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Steamhammer-Bereaver game with defiler

The game Steamhammer-Bereaver is a good example of Steamhammer’s defiler skills, both the good and bad points. Steamhammer gained an early advantage and contained Bereaver to its main, so the outcome of the game was not in doubt, hive tech or not. Bereaver mounted a strong defense at its ramp and held on for a long time. A timid zerg might have feared to attack and lost on points when the game time ran out—but of course Steamhammer is not timid.

The defiler dithered for a long time. Consume research finished at about 15:45 into the game, and the defiler filled up on energy within 15 seconds after, so that part was OK. A first attempt to break up the ramp was repelled with storm; the defiler was too far back and unable to help, due to lacking squad coordination. The second attempt to break up the ramp was at 18:20, and this time the defiler was in range. That’s about 2 and a half minutes from when the defiler was ready to act until it finally did; it had plenty of time in between to swarm or plague. It would have been worth it to sacrifice the defiler to plague the defenders.

swarm on the ramp

Excellent swarm placement! The defiler had energy to cast a second swarm farther into the enemy base, but did not. Even so, the one swarm nullified the dragoons and cannons and ensured that the attack would succeed if pressed. Thanks to my modifications, FAP understood that it would succeed and Steamhammer did press until it broke through. The attack had to be under way before the defiler could support it; Steamhammer has no ability to swarm (or plan to swarm) in advance of an attack. Steamhammer attacks when maxed, so in most winning games an eventual attack is guaranteed. When the swarm does come, it is generally well-positioned for where the units are at the moment, rather than where they are going or where they want to be.

The defiler seemed to get confused and did not contribute again until the very end, when it laid down a perfectly-placed plague over a few protoss buildings that were about to be destroyed anyway. The laser-precise plague hit as many protoss buildings as possible while missing zerg units. It’s impressive in a way, and it may even have shortened the game... by a fraction of a second.

Still next: Base defense.

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Dilyan on :

As the bots have infinity Apm, don't you want a defiler to cast plague constantly on 2 or more enemy units, except friendly units ofcourse. Basically defilers can have infinity energy if surrounded by lings which are cheap and always around.

Jay Scott on :

You can think of plague as costing 75 minerals plus risk to the defiler plus the short time it takes to consume, minus the energy the defiler recovers on its own. Risk to the defiler might be the expensive part, since it costs 150 gas and moves slowly. Weigh that against the deep but not instant drain on enemy hit points, whose value depends on the units you hit and the tactical situation. Steamhammer’s threshold is 200 hit points drained (after adjustments), which I think is probably too high in principle, but good enough in practice because Steamhammer is not that quick at consuming.

What threshold would you pick?

Dilyan on :

In my view, casting plague, or multiple plagues, good ones, on multiple enemy units will exceed multiple times the cost of creating defilers, upgrade and ling cost. Enemy units will die much faster, but they will reproduce much much slower than zerg units, basically costing the whole game. Because of that the risk taken by doing this and casting unsuccessful plagues is really not big in long term at late game, where zerg has 4 or more bases enough gaz and hatcheries and minerals. I have not done the math, just speaking by game experience. Its very very apm and time consuming for even pro human player, but that's the benefit of a bot with his infinity Apm.

Jay Scott on :

For reference, 200 hp corresponds to 2 full health zealots or 5 marines.

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