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How important are upgrades? Wep, armour, shield?
Do they differ depending on the matchup?
Watching some replays from tl.net I noticed one TvP where the Protoss was engaged in a macro battle, had gotten 3/3 wep/armour but no shield upgrades. He had like thousands in the bank, had lost his forges but didn't rebuild them and upgrade his shields despite fighting a macro war which eventually if I recall correctly was more or less being decided by mine out.
Fnatic.Never vs Defeat.Nba on Bluestorm
http://www.teamliquid.net/replay/download.php?replay=1305
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Upgrades are really useful in all match ups, they make a big difference in large scale battles.
Alot of the time tosses wont go beyond one shield because of gas constraints, and sometimes they wont get them all together because they're stupid. Shield is very important in pvp/pvz cause archons.
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Shield is kind of useless in PvT because everything the T has does so much damage anyways <_<
Armor is pretty much useless in TvT as well
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There are very specific important upgrades, the most obvious being +1 zeals killing +0 carapace zerglings in two hits. Another example is getting +armor on marines vs lurkers to force an extra shot for the kill.
Besides those kinds of things the importance of armor upgrades can easily be determined by what units make up the biggest part of your opponents army.
If they are massing zerglings - armor upgrades are VERY important, vs seiged tanks, armor upgrades are almost useless.
The more times their units attack yours, the more armor will do.
Remember also that armor is very important vs mutalisks because their attack bounce thus giving each armor upgrade up to triple the effectiveness.
Other units armor is important against is corsairs and carriers because the damage is small, fast and hits a lot of times. There are others but I'll let you figure it out..
I don't know all of the ins and outs of why plasma is skipped so often, hopefully someone can make a detailed post about that.
I know you are partially paying for the fact that they affect buildings and thus the rate of return on your units is much lower.
I think I have even read somewhere that they affect shield regeneration but I don't know if that is correct.
Attack upgrades are more straightforward unless someone wants to correct me...
Some upgrades are more important than others..
EG +1 marines do 6+1 which is a MUCH larger increase than for example seiged tanks which are 70+5
A safe bet is to copy pro's habits, but you can always do research and math to see what you think is best so that you can feel confident in your decisions.
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Truth be told if you consider that blizzard balanced the rate of return on upgrades based upon the games they played in their alpha testing, and you imagine how fucking terrible their macro was..
You can extrapolate with some certainty that always getting upgrades quickly is correct.
If I was going to ask an all knowing being a question about upgrades I think I would ask when I should not either double upgrade or do Flash style 2-1 timings because I think when you should NOT do this would be a much shorter list than when you should.
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As far as I know, shield upgrades affect only the regeneration rate of the shields and shields take full damage, hence lowering their effectiveness by a huge margin. I could be completely wrong tho, this is just something I've heard.
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On February 04 2009 16:17 rkarhu wrote:
As far as I know, shield upgrades affect only the regeneration rate of the shields and shields take full damage, hence lowering their effectiveness by a huge margin. I could be completely wrong tho, this is just something I've heard.
Yeah like I said I've heard this also somewhere.. anyone confirm?
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On February 04 2009 16:19 inReacH wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2009 16:17 rkarhu wrote:
As far as I know, shield upgrades affect only the regeneration rate of the shields and shields take full damage, hence lowering their effectiveness by a huge margin. I could be completely wrong tho, this is just something I've heard. Yeah like I said I've heard this also somewhere.. anyone confirm?
It's incorrect. Shield upgrades basically add +1 armour affecting the shields on both units and buildings, having nothing to do with regeneration.
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shields take full damage in regards to damage type not upgrades
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its only upgrade regeneration. i heard this from somewhere too. i dont think it give you +1 armor. doubt it.
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On February 04 2009 16:17 rkarhu wrote:
As far as I know, shield upgrades affect only the regeneration rate of the shields and shields take full damage, hence lowering their effectiveness by a huge margin. I could be completely wrong tho, this is just something I've heard.
I'm pretty sure this is incorrect.
From all my past UMS days (think D2 UMS), I am almost certain that each shield upgrade provides +1 armour for all damage taken by the shield.
I don't think it has anything to do with regeneration, that seems like a myth to me (just like hive generates larvae faster).
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Taken from Starcraft Wiki (don't know how reliable it is):
Shield points have a separate "armor" rating from regular hit points. The base "armor" is 0 and may be upgraded. This applies to both units and buildings.
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Shield upgrades work in the very same way armor upgrades work for hp, but since shield regenerates, each point of shield regenerated in combat adds 1 + the number of shield upgrades to your effective hp, i.e. if a unit has max shields and regenerates 2 points of shield in between hits, it will need 8 more damage before dying.
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Just about all zerg upgrades are very powerful in all MUs. It's rare to see missile attack upgraded in ZvT, but if you are producing lurkers into the late game, its crucial. The difference between marines dying in 2 hits vs 3 hits is huge. That upgrade can mean most of his marines either die in the first volley of lurker shots or most of them survive. Splash damage and the lurker's long cooldown make this really important.
Melee upgrades in ZvP or ZvT are just as important in the long term. Especially in ZvT where dual ebay is the standard. If your lings are only doing 2 or 3 damage, they are basically useless vs m&m. This is a good example for why, especially in ZvT, you need to choose between hydra/lurk and ultra/ling. Upgrades are just as important in ZvP, but you don't need to pick what to upgrade as carefully, just upgrade everything. :D
Oh and i agree with everyone else: shield upgrades have nothing to do with regeneration, they just reduce shield damage taken by 1.
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On February 04 2009 18:00 LxRogue wrote:
Just about all zerg upgrades are very powerful in all MUs. It's rare to see missile attack upgraded in ZvT, but if you are producing lurkers into the late game, its crucial. The difference between marines dying in 2 hits vs 3 hits is huge. That upgrade can mean most of his marines either die in the first volley of lurker shots or most of them survive. Splash damage and the lurker's long cooldown make this really important.
Melee upgrades in ZvP or ZvT are just as important in the long term. Especially in ZvT where dual ebay is the standard. If your lings are only doing 2 or 3 damage, they are basically useless vs m&m. This is a good example for why, especially in ZvT, you need to choose between hydra/lurk and ultra/ling. Upgrades are just as important in ZvP, but you don't need to pick what to upgrade as carefully, just upgrade everything. :D
Oh and i agree with everyone else: shield upgrades have nothing to do with regeneration, they just reduce shield damage taken by 1.
I think the prefered method of overcoming terrans is to save the gas on lurkers and missile attack upgrades. Sticking to melee and carpace upgrades keeps the zerglings cost efficient, and allows you to save gas if your defiler and scourge usage is competent. Then you can proceed to turn the tables by overpowering the terran infantry with your well upgraded ultralisks.
Missile and melee attack upgrades are more suited against metal I believe.
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just tested in single player, 2 dragons (large unit, 80 shields, deals 20 explosive damage at 0/0/0, which is 100% damage to large units)
for upgrades, it goes damage/armor/shields below
0/0/0 - 1 shot - 60/80 shield (20 damage)
0/1/0 - 1 shot - 60/80 shield (20 damage, armor did not affect shield)
0/1/1 - 1 shot - 61/80 shield (19 damage, +1 shield reduced damage by 1)
0/1/2 - 1 shot - 62/80 shield (18 damage, +2 shield reduced damage by 2)
0/1/3 - 1 shot - 63/80 shield (17 damage, +3 shield reduced damage by 3)
just for kicks
3/1/3 - 1 shot - 57/80 shield (23 damage, 3of3 weapons gives goons 26 damage, meaning damage was reduced by 3)
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Why is this thread even allowed to live..
a +1 in PvZ allows zealots to actually kill a zergling with only 2 hits rather than 3....
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Protip: Always play with 2 upgrade buildings.
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+3 attack allows goons to kill the mines in just one hit, not many know that, but it's a very good upgrade
also, +1 armor drone survives 1 hit from a non-upgraded dt, and thus the zerg gets the "we are under attack" msg. not sure about the probe.
+2 archons kill lings (with 0 and 1 armor) in 1 shot iirc. +3 archons kill any ling in 1 shot.
if I remember correctly, there was already a discussion about shields once, and archons benefit from it greatly, also, shields increase the living time of cannons against zerglings a lot.
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On February 04 2009 20:20 Infinity.SkyLark wrote:
Why is this thread even allowed to live..
a +1 in PvZ allows zealots to actually kill a zergling with only 2 hits rather than 3....
Why are you allowed to live when you post like that? Upgrades arent just about 2 hitting lings. First of, there is more MUs then PvZ. 8 i belive. And second, he is talking about upgrades in general and not about "smart upgrade trix".
So, yeah, upgrades are really important, IF you are going into the late game. So there are no easy answers. Sometimes its awesome to build an extra forge and upgrade shield, sometime it isn't. You have to analyse the situation make decisions.
to summarise some guidelines: (for P mostly)
+1 weapon is crucial 2 get early in PvZ
You build you second forge around the time you get your third in PvZ
ofc you upgrade shield in PvT. But only when you are like 20 min into the game and only if you have an massive eco and army.
ofc you upgrade shield PvZ. It helps your archons AND cannons! But armour and weapon first. And only a 3 forge if your have and really good eco.
same for PvP. Why not if you have the minerals?
Upgrade only weapon in TvT
Get carpece before melee
Get range upgrade first if you play against metal
Upgrade your muttas if you play against metal
Upgrade in ZvZ if you can get away with it
etc etc
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EPT
