Roach Extinction?

[Hoywolf]

Lately I've been watching a lot more videos with pro zerg players skipping roaches. They drop warden of course just in case, but at the most you will see 2 or 3. Then its just spam spam spam hydras... And that is what i do as well. =\

I feel the roach nerf has been a bit steep on patch 12, any other thoughts now on this?

[ArcherofAiur]

People still play zerg?

[endserenading]

As far as my experience goes, Roaches are still fairly effective against early-game pushes, but you really have to keep an eye out on your supply count, as well as take the action to premptively make more Overlords. I've found that Roaches are an excellent mineral dump if you're liberal with your creation of Overlords; the extensive production of Overlords also begs a tech or use of Overseers by that accord.

I feel as if Blizzard is trying to decentralize the Zerg by buffing the Overseer and giving the player more options to utilize what's left of his or her investment into Roaches. I personally don't agree with the change to the Roach supply count, but the Overseer change is more than a dispersing of Infestor tweaks; it works in tandem with "balancing" the Roach nerf as well.

Even still, I think that Roaches do need an additional change or some kind of buff. I am, however, completely ignorant of Korean play, so I'm not sure what I can say in terms of that argument.

[Gt2slurp]

Yeah, roach have been clearly overnerfed. They need or to be massable or to be stronger.

[StrongCoffee]

People still play zerg?

Great way to continue with the thread...

[endserenading]

Yeah, roach have been clearly overnerfed. They need or to be massable or to be stronger.

I'm not totally proficient with extremely high-level play, but I'd say the Roach just needs to be more tanky. Maybe bump the cost of them up a little bit and give them back their old HP or HP regen. Hell, they might not even need to change the cost, I don't know.

I think that when Roaches were easily massable the Zerg game became too centralized on them. Contrarily, I think the current Zerg game is too centered on Hydralisk play; the protection and offensive use of Zerg "glass cannons" seems to be paramount in Zerg strategy.

Again, I could be wrong. I'm just speaking off of my own experience and a little of others.

[Asfastasican]

Styles and build orders will change as time goes on. It seems as though the same people that complain about roaches/marauders/stalkers/insert-ground-ranged-unit-here will turn around the next week and notice that players have already moved away from using them.

It's my opinion that we should be grateful at how much balancing was achieved during the alpha phase. It's mind-blowing trying to think of all of the builds this game has gone through the past 3+ years. We should be mindful that Blizzard really does give a damn about analyzing every facet of game balance. Other strategy game developers tend to release and forget about it in order to pump out the next sequel.

And yeah, I understand that WC3 took a long time to balance and that some would say it's still not perfect balance-wise, but that's simply because they made design decisions to include 4 races and hero mechanics. StarCraft is a lot more precise and its relative game balance can and will be polished to a mirror shine. Give it some time.

And oh yeah, we're testing in beta for a reason!

[TWD]

As far as my experience goes, Roaches are still fairly effective against early-game pushes, but you really have to keep an eye out on your supply count, as well as take the action to premptively make more Overlords. I've found that Roaches are an excellent mineral dump if you're liberal with your creation of Overlords; the extensive production of Overlords also begs a tech or use of Overseers by that accord.

I think the issue with early game roaches is this. Yes, roaches make a good counter to early rushes. However, so is dropping a few colonies, and massing zerglings. The only difference is that I don't have to spend tons of gas on the former strategy. At this point the choice becomes clear. Skip the roaches. It's much better to go for the speedlings or hive first.
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Effects Of Zoloft

[Hoywolf]

Idra, a pro zerg players, will make maybe 2 or 3 to stop an early rush, but afterwards its always hydra hydra hydra, he thens transits to sling/muta, without the need for the roach.

I just feel that we are seeing less and less roaches with the patch 12 nerf. And i feel something needs to be done about it.

[Skyze]

i been playing zerg lately, and am in diamond league / 200 pts so far.

Only time I really use roaches.. is ZvZ (its a good counter to 1base baneling, and can catch your opponent off guard), and ZvP sometimes if Im feeling massive early pressure (4gate push).. Often ZvP is pure hydra, unless they have lots of zealots then I get afew roach to tank, but generally yea, roach is useless now due to being 2 food.

It used to be roaches every game vs terran to take out tanks/the ball, but now with MMM buffed so much and roaches 2 supply, its not really worth it anymore =/