Roachs regeneration - immortality

[GRUNT]

If anything, I was wondering how Roaches are going to be as viable later in the game.

I recall reading somewhere that later in the game, once there's a lot more firepower out in the field from both armies, Roaches die to stuff without requiring much micromanagement on the enemy's part.

I imagine that this would be especially true once there's a good number of high-damage AoE out in the field. A single Siege Tank in Siege Mode does a ridiculous 100 damage vs the Roach, which is only as tough as the Roach actually is. If it wasn't for that 1 armour the Roach has, it should die instantly. Take into consideration that the Siege Tank has splash, and that's pretty scary :S. There's all sorts of ways to dish out indiscriminate AoE damage as the game goes on.

Play some games of BroodWar as Zerg vs Terran or Zerg vs Protoss against a halfway decent player - it'll make you much more sympathetic towards Zerg once you see your armies MELT before so much AoE damage .

100 hp and 25 hp regen per second (when fully upgraded, apparently) will help, but trust me - it's not as game-breaking as you may think, especially once you reach the stage in the game where armies can deliver 100+ damage in an area, killing Roaches outright, even if they had 100hp regen per second .

Also, Roaches are really slow. :[

[Kimera757]

People were suggesting earlier that, with the hydralisk moved to tier 1.5, zerg have "too many" units at that tier. Would moving the roach to tier 2 be a solution?

I suddenly wish Project Revolution (or whatever that StarCraft 1.5 project was called) got off the ground. You could test the balance in Warcraft III. Given the problems with tech trees, you'd have to use just clumps of units.

[Noise]

I love the Roach and don't believe its regeneration in inherently imbalanced. Early game, with small numbers of Tier 1 units, it will be extremely useful (but not unbeatable) but as soon as the opponent gets a reasonable number of units the Roaches won't be worth their cost.

People were suggesting earlier that, with the hydralisk moved to tier 1.5, zerg have "too many" units at that tier. Would moving the roach to tier 2 be a solution?

Noooo, the Roach is only effective early game, it needs to be something you can get very early that forces your opponent to respond. If it's in Tier 2 the opponent will have all kinds of powerful units that would destroy the Roach.

[mr. peasant]

If the player using the roaches is focus firing, you have no right to complain about being "forced" to focus fire by the roach. I was mainly posting that in response to the people who are complaining about the roach "forcing" you to micro.

Whether the roach in general is overpowered? Too soon to say. But I think probably not, or if so it will be easy to balance.

I wasn't commenting being 'forced' to micro but that no amount of micromanagement can take on a small group of Roaches early on since they can't bring enough firepower relative to cost.

Noooo, the Roach is only effective early game, it needs to be something you can get very early that forces your opponent to respond. If it's in Tier 2 the opponent will have all kinds of powerful units that would destroy the Roach.

I disagree. Even at tier 2, it's still a powerful damage soaker since opponents probably still can't gang-bash the Roach (which is the only real way to efficiently take them out) without using a significant proportion of their fighting force.

[Nicol Bolas]

If it's in Tier 2 the opponent will have all kinds of powerful units that would destroy the Roach.

A Tier 2 Roach would not merely be a Tier 1 Roach that requires more tech. It would have at least one of the following:

1. Faster regen
2. More Hp
3. Faster rate-of-fire
4. More range
5. More damage

It would likely have 2-4 of these. So it'd be a more dangerous and more healthy than a Tier 1 Roach.

[Noise]

Well then it could of course work at Tier 2, I just think the gameplay would be the most interesting with them at Tier 1 but I'm open to all possibilities.

I also think at least one of banelings or roaches should cost gas.

[PsiWarp]

I think Banelings would work more so than the Roach in tier 2, without drastic balancing required. The thing has 55 damage, the highest damage ever seen on a regularly producible unit for the Zerg (yes, excluding Infested Terran).

More HP = More Resources = Less Power due to staying alive longer = Faster rate of fire...

Having the Zergling being basic, Hydralisk being general support and Roach strong ground support/anti-infantry sounds nice


-Psi

[Whanhee]

I wonder about the viability of a pure roach build because we need to not only consider its damage soaking abilities but its damage dealing ability. Compared with zerglings, i doubt the roaches will have a very significant damage output. 4 zerglings per roach at 5 dps each or something to that effect) is not trivial.

Certainly, in a head on fight, roaches will probably win vs zerglings, though it will take a while. However, the zerglings have no incentive to fight the roaches in the first place. Assuming zerglings are the same cracked up units they were in the original, they should be able to bypass enemy roaches and wreak havoc as the slower enemy roaches try to keep up with them.

I think that, if hydralisks are cost effective vs them, a mix of zerglings and hydras should easily beat roaches. That is, if hydras are tier one.

[l3lackjax]

Roach's Regen should be either axed or REALLY toned down. Although it does promote micro to advanced players, we are forgetting Blizz's "Easy to Learn, Hard to Master" saying. How do you expect newbs to fight against Roaches? Basically everything you throw at them early game fails unless you mass produce it. But what if your up against an army of Roaches, it's complete overkill.

Even Late game it'd be hard to stop without a decent sized army of tier 2 - 3 units. And you would have to individually aim for one roach at a time. 15hp/s is OP like hell, 25hp/s even more so!

The Hydralisk doesn't need another morph. The Lurker is enough. I say Blizz should scrap the Roach all together and replace it with a full blown unit, not some morph. It just dawned on me that Lings, Hydras and Mutas all have morphs now. Whats in store for SC3? Everything Zerg can morph into something else? Blizzard is going to have a hard ass time trying to balance it out later, I can tell you that.

[Nicol Bolas]

Assuming zerglings are the same cracked up units they were in the original, they should be able to bypass enemy roaches and wreak havoc as the slower enemy roaches try to keep up with them.

Many things are wrong with that statement.

First, we have some evidence from BR2 that Zergling speed is a Tier 2 upgrade.

Second, "runbys" don't help if the Roaches are attacking your base.

Third, "runbys" don't help if the Roaches are already in their base defending it. Especially with Creep speed.

Fourth, Roaches do pretty strong damage to biological units. So even in a runby, a Roach is capable of sniping a few Zerglings.

Roach's Regen should be either axed or REALLY toned down.

We don't know what the Roach's regen is. BR2 suggests that it has two regen rates, one above ground and one below. Without knowing what the regen rate is, the rest of your statement is total nonsense.

Further, we've already seen that Roaches are not some ultimate weapon; BR2 proved that.