I want SEN members, especially melee players to rank all zerg units from least powerful/useful to most powerful/useful. In other words make a list of the 11 buildable units weakest to strongest by your opinion.

Example:
1 Overlord
2 drone
3 zergling
4 hydralisk
5 lurker
6 scourge
7 mutalisk
8 devourer/guardian
9 defiler
10 queen
11 ultralisk

I know a bad example but it should get you started and yes devourer/guardian must be counted as one as it's 1 step after mutalisk and yes this is UMS assistance. I might be actually making a map again.

1. Drone
   
2. Overlord
   
3. Zergling (unupgraded)
   
4. Queen
   
5. Scourge
   
6. Defiler
   
7. Mutalisk
   
8. Lurker
   
9. Hydralisk
   
10. Ultralisk
    
11. Devourer/Guardian
    
12. Zergling (upgraded)

Impossible. Every unit is useful in their own way.

These would be two separate lists. Drones and Overlords are the most useful units in a game, but they are by no means powerful.

Unless you're referring to "useful" in terms of combat. In that case, I would mostly agree with poison's list (Overlords > Drones because of detection, and I would put upgraded Zergling further down).

This was hard.

1. Drone (just by default)
2. Overlord
3. Scourage
4. Queen
5. Zergling
6. Hydralisk
7. Guardian / Devourer
8. Mutalisk
9. Lurker
10. Ultralisk
11. Defiler

Quote from Roy

Unless you're referring to "useful" in terms of combat. In that case, I would mostly agree with poison's list (Overlords > Drones because of detection, and I would put upgraded Zergling further down).

I was thinking somewhat in terms of regular melee...I know that the spellcasting units are better than they're ranked, but they're so situational...for example, I beat someone 6 archons vs 12 guardians + 2 defilers because he forgot that plague is useless against shield...And he didn't micro.

Honestly, I don't see why scourges are so low and defilers so high on Vrael's.

Are these with default stats? What about upgrades? What about spell upgrade? Is it for single individual units, or groups, or masses? Zerglings and Devourers are much stronger when grouped/massed, for example. What about the terrain, does it favour flying units?

Defiler is strong if it has plague because it can do 250 damage to a group of enemies, of course it takes time so if it can burrow and not be detected, then it's very powerful if you also have some means of doing the killing blow.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 3 2011, 6:26 am by Lanthanide.

This is from a Terran's perspective:

9. Mutalisk
8. Defiler
7. Lurker
6. Zergling
5. Ultralisk
4. Guardian (Devourers are probably the most useless unit in the entire game, so just Guardian.
3. Scourge
2. Queen
1. Hydralisk


I'm not ranking Overlords or Drones, that's just dumb.

queen's #2 and defiler's #8?

Nice nice. Ok a few more adaptations. Usefulness against all 3 races. With upgrades available. Basic stats. Basic melee situations and extraordinary UMS situations. Individual and groups.

And map specific changes to original question. Lurker merged with hydralisk. Scourge with mutalisk. Guardian must be after mutalisk, because there is no way in my map to have it before mutalisk. Drone merged with overlord and must be #1. Zergling upgrades will be available in late game just like in melee game.

New example list.
1 Overlord/drone
2 zergling
3 hydralisk/lurker
4 scourge/mutalisk
5 devourer/guardian
6 defiler
7 queen
8 ultralisk

Please rank these by your opinion. Thank you!

Defiler is the strongest zerg unit period, unless you don't research anything for it in which case its worse than a drone. Plague/Swarm > Guardian. Plague/Swarm > Battlecruiser. Plague/Swarm > Carrier. In ZvT the terran is usually forced to back the fuck up and try to kill the defilers. In ZvZ swarm gives you invulnerability from air, + 1 plague can wreck an entire air group. In ZvP the swarm gives you a huge ground advantage again, as long as you have some lurks. Of course there are situations where you'd rather have something besides defilers, but overall I'd say defilers are undoubtedly the most powerful unit. I ranked scourages so low because their use is very situational. Like, its really hard to fight 12 carrier or 12 battlecruiser or anything really with straight up scourage, but if you mix a few scourage in with a group of mutalisks it makes the muta's attack a lot stronger since the scourage dont get raped before they get to their target.

this is only my opinion on basic melee stats with basic melee strategy in a simple fight. Drones/Overlords can't be included because they are useless in fights.

1 queen - rarely used effectively. Ensnare is nice but requires too much effort to use properly
2 scourge/mutalisk - requires a lot of micro to use effectively and the damage is low on mutas, limited to 11 or 22 at a time.
3 devourer/guardian - zerg air sucks. I'd put these below mutas if I could
4 ultralisk - soak up damage and that's about it
5 defilers - if they're used at all they will negate practically all terran and protoss attacks, and they have a virtually unlimited supply of energy
6 zergling - wooo damage. Always worthwhile
7 hydralisk/lurker - you need anti-air, and zerglings/ultralisks/guardians can't hit it, so your only option is scourge/muta/dev/hydra.

@Vrael
defiler's best spell is dark swarm which they have by default. However without consume defilers are extremely limited.

To Vrael rerank please according to new set of rules. Thank you for your input and description. I really appreciate it. :rolleyes:

EDIT:
Well drone has an attack so it counts.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 3 2011, 9:09 pm by NudeRaider. Reason: merged posts

I love how people ALWAYS ignore the "useless" detectors. Makes me giggle.

Those are all vastly unrealistic scenarios in anything but an NR15 game with complete newbs. I'm going to assume that's not what the OP is talking about. And it's scourge.

Yes, the Defiler is Zerg's only hope of winning lategame ZvT. Dark Swarm forces Tank usage and can decimate an army with a proper Zergling surround. It comes up just in time to help prevent Terran's standard Marine/3 Tank/1 Vessel timing push on Zerg's third base. Plague on Vessels/Bio is strong, and consume is ridiculous.

Queens are useless in pretty much anything except as a surprise to take out a tank line or ensnare a bioball. And it has no Consume and has to research both of those spells, so it's out of the game for a while. Just not worth it, really.

Again, all from a TvZ perspective. My experience with the other races is meh.

you ranked things completely backwards and against the rules so I was confused. I thought queens and hydralisks were the most powerful things on your list. However, I don't see how you think that hydras are the least useful unit when hyds dominate air and lurkers are a severe danger to terran infantry. Then again, mutas when used well are obviously much higher on the list, but I can't put them there because devs and guards suck so much.

Nobody cares that much about observers, dark templars are dangerous, you can run away from lurkers, hardly anyone uses wraiths, nobody uses ghosts, nobody uses arbiters. They're not useless, but in battle, they are not microed ever, and are simply THERE to be there. We have to put something at #1. Overlords are quite possibly the worst detector as a base unit too. As a transport/detector/supply combo they're excellent, though.

I numbered correctly.

Hydras are useless because Terran doesn't go air. Lurkers are a different unit and are ranked thus.

Mutalisks are also not Guardians or Devourers.

You put mutalisks more useful than guardians or devs and you ranked from most useful to least useful, which is confusing.

He did it before I posted the new rules and It's not that confusing. Any input is appreciated.

I read the second part wrong the first time.