Regeneration Rate of a Roach

[Crota]

I think this guy is an idiot.

It's Tier 2. You can't get burrow until Tier 2. And the Roach can't attack while burrowed.

Wow harsh words Nicol, but still you have your point.

Forget the fact that the test was 6 food of zealot vs 1 food of roaches. Its not like Tier 1 units every counter Tier 2 or 3, unless you count marines with Stimpack against immortals, or marines against mutalisks, or Lings and Zealots against Sieged Tanks.

If I used an Immortal to counter the roach, that would TOTALLY be different.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOOfWIHl1qA

Crota

[Hammy]

Yeah true, faster regen on creep was in alpha at some point, but it's gone now. I thought it was still in but I just tested that.
Nevermind the 3rd point then

[Dragoonx]

Creep doesn't matter for regen. I don't know where people get this idea that it does.



What do Immortals and Mutalisks have to do with anything that was said?

A) Creep heals buildings only as far as I'm concerned.

B) Was simply my small anecdote relating to the situation. I think something is going to change based on the amount of feed back but given the power of the situation, I would leave it as is because I felt Immortals were a decent counter. If you'd like I will just not post any of my thoughts on here.

[Draco]

Man, what's with those zealots. To be able to attack so long without getting tired is absolutely ridiculous. Slap a 25 energy cost on all that before it's too late.

[GRUNT]

Wow harsh words Nicol, but still you have your point.

Forget the fact that the test was 6 food of zealot vs 1 food of roaches. Its not like Tier 1 units every counter Tier 2 or 3, unless you count marines with Stimpack against immortals, or marines against mutalisks, or Lings and Zealots against Sieged Tanks.

If I used an Immortal to counter the roach, that would TOTALLY be different.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOOfWIHl1qA

Crota

But here's the thing Crota - above ground and in an actual fight, Immortals will rip through Roaches. Even Zealots with Charge can take on Roaches very well for cost. Both of these elements will force the Zerg to burrow his Roaches very quickly if he doesn't want to die, but the amount of DPS a Roach army can do drops very quickly once that starts to happen (a lot of Roaches will be in red very fast). In the end, you'll just have a bunch of dead Roaches, some burrowed ones, and more than enough Zealots and Immortals left alive to kill the ones remaining.

Roaches shine the most in early-game skirmishes when armies are small and their burrow micro can make a difference. Later in the game, there's just too much firepower on the field for burrow micro to make as large a difference as it does around the early midgame.

[Aldrius]

I don't really know what can be done to balance this, though. If you nerf Roach healing by too much then focus fire and ranged units will just take them out like nothing. They won't be resilient to it at all. But if you keep it this high... it's er... well... kinda outrageous.

I think they just need to majorly rethink the roach personally.

[Nicol Bolas]

If I used an Immortal to counter the roach, that would TOTALLY be different.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOOfWIHl1qA

Crota

It takes two Immortals to kill a burrowed Roach. How many burrowed Roaches does it take to kill two Immortals? Well, zero, because Roaches cannot attack while burrowed. So I don't know what it is you've proved here, except that Roaches are hard to kill when they can't attack. I don't see that being a particularly useful thing to me.

As I said, this is the Beta. Theorycrafting doesn't make sense when we have the actual game. If you are right about Roaches being overpowered, then you should be able to prove it in game situations. That is what matters, not artificial circumstances of 1:1 units.

If Tier 3 games vs. Zerg are about Roach regen, and this dominates all non-Zerg players, then Blizzard should change it. Otherwise, no.

[Crota]

I understand that Roaches don't deal damage while burrowed. I guess what I'm trying to show is how this can be easily abused.

Look at this Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nSE0...response_watch

Last two minutes you see 4-5 Psi Storms hitting those roaches. Psi Storm does infact hit burrowed units. Perhaps that best shows my concern.

Crota

[moosh]

OMG IMAGINE WHAT A PRO CAN DO MICROING A ROACH ARMY!!

Sure they can't attack while burrowed. But all you have to do is burrow the roach thats taking the damage, while the others attack, and repeat. Similar to how Yellow (I think?) microed the Stalker ability at Blizzcon '08!

[Krikkitone]

Well Zealots attack at 8x2, Roaches have 2 Armor

so each Zealot does 12 / attack
1 was almost enough to counter pre-hive burrowed regen (it only went green again for occasional split seconds)

3 were just enough to counter hive regen


Now the stated problem is that 3 zealots can't kill one burrowed roach....
However, this is tier 3... and 4 zealots can kill 200 burrowed roaches.

Basically you need an actual small army to kill one burrowed roach, but that small army can kill a large army of burrowed roaches.

As for the Psi storm, well there the issue is the max hp of the roach, and the time between the storms
There were only 4 storms (the 5th one missed) spread out over ~30 sec. and the roaches were burrowed for about 20 sec. of that time
The roach can survive 1 storm directly, and it can survive 2 if it has time to regenerate 15 hp.
The Roach needs to regenerate 175 hp to survive a total of 4 storms, and 20 sec is enough.

Basically you need 3 psi storms one Right after the other to kill roaches... or 4 possibly if it is

So Roaches, like ultras are a counter to High Templars+Psi storm, they are also a counter to Zealots.

If artosis had had a few Immortals instead of High templar, or if he had more high templar and turned them into Archons, or even if he had gone Stalkers instead of Zealots, then he could have possibly handled them.