Roach Extinction?

[Raisk]

The most obvious late game problem with the Roach is that you can not get enough of them anymore. I find it weird that the Zerg, the one race that is all about massing units, does not have a single 1 supply unit. Think of it like this, 4 zerglings cost 100 minerals for 2 supply and have a combined hp of 140. 1 roach costs 75 min 25 vesp and has 135 hp. The zerglings can take more damage, for no vespene cost and they can do much more damage. This way you can use your vespene for other units like hydras/infestors/mutas depending on what you're feeling like.

Now if you think of the Roach's potential as a harassment burrow-move type, then another problem arises since you need to first research burrow, then burrow movement and probably even burrow regen to make them viable in this regard. That's three upgrades required that weigh in at 400 minerals and 400 vespene combined. Or four mutas, so while you're at it, if you want a hit-and-run unit, it just makes more sense to get mutalisks. Both are vulnerable to turrets, Roaches because they'll get detected and mutalisks for obvious reasons, so their target limitations will be similar.

Roaches are simply out-classed by other units at this point. Now if Roaches could burrow-move under forcefields we'd be onto something. (EDIT: Apparently they can? Haven't tried this myself ever, but even so. It's not enough IMO to make them viable 2 supply units.)

Personally as a Zerg player, I haven't used Roaches since the patch and have been doing just fine without them. Shame though, since SC2 Zerg are already so similar to their SC1 counterparts and now one of our few truly new units is no longer viable.

[hyde]

I see... after reading all your stuff why the roach truly sucks... (I'm an exclusive Terran player). I always thought they didn't build it cause I'm a siegetank whore.

Well I haven't seen a Roach since they nerfed the supply. I think they should just get rid of the unit and put back the lurker. The supposed mobility of the roach is null when it costs so much+the risk of the enemy having air by the time you have mobile roaches.

[Gradius]

Moved to SC2S.

[Blackdogkt]

I think the roach ties in with the entire zerg problem and it's quite multi-dimensional. I'm not saying it's impossible to win with Zerg, the other races are favored or anything silly like that. I'm just saying they are a race with limited options (and thus, predictable) having to deal with opponents that have alot of options. Back in the old days, the solution came in the form of massing units (the trademark zerg trait), but in SC2 all races get some form of aid in massing units. Thus the balancing advantage is mitigated a lot, while there's still not a lot of options added as counters (not unit counters, general start/tactics counters).

For me, the main problem is a combination of the zerg tech tree with the current map design. Almost all of the maps have some kind of choke point, all races have ranged units with high HP and high damage and all races can rush to air if they are careful about it.

It would be fine and dandy if all races where able to create anti-air defences (static or in the form of units) just as easily, or to clarify, with a similar effect on their overall macro. However, with the way the current zerg works, creating anti-air defences means that you either have to rush to tier2 and have a token defence of fragile early game units below their critical mass, or you have to invest in crawlers.

The first option means that if you are scouted you'll be in a world of hurt. This is amplified by map design trends (more on this later).

The second option cuts into your economy, or more importantly your macro timings. Throwing down an early evo chamber, getting a second queen that will be charging up before it moves to the natural expo and placing 2 spore crawlers is not a terrible expense per se and it's usually a good idea. What's significant is the lost mining time if the resources were spent on drones, or the lost units if you simply massed up.

The big deal is not the cost, it's that you are spending resources and most importantly, diverting building time into something that is purely situational and only useful for one thing, but you can't leave it to luck because it could cost you the game.
Sure, you can defend against a void ray rush or cloaked banshees, but that's it. At the same time, the other races have marines (T1) and stalkers/sentries that can be used to defend, then move on to attack. It would be interesting to see the building time required to tech up to stalkers/sentries compared to the building time required to tech to hydras, i don't have the exact numbers handy but i'm sure some of you will be able to shed some light on this.I'm not the holder of universal truth after all, it might just be that i'm not good at getting early hydras while it could be quite feasible

Both options' problems are exacerbated by the fact that you can be scouted at will (orbital command scans and observers come with a cost in the form of less MULEs or robo tech respectively, but no wall in for zerg means that anyone can run a few zealots up your ramp and see what's up), yet you can't scout as easily, unless you're prepared to sacrifice supply aka overlords, which also require lair tech and a speed upgrade to be any use in "i need know what happens right now" scouting situations.

So, you'll ask, what does that all have to do with roaches? The reason the problem didn't surface immediately was that roaches were easily massable and you could use them to punish an opponent that went straight to air tech, maybe to the point of imbalance the other way around (ie mass roaches and melt him anway before his tech kicks in). Just the thought of 20 roaches burrow harassing your mineral line is enough to force a delay in air tech, because you'll either need some static defences or additional low tier units. You still didn't have decent early game counters to air as zerg, but you could delay the air tech or punish anyone who tried straight up rushing it.

For me, what zerg lacks is an early ranged unit that can do anti-air, like the old hydra (a real unit that can be somewhat massed, not 2-3 queens that get picked up by phoenixes and focused down while your lings watch the slaughter unable to react).

I would be fine with a DPS nerf, as long as i could get hydras at T1 and had the old speed upgrade back (muscular augments?). This would make an early game ling/hydra army quite feasible, an army that pretty much covers the basic situations one might face. Then, a sprinkling of banelings or mutas could be added for flavor, creating the needed variety.
The roach could then become a T2 unit that still costs 2 supply, but also receive it's old armor and/or regen back to be used as a mid-game tank/harrass "commando" unit(drop roaches in the oppoent's main when his army is away, have the overlods spawning creep and burrow-micro to take down important tech buildings or decimate mineral lines).

I know this all sounds too much like "waaaagh, i want SC:BW back" but it's not. I have no problems with all the cool new stuff added for all races. I just think that balancing and variety can be better achieved by a simple tech tree swap between roaches and hydras, maybe without even changing stats too much. A ling/hydra early game mainstay would not be overpowered, as long as hydra cost and DPS were scaled appropriately (ie they could be 75/25 and have their DPS lowered, or keep their current damage output and stay at 100/50 as a tier1.5 unit).

This would open up some pretty cool options for Zerg (especially in ZvZ, since having a solid early game unit composition would provide the needed safety to start experimenting with extra units/abilities, instead of always going lings and banes) without having to reduce each and every game to a gamble depending on your initial opening.

At the same time it would create a distinct role for the roach, which is what we're after here: a mid/late game equivalent of a slow reaper on steroids, or a tanking unit to draw the fire from all those siege tanks/thors/colossi/etc.
Sort of killing two birds with one stone

[Hoywolf]

The whole Hydra/Roach tier swap is definitely nothing new, in fact a majority of the community feels that they should swap it. I'm all for that as well!

I'm ok with Z having no AA besides queen in T1 though, that is a disadvantage of course, but what do you get as an advantage? The problem is nothing... You cant rush because of ramp wall ins and that they become obsolete so fast as the game progresses. Stalkers or marines never get obsolete as the game progresses.

When you talk about burrow move tactics, that is like 250/250 (100/100 and 150/150) resource you need to spend as well, a can get a spire for that cost (even less), and you will need to, as by this time you will need some kinda of air attack or AA.

Like i said, if Blizz decides to keep roaches at T1 then they need to give them 1 of the 3 upgrades already, preferable the burrow move, so we just need to research the burrow.

I feel currently, its not a design issue with roaches but a technical one. As their single player game is probably already made and their coding, its hard to swap the roach and hydra positions in the tiers, because if you do, you will need to rebalance the hydra of course same with the roach and how many stages will need to get re designed as well if you do that swap? I feel that is the larger issue, with the release coming up and the dev time that takes and money, its easier to just leave it as is and wait for the next expansion... Sigh such is life =\

I will still play Z, but the roach is def not part of my core army anymore, it will be an anti-rush unit, so its a situational unit, other than that i dont have much use for it.

[masakari]

I beg to differ on the 'uselessness' of the roach.
My last game, I was protoss vs a zerg player.... early game was lings muta vs lots/stalkers/phoenixs... after that he transitioned to mass hydras and I was fending him off quite well with chargelots/templers. At all times, he was about half a base ahead of me, so it was relatively even.

Just as I was starting to make the push towards him, I suddenly realised he had no hydras and had converted fully into roaches. I had seen a few earlier while scouting, but didn't think much of them. Anyway, I just went in with my lots/templer/archons (made from previous encounters), and I was quite amazed at how much tougher roaches are than hydras. He was also able to get out more because they were cheaper, and because I was a mainly melee force, their range wasn't an issue. Suffice to say, I lost that battle and the push immediately after cost me the game as I couldn't switch tech fast enough. To be able to have enough HP to run out of storms is priceless... that plus the armor does help quite a bit vs lots. Only my archons were doing significant dmg but I only had a few.

Having never played zerg, I went to google their unit stats, and I must say they definitely aren't as bad as people make them out to be. They have almost 70% more HP than hydras and 1 more armor. I can see how a combination of roach/ling/hydra can be very deadly if used properly. Sacrificing chargelots to get units to deal with roaches does hurt the overall dmg capacity of my protoss ball.

[Todie]

Blackdogkt, you seem to completely disregard the queen as an early ranged unit.. try her out when you feel threatened, and scale down your reliance on crawlers - you cant generally be offensive with the queen either, but she does have other uses, unlike crawlers. you just need to decide in good time that you want several queens so you cans tart making them! ... she also costs no larva or gas, which is helpful in bolstering early drone / ling production.

watch the semi finals of the HDH and you'll see what i mean.

also, more generally, lack of early offensive ranged unit actually sets zerg apart as a race; you still have early options but their different from the other races; different from what they'd be like with a T1 hydra: you can threaten your opponent early with early zergling pressure, bust any fragile barricade with banelings -> flood in to cause additional damage, or overpower a barricade that isnt sufficiently supported, using enough roaches.

other than that, you can ofcourse expand and power economy & try to stay secure instead, and there's obviously varieties in that too - with higher numbers of queens for example, as mentioned.

to enjoy playing zerg you'll need to acknowledge and actively explore these options, as well as continually evaluate in what situations later in the game, certain ratios and uses of the tier1 units are effective (together with hydra/muta/infestor etc.)

Raisk: yes, 4 zerglings have 5 more HP than one roach. but we all know it doesnt work like that: more HP within the same unit makes for much more survivability, not least against AoE attacks. also, there's roaches base armor to take into account.


.. again, im not saying Roaches are necessarily entirely fine. i just suspect people are overreacting - there are other more pressing issues with the zerg IMO; Ultralisk was taken in a bad direction with the lowered HP and the infestor & corrupter both have these "point & click" abilities which feel totally gimmicky; very restricted in their area of rational use; to be frank they are just bad!

Peace.

[Blackdogkt]

I don't necessarily disagree with you, in fact i have started to use a mix of early queens and crawlers with transfusion for defence. I get the 2nd queen before i get the 2nd hatch so she has enough energy for creep tumors and transfusion.
When i'm rushed, especially by air units, i move my "primary" queen (the one i use to spawn larva and has low energy) into the attackers first so that they target her, then i can heal her with the "secondary" queen (which is usually fully charged by that point).
I would just prefer a unit that i can take on the offensive after i defeat the attack.

Zerg are still interesting, but they are a bit less "zergy" than in the original. Now everyone can mass units to an extent. Moreover, having watched some games with Asian players (where Zerg players fare better than in Europe or the US), i have seen a quite a few game wins based on a combination of queens, crawlers and creep highways. That's still fine and innovative for Zerg, but to be honest it's too reminiscent of a brood war bunker/tank push. Well, if i wanted an expanding turtle offense i might just as well switch to playing terran. In fact, it seems like in SC2 these races are somewhat (not completely though) reversed in that regard, as terran gets mobility and the mass of combined, cheap T1 units that are viable until late game, while zerg gets defence mechanics to stay in the game as they are rushing their tech to something more viable.

Maybe it's totally balanced, i mean what does a low ranked guy like me know, but i still don't like the switch in race character and overall feel.
Also, i agree with your assessment of ultras and corruptor/infestor abilities. Maybe it would be better to make these abilities into an AoE buff (frenzied cracklings anyone? it would give back to lings the 20% DPS that they lost since Brood War, at the cost of the tech required) and an AoE debuff/damage enhancer (corruptors would become a valid late game air-superiority unit, standard attack vs massive and use of the ability vs smaller units), with an appropriate energy cost and radius so as not to make them overpowered.

[Todie]

AoE could be the answer to one of those i think - i wouldnt like eitehr ability much anyway, but regardless, i dont think it'd be plausible to make oboth AoE, due to teh insane possible synergy.

.. if they did that they'd have to do morethan increase the energy cost; scale back on casting range and duration, at elast on the corruptors ability.

... i just dont like the concept of raw buffs/debuffs to damage dealt and taken by % though. thats just too arbitraily magical.. belongs in warcraft. in satarcraft there's nothing like that cept for adrenal glands on the ligns increasing attackspeed witch is thematicaly justifiable IMO. otherwise, tehrwe's stimpack with the health-cost as a drawback to make it insteresting, and there's Guardian shield, to reduce damage taken by 2 for ranged (compared that to reducing dmg taken by all attacks with say 10% would that be good/fun? NO!)


i realize this might be derailing the thread; if anyone wants to disucss this furhter just make a new thread and quote anythign relevant (/have admins move it)

[Maul]

Idra destroyed WhiteRa with a fairly roach heavy army in their latest matchup in HDH. If top level players are using them I guess they're fine at this point