I think King Sejong is underrated as a bad Zerg map. I keep both Merry Go Round and Waystation to axe KSJ. I would choose playing on Habitation over KSJ.

Here's a typical goofyballer vs mech game: http://drop.sc/381497

The start isn't too typical, I proxy hatch him in response to high ground CC first and delay his base for a long time while my macro suffers terribly, but eventually attack his 3rd with a huge roach force at 200-130 supply. I get overzealous with my roaches basically figuring "I have 3 bases and a good economy, I'll kill as many tanks as possible and switch into swarm host" but this trade goes terribly, it takes me a long time to get swarm hosts out, and the stalemate begins.

I know I make a lot of mistakes from that point, but even then I think there are a lot of things I did (abducting, building spores everywhere) that were better than what I usually wind up doing in these kinds of games, but I still was pretty much at a loss for what I should have done strategically to try to win the game. Even when I kill off his army at my 4th and have a temporary advantage, his position is so entrenched with tanks/planetaries/turrets that I don't even know how I would take advantage before he just rebuilds with more ravens and battlecruisers.

Random question- why do all pro Terrans cut an SCV after the refinery vs just making the refinery on 14 when opening reaper? Your economy is slightly better, you have a marine, and your reaper isn't that much later. It's not like anyone kills any workers with reaper openings anyway, and I find that I can still easily get all the scouting information I need (whether Zerg has gas, whether Protoss has double gas, etc.). It's more iffy on four player maps, but that's true even if you open with the earlier gas. Am I missing something important here?

I'm pretty sure playing vs mech is just something ill never be able to do

Throwing some theorycrafting spitballs at a wall, anyone think corruptors going from 14 dmg +6 vs massive to 14 dmg +6 vs armored would be a good patch?

It would primarily add vikings and void rays to the units they get bonus damage against. They ordinarily have a pretty pathetic 7.4 dps, and their bonus damage increases it to 10.6 dps. To compare: void ray is 16 base dps vs armored, 32 dps against armored while charged. Vikings are 14 dps vs armored. It would help deal with the issue of Zerg air being total dog**** against skytoss or lategame mech.

Other affected units: medivac, warp prism (both have gotten speed boosts in HotS which make it more difficult to deflect them with corruptors, making Zerg even more vulnerable to harass), mothership core, overlord, overseer, viper.

Like, I guess I'm just generally thinking about the way Zerg has to play against certain strategies. Terrans whined and cried about how they were shoehorned into playing bio TvZ because mech wasn't good enough, and so Blizzard bent over backwards for them and gave them hellbats and combined air/ground upgrades, buffed seeker missile (was 125 energy, now 75), and now Terrans can play mech very effectively vs. Zerg. And as a result, excluding games where one side all-ins, Zerg's composition is determined exclusively by how Terran opens: if Terran goes bio, you can make roaches or swarm hosts....if you want to lose. If Terran goes mech, you can make lings or banes...if you want to lose.

In general, for dealing with lategame armies that the other races can largely choose at their whim (barring huge commitments on Zerg's part to a particular strategy, like a mass muta switch in ZvP or the ling-ultra style that was popular for awhile which is basically a 13 minute Zerg all-in), Zerg is shoehorned by the units at their disposal to a very particular and exact response if they want to win the game. And it's just kind of an annoying way to have to play, that if Protoss makes a given endgame army I have to carefully balance some combination of swarm hosts and infestors and vipers and maybe ultras or brood lords or corruptors to deal with it, and if I don't mix that selection correctly I just die because Protoss endgame armies are really, really ****ing good at killing a wide array of Zerg compositions. Same thing with Terran mech - that composition is really, really good at killing just about anything Zerg can make, and it takes a careful selection of units and GSL level control to stop most combinations of tanks, ravens, battlecruisers, vikings, thors, and hellbats. Meanwhile, if I try to build an endgame army, it has to do lots of damage really quickly (especially against Protoss, where most Zerg units have a directly countering Protoss unit that utterly wrecks it) because given time my opponents can just hard counter what I'm doing.

It would be nice if we had more options and could play more freeform, as other races have the ability to. There are lots of ways to open against Protoss to try to get map control and economic leads, and there are lots of things you can do to Terran early on if you want to be all-in, but beyond the midgame you'd better start making the right units to combat the tech path your opponent has chosen (you don't get the luxury of dictating the game that late) if you don't want to lose. I think the corruptor is a great example of a unit that exhibits that Zerg helplessness - gets rekt by some units, but you have to build them against colossi and mech because even though you'd usually rather have mutas, mutas die too fast, but even in the situations where you need them you're never that happy that you have to have them in your army.

/awful diamond league rambling, hoping someone can tell me why this is all wrong and improve my understanding of the game

Theoretically, you could just reverse all that, right? Instead of letting T/P dictate the game (and therefore your responses), you could just take control for yourself and force them to respond to you.

I had this giant wall of text about how production mechanic differences cause that, but really it just boils down to what I've always done personally, which is play for the superior midgame because that's where Zerg's strength really lies. Just don't even bother with garbage end-game scenarios where you're fighting tooth and nail just for an even position.

But like I said, against Protoss for example, taking control for myself and forcing them to respond to me takes shape in...what form, exactly? What composition can I put together, besides something swarm host-based (which guarantees late-game), that they can't hard counter? How can I dictate anything without taking a large enough lead beforehand to keep them on the defensive (which means I should be winning the game anyway)?

Usually the form of being aggressive. I think it'd be more helpful if I could see some replays of your typical games. Keep in mind I'm basically ignorant of the last 6 months of ZvP development, but seeing your games will also help me remedy that as well.

Edit: I should add that I do think it's possible to gain some advantages playing defensively. Successfully defending against your opponent's attacks should generate a lead for you. It's just my opinion that leads like that tend to be much less meaningful. Mostly because I think leads for Zerg tend to decay fairly quickly, so getting that lead from a defensive posture leaves you much less opportunity to exploit that edge before it vanishes.

I don't think this is true. I'm a plat newb, so I could obviously be completely wrong, but in ZVT zerg has no option but to scout and react to whatever T is doing. Any muta/ling composition will get destroyed by mech, whereas mech can handle both muta/ling and SH builds. Similarly if you go SH vs bio, they can just drop on you all day and take over the map.

I think the only build independent aggression Z can do is an early roach timing or something akin to that, but that still doesn't address the fact that any build with the intention of going into mid-late game is entirely dictated by whether Terran goes mech or bio.

In a game that was terribly played by both sides, I banked up so much in a ZvP vs someone who was on a pretty boring composition of stalker-sentry-colossus with like 3 archons that I did a 58 muta switch after losing my ground army (with enough gas for 11 more after I started losing some). Needless to say, the game didn't last much longer after that.

Yep, that's what it comes down to, IMO. I feel like Zerg should never have that unbeatable death army due to the fact that theyre able to lose an entire army and repopulate >100 psi of units significantly faster than the other races. I think that as long as you trade well in big fights, you should be able to muster up another army in time to trade again and eventually whittle down the opponents army to the point where it's no longer a threat. Take the game where you just made 60 mutas, lol. I bet the other races wish they could do that (without making 60 starports, robo's, etc.)

The thing that sucks is when no amount of armies zerg can make will ever trade well enough vs certain compositions... I've felt the hopelessness in late game zvp and zvmech scenarios, and it blows.

That was the basic idea, yeah. It makes sense for Terran/Protoss to play for these finely-tuned, near-invincible armies because of how linear their production is. Conversely, it doesn't make sense at all for Zerg to play that way when you can make your entire army in only a couple minutes, and doubly so when your units are just generally weaker one-to-one because of that.

However, because of your bursty production as Zerg, you can do OK playing the catch-up role (because you can react quickly enough to your opponent's comp). But it's not really the optimal use of the mechanic IMO. That's why I just don't even bother with the late-game. What's the point of trying to skip the stage where I'm stronger (the midgame) just to get to the point where my opponent is stronger (the lategame)?

In WoL zerg had a superior late game as well, even now with enough static defense and the correct composition zerg can still have the superior late game due to economic efficiency.

Cliffs: goofyballer is a deeply closeted Protoss player in a loveless marriage with Zerg

^ That may well be true and is what bsball has said before, but mother of god is Protoss just an awful race to play and not fun (sorry eifer/GGI)

It would definitely be a solid change vs Protoss. I worry that it may actually be too good of a change vs Terran- while viking/raven beats mass corruptor en masse, I don't think it's nearly as unfair as void rays vs corruptors; plus the infestor is a significantly better unit vs a terran air deathball than vs a protoss deathball (mostly because of the colossus and the high templar).

Corruption should have a lockdown/interrupt effect and a mana cost.

protoss players are so bad at base trading that it's almost comical. at least terrans understand that you're gonna lose if the game becomes "kill the hatcheries while chasing mutas around the map"

also, is it time for an updated power rankings? here's mine just for ****s:

Terran:
Maru
Polt
Bbyong
Taeja
Innovation

Protoss:
Zest
Rain
Parting
cj hero
MC

Zerg:
Soo
Soulkey
Hyun
Life
????????????????????????? Tempted to actually put snute here. Probably solar though

Has Snute done anything awesome recently that suggests he's at the level of even average Korean zergs?

Well he won Seatstory, and a TakeTV invitational tournament, he also just qualified for IEM beating Yoda, Jjakji, MC and First in a row.

He has beaten HyuN so much recently. That's not to say I think he should be ahead of the korean zergs in Korea necessarily, but if HyuN's there, he should arguably be ahead of him.

hyun definitely deserves to be there

he was always an elite zerg and his recent results have shown consistency (winning WCS america through taeja, winning several other online cups)

who else are you putting there over these guys? roro? true?

Yeah, both of those and Jaedong deserves a mention too despite his LOL WCS performances. He won Lone Star Clash after all.

ByuL and Solar are pretty sick too.

zerg already has the only "stun" already, i dont think they need another. if it costs mana and not just time wouldnt it be too easy to spam >2x as many as you normally could, then be way too powerful?

Zerg has a stun?

I think corruption is fine. I love manner corrupting everything on the ground because I made too many corruptors. Corruption isn't what makes corruptors suck dick. For the cost they're extremely ****ty units, even factoring in corruption's utility. I could justify the cost in WOL because they turned into win lords... But clearly brood lords are almost never made in HOTS for obvious reasons.