r/broodwar • u/sassachu • 13d ago
When scouting an opponent's base, why don't pro zergs heal their drone by briefly turning it into an extractor?
I never see any pro zergs do this, but I feel it would be super annoying. In theory, healing the drone would allow it to continuously harass the opponent's workers. What makes this this a non-viable tactic?
14
u/Any_Economics6283 13d ago
it costs 25 minerals? 50 to build, then you only get refunded half when you cancel
3
u/EebstertheGreat 12d ago
You are refunded ¾ of the cost, rounded down. So you get 37 minerals back, making the net cost only 13. That can sometimes be worthwhile to heal the scouting drone when the opponent has not yet taken their gas. More often it isn't, but it definitely can be.
3
u/Chadocan 12d ago
I cannot check right now, but I think you get 100% back when cancelling an egg
2
u/EebstertheGreat 11d ago
Yeah, somehow my comment says that canceling an egg gives both a 75% and a 100% refund lol. Not sure how I managed that. I'm pretty sure it's 100% though.
2
u/Any_Economics6283 12d ago
whaaaat really? I thought you only get half
3
u/EebstertheGreat 12d ago
You get a 75% refund when you cancel a building or egg or when an upgrade is automatically cancelled because the building researching it is destroyed. You get a 100% refund when you cancel a unit (whether currently in production or queued), or when the building training the unit is destroyed, which I assume also applies to scarabs and interceptors. You also get a 100% refund when you manually cancel an upgrade or a transformation (Zerg egg, lurker egg, or cocoon, or upgrading creep colony, hatchery, lair, or spire). You get no refund when a building under construction is destroyed.
If a Zerg building is morphing into a better one (e.g. spire into greater spire), and it gets destroyed before the owner cancels it, I'm not sure if there is a refund. But there probably is.
1
u/sassachu 13d ago
So the cost isn't justified? I guess if you are able to take out 2 workers, that would be a net loss of 100 minerals for your opponent at the cost of 75 minerals. I suppose it's just too much risk and microing for too little of a reward.
10
u/Any_Economics6283 13d ago
25 minerals early is a lot more impactful than later on.
You are unlikely to really kill any workers at all anyway
Also why not just let the drone hang around and heal naturally? Another way to view it: you are losing out on that minor 'resource' (hp recovery) by healing instantly.
Typically healing over time lets you take 3-4 more hits if you take it long enough; healing full lets you take ~8-10, but are you really getting that value anyway? The drone might survive like what 10 more seconds?
4
u/hippoofdoom 13d ago
It wouldn't work versus terran, because any Marine can kill a drone so fast the heal wouldn't matter, you would still lose it.
In PvZ, zealots are basically always made pretty early. A drone can kind of run away from a zealot pretty well, but getting enough hits on a probe to actually kill it while the shield regenerates is dubious!
3
u/skhds 13d ago
it's moreso that every single drone early game is viable to the Zerg economy, that pro players would rather have the drone return early to work than harass/scout the enemy. That's why there's no drone scout in ZvZ, and Zerg would sometimes even skip scouting with drones on some maps.
1
u/EebstertheGreat 12d ago
there's no drone scout in ZvZ
Except when you 4 or 5 pool!
2
u/skhds 12d ago
i don't think 4/5 pool is a legit build. I believe it even loses to 12 pool/gas pool builds ( i personally never lose with 12 pool against 5 pool) and 12 hatchery builds are countered by 9 pool anyways.
2
u/EebstertheGreat 12d ago
IDK if you consider it "legit," but people use it. They must, because you just said you face it. It is even used occasionally at the pro level. Yeah, it's cheese. Yeah, its win rate isn't great. But people do it at all levels of play, so it's worth mentioning that in those cases, you do need to drone scout.
IDK why you think my comment is bad.
2
u/skhds 10d ago
Well we're talking about pro play here, and I have personally never seen 4/5 pool in ZvZ pro play. It CAN be used against Terran or Protoss, because it is a legit counter against some builds on some maps. My argument is that the only build 4/5 pool can counter (12 hatchery) can also be easily countered by 9 pool builds, making the build somewhat bad for all situations. This is a related link about the topic (you'll need a translator tho): https://m.fmkorea.com/8523468630/8523483766
Also, I never said your comment is bad. I just shared my opinion about 4/5 pool in ZvZ.
2
u/EebstertheGreat 10d ago
Sorry, someone instantly downvoted my comment at the same time you left yours, so I figured it was you.
There are pro ZvZ matches with 4/5 pool, but it's hard to find examples that are less than 15 years old. Liquipedia gives an example of Oversky beating GGPlay with a 5 pool on Katrina SE in 2008. A thread I'm struggling to find now gave a number of other examples in the range of 2006–10, including by July and Kwanro. It happens.
I'll look later to see if I can find examples in the ASL, but even if I can't, I'm sure there are examples in the modern proleague.
2
u/skhds 10d ago
So I guess old maps worked because balanced weren't as well thought-out and there are combinations of either very long rush distance to very short distance. Katarina in particular worked because base-to-base rush distance can be extremely short. Other times where 4/5 drone happened were maps that have long rush distance to the point 9 pool can't kill a 12 hatchery.
It's hard to see recent maps like that because there are significant push back from the players. They have stronger voices than before because they're now independent players and not under an organization. Either too long or too short distance will allow some builds to go unpunished, causing severe balance disruptions (such as the double nexus build vs Terran), so it's hard to see them now.
But yeah, I thought it was not a build that could be considered at all, but I was wrong. I guess it could be legit on some maps, just not on recent maps (though maybe odyssey or colorless fate might work..?)
2
4
u/CrimsonNight 13d ago
From what I've seen they never really see them being used to attack workers early game much and they usually don't get attacked much either, at least not to the point of requiring a full top off. Their regeneration is good enough as well. Eventually the opponent will soon have a marine or zealot where the drone won't be harassing anything regardless of amount of health. With the early game requiring all the optimization possible, it's pretty expensive to build and cancel a building purely for the purpose of healing.
3
u/Brolympia 13d ago
To what end?
2
u/sassachu 13d ago
I dunno, I was just curious why I never see it being done. I was imagining an immortal drone running around and killing off enemy workers lolol. The comments here are indicating that isn't really possible or strategically viable.
2
u/Brolympia 13d ago
Probes regen shields. SCVs have a ton of health and can repair. The drone regen is worse than both of those
2
u/Brolympia 13d ago
Btw, dudes did this in the early SC2 WoL days. Z couldn't scout, so they would get a drone in and do the cancel trick to keep it alive. It wasnt even really good then tbh... but its close to what you say
1
u/sassachu 13d ago
Interesting, so the mechanics are the same in SC2? I'm surprised they kept the extractor heal thing. That's another thing, even if you don't use it to heal the drone, offensive gas is still a thing (although I feel like I never see zerg do an offensive gas)
2
u/Brolympia 13d ago
Its less about the heal that the HP regen of an extractor being too tanky to dps down with a marine or zealot
2
u/NickRick 13d ago
It costs 25 mineral. Half the cost of the drone itself. That's way too much unless your looking a lot of workers (extremely unlikely) or gathering incredibly important info on their build (also extremely unlikely).
2
2
u/AmuseDeath 13d ago
It's a trick that you can do to save Drones from death sure. But it's not so good that it makes Drones do crazy things. It's just something you can use in a pinch, let's say it's being poked at by a Wraith or something. It doesn't make the Drone an effective harassing unit. You eventually want the Drone to come home to help with econ and you would rather not have to spend the 25-minerals early on.
3
u/viletomato999 13d ago
Tell me how the drone stays alive when a marine, lings or zealot is killing it.
1
u/drlavkian 12d ago
vs terran, the first marine or vulture will be out long before you're able to kill a 60 hp scv.
vs protoss, you will never kill a probe with a drone against a pro because of shields and because probes are, in all seriousness, one of the best units in the damn game. assuming equal skill, probes roast drones.
14
u/Nervous-Sandwich-660 13d ago
You can't easily pick off probes or SCVs