Behold the Power of Cracklings

[AmericanPsych0]

I played my friend on Big Game Hunters. I was Zerg, and he was Protoss. He was hyper at the time, and decided to go mass cannons. I found this out, and decided to amass some Cracklings and see how well they worked. So, I did. I attacked his first base (he expanded nearly everywhere I wasn't) and totally wiped him out. I lost maybe thirty Cracklingsa. I attacked his second third, and maybe even his fourth bases and owned him, although I always rebult, just didn't send them to fight him. Then I brought in all three-hundred of my new and old Cracklings to finish him off. It was amazing. I can't upload the replay, though.

 

[KerriganForever]

Cracklings = Zerglings?

 

[AmericanPsych0]

Cracklings = Fully upgraded Zerglings (to be precise).

[Note] They're called Cracklings because those Adrenaline Glands make them attack so f*cking fast...

 

[SkuZZy]

With just adrenaline glands, they wouldn't have been able to stand up to cannons. They would need upgraded armor/weapons, then maybe. I still find it a bit hard to beleive that you could go through that many cannons with cracklings... maybe im misunderstanding exactly how many cannons he had though.

 

[Ryu]

The term "Cracklings" refer to zerglings with both run and attack speed upgrade, not necessarily armor and attack damage upgrade. Though by the time zerg upgrades both speed, they would normally have 1-1 for zerglings ready.

Going cracklings is a common build used against protoss, since they are arguably the most feared unit to a toss player. Cannons are utterly useless against them, it may seem hard to believe if you haven't seen it for yourself, but once the group of cracklings reaches cannons, it takes less then 3 seconds to kill a cannon. That gives the cannon only a chance to fire 1 shot off before it's gone, and it takes 2 cannon blasts per zergling.

Consider 10 cannons. First cannon get 2 shots off, second get 3 shots, third gets 4, and so on...

Doing the math, 10 cannons would get a total of 65 shots off before they're destroyed.

65/2 = 32.5

So they'll kill 32 cracklings (by figures, but realisticly they'll kill less cracklings, I estimate about 15). So that's 800 minerals cost for zerglings, where as the 10 cannons cost 1500 minerals.

The only real counter toss has against cracklings are zealot/archon combo. Possibly reaver, though a good zerg would flank and target them and kill reavers off fast.

Zealots/Archons > Cracklings/Ultras

 

[SkuZZy]

Originally posted by Ryu
The term "Cracklings" refer to zerglings with both run and attack speed upgrade, not necessarily armor and attack damage upgrade. Though by the time zerg upgrades both speed, they would normally have 1-1 for zerglings ready.

Going cracklings is a common build used against protoss, since they are arguably the most feared unit to a toss player. Cannons are utterly useless against them, it may seem hard to believe if you haven't seen it for yourself, but once the group of cracklings reaches cannons, it takes less then 3 seconds to kill a cannon. That gives the cannon only a chance to fire 1 shot off before it's gone, and it takes 2 cannon blasts per zergling.

Consider 10 cannons. First cannon get 2 shots off, second get 3 shots, third gets 4, and so on...

Doing the math, 10 cannons would get a total of 65 shots off before they're destroyed.

65/2 = 32.5

So they'll kill 32 cracklings (by figures, but realisticly they'll kill less cracklings, I estimate about 15). So that's 800 minerals cost for zerglings, where as the 10 cannons cost 1500 minerals.

The only real counter toss has against cracklings are zealot/archon combo. Possibly reaver, though a good zerg would flank and target them and kill reavers off fast.

Zealots/Archons > Cracklings/Ultras

Good description, but some of your info is false. You say "Once the zerglings reach the cannons". Well, many times they wont even get there. If you have 15 cannons spread out into 3 rows (5 per row)... it would take a VERY LARGE amount of cracklings to take them down. Especially if you had 10 zealots infront of the cannons to take the beating. Besides, 32+ cracklings would take a long time to get and the opponent would have far more than 10 cannons. Your argument is flawed. Ok sure, 32 zerglings would beable to beat 10 cannons, whoopidy doo. That will hardly never happen in a real game though.

 

[AmericanPsych0]

Originally posted by SkuZZy


Well, many times they wont even get there. If you have 15 cannons spread out into 3 rows (5 per row)... it would take a VERY LARGE amount of cracklings to take them down.

Not really.

Originally posted by SkuZZy
Especially if you had 10 zealots infront of the cannons to take the beating.

Obviously. Zealots are a Cracklings enemy (even though the Zealots would still be overrun).

Originally posted by SkuZZy
Besides, 32+ cracklings would take a long time to get

Not really.

 

[Ryu]

If a Protoss is hiding in his base with 15 cannons, he should just say gg to the zerg and quit. =)

My example wasn't meant to be implied in a real game situation, but to show you the distinct cost effetiveness of the two forces if they clash. Starcraft is really a game of resource management and cost effective attacks. You also forget that usually the first few cannons would all shoot at the 1 leading zergling, and that's all the time the other zerglings need to reach the cannons, don't forget cracklings run fast.

However, about 4-5 archons can take on an almost infinite numbers of cracklings if they're running in a line. Zerg need to flank archons with cracklings to take them out.

 

[KerriganForever]

In a real game situation there would be more than just Cracklings coming your way!!!

Cracklings combined with Gardians is an unstoppable force!!!

Say goodbye to Cannons and Archons!!!

 

[SkuZZy]

Originally posted by KerriganForever
Cracklings combined with Gardians is an unstoppable force!!!

What about air?

 

[SkuZZy]

Originally posted by AmericanPsych0


Not really.



Obviously. Zealots are a Cracklings enemy (even though the Zealots would still be overrun).



Not really.

Not really. Your points make no sense. And yeah, zealots are a cracklings enemy, but cracklings are a cannons enemy. So if you're gonna put zerglings against cannons, why can't I put zealots against zerglings? 32 cracklings vs 10 cannons sounds great, but it wouldn't happen in the game... and cracklings do take a long time to get. You need to upgrade two things + armor/melee if you want them to stand a chance against cannons. By the time you did all that, a protoss would have way more than 10 cannons and lots of zealots or dragoons or even carriers. Maybe in some kiddie game with you and your friend cracklings would win, but in real games you'll need more than cracklings to beat a toss.

 

[Woralf]

As Kerri said, Gaurdians and Cracklings are unstoppable, especially with a few Scourge(ok, quite a few) for backup. Anyway, i'm a fulltime zerg player, and i have quite a few good strats up my sleeve.However, most of you could probably beat me if i wasn't playing zerg.

 

[Aris]

im with skuzzy on this.. this strat wouldnt work much

zerg/guardians are owned royally by 4 presets of scouts.

granted zerg has scourge. but if you dont specify each scourge toa specific target ive found that the computer will usually spend about 3 times the amount of scourge needed to kill a scout cause they all hit it at the same time.

you would need A SHIT LOAD of scourge to take out 48 scouts alone.. over 100. thats alot of food supply devoted to just air defense.


now mabey a nice mix of 2/3 devs/guardians and cracklings would work.

 

[SmashBros.Pro]

Crackling/Guard combo isn't all that great in my eyes...
You have no air coverage and that put you in a tight spot.

If you made Guard/Crackling I could easily counter with 1 Sunken and 10 Lurkers. The reason for that is the sunken will distract Lings while Lurks eat them alive and to take care of the Guards a Defiler and Hydras, dont use DarkSwarm in that situation though. Stash your hydras away from the point the enemy is attacking and plague them, wait til hey get low in life and attack.

This wont work all the time because some people just leave the Defiler out of their strategy and the reason i posted this is because ive been in that situation and sure enough that combo worked, but I had the units I needed already.

 

[LiHaHia]

Ryu, do u know that massive Dragoons could own the cracklings as well at the end???

That sounds very impossible but it did happen to me

A guy acually used massive goons killed wiped my Cracklings at the end of the game...

 

[Gangsta_Thug]

LOL!

anywayif its broodwar if u got guards cracklings and those othert things dat u can upgrade from mutas dat only attack air .

now dat combo is unstopable!

 

[SkuZZy]

Originally posted by LiHaHia
Ryu, do u know that massive Dragoons could own the cracklings as well at the end???

That sounds very impossible but it did happen to me

A guy acually used massive goons killed wiped my Cracklings at the end of the game...

He must have had a shit load of fully upgraded dragoons... even so, you still shoulda won. Maybe if your crackings weren't fully upgraded, then you wouldn't have (cause you only would have been doing 2 damage to him). 24 fully upgraded crackings would probably lose against 24 fully upgraded dragoons, but that scenario shouldn't happen, since you should have 3 times as many crackings as he has dragoons. How many dragoons did he have? Against how many cracklings ???

 

[SiC_OnE]

yea...uh, u guys are sayin lvl 1 upgrades by the time u have both upgrades for lings? if u are, then maybe try usin more that ONE evo chamber, also dragoons vs lings= 4 lings for 100 minerals, 1 dragoon for 125 plus 50 gas, and the 4 lings WILL win that with upgrades, or in the beggining if they only have movement speed they can still win it ez. also, if the goon(s) don't have range and don't target each ling, after a ling is shot it can run, then come back into the fight(micro), so goons have no chance against them, cannons are also easy to kill with lings, u at least need movement and level 1 upgrades, they're like paper.

 

[SkuZZy]

Originally posted by SiC_OnE
yea...uh, u guys are sayin lvl 1 upgrades by the time u have both upgrades for lings? if u are, then maybe try usin more that ONE evo chamber, also dragoons vs lings= 4 lings for 100 minerals, 1 dragoon for 125 plus 50 gas, and the 4 lings WILL win that with upgrades, or in the beggining if they only have movement speed they can still win it ez. also, if the goon(s) don't have range and don't target each ling, after a ling is shot it can run, then come back into the fight(micro), so goons have no chance against them, cannons are also easy to kill with lings, u at least need movement and level 1 upgrades, they're like paper.

There is a limit to how many cannons lings can chew thru. For instance, 20 cracklings might be able to chew through 7 cannons... but 50 cracklings probably wouldn't beable to chew through 20 cannons. That's just my opinion, i'd have to try it out for myself. The thing I mentioned about though, is most of the time, people won't just have cannons. 2 zealots infront of 10 cannons can stop a huge amount of zerglings, unless the lings focus attack on the cannons and run past the zealots...

 

[shrimpshark]

hmm

It madders haw many cannons thay have attacking them