If I said I struggled with ZvP / ZvT for a long time, it would be an understatement. The fact is I kept getting raped by the deathballs and even though I had my rate around 40-50%, it was either due extremely well executed early pressure which gave me enough advantage to win later or if the other guy just sucked.
Until.
It took me awfully long to fully explore the Zerg Tier3. And in there, the greatest marvels of all lied - The Ultralisk. A magnificent beast, beautiful in its relentlesness and ferocity. The most brutal creation of the Swarm, Ultralisks are meant to tear apart any signs of resistance against the will of the Overmind / the Queen of Blades.
Allright, I'll cut the crap.
ZvT I can't express how much I hate Siege Tanks. When they reach some critical numbers and with proper cover of Marines, it's very, very hard to brake a siege line, regardless of if it's sitting at his or your doorstep. Unless of course, you get Broodlords - or Ultralisks.
I was pretty much unable to cope with the fact that regardless of whether I tried to drop my army on top of the Tanks, split it, attack from a gazillion of different directions or put an Infested Terran egg next to each Tank out there, I still got raped. Not anymore, because 6 of these babies tanking damage both from Tanks and/or Thors will give your other units (quite possibly Zerglings+Banelings, maybe Roaches) more than enough time to take care of the entire Terran army.
You should also invest in 4-5 additional Queens because once the engagement is over and your Ultras are in red health, Transfuse saves the day and you can continue to take out that Planetary Fortress or just wipe out your opponent's main. Needless to say, the upgrades play a pivotal role in the success of the deployment of these beasts on the battlefield, because the Ultra with full upgrades... is just nice.
Anyhow, obviously you have to survive up to the point where you can make the Ultralisk Cavern (and also don't forget to research the additional armor for Ultras because it can mean the difference between Marines dealing damage or just tickling) and it might even require some gas-heavy investment limke Infestors or Mutalisks - it might be a good idea to try to sneak an extra Hatchery somewhere and mine only Gas from it.
I believe Ultras are the ultimate answer to any deathball your opponents can throw at you, and they counter them in a very pleasing manner. But how does it look against the Sons of Aiur?
ZvP So obviously PvZ is a lot about Collossi whereas ZvP is about how to deal with those damned bastards. Corruptors can work but leave a lot of dead weight in your supply, Infestors are hard to manage and die easily, Baneling drops won't work against proper micro... so yeah, Ultralisks.
You can't rely on them alone and it still applies that with a head on clash, the Protoss army will most probably survive - but your second wave should be demolishing. With proper surround and just amateur micro by sending Ultras ahead and the rest of your army from the other direction / just behind them works wonders.
Of course, there are complications. First off, my experience doesn't recommend relying on Ultraling alone, even though it seems to be the logical choice - a few Hydras in the mix do wonders (or Roaches, depends on the situation). It is pivotal, more than ever, to keep hitting your upgrades very soon, especially if you'll need both missile and melee tiers. Again, having a few Queens along it always a good idea - but that also means you have to have Creep everywhere, a lot of players neglect its spreading.
Ultralisk is a unit that won't immediately melt against Collossi and even though Immortals might prove problematic, that's what the Hydras are for. I know it's a lot of theory and I promise I'll supply more detailed replays in the future, but right now I'm just freaking tired after organizing a tourney so we'll talk next time.
I definitely prefer Ultras because they're faster. It might be good to have 1-2 Brood Lords for "area control" purposes, but I've really had only little success with deploying them on a large scale.
If you lose Brood Lords, you're usually in trouble; if you lose Ultras, that doesn't matter that much because you were expecting to do so anyways.
I need to start using ultras more, I just dislike the immobility of ultras AND broods tbh when dealing with terrans who mass drop end-game... (especially if you've just lost your mutas to marine/thors -_-)
ive been having some sever problems with toss lately, and if i go brood lord, they either die before they finish, or just get blunk under and get taken out, so im thinking infestor/ultralisk vs a stalker heavy composition would be better than broods. will have to to test. but i really would like to fins a use for these bad boys, its just infuriating seeing some marines split and take out ultras with ease. a tier 1 unit should not be able to kill a fully upgraded ultra, but, i digress, with fungels, things work well, as long as you have the foresight to keep infestors alive/keep making them if they die. anyways thanks for the little eye opener.
Ultras are stupid good against marine tank and any sort of normal protoss composition. It's when they're able to get out counters that it becomes difficult.
I cant believe I read that...lol. Ultras are probably the worst Tier 3 unit in the game. If you win using ultras you were probably way ahead, or...your opponent went mass stalkers. They get countered by close to everything and they are way to big. Brood lords are way better then ultralisk are they are definitely the unit you went to use. The only way I see ultras being usefull is for fast techswitches between broodlords and ultras. They went a lot of vikings? okay let me go to ultras. But then against, Id suggest trying to kill the vikings before doing that because ultras are really bad against marines and marauders. And they are half decent against Thors. GL with broodlords.
On October 28 2011 08:11 Samp wrote: I cant believe I read that...lol. Ultras are probably the worst Tier 3 unit in the game. If you win using ultras you were probably way ahead, or...your opponent went mass stalkers. They get countered by close to everything and they are way to big. Brood lords are way better then ultralisk are they are definitely the unit you went to use. The only way I see ultras being usefull is for fast techswitches between broodlords and ultras. They went a lot of vikings? okay let me go to ultras. But then against, Id suggest trying to kill the vikings before doing that because ultras are really bad against marines and marauders. And they are half decent against Thors. GL with broodlords.
While I agree that ultras suck in ZvP, they are good in ZvT as long as you don't make more then 5-6 at a time. you save a lot of gas that would go into corrupters and broodlords and can mass up banelings. Fully upgraded ultras also tank an absurd amount of damage, and should be used as such. If you want to see for yourself,watch Stephano or Dimaga's lategame ZvT for example, they almost always go for ultras instead of broodlords. It allows for more counter attacks and a beefier ground force, you can actually just ram the siege line and reinforce with pure crackling to overwhelm the terran.
I really like Ultralisks too. I feel like if I can macro up to 4-5 bases with 3/3 upgrades in about 20 minutes I can whip out infestor/baneling/crackling/Ultras and basically never lose to any standard Terran composition. For Protoss though I prefer Broodlords, for whatever reason. They are terrifying in numbers. They are legion. 0.0
On October 28 2011 08:11 Samp wrote: I cant believe I read that...lol. Ultras are probably the worst Tier 3 unit in the game. If you win using ultras you were probably way ahead, or...your opponent went mass stalkers. They get countered by close to everything and they are way to big. Brood lords are way better then ultralisk are they are definitely the unit you went to use. The only way I see ultras being usefull is for fast techswitches between broodlords and ultras. They went a lot of vikings? okay let me go to ultras. But then against, Id suggest trying to kill the vikings before doing that because ultras are really bad against marines and marauders. And they are half decent against Thors. GL with broodlords.
Or maybe you're just not using them right, in the same way I'm not using Brood Lords correctly
Ultralisks are scary in 2v2. If I get superfast hive with enough lings/a few spines to hold off early pushes and my ally goes mass anti-air then I can get maxed on 2-2 ultraling in 15 minutes, and the combination of stalkers/marines/whatever and my ultraling is actually really difficult to withstand.
Anyways, Ultralisks are really, really strong when used correctly. They have problems dishing out their damage because of their size, but they can tank a ton of damage while your small lings (with adrenal glands) take care of the real DPS. The opponent will be too busy kiting ultras or focussing ultras with his tanks - because once ultras DO manage to connect, they are effective - to escape the lings that wrap around his units and crush them.
I've beaten tank/marine armies that were spread over a whole screen and assisted by a PF with just 8 ultras and a ton of lings and 7 ultras remaining at the end while the reinforcing lings didn't even manage to hatch in time before the opponents army was crushed.
It's important that you send ultras in first to tank the siege shots and then follow up with the lings the moment your ultras tank the shots, don't do it the other way round, you would lose a lot more and pure ultralisks can be kited a lot easier, once all those speedlings are dead.
Recently i'm going the muta -> blord path more often again, but ling/(infestor/)ultra is definitely viable and very strong, for an example see the recent Nestea vs BratOK Game 1 from Blizzcon on Huskys Youtube channel.
EPT
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