I find injection is more demanding due to having to macro over to the hatch or use minimap casting and actually casting on the hatch. Building probes and scvs simply requires a blind hot key to building and hitting the worker key.
Injection can technically be a better spell than chrono and mule since it allows the ability to instantly pump out an entire country of anything you want, but yes, a missed injection is one of the biggest reasons for having your minerals build up needlessly.
This is your typical zerg player after a few matches:
And yes I'm referencing another webcomic but it's basically dead. Don't be hatin'!
playing zerg, my injects fall behind mid/late game, so i should just start getting an extra aux hatch earlier
I find injection is more demanding due to having to macro over to the hatch or use minimap casting and actually casting on the hatch.
My entire point was that is no different from the Protoss unit production mechanic and is perhaps less taxing than Chronoboost as you actually have to give some thought towards what you want to use Chrono on and then 'macro over' to the building you want to use Chrono on. There's a bunch of stuff that Zerg has to do that is really hard, but honestly I don't believe inject is one of them.
Building probes and scvs simply requires a blind hot key to building and hitting the worker key.
So does building drones?
Spaffy on
ALRIGHT FINE I GOT AN AVATAR
Steam: adamjnet
0
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
I find injection is more demanding due to having to macro over to the hatch or use minimap casting and actually casting on the hatch. Building probes and scvs simply requires a blind hot key to building and hitting the worker key.
My entire point was that is no different from the Protoss unit production mechanic and is perhaps less taxing than Chronoboost as you actually have to give some thought towards what you want to use Chrono on and then 'macro over' to the building you want to use Chrono on. You're comparing a macro mechanic to producing probes and SCV's, which is no different from building drones.
not only that but you could also make an argument that Terran and Protoss have the same problem with "once you lose that time you can't get it back" that Zerg have with injecting larvae with making their workers.
If a Terran or Protoss misses 10 seconds worth of worker production, thats 10 seconds they won't get back. If a Zerg misses making a drone for 10 seconds, unless capped at 3 larvae, they can just make it later and its not a huge deal.
Trying to compare things directly is dumb. I agree that inject larvae could be a little more forgiving on missed ones, but it is what it is and Zerg has a few things they can do more easily than Terran or Protoss in turn.
well, shouldn't you be using chrono on all upgrades, robotics & stargates facilities, and probes.
sounds like plenty of stuff to me
its not.
Echoing for good god
If you are a good protoss you are constantly building units, probes, teching, whatever your objective is. Seldom do i ever chrono warp gates because i find, usually, the number i have correlates to the output i need at the time, so 3 gates on 1 nexus, 6 on 2, 9 on 3 to give a general example. I would be wasting chrono boost to chrono gateways when i have no money to spend because ive got enough gateways to satisfy my demand, so hardly ever do warpgates get chrono. Chrono is best used when you decide you need a tech asap or an upgrade asap ,thats why i let it build and build, theres really nothing else to spend it on.
Trying to compare things directly is dumb. I agree that inject larvae could be a little more forgiving on missed ones, but it is what it is and Zerg has a few things they can do more easily than Terran or Protoss in turn.
Yup. For example, if terran or protoss forget a regular production cycle for N seconds, that is immediately N seconds worth of production that they cannot get back. A zerg has at most 45 seconds of leeway from a bare hatch before they lose production (i.e., the maximum amount of time that an unproductive hatch with a queen can sit at under 3 larva is 45 seconds).
Kambing on
@TwitchTV, @Youtube: master-level zerg ladder/customs, commentary, and random miscellany.
well, shouldn't you be using chrono on all upgrades, robotics & stargates facilities, and probes.
sounds like plenty of stuff to me
its not.
Echoing for good god
If you are a good protoss you are constantly building units, probes, teching, whatever your objective is. Seldom do i ever chrono warp gates because i find, usually, the number i have correlates to the output i need at the time, so 3 gates on 1 nexus, 6 on 2, 9 on 3 to give a general example. I would be wasting chrono boost to chrono gateways when i have no money to spend because ive got enough gateways to satisfy my demand, so hardly ever do warpgates get chrono. Chrono is best used when you decide you need a tech asap or an upgrade asap ,thats why i let it build and build, theres really nothing else to spend it on.
As incontrol points out, there's very little reason outside of the early game to be building up chrono boost. In lieu of tech, you should be boosting production facilities because that translates into less required production structures which in turn translates into more cash for units.
Boosting production is not as dramatic of a gain as the other macro mechanics (e.g., a chrono boosted gateway produces 4 stalkers for every 3 that a regular gateway produces), but it is suboptimal to let your chrono boost sit idle.
Kambing on
@TwitchTV, @Youtube: master-level zerg ladder/customs, commentary, and random miscellany.
well, shouldn't you be using chrono on all upgrades, robotics & stargates facilities, and probes.
sounds like plenty of stuff to me
its not.
Echoing for good god
If you are a good protoss you are constantly building units, probes, teching, whatever your objective is. Seldom do i ever chrono warp gates because i find, usually, the number i have correlates to the output i need at the time, so 3 gates on 1 nexus, 6 on 2, 9 on 3 to give a general example. I would be wasting chrono boost to chrono gateways when i have no money to spend because ive got enough gateways to satisfy my demand, so hardly ever do warpgates get chrono. Chrono is best used when you decide you need a tech asap or an upgrade asap ,thats why i let it build and build, theres really nothing else to spend it on.
As incontrol points out, there's very little reason outside of the early game to be building up chrono boost. In lieu of tech, you should be boosting production facilities because that translates into less required production structures which in turn translates into more cash for units.
Boosting production is not a dramatic of a boost as the other macro mechanics (e.g., a chrono boosted gateway produces 4 stalkers for every 3 that a regular gateway produces), but it is suboptimal to let your chrono boost sit idle.
On one nexus with 3 gates, per standard, you cant get the same production out of 3 gates as you can with 2 with chrono boost. I may be wrong on that but i would argue even if i was not that the chrono boost is much better spent on probes OR on your tech path if you take it. Chrono boost imo is not a tool but a bonus, its not something you use in lieu of something else, its something you use to give yourself an advantage in certain areas, which is either tech, probe production or upgrades. I like incontrol but i respectfully disgaree with him.
I guarantee you have lost games because of chronoboost, you just don't realize it. Imagine if you just had a flat 20% more stuff than you did in a game where you lost.
Yeah.
You should have chronoboosted better.
Sceptre on
0
TL DRNot at all confident in his reflexive opinions of thingsRegistered Userregular
edited February 2011
I guess CB is tricky because it's often not paid attention to, and nobody has publicized the figures on the really crucial ratios. For example, when you can rely on CB to shave a Gateway off your build and still be safe, or when an early Nexus becomes effective by virtue of CB alone even when cutting probes.
On one nexus with 3 gates, per standard, you cant get the same production out of 3 gates as you can with 2 with chrono boost. I may be wrong on that but i would argue even if i was not that the chrono boost is much better spent on probes OR on your tech path if you take it. Chrono boost imo is not a tool but a bonus, its not something you use in lieu of something else, its something you use to give yourself an advantage in certain areas, which is either tech, probe production or upgrades. I like incontrol but i respectfully disgaree with him.
I don't think you're necessarily disagreeing with what he said. Until the end of the mid-game, you should be constantly producing probes and until the end-game, you should always be progressing your tech in some fashion (namely upgrades). So your boosts should be going into those areas. Unit production is the last place you want boosts to go into (usually).
His point is that chrono boost is a resource just like money. Besides cases where you are saving boost for a specific, targeted purpose (e.g,. 4 warp gate push, blink stalker rush, mothership rush), you always have somewhere that chrono energy can go so you should be constantly spending it on something. You don't necessarily lose out on the number of chrono boosts you can do if you let it pool up. But like a mineral war chest, pooled chrono energy isn't helping you now when it matters.
Kambing on
@TwitchTV, @Youtube: master-level zerg ladder/customs, commentary, and random miscellany.
How many hatches do you need to equalize the production of a hatch with injections?
A bare hatch produces larva at a rate of 1/15 larva/game second.
A queen-hatch pair with perfect injections produces larva at a rate of 4/44 = 1/11 (bound by queen energy regeneration time rather than inject time) larva/game second.
So with reasonable inject timings, a queen is roughly equal to a hatch.
Kambing on
@TwitchTV, @Youtube: master-level zerg ladder/customs, commentary, and random miscellany.
It's just a tricky thing to get right. For example if you chrono +1 weaps, you have to either attack or be attacked within 10 seconds of that research completing to see any benefit from that chronoboost, otherwise it was a wasted chronoboost. There is really very little benefit in Chronoing upgrades.
45 seconds is a lifetime.
Zerg are currently underutalizing the overseer contaminate spell vs P and T... wait till we get the hang of it and you will feel the same missed-inject trauma.
I agree missed-injects is not something to completely cry about as Zerg... but it does cause some /wrists here and there. ^_^
And also definitely agree that comparing side-by-side isn't the best way, since they're not meant to be identical purpose spells. Blizzard has this "concentrated coolness" as part of their design model, which means that every feature needs to be as unique as possible, to allow for variability of gameplay.
Makes design and balancing tough.
MMMig on
Witty signature comment goes here...
wra
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TL DRNot at all confident in his reflexive opinions of thingsRegistered Userregular
It's just a tricky thing to get right. For example if you chrono +1 weaps, you have to either attack or be attacked* within 10 seconds of that research completing to see any benefit from that chronoboost, otherwise it was a wasted chronoboost. There is really very little benefit in Chronoing upgrades.
Injecting larva is not, in and of itself, an extremely tedious or difficult or stressful thing. It's more that is is yet another thing that the Zerg player has to worry about. During times where things add up, squeezing in that extra few seconds to inject can be very costly, or very easy to miss. When you consider just how required it is to be injecting as much as you damn well can, it is a rather unforgiving mechanic.
I can't call it bad or broken or unfair or 'too hard', but I can certainly call it rather unforgiving.
How many hatches do you need to equalize the production of a hatch with injections?
A bare hatch produces larva at a rate of 1/15 larva/game second.
A queen-hatch pair with perfect injections produces larva at a rate of 4/44 = 1/11 (bound by queen energy regeneration time rather than inject time) larva/game second.
So with reasonable inject timings, a queen is roughly equal to a hatch.
Maybe we Zerg need to make more hatcheries per base, keep a Queen on them anyways, but even if you lose a Queen (Or an expansion!) you won't be set behind so strongly. We need to learn how to play this game.
Satsumomo on
0
3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
My biggest issue with zerg is that too many non pro players use their apparent weaknesses as a scapegoat for losing games, overhype it to a degree that is stupid and then seem to take all responsibility away from the fact that, had they played better, they would have done better in the game. Pro players worry about pro balance, the rest of us joe smoes need to worry about improving and getting better instead of bitching about how impossible it is to win.
I dont mind whining so much as i hate the overinflated notion that as a protoss i haz it eazy mode turned on. Protoss v zerg is fucking hard for a player who vows not to 4 gate (except in self defense!). Ive played random to diamond on US, ive played diamond players as zerg and terran and protoss, that doesnt make my opinion worth jack BUT i can say that zerg has the most to think about BUT i do not feel that i deserve any less credit for beating a zerg because usually i have to work very hard to do so. Zerg at my level is not so underpowered that i can walk all over them and i wish that sentiment would stop being spread both in games and on forums as if any zerg i face should gg because they have no chance.
The problem I'm running into is that I climbed up the ladder facing aggressive Toss, which I've figured out how to deal with quite well (with the exception of DT rushes).
Now that I'm facing more macro toss, I have to play very differently, mostly by learning to build more roaches.
Man, I always get destroyed by Protoss, how are they beating you?
I am tired of losing to Protoss.
fucking imba speedlings
But more seriously taking quick thirds while applying pressure is such a huge boon for zerg, if you can force a late expo on the protoss with speedlings, follow up with some roach pressure to get him to tech all the while taking a third and macroing up you can get such a great advantage. If you force tech, cannons or an excess of units then you force them either all in because they are so far behind, or force them to turtle in which case you can take the map and get that macro going strong.
Man, I always get destroyed by Protoss, how are they beating you?
I am tired of losing to Protoss.
fucking imba speedlings
But more seriously taking quick thirds while applying pressure is such a huge boon for zerg, if you can force a late expo on the protoss with speedlings, follow up with some roach pressure to get him to tech all the while taking a third and macroing up you can get such a great advantage. If you force tech, cannons or an excess of units then you force them either all in because they are so far behind, or force them to turtle in which case you can take the map and get that macro going strong.
Sounds like you need some force fields.
Speedlings can't delay expos when you have good forcefields.
kedinik on
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Yeah I need to learn to apply pressure. I usually try and end up losing all my units, I guess I should learn to retreat or something.
I always try speedling/hydra against stalker balls, but then they have 2 colossi with them, I of course have 5-7 corruptors but the stalkers take them out almost instantly and then I'm just raging.
Yeah I need to learn to apply pressure. I usually try and end up losing all my units, I guess I should learn to retreat or something.
I always try speedling/hydra against stalker balls, but then they have 2 colossi with them, I of course have 5-7 corruptors but the stalkers take them out almost instantly and then I'm just raging.
I find that fucktons of roaches are very effective against me. The Zerg player has to make a pretty drastic mistake in order for me to handle it well.
It even has two very noticeable timings that you can use to apply pressure, based on roach upgrades. Did you just get roach speed? Go poke and fuck with the protoss. Did you just get roach burrow? Go poke the protoss. If the protoss is smart, you will see a stargate at some point which will force some hydralisks, but the real strength of mass roach is that void rays are pretty ineffectual in killing it before it does serious damage.
don't let a toss get a third. or at least make him earn it, and if he does get his third up, harass his bases. By doing any of those things-- you delay or prevent or weaken that ball o' doom push he's going for.
mastman on
B.net: Kusanku
0
TL DRNot at all confident in his reflexive opinions of thingsRegistered Userregular
edited February 2011
How does 1 Gate FE go?
9 pylon
12 gate
...18? nexus then gas/core, or a second gate?
How many hatches do you need to equalize the production of a hatch with injections?
A bare hatch produces larva at a rate of 1/15 larva/game second.
A queen-hatch pair with perfect injections produces larva at a rate of 4/44 = 1/11 (bound by queen energy regeneration time rather than inject time) larva/game second.
So with reasonable inject timings, a queen is roughly equal to a hatch.
Maybe we Zerg need to make more hatcheries per base, keep a Queen on them anyways, but even if you lose a Queen (Or an expansion!) you won't be set behind so strongly. We need to learn how to play this game.
I've gone back and forth on the extra hatches for a long time. It always FEELS much better to have an extra hatch or two (or four), but that's because around mid-late game I'm forgetting sooo many injects just to stay alive from other shit going on. Gas/larva are always the issues, never minerals. Extra hatches I'm swimming in larva, and pumping out 50 lings at once right when I need it feels so so so so good.
I'll win a bunch of games, and then stop doing it because I tell myself "Extra hatches are a noob crutch, if you got rid of that you wouldn't be bouncing back and forth between plat and gold."
I just don't know anymore. Was never a BW player, but as I understand it, tons of hatches was the norm. With SC2, pros were saying...ya know the game has changed, the queen changed things. That isn't the way to play. But never once after I've built an extra hatch did I feel like...that was the fatal mistake of that loss.
Ezekiel on
I will throw you on the land and hurl you on the open field. I will let all the birds of the air settle on you and all the beasts of the earth gorge themselves on you. I will spread your flesh on the mountains and fill the valleys with your remains. I will drench the land with your flowing blood all the way to the mountains, and the ravines will be filled with your flesh. - Ezekiel 32: 4-6
Posts
its not.
playing zerg, my injects fall behind mid/late game, so i should just start getting an extra aux hatch earlier
My entire point was that is no different from the Protoss unit production mechanic and is perhaps less taxing than Chronoboost as you actually have to give some thought towards what you want to use Chrono on and then 'macro over' to the building you want to use Chrono on. There's a bunch of stuff that Zerg has to do that is really hard, but honestly I don't believe inject is one of them.
So does building drones?
Steam: adamjnet
not only that but you could also make an argument that Terran and Protoss have the same problem with "once you lose that time you can't get it back" that Zerg have with injecting larvae with making their workers.
If a Terran or Protoss misses 10 seconds worth of worker production, thats 10 seconds they won't get back. If a Zerg misses making a drone for 10 seconds, unless capped at 3 larvae, they can just make it later and its not a huge deal.
Trying to compare things directly is dumb. I agree that inject larvae could be a little more forgiving on missed ones, but it is what it is and Zerg has a few things they can do more easily than Terran or Protoss in turn.
Echoing for good god
If you are a good protoss you are constantly building units, probes, teching, whatever your objective is. Seldom do i ever chrono warp gates because i find, usually, the number i have correlates to the output i need at the time, so 3 gates on 1 nexus, 6 on 2, 9 on 3 to give a general example. I would be wasting chrono boost to chrono gateways when i have no money to spend because ive got enough gateways to satisfy my demand, so hardly ever do warpgates get chrono. Chrono is best used when you decide you need a tech asap or an upgrade asap ,thats why i let it build and build, theres really nothing else to spend it on.
Yup. For example, if terran or protoss forget a regular production cycle for N seconds, that is immediately N seconds worth of production that they cannot get back. A zerg has at most 45 seconds of leeway from a bare hatch before they lose production (i.e., the maximum amount of time that an unproductive hatch with a queen can sit at under 3 larva is 45 seconds).
As incontrol points out, there's very little reason outside of the early game to be building up chrono boost. In lieu of tech, you should be boosting production facilities because that translates into less required production structures which in turn translates into more cash for units.
Boosting production is not as dramatic of a gain as the other macro mechanics (e.g., a chrono boosted gateway produces 4 stalkers for every 3 that a regular gateway produces), but it is suboptimal to let your chrono boost sit idle.
On one nexus with 3 gates, per standard, you cant get the same production out of 3 gates as you can with 2 with chrono boost. I may be wrong on that but i would argue even if i was not that the chrono boost is much better spent on probes OR on your tech path if you take it. Chrono boost imo is not a tool but a bonus, its not something you use in lieu of something else, its something you use to give yourself an advantage in certain areas, which is either tech, probe production or upgrades. I like incontrol but i respectfully disgaree with him.
Yeah.
You should have chronoboosted better.
I don't think you're necessarily disagreeing with what he said. Until the end of the mid-game, you should be constantly producing probes and until the end-game, you should always be progressing your tech in some fashion (namely upgrades). So your boosts should be going into those areas. Unit production is the last place you want boosts to go into (usually).
His point is that chrono boost is a resource just like money. Besides cases where you are saving boost for a specific, targeted purpose (e.g,. 4 warp gate push, blink stalker rush, mothership rush), you always have somewhere that chrono energy can go so you should be constantly spending it on something. You don't necessarily lose out on the number of chrono boosts you can do if you let it pool up. But like a mineral war chest, pooled chrono energy isn't helping you now when it matters.
A bare hatch produces larva at a rate of 1/15 larva/game second.
A queen-hatch pair with perfect injections produces larva at a rate of 4/44 = 1/11 (bound by queen energy regeneration time rather than inject time) larva/game second.
So with reasonable inject timings, a queen is roughly equal to a hatch.
Steam: adamjnet
Zerg are currently underutalizing the overseer contaminate spell vs P and T... wait till we get the hang of it and you will feel the same missed-inject trauma.
I agree missed-injects is not something to completely cry about as Zerg... but it does cause some /wrists here and there. ^_^
And also definitely agree that comparing side-by-side isn't the best way, since they're not meant to be identical purpose spells. Blizzard has this "concentrated coolness" as part of their design model, which means that every feature needs to be as unique as possible, to allow for variability of gameplay.
Makes design and balancing tough.
Witty signature comment goes here...
wra
*or start your next upgrade.
But I agree with your greater point.
I can't call it bad or broken or unfair or 'too hard', but I can certainly call it rather unforgiving.
Maybe we Zerg need to make more hatcheries per base, keep a Queen on them anyways, but even if you lose a Queen (Or an expansion!) you won't be set behind so strongly. We need to learn how to play this game.
Just let me whine so I can feel better, I just need something to say to feel better.
I am tired of losing to Protoss.
Now that I'm facing more macro toss, I have to play very differently, mostly by learning to build more roaches.
So many more roaches...
Our first game is now available for free on Google Play: Frontier: Isle of the Seven Gods
fucking imba speedlings
But more seriously taking quick thirds while applying pressure is such a huge boon for zerg, if you can force a late expo on the protoss with speedlings, follow up with some roach pressure to get him to tech all the while taking a third and macroing up you can get such a great advantage. If you force tech, cannons or an excess of units then you force them either all in because they are so far behind, or force them to turtle in which case you can take the map and get that macro going strong.
Sounds like you need some force fields.
Speedlings can't delay expos when you have good forcefields.
Our first game is now available for free on Google Play: Frontier: Isle of the Seven Gods
I always try speedling/hydra against stalker balls, but then they have 2 colossi with them, I of course have 5-7 corruptors but the stalkers take them out almost instantly and then I'm just raging.
I hate speedlings
Double wall QQ bunker salvage
I find that fucktons of roaches are very effective against me. The Zerg player has to make a pretty drastic mistake in order for me to handle it well.
It even has two very noticeable timings that you can use to apply pressure, based on roach upgrades. Did you just get roach speed? Go poke and fuck with the protoss. Did you just get roach burrow? Go poke the protoss. If the protoss is smart, you will see a stargate at some point which will force some hydralisks, but the real strength of mass roach is that void rays are pretty ineffectual in killing it before it does serious damage.
B.net: Kusanku
9 pylon
12 gate
...18? nexus then gas/core, or a second gate?
No.
There's a reason protoss build sentries when they want to expand.
I think generally you get core first. So its late 20s-early 30s when you get Nexus.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Speedlings are dogshit if you have 2-3 sentries and know how to use them.
I've gone back and forth on the extra hatches for a long time. It always FEELS much better to have an extra hatch or two (or four), but that's because around mid-late game I'm forgetting sooo many injects just to stay alive from other shit going on. Gas/larva are always the issues, never minerals. Extra hatches I'm swimming in larva, and pumping out 50 lings at once right when I need it feels so so so so good.
I'll win a bunch of games, and then stop doing it because I tell myself "Extra hatches are a noob crutch, if you got rid of that you wouldn't be bouncing back and forth between plat and gold."
I just don't know anymore. Was never a BW player, but as I understand it, tons of hatches was the norm. With SC2, pros were saying...ya know the game has changed, the queen changed things. That isn't the way to play. But never once after I've built an extra hatch did I feel like...that was the fatal mistake of that loss.