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devourers and mutas

Forum Index > Brood War Strategy
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1 2 3 Next All
ahk-gosu
Profile Joined July 2004
Korea (South)2099 Posts
July 27 2007 08:19 GMT
#1
after watching savior lose to stork to mass carriers in the recent replay i noticed something.

it seems that the traditional 3 hatch savior style zergs are losing to the stargate/corsair build protosses that players like bisu and stork use.

the zergs almost always get mass devourers or hydras and get plague ensnare and swarm to kill the carriers. some try to get a lot of scourge but that requires a lot of control to not waste scourge and a lot of them get killed by corsairs in a few seconds.

why dont they use devourers and mutas? devourers with the acid spores are pretty useless when the hydras can keep up with the carriers who run away and the spores arent that good when the only unit attacking is devourers.

getting a 3 to 1 ratio of mutas to devourers worked so well for me vs protoss air because the mutalisks fast attack and splash glaives benefit the MOST from the devourers acid spores. a mass number of mutalisks with 3 3 upgrades wont get destroyed by 3 3 corsairs if you spread them out evenly and its much easier to mass up more mutas than it is to mass up corsairs any ways.

what do you guys think?
Micro.Macro.Scouting.Harassment.
FakeSteve[TPR]
Profile Blog Joined July 2003
Valhalla18444 Posts
July 27 2007 08:41 GMT
#2
mutalisks cost a LOT more gas and the combination still doesn't fare well enough to make it better than the fact that you can follow carriers around with hydra/defiler

muta/devourer is sort of putting all your eggs in one basket and its not effective enough to work on most cases. you'd have to be pretty far ahead and even then you'd have to be pretty good at managing larva to keep him from expanding
Moderatormy tatsu loops r fuckin nice
ahk-gosu
Profile Joined July 2004
Korea (South)2099 Posts
July 27 2007 08:42 GMT
#3
well the gas cost i do know about

but when i do it i just get less devourers and less hydras to make up for the larger muta count. if that makes sense.
Micro.Macro.Scouting.Harassment.
FakeSteve[TPR]
Profile Blog Joined July 2003
Valhalla18444 Posts
July 27 2007 08:46 GMT
#4
yeah it becomes ineffective though

the problem is you cant really stop a protoss from expanding and getting more gas for more corsairs and more carriers so eventually hes gonna win

you can't choke him like you can with hydra/defiler and you can't destroy his flying army in a fell swoop like you'd need to

it does work if your control is vastly superior and you're ahead economically, or even if your opponent just sucks or what have you, but its not the best method
Moderatormy tatsu loops r fuckin nice
Asta
Profile Joined October 2002
Germany3491 Posts
July 27 2007 08:51 GMT
#5
the problem is that mass mutas die too easy to corsairs so you have to either spread them out very well (impossible once you have like 24 mutas) or wait until the corsairs are cleared. nothing better than mutas against spored carriers though.
i always bring some mutalisks along with the devourers, but i think 3:1 is too much, 1:1 is probably better. then wait for the devourers to fire some shots, spread spores and kill some sairs before you bring in your mutalisks.

you're post is confusing me a little though. first you're talking about early game builds and then you are discussing late game units? of course you need hydras. devourers aren't available early enough.
LxRogue
Profile Blog Joined March 2007
United States1415 Posts
Last Edited: 2007-07-27 08:56:29
July 27 2007 08:55 GMT
#6
3 to 1 ratio works very well for me as well. Mutas are hardly more vunerable to corsairs, they take less damage and are half the price.

Once a group of sairs or carriers has 9 acid spores, mutas will absolutely rape them. Instead of 9+3+1 damage they will do 18+12+10. (minus armor)
FakeSteve[TPR]
Profile Blog Joined July 2003
Valhalla18444 Posts
July 27 2007 09:07 GMT
#7
actually the mutalisk's bounce divides the damage, so you're looking at 18, then a third of that which is 6, then a third of that which is 6. its not a flat increase of 9.

as well carriers have a natural 4 armor so the damage isnt as ridiculous as it would seem
Moderatormy tatsu loops r fuckin nice
ahk-gosu
Profile Joined July 2004
Korea (South)2099 Posts
July 27 2007 09:09 GMT
#8
eh it seems to work for me i dunno ><
Micro.Macro.Scouting.Harassment.
LxRogue
Profile Blog Joined March 2007
United States1415 Posts
July 27 2007 09:13 GMT
#9
On July 27 2007 18:07 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote:
actually the mutalisk's bounce divides the damage, so you're looking at 18, then a third of that which is 6, then a third of that which is 6. its not a flat increase of 9.

as well carriers have a natural 4 armor so the damage isnt as ridiculous as it would seem


You sure about that?
If the acid spores decrease the effective armor, it wouldn't matter that the damage is divided because it would be like an enemy with -9 armor which gets hit for 1 damage, adding up to 9.
FakeSteve[TPR]
Profile Blog Joined July 2003
Valhalla18444 Posts
July 27 2007 09:24 GMT
#10
yeah, i'm sure. go test it! the math behind the mutalisk's attack isnt 9-> 3-> 1 its 9-> 9/3-> (9/3)/3

or more accurately because the attack can be upgraded or altered: x -> x/3 -> (x/3)/3
Moderatormy tatsu loops r fuckin nice
LxRogue
Profile Blog Joined March 2007
United States1415 Posts
July 27 2007 09:38 GMT
#11
Well i'm not arguing with 9-> 9/3-> (9/3)/3 but it depends if you put the modifier inside the parentheses or outside.

And if acid spores are armor, i would think it goes outside of the (9/3) because this is why everyone in ZvZ gets armor first, it drops the 3 damage splash to 2 and the 1 damage splash to 0.

Testing this would require a volunteer to to play me because splash won't work on your own units.
KwarK
Profile Blog Joined July 2006
United States43348 Posts
July 27 2007 09:39 GMT
#12
Devourers aren't quite as good as people think against corsairs.
Assuming equal upgrades the corsair does 2.5 damage a hit against a mutalisk (small target)
Assuming equal upgrades the corsair does 3 damage a hit against a devourer
While devourers have far more armour the explosive damage modifier means that they should fare no better than mutalisks. It is because of the vastly increased hp and acid spores that they do. But cost for cost, Corsairs are by far the stronger units, unless Z has a big mineral advantage or plagues to back them up then a straight air battle will be lost.
ModeratorThe angels have the phone box
evanthebouncy!
Profile Blog Joined June 2006
United States12796 Posts
July 27 2007 10:38 GMT
#13
^ Good is very subjective, I personally found devours vastly powerful vs corsairs.

Have you seen a 9 acid spore corsair attack? It attacks slower than a mutalisk. Not to mention the insane bouncy damange mutalisks would've done...

I think hydra/dev is a good combo though, mutalisks tend to vaporise in 3 seconds vs corsairs if you are not careful, but hydras you have abit of a leeway.
Life is run, it is dance, it is fast, passionate and BAM!, you dance and sing and booze while you can for now is the time and time is mine. Smile and laugh when still can for now is the time and soon you die!
Chill
Profile Blog Joined January 2005
Calgary25990 Posts
July 27 2007 10:39 GMT
#14
Steve I'm pretty sure he's talking about 9 acid spores being on something, hence:
(9/1) + 9; (9/3) + 9; (9/9) + 9
18;12;10

Right? Because when the bounce leaves, it's determined to do 3 damage, no? It's not like the game takes a bounce and goes "that should have done 9+9=18 but it was a bounce so 18/3 = 6".

Maybe I'm talking out of my ass but I don't think I am.
Moderator
KwarK
Profile Blog Joined July 2006
United States43348 Posts
July 27 2007 10:43 GMT
#15
On July 27 2007 19:39 Chill wrote:
Steve I'm pretty sure he's talking about 9 acid spores being on something, hence:
(9/1) + 9; (9/3) + 9; (9/9) + 9
18;12;10

Right? Because when the bounce leaves, it's determined to do 3 damage, no? It's not like the game takes a bounce and goes "that should have done 9+9=18 but it was a bounce so 18/3 = 6".

Maybe I'm talking out of my ass but I don't think I am.


I think you're right, I believe armour modifiers always come last and the acid spores are simply an armour modifier. But I haven't tested it so this is simply a logical agreement, rather than a factual one.
ModeratorThe angels have the phone box
FakeSteve[TPR]
Profile Blog Joined July 2003
Valhalla18444 Posts
July 27 2007 10:46 GMT
#16
armor modifications come last, yeah, but mutalisk attack is the only thing in the game that 'bounces'

it divides it by 3 every bounce after every other calculation



also kwark: devourers increase attack cooldown by a lot, thats why muta/devourer destroys corsairs
Moderatormy tatsu loops r fuckin nice
Ilikestarcraft
Profile Blog Joined November 2004
Korea (South)17732 Posts
July 27 2007 12:03 GMT
#17
But if you go muta/devourer wouldn't a dark archon make it really hard.

Also i've seen july beat corsairs with muta+scourge alone.
"Nana is a goddess. Or at very least, Nana is my goddess." - KazeHydra
LxRogue
Profile Blog Joined March 2007
United States1415 Posts
July 27 2007 13:02 GMT
#18
On July 27 2007 21:03 Ilikestarcraft wrote:
But if you go muta/devourer wouldn't a dark archon make it really hard.

Also i've seen july beat corsairs with muta+scourge alone.


Sure but a couple DA's will own mass devourers as well, remember Reach vs Chojja?

Muta scourge can work sure, but it takes really good micro and depends how large to battle is.
goldrush
Profile Blog Joined June 2004
Canada709 Posts
Last Edited: 2007-07-27 13:50:52
July 27 2007 13:50 GMT
#19
Going by the scc, it's 18/12/10.
Slayer91
Profile Joined February 2006
Ireland23335 Posts
July 27 2007 18:14 GMT
#20
Replay pls. :D
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