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THANK YOU BLIZZARD FOR THIS THREAD!!! Please fix mass void ray, to most noob and rigged strat since cannon rushing. Increase the amount of time it takes for a void ray to target something.

zerg require more apm/skill, require more macro, are far less forgiving of any mistakes you make, and are flat out more boring than toss and terran.

which sucks because i love zerg and refuse to play toss or terran. i grew up playing zerg in sc1 and i'm not about the change now. the only thing i will change is my opinion of the starcraft franchise if something isn't done to solve the problem.

it's not a matter of small buffs/nerfs, more or less hit points and splash damage. it's that we have less units, less abilities, and less viable in-game strategies than the other 2 races. please fix this. thank you.

Reapers are less of a problem and siege tanks are more balanced. Still, Terran has way more versatility than Zerg and their units hard counter out whole army, while we have no hard counters to Terran. Thor destroys everything except Ultras, but they can get an upgrade which solves that problem. Marauders > all ground. Marines > Mutas. The early game has gotten more fair, but the middle/ late game is still one sided for most players.

I think the most significant problem is zerg early game and the lack of openings and strategies we have in comparison to terran. This is why I would propose something simple like reducing roach speed to T1 (obviously you need to test something that significant).

But the idea would be to let zerg shut down mass reaper play without being contained for a long period of time (even after the 5 second delay this can contain you for a long long time). It could also give zerg the possibility for a powerful early push with roaches which really isn't feasible right now except for baneling busting.

This would force terran and protoss to have to actually worry about an early attack rather than basically doing whatever strategy they feel like.

I think the majority of Zerg players feel the patch was a little misdirected. Although we applaud the willingness to work on balance issues, the items worked upon are hardly the hallmarks of the imbalance we're complaining about (siege tanks notwithstanding). And, for some reason they decided to work on the Ultralisk which is hardly used and probably the lowest priority on Zerg radar. I know they are seeing and hearing widespread discontent, and it feels like this patch was largely aimed at placating discontent by lipservice rather than through actual concrete balancing.

They need to bring back Lurkers. Terran got to keep their ground unit from Brood War and that was the Medic. Now, it's a ship that heals the Marine/Maurader combo commonly used (and Valkyries become Vikings). Protoss got to keep their Dark Templar (and Corsairs became Phoenix). Zerg lost their cloaked attacker that did AoE damage. This limits the Zerg's ability to fight against bio-balls (swarms of Marines) and punish players that don't use detection in a battle. It also gives you a reason to get units that can destroy detectors. For example, bringing an Overseer and a Mutalisk along to destroy a Protoss Observer so your Lurkers can function optimally. It doesn't make sense that Terran and Protoss kept their unique units from Brood War that made the game fun/balanced and the Lurker was removed. The Zerg kept Devourers as they evolved into Corruptors but lost Lurkers. It was the funnest unit to use and it prevented huge armies from walking right into your base too. Not only was it fun to use, and usefull, but without it, the Zerg have less combat units than the other races and the Lurker is the unit most people on the forums want to see again. I used Lurkers in 100% of my games as Zerg in Brood War and they saved me from losing more times than I can count.

The changes are a good start but we need mmmmmmmmmmmmmuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccchhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh MORE. Tanks will still be rage inducing just less so. Zerg scouting needs big big improvement. Because sometimes you just can't do it. I'd love to sneak a changling into his base if his turrets didnt kill my overseer on the way in. Terran hits 1 button, scan. Derp. Infestor being bright and fat as hell and slow is funny but makes it almost useless especially since its a joke compared to the ghost because it can only cast 1 ability while burrowed whereas ghost can do anything cloaked. Hydras need speed and health. The speed issue isn't too bad in 1v1 because you can spread creep everywhere but you can't do that as much in team games. My allies are under attack but I don't have creep near him so my Hydras are going to move at the speed of grannies cart to come to my allies aid. Brood Lords need slightly more health considering it is the longest unit to tech to in the game. Medivacs healing ability needs a big big nerf. Too effective. Terran uses medivac healing. It's super effective. This isn't POKEMON!!!! 4 medivacs and his army is near immortal. Banelings are literally the one and only answer to any unit composition with Medivacs. Durability. This is what Zerg needs most. They need to last longer in battles. Not everyone can micro with lightning pro speed while their being attacked by speed increased(stimmed) slowdown(Mauraders concussive shell) constant nonstop healing(medivacs) armies. Just a little more time. Let me last a little longer as opposed to his army barely suffering any losses because of the medivacs OP healing rate. Medivacs compliment army compositions the way a T3 unit should. That is wrong.

-Force the Terran to micro between Concussive Rounds (which slow, but do less damage) and firing normally (no slow, but regular damage). Increase the research cost of this ability.

Tweak the creep.
-Queen starts with an additional 25 energy so creep production can begin immediately.
-If a creep tumor goes undamaged for 3 minutes, it gains an additional 100 hit points. The hit point bonus is only awarded once.
-Movement of all Zerg ground units across creep increased by 15%.

I’d also like to see upgrades that had the potential to open up different facets of gameplay. Most of the following ideas would have to be purchased after Hive, but hopefully you can see where I was going with most of them. Not all would be practical if the whole collection was introduced, but it’s outside-the-box thinking that Zerg needs to improve its unit versatility and overall strategies. Less reactionary and more progressive.

HYDRALISK
Husk expansion (200/200)- Hydralisk now fires dual projectiles.

Intended effect: To make the Hydralisk a more viable unit, worth the 2 supply, inordinate amount of gas, and T2 level without tweaking hit points or speed.


ULTRALISK
Swollen Carcass (150/150)- 4 Broodlings erupt from the bodies of fallen Ultralisks.

Arolia Tread (200/200)- Ultralisks now able to scale cliffs.

Intended effect: To make Zerg’s capstone unit more versatile. An opponent’s turtled base and stacked choke point becomes less advantageous nearing end game.

INFESTOR
(Improved) Neural Parasite- Controls target unit for 15 seconds. If that time expires and the target and Infestor are still alive, both the target unit and the Infestor die. Players can manually sever connection to prevent the loss of unit or micro another quick connection to reset the timer.

Intended effect: The connection becomes akin to a 15 second fuse and will force players to micro the Infestor’s death or lose their unit.

Hyper Regeneration Spray (200/200)- A spray of liquid that increases the regenerative abilities of affected ground units to match that of burrowed Roaches. It has a 5 second duration, but if units are cast with it more than once, it has a degenerative effect and instantly removes 20% of remaining unit hit points. (Fungal Growth would obviously need tweaked if this ability was implemented.)

OVERSEER
Spore Fog (150/150)- Overseer detonates self in a sacrificial explosion, creating a foggy cloud of particles that remain in the air for 6 seconds before dissipating. Any units, friendly or otherwise, that come in contact with the cloud slowly begin losing hit points over the course of 10 seconds. Affected units cannot lose more than half of their base hit points (so Spore Fog contact would never kill). Normal health begins to regenerate after the unit reaches their halfway health mark, and after an additional 10 seconds, the health of the unit returns to its pre-cloud level.

Intended effect: Off-creep leverage. This would make off-creep surrounds more manageable by closing escape routes and forcing conflict, or a player might use the ability to make off-creep retreats easier since opponents would be leery to follow through Spore Fog. You could also use them offensively, detonating over an enemy’s army, waiting 7-8 seconds, and then following through with your own troops.

I posted earlier in this thread with the large focus being a lack of versatility in zerg units, and especially in their specific upgrades (a lot of the unit specific upgrades being only speed or range and these being very necessary to simply make the unit "good" not "exceptional"- exceptions being tier 3 zling attack speed upgrade, tier 2 tunneling claws for roaches which also requires another tier 2 research [burrow] to use, and tier 3 ultralisk chitinous plating; whereas terran units get stimpack, marine health, conc shells, siege tech, thor strike cannon, cloak for banshees, etc. etc. which go beyond making the unit "good" and instead make them "VERSATILE"). Again, I feel zerg unit upgrades provide little in the realm of versatility as they largely do not change the way you would use a unit, and I feel this one of the big problems holding zerg back right now. Aside from the lack of unique ability provided by unit upgrades is the large lack of units having bonus damage to either light or armored units, making zerg have little in the way of hard counters. Don't get me wrong, zerg has a lot of decent to good counters to various units, but few HARD counters (eg. the way a marauder with conc shell is a very hard counter to roaches, the way immortals are a very hard counter to ultralisks and roaches given their +armor damage and damage mitigating shields). Zerg has 2 units with +damage: 1) baneling with added damage to light units. Great if you can get your banelings close to the marine ball, but a little micro on the opponents part can make this tricky - can count this as a hard counter to marines but one that can be slightly more difficult to pull off. Banelings are good against zealots but they have a lot of health meaning a lot of banelings to take them down 2) ultralisk with added damage to armor, which is great but pathing needs to be addressed. This can be considered a hard counter to armored units, but it doesn't come out till late game. Corruptors can be considered a hard counter to massive units, but again it's a bit later (mid game) hard counter to more late game units. In my last post I mentioned how hydras are incredibly squishy given their cost (and made a direct comparison to stalkers which only cost 25 minerals more). Suggestions I made being either to increase their speed a bit or increase their health. Another thought would be to forget health and speed buffs, and instead give this unit bonus damage to armored units (not alot, even +4 would be enough), making them more of a hard counter to armored units. One of the reasons here being that in tier 2, terran has thor and it will always be protected by either an MM ball, tanks, hellions, or some combo of these. Low roach attack range makes this a tough unit to use on thor given the posse he will be protected by, and hydras are really squishy. Mutalisk can be good against this tactic in large enough numbers (but gas intensive and if there are enough marines this is not a wise idea) but nowhere near a hard counter. In fact, the only thing that could be considered a HARD counter to thor in tier 2 for zerg would be neural parasite... although it has been nerfed such it only lasts 12 seconds and the infestor is a sitting duck during this time. In other words, zerg lacks a hard counter to thor in the equivalent tier. A couple thoughts I have are 1) if neural parasite is to last only 12 seconds, make it so the infestor does not have to channel this spell anymore, ie. let him burrow again after it is cast! 2) OR if you want to keep it a channeled spell, make it last indefinitely until either the infestor is killed or the unit moves out of range of the spell. 3) OR if you want to leave neural parasite very gimped and situation specific, give hydras bonus damage to armor. 4) OR as zerg has the fewest combat units in the game at this time, give us a new unit in tier 2 that would be a ranged with bonus damage to armor and weak against light units... or just give us lurkers back! That's my 2 cents for now. I also like some of the other ideas people have posted on various threads about a hatchery being able to produce only ONE creep tumor so that you don't lose a spawn larva at the beginning of the game, and putting a cooldown on MULE for terran so that the economy boost provided by this unit is more on par with spawn larva (ie. if a queen has excess energy you can't spawn larvae more than once on a single hatchery), the logic being that staying on top of spawn larva properly for a zerg player while expanding the creep and macro/microing takes a certain degree of skill and you are effectively punished for forgetting to spawn larva. Putting a cooldown on MULE would again introduce a certain degree of skill required to the terran player such that if they forget and allow the OC to accumulate energy they cannot just blow it all at once gain a super boost to their economy.

Just to add to my point about the versatility I want to point out a couple things... Zerg tier 1 units: Zergling: Ground attack only, weak unit but can make a lot. Roach: Strong ground attack only unit, short range. Baneling: Ground only unit, does lots of damage if it reaches target, but expends itself... all of which have no air attack, vs marines: air or ground, stim to make very effective. Marauder: = to roach, Reaper: can kite, jump cliffs, ground only attack... and then Protoss Zeolots: heavy armor strong attack but slow mover. Stalker: Ranged attack air or ground, moves fast so can kite. Sentry: Can attack air or ground, more support unit that can block units or decrease ranged damage.

Then tier 2 is more or less even... the bigger problem is tier 2. Zerg have brood lord and ultralisk, both of which can only attack ground units. Terran have Battlecruisers which can attack both and Thors which can attack both, and have special abilities that give them strong singular attacks. Protoss have Carriers, which can attack air or ground, and colossus which can attack just ground, but have range and strong area damage. I think a big equalizer would be to improve the zerg tier 3 units, and give tier 1 units a good way to counter tanks.

Hydras need to move at 2.75, Queens should spawn from Larvae to cut down on Zerg's ridiculous tech times, and.... you should do something about neural parasite... Thors are ridiculous. Zergs need a decent counter to them. I think the best possible solution would be to not make NP require an upgrade... that version of it would last 12 seconds. Then, if it's upgraded, it becomes indefinite... or at least gets a longer duration... 30 seconds seems reasonable.

Serious suggestions: Terran - nerf MMM, make stim pack require armory in order to upgrade and make medivac healing an upgrade. Another possible suggestion is to put a life cap on stimmed units for the duration of the stim. Tanks are overpowered but I fear ur damage reduction will hurt them too much vs toss maybe reduce their reduction. Modify reapers so that cliff jumping requires the reaper upgrade and increase its cost +50min/+50gas.

Protoss - one change make Voidray charge up an upgrade in order to increase the time it takes to get that.
Zerg - dont nerf Ultras they are already worthless for the most part, decrease ground armor upgrade cost and time for its level 1 upgrade or increase the amount it effects units at first level.

I think what would make this patch a bit better would be buffs to the Hydralisk to put it back on the radar. At its current state it's far too squishy and slow for its high cost.
There are things like restoring zerg's swarm feeling but I think that should be addressed in its own patch; this one is just to fix gaping holes in the ship, I think. We can strengthen the hull another time. (hopefully soon though)

Balance is going to be a very fine point.. most players are wanting too much, while something is needed, it has nothing to do with strength of the units.

Versatility is the big thing, and how many units we can make in a short period of time, the point of the zerg is to overwhelm... so each upgrade of the hatchery should allow 1 extra larve to be auto produced, and maybe a queen upgrade to allow a couple extra larve to be made...

On the versatility side, a couple minor things should be done, there needs to be a slightly better counter to a player that goes heavy air, and someone that protects units like tanks or collosus, currently if a terran mmm balls a group of a few tanks, there is absolutely nothing that can be done if they micro pretty good, not sure what the solution is, i'm thinking something with roaches or even lings, a specific ability or added armor would suffice...

As far as air, observers should have some sort of minor air to air attack, and I think brood lords or ultralisks should have an air attack, maybe ultra's shooting up spikes from it's back, or broods shooting out tusks. It would give more use for the larger tier 3 units for zerg while making it costly for us to mass the build, and easily counterable by a good mix of ground units.

Re: Ultralisk head bump: If the DPS vs. single buildings is higher, it should be left in, but make it an optional 'cast' that works similar to the hold-fire ability of the ghost.

If you compare the main unit from Terran (Marines) and the main unit from Zerg (Hydras), Marines got buffed since Brood War and Hydras got nerfed big time.
Just to compare, for 100 suppy in Brood War, you used to get 100 Hydras, together doing 1000 damage against large, 750 against medium and 500 against small units. They were faster off the creep and had 8000 health combined. For 100 supply in Sc2, you get 50 Hydras, they are slower, they do 600 regular damage in total, and have 4000 health combined. So you only get a bit of a bonus against small units, but it takes them half of the time to kill your Hydras because there are half the number of them and they are still at 80 health.
So basically in Sc2, with a 100 suppy army of Hydras, you get half the units, -4000 health, +100 against small units, -150 against medium and -400 against large units. Plus they are slower off creep and can't morph to Lurkers. Not to mention, you can no longer "swarm" or outnumber any of your enemies with Hydras. Terran outnumbers Zerg usually. Military tactics like overwhelming your opponent via strength in numbers, surrounding them, multi pronged attacks, decoys and deceptive maneuvres are almost all impossible with an army half the size. Plus they no longer have Dark Swarm from Defilers, so they die even quicker to Void Rays/Carriers/Battlecruisers. You have to max out on Hydras if you want to stop someone's fleet of Void Rays now, and back when you had Dark Swarm, you only needed 10 Hydras and a Defiler to curb their attack and make them retreat. Losing Lurkers is a gigantic loss too because you can longer set a trap in your base for players that drop you, and you can no longer fortify a choke point. Now there are no Zerg units that can attack while cloaked.
Now look at Marines: In Brood War they did 6 damage and had 40 health. So for 100 supply, you could do 600 damage, and they would have a combined health of 4000. In Sc2, they still do 6 damage but they have 45 health plus 10 with combat shields. So with combat shields, they do 600 damage and have 5500 health together.
With a 100 supply army of Marines, you still get 100 Marines, they get +1500 health together, do the same damage, and build twice as fast.
I won't mention Zealots since they are basically the same stats as they were in Brood War although I think their shields regenerate faster now.
The inability to fight via surrounding and strength in numbers with staple units like Hydras and Roaches makes me not want to make any ground untis at all and just go Brood Lords. Roaches used to be good in the Beta with 1 supply and fast above ground regeneration. They balanced the other races around strong Roaches, giving them Fast access to Thors and +armored attacks, and then they nerfed Roaches and kept all the upgrades the other races got to counter them. I wish the Zerg had the same number of combat units and combat spells as the other races. I've been a hardcore Zerg player since the day Brood War came out and I don't want to change races, I just want them to be even. I think Corruptors should be slightly buffed too since they are the only Zerg air-to-air unit and there are no more Scourges. They do less damage than Vikings unless they are fighting a massive unit.

Hydras are so freaking bad

Siege tanks will hopefully be easier to deal with. Reapers can be dealt with. There was no need to nerf Ultralisk damage. Neural Parasite is way to situational at 15 second duration to be worth the investment and energy. Roach speed upgrade shouldn't require lair tech and I personally would prefer that they be moved back to 1 supply. Corrupters need to be more effective. Zerg needs to have a unit with an ability to get rid of energy.

Perhaps allow lairs/hives a larva producing buff/upgrade for mid to late game? Either faster larva production, more normal or spawned larva storage, or allow spawn larva to work faster. Might give Zerg players an incentive to construct addtional Lairs and Hives.

The only zerg change being a nerf/buff. Sure nerfing the other races is fine and will help but zerg need something a bit more to throw into their army. Maybe we can have a new unit?

In it; as in the patch

I doubt Bliz will do %*%# about this even as we discuss it with them. Piles and Piles of complaints for Zerg, and nothing that Zerg players were complaining about, were in it. Reapers is somewhat of a good thing, but it's Zerg units...They're way too weak for their price. WAY. TO. WEAK. If A terran can 1 base a 3 Base Zerg...that tells you something....

I really like the idea of giving a hatchery energy to spawn creep tumors and spawn larva, and make the queen more mobile off creep and give it some different spells and hatch from egg, this would help us a bit in the early game, as we wouldn't have to spend money on queen and delay tech. Some additional upgrades for other units would be nice only if some of the upgrades we already have are removed or combined in 1. IE metabolic boost also increases baneling speed.
Overall if they dont want to give a hatchery energy to keep zerg unique from others, I think Ultra pathing needs to be fixed regardless, I think ling surrounding AI can be fixed a bit, sometimes u can surround a thor with 10 lings, sometimes only 8 fit. Hydras definitely need some sort of buff/tweaking. I think roaches as well early game need some tweaking/earlier upgrades so we can apply some sort of pressure to a terran wall so they can't open whatever they wish. Another unit would be really cool, or some serious infestor tweaks as it is our only offensive caster, or only caster for that matter, queen doesn't really count.

Honestly here's what I think needs to happen.
-Nerf Hydras slightly, place in tier 1.5, reduce supply to 1
-Buff Roach regen, move to tier 2
-Give Hydras speed upgrade
-Give Hatcheries the ability to spawn one creep tumor
-Add Lurker (would this be OP? No. We have the least number of combat units)

I just want to mention 1 thing

The ROAAAAAARWWHWHW , sound from the worm , its actually one of the BEST psychological weapons that zerg has , its like battle drums, actually i would love if u make that LOUDER , if u see any replay , terran and protoss players enter in panic mode when they listen the scream


PLEASE MAKE IT LOUDER

& worm cheaper :P

You also have to realize that a single spawning pool and produce zerglings at many hatcheries, while toss and terran have to build multiple unit producing structures. 250-spawning pool vs. 2 barracks with add-ons 300+... it isn't unreasonable.

I agree in lowering the marauders health points by around 10 or 15 points. Also, Gwendolyn brought up a very good point. Right now as it stands, Terran can build both a defense and an economy with ease while Zerg struggles because they need to fast expand to get on the same level has a Terran player. But what's this? Terran buildings are cheaper and don't destroy an SCV when built? Oh, and what's this? They can now call Mules to even further their economy past yours when they have one base, what joy! Having the ability to spawn and horde larvae for when they are needed is a great addition to Zerg, but being forced to macro three bases just to be on level versus a Terran with two is ridiculous? Once you as a Zerg player get the economy required to build up an actual force, the Terran player has managed to build up an unstoppable mech powerhouse. And this is every game with a Terran opponent. It's not like I let them turtle, it's that I almost have no choice. Banelings are great for the blocks yes, but going banelings to break the front AND having a good enough force to back it up versus marines/marauders or possibly siege tanks takes too much of an economy too early for the nature of Zerg.

One basic thing which is needed, since we were imba make us op.

One basic thing which is needed, since we were imba make us op.

Crae...Spelling dude. How is anyone going to take you seriously otherwise.

I really think they need to leave the reapers and siege tanks alonte. Reapors are only powful against buildings there is no reason to slow down training time. Siege tanks are sapose to be powerful otherwise its just a tank.
I believe that marauders are overpowerd. their health should be redused by 20 or reduce their attack by a vew points but just leave the siege tanks alone

What if the Queen and Roach had bonus damages equal to their base damage before upgrades? Example: Roach base damge is 16, it could have a bonus vs armor also 16. As upgrades are researched, the bonus damage would in time surpass the base. Same for the Queen but with a bonus against light armor. I would also like to see Evo Chamber upgrades apply to Zerg buildings, it only makes sense due to the fact that Zerg building are biological. Thoughts?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but counting the cost of the drone you use up don't Spine Crawlers cost 150 and Spore Crawlers cost 125? It's bad enough that you need one of each to do the job of a single Photon Cannon, but Terrans get their AA-Detectors at 75 minerals.

Not to mention that this means a Spawning Pool costs 250 minerals while a Barracks/Gateway is only 150.

I think my biggest gripe though is that at most of your larva needs to go to Drones to constantly replace ones you use to build with IN ADDITION TO increasing gathering rate. This wouldn't be as much of a problem if Spawn Larva was autocast, but before you get the queen out you'll have very little to defend with unless you want to really slow down either your gathering rate or building production. I really envy Protoss Probes sometimes =/

spine crawlers are way to weak and have to slow of an attack time imo (especially for being ground only) even 6 spine crawlers vs a 20 supply little mm bal wont last past stimpaks, they just seem almost useless, and against any t2 units there just a straight up joke. They need SOMETHING, even a reaserch to make them better

1) Nothing was stated about Marauders. I know this is not zerg-specific but it affects the entire game.

2) Ultralisks BLOCK YOUR OWN ARMY due to pathing/sizing issues. Make it so that Zerglings can run "amongst their legs" (and perhaps use them for cover? make it an upgrade?). Especially with the most recent patch, and the overly choked maps....ultras are iffy as it is. Also, it would go very well with the zerg theme if zling could run amongst ultralist legs.

3) Early-midgame anti-air issues have not been addressed at all. Perhaps give roach a very weak AA attack when on friendly creep (or creep in general). Not sure what to suggest exactly but zerg needs something before hydras.....worst case allow Spore colonies to be built with a spawning pool (forgoing the evo chamber requirement)

4) REPAIRING SCV are not AGGRO'd. This has not been addressed either. Easiest example is a Thor surrounded by scvs repairing it, and a ton of zerglings which will just run around confused rather than target the repairing scv. ---- if this change was made for "skill" reasons perhaps make it so that MELEE units will auto target repairing scvs but RANGED units will not (however i see no reason why they shouldnt all aggro).

5) Hydralisk speed is still an issue imo.....perhaps increase their base speed a little bit and decrease their boost on creep a tiny bit.