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StarCraft Players now have the option to detonate burrowed banelings in the latest StarCraft II builds, so expect to traverse the occasional biological minefield against zerg!
http://www.facebook.com/#!/StarCraft?ref=nf
looks like spidermines are back, except they can be repositioned however you like and can explode while burrowed
WOOT!
Next weeks Facebook update: Banelings have lost the ability to detonate while burrowed.
No damage penalty for exploding underground? or damage boost for exploding above ground?
Either way...very interesting
Ya, the icing on the cake for zerg map control.
You know, there really isn't any point at all to adding a detonate option for the sake of being able to detonate underground.
How is it going to be any different from simply unburrowing? Unless they kept the terrible "wait for half a second before exploding" thing they had with the infested Terran in SC1.
I see the detonate option more useful for running your banelings into the midst of enemy troops then detonating for maximum effectiveness.
for the split second it takes to unburrow then explode, you could be one-shotted by a sieged tank, gunned down by 40 marines etc probablyQuote:
Originally Posted by Pandonetho
Uh, first, no that's the problem that SC1 infested Terrans had as I mentioned.Quote:
for the split second it takes to unburrow then explode, you could be one-shotted by a sieged tank, gunned down by 40 marines etc probably
Banelings on the other hand, should NOT have this problem because the explosion should be instantaneous.
Second, it wouldn't matter either way, banelings do damage regardless of how they are exploded, whether by manual detonation, or by enemies killing them. (Unless this changed).
I can see people burrowing banelings ontop of expansions early games to be used as scouts and to destroy probes/scv's/drones in an attempt to expand
Hell yeah!
Excellent strategy. This, combined with the threat of lurkers, makes it even more important to have detection against Zerg.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sydarm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blazur
Mind you, the baneling will block the expansion from being put down intially and you'll only have to worry about the harvester.
the downside is it will force the opponent to tech detection early game on you
Not necessarily. If you burrow it closer to the minerals, the enemy could still drop their main unaware of the underground threat. Then you can choose to unburrow and blast apart the peon while constructing the main, or wait a bit until more peons are working to detonate underground.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sydarm
Either way, you have yourself a scout that doubles as an effective future ambush when the time comes.
Since when is forcing the enemy to do something you know they're going to do a downside?Quote:
the downside is it will force the opponent to tech detection early game on you
And yeah, the Zerg totally stole this tactic from the Terrans lol. Except they upgraded the tactic to prevent an expansion from being put down for even longer by killing the peon so it's even better now.
If you're REALLY good you could detonate the baneling the split second a resource building is put up and kill it wasting all their minerals.
what? no that's a terrible strategy lolQuote:
Originally Posted by Blazur
a burrowed zergling sure
but wasting a baneling on one scouting worker is not an excellent idea lol
maybe if you have a few on the mineral line, and wait until they transfer all the workers to the expansion and then explode them, if that's what you meant then sure
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blazur
Hell, even planting 4-6 per mineral patch, and once they get about 10-15 peons harvesting, just let em loose. more money loss on there end
see, ya what templar said! best idea imo
It's completely worth it, if you take into account the fact that they just lost all their time traveling their peon to whatever expansion it is, and killing it, forcing them to send a new one, along with detection.Quote:
but wasting a baneling on one scouting worker is not an excellent idea lol
I wonder if there will be so cool effects to go with a burrowed baneling exploding, dirt and stuff kicked up around it.
a worker costs far less than a single baneling
and most of the time you expand, you'll do it close to your base (so it's easier to defend)
and if you don't do it close to your base, you're probably trying to make it a ninja-expansion in which case you'd probably actually want to let them build it, then go and kill it with your army (which should be relatively undefended)
I'm pretty sure if you're ever in a position where you see a worker making an expansion (or about to) and you have the option to kill it with a baneling, there's at least three better alternatives
Not everything is simply "cost" accounted for. Time is more valuable than money, if you just wasted a minute of their time, it would have more than paid for your baneling.Quote:
a worker costs far less than a single baneling
That's only early game, the moment you move out of your natural expansion it's already going to be pretty far. And like most Terran players, you should probably be putting a baneling at every expansion to watch them.Quote:
and most of the time you expand, you'll do it close to your base (so it's easier to defend)
Preventative measures are always better than counter measures. Go watch the Flash vs Jaedong game where Flash completely denied a third expansion everytime Jaedong tried to get it up. He crushed Jaedong like it was an A+ vs B- game.Quote:
and if you don't do it close to your base, you're probably trying to make it a ninja-expansion in which case you'd probably actually want to let them build it, then go and kill it with your army (which should be relatively undefended)
Like what? As I said earlier, not everything is "money." In the amount of time that you manage to deny an expansion going up, you prevented more than that single baneling's worth from every probe that could have been mining from an operational expansion earlier. And seriously? I know how everyone loves to take every single mineral into account, but 1 baneling for denying an expansion is more of a loss on the enemy than yours. Seriously? You're actually saying using 1 baneling to deny an expansion is excessive?Quote:
I'm pretty sure if you're ever in a position where you see a worker making an expansion (or about to) and you have the option to kill it with a baneling, there's at least three better alternatives
I'd rather do that than spend 4-5 banelings to kill off 15 probes when the expansion is A) Already up, B) they already GOT money from it, and C) Protoss players always throw up cannons at expansions so your plan is going to fail anyway.
"Preventative measures are always better than counter measures."
not true. if you know what the enemy is doing, instead of trying to prevent them from doing it, you could choose a strategy that perfectly counters it. let them commit to something you know you can counter, and once you counter it, it will be nothing but too late to recover from. it's not exactly difficult to recover from losing one worker though
"Like what? As I said earlier, not everything is "money." In the amount of time that you manage to deny an expansion going up, you prevented more than that single baneling's worth from every probe that could have been mining from an operational expansion earlier. And seriously? I know how everyone loves to take every single mineral into account, but 1 baneling for denying an expansion is more of a loss on the enemy than yours. Seriously? You're actually saying using 1 baneling to deny an expansion is excessive?
I'd rather do that than spend 4-5 banelings to kill off 15 probes when the expansion is A) Already up, B) they already GOT money from it, and C) Protoss players always throw up cannons at expansions so your plan is going to fail anyway."
ok i'll try to explain it to you
1.) don't deny it with a baneling, deny it with a zergling.
2.) keep a few burrowed and rather than killing one probe, let the expansion finish, and once they have moved about 10-20 workers to mine from it, blow them all up
3.) let them expand, pretend you don't know, time your attack for when the expansion finishes
4.) expand yourself or double expand, or tech, use the knowledge you know and don't let them know you know
you're acting like the only way to stop an expansion is by killing the worker about to build it, and if you do it will delay them a lot (which is not the case)
First of, one Baneling doesn't even kill one Worker, Banelings do 15+20 vs light, Workers got 40 or 60 hp. So there is no point to send one Baneling on one Worker...Quote:
Originally Posted by Pandonetho
Last time I asked the Blues, they said that commanding burrowed Banelings to detonate made them automatically unburrow and THEN detonate (a slight delay). Giving their wording in this Facebook post, perhaps they changed their minds and allowed the detonation to be underground and instantaneous.
like ramiz said, look in battle report 2, they dont die from one baneling.
Its much more effective to put down 2 zergling instead of 1 baneling even if it would kill the worker, why waste units? lings can kill the worker and burrow right back and maintain the threat.
To be honest i think this new ability is great, but it will certainly force your opponents to get detection quicker. This is kinda bad for lurkers/ the normal units that burrow in the middgame. Its going to be hard to suprise a protoss with this now :)
While I'm happy that this change will help the Zerg, I really don't understand the logic behind pushing Lurkers back to tier 3 while allowing banelings to operate like cloaked landmines. Doesn't that seem counter-intuitive?
Lurkers are going to rockkkkkk yehhh rock it o.0
huh oh yeah banelings - yep there going to be great
But seriously I think this is awesome, I always thought they should be able to do that anyway
Lurkers are long range siege units. Banelings are wtfpwnage units.
Very cool. I hope it is balanced well so they can keep it in game, I'll have lots of fun using it.
looks like they are working on zerg a little before BETA, kinda cool. Zerg need some more stuff that offer new strategies and choices.
Keep up the good job ^^
Seams kinda like its a major boost tho, now zerg can effectivly use the exact number of banelings they need to destroy a lot of units. And also makes it not possible to kite them for units like the stalker, but maybe that was the point, hehe.
I think it'll be really cool to see how this plays out!
For the burrow closer to the minerals thing, in place of teching detection early, we can "try" to build a non-command center or nexus building and moving the building placement cursor around the minerals. If unbuildable spots are seen, then there is something probably burrowed there.
Wheeee! I am pleased at this development :).
Although it could be outdated by now, I recall hearing that Zerg T2 - even in StarCraft 2 - wasn't quite as powerful as the other races', so I figure that Banelings would serve a similar function as SC1 Lurkers in that it makes it tricky to push against a Zerg player without detection. At least, more so than if they had to unburrow first :p.
edit:nvm
edit again:
I meant to say that for trying to build stuff non-nexus/command/hatchery you will need some space, i think u can burrow units between the minerals anyhow to avoid detection (even if most players wont bother to look).
Wow, I actually missed a lot of facts in my train of thought. Anyway, you're right, I see your point now. I completely forgot about just using a Zergling or something (since I was so focused on the discussion of the baneling).Quote:
1.) don't deny it with a baneling, deny it with a zergling.
2.) keep a few burrowed and rather than killing one probe, let the expansion finish, and once they have moved about 10-20 workers to mine from it, blow them all up
3.) let them expand, pretend you don't know, time your attack for when the expansion finishes
4.) expand yourself or double expand, or tech, use the knowledge you know and don't let them know you know
That is a good idea. But how many people would have time for this in a heated match. People really didn't do it in SC1.Quote:
Originally Posted by don
The detonate while burrowed thing really doesn't make a difference. If the Baneling unburrows and the units kill them, they are going to take the damage anyway. This just gets rid of redundancy.
If the UI displays unbuildable terrain spots as it used to, couldn't you just have the banelings up against the minerals and the squares around it are going to show up as red no matter what?Quote:
Originally Posted by don
i see no reason to believe that it should, since iirc they aready removed this in wc3; you have to actually give the building order and have the worker attempt start building to get the notice that its actually blocked.Quote:
Originally Posted by rcp181