Odd strategy with contaminate

[cryptkeeper]

I'm a pretty bad player(good micro, TERRIBLE macro). but i was playing a while back and came up with a strat i never saw ne1 using. nebody tried corrupting supply depots at the terran wall in? Should two corrupts on the two wall depots just block the opponent troops in/out? Just came to my head, havent tried it out. Comments please!(and please dont flame, i already said i'm a newb)

[cryptkeeper]

ofcourse u'd have to corrupt the third blocking building as well so that it cant lift off

[limE]

pretty interesting ^^ Doing that while attacking an expo would have bin fun to watch ^^

[protoswarrior]

Do you mean the Overseer's contaminate ability? I think using it like that is highly situational. It could be beneficial yes, but I don't the benefits outweigh what the contaminate spell can be used for alternately, such as: contaminating a few production buildings or tech buildings that are researching an upgrade. Delaying the upgrade by 30 seconds can turn the tide heavily in your favour, whereas stopping a depot from being lowered only traps the army temporarily, and the army is still gonna bite you after. And the Terran can always kill one depot and construct another meanwhile just to get out and push. You'd have wasted the energy and cost only 100mins worth of damage to a Terran in mid-game which is insignificant overall.

Sorry man, it is creative, but not really efficient.

[Hammy]

1) Have you even confirmed depots can't burrow/unburrow when they're contaminated (not corrupted, different spells now)? I'm not so sure it would affect the building.
2) Couldn't the Terran player just lift his rax if he really needed to? Does contaminate affect that. I doubt it, but I've never checked.
3) Seems a bit intensive to me, and contaminate costs a lot, but who knows.

I'm sure your idea could be taken more seriously if you had written it up correctly... like "ne1", I hate that :/ Just a pointer

Overall, that would be a pretty awesome play if someone used this spell in the same way he'd use a ramp-forcefield, but damn that's hard to imagine... Using this to delay an attack seems unrealistic, and using this to keep a terran "out" of his base is hard to imagine since he'd probably already have his supply depots down if his army has moved out to his natural choke.

[cryptkeeper]

Np thanks a lot for the feedback

[Corgon]

I cannot really get into my head what you are talking about. And wouldn't this be a zerg strat? Anyway, I don't really think corrupting wall depots would do you any good, destroying them would probably be your best bet.

[cryptkeeper]

Hehe i dont usually l33t speak. Its 2AM here and i cant sleep, so i'm just loling around. And yes it absolutely should be zerg strat! Dunno if i can change title though:S. ah cant be asked.

[Hammy]

Changed your title, not that it makes the thread much more relevant

[Todie]

one thing is certain: we dont see enough rational use of overseer abilities.

sometimes, getting several overseers during the midgame is needed for detection - you might even want to do that to establish a good flow of changelings, to keep tabs on your enemy.. now, if you have those seers, moments will arise soon or later, when their energy & placement arnt as restricted, like if you get a good look at what up and/ r know what to expect - and if you establish air control..

during these times, it makes sense to mobilize overseers for organized use of contaminate, be it b blocking a ramp by denying lift/burrow of terran buildings (if that is indeed possible) or - more likely - run bye's / poke-in's to contaminate production facilities or research buildings.

... contaminate isnt an all-powerful ability in itself; even if you have 3-4 overseers mobilized with some energy saved up, performing such a manoeuvre at a random time "just because" isnt likely to do that much good, even if it succeeds.

... i think contaminate will become most interesting when used at the most opportune times, the most obvious example being contaminate-blocking the ramp (if psbl) onlyreally does any good during an actual attack, when the terran oponent wants to move from one side of that ramp to the otehr, to defend.


... similarly, if you manage to obtain early air control by mutalisks, contaminate might be of great use to postpone or even deny the production of the enemies AA-unit of choice - especially those of equal or higher tier (phoenix, Thor, viking)

.. going further, if you maintain that air control, you should be able to keep on using contaminate regularly, in an organized fashion, for example by consistently denying the research of a certain ability or upgrade, or production of a certain unit (Thor comes to mind)


... contaminate is a brilliant concept for an ability; making the most of it is all about thinking ahead.