Many people think that shield upgrades are useless. I am here to show you that as a toss user against zerg, the shield can be your best ally! I know many of you do upgrade shield already, but this is to make you perhaps consider it even sooner! The main reason that people dislike the shield upgrade is because they take full damage from all types of attacks. However, many people also disregard the power of REGENERATION!
From research I’ve done I will show you that getting the shield upgrade is well worth it! I will go thru one example to show how many more hits they can take when you get that amazing shield upgrade! Now, we will test this theory on a unit used in almost every pvz: the zergling!
As we know, some people have complained about the “imbalanced” nature of the zergling in the pvz matchup. However, the shield upgrade can help combat this menace to the toss user.
The zergling has a cooldown of 8 and when upgraded to adrenal glands, has an astonishing cooldown of 6! These numbers are 15ths of seconds. For simplicity sake, let’s assume the zergling we fight has no attack upgrades but has the adrenal upgrade Now lets get into some math yo!
Vs. non upgrade Zealot – 100hp 60 shield, 1 armor
Normal convention tells us that you just take 60 shield, divide that by 5, then 100 hp and divide that 4, and WHOILA we get 37 hits to kill a zealot as a zergling! However, we are too SMART for that. Protoss shield regenerates at a rate of 35/15! Thus the zergling will hit the zealot 5 times, and REGENERATE one shield point before hitting it again. This process repeats a few times. Thus, taking the armor and shield into account, the true amount of hits it takes for one zergling to kill a zealot is actually:
Thus, the true amount of hits it takes for a zergling to kill a zealot is 39 hits! Using this same logic, we can see the hidden effects of the shield upgrade – SHIELD REGENERATION! Each time you get regenerate a point in shield, you also get the shield upgrade as a damage reduction as well! To the naked eye a zealot with a shield upgrade would take 60/4+100/4= 40 hits to kill now! BUT we know better…
100 hp, 60 shield -24 shield, (6 zergling hits at 0, 6,12, 18, 24, 30), timer:30/15 100 hp, 36 shield +1 shield regen, timer:35/15 100 hp, 36 shield -24 shield (6 zergling hits at 36, 42, 48, 54, 60, 66), timer:66/15 100 hp, 12 shield +1 shield regen, timer: 70/15 100 hp, 13 shield - 10 hp, -13 shield (6 zergling hits at 72, 78, 84, 90, 96, 102) this is where it gets a bit more complicated because at one hit, the zealot gets the benefit of both the shield upgrade and his natural armor upgrade! timer 102/15 90 hp, 0 shield +1 shield regen, timer: 105/15 90 hp, 1 shield - 22 hp, -1 shield (6 zergling hits at 108, 114, 120, 126, 132, 138), timer 138/15 68 hp, 0 shield +1 shield regen, timer 140/15 68 hp, 1 shield -22 hp, -1 shield (6 zergling hits at , 144, 150, 156,162, 168, 174), timer 174/15 46 hp, 0 shield +1 shield regen, timer 175/15 46 hp, 1 shield -22 hp, -1 shield (6 zergling hits at 180, 186, 192, 198, 204, 210), timer 210/15 24 hp, 0 shield +1 shield regen, timer 210/15 24 hp, 1 shield -22 hp, -1 shield (5 zergling hits at 216, 222, 228, 234, 240), timer 240/15 2 hp, 0 shield +1 shield regen, timer 245/15 2hp, 1 shield 1 hit to death!
Thus while conventional wisdom has your zealot surviving 40 zergling hits, in reality it is 42!!!!!!!!!! This number represents about a 7.6 % increase in the actual life of your zealot {(42-39)/39)} and a 5% jump from the former calculation! Note that this does not take into account the aspects of having multiple zerglings attack you at once, or micromanagement with your own zealots, but it at least gives us a rough estimation of how much stronger you are after the shield upgrade!
Other reasons to consider this upgrade pvz: 1. For units with more shields (dragoons, reavers, ARCHONS), this hidden disparity will jump even greater! 2. All of your buildings will take more hits from zerglings (CANNONS ANYONE?)! 3. With the upgrade, perhaps you can utilize SHIELD BATTERIES more effectively.
Well, I hope these reasons give you more reason to upgrade shields! This has always bothered me and I finally did the math for one specific, but very relevant example. If you guys want to do it for every situation and unit you can, but I think this gives enough reason for tosses to consider it.
Correct, but pretty well known. The real reason people don't upgrade shields is that it's more expensive than other upgrades and takes an additional forge to complete. Note that having 1 more armor upgrade than your opponent has zerg claws is even more beneficial to zealot vs zling (dmg/attack on health reduced to a meager 3)
It IS probably true that it's an underused upgrade, but mainly because shields are torn through very quickly once your opponent gets enough weapon upgrades, and you need shield ups to make sure half your units' health doesn't instantly melt.
I don't think you did anything wrong in your calculations although I am just gonna believe because I am too lazy to check.
200/200 - 300/300 - 400/400 the upgrade is very very expensive and modern pvz I do not think it is possible to go triple forge which would be the only case I would get this upgrade early. there is no way it is more useful than weapons in modern pvz because zerg starts with the ranged attacked upgrade not carapace. having the weapons upgrade makes sure zerg can't just make a stupid amount of upgraded lings (the most cost efficient unit and most imba). as for your second forge which would be going for armor (which protects protoss units health points), i would not commit it to shields because most protoss units have way more health than shields. although it doesn't regenerate it is still better! going from 20 to 25 hits on health points. shields upgrades are only important in late game when you are going for mass archon!
I go 1-0, 2-1. 3-1-1.3-2-2, 3-3-3 PvZ generally. That's dual forge after the first +1 attack because I find the +3 shields useful against zergling base sniping. It's scary how easily 3-3 cracklings melt cannons but a shield upgrade helps with that a bit. Same with archons. Also in 200/200 battles the shields are more than worth their cost because resources in the bank don't provide any advantage on the battlefield.
At the op, hydras do 10 to shields which makes the shield armour less important. It's mainly useful against lings in my opinion.
Ah, but the hydralisk has a cooldown of 15, and thus you will regenerate much more shield and get the added effect of the shield upgrade even more! Essentially, every 2 and 1/3 times the hydra shoots, you will regain a shield point.
On September 12 2009 20:48 foppa wrote: 200/200 - 300/300 - 400/400 the upgrade is very very expensive and modern pvz I do not think it is possible to go triple forge which would be the only case I would get this upgrade early.
Stork did a build like that on Andro in the PL Playoffs. But yeah, sheild upgrade is good for late game.
as kwark said, shield upgrade is mainly used against crackling sniping bases lategame/archons being stronger in big battles
example: 5 cannons 1 reaver 1 ht vs 20-25 lings
cannons survive long enough for maybe 1-2 more reaver shots, and when trying to snipe the reaver, a simple shield battery can help him stay alive for decades.
shield upgrade rocks exactly for the reason you gave.. if you have a zealot with 3 armor and 3 shield, every time it has 0 shield but regenerates 1 shield point while attacked by zerglings, the zergling attack will deal 1 damage. it's bad for the reason someone suggested - it's really expensive. there are times in the game where you just don't have 400/400 to shell out for the third shield upgrade - but few things irk me more than watching someone have 3 armor and 0 shield after 30 minutes of play.
the problem is that when you are getting hit by multiple units the shield regen doesn't proc as many times. try calculating it with 2 or 3 lings attacking the zealot.
On September 12 2009 21:26 Kwark wrote: I go 1-0, 2-1. 3-1-1.3-2-2, 3-3-3 PvZ generally. That's dual forge after the first +1 attack because I find the +3 shields useful against zergling base sniping. It's scary how easily 3-3 cracklings melt cannons but a shield upgrade helps with that a bit. Same with archons. Also in 200/200 battles the shields are more than worth their cost because resources in the bank don't provide any advantage on the battlefield.
At the op, hydras do 10 to shields which makes the shield armour less important. It's mainly useful against lings in my opinion.
I do this as well except I generally (accidentally and out of habit) go 1-0, 2-1, 3-0-1, 3-1-2, 3-2-3, 3-3-3. As you can tell the short-term benefits may be better but I'm not optimizing the use of my forges having to use another upgrade cycle to get to 3-3-3. Sadly games never make it to the point where I really need 3-3-3, but I should probably switch to your system Kwark
yea the calculations are off by quite a bit, zealots in a major battle will normally be pounded by multiple zerglings. but still, the fact that every time your zealot or whatever is at 1 shield, they essentially get double armour upgrades, is awesome.
"Note that this does not take into account the aspects of having multiple zerglings attack you at once, or micromanagement with your own zealots, but it at least gives us a rough estimation of how much stronger you are after the shield upgrade!"
I already put that in. It also doesn't factor in when you are microing your zealots...
yea the calculations are off by quite a bit, zealots in a major battle will normally be pounded by multiple zerglings.
This true- it will be a very rare day that a zealot will last as long as the OP's calculations say- thus making far less useful.
One thing I've never understood, because no-one ever talks about shield upgrades (including liquidpedia). What do they do? Are they like armour- damage reduction? And by how much +1, then +2 and +3?
The main I problem I see was addressed by Kwark. Shields take full damage from every source no matter what (before upgrades, of course). So you never get your size advantages. Taking armor makes your size advantages even stronger (Zealot vs. Hydra).
I think the expense and the loss of size advantages makes this a build-specific decision.
yes, they are exactly like armour upgrades, they remove damage. so if you have +3 shield upgrades, all hits that damage the shield deal 3 damage less. where it becomes interesting is when you have a unit with less shield left than the reduced damage of the opponent unit, in this case the protoss unit benefits from both the shield and armour upgrade against the very same shot. this can actually be even better in say, pvt than pvz though, and is why you should make sure to upgrade shield if you are going carrier.. a 3/3/3 carrier will in fact occasionally reduce a goliath's attack by _20_ damage. ;p
lol you two should ignore his post and more so focus on Kwark, Amber, and Naz's posts. They are more real circumstance things.
The OP mentions the zergling needing 38 hits to get killed by a ling in a ling vs zealot fight, however if it were simply a 1on1 fight the Zealot would kill the ling before its even through its shield.
Yes the shield upgrade is incredibly useful late game, and I don't see any reason not to upgrade it usually. Unless you REALLY need the money elsewhere, I usually get my +1 shield pretty fast. I mean come on, most of us have bad macro anyway, we probably have a few hundred of each lying around.
On September 30 2009 05:43 Liquid`Drone wrote: yes, they are exactly like armour upgrades, they remove damage. so if you have +3 shield upgrades, all hits that damage the shield deal 3 damage less. where it becomes interesting is when you have a unit with less shield left than the reduced damage of the opponent unit, in this case the protoss unit benefits from both the shield and armour upgrade against the very same shot. this can actually be even better in say, pvt than pvz though, and is why you should make sure to upgrade shield if you are going carrier.. a 3/3/3 carrier will in fact occasionally reduce a goliath's attack by _20_ damage. ;p
I didn't understand your math, anyway you could try to explain that again?
From what I (mis)understood, you said having just 1 shield will completely negate an attack? Well then what's the difference between having 0 shield and 3 shield? The regeneration rate is still the same of the shields, correct..? So how would shield upgrades make a difference in negating the attack?
On September 30 2009 05:43 Liquid`Drone wrote: yes, they are exactly like armour upgrades, they remove damage. so if you have +3 shield upgrades, all hits that damage the shield deal 3 damage less. where it becomes interesting is when you have a unit with less shield left than the reduced damage of the opponent unit, in this case the protoss unit benefits from both the shield and armour upgrade against the very same shot. this can actually be even better in say, pvt than pvz though, and is why you should make sure to upgrade shield if you are going carrier.. a 3/3/3 carrier will in fact occasionally reduce a goliath's attack by _20_ damage. ;p
I didn't understand your math, anyway you could try to explain that again?
From what I (mis)understood, you said having just 1 shield will completely negate an attack? Well then what's the difference between having 0 shield and 3 shield? The regeneration rate is still the same of the shields, correct..? So how would shield upgrades make a difference in negating the attack?
Let's say the Zergling has an attack of 8(5+3), and the Protoss Zealot has 3-3-3 and 1 shield and some hp. First, the shield upgrade reduces the Zergling's damage to his shield before he loses any shield, so the damage is reduced to 5. Now, the attack goes through, and damages the Zealot's shield by 1. Zergling's attack has 4 damage left. Now, the Zergling is attacking the Zealot's health. The +3 armor reduces the damage by 3, so the Zergling has only 1 more damage left in his attack, and hence deals a grand total of 1 damage to the Zealot's hit points with the attack.
A carrier fully upgraded has 7 armor (4 is the default, then +3) and its shield would be +3. Goliath damage is #/2 depending on the upgrades. Lets say its +3 attack and 32 attack.
Goliath attacks a damaged carrier, one that's shield is at 1. The first part of the attack hits and takes 1 shield away and goes into life, protecting from 10 damage, the second half of the attack has to go through the shield AGAIN, blocking another 3 damage, than the actual carriers life which is another 7 armor. This results in 20 damage being blocked.
That is why he said sometimes I imagine that situation doesn't occur too often. Blocking 10 damage is probably way more common though.
Armor is still both more effective and cheaper for Zealots and Dragoons in almost all situations.
Take a quick look at when armor is effective and when shields are effective. Attack affects only shields. Shields reduces attack by 1, armor does nothing. Attack affects both shields and hit points. Shields and armor both reduce attack by 1. Attack affects only hit points. Shields do nothing, armor reduces attack by 1.
This means that factoring in the shield regeneration doesn't ever push the choice in favor of shields instead of armor unless the regeneration gives enough shields to absorb an entire hit.
Let's use your single zergling example looking at +1 armor instead of +1 shields. 5x12=60 3x34=102 That's 46 hits, and an addition 2 hit from the shield regeneration for 48 hits versus the 42 that a shield upgrade yields. This for half the price, with comparable value against hydralisks.
Armor is without a doubt far superior in the early game. The math is clear on that. And if you upgrade armor once, the next choice is skewed even further in armor's favor, at least in terms of immediate benefit.
That said, shields are still extremely useful to have, especially late game when cannons archon and plagued units are taking more hits, and it can be difficult to get to 3/3/3 in a reasonable amount of time if you wait to start shield upgrades until you're already at 3/2/0.
In short: For survivability of dragoons and zealots armor is better than shields. For survivability of archons, buildings, and plagued units shields are better than armor. Air units are a wash, you'd be better of upgrading ground armor and air armor than just shields.
On September 12 2009 21:26 Kwark wrote: I go 1-0, 2-1. 3-1-1.3-2-2, 3-3-3 PvZ generally. That's dual forge after the first +1 attack because I find the +3 shields useful against zergling base sniping. It's scary how easily 3-3 cracklings melt cannons but a shield upgrade helps with that a bit. Same with archons. Also in 200/200 battles the shields are more than worth their cost because resources in the bank don't provide any advantage on the battlefield.
At the op, hydras do 10 to shields which makes the shield armour less important. It's mainly useful against lings in my opinion.
On September 30 2009 09:25 RebirthOfLeGenD wrote: Shikyo, your responding to the wrong thing.
A carrier fully upgraded has 7 armor (4 is the default, then +3) and its shield would be +3. Goliath damage is #/2 depending on the upgrades. Lets say its +3 attack and 32 attack.
Goliath attacks a damaged carrier, one that's shield is at 1. The first part of the attack hits and takes 1 shield away and goes into life, protecting from 10 damage, the second half of the attack has to go through the shield AGAIN, blocking another 3 damage, than the actual carriers life which is another 7 armor. This results in 20 damage being blocked.
That is why he said sometimes I imagine that situation doesn't occur too often. Blocking 10 damage is probably way more common though.
"How would shield upgrades make a difference in negating the attack?". That was a more simple example, you can perform the calculation similiarly if you want to know about carriers against Goliaths. To my understanding he asked about how the shield upgrades work, and that I explained to him. Also, how would 10 be more common? It should be 17 if we are to follow any kind of logic.
On September 30 2009 09:25 RebirthOfLeGenD wrote: Shikyo, your responding to the wrong thing.
A carrier fully upgraded has 7 armor (4 is the default, then +3) and its shield would be +3. Goliath damage is #/2 depending on the upgrades. Lets say its +3 attack and 32 attack.
Goliath attacks a damaged carrier, one that's shield is at 1. The first part of the attack hits and takes 1 shield away and goes into life, protecting from 10 damage, the second half of the attack has to go through the shield AGAIN, blocking another 3 damage, than the actual carriers life which is another 7 armor. This results in 20 damage being blocked.
That is why he said sometimes I imagine that situation doesn't occur too often. Blocking 10 damage is probably way more common though.
"How would shield upgrades make a difference in negating the attack?". That was a more simple example, you can perform the calculation similiarly if you want to know about carriers against Goliaths. To my understanding he asked about how the shield upgrades work, and that I explained to him. Also, how would 10 be more common? It should be 17 if we are to follow any kind of logic.
Yeah, he meant 20 every now and then and 17 more usually but he can't count.
Other reasons to consider this upgrade pvz: 1. For units with more shields (dragoons, reavers, ARCHONS), this hidden disparity will jump even greater! 2. All of your buildings will take more hits from zerglings (CANNONS ANYONE?)! 3. With the upgrade, perhaps you can utilize SHIELD BATTERIES more effectively.
2. By the time shield is upgraded to 2 or 3, zerg would have defilers and cannons would still die really fast even without defilers.
3. Nobody is gonna use shield battery late game.
Shield upgrade isn't a good investment early game since weapon upgrade is more effective and shield upgrade requires too much minerals and gas.
Analysis of +1 armor upgrade zealot vs +1 shield upgrade zealot, being attacked by 2 zerglings.
====================================== So +1 armor upgrade zealot (that's 2 armor) vs 2 zerglings (every 6 rounds zealot regenerates a shield or every 4.375 (35/8)rounds if no adrenal upgrade)
2 zerglings start attacking: First 6 rounds of attack from zerglings to evaporate shields (10 damage per round for 60 shields):
100 hp and 1.5 shields left at this point.
Now it will take another 17 more rounds (6dmg*17=102 dmg to finish off the zealot) for zealot to die, plus the every 4.5 rounds zealot gets absorbs an extra damage from shields. So that (approximately) is 17/4.5 +4hp which is about 1 extra round from zerglings. 6+17+1= 24 rounds.
Zealot survives 24ish rounds of attack. ================================ Shield upgrade zealot vs 2 zerglings:
The zealot has 100 hp and 60 shields, takes 8 dmg every round, and every 5 rounds gains an extra 2 hp (gains a shield and has +1 shield armor).
160/8= 20. That 20 rounds divided by 4.5 shield regeneration and each shield counts twice with armor. 4.5*2= 9 extra hp or about 1 extra round.
So the zealot survives 21 rounds of attacks. ========================================================== It seems a lot better to get armor even if you have only 2 zerglings per zealot. It will be slightly worse if zerglings have adrenal glands.
Vs other protoss ground units shields also less useful since hydra's often snipe zealots, muta's do also.
Look, I've never said to upgrade shield over armor. I know that SC is a very fast game and thus the added hidden benefit of the shield upgrade sometimes does not apply.
However, I am just telling people to not overlook it. My favorite benefit of the shield upgrade is that the better you are at keeping your units alive (aka micro), the more you will benefit from upgrading shields. In fact, since this is the case, upgrading armor actually also makes your shield upgrade stronger!
I also want to see people use shield batteries more often. Instead of massing a bunch of cannons at expos, why not have 4-5 zealots and a few shield batteries instead? Or perhaps a mix of cannons, shield batteries and zealots? That way, zerg cannot just abuse swarm to take out all your expos.
I'm just trying to spread awareness about shields yo!
On September 30 2009 08:30 RebirthOfLeGenD wrote: Yes the shield upgrade is incredibly useful late game, and I don't see any reason not to upgrade it usually. Unless you REALLY need the money elsewhere, I usually get my +1 shield pretty fast. I mean come on, most of us have bad macro anyway, we probably have a few hundred of each lying around.
I think this is an important point. Lower level players probably can't get as much use out of the extra units they produce in lieu of upgrades than top players.
One thing I don't understand is why blizzard put the base cost of shield upgrades as it is: Weapons: Base cost 100/100, modifier 50/50: L1 100/100, L2 150/150, L3 200/200 Armor: Base cost 100/100, modifier 75/75: L1 100/100, L2 175/175, L3 250/250 Shields: Base cost 200/200, modifier 100/100: L1 200/200, L2 300/300, L3 400/400
For me it would be more natural the same base cost 100/100 with the 100/100 modifier or even a greater modifier (125/125) modifier but low base cost anyway. I think that change would make this upgrade more attractive and viable (affordable in early or mid game). Sure it affects ground units, air units and buildings but also it receives full damage from everything. Protoss are suppose to be FEW but strong expensive units; shields are a considerable part of their total hit points.
EPT
