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From a Zerg Player Prespective, Mass Archons are quite scary. Archons tear through lings, mutas, etc. After watching a very very long game between Stork vs GGPlay (not a new game) yesterday where Stork switches over to mass archons, it had me shivering in my pants. Although some people would say that the counter for mass archons is mass hydras, there is no way that the P would not have a handful of storms available if he was able to create that many HT's. And we know Storm > Hydras. The only viable counter imo would be Ultraling
Now, look at the unit Ultralisk. Just like Archons, they are beefed up, high life units. They soak up the damage for the lings in battle, which allows every T or P player to shiver in fear whenever they see a long river of ultralings.
Which unit do you think is more effective in overall performance? This also includes their cost efficiency (Archon = 100 Mineral 300 Gas, Ultra = 200 Mineral 200 Gas) and their killing power. We are also faced to decide if Mass Ultralisk would win verse Mass Archons. One main advantage of Archons is that they can be created from useless HT's who just used up all their storms, better to have a unit than a mana-less spellcaster imo.
Poll: Ultra or Archon?
(Vote): Ultralisk
(Vote): Archon
(Vote): Cannot be Analyzed
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Archons become quite terrible if they are attacking under darkswarm.
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Calgary25996 Posts
Why? To what end is this discussion serving?
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No Dark Swarm = Archon/HT>>>Ultraling
Dark Swarm = Ultraling>>>Archon/HT
One on one, fully upgraded ultralisk beats Archon because of his armor, and 100 gas is usually worth more than 100 minerals, but that doesnt take into account the fact that you have two powerful casters before the archon, and if those tow cast at least one decent storm each, the Archon is gonna be far more cost effective.
Its very situational.
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Archons are free.
I will always remember this game of Savior versus god knows who protoss, where they mined the whole map. It was very straight forward game, lot of back and forth, equivalent number of expansions.
So, both side camping on their bank minerals, the protoss could still rely on the unlimited gaz.
Painful match to watch from a Zerg view.
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On October 23 2008 00:41 Chill wrote:
Why? To what end is this discussion serving?
Its just a light hearted discussion...its also interesting to hear what people might think about it
I agree its also very situational but Ultras have the almost perfect partner unit (lings) that are very cheap and powerful, with same running speed
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On October 23 2008 00:49 Murlox wrote:
Archons are free.
I will always remember this game of Savior versus god knows who protoss, where they mined the whole map. It was very straight forward game, lot of back and forth, equivalent number of expansions.
So, both side camping on their bank minerals, the protoss could still rely on the unlimited gaz.
Painful match to watch from a Zerg view.
You don't mean the game voted the best game of 2006, Savior vs rA on Shin Peaks, Pringles MSL?
Anyway this is kinda pointless, it all depends on how you use your units. Archons have long range, fast regen, can be made on the fly after storming, etc. If you let protoss get a full archon army, then you better surround really really well.
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Archon i'd say. If you can afford mass archons, it's pretty much the best combo PvZ.
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mass archon vs mass ultra... mass archon win b/c splash damage while ur ultras only can attack 1 at a time plus by that late of game toss is almost fully upgraded armor plasma attack. going on attack again ultra b/c of the +3 per upgrade making the archons doing 39 damage while ultra do 26.
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No one uses only ultras to fight mass archons . You place a dark swarm and archons like everything else except the reavers gets raped under it ... and BTW archons sucks vs mass hidra/lurkers .
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ultralisks because in starcraft 2 they have splash damage!~
ULTRA > ARCHONS THEN WHAT NOW FOOL?
seriously though archons because if you cant flank right splash damage makes it all the easier =(
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9071 Posts
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Archons definitely win because of splash. Ultras can't really soak up damage for lings when the splash just annihilates the lings anyway.
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REMEMBER YOUR DARKSWARM
that is all.
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United States17042 Posts
Archons cost a lot less mins, but slightly more gas.
Archons do a lot more damage than ultras
ultras have lots more armor than archons (esp at that point in the game)
ultras probably have dark swarm on their side
archons have psistorm on their side
they regen health at about the same time
ultras need lings to be effective (even amount of gas, archons > ultras in general)
zerg should have more bases to go ultra, so, once again, it counters the more min cost.
you need more ultras than you need archons (toss needs less bases).
This thread isn't that helpful for....anything.
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United States47024 Posts
On October 23 2008 01:40 GeneralStan wrote:
Archons definitely win because of splash. Ultras can't really soak up damage for lings when the splash just annihilates the lings anyway.
This is it.
Archons also have the advantage that they have slight range, meaning that zealots can block for them and minimize the damage they take (granted the argument is mass ultra vs. mass archon, but honestly, having zealots and zergilngs makes both armies more effective).
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Sweden33719 Posts
On the topic of dark swarm in PvZ vs archons, I don't know if he was THE first, but Twisted (like, the Tl.net Twisted) was definitely one of the first zerg players to use swarm vs mass archons 
Just like how rekrul/american tosses started using arbiters PvT a while before they became popular among progamers.
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On October 23 2008 01:40 disciple wrote:
cola or pepsi
easy choice
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On October 23 2008 01:53 waterGHOSTCLAWdragon wrote:
Archons cost a lot less mins, but slightly more gas.
Archons do a lot more damage than ultras
ultras have lots more armor than archons (esp at that point in the game)
ultras probably have dark swarm on their side
archons have psistorm on their side
they regen health at about the same time
ultras need lings to be effective (even amount of gas, archons > ultras in general)
zerg should have more bases to go ultra, so, once again, it counters the more min cost.
you need more ultras than you need archons (toss needs less bases).
This thread isn't that helpful for....anything.
but he wants to compare unit to unit. its theory ofc.
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On October 23 2008 03:00 Jaeden wrote:easy choice
Premise A: Diet soda tastes worse than regular soda.
(d) = diet
Pepsi tastes like diet Coke.
Pepsi == Coke(d)
Coke(d) < Coke
Pepsi < Coke
Sorry for not stating the rules. I completely forgot the laws.
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before i got into pro starcraft and learned that queens were useless, i used to use them a lot (for broodling).
i hated the fact that you couldn't broodling an archon but you could do it to an ultra.
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Archons rip shit open. Enough said.
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On October 23 2008 04:10 Archaic wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2008 03:00 Jaeden wrote:On October 23 2008 01:40 disciple wrote:
cola or pepsi easy choice Premise A: Diet soda tastes worse than regular soda. (d) = diet Pepsi tastes like diet Coke. Pepsi == Coke(d) Coke(d) < Coke Pepsi < Coke Sorry for not stating the rules. I completely forgot the laws.
More simply put, Pepsi is overloaded with sugar and thus tastes a hell of a lot worse than Coca Cola. And when I think about it, Pepsi DOES taste like Diet Cola.
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Archons are stronger alone. Ultralisks' main goal is to soak up damage, so they become super effective with high damage low HP support units.
In other words:
archons > ultralisks
archons < ultraling
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Mass archons are the perfect counter for ultralisk/zergling.
If the numbers are even, archons will win, hands down.
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arcon > ultra
arcon / zelot > ultraling
HT / arcon / zelot > defiler / ultraling
but if there are lots of spreaded lurkers around all protoss army vanishes in seconds  (( i hate when that happens
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The most annoying thing is that the unit that plauge looks "best" on is the archon. It's also the unit that takes least effect by the spell.
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The only real advantage ultras have are speed and higher armor.
The only WEAKNESS archons have is they take full damage from all unit types, and are made completely useless in the face of EMP.
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On October 23 2008 05:21 Eatme wrote:
The most annoying thing is that the unit that plauge looks "best" on is the archon. It's also the unit that takes least effect by the spell.
I know. I always feel so proud of myself getting them plagued until I realize how much of a waste it is.
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efficient= Ultralisks, they are much faster, and can be produced at a greater mass...
stronger=archon.
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Archons are tons better, mass archons easily beats mass ultras, they have more damage, splash, can attack air, better range, can cast storm before morph, e.t.c.
It's just that zerg's economy is better(and they have swarm) or ultralisks wouldn't be as viable.
Just imagine Zerg with Archons and Toss with Ultralisks, ling/archon would rape so bad :D
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Netherlands13554 Posts
On October 23 2008 02:00 FrozenArbiter wrote:On the topic of dark swarm in PvZ vs archons, I don't know if he was THE first, but Twisted (like, the Tl.net Twisted) was definitely one of the first zerg players to use swarm vs mass archons Just like how rekrul/american tosses started using arbiters PvT a while before they became popular among progamers.
Didn't see anyone else use it at that time, not progamers and not top foreign players and no-one actually knew this.
I remember a game against hexer where he would not believe me, I won the game and we did the test at the end of the game with an archon against an ultra under swarm. Archon did 5 damage  .
Yay I can still gloat in 2008 ;D
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Archons have splash damage and they can attack air which makes them way superior.
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I say ultralisk because:
1. Many units do no do full damage to them becaus of their large unit size(i.e vultures).
2. They can have a total of 6(!!!!) armour.
3. For the same cost archons have a total of 360HP, ultralisks have 400
4. You can upgrade ultralisk speed
5. You just 'S'U' and done, a group of ultralisks, no need to merge anything to get them
6. They do full damage under dark swarm
7. They cost a 1:1 mineral:gas ratio, which can be maintained easier than paying 300 gas instead of 200 gas, minerals aren't too big of a problem for zerg, it usually just goes to adding more lings to the army, which wouldn't be effective against storm/archons/MnMs anyway.
I'm sure archons have advantages too like higher damage, can hit air, splash, but even after considering those it still appears that ultralisks are 'better'.
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I'd say archons because they don't leave a mess when they die.
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On October 23 2008 09:22 stenole wrote:
I'd say archons because they don't leave a mess when they die.
xD.... arcrhons just go directly into another dragoon, and then they make a mess...
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On October 23 2008 01:40 disciple wrote:
cola or pepsi
coke
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Ultras are better with defiler support, but if they lack defiler support than the archons are better. Also depends on upgrades a lot.
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I actually had a bet with my friend that an Archon is the strongest single unit in SC the other day. (It can take any unit in the game 1 on 1 with no micro).
He said that fully upgraded ultras can beat an archon who has full ups as well. But I said that upgraded or not they take all down.
Now the weird thing that happened when we checked is that (ofc archon wins unupgraded) with both upgraded its random (regardless of who hit first on inital contact).
You see an archon fires at a steady rate, but an ultralisk can sometimes hit twice consecutively faster as well as its normal attack speed pace.
So it was about 50/50 after ten tries.
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On October 23 2008 04:44 inlagdsil wrote:
Archons are stronger alone. Ultralisks' main goal is to soak up damage, so they become super effective with high damage low HP support units.
In other words:
archons > ultralisks
archons < ultraling
I always feel that archons die really really fast alone, even when you have 6+ of them. You need zealots as meat shields. And that works out nicely because you have all those extra minerals anyway. It's kind of reversed for zerg, I guess, in that lings do damage, and ultras are meat shields.
Also, an archon army is something you build up slowly over the course of the game... ultras can be mass produced and are easier to replace.
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i just ran a quick test with made a UMS map i made for it, with all upgrades (ultra speed/armor, 3 attack for both, 3 armor for both, and 3 shields) and the results for one ultra vs one archon are:
trial 1: archon won with 6 hp leftover
trail 2: ultra won with 9 hp leftover
trail 3: ultra won with 8 hp leftover
tomorrow ill repeat the trial several more times like this as well as modify the map to do it with 12 of each unit and see how that turns out.
on a side note i was bored earlier and made an Excel file which i used to calculate the damage per second (ok... unit of time, but ill use second for simplicity) for each individual unit and the damage per second per supply (i chose supply since thats the only factor that effects how many units you can have, usually), the results of this were quite interesting, but thats probably something for a different topic (which i might make tomorrow when i get done with my classes
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It's rather obvious that archons are op. Look, it's a very simple math:
archons wtfpwn me -> archons are overpowered
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Splash damage anyone? And I think this is purely archons vs ultralisks, not adding defilers or anything
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On October 23 2008 13:37 VIB wrote:
It's rather obvious that archons are op. Look, it's a very simple math:
archons wtfpwn me -> archons are overpowered
To tell you the truth, I didn't even vote 
Thanks for assuming
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United States3824 Posts
As a Terran player mass archons are never going to be a problem for me as it would be like EMP one siege shot and they are all dead GGNoRe. Ultralisks for the win
Doesn't this seem like a conversation that should have been had ten years ago?
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United States3824 Posts
On October 23 2008 10:34 CharlieMurphy wrote:
I actually had a bet with my friend that an Archon is the strongest single unit in SC the other day. (It can take any unit in the game 1 on 1 with no micro).
He said that fully upgraded ultras can beat an archon who has full ups as well. But I said that upgraded or not they take all down.
Now the weird thing that happened when we checked is that (ofc archon wins unupgraded) with both upgraded its random (regardless of who hit first on inital contact).
You see an archon fires at a steady rate, but an ultralisk can sometimes hit twice consecutively faster as well as its normal attack speed pace.
So it was about 50/50 after ten tries.
That's wierd CharlieMurphay I figured you would have back the Ultralisk lol
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On October 23 2008 14:02 cgrinker wrote:
As a Terran player mass archons are never going to be a problem for me as it would be like EMP one siege shot and they are all dead GGNoRe. Ultralisks for the win
Doesn't this seem like a conversation that should have been had ten years ago?
err i think that this is archon vs the ultralisk in a fight LOL ?
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Archon, they come from Templars that have slaughtered enemies. Haha.
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On October 23 2008 10:34 CharlieMurphy wrote:
I actually had a bet with my friend that an Archon is the strongest single unit in SC the other day. (It can take any unit in the game 1 on 1 with no micro).
He said that fully upgraded ultras can beat an archon who has full ups as well. But I said that upgraded or not they take all down.
Now the weird thing that happened when we checked is that (ofc archon wins unupgraded) with both upgraded its random (regardless of who hit first on inital contact).
You see an archon fires at a steady rate, but an ultralisk can sometimes hit twice consecutively faster as well as its normal attack speed pace.
So it was about 50/50 after ten tries.
very interesting.
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mass archons would rape the shit out of mass ultras i would think because of splash damage. no?
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United States47024 Posts
On October 23 2008 05:10 WhatisProtoss wrote:
Mass archons are the perfect counter for ultralisk/zergling.
If the numbers are even, archons will win, hands down.
Zealot/Archon is more cost-effective than pure Archons because cheap zealots keep your expensive Archons from dying.
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As long as there aren't defilers, Archons are good.
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Sorry if I'm too lazy to read this whole thread so someone may have already mentioned it, but why not just pit a fully upgraded Archon against a fully upgraded Ultralisk in 1.15b?
Edit: Damn I'm an idiot, I've just read the first post on this page. OK how about Archon vs Ultralisk in 1.0?
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Watch JD vs free and laugh!
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On October 23 2008 21:03 Weryeery wrote:
Watch JD vs free and laugh!
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Dark swarm is painful, and so are the hydras. you have storm vs mass hydras before you have archons too.
I hate when I counter zerg's ultraling by massing archons and then they suddenly brings 1-2groups of hydras into play and dodge storms.
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is awesome32278 Posts
On October 23 2008 21:03 Weryeery wrote:
Watch JD vs free and laugh!
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Cannot be analyzed because:
Cost efficiency - zerg and protoss mine at different races and typically zerg will be up on the protoss in bases
Killing Power - in a 50v50 battle archons would win however if the protoss had 50 archons chances are the game is long over. (No probes much?) Not to mention the fact that archons are not quite as mobile as ultraling/hydras but 120 hydras vs. 30 archons and 6 high templars would probably go to the protoss if the storms were really well placed and the hydras didn't dodge that well, however once the storms are gone the hydras will simply shred the archons.
This brings me back to a thread I just saw about usefulness of queens. If you were to broodling the temps and parasite a few archons it would cause him to either reveal his force to you or sacrifice killing power.
It's hard to do this in theory crafting however because it would depend on terrain and the map and there are just too many factors.
Not to mention sunkens rape archons so chances are if you had some (12+) sunkens in your base they wouldn't be able to break in.
Edit: If the gas allowed I think hydra/ultraling would work wonders.
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almost everyone mentioned defliers with swarms, but what about queens with ensare? anyone?
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On October 23 2008 21:03 Weryeery wrote:
Watch JD vs free and laugh!
yea game 3 is a great example of archon vs ultra... was an awesome game..
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archon alone vs hydra/ultra is shit
ultra alone vs archon/reaver is shit as well
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United States17042 Posts
On October 23 2008 21:58 d(O.o)a wrote:
Cannot be analyzed because:
Cost efficiency - zerg and protoss mine at different races and typically zerg will be up on the protoss in bases
Killing Power - in a 50v50 battle archons would win however if the protoss had 50 archons chances are the game is long over. (No probes much?) Not to mention the fact that archons are not quite as mobile as ultraling/hydras but 120 hydras vs. 30 archons and 6 high templars would probably go to the protoss if the storms were really well placed and the hydras didn't dodge that well, however once the storms are gone the hydras will simply shred the archons.
This brings me back to a thread I just saw about usefulness of queens. If you were to broodling the temps and parasite a few archons it would cause him to either reveal his force to you or sacrifice killing power.
It's hard to do this in theory crafting however because it would depend on terrain and the map and there are just too many factors.
Not to mention sunkens rape archons so chances are if you had some (12+) sunkens in your base they wouldn't be able to break in.
Edit: If the gas allowed I think hydra/ultraling would work wonders.
Hydra/Ultra is the best, becuase it allows the hydra to shoot from afar, and the ultra to tank without them getting in eachothers way. the problem is to get 12 ultra and 48 hydra is something like 48*25 for the hydra, and 12*200 for the ultra (or in other words, 3600 gas)
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On October 23 2008 21:03 Weryeery wrote:
Watch JD vs free and laugh!
yeah I was gonna say this, but free also had reavers
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achons > all. free said so.
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infinity21
Canada6683 Posts
I'm fairly sure I've read a study on this.
Ultra > archon 1:1 but in mass ultra < archon so it's fairly balanced.
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I did an experiment once.
A full up archon and full up ultra kill each other at the same time.
As soon as you get into more than 1 of each, archons win.
Archons > Ultra.
I also calculated the costs of all the ups necessary and the cost of archon vs ultra to see if it made sense in terms of balance. I think archons do cost more.
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If I buy over Blizzard, I will implement several changes. First, Infested Terran Splash Damage Range is increased to that of Reaver's Scarab. Second, Sunken Colonies be returned to 400 HP and 1 Armour. Third, Ultralisks gain base 3 Armour. I have my reasons for this, if anyone wishes to know, just reply here.
Infested Terrans also do full damage while under the Dark Swarm, instead of just Splash Damage.
One more thing: Zealots be returned to 80 HP and 80 Shields. And the Scourge should be slightly faster in speed, while the Sunken Colony's attack should be unaffected by Dark Swarm.
Perhaps have the Attack Upgrade of the Ultralisks be +4? Also, when a Scourge hits, the Unit automatically dies, instead of having a delay in the death animation. The Devourers have an Attack Range of 7, and the Scout has a Ground Attack value of 10, while gaining Detector for a Range of 6, after Researching Apial Sensors, at a cost of 200 Minerals and 200 Vespene Gas. Finally, the Overlord's Evolution, Antennae, costs 100 Minerals and 100 Vespene Gas.
How about Spawn Broodlings costing 125 Energy? Also increase the Area of Effect of the EMP Shockwave?
User was warned for this post
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On January 16 2019 21:06 Calixtus wrote:
If I buy over Blizzard, I will implement several changes. First, Infested Terran Splash Damage Range is increased to that of Reaver's Scarab. Second, Sunken Colonies be returned to 400 HP and 1 Armour. Third, Ultralisks gain base 3 Armour. I have my reasons for this, if anyone wishes to know, just reply here.
Infested Terrans also do full damage while under the Dark Swarm, instead of just Splash Damage.
One more thing: Zealots be returned to 80 HP and 80 Shields. And the Scourge should be slightly faster in speed, while the Sunken Colony's attack should be unaffected by Dark Swarm.
Perhaps have the Attack Upgrade of the Ultralisks be +4? Also, when a Scourge hits, the Unit automatically dies, instead of having a delay in the death animation. The Devourers have an Attack Range of 7, and the Scout has a Ground Attack value of 10, while gaining Detector for a Range of 6, after Researching Apial Sensors, at a cost of 200 Minerals and 200 Vespene Gas. Finally, the Overlord's Evolution, Antennae, costs 100 Minerals and 100 Vespene Gas.
How about Spawn Broodlings costing 125 Energy? Also increase the Area of Effect of the EMP Shockwave?
If you give infested terran 10000 dmg and radius of nuke, they would still not be played, lol.
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You bumped a 10 year old post to essentially rant that Zerg is the weaker race.
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On January 16 2019 21:06 Calixtus wrote:
If I buy over Blizzard, I will implement several changes. First, Infested Terran Splash Damage Range is increased to that of Reaver's Scarab. Second, Sunken Colonies be returned to 400 HP and 1 Armour. Third, Ultralisks gain base 3 Armour. I have my reasons for this, if anyone wishes to know, just reply here.
Infested Terrans also do full damage while under the Dark Swarm, instead of just Splash Damage.
One more thing: Zealots be returned to 80 HP and 80 Shields. And the Scourge should be slightly faster in speed, while the Sunken Colony's attack should be unaffected by Dark Swarm.
Perhaps have the Attack Upgrade of the Ultralisks be +4? Also, when a Scourge hits, the Unit automatically dies, instead of having a delay in the death animation. The Devourers have an Attack Range of 7, and the Scout has a Ground Attack value of 10, while gaining Detector for a Range of 6, after Researching Apial Sensors, at a cost of 200 Minerals and 200 Vespene Gas. Finally, the Overlord's Evolution, Antennae, costs 100 Minerals and 100 Vespene Gas.
How about Spawn Broodlings costing 125 Energy? Also increase the Area of Effect of the EMP Shockwave?
User was warned for this post
What are these scrubby Zerg buffs?
Zerg is already very strong, and is even favoured against Protoss on most maps.
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And don't buff EMP. Don't buff Terran in any way what so ever. Making the EMP smaller would in fact be preferrable to making it bigger.
Do you even lift, bro? Are you even S, bro?
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LOL @ the proposed biased balance changes, I'm not sure if he is a Zerg player or not really.
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EPT
