For large battles in which you don't expect many units to live, Armor > Shields since it's cheaper and does the same thing. For harass and skirmishes where your units may live to fight another day, Shields > Armor since you can recharge your shields and get use from that upgrade again.

It also depends on your unit composition. For a Zealot heavy army, the Armor is preferred as they have far less Shields than they do HP and their actual Armor comes into play rather quickly into the fight.

jerry507

United States11 Posts

June 27 2010 00:12 GMT

#22

Does bonus damage apply to shields as well? That is, does a reaper do (4+5)x2 to a zealots shields or just 4x2?

aka_star

United Kingdom1546 Posts

June 27 2010 00:17 GMT

#23

don't do it vs terran! emp makes it pointless

Fyrewolf

United States1533 Posts

June 27 2010 00:21 GMT

#24

Wait..... I was pretty sure that Shields don't take bonus damage in SC2, unlike SC1. So an Immortal would just do 20 to the shields, then 20+30 to the health, unless they changed it just before beta went down.

Also, if you plan on using your force for harass and pulling back before taking too much hull damage, upgrade shields first, since you'll be making use of the recharge more than the units health anyway.

Severedevil

United States4839 Posts

June 27 2010 00:25 GMT

#25

Bonus damage applies to shields in the same way as it applies to health. The differences between shields and health are:

1) Shields regenerate
2) Shield upgrades only boost shield armor, armor upgrades only boost health armor
3) Shields can be EMP'd

Fyrewolf

United States1533 Posts

June 27 2010 00:32 GMT

#26

Ah, good to know that shields do take bonus damage if the unit is the right type. I knew it didn't if the unit types didn't match, but I wasn't sure if it was good across the board.

On another note, Blink Stalkers with +3 shields are sssssoooooooo good if you micro them. But by the time you get Shld Lvl 3 it shouldn't matter anymore.

eScaper-tsunami

Canada313 Posts

June 27 2010 20:08 GMT

#27

+3 shield for immortals = 7 damage per hit instead of 10. Also reduces lesser attacks as well, such as zergling hits from 5 to 2. However, sentry's shield does not help reducing it at all. I upgrade armor 1-> armor 2-> shield 1-> shield 2 -> armor 3. Less research time, cheaper cost and essentially does the same thing but applied to all units.

TossFloss

Canada606 Posts

June 27 2010 20:11 GMT

#28

On June 28 2010 05:08 eScaper-tsunami wrote:
+3 shield for immortals = 7 damage per hit instead of 10.

No that's not how it works. The damage reduction applies before the damage cap.

oxxo

988 Posts

June 28 2010 02:27 GMT

#29

Shield upgrade is worth much more in SC2 than in SC1. In SC1 shields regenerated slower (but in combat), and took full damage from everything. So shields will usually be full AND they take less damage overall.

The only reason everyone only did weapon/armor is because of the full damage + slow regen.

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