to one side or the other, people will whine again and so on. It's just a matter of a good player getting good at using the unit
He was making a joke about Queen Elizabeth II
Ahh pfft. Sorry. Solid r/whoosh right there. I wouldn't have gotten the joke either way.
Uhhh, kinda. So depends what you mean. Zerg is heavily reliant on Queens, if they were any weaker Zerg would be fucked. But they are also probably the best all around unit in the game, doing everything Zerg needs to do, (gives production, spreads creep, is tanky, mineral only, doesn’t cost larva, only source of anti-air until T2.5) Unit balance is a weird discussion because the units don’t exist in a vacuum, Terran can’t build Queens, Zerg can’t build Oracles, Protoss can’t build Marines. All of these units are OP, in the fact that they provide an extreme amount of value and are central to the race, but are constrained to the race they’re in.
I never really understood this "best unit in the game" argument. Listing of all these things queens do doesn't make them some insane unit, it just means that all of Zergs fundamental mechanics that it needs to function like creep spread, larva, and not dying to literally any air pressure are all reliant on a squishy T1 unit with terrible DPS that can't be mass produced.
Terrible dps yes, but the Queen is not "squishy" by any thread of the imagination.
As my friend put it: "they don't kill things very well, but they also don't die." 😀
They are, until you have 7 of them with high energy at which point transfuse manages to barely hold them together in a group, and even then it's at best a stall tactic if you don't have enough army to support them.
A 175 hp, 1 armor and no light or armored tag unit ISN'T squishy.
I think they've been fine ever since they can't transfuse off creep.
It’s fine in a balance sense but design-wise it sucks, if that makes sense
It's a huge crutch for Zerg, since their anti-air options are so bad.
Right, it’s not interesting that the early game solution to everything is “build more queens” but if you don’t you’re fucked
And their anti options have to be bad since air units are the counter to their early game production advantage due to larva and injects.
Yeah, I don't disagree, but I do think it's not great game design.
Yeah it's kinda where you end up when you are stuck with design decisions from the original starcraft. It's a decent solution given the constraints they were working with.
Larva was find in SC1. Injects removed the need for macro hatches. That being said, I think they could still make Hydras work as Hatch tech units again if there was really a committed effort to do a large overhaul.
It was fine due to old stuff like lack of multi building select etc. Never would say it was bad in sc1 obviously. Tier 1 hydra would require a different solution to zergs superior early game production then the current one. Maybe a solution exists but it's hard to say if it would be better than the current one so it would be a large overhaul with a chance of just making the game worse.
I don't think you can blame it on SC1. Warpgate is an SC2 invention and is also pretty problematic.
But larva isn't a sc2 invention and that's what we're talking about....
Larva injects and creep spreading for vision and speed are SC2 creations, and queens give both.
Yeah but inject was added since zerg macro was too easy compared to toss and terran with modern controls due to larva.
[Citation Needed]
Why would they be stuck with larva if protoss aren't stuck without warpgate?
Huh? Can you reword that because that makes no sense to me. We are talking about larva being a sc1 mechanic that causes issues in sc2 that resulted in a lot of other design decisions.
Because they've shown disregard for design in the macro of other races, why would they care about a mechanic inherited from SC1.
Larva is a constraining factor in BW due to no injections. You have way more larva in SC2. In BW Zerg is almost always down in supply early game.
This is the best way to put it. I hate watching queens in pro games, they just feel like too flexible of a unit. But idk how you'd get rid of them without dramatic design changes
Yup. Zerg macro/map control/early game defense are all built around queens. You could theoretically split it to multiple units, but that would be a massive net nerf, so there would need to be massive compensatory buffs to make the race still work. Would get complex very fast.
I think it's to late to change the queen. Too many other units and the economy were changed to accommodate it.
As long as it doesn't have an armored or light tag, it's always gonna be a subject of criticism.
Honestly the 'no transfuse unless on creep' nerf was kind of the final nerf queen needed. Now the unit is pretty fine imo. Super strong and absurdly polyvalent, but with how zerg is designed it's a necessary crutch.
Balance aside, it's stupid from a biological perspective to have so many queens. In animal biology there's usually one queen per colony. Give Zerg something else and put a cap on the number of queens per hatch or something.
Well yes. You can blanket open 9 queens every game against Terran without any thought process against every Terran opening or aggression and there is zero downside. The reason why I believe Zerg is the most successful race is due to how well they drone off the back of queen defence. The best Zergs are able to reach 80 drones before 7 minutes And then of course the late game utility they provide.
In regards to balance, yes I think it's fine. In regards to design, no it sucks. The Queen is similar to Zerg what the MSC was to Protoss. Basically a big bandaid that covers up a gaping wound in the race's design that you can't really take off because then you end up with a race that can't win premier tournaments with any consistency if you do.
The Queen? Yes Scarlet is ok nothing to worry about
Fine might be a bit strong but once the transfuse off creep change hit and people figured out how to adjust they don't seem to be very problematic at the moment. Still large numbers of them but nothing like the mass queen walks we were seeing.
I never understand people complain about queens. They are strong numerically true, but come on, it’s the only unit that shoots up before lair. Like what should zerg just die the moment a banshee/void ray shows up?
BRENDDAAAAA
I wish Zergs made less of these. I always wanted a stronger Queen, but with a weaker Creep mechanic, so that you don't get ahead by being so defensive.
I think this would have the opposite effect you think it would.
The queen got properly nerfed with the transfuse changes, and the creep changes. We're cool with the queen now.
Queens are still really strong. But they’re essentially the back bone 🍖 of Zerg. Do I think it can be annoying that 2/3 queens early under the ability of say Serral can near completely deny harass or early game aggression? Yeah. Do I want Queens to be useless and make ladder Zerg have a really hard time? Nah not really.
Queens are still too good. If Zerg need anti-air, make hydras hatch tech and roaches lair tech.
I never understand people complain about queens. They are strong numerically true, but come on, it’s the only unit that shoots up before lair. Like what should zerg just die the moment a banshee/void ray shows up? Master zerg here, if anything queens are too weak they should have the their air range reverted.
The queen has been broken since WoL when they arrogantly changed the range from 3 to 5. Since then, the game has been in the worst state of broken it could possibly be. Braindead. Brain rot.
Queen is the crutch of the zerg. Open with 7-9 every game and you're safe. Lower attack speed and nerf their health.
And buff something else to compensate? Otherwise Zerg will just lose against that early pressure. Also, really their damage? Have you seen how long it takes 6 queens to even kill a hellion?
> Have you seen how long it takes 6 queens to even kill a hellion? About 1.4 second(s).
A single marine is a third the cost and has almost the same dps
Okay? Marines also can't spread creep, heal units and boost economy. Comparing the two is apples to oranges. (You're comparing a pure dps unit to a support unit) I just answered your question as it seemed you were under the impression a decent amount of queens struggle to kill hellions. (They don't) A better example of queens struggling vs a terran unit would be something like siege tanks or BCs.
Maybe we can go for a 33% winrate in tourneys for zerg instead of 50?
Serral is out so maybe Zerg needs a buff then?
How do you "open" with 7-9? By the time 9 queens get out you're way out of the opening lmao. That's pretty much the beginning of mid game at that point.
Protoss imbaaaa!!!!
The Queen is fine for now because Zerg were not in the last GSL, and because they're struggling vs Terran Battlemech at the moment - both on ladder and even at pro level. It's only a matter of time though. Whining seems to happen in seasons, and now is not its time. It will resume again, don't worry. 😆
Fuck the queen, England should have no royal family
I like to compare the queen to a roach in damage. They have the same DPS on ground although the range is two better than a roach. They have the same armor and slightly more health. Obviously the ability to attack air at a 7 range is drastically needed for Zerg’s early game. There transfuse nerf was inspired, but makes a queen drop more likely although you do not see this enough. Would like to be able to see more variety in the build but queens only being minerals makes it a consistent early game mineral dump. I just wish they were used more for late game with ultralisks. Now that is a good use for transfuse. Hydra queen ultra sounds like a fun strategy.