Lurker (unit)

i dont think lurkers should be an alternative too infestors.
lurkers work against units that have lower ange then themselves
(because of line-splash)

also: infestors are the choice against most things (i wouldn't actually mind if they were more expensive)
because fungal is damn strong, we dont need a unit that's as strong as infestors.

well the relation to dt's is flawed

dt's
-> have lower hp
-> fight in the first line
-> do no splash
-> don't actually outrange most t2 units

also lurkers burrow makes ur dps mor concentrated,
instead of stretched in a long line

Zee wrote:

Zerg is broken because of BL + Infestor + Queen. Protoss has no chance versus this due to BLs constantly spawning units and keeping the toss army immobile and wasting incredible amount of damage on them.

are u sure that this has nothing to do, with all toss air having a habbit fighting ground units asap?

(scouts messed up attackorder, voids by their nature, phoenixes by messed up casting behaviour)
if only scout phoenixe would focus down all air units like corrupters, it would be a pain to deal with.

and why out of all zerg units the queen? it's not like zerg has roach hydra which is very powerul throughout its entire buildup

i also consider zerg really strong, but that doesn't rely all on BL-infestor

i will add u, so we can do few rounds sometime this week.

Well I mostly found lurkers useful in ZvZ, as they are decent at killing both Roaches and Zerglings. Versus toss it is not really good vs anything. It has low DPS and toss units are large enough that the splash does not really matter. Immortals counter them harder than a rock, and Archons can be considered a soft counter. Now versus T, I actually found them useful when they costed 235, as they worked down infantry decently. I tried a few times if they come any close to the efficiency to Infestors, and the answer is a resounding no. This was the reason I compared them.

The problem it has is that the DPS is very low. It'd be useful if units would line up for the attack, but they don't usually do this. This is the same problem the Hellion has. The only unit that comes in the right formation for these is pretty much the Zergling, and there are a thousand other reasons why Zerglings are not even close to being useful anyway (besides as escorts for banelings)

About Queen: it is not broken by itself. Although it is kind of hard for Protoss to deal with them, it is still possible. Due to it's cost it is not useful as a starting unit. The problem with them, is their perfect synergy with the BL+Infestor combo, as they keep units away from the BLs, and heal BLs. This is why it is mostly a laughing matter when T tries to counter BLs with Vikings (besides Vikings being horribly cost-ineffective). Fungal + Queens will just eradicate them, and any damage they might do to BLs will be healed back.

Broodlord: the problem is that it constantly spawns units that are not ignored (like Interceptors are) without any mana cost or anything, from a whooping 9.5 range. While Terrans usually have marines/reapers that have smart firing and can relatively efficiently get rid of broodlings, Protoss has no such units, except the Carrier, which are now the least cost effective units in the game maybe. Getting an 590 unit to mitigate the damage from a 475 unit is anything but a good trade (and you need multiple Carriers to effectively clean up after Broodlords). The problem is, this, combined with fungal, which pretty much negates T infantry and stops any advance attempt on the Broodlords make for a very godlike army.

The new nerf seems ok to me. Now it is a true choice between Infestor or Lurker as support unit (If you do not want to go straight to BL). And it is enough time to counter them properly.
Before if you had enough queens in front even Immortals died to the Lurker cause queens survive too long.


OT: I don't think BL are op - key is to handle the Broodlings so some Colossi or Helions (if not enough marines) do the trick. Voidray/BC handle Coruptor efficient. If too mutch Queens High Templar or Gosts counter them.

having played some rounds since the nerf,
I'm having a few thoughts on the lurker:

general concept:
7 range +burrow +splash +200hp
it makes them the last to be focused in a zerg force,
that's when many high dps units allready died (marine, zergling, roach, zlot, ...)
-> i just cant come to like the concept
-> they're by any means not like infestors, they do damage over time

queen+lurker
have seen this pulled of quite often now,
and tbh ... its just ridiculous:
- it stops t1 rushes (i'm actually talking of none gas rushes here!)
- theres barely an efficient counter:
-> what is good at harming queens? marines, roaches, zerglings, ghosts, ... oh wait about all of them take splash from lurkers
- even if queens die, theres most likely the next wave allready close
-> lurkers stack incredibly well (thats an ability that usually t3 units have -> they are alive for 2 or 3 waves)
- it forces t2 due to burrow, thereby the t2-investment u did becomes negligibel

i never found zee's queen+bl to be scary, as the player pulling this,
will be pretty weak due to t3 and 2 pretty expensive units, lurker queen however is way faster
----------

tl,dr
lurkers concept should be rethought
how about giving queens the armored or light armor rating?
-> read my post then discuss :/

Actually i've also seen some nicely used lurker starters. They remind me of DT starters with toss, but actually they are useful unlike that. Also I came to terms with the nerf, as Lurkers gain critical mass FAST.

Lurker based strategies seem to mostly be dangerous versus standard terran. TvZ was already pretty Z favored, and while Infestor FG-s were partially beatable by massing medivacs, a critical mass of 5+ lurkers is quite a lot worse. Marauders are a solution, but they die to queens, and become useless with the inevitable approach of Broodlords (seriously NERF them).

What worked for me is the following:
- std marine+marauder(+reapers as necessary) opening. Scan to kill lurkers (20 mineral per wave is affordable to keep the middle income, they are behind anyway as they teched). Stim is not needed at this point.
- T2 quickly, add 1-2 Ghosts and Ravens with PDD. Ghosts to EMP queens. There will be a few waves when your ravens die to queens, scan to solve it. Stim soon becomes necessary to quickly get rid of queens before your infantry evaporates to Lurkers. Add medivacs (good extra targets), and research air armor +1 to give some extra survivability to infantry.

Toss seems to be partially immune to this strategy. Zealots are useless anyway (besides PvP), Stalkers do not get hurt much by the splash, and as soon as you see 1 lurker, you can insta-tech to T2 for Archons, Immortals and scan. Although you should just quit PvZ (as soon as you see BLs) since you cannot win vs well supported Broodlords unless you have a massive eco advantage (held the line for all game) and smart allies. You can hope for them to be stupid and go something EZPZ like Ultra+Ling, or add creep (it f*cks up queen+lurker big time).

ZvZ is pretty much the same deal as PvZ when countering Lurkers. T2 ASAP to get scan, and just hold the line with Roach+Hydra (beats Queen+Lurker any day). ZvZ is pretty much about whoever gets the first Broodlord while holding the line wins.

Sorry I whine so much about Broodlords, but I seem to be more and more put off from this game because of them (rather play Nexus Wars instead for fun). I play random and now I DREAD being a Protoss.

Back to topic:

I have no real good easy solution for the lurker problem. One could be to enable scans for everyone at the beginning with no unit requirement. The other could be a Queen/Hydralisk swap, but this could make ZvP even more imbalanced to begin with.

Zerg seems to be too powerful anyway, the only reason I dislike being rolled as Zerg is because my stupid Zerg allies get Overlords (if no Zerg ally, then it's EZ win time, unless both my allies are horrendous).

Quote :

Lurker based strategies seem to mostly be dangerous versus standard terran.

I quite disagree, terran is the only race which is not forced going t2 when they see lurkers,
therefor terran can take the middle.

Quote :

Although you should just quit PvZ (as soon as you see BLs) since you cannot win vs well supported Broodlords

Thats not an issue of the broodlords, its an issue of none toss air going for them
-> when does scout behaviour and phoenix behaviour get fixed?!?
i've seen equvivalent with vikings:
-theres broodlords, overseer and medivacs (both behind the broodlords!!)
->vikings go after the overseer then thee medivacs and expose themselfes to queens and hydras
->fix aswell pls.

actually i wouldn't mind seeing bl's nerfed slightly though...
still i think the idea with the queen armor class is more urgent. (currently i think they should be light)

Quote :

I have no real good easy solution for the lurker problem. One could be to enable scans for everyone at the beginning with no unit requirement.

I still think it's a problem eith the lurker itself:
one idea of mine was the following: reduce minimum range to 3 or 4 while splash goes till 5 or 6
->lurkers have fucking 200hp + burrow, why shouldn't they act as tanky line?
->their concept for ds is just not the one of a supporting unit, which u get in amounts of 3-4 (unlike infestors)

Quote :

as Lurkers gain critical mass FAST

thats what usually only t3 units do (including sieged tanks).
also lurkers do that with quite a small ground protection

Quote :

I dislike being rolled as Zerg is because my stupid Zerg allies get Overlords

be nice to them and ask to remove them, or tell them at the start to not get them
(that usually works, period).

That unit is killing game, making lame and abuse.

Do something, or many peoples will stop to play it.

Changes:
Damage 20-> 18
Upgrade fix (+4/+0/+0)-> (+2/+2/+2)
Attack Icon removed

i don' think a bit less dmg make a differents is like a stealth colosi an t2 for only 265 mins with even better features than a colosi.
with a good zerg shield with for a t1-T2 teran or toss as zerg unbeatable you can (try a mirror buildwth faster go for air then the other zerg )
air do not focus them ater they kill the attaking ati air units and queens are great anti air. besides the lurker yust go for your teammates army after they kill your ground supply


i would change a few things
1. make them a t 3 unit are only really can stoped wit t3 units
2, reduce the range so they are behind the roahes and zerg and infront of the hydras and queens so a strong ground army maybe get them before they are all in red hp
3 make them costy like a colos i would say around 400 mins
4. make them second prority for ground attaking air units after the anti air so voids, banschee etc attak them after the queens, hydras etc are down and not go for the ramain roahes

This unit is absolutely broken in ZvT. It stops any sort of marine opening and in combination with queens the terran actually has to tech to air, but the only useful air to ground unit in the midgame are banshees which in turn are easily countered by queens (which the zerg has anyway) and corrupters (which the zerg builds anyway because of the standard lategame air transition. There is absolutely nothing terran can possibly build to kill queen/lurker that is not air-based, but the only useful air unit gets shut down by queens and corrupters.

This unit is actually broken and no balancing in the world can fix a unit that is a: invisible and b: has ridiculous splash damage - not in a game like desert strike simply because units clump so much, especially terran units.

I mean are you guys never playing this game? Every zerg opens up queen/lurker and terran always loses, I played both sides and zerg practically cannot lose to terran if they do queen/lurker into broodlord/corrupter/infestor, there is just nothing terran can build and the only unit that could kill lurkers gets killed by queens (cheaper) and a unit zerg will build anyway (corrupters). It is absolutely absurd, by the way, banshees are absolutely useless aswell.

Here is why: They lose to most Tier1 ground to air units (stalkers, marines, queens) cost for cost and they can't shoot air which in turn results in them being absolutely useless in the lategame when its mass ground battles, they insta-die to thors, fungal or just about any other ground to air attack (incl storm, etc..). Banshees are bad early game, bad mid game and absolutely useless lategame. WHy would anyone ever build this unit? Absolutely stupid.

The balance of desert strike at this point is horrible, you should really consider removing the lurker and give zerg a different unit instead and fix the banshee in a way that its actually not useless..

ZvT has been broken since forever. Before Lurkers there were Infestors, that kill terran T1 equally well. The only difference between these is that Lurker can be opened with (not that it's a good opener). Terran race is pretty much the worse right now. The only thing they can do is kill toss T1.

Actually if tank siege mode was T2 Terran would have very little problem with lurkers.

We played a lot of Z+T vs T+Z in 2v2 with a few people, and Tanks can actually shut down Zerg T2 really well. Shame that they are T3. Zerg T2 plays even with tanks for a while, then Tanks critical mass hits. Currently it's better to stockpile tanks and tech later to instantly achieve critical mass. It works for a while till zerg amasses enough Broodlords.

The problem is not usually just lurkers itself. It's lurker + queen. Lurkers are easy to kill with marine/marauder with scans, but Queens are the game's best damage absorbers + they are also healers and AA. Ghost would be a possible counter to them if they weren't extremely expensive and if EMP had larger radius. Though it'd make TvP really one sided then. Tanks handle queens decently, but you need a lot of them to be effective, and you can't afford a lot of tanks vs any toss composition. So TvZ is balanceable, but TvZ+P is not.

Banshees were always useless. Any more than 2 is death sentence for you. Even 2 is very risky to build (i pretty much never do it unless I want to insult my opponent... they never get it so why bother...). This game is quite poorly balanced, so if you want to enjoy it on a higher level play toss or zerg (careful with zerg as stupid people can ruin it with overlords).

For me there's only one question that remains: is P+Z or P+Z+Z better (so a bit more or a bit less toss).

3v3:

PZZ > ZZZ > PZT

PPZ is not bad, but PZT or ZZT can kill it easy. Too much toss = terrans will kill you. Too much terrans = zerg will kill you. Too much zerg = toss T2 will kill you. And remember that Terran late game is useless.

Reason: Zergs shut down terrans and provide early game. Toss shuts down mass lurker play and help deal with late game masses. The goal of PZZ is to get to Broodlord + Immortal + Colossus which is impossible to counter without involving the same units (if you counter with air they just walk under it and rape the everloving feck out of the PF), and then Corruptors and Scouts are crucial to air superiority.

2v2:

PZ > ZZ

anything else is just bad.

Reason: Immortal/Archon shuts down lurker play really hard. Double zerg does not survive midgame.

1v1:

Z>All, T>P

Reason: Toss does not survive early game eco losses. Terran gets shut down by lurker or infestor play. PvZ is actually pretty close, since P can do quite the comeback at midgame, but ultimately has no answer to Broodlords. Zerg can win without a single Corruptor (just mass queens and use like 3 Overseers).

OFC it all depends on skill (I have beaten T with P in 1v1, but because he was much less experienced than me). I'm presuming equal skill here.