The PiG Daily - Thinking critically about SC - Page 11

Notes are in a bit of a haphazard build order

A few notes on cyclone widow mine type.
Mag-field rush kicks in at 3:52. You can dance back and forth before this point vs this rush.
Fast mocore might be worthwhile here to buy time, though rotating units will probably work just as well since there’s no spotting unit early, so just adept/stalker micro should hold with just bruising.

Summarising thoughts
Nexus-scout is so popular. Every single game where it works the protoss players scouting is denied.
The only time it was scouted was classic on galactic - and this game was actually very close. Classic forgot warpgate research though otherwise he would have held easily.
Zest does it vs TY on gettys and he gets away with 3cc BEFORE GAS
Hush does the same thing and fails to identify that he’s up against a 2-gas build.
Classic doesn’t chrono WG at all and doesn’t have his first warpin ready until 4:30
t
The only game where someone wins is trust vs innovation where he clearly expects the build:

However because he doesn’t chrono gate he only has 2 gateway units out when it comes and only because he has the prism (perfect against this exact variation) does it work.
+1 for delaying mocore though!

Maru vs Classic Kepsa cup


Dasan Station - 1 base works

Gas first
Factory asap
2nd gas right after factory
1:50 - Gas Steal
Double Depot Bunker wall
4 marines then reactor
Cyclone then tank production
Medivac then lib production
Bring scvs
Build bunkers


Frost (not 1 base)

Gas-first
Reaper → reactor
Delay depot
20 CC
Factory
2:07 21 depot
2:15 2nd gas (22 supply)
Starport
Widow mine x2
8 marine drop
2nd medivac and nonstop marine mine production
3:45 reaper scout to confirm no oracle
4:15 ebay in natural wall
+1 weapons, 2nd-3rd rax, 3rd gas, turrets, liberator.

First medivac tries to be annoying.
Keep all marines alive
2nd medivac comes in with 3 mines 2 marines as first medivac goes back in
Liberator follows up


3rd CC, tank production THEN 4th gas + more barracks.
Very late stim

Aggression perfectly shut down and loses

Galactic Process- 1 base works

6 marine + mine drop hits 3:55
Barracks-gas-gas
factory immediately
Widow mine
Tech lab → cyclone + mag field accelerator
Marine → reactor
Starport asap’

Fast 6 marine 1 mine drop INTO mag field cyclones, marines and liberators

TY vs trap:

Hits at 3:55 - because delayed by pylon. But trap not ready at all.
Could hit 3:35? With the first tank and 7 marines.

Gettysburg - TY wins

First depot blocking the path
Gas-barracks-gas
Barracks on lowground
Factory right next to barracks

Barracks
1-marine
Reactor

Factory
Tech lab
Tank
Cyclone
Cyclone

Starport
Medivac
Viking

Maru vs Husk PL R3 Frozen Temple -

Abandons nexus - breaks out eventually but is too far behind - fast mothership core. prism before nexus.
6:44 is game starting time
10:30 = widow mine marine drop hits the front (3:45)
4:00 - 1 bunker starts
bunker already 1/3 done and tank seiged at 10:54. (4:09)
1 tank into cyclones
1 medivac into libs

ADD ANNOTATIONS TO EACH OTHER UPGRADE VOD ONCE ALL UP

The Key to understanding the usefulness of upgrades is Effective Damage and survivability in relevant common scenarios.

Upgrade scaling with bigger fights

Fights spiralling hard as more dps drops for one side

ZvZ

Lings 5 on 5 - ovie dropping creep. Ling speed given for one side, then added to the other also.

Lingspeed - 4.13MS to 6.58 - An increase of 2.45. That’s roughly a 59% MS increase.

Creep gives a 30% movement speed increase for most units. Upgraded Hydras and drones get no movement speed boost, queens get a much higher % movespeed boost.

Normally damage upgrades are around 10% per upgrade. And armour upgrades are normally exactly 1 point of armour per upgrade.

Damage Upgrades - +20% boost per upgrade! Massive compared to many other units! The problem is finding the opportunity for those lings to survive into melee range as the game progresses. The bigger the armies get, the more splash damage, the harder it is for the very fragile lings to survive.

Calculating how many hits a unit takes to kill another unit in a common interaction is a good way to see how much value it gives - in ling vs ling for instance we do the HP of the unit 35 + 1, divided by the attack of the unit.

So 36 divided by 5 = 7.2. Therefore it takes 8 hits for a ling to kill another ling.
With +1 it’s down to just 6 hits to kill another zergling. A 25% boost in terms of effective damage in ling vs ling. Because there was already so much overkill when it took 8 hits to deal just 7.2 hits worth of damage to finish off the ling.

However this result actually isn’t consistent. Since sometimes the ling will regenerate a second point of life during a 1 on 1 ling fight and hence still take 7 hits. In which case it’s only a 12.5% increase. Nowhere near as big.

What about carapace?

36/4 = 9 hits to kill. However because it takes 1 hit extra there’s ALWAYS going to be the extra HP of regen. Which makes it 10 hits CONSISTENTLY. Therefore carapace is consistently stronger than melee in zergling battles. A solid 25% boost in survivability vs the 12.5-25% variance in effective damage from +1 melee.



Nonetheless in small skirmishes, counterattacks and runbys - the upgrades are huge. That’s why a fast upgrade is often very popular in ZvZ.

Adrenal glands - 40% attack speed boost. From two attacks a second to almost three attacks a second.
^Amplifies your previous upgrades as well, so actually has an insane value the better your melee ups.

Roaches

Ling vs roach - 37 hits normally, even if 3hp regenerates during fight. At 4hp it becomes 38 hits.
+1 = 30 hits
+2 = 25 hits
+3 = 21 hits.

The big one in roaches vs lings is +1 attack which makes the roach 2- shot rather than 3-shot the lings. That’s a 33% boost in effective damage. However this is completely negated by +1 carapace and the roaches will go back to 3-shotting.

Once +2 range is done the zerglings need +3 carapace in order to go back to taking 3-shots. Once +3 ranged is finished the lings will always be 2-shot.

Banelings

7 hits normally
+1 melee = 6 hits (31/6 = 5.1667 hits )
+2 melee = 5 hits

Banelings will 1 shot lings
+1 carapace allows lings to survive with 1HP.
+1 melee on banes means lings are always 1-shot (39dmg vs 36+3carapace at max)

Banes 3-shot hydras until +2 melee
(+3 carapace will negate this until +3 melee hits in)

Bane speed
Starts with 3.5
Upgrade takes it to 4.13 - increase of 0.63 -18% MS speed increase
Pretty huge simply due to the nature of the unit relying entirely on actually connecting with enemy units

Banes vs marines with and without it

Always get this is banes are a significant part of your army in the midgame.
You usually don’t see this in ZvZ because banes are just for the earlygame - and not useful vs enemy mutalisks or roaches which dominate the midgame. The only time you do see it in ZvZ is when they go hydras to counter your mutas so you add speedbanes to counter their hydras

Queens
5-shot lings (36/8)
+1 range = 4-shot lings
+2 = 3-shot
+3 = shot.’

But double attacks = double armour modifiers!

+1 carapace = 7-shot lings
+2 carapace = 10-shot lings

+1 carapace used to be very huge for big roach-ling and sometimes ravager-ling attacks because of this.

Ling Upgrades don’t matter vs hydras etc because we never see those situations

+1 cara


Roach

3.15 MS for slowroach
4.2MS for speedroach
25% MS increase

Roach vs Roach
Base = 10 hits (occasionally 11)
+1 = 9 hits.
+2 = 8 hits
+3 = 8 hits (regen) - less regen in big battle so usually 7 hits.

Ravagers attack faster than roaches but they have the exact same damage increments so they benefit in the same way.

For armour Ravagers are naturally in the back line so they don’t really matter - they do attack quite a bit faster than a roach though

Lurkers -
6-shot roaches
5-shot roaches with +1
+3 carapace is the only way to bring it back to 6-shots

5-shot hydras
4-shot with +1
+2 carapace or above keeps it at 5-shots until +2 attack kicks in

Ultra

Kills lings in 1 shot
+1 carapace negates
Once it has +1 weapons it will always 1-shot

5-shots roaches
4-shot with +1
4-shots with +2
4-shots with +3

Carapace upgrades don’t affect unupgraded at all.
Carapace negates +1. Nothing negates +2.

3-shots hydras
2-shots with +2 (negated by +1)

+1 carapace is vital with roach hydra vs low-upgrade ultralisks.

Ultra vs Lurker
6 hits
Only at +3 do ultras 5-shot lurkers
+3 carapace makes it 6 hits

Ultra vs Ultra
17-shots
16 +1
+2 melee = 14 shots. (15 vs carapace)
+3 = 13 shots (14 vs +3 carapace)

Muta vs Muta

Carapace rather than attack as it negates a full damage point off multiple bounces

In Mutalisk vs Mutalisk battles, Flyer Carapace should always be upgraded rather than Flyer Attacks if possible; Air Carapace decreases the damage of all 3 bounces from the glaive wurm by 1 each, while Air Attack only increases the damage of the attacks by 1, 0.33, and 0.11 http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Mutalisk_(Legacy_of_the_Void)

Mutalisk health regeneration rate increased to 1.4 HP/second.

Ground Attack:
9 (+1.000) (1st bounce)
3 (+0.333) (2nd bounce)
1 (+0.111) (3rd bounce)


1-1 on muta fight 16 hits
Regen makes it impossible to calculate exact hits for a kill as every fight there’s differing muta counts and therefore more or less time to regen life during the combat.


Infestor upgrade and timing it out so that the pathogen glands is at least 37.5% finished (21 seconds) before you start infestors so they pop after the upgrade finishes


When are upgrades worthwhile?

When should you start your lair/+1 in order to sync up roach speed and +1 range attack for an attack?

Dayshi vs Elazer - replay set up from start - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B0suoovMS9qxZnBlWDVRYWJkeEk?usp=sharing

Unit Counters and how to adjust your composition

An episode looking at the COMMON adjustments to composition made by pros in order to counter all the regular shifts and adjustments in composition.
Remember there’s limitless compositions and unit ratios, and many ways to deal with them. Today we’re talking about the most common stuff in the meta (current strats)

Before we begin to answer the most common bronze-league question:



How to counter voidrays?
Light units (voidrays do bonus to armoured)
“But my hydras just melt!!”
Macro is still important
Even strong counters should be thought of as units that can “deal” with the enemy units when used correctly. But just getting them out doesn’t win you the game. As long as your opponent doesn’t simply mass one unit all game long, you will need to have a balanced “standard” composition, and then make adjustments based on what your opponent is going.
So if you see 1 or 2 voidrays, maybe just ensure you have some marines or hydras mixed in. But don’t ONLY build marines and hydras, as those voidrays might only be 10% of the enemy composition. Only focus on just that single counter if you see ONLY voidrays and lots of stargates… continuing to build void-rays
Ofc carries over to every other scenario

ZvT

Terran side
Bio Base
Adjust both ratio of marauders and marines, and the addition of mines or tanks.

Marine-marauder ratio. Marauders are good at tanking vs ling-bane, but don’t really have enough damage output to be super effective, they just help protect the marines. You want some, but not many.

The “standard” way to play is 1 tech lab, 4 reactors, then 3 more tech labs.
However some players choose to opt for 2, or sometimes even 3 tech labs on their first 5-rax when fighting vs roach-ravager.
On the other end of the spectrum we have Innovation vs Solar in Shoutcraft Kings recently, building 6 reactors and only 2 tech labs at his full 8-barracks production


Widow mines vs ling-bane with this compositon
Marines firepower also very important to gun down the front-running ling-bane so the mines don’t waste their firepower on the front guys and instead automatically focus on the main packs of lingbane rolling in the centre (annotation to micro vod )
If you don’t have enough marines you often just need to spend most of the time running away and spreading rather than shooting, that’s when zerg rolls over you.
Also why pre-splits are so important. Doesn’t matter how good you are at splitting if your stuff’s running it’s not shooting!

Snute vs Bunny double fact-tank pushes
Uthermal vs Snute double fact-tank push IEM Shanghai:

Tanks or mines?
Usually Terran players will build tanks vs roach-ravager, and mines vs ling-bane. At lower levels hellbats can be fantastic if you spread well as they roast zerglings. However they aren’t good at clearing banelings like widow-mines so they aren’t favoured at high level. Some players prefer to get a fast 2nd factory before going to 7 or 8 barracks. They can use this for double tank production or drilling claws and triple mine production. Both of these suffer against Ultralisks in the late-game as they lack mobility and take away from the earlier marauder count which can kite ultras to death at high level.

Zerg side

Roach-ravager or Ling-bane focus
Both are good bases to your army - you don’t “react” into one or the other. You choose the style you prefer to play before the game starts or very early on.
The important thing is to understand how to adjust.

MLB
Hellbats:
Super heavy baneling count to instantly kill hellbats and allow your lings to roll over everything else.
Because there’s no effective splash except the hellbats and they will die instantly you don’t need to spread and can roll over this army as long as you have the numbers

Shoutcraft VoD again

Mines
Just spreading your army every time you engage and actively spreading forward with your lingbane is big here. (annotation to micro vod https://youtu.be/gTcdPlk1cds?t=2364 )
Also you want to have more lings, and not so many banelings.
At least 3 lings to every baneling so your lings can close in and wrap around the Terran army
Drag widow mine shots into their army AND away from your banelings
Less clumps of banelings as juicy mine targets

Tanks
Always try to pre-spread to minimise splash damage and flank
More lings, less banes once again, for the same reasons

Thors/liberators
Corruptors rather than mutalisks
If you already have mutas just stop building them
The exception is if you’re already doing lots of damage with the mutas and they don’t have many of these units out yet - in which case you can try to pick them off and use your momentum to fight where they aren’t

Roach-Ravager



Pure bio army
Don’t add banelings!
Dark’s banelings were pre-empting a ghost-switch from bomber to counter his ultralisks
Dark over-estimated the strength of his ultras at defending mass bio with a little fungal support.
More fungal is fantastic
Just need enough RR to do the damage/be the meat alongside the fungal bile combos
Killing them with an attack by using positioning + corrosive bile

^abusing the range of bile and the importance of concaves

Tanks
Focus on flanking
Less infestors - more important to have raw numbers or to tech harder to ultras/broods
More ravagers
not armoured (might change in future patch)
And corrosive bile to kill tanks/force them to lift
You can just fight them without a composition adjustment
Only when they get to a crazy tank count or a really abusive position is it deadly. So normally you just fight to not give them a strong ledge above a base or so on.
And you aim to either win, or get to hive tech before they get 10+ tanks


Mech



Not particularly popular since it has some potent weaknesses however still seen sometimes

Oldschool variant of mech relies on adding more tanks vs ground armies, thors for anti-air (and anti-ultra) and hellbats for defending lings.

Widow mines as bonus anti-air vs corruptors to help defend libs

Iaguz:
[5:14:11 PM] iaguz guzson: I recall in hots the trick was to make the precise amount of tanks which was about 10-15 and no more
[5:14:18 PM] iaguz guzson: and then go into thors and flying units
[5:14:33 PM] iaguz guzson: once vipers are out you don't get to really attack with tanks anymore

[5:15:40 PM] iaguz guzson: the reason why tanks are so essentially early on is that they're the only cost efficient way to avoid dying to roaches
[5:15:56 PM] iaguz guzson: but once you've got a big enough economy and enough mechy units you can beat any ground army without all that many tanks

still nice to hvae a few to pick at crawlers and infestors


Skyterran mech
Dayshi vs Elazer
Libs for anti-ground
Helions for anti-ling
Mines + viking for anti-air
Helions for harassment/to buy time

With either style:
Big push before vipers, or play a very slow, turtley game with lots of PFs, turrets and zoning out areas of the map, because attacking into fungal/PB, abducts and blinding clouds doesn’t tend to work very well.

Zerg anti mech:

Roach-Hydra-Viper

https://youtu.be/UHWDuQf_I28?t=1166
Potentially add infestors as well
Vs super turtley you might need to eventually transition to broods, corrupters, static.

QnA

So today we’re talking about the most important powerful upgrades that make massive changes. I’m focusing on the attack and defence upgrades - special upgrades like hydra movespeed and range, banespeed, blink, charge etc are always something you should get if you’re using a lot of that unit in your army in the midgame onwards.

I’m pointing out where upgrades make almost no effective change.

Simple examples to start off with are:

Zealot vs ling 0-0
Zealot vs ling +1 vs0
Zealot vs ling +1 vs +1
Zealot ling +2 vs 0

Zealot vs zergling - 3 shots. +1 attack = 2 shots. 33% boost from 1 upgrade wow! However getting +2 and +3 means it’s still 3-shots. Therefore for zealot vs zergling, +2 and +3 are worthless.

Unless the zerg gets carapace to cancel out some of those attack upgrades.

Unless charge kicks in, in which case the zealot will always 2-shot the first ling unless the ling is 2-carapace upgrades ahead!

SO case 1: ZERGS SKIPPING CARAPACE and focusing on mass ling-bane

Vs mass ling/bane - armour upgrades are far more important in general vs the zerglings. If ling-bane becomes super common in the meta, shield or armour ups may actually be more important.

Being up +1 attack to the carapace is the only important atk upgrade for the zealots
+1 also means archons direct hit (will always 1-shot)

+2 attack vs +2 melee - 8 zealots left standing
+1 attack and +1 armour is acutally wayyy better for this.

LOAD save 3
80 lings +20 banes
10 zealots, 5 immortals, 4 archons

+2 attack 5-4-7-2-0 - 18 units survived
vs 1-1 ground armour 11-5-9-9-9 - 43 units survived
Vs Then test shields 5-6-8-3-10 - 32 units survived (ARCHONS - HIGH DAMAGE BUT SHREKT BY LINGS with UPGRADES)


Swap 2 immortals for 2 archons and test with +1 attack and +1 shields
6-8-14-11-10 - 49 units survived - best yet! But remember this is also compositon
+2 atk -8-10-4-6-9 - 37 units survived
+1-1 ground armour - 8-10-3-12-7 - 39 units survived IF MORE IMMORTALS THIS WOULD BE MORE RELIABLE

However with micro will it perform the same?
I can’t say for sure but let’s think about it
Archons and zealots when spread will be taking less banelings hits, and more ling hits - armour upgrades more effectives
Banelings will force the units to spread out more though - allow zerglings to close in, surround and destroy spread out units much faster.
Also zealots will for the most part have to be way back, waiting for the banes to be mostly dead before they can engage - sometimes most of the archons will already be dead by then, nice upgrades or not.
This factor though is actually a big reason why am really liking this single robo straight into shields after +1 attack style where you make more archons and focus your chargelots on counterattacks.

Archon splash
100% single target
50% dmg just outside that
33% just outside that

What about vs hydra-ling-lurker

Show with +2 range vs 1-1

+2 attack 5-5-6-2-4 - 22 units survived total
1-1 - 2-4-3-3-3 - 15 units survived
shields 3-0-6-3-6 - 18 units survived

Attack bonuses
Zealots 4-shot hydras with +2
Archons 5-shot with +1 vs lurker
Immortals 4-shot with +1 lurker
Archons 2-shot hydras with +2

Armour bonuses
Ground armour is fantastic vs lings
Fantastic vs hydras
However once again archons are somewhat important with this style and won’t benefit.

Show +2range

But wait, isn’t +2 range good for this composition? What if zerg has that rather than 1-1?
Now Change zerg upgrades so it’s +2 range vs +2 attack
Suddenly the zerg wins almost every time
With heavy hydra-lurker this is more important than melee! The lings just evaporate, they’re there to absorb charge, tank a little, and simply spend excess minerals!

NOW show 5 hydras traded out for 20 more lings! EXTRAA LINGS

Test

1-1 vs 1-1Z 4-0-3-3-3 TOTAL 13
+2 vs 1-1Z 3-0-0-0-3 TOTAL 6
1+shields 0-0-3-4-2 TOTAL 9

Show same scenario with +2 range
-generally not as effective. More lings = more value from melee, more hydra/lurker = more value from them.

As we see P armour is most useful vs lings!
vs the heavier range damage of these units. You’d rather have attack as P
Zerg should generally prioritise the range upgrades with heavier hydra lurker
Vs no armour/shield upgrades adding lings is always worthwhile too

Nerchio’s doubling up on both upgrades makes a lot of sense. This way P players can’t counter both the lings AND the hydra/lurker without going double forge

The conclusion we can draw is that indeed as my hypothesis stated - armour upgrades are the most important vs lings due to the fact that you will generally way overkill vs zerglings. This is even the same for roach vs ling - +1 attack is great but anything else sucks. The reason this isn’t true for Terran is that marines and marauders do smaller, faster increments of damage and so there isn’t much overkill







PART 2

General interesting unit points


Zergling damage

Back to 80 lings vs 20 zealots - add melee upgrades and adrenal

Pretty linear advancement in line with the lings actual % of increased damage against all units
Most important is just that it’s a HUGE increase, because a full damage point
20% for +1
Slightly decreasing with each upgrade to +3
But then also adrenal which gives 40% attack speed
OP upgrades to make up for the fact that lings can be denied the opportunity to ever hit anything! By the time all those upgrades kick in toss can have aoe, ff and good wall-offs.
Low damage means only ground armour and shield upgrades do CANCEL out the advantages somewhat. However luckily Protoss life is split so they can’t easily upgrade both, whereas other races get just 1 upgrade for all their HP

Banelings +1 vs zealots, adepts and stalkers, where unless they have +2 ground armour it brings down the shots to kill from 5 to 4 for adepts and zealots, or 9 to 8 for stalkers.

+2 1-shot probes

Roaches
Gradual power increase - +2 = 2-shotting probes

Hydra
Gradual increase
+1 per upgrade so more affected by enemy armour upgrades

Queen
2 low damage attacks with only +1 per upgrade = get rekt if you have inferior upgrades
Gradual increase as you progress

Muta
Gradual damage increase - drastically reduced bounce damage vs good armour upgrades - each bounce only gets 33% dmg of the previous hit so receives very little boost from upgrades.
Armour very good vs phoenix - but since the unit sucks vs them it’s usually more worthwhile to go attack and just try to get your crucial damage done while the window is open

Corruptors
Armour very good vs phoenix

Ultra
Vs immortal SHOW ULTRA VS IMMORTAL +3 atk vs 0 armour, then vs +3 armour and +3 shields.
12
11
10 with +2 (11 if vs +2 ground armour)
ALWAYS 10 with +3 (armour upgrades don’t matter
Not that massive change because of the shield

Lurkers NEVER fight on their own so upgrades are simply incremental

Corruptors - show a corruptor vs 4 phoenix. +3 carapace vs 0-0 phoenix
THEN show it with just +2 carapace
Corruptors benefit massively from armour vs phoenix and carriers.
Attack helps them vs tempests

Protoss

Adept

Attack upgrades are completely negigible vs lings AND hydras unless
you have +3 atk vs 0 carapace
OR
They have +2 carapace vs 0 attack

Stalker

vs lings

+2 is key for 3-shotting lings
-2 = 5-shots

Vs hydras +3 is no diff to +2

Vs mutas
+1 = 11 (if you pretty much 1-shot them)
Doesn’t go up with +2

Archons
Vs Roaches
+0 = 5
+1 = 4 +1 atk is important 20% bonus! Only this upgrade matters. Only denied by +2 or higher carapace

Vs mutas
+0 = 4
+1 =
+2 = 3 (4 shots if +3 carapace)
+3 = ALWAYS 3 shots

DTs upgrades don’t matter at all in most situations

Immortal

vs lings
Always 2 shot lings

Vs banelings
Always 2 shot

Vs Roaches
+0 = 3 - only 4 if no atk upgrades and they have +2 carapace - upgrades don’t really matter
Vs Hydras
+0 = 5
+1 = 4 - only brought back to 5 by +2 carapace
+2 = always 4

+1 = 4 always 4

Colossus

Gets rekt by armour cos 2 attacks and only 1 attack bonus per atk upgrade
If enemy has more armour than you have attack huge losses

vs lings
Always 2

Vs banelings
Always 2


Vs Hydras

As long as you’re 2 attack upgrades ahead of their armour ups, you’ll 3-shot them.

Phoenix
+1 = 4 having a 1 attack upgrade advantage over their armour is key to 4-shotting hydras #rottibuild
If you fall behind you will lose out exponentially. Pretty standard gains though on the attack side.

Carriers exact same concept

Voidrays

Also somewhat dependant on not falling behind in upgrades since they have low damage but fast attack speed, and only gain 1 atk per up.

Vs corrupters just steady increase nothing massive

ZERG ATTACKS/P armour

Ling

Talk about how pro zergs focus on attack upgrades because carapace are expensive, kick in slowly and have relatively little effect. +1 carapace can help negate the +2 on stalkers killing lings, but stalkers is not the strongest composition so it’s rare to see this. Armour ups on roaches are great vs zealots and adepts, but really pointless vs immortals and archons

vs zealot
Pretty linear advancement in line with the lings actual % of increased damage against all units
Most important is just that it’s a HUGE increase,
20% for +1
Slightly decreasing with each upgrade to +3
But then also adrenal which gives 40% attack speed
OP upgrades to make up for the fact that lings can be denied the opportunity to ever hit anything! By the time all those upgrades kick in toss can have aoe, ff and good walloffs.

Baneling

vs zealot
+0 = 5
+1 = 4 (5 if +2 ground armour)
+2 = always 4
+3 =
-1 =
-2 =
-3 =

vs adept
Pretty much the same as the zealot even though 20 less HP as shields = slightly less armour modifiers

Vs stalker
9 with no ups
+1 takes it down to 8
+2 takes it down to 7

Vs Probes +2 = 2-shotting them

Vs archon - the lings are actually what shred the archons the banes just force them to spread so the lings can get surface area

Roach

Nothing special - just gradual effect.
+2 per upgrade so not too affected by armour.
No special power bumps vs protoss
+2 will allow you to 2-shot probes


Vs adept
10-shots
9-shots
8-shots
7-shots


Hydra
Gradual increase
+1 per upgrade so more affected by enemy armour upgrades

Queen
2 low damage attacks with only +1 per upgrade = get rekt if you have inferior upgrades
Gradual increase as you progress

Muta
Gradual damage increase - drastically reduced bounce damage vs good armour upgrades - each bounce only gets 33% dmg of the previous hit so receives very little boost from upgrades.
Armour very good vs phoenix - but since the unit sucks vs them it’s usually more worthwhile to go attack and just try to get your crucial damage done while the window is open

Corruptors
Armour very good vs phoenix

Ultra
Vs immortal
12
11
10 with +2 (11 if vs +2 ground armour)
10 with +3
Not that massive change because of the shield

Lurker

vs zealot
8-shots
9 if +1 +2 or +3 carapace
+1 weapons

Vs archon

Vs Immortal


Corruptor

Vs phoenix

Vs VR

Vs Carrier

Vs Tempest


Protoss Attacks/zerg armour

Vs mass ling/bane - armour upgrades are far more important in general vs the zerglings. There’s an awkward interaction where archons are great vs banelings AND their attack murders clumped lings. However since they’re mostly shields archons have NO armour - allowing lings with melee upgrades to shred them. You end up with armies that kill each other incredibly quickly. If ling-bane becomes super common in the meta, shield upgrades after +1 may actually be more important.

Case in point within the current meta:

Zergs skip carapace
Lots of zergs massing ling-bane as core army (sometimes with ravagers in support)

So the key upgrades are:

+2 weapons for stalkers to 3-shot lings
+1 for pre-charge zealots to 2-shot lings isn’t necessary since adepts are usually better that early on.
If no carapace then 0 upgrade archons will still 1-shot lings
Immortals will always 2-shot
So really if you don’t go stalkers - and focus on adepts or chargelots into archons you simply don’t need attack upgrades - they don’t help you vs this army.
However every armour or shield upgrade makes a significant change to survive. Shields is amazing for archons and OK for other units.
Good rule with charge-immo-archon would be single robo = shield upgrades and more archons, double robo and more immortal/chargelot = ground armour upgrades
Ground armour is useless for archons and quite good for other units.
Generally you could say let’s just always focus on those ground

Zerg could counter this adjustment by adding +1 carapace for making archons take 2-shots - however they can’t do anything with THIS COMPOSITION to fight the effectiveness of those ground armour/shield upgrades

What about vs hydra-ling-lurker

Ground armour is fantastic vs lings
Fantastic vs hydras
However once again archons are somewhat important with this style and won’t benefit.
Don’t need atk ups vs lings
If you have zealot atk upgrades 2 higher than zerg carapace than zealots will 4-shot rather than 5-shot hydras. So you’d give up this 20% damage boost there. However it’s for a 16.67% reduction on hydra damage.
Archons would lose their 6 to 5 bonus from +1.
Immortals would lose their 5 to 4 bonus from +1

Zealot (gotta remember charge)

2-attacks
Armour upgrades cancel out attack upgrades
So we’ll talk about RELATIVE Upgrades +1 ahead, -1 behind etc
So vs lots of armour they get rekt

vs lings
+1 =2-shot lings
2-attacks so always negated by equal carapace upgrades.
So being 1 upgrade ahead is the key here, no specific upgrade.
Charge = 2-shot lings unless lings are 2 or more carpace upgrades ahead!

Carapace - only at 3 carapace and 0 atk do zealots take 4-shots. Any other deficit in atk vs armour upgrades doesn’t matter.

Vs Roaches - nothing of note except that you get gradual gains as ahead in upgrades, and massive falloff when behind in upgrades
Equal upgrades = 11 hits
1 up ahead = 10 shots
2 ups ahead = 9shots
3 ups ahead = 8-shots

With charge
Equal upgrades = 11 hits (1 HP)
+1 up ahead = 9 shots
+2 ups ahead = 8
+3 ups ahead = 7

Carapace
-1 behind = 13
-2 behind = 15
-3 behind = 19

Start losing multiple damage PER ATTACK

Vs Hydras

+0 = 6
+1 = 5
+2 = 5
+3 = 4 (20%) No armour hydras vs +3 zealots get shredded
-1 = 6
-2 = 7
-3 = 9

With charge

+0 = 5
+1 = 5
+2 = 4
+3 = 4
-1 = 6
-2 = 7
-3 = 8

Vs Queens

+0 = 13
+1 = 12
+2 = 10 (+16%)
+3 = 9
-1 = 15
-2 =
-3 = 23

With charge meh

+0 =
+1 =
+2 =
+3 =
-1 =
-2 =
-3 =

Vs Lurkers

+0 = 15
+1 = 13 13% boost
+2 = 12
+3 = 11
-1 =
-2 =
-3 = 27

With charge

+0 =
+1 =
+2 =
+3 =
-1 =
-2 =
-3 =

Vs Ultras (chitinous plating)

+0 = 84
+1 =
+2 =
+3 = 42
-1 =
-2 =
-3 = 500 hits.

With charge

+0 =
+1 =
+2 =
+3 =
-1 =
-2 =
-3 =


Adept


vs lings
+0 = 2
+1 = 2
+2 = 2
+3 = 2
-1 = 2
-2 = 2
-3 = 2

Vs banelings
+0 = 2
+1 = 2
+2 = 2
+3 = 2
-1 = 2
-2 = 2
-3 = 2

Vs Roaches
+0 = 17
+1 = 15
+2 = 14
+3 = 13
-1 =
-2 =
-3 = 25/26

Vs Hydras

Not important at all unless you’re +3 vs 0 carapace

+0 = 4
+1 = 4
+2 = 4
+3 = 3
-1 = 4
-2 = 5
-3 = 5

Vs Queens

Already trash - nothing new

+0 = 18
+1 =
+2 =
+3 = 15
-1 =
-2 =
-3 =

Vs Lurkers

Already trash nothing surprising

+0 =
+1 =
+2 =
+3 =
-1 =
-2 =
-3 =


Vs Ultras

Already trash nothing surprising

+0 =
+1 =
+2 =
+3 =
-1 =
-2 =
-3 =

Stalker

vs lings

+2 is key for 3-shotting lings
-2 = 5-shots

+0 = 4
+1 = 4
+2 = 3
+3 = 3
-1 = 4 (5 if one on one combat)
-2 = 5
-3 = 6

Vs banelings
+0 = 4
+1 = 3
+2 = 3
+3 = 3
-1 = 4
-2 = 4
-3 = 5

Vs Roaches

Nothing special

+0 = 12
+1 = 11
+2 = 10
+3 = 10
-1 =
-2 =
-3 = 15

Vs Hydras
+0 = 9
+1 = 8
+2 = 7
+3 = 7 No DIFF TO +2
-1 = 10
-2 = 11
-3 = 12

Vs Queens
+0 =
+1 =
+2 =
+3 =
-1 =
-2 =
-3 =

Vs Lurkers

Nothing special
+0 = 16
+1 =
+2 =
+3 = 13
-1 = 17
-2 =
-3 = 21

Vs Ultras
+0 = 56
+1 =
+2 =
+3 = 42
-1 =
-2 =
-3 = 84

Vs mutas
+0 = 13
+1 = 11 (if you 1-shot them)
+2 = 11
+3 =
-1 =
-2 =
-3 =

Vs broodlords

Very gradual nothing special

+0 = 18
+1 =
+2 =
+3 = 15
-1 =
-2 =
-3 = 23


Archon

vs lings
+0 = 1 Any armour upgrade advantage for lings will make it 2-shots! Half the effectiveness
+1 = 1
+2 = 1
+3 = 1
-1 = 2
-2 = 2
-3 = 2

Vs banelings
+0 = 1
+1 = 1
+2 = 1
+3 = 1
-1 = 1
-2 = 1
-3 = 1

Vs Roaches
+0 = 5
+1 = 4 +1 atk is important 20% bonus! Only this upgrade matters. Only denied by +2 or higher carapace
+2 = 4 always 4 shots
+3 = 4
-1 =
-2 =
-3 =

Vs Hydras
+0 = 3
+1 = 3
+2 = 2 +2 is key (only stopped if they have +3 carapace)
+3 = 2 (always 2 shots)
-1 =
-2 =
-3 =

Vs Queens
+0 = 6 (also 6 if +0 vs +3 carapace)
+1 = 5
+2 = 5
+3 = 4 (always 5 if +2 or +3 carapace)
-1 =
-2 =
-3 =

Vs Lurkers
+0 = 6
+1 = 5 (key upgrade)
+2 = 5
+3 = 5
-1 =
-2 =
-3 =

Vs Ultras

Pretty gradual - just show very quickly
+0 = 17
+1 = 15 biggest boost - if ultras don’t have armour. Pretty gradual generally (16vs +2 cara, 17 vs +3 cara)
+2 = 14
+3 = 12 (13 vs +3 cara)
-1 =
-2 =
-3 =

Vs mutas
+0 = 4
+1 =
+2 = 3 (4 shots if +3 carapace)
+3 = ALWAYS 3 shots
-1 =
-2 =
-3 =

Vs broodlords
+0 = 7
+1 = 6 (7-shots if +1 cara)
+2 = 6 (needed if they have flyer carapace)
+3 = 5 (6 shots if +2cara or higher)
-1 =
-2 =
-3 =

DT

vs lings
Always 1 shot

Vs banelings
Always 1 shot

Vs Roaches
+0 = 4
+1 = 3 any carapace upgrades brings it back to 4
+2 = Always 3 shots
+3 =
-1 =
-2 =
-3 =

Vs Hydras
Always 2

Vs Queens
+0 = 5
+1 = always 4
+2 =
+3 =
-1 =
-2 =
-3 =

Vs Lurkers
+0 = 5
+1 = 5
+2 = always 4
+3 =
-1 =
-2 =
-3 =

Vs Ultras
+0 = 13
+1 = 12
+2 = 10 (11 if any armour upgrades)
+3 = 10
-1 =
-2 =
-3 =

Immortal

vs lings
Always 2 shot lings

Vs banelings
Always 2 shot

Vs Roaches
+0 = 3 - only 4 if no atk upgrades and they have +2 carapace - upgrades don’t really matter
+1 =
+2 =
+3 = 3
-1 =
-2 =
-3 =

Vs Hydras
+0 = 5
+1 = 4 - only brought back to 5 by +2 carapace
+2 = always 4
+3 =
-1 =
-2 =
-3 =

Vs Queens
+0 =
+1 =
+2 =
+3 =
-1 =
-2 =
-3 =

Vs Lurkers
+0 = 5
+1 = 4 always 4
+2 = 4 always 4
+3 = 4
-1 =
-2 =
-3 =

Vs Ultras
Gradual increase - atk way more important than armour
+0 = 12
+1 = 11
+2 =
+3 =always 9
-1 =
-2 =
-3 =

Colossus

Gets rekt by armour cos 2 attacks and only 1 attack bonus per atk upgrade
If enemy has more armour than you have attack huge losses

vs lings
Always 2

Vs banelings
Always 2

Vs Hydras

As long as you’re 2 attack upgrades ahead of their armour ups, you’ll 3-shot them.
+0 = 4
+1 = 4
+2 = 3

-1 =
-2 =
-3 =

Phoenix

Vs queens
+0 = 23
+1 =
+2 =
+3 =
-1 =
-2 =
-3 =

Vs Hydras
+0 = 5
+1 = 4 having a 1 attack upgrade advantage over their armour is key to 4-shotting hydras #rottibuild
+2 =
+3 =
-1 =
-2 =
-3 =

Vs mutas
+0 = 7
+1 = 6
+2 =
+3 = 5
-1 =
-2 =
-3 =

Vs Corruptors

If you fall behind you will lose out exponentially. Pretty standard gains though on the attack side.

Carriers exact same concept

Voidrays

Also somewhat dependant on not falling behind in upgrades since they have low damage but fast attack speed, and only gain 1 atk per up.

Vs corrupters just steady increase nothing massive

+0 = 15
+1 = 14
+2 = 13
+3 =
-1 =
-2 =
-3 =