Shortly before Beta ended, I was in a 2v2 where my teammate claimed that "Mutalisks beat Corruptors". He then flew his mutalisk fleet into an enemy corrputor fleet and died horribly, then the corruptors turned into broodlords and owned us.
Obviously, only a real noob would believe that mutas could beat corruptors, but I have heard a lot of people claim that "X hard-counters Y" without really knowing how good of a counter it is. I decided to go into Unit Tester and bust some myths.
DISCLAIMER: All of the testing was done with Unit Tester, attack-moving two blobs of units into each other. No attempt was made at focus fire or micro unless stated otherwise in the individual test. I disproved several hard-counters, but certain matchups may be very strong soft-counters even though they don't always win 1a2a3a.
Update: Because someone mentioned mutalisks vs thors, I did some tests and found a really awesome way to fight thors with mutas.
Update2: Added battlecruiser and ultralisk testing.
--------- MYTH #1: "Vikings hard-counter Phoenixes": BUSTED With equal upgrade levels, 1 Phoenix will kill 1 Viking with 20-40 HP remaining. In 1v1, 3v3, 5v5 and 8v8 the Phoenixes win. Granted, Phoenixes are rarely seen in TvP, but they're not all that bad.
--------- MYTH #2: "Vikings hard-counter Corruptors": BUSTED With no micro, 1 Corruptor and 1 Viking will kill each other simultaneously, they are very evenly matched. In 1v1, 3v3, 5v5, and 8v8 tests the Corruptors usually win, although sometimes the Vikings win. (due to randomness of attack-move targeting)
While it is possible to kite corruptors with vikings, it is not easy. Corruptors have equal acceleration and slightly higher max speed (2.95 vs 2.75). With use of the Corrupt spell, corruptors actually beat vikings 1v1.
If I had a dime for every time a bad terran player lost all their vikings trying to attack a massive Corruptor fleet in 2v2/3v3, I'd be rich. Wait until they transform into broodlords and then you're golden.
--------- MYTH #3: "Hydralisks hard-counter Battlecruisers": BUSTED A single Battlecruiser (400/300/6) will kill five Hydras (500/250/10), but will lose to six Hydras. On open terrain, you need just over 5 hydras-per-BC to win. If the BCs have terrain advantage, Hydras are nearly useless.
The main reason that Hydras are good against BCs is that a Zerg player should have WAY more bases and resources than a Starport Terran. However, if Terran gets a critical mass of BCs (6+) you really need corruptors - hydras will die and infestors can be focus-fired.
--------- MYTH #4: "Thors hard-counter Ultralisks": BUSTED Without any upgrades, one Ultra will beat one Thor with ~90 HP left. With 3/3 upgrades, the Ultra will beat the Thor with ~106 HP left. If multiple Ultras and multiple Thors are involved (big blobs with no micro), the Thors lose horribly due to splash damage.
Using Strike Cannons on an Ultra will leave him with 1 hp. Shooting him first, then using cannons, will kill him easily. The problem is that after the Thor finishes firing Strike Cannons, there is a REALLY long delay before it can move or fire. This can actually be bad in larger battles. Targeting an Ultra that would have died anyways basically just "self-stuns" your Thor, decreasing overall DPS.
--------- MYTH #5: "Archons hard-counter Mutalisks like in SC1": PLAUSIBLE Archons will beat Mutas at an approximate 4:1 ratio. Given that 100/300/4 is way less than 400/400/8, and Archons win regardless of micro, I still call it a hard counter. It's just not as good as it was in SC1. Because mutas don't stack as tightly in sc2, you can no longer do 25 damage to 11 mutas in a single shot.
--------- MYTH #6: "You cannot shoot down void rays with Phoenixes": BUSTED 2 Void Rays (500/300/6) vs. 3 Phoenixes (450/300/6) is a close fight, but assuming no Fazing the Phoenixes generally win. Voidrays cannot run away from phoenixes, phoes can easily run away from rays.
--------- MYTH #7: "Mass Queens are insanely cost-effective anti-air":CONFIRMED Without any micro or Transfusion, 4 queens (600/0/8) can beat: - 6 Mutas (600/600/12) - 3 Banshees (450/300/9) - 3 Voidrays (750/450/9)
Throw in Transfusion and the cost-efficiency of Queens becomes utterly ridiculous. You would have had 2 queens anyways (1 at main and 1 at expo) so 2 extra queens only costs 300/0/4!
--------- MYTH #8: "Mutas die horribly against Thors regardless of your micro": BUSTED The below tests were done with unupgraded Thors. Obviously, upgraded thors will spank mutas much harder.
I was able to beat 1 Thor with 4 mutas, and this one was very close. I was able to beat 2 Thors very easily with 7 Mutas. My best against 3 Thors was 10 Mutas. My best against 4 Thors was 13 Mutas. My best against 5 Thors was 16 Mutas. Note that with pure attack-move, 5 Thors will kill 25 Mutas with 4 thors left standing. With bad clumping, even 30 Mutas will die to 5 thors.
Against 3+ thors, micro will make your mutas nearly TWICE as effective. Better yet, microing against thors is super easy, you don't need to practice for hours like in Broodwar. 1) Order your mutas to Stop, wait for them to spread out naturally. 2) Order your mutas to Move past the thors. Notice how a Move order keeps them spread out, while an Attack Move order causes them to clump. 3) When the frontmost Muta is about to reach the Thors, hit Stop. With deceleration, this will cause your entire muta group to park directly on top of the Thor group, perfectly spread out to avoid splash. 4) Focus fire at will and watch thors explode.
Cost-for-cost, Thors are still a strong counter to Mutas. The best ratio (just over 3-to-1) still represents 300+ gas versus 200 gas. However, a Terran player rarely spends 100% of his gas on Thors. If he's spending gas on Tanks and Thors, and you are only spending gas on Mutas, it is very plausible that you could beat his thors head on.
---------- ADDENDUM: Battlecruisers (This is not a myth) BCs vs Hydra - 1 BC will always win against 5 hydras, and always lose against 6 hydras. - 3 BCs will usually win against 15 hydras, and often lose against 16 hydras. (variable) A 1 BC : 5 hydra ratio seems fairly constant - Unburrowing hydras under BCs is not a good idea. The unburrowing animation takes long enough that BCs can actually fire ~2-3 shots before the hydras start shooting.
BC vs Stalker - 1 BC will always win against 4 stalkers, and always lose against 5 stalkers. - 3 BCs will usually win against 12 stalkers, and will sometimes lose against 13 stalkers. This places the BC:Stalker ratio at just over 1:4. - Unlike Burrow, Blink helps significantly. Blinking 12 stalkers at 3 BCs will win.
BC vs Marine - Without shield or stim, 1 BC beats 13 marines and loses to 14 marines. - With shield only, 1 BC beats 11 marines and loses to 12 marines. - With stim only, 1 BC beats 11 marines and loses to 12 marines. - With shield+stim, 1 BC beats 10 marines and loses to 11 marines. - 3 BCs vs marines (with shield+stim) is variable. If the marines get a good concave, as few as 30 marines can kill the BCs. If the marines don't get a great concave, BCs can kill as many as 32 marines. 1 BC : 10 marines with shield+stim is fair. However, unlike stalkers or hydras, marines have less range than BCs. This means that well positioned BCs can melt marines without taking damage.
---------- ADDENDUM 2: Terran vs. Ultralisks Several people in this thread asked, what does beat ultralisks? Ultra vs Marine: Ultra wins - If the Ultra doesn't have carapace upgrade, you can beat 1 ultra with as few as 7 spread out marines. - Once carapace upgrade comes into play marines are nearly worthless. It is difficult to win even with 10 stimmed marines versus 1 ultra, beating 2 or 3 ultras takes TONS of marines due to taking splash damage. - Shoot and scoot doesn't work with marines, because ultras move faster than stimmed marines.
Ultra vs Marauder: Marauder wins, sorta - Marauders standing their ground vs ultras die pretty quickly. 1 Ultra (300/200/6) can take out 4 Marauders (400/100/8), with or without upgrades and stim. 5 marauders will beat the ultra. - If marauders are allowed to shoot and scoot, you can win with a 3 Marauder-per-Ultra ratio. (although this is difficult) - Since an Ultra actually moves faster than a stimmed Marauder, the only reason shoot and scoot wins is that it nullifies the Ultra's attack speed. If the marauders only stop to attack every 1.5 seconds, the ultras can only attack every 1.5 seconds instead of every 0.8. - I would call this a soft counter. If you have room to maneuver, 300/75/6 can beat 300/200/6. If you don't, 400/100/8 and 300/200/6 are roughly an even trade.
Ultra vs SCV, Reaper, Ghost, Hellion, Viking: Are you kidding? - No testing was done.
Ultra vs Tanks: Ultra wins, sorta - Unsieged, 3 siege tanks (450/375/9) can barely kill one Ultra (300/200/6). - Sieged tanks do VERY badly on a flat plain like Unit Tester. A sieged Tank deals 50 damage every 3 seconds (16.7 DPS) and can't hit an ultra right next to it. Unsieged Tanks deal 25 damage every 1.04 seconds (24 DPS) and can. Despite the range difference, sieged tanks actually do worse. For example, you need 4 spread-out sieged tanks to kill one ultra, and 6 spread-out sieged tanks to kill 2. - In a real game, your tanks should be behind other units or on cliffs. - The point remains that if tanks are ever caught out in the open against ultras, they will lose, even if they are already sieged up.
Ultra vs Thors: See above point #4 - I would call thors a VERY soft counter. Oddly, thor's role against ultras is more DPS than tank. 60 damage every 1.5sec is A LOT (over twice a sieged tank) but the slow moving Thor can't avoid taking huge damage from ultra hits. Put some bio in front of the thor and let them kite the ultra around.
Ultra vs Planetary Fortress: Ultra wins - One unupgraded ultra (300/200/6) vs 1 PF (550/150/0) without repairs, will take the PF down to 410/1500 HP. - One fully upgraded Ultra will beat a PF with 20 hp remaining. - Obviously a PF with repairs does better, but two Ultras will kill your SCVs first, then kill the PF. - Ultras perform as advertised against buildings.
with the large print condition "no micro", good job. yet micro changes everything...
quality check: varying army size confrontations, equal resources worth of units, mutiple runs to randomize-out approach angles, wrap arounds, etc.
Any equal number of Phoenixes will kill an equal number of Vikings
is an extrapolative assumption.
army size matters greatly. a big ball of vikings vs an equal ball of phoenix means vikings get shots off first and start the fight with an advantage that snowballs up.
just like how 3 zlots r way stronger than 1 zlot against the same resrouce value of lings. just like how larger terran balls in BW are stronger than compared to smaller terran balls against the proportionally sized enemy army
First off, lol @ your teammate who thought mutalisk beat corruptors with base 2 armor. The problem with this is that it only considers the fight is a direct open fight. For example the Ultralisk vs a Thor. Sure, ultralisk beats a Thor in a straight up battle, but as the number increase, the Thors will do much better. Then what if the Ultralisks are fighting in a choke, the Thors would destroy an equal amount of Ultras. However, if the Ultras are able to get a flank, the Ultras would do much better.
You also do not give enough information with these myths. For example, your Battlecruiser fighting Hydralisks is it in an attack move fashion from 1 to another? Without creep? With creep? Do the hydras unburrow under the BC?
not sure any of these were myths in the first place. still a good job but as the poster above said, micro (while you macro as well) changes everything.
Do speed upgraded void rays pwn vikings for cost? Been wondering this for a while.
Would be interested in seeing generic anti-air (stalkers, hydralisks, marines) versus all the capital ships. Screwing around in team games it seems like carriers pwn just about anything not specifically meant to counter them (vikings/corrupters/void rays).
On July 25 2010 08:10 GenesisX wrote: Awesome! :D Can you test Collo vs Roach?
Oooh that's a good one. I've been hearing/wondering lately that against pure ground compositions you're better off favoring roaches to hydralisks (until you reach such a point that Hydra range will allow more total units to be firing).
Seeing roaches do decently against Collosi would give even more support to this.
On July 25 2010 08:02 Lexvink wrote: First off, lol @ your teammate who thought mutalisk beat corruptors with base 2 armor. The problem with this is that it only considers the fight is a direct open fight. For example the Ultralisk vs a Thor. Sure, ultralisk beats a Thor in a straight up battle, but as the number increase, the Thors will do much better. Then what if the Ultralisks are fighting in a choke, the Thors would destroy an equal amount of Ultras. However, if the Ultras are able to get a flank, the Ultras would do much better.
You also do not give enough information with these myths. For example, your Battlecruiser fighting Hydralisks is it in an attack move fashion from 1 to another? Without creep? With creep? Do the hydras unburrow under the BC?
AFAIK, hard counter means that a unit will counter a unit with or without micro. Soft counter is a unit that beats a unit, but is untrue if the countered unit is microed.
In the post, it mentions it being a hard counter so the units are A- moving.
BTW, equal number of vikings lose to an equal number of phoenixes with or without micro. If the vikings try to kite, the phoenixes just move and shoot making kiting useless. Though first shots can change the outcome of the battle.
Vikings win vs Corrupters because Vikings get shots off then retreat behind Turrets in ZvT stalemates...
There is no such myth that vikings hard counter Phoenixes. It is common knowledge Phoenixes win. It is also common knowledge a Phoenix beats the void ray. Considering queens being good as anti-air... obviously it's true, but I guess if you wanted to do the tests.
The ONLY result I'm surprised by is Ultra vs Thor. Very interesting.
On July 25 2010 08:02 Lexvink wrote: First off, lol @ your teammate who thought mutalisk beat corruptors with base 2 armor. The problem with this is that it only considers the fight is a direct open fight. For example the Ultralisk vs a Thor. Sure, ultralisk beats a Thor in a straight up battle, but as the number increase, the Thors will do much better. Then what if the Ultralisks are fighting in a choke, the Thors would destroy an equal amount of Ultras. However, if the Ultras are able to get a flank, the Ultras would do much better.
You also do not give enough information with these myths. For example, your Battlecruiser fighting Hydralisks is it in an attack move fashion from 1 to another? Without creep? With creep? Do the hydras unburrow under the BC?
AFAIK, hard counter means that a unit will counter a unit with or without micro. Soft counter is a unit that beats a unit, but is untrue if the countered unit is microed.
In the post, it says hard counter so these are in condition with A-move.
BTW, equal number of vikings lose to an equal number of phoenixes with or without micro. If the vikings try to kite, the phoenixes just move and shoot making kiting useless. Though first shots can change the outcome of the battle.
I don't know where you heard these definitions of hard and soft counter but you're wrong...
I'll often sacrifice a normally timed lair for a faster expo/bigger army, and pump queens to hold off air, plus theyre even more effective with roaches thanks to transfuse, and CREEP EVERYWHERE XD
great super helpful post, vikings really aren't as good as people say i guess!
You should really do a test of the effectiveness of ultras, because I find them fairly viable, if your enemies don't get massive amounts of air/immortals... Some people complain about them being weak to seige tanks, but thats kind of ridiculous since ultras do 40 dmg per hit, hit relatively quickly, deal splash, and if you get armor it takes ~12 seige tank shots to kill a single one.
Shortly before Beta ended, I was in a 2v2 where my teammate claimed that "Mutalisks beat Corruptors". He then flew his mutalisk fleet into an enemy corrputor fleet and died horribly, then the corruptors turned into broodlords and owned us.
Now that beta is down, I did some testing with UnitTester to look into some specific unit matchups:
--------- MYTH #1: "Vikings hard-counter Phoenixes": BUSTED With equal upgrade levels, 1 Phoenix will kill 1 Viking with 20-40 HP remaining. Any equal number of Phoenixes will kill an equal number of Vikings. Granted, Phoenixes are almost never seen in TvP.
--------- MYTH #2: "Vikings hard-counter Corruptors": BUSTED With no micro, 1 Corruptor and 1 Viking will kill each other simultaneously, they are very evenly matched. While it is possible to kite corruptors with vikings, it is not easy. Corruptors have equal acceleration and slightly higher max speed (2.95 vs 2.75). With use of the Corrupt spell, corruptors actually beat vikings 1v1.
If I had a dime for every time a bad terran player lost all their vikings trying to attack a massive Corruptor fleet in 2v2/3v3, I'd be rich. Wait until they transform into broodlords and then you're golden.
--------- MYTH #3: "Hydralisks hard-counter Battlecruisers": BUSTED A single Battlecruiser (400/300/6) will kill five Hydras (500/250/10). Hydras are only effective against BCs because a ground Zerg will vastly outmacro an air Terran. Against a very large BC fleet you absolutely need corruptors.
--------- MYTH #4: "Thors hard-counter Ultralisks": BUSTED Without any upgrades, one Ultra will beat one Thor with ~90 HP left. If the Thor uses Strike Cannons, it will kill the Ultra with 10 HP left. With 3/3 upgrades, the Ultra will beat the Thor with ~106 HP left. If the Thor uses Strike Cannons, the Ultra wins with 1 HP left. If multiple Ultras and multiple Thors are involved, the Thors lose horribly due to splash damage, regardless of Cannon usage.
--------- MYTH #5: "Archons hard-counter Mutalisks like in SC1": PLAUSIBLE Archons will beat Mutas at an approximate 4:1 ratio. While this is definitely a favorable ratio (100/300/4 vs 400/400/8) it doesn't quite match up to SC1. Because mutas don't stack as tightly in sc2, you can no longer do 25 damage to 11 mutas in a single shot.
--------- MYTH #6: "You cannot shoot down void rays with Phoenixes": BUSTED 2 Void Rays (500/300/6) vs. 3 Phoenixes (450/300/6) is a close fight, but assuming no Fazing the Phoenixes generally win. Voidrays cannot run away from phoenixes, phoes can easily run away from rays.
--------- MYTH #7: "Mass Queens are insanely cost-effective anti-air":CONFIRMED Without any micro or Transfusion, 4 queens (600/0/8) can beat: - 6 Mutas (600/600/12) - 3 Banshees (450/300/9) - 3 Voidrays (750/450/9)
Throw in Transfusion and the cost-efficiency of Queens becomes utterly ridiculous. You would have had 2 queens anyways (1 at main and 1 at expo) so 2 extra queens only costs 300/0/4!
Phoenix are seen in PvT plenty, they bop tanks fosho
Ultras destroy all ground armored units lol, strike cannons barely kill them i'm sure but its when you engage in a fight and the ultralisks get stuck around their allied units or enemy front line units that seems to be the reason that thors beat ultras.
On July 25 2010 07:51 Piousflea wrote: --------- MYTH #4: "Thors hard-counter Ultralisks": BUSTED Without any upgrades, one Ultra will beat one Thor with ~90 HP left. If the Thor uses Strike Cannons, it will kill the Ultra with 10 HP left. With 3/3 upgrades, the Ultra will beat the Thor with ~106 HP left. If the Thor uses Strike Cannons, the Ultra wins with 1 HP left. If multiple Ultras and multiple Thors are involved, the Thors lose horribly due to splash damage, regardless of Cannon usage.
Throw in any of the 100 chokes, units in way, buildings in the way, minerals in the way and the ultralisks will lose hard. Though I guess it is usefull to know that in an open map ultralisks can kill thors, now just spam Blizzard to make more open maps...
On July 25 2010 08:14 FabledIntegral wrote: Vikings win vs Corrupters because Vikings get shots off then retreat behind Turrets in ZvT stalemates...
There is no such myth that vikings hard counter Phoenixes. It is common knowledge Phoenixes win. It is also common knowledge a Phoenix beats the void ray. Considering queens being good as anti-air... obviously it's true, but I guess if you wanted to do the tests.
The ONLY result I'm surprised by is Ultra vs Thor. Very interesting.
On July 25 2010 08:02 Lexvink wrote: First off, lol @ your teammate who thought mutalisk beat corruptors with base 2 armor. The problem with this is that it only considers the fight is a direct open fight. For example the Ultralisk vs a Thor. Sure, ultralisk beats a Thor in a straight up battle, but as the number increase, the Thors will do much better. Then what if the Ultralisks are fighting in a choke, the Thors would destroy an equal amount of Ultras. However, if the Ultras are able to get a flank, the Ultras would do much better.
You also do not give enough information with these myths. For example, your Battlecruiser fighting Hydralisks is it in an attack move fashion from 1 to another? Without creep? With creep? Do the hydras unburrow under the BC?
AFAIK, hard counter means that a unit will counter a unit with or without micro. Soft counter is a unit that beats a unit, but is untrue if the countered unit is microed.
In the post, it says hard counter so these are in condition with A-move.
BTW, equal number of vikings lose to an equal number of phoenixes with or without micro. If the vikings try to kite, the phoenixes just move and shoot making kiting useless. Though first shots can change the outcome of the battle.
I don't know where you heard these definitions of hard and soft counter but you're wrong...
Then please tell me the definitions instead of telling me I'm wrong. I said AFAIK and it just means I've been misinformed
On July 25 2010 07:51 Piousflea wrote: --------- MYTH #4: "Thors hard-counter Ultralisks": BUSTED Without any upgrades, one Ultra will beat one Thor with ~90 HP left. If the Thor uses Strike Cannons, it will kill the Ultra with 10 HP left. With 3/3 upgrades, the Ultra will beat the Thor with ~106 HP left. If the Thor uses Strike Cannons, the Ultra wins with 1 HP left. If multiple Ultras and multiple Thors are involved, the Thors lose horribly due to splash damage, regardless of Cannon usage.
Throw in any of the 100 chokes, units in way, buildings in the way, minerals in the way and the ultralisks will lose hard. Though I guess it is useful to know that in an ideal word ultralisks can kill thors.
If you time your attacks well and have good creep coverage, you can usually pull off a nice offensive vs mech terran(where you see thors the most, since your facts aren't only pumping tanks) when the super immobile mech army is finally required to move out, and you can get a nice surround. Plus, mind control on the thors for bonus points
On July 25 2010 07:51 Piousflea wrote: --------- MYTH #4: "Thors hard-counter Ultralisks": BUSTED Without any upgrades, one Ultra will beat one Thor with ~90 HP left. If the Thor uses Strike Cannons, it will kill the Ultra with 10 HP left. With 3/3 upgrades, the Ultra will beat the Thor with ~106 HP left. If the Thor uses Strike Cannons, the Ultra wins with 1 HP left. If multiple Ultras and multiple Thors are involved, the Thors lose horribly due to splash damage, regardless of Cannon usage.
Throw in any of the 100 chokes, units in way, buildings in the way, minerals in the way and the ultralisks will lose hard. Though I guess it is useful to know that in an ideal word ultralisks can kill thors.
If you time your attacks well and have good creep coverage, you can usually pull off a nice offensive vs mech terran(where you see thors the most, since your facts aren't only pumping tanks) when the super immobile mech army is finally required to move out, and you can get a nice surround. Plus, mind control on the thors for bonus points
Yeah, thors arent the biggest problem due to Infestor & speedlings, but the biggest problem is small maps combined with tanks.. but that discussion does not fit here I should definetly try getting ultralisks more often though, but most of the times the game is already decided.
#3 and #7 are interesting. #3 tells me that Infestor-supported Hydralisks are a valid counter to BCs, since a ground Zerg is almost guaranteed to have more minerals than an air Terran (look at the recent IdrA vs TLO game2 KOTB).
#7 in particular is coooooool. I'm starting to think that Zerg players should have a minimum of 4 Queens, even on 2 bases, if they are being pressured by a Terran. Queens cost no gas, can transfuse and creep, and synergize well with Spine Crawlers and Zerglings... And they protect you from air cheese (provided you have detection against Cloakshees)! Whats not to like?
This is a UnitTester thread, so "no micro" is assumed. Obviously none of these are "real game" situations. So yes, everything is attack-move.
It is easy to test viking vs phoenix scaling. For 1v1, 3v3, 5v5, and 10v10 battles the phoenixes win more often than they lose. Vikings cannot "shoot and scoot" vs phoenixes, it's 2.75 speed and stop-before-shooting versus 4.25 speed and moving-shot. Large numbers give the vikings a chance to kill a phoenix or two before the phoenixes get in range, but this is canceled out by the viking's tendency to waste shots on overkill.
As far as capital ships go, battlecruisers are easy to test, broodlords and carriers are very hard to test. BLs tend to give insanely variable test results, if the broodlings make a tight wall the ground units don't stand a chance, if they don't then BLs are in trouble. Carriers are currently bugged in UnitTester so you have to build interceptors manually and testing takes forever. (hitting the button to auto-populate interceptors can allow one carrier to have 12-16 interceptors)
BCs vs Hydra - 1 BC will always win against 5 hydras, and always lose against 6 hydras. - 3 BCs will usually win against 15 hydras, and often lose against 16 hydras. (variable) A 1 BC : 5 hydra ratio seems fairly constant - Unburrowing hydras under BCs is not a good idea. The unburrowing animation takes long enough that BCs can actually fire ~2-3 shots before the hydras start shooting.
BC vs Stalker - 1 BC will always win against 4 stalkers, and always lose against 5 stalkers. - 3 BCs will usually win against 12 stalkers, and will sometimes lose against 13 stalkers. This places the BC:Stalker ratio at just over 1:4. - Unlike Burrow, Blink helps significantly. Blinking 12 stalkers at 3 BCs will win.
BC vs Marine - Without shield or stim, 1 BC beats 13 marines and loses to 14 marines. - With shield only, 1 BC beats 11 marines and loses to 12 marines. - With stim only, 1 BC beats 11 marines and loses to 12 marines. - With shield+stim, 1 BC beats 10 marines and loses to 11 marines. - 3 BCs vs marines (with shield+stim) is variable. If the marines get a good concave, as few as 30 marines can kill the BCs. If the marines don't get a great concave, BCs can kill as many as 32 marines. 1 BC : 10 marines with shield+stim is fair. However, unlike stalkers or hydras, marines have less range than BCs. This means that well positioned BCs can melt marines without taking damage.
Awesome thread! Thought Muta>Viking>Corruptor>BC I guess its Corruptor>BC>Muta>viking (bottom of the food chain! Who'd have thought?) Not totally sure 3 muta>3 viking but the mineral:gas ratio is different so ehh. Also means that for air dominance battles it goes like Muta>Void rays>Corruptors>Everything but Void rays> Looks like corruptor/muta with armour upgrades might work pretty well on an island map. Then we have raven/viking vs void rays vs corruptor/muta i guess. Not sure corruptors lose to void rays either though. I know corruptors rape when void rays aren't charged (+2 armour vs 5 damage) but when they get charged they die really fast.
On July 25 2010 08:46 Piousflea wrote: Carriers are currently bugged in UnitTester so you have to build interceptors manually and testing takes forever. (hitting the button to auto-populate interceptors can allow one carrier to have 12-16 interceptors)
No they are not? Using the "storm" icon works fine for me if you are using this Unit Tester. You just have to use an a-move instead of a global attack command, otherwise all the interceptors form a doom missile that shoots out like cannon. Just select them all and load them up, and they will 1 by 1 fill up with interceptors.
Btw, a immortal, with the help of a warp prism can kill a thor (even if it has a 250mm cannon upgrade) with a little drop and lift micro.
Ultras rape all Terran ground. Terran has no answer for Ultras, Mech is the worst. The best thing to do as a terran if there are ultras in play is to mass marauders and hellions (for the lings that are always paired with ultras) and try to stim kite them while getting BC's with gas. Ultras are freaking good.
On July 25 2010 09:21 lu_cid wrote: Viking range against phoenixes is basically meaningless due to the fact that phoenixes don't have to stop to shoot...
If your viking is over other anti air units or a turret, extra range is very powerful.
Very very good post. Seems like you put alot of effort into it as well, testing several different scenarios for each myth. I tip my hat to you sir, genuinely.
On July 25 2010 08:46 Piousflea wrote: Carriers are currently bugged in UnitTester so you have to build interceptors manually and testing takes forever. (hitting the button to auto-populate interceptors can allow one carrier to have 12-16 interceptors)
No they are not? Using the "storm" icon works fine for me if you are using this Unit Tester. You just have to use an a-move instead of a global attack command, otherwise all the interceptors form a doom missile that shoots out like cannon. Just select them all and load them up, and they will 1 by 1 fill up with interceptors.
Btw, a immortal, with the help of a warp prism can kill a thor (even if it has a 250mm cannon upgrade) with a little drop and lift micro.
Hm, I found out what is bugged. With one carrier the storm icon works fine. However, if you have 2 or more carriers and hit storm, it sometimes generates interceptors that are not linked to any carrier that will attack-move all the way across the map by themselves, and can even keep flying if the carriers are destroyed.
On July 25 2010 07:51 Piousflea wrote: MYTH #4: "Thors hard-counter Ultralisks": BUSTED Without any upgrades, one Ultra will beat one Thor with ~90 HP left. If the Thor uses Strike Cannons, it will kill the Ultra with 10 HP left. With 3/3 upgrades, the Ultra will beat the Thor with ~106 HP left. If the Thor uses Strike Cannons, the Ultra wins with 1 HP left. If multiple Ultras and multiple Thors are involved, the Thors lose horribly due to splash damage, regardless of Cannon usage.
Nope. I am sure someone else has pointed it out but... sure, one on one in an open field the ultra will win. But you completely neglect too many factors, like how effective an ultra is to a terran blob. You probably ain't going to reach the thors before 1-2 ultras go down, and even then his thors can blast away at your 1-2 ultra that can engage in melee while the others look on. The hellions makes for good meatshields for thors&tanks.
How are you testing this? Do groups both start within range? Some examples:
#1: If Phoenix start within their range 4, they should win up to around 7, then Viking should win up to around 13. However, Vikings should get 1 shot off before being engaged.
#2: Again if Corruptors start within range they should beat Vikings. Kill time is lower by ~1 second. However the Vikings should again get 1 free shot, which closes that gap.
#4: Ultas starting in melee will beat Thors. If starting at range the Thors will get 2 free shots (122 damage). The kill time difference is only 1.3 seconds, which is roughly equal to the close difference. Likewise if the Thor waits until firing a single shot to start the Cannons they should kill the Ultralisk before dying even with full upgrades.
Now, in regard to calling them hard counters.... no. But I have tested with the parameters described above and noted a discrepancy on these points. When testing 8v8 Viking/Corruptor for instance the Vikings won handedly. 2 Corruptors died before the first Viking died and there were 3 Vikings left at the end. When testing an extremely large number (30+) the Corruptors did start to pull ahead. The problem stems from Vikings 1 shotting Corruptors from out of the Corruptors range. Same goes for Phoenix, but the extra speed makes it a little more fair (with minor micro you should only lose 2 Vikings in an 8v8). Phoenix also started to win earlier. From 1-7 Phoenix wins and at 12+ Phoenix wins.
Thor vs Ultralisk is interesting. The shooting time of the Thor doesn't interfere with the casting. So if both start out of range the Thor takes a single shot, then immediately goes into the 2 second cast time, then the channel. When this is done Ultralisks die before the cast time finishes (the second to last hit kills them). There's also a flaw with your logic in regard to large battles and splash. Why do the Thor need to take splash at all? They can easily spread out and negate the splash. Furthermore at any large number it becomes nye impossible for Ultras to win. The big funny one is 8v8. Try 8v8 and focus fire with the Thors. It will be 6v8 by the time the first Ultras can attack. It will be 5v8 before all Ultras are in range. It will be 2v8 before the first Thor dies and at the end 6-7 Thor will be standing. With some quick testing I was able to beat 12 Ultra with 8 Thor.
Edit: Noted you're saying 'no micro' so it's a non-game situation, but the point stands.
The unit tester is definitely a great way to get a feel for how units matchup against each other, but it's hard to make hard and fast rules with it. Everything changes when you throw the human element into it as well as other units.
But great job, let's see more of this! Love seeing comparisons and learning small things about units.
He's busting myths here.... Not trying to give a perfect case study of how to perfect micro with each unit positioned in every possible way. Take it for what it is and appreciate. Stop trollin
On July 25 2010 10:14 harky wrote: How are you testing this? Do groups both start within range? Some examples:
#1: If Phoenix start within their range 4, they should win up to around 7, then Viking should win up to around 13. However, Vikings should get 1 shot off before being engaged.
#2: Again if Corruptors start within range they should beat Vikings. Kill time is lower by ~1 second. However the Vikings should again get 1 free shot, which closes that gap.
#4: Ultas starting in melee will beat Thors. If starting at range the Thors will get 2 free shots (122 damage). The kill time difference is only 1.3 seconds, which is roughly equal to the close difference. Likewise if the Thor waits until firing a single shot to start the Cannons they should kill the Ultralisk before dying even with full upgrades.
I am testing using the "UnitTester" map from www.sc2mapster.com, which causes blobs of units to attack-move into each other on open terrain.
It sounds to me like you are using a spreadsheeted "time to kill" calculation. Please do yourself a favor and delete the spreadsheet. Units have different attack animation length and launch point, and variable amounts of delay between movement, deceleration, and attacking. (Hellions and Vikings are notorious for having a long delay between deceleration and attack) Some units are more prone to overkill than others. (For example, due to its rate of fire a Battlecruiser will generally fire one more shot at its target than is actually needed to kill it) For both of these reasons, time-to-kill calculations bear little resemblance to actual in-game killing power.
Your point #4 is accurate however, if you use the strike cannon properly (after shooting once) the Thor will win 1v1 every time.
When testing 8v8 Viking/Corruptor for instance the Vikings won handedly.
This is true if you use focus fire (so that you kill a corruptor before it even gets in range), but it is not true for a pure attack-move battle. Once every several battles the vikings will win, but generally the corruptors will win.
---------------- The point of my post is to illustrate that several unit matchups that are often called "hard counters" (such as Thor vs Ultra and Viking vs Corruptor) are actually pretty soft. Most of my cases are still pretty decent counters if you micro them. However, if you're a noob and think you can just attack-move, you could lose.
How about mutalisks *with micro to spread them* against thors? - Start with a spread group of mutas and move command over the thors. Focus fire once you're directly above them.
On July 25 2010 08:46 Piousflea wrote: Carriers are currently bugged in UnitTester so you have to build interceptors manually and testing takes forever. (hitting the button to auto-populate interceptors can allow one carrier to have 12-16 interceptors)
No they are not? Using the "storm" icon works fine for me if you are using this Unit Tester. You just have to use an a-move instead of a global attack command, otherwise all the interceptors form a doom missile that shoots out like cannon. Just select them all and load them up, and they will 1 by 1 fill up with interceptors.
Btw, a immortal, with the help of a warp prism can kill a thor (even if it has a 250mm cannon upgrade) with a little drop and lift micro.
Hm, I found out what is bugged. With one carrier the storm icon works fine. However, if you have 2 or more carriers and hit storm, it sometimes generates interceptors that are not linked to any carrier that will attack-move all the way across the map by themselves, and can even keep flying if the carriers are destroyed.
I have run in to this glitch, never found how/why it happens so... Did a bit of experimenting, and this is what I found:
The interceptors are generated when you click the respawn button. To work around this, you have to box-click-attack-move both forces to do your simulation. Hope this helps your mythbusting, cheers.
On July 25 2010 09:20 Sabresandiego wrote: Ultras rape all Terran ground. Terran has no answer for Ultras, Mech is the worst. The best thing to do as a terran if there are ultras in play is to mass marauders and hellions (for the lings that are always paired with ultras) and try to stim kite them while getting BC's with gas. Ultras are freaking good.
Marauders do very well against Ultralisks by cost, especially if you can force the fight into chokes where the ultras have pathing issues.
On July 25 2010 09:20 Sabresandiego wrote: Ultras rape all Terran ground. Terran has no answer for Ultras, Mech is the worst. The best thing to do as a terran if there are ultras in play is to mass marauders and hellions (for the lings that are always paired with ultras) and try to stim kite them while getting BC's with gas. Ultras are freaking good.
Marauders do very well against Ultralisks by cost, especially if you can force the fight into chokes where the ultras have pathing issues.
Marauders will die very quickly to ultralisks if caught on open ground, unless you stim and run them away.
All three races have a VERY simple counter to ultralisks. Don't be caught on open terrain. If Starcraft was played on infinite flat plains with no obstacles, mass ultralisks would beat every ground unit in the game except Immortals. Put them in a chokepoint and you can basically LOL at them.
On July 25 2010 08:46 Piousflea wrote: This is a UnitTester thread, so "no micro" is assumed. Obviously none of these are "real game" situations. So yes, everything is attack-move.
It is easy to test viking vs phoenix scaling. For 1v1, 3v3, 5v5, and 10v10 battles the phoenixes win more often than they lose. Vikings cannot "shoot and scoot" vs phoenixes, it's 2.75 speed and stop-before-shooting versus 4.25 speed and moving-shot. Large numbers give the vikings a chance to kill a phoenix or two before the phoenixes get in range, but this is canceled out by the viking's tendency to waste shots on overkill.
As far as capital ships go, battlecruisers are easy to test, broodlords and carriers are very hard to test. BLs tend to give insanely variable test results, if the broodlings make a tight wall the ground units don't stand a chance, if they don't then BLs are in trouble. Carriers are currently bugged in UnitTester so you have to build interceptors manually and testing takes forever. (hitting the button to auto-populate interceptors can allow one carrier to have 12-16 interceptors)
BCs vs Hydra - 1 BC will always win against 5 hydras, and always lose against 6 hydras. - 3 BCs will usually win against 15 hydras, and often lose against 16 hydras. (variable) A 1 BC : 5 hydra ratio seems fairly constant - Unburrowing hydras under BCs is not a good idea. The unburrowing animation takes long enough that BCs can actually fire ~2-3 shots before the hydras start shooting.
BC vs Stalker - 1 BC will always win against 4 stalkers, and always lose against 5 stalkers. - 3 BCs will usually win against 12 stalkers, and will sometimes lose against 13 stalkers. This places the BC:Stalker ratio at just over 1:4. - Unlike Burrow, Blink helps significantly. Blinking 12 stalkers at 3 BCs will win.
BC vs Marine - Without shield or stim, 1 BC beats 13 marines and loses to 14 marines. - With shield only, 1 BC beats 11 marines and loses to 12 marines. - With stim only, 1 BC beats 11 marines and loses to 12 marines. - With shield+stim, 1 BC beats 10 marines and loses to 11 marines. - 3 BCs vs marines (with shield+stim) is variable. If the marines get a good concave, as few as 30 marines can kill the BCs. If the marines don't get a great concave, BCs can kill as many as 32 marines. 1 BC : 10 marines with shield+stim is fair. However, unlike stalkers or hydras, marines have less range than BCs. This means that well positioned BCs can melt marines without taking damage.
Intersting. Thanks
I wonder if Tier 3 is going to end up being more viable at a competitive level than it seems now. I could definitely see it being a goal Blizzard had with Starcraft II.
I though Myth 1,2,3,4,7 were common knowledge and I think only noobs would think Myth 8 to be true. The only one that would be a myth would be phoenix versus voidrays since most people haven't seen that done yet.
On July 25 2010 08:46 Piousflea wrote: This is a UnitTester thread, so "no micro" is assumed. Obviously none of these are "real game" situations. So yes, everything is attack-move.
It is easy to test viking vs phoenix scaling. For 1v1, 3v3, 5v5, and 10v10 battles the phoenixes win more often than they lose. Vikings cannot "shoot and scoot" vs phoenixes, it's 2.75 speed and stop-before-shooting versus 4.25 speed and moving-shot. Large numbers give the vikings a chance to kill a phoenix or two before the phoenixes get in range, but this is canceled out by the viking's tendency to waste shots on overkill.
As far as capital ships go, battlecruisers are easy to test, broodlords and carriers are very hard to test. BLs tend to give insanely variable test results, if the broodlings make a tight wall the ground units don't stand a chance, if they don't then BLs are in trouble. Carriers are currently bugged in UnitTester so you have to build interceptors manually and testing takes forever. (hitting the button to auto-populate interceptors can allow one carrier to have 12-16 interceptors)
BCs vs Hydra - 1 BC will always win against 5 hydras, and always lose against 6 hydras. - 3 BCs will usually win against 15 hydras, and often lose against 16 hydras. (variable) A 1 BC : 5 hydra ratio seems fairly constant - Unburrowing hydras under BCs is not a good idea. The unburrowing animation takes long enough that BCs can actually fire ~2-3 shots before the hydras start shooting.
BC vs Stalker - 1 BC will always win against 4 stalkers, and always lose against 5 stalkers. - 3 BCs will usually win against 12 stalkers, and will sometimes lose against 13 stalkers. This places the BC:Stalker ratio at just over 1:4. - Unlike Burrow, Blink helps significantly. Blinking 12 stalkers at 3 BCs will win.
BC vs Marine - Without shield or stim, 1 BC beats 13 marines and loses to 14 marines. - With shield only, 1 BC beats 11 marines and loses to 12 marines. - With stim only, 1 BC beats 11 marines and loses to 12 marines. - With shield+stim, 1 BC beats 10 marines and loses to 11 marines. - 3 BCs vs marines (with shield+stim) is variable. If the marines get a good concave, as few as 30 marines can kill the BCs. If the marines don't get a great concave, BCs can kill as many as 32 marines. 1 BC : 10 marines with shield+stim is fair. However, unlike stalkers or hydras, marines have less range than BCs. This means that well positioned BCs can melt marines without taking damage.
Intersting. Thanks
I wonder if Tier 3 is going to end up being more viable at a competitive level than it seems now. I could definitely see it being a goal Blizzard had with Starcraft II.
For such a new game I'm actually surprised how used the tier 3 is in high level play
On July 25 2010 11:00 MangoTango wrote: 3 and 4 are very surprising to me. What is the correct answer to Ultras then? Tanks with Hellions to, uh, tank the damage?
Unsieged tanks deal alot of damage to ultras. also banshees and STIMMED marauders are good. getting ultras off of creep is really important if you don't just have a ton of stuff.
Some nice evidence here. Now people have no excuse for not knowing counters. Ultras vs thors is actually fairly surprising, though fighting in chokes probably sways it back in the favor of thors.
I suggest to everybody to suggest things to him to make him do more test... a little bit like the MythBusters way.
I suggest you try to do the Charged void-ray myth vs queens. I say that 1 Charged void ray will beat 2 queen where non-charge only beat 1. I really would like to know if 2 beat 4 etc...
On July 25 2010 12:06 Coolzx wrote: I though Myth 1,2,3,4,7 were common knowledge and I think only noobs would think Myth 8 to be true. The only one that would be a myth would be phoenix versus voidrays since most people haven't seen that done yet.
wank wank wank wank wank wank
These results really start to make me shudder as far as Terran air goes. Vikings can be used for neat vision and range tricks, but they don't seem good for much besides killing other vikings. And things that don't shoot back.
Confirmed that all of #8 is busted like you say, but for the
"My best against 5 Thors was 16 Mutas (I had one surviving Muta with 26 hp)."
I think he meant 4 thors (given he was going 1, then 2, then 3, ... .then 5?). With 4 thors he is correct. Best i could do with 5 thors is about 19 muta.
One key thing is not just muta spread, but making sure your muta are actualy ON TOP of the thors, the reason is the AI targets the "closest" unit, which if your on top of the thors means each thor is targeting a diffrent muta, spreading out thier damage and making it easier for you. The micro is actualy very easy, and even a noob could do it if they knew how. The hard part is timing it so the marines are away (or scaring them away with some banelings first).
I would still stay thor hard counters muta though, as your spending about 2x the cost in gas to kill the thors. For the same amount of resources thors own muta, no matter how much you micro. And we havent even included any scvs repairing the thor or actual focus fire by the thors....
As for upgrades for anyone that cares, it seems to me (from my trials), that the 1armor upgrade is critical for the thor in thor vr muta fight, and is offset by the +1 attack by muta, and if the muta have 2 more defense then the thor has attack, it takes 4 hits rather then 3, which is also critical. 3 2/2 mutas can take an unupgraded thor (3 1 attack/2 defense muta can take a thor with run away then come back micro).
I think the key here is not to overestimate how strong thors are when they are alone. With stemed marines, those muta are toast.
Can you please add Ultras vs anything Terran in here? I'm tired of all the zerg spreading lies about ultras sucking when they counter almost every Terran ground unit - especially when dropped.
Thanks a lot for doing this! Always keep in mind that confronting two armies in SC2, using the AI, is non-deterministic. Meaning that over the course of 100 renderings of the same battle, you will get 100 different outcomes. So it's better to talk about probabilities, especially when two armies are about even.
The other issue is that some of the "counters" are more effective in real situation, when they are part of the usual army composition. Eg: 1 Ultra vs 1 Thor with 250mm cannons, the Ultra survives with 1HP, but in the real combat both die. Hence the unstoppable Thor is stopped, hence - counter. Often counter means "to get about even", rather than "to get advantage". Counter is not even intended to mean that one unit is strong enough to beat the other, it means that this unit is close to the most cost-effective choice for that race; i.e. if you tried countering with other units instead, probably won't get significantly better edge. And micro matters a lot. Sometimes a half army with micro can beat a full unmicroed army.
i respect your work and while some insight can be gleaned from it, it is obviously not very representative. some things to think about is that in brood war, terrans will almost always lose to their counterparts of equal cost in small scale battles, but as the ball builds up, the terran advantage can become unstoppable.
it's a question of range really. that is why a mech ball with thors will beat ultras handily.
On July 25 2010 12:06 Coolzx wrote: I though Myth 1,2,3,4,7 were common knowledge and I think only noobs would think Myth 8 to be true. The only one that would be a myth would be phoenix versus voidrays since most people haven't seen that done yet.
wank wank wank wank wank wank
These results really start to make me shudder as far as Terran air goes. Vikings can be used for neat vision and range tricks, but they don't seem good for much besides killing other vikings. And things that don't shoot back.
Viking are also good at killing corruptor also fyi. Just micro..... the dang thing has 9 range. They can also land and attack ground unit.
Vikings aren't a hard counter to phoenix, they are a soft counter. Comparing them in a one to one ratio is like comparing a marine to an immortal and concluding that marines do not counter immortals, which is obviously flawed. Vikings are cheaper, so they should be compared in a proper ratio.
Same case with corruptors.
Comparing just one BC to several Hydralisks is flawed, since the BC has 100% of it's dps during the whole battle, unlike the Hydras. You should compare multiple BCs vs Hydras. Doing the same test with Carrier vs Viking would conclude that Carriers win, which is actually only true in a 1v3 scenario and the Vikings win in any practical fight.
@NATO Well I know stem marauder can kill ultra. They can actualy kill them effectivly even with only half the gas cost.
Also ghost can kill ultra even if the ultra has detection, mineral for mineral, gas for gas, if they are fully charged (have full mana), just by sniping the ultra.
Tanks, hellions and marines get owned by ultra clearly. Other then those what does ultra really own on terran?
Ultras own the terran ground army. You know how hard it is to snipe 9 ultras who are rampaging through your army? They do splash damage and wipe out your entire army fast. Thors get annihilated just like everything else. The only thing that works are marauders who are stimmed and constantly back peddaling off of creep, but they get owned by the lings which are with the ultras.
Terran needs to get battlecruisers lategame vs zerg and hope he doesnt have enough infestors to mind control them all.
Vikings are cheaper than both corruptors and phoenixes, so it's fine that they loose. The only situation where they would loose when mineral cost is factored in is when both races are at the supply cap. The problem with corruptors in general is that they cannot attack ground, and vikings can (as well as phoenix, somewhat). Yes brood lords are powerful, but if zerg looses his anti-air defence OR his anti-ground defence, the other half of his army becomes useless.
I guess considering the cost-effectiveness of queens that queens might help that situation, but it's hard to do, and still debatable at max supply.
Your work is to be commended for it's spirit. Practical information if you take it for what it is.
Many angles are not taken into account though. Phoenix vs. Viking is one scenario I would point out may not accurately represent game conditions. Ok, a phoenix can beat a viking, but I'm not convinced of the wisdom of amassing 12 phoenices to counter his 12 vikings. True, neither are great main army units, but you can expect the terran to have plenty of marines and possibly thors to rip apart the phoenix while the viking only has to deal with whatever stalkers the toss has.
Huge problem with #8. Your ratio was 1:4, 2:7, 3:10 and 5:16.
To clarify: 300/200 vs 400/400, 600/400 vs 700/700, 900/600 vs 1000/1000 and 1500/1000 vs 1600/1600.
I assume that's also micros the Mutas with no micro on the Thors, which should be moved slightly between shots to force Mutas to collapse. Even if that's assumed it means you're being forced to use a more expensive force to beat a less expensive force. And even then that's still not upgraded. 2/0 vs */0 increases Thor's use against Mutas by 50% believe it or not. At +3 weapons the armor upgrade on the Mutas no longer matters in the equation as they still get 2 shot at +3 armor.
Sorry, but being forced to micro against someone not using any micro and still having to use a higher cost force doesn't bust the myth, it confirms it. If they only 'myth' is that micro doesn't increase your Mutas survivability then the myth is hogwash anyway. However you confirmed what you described. Mutas still die horribly when micros against a group of Thors that is auto-targeting.
Check your results at 3/3 vs 3/3. Hell, make it 3/0 vs 3/3 and see how it goes. I've tested this as well and it isn't pretty. More like 1:6 and 2:11.
yea nice job =) i've been testing around phoenix's recently and realized that the same number of vikings cannot shoot down the same number of phoenix's fast enough for the phoenixes to do some great damage lifting up the tanks while the ground forces distract/ deal with the marines. although i did realize that a single ghost could cancel off of those graviton beams, in which case, all the phoenix's with no shield will be fighting the vikings....
On July 25 2010 08:08 Ndugu wrote: Very good thread. Would love to see more!
Do speed upgraded void rays pwn vikings for cost? Been wondering this for a while.
I tested this awhile back and the answer I got was no. Void Rays are very expensive, especially in gas. Equal cost Vikings seems to beat them unless the VRs already have a full charge (I didn't test w/Fazing).
Ultra vs SCV, Reaper, Ghost, Hellion, Viking: Are you kidding? - No testing was done.
I would think reapers ghosts and vikings would do great vs ulta with micro. Reapers should kite ultas easily. Vikings could do land lift micro and not get hit. As for ghosts, I'm not sure how many snipes are needed, but it should be fairly close cost for cost with ghost who are spread out and use snipe.
Edit: I would think even hellions could do well with micro.
could u please add another 2 Myth/Test. By add i mean test it as well.
- vikings vs muta: I always hear ppl say that mutas do very well against vikings (even day9). But in my test they are almost even, and mutas cost more. In even numbers no clear winner in unit tester. I wonder what your results are.
- marauders vs siege tanks: i have been searching for a way to break sieged tanks lines in TvT for decades. upgraded stimmed marauders do okay if there are not too many tanks. Medivacs + marauders do very well, but in a real game situation u need air control first.
It's good information to know, but as has been said before, micro changes everything. If you labbed vultures vs zealots with no micro in SC1 you'd conclude that zealots hard counter vultures, while the opposite is of course true.
I would love you to test the "vikings (landed) vs roach" myth. A lot of people keep saying that vikings are very effective vs roaches. I don't know where this originated but I am almost sure it is not true (day[9] mentioned it in the king of the beta tournament).
Hellions beat Ultras while taking 0 damage if no other units are involved. Ghost can also beat Ultras, but it needs to be 2v1. That's 300/300 vs 300/200. Ultras are faster than Ghosts even off creep. Reapers can also beat Ultras, but it takes a very, very long time. They also only win off creep, or near cliffs. 0/0 for both it takes a year and a day for Reapers to win. Even with equal cost (5:1) it takes almost 30 seconds to kill a single Ultra with Reapers. Fully upgraded it's worse. 5:1 the Reapers would take almost a full minute to kill the Ultra.
Hellions are similar in that regard. They can take out Ultras 1v1, same with Reapers, but it takes so long that it isn't worth doing.
On July 26 2010 02:52 iEchoic wrote: I would love you to test the "vikings (landed) vs roach" myth. A lot of people keep saying that vikings are very effective vs roaches. I don't know where this originated but I am almost sure it is not true (day[9] mentioned it in the king of the beta tournament).
Vikings are very effective against roaches because you can land htem out of roach range and fire at the roaches. As the roaches move in to fire at the vikings you can lift the vikings, preventing the roaches from getting shots off and just reposition the vikings again.
Even in a stand up fight that superior viking range is good. Vikings also do considerable damage on the ground - they are just much more expensive than anything else for their damage.
On July 26 2010 02:52 iEchoic wrote: I would love you to test the "vikings (landed) vs roach" myth. A lot of people keep saying that vikings are very effective vs roaches. I don't know where this originated but I am almost sure it is not true (day[9] mentioned it in the king of the beta tournament).
Vikings are very effective against roaches because you can land htem out of roach range and fire at the roaches. As the roaches move in to fire at the vikings you can lift the vikings, preventing the roaches from getting shots off and just reposition the vikings again.
Even in a stand up fight that superior viking range is good. Vikings also do considerable damage on the ground - they are just much more expensive than anything else for their damage.
Obviously any unit is good against the other one if they land somewhere they can't be hit (exploiting greater range). However, people throw this one around like vikings are good in general ground-ground combat. So I'd like to see how effective they are there.
The Viking vs Roach thing is weird. Up until 8 Roaches Vikings win. After 8 Roaches are involved Vikings get demolished. At best you'll be trading 1 Viking for 1 Roach at that point and that makes Roaches a soft counter on the ground to Vikings. Once that mass is reached. Before that Roaches can't kill Vikings at all, so they do soft counter Roaches before 8.
The hangup some people have is thinking Soft/Hard counter and applying it to statements like, "Vikings beat Roaches 1v1." The statement is true, but it also means the Terran player is using an army worth more than double the cost. Remember that 1 Viking costs more than 2 Roaches. The reason they soft counter in small numbers vs small numbers is that the Roaches literally can not kill them. As soon as their are enough to kill a Viking during the lift-off cast time the advantage is completely nullified.
On July 26 2010 03:06 harky wrote: The Viking vs Roach thing is weird. Up until 8 Roaches Vikings win. After 8 Roaches are involved Vikings get demolished. At best you'll be trading 1 Viking for 1 Roach at that point and that makes Roaches a soft counter on the ground to Vikings. Once that mass is reached. Before that Roaches can't kill Vikings at all, so they do soft counter Roaches before 8.
The hangup some people have is thinking Soft/Hard counter and applying it to statements like, "Vikings beat Roaches 1v1." The statement is true, but it also means the Terran player is using an army worth more than double the cost. Remember that 1 Viking costs more than 2 Roaches. The reason they soft counter in small numbers vs small numbers is that the Roaches literally can not kill them. As soon as their are enough to kill a Viking during the lift-off cast time the advantage is completely nullified.
What do you mean up to 8 roaches? Are you talking like 1v1, 2v2, 3v3? Why would you do that when vikings cost twice as much?
You should be doing 2v4, 3v6, etc. If 1 roach beats one viking, I would consider that hard countering vikings (seeing as you're paying half-cost to kill another unit). There are many so-called 'counters' that don't even approach that efficiency (for example, Marauders don't counter roaches at a double-cost ratio).
iEchoic I get roaches winning at or above 1 viking : 1.2 Roaches with no micro on eather side. At 1 vr 2 thats 1 viking (150/75) vr 2 roaches (150/50), at 10 vikings (1500/750) vr 12 roaches(900/300). All In all I would say without micro roaches win by a good margin. Now with micro the vikings win, because they can just fire lift off, land somewhere else, fire lift off, and take little to no damage. But it takes a LONG time, and unless you have perfect micro there is no way your defeating an equal resource cost of roaches (although you can do better then the no micro version).
On July 26 2010 03:18 obsid wrote: iEchoic I get roaches winning at or above 1 viking : 1.2 Roaches with no micro on eather side. At 1 vr 2 thats 1 viking (150/75) vr 2 roaches (150/50), at 10 vikings (1500/750) vr 12 roaches(900/300). All In all I would say without micro roaches win by a good margin. Now with micro the vikings win, because they can just fire lift off, land somewhere else, fire lift off, and take little to no damage. But it takes a LONG time, and unless you have perfect micro there is no way your defeating an equal resource cost of roaches (although you can do better then the no micro version).
Yeah, this sounds reasonable. I would consider 1 viking : 1.2 roaches not effective at all, though. That's pretty bad. Vikings are over twice as expensive.
As for the micro, it's not really worth mentioning, otherwise you could say reapers and hellions counter ultras with micro, heh.
Interesting results. I would like to see ultra vs immortal to see how bad it really is (7 ultras vs 10 immortals is even resources i believe).
Of course none of this accounts for army synergy, ultras might do well vs thors and stalkers and such, but with helions and zealots tanking (both which tank them ok, but do awful damage) it lets the high dps units get off alot of shots before the ultras can even reach them.
Using marauders to counter ultras seems a bit silly, because the zerg should always be throwing in a couple infestors to growth the rauders, and then i'm pretty sure rauders are gonna lose pretty bad. Also a tip to ultra users, if you cant get a good flank or open fighting area, throw half your ultras in overlords and drop them in the mid-back portion of the enemies army. Its incredibly effective to drop 2 ultras in the middle of 10 tanks, they die really quick.
Also another tip, burrowing ultras (i'm guessing getting lifted by and overlord does too) does stop a thors cannon, so you can minimize the damage if its a smaller battle or if you have insane micro!
Because currently it is common knowledge thaat Thors counter mutas, so usually T adds no more than two Thors to his mech army for first push, at that time you could have 10 mutas! And T will think - "Mutas? Lol, come and try to kill my thors" which will be his fail.... after mutas crush that thors and then go for tanks and hellions.
The fact that Thors are more cost effective that mutas does not matter in this examples. It is important that muta CAN FIGHT thors if microed.
I will surely try it out in ladder games after realease.
By the way, very funny thing - in SC1 it was a "Muta stacks" and now it is "Muta spreads" that rock? )) at least vs T
The reason 8 Roaches is important, iEchoic, is that is the point that Vikings can not be microd in such a way that Roaches can't kill them. It's a matter of kill time. For instance in 3v6 the Vikings will only be able to kill 2-3 Roaches, but the Roaches will not kill any of the Vikings. With 8 Roaches the time to lift off is longer than it takes for a Roach to kill a Viking, so at that point you're correct and they are in fact a hard counter to Vikings being used on the ground.
The point of people talking about 1v1/2v2/etc is that those situations do occur. When that happens the Vikings mop the floor with the Roaches very quickly. The reason commentators mention it at times is they'll see a player pull back 4 Vikings which are being attacked by say 5 Roaches. With very minor minco the Vikings win that while taking no losses, but some players forget that and think about the unit value instead. What they should really be thinking is they can defeat a 375/125 force for free.
Also the difference between Roach v. Viking and Ultra v Reaper/Hellion is kill time. Vikings kill Roaches faster than Roaches kill Vikings. It takes a Viking ~12 seconds to kill a Roach, but takes a Roach ~14 seconds to kill a Viking. Compare to a Repear which takes nearly 2 minutes to kill an Ultra.
--------- MYTH #4: "Thors hard-counter Ultralisks": BUSTED Without any upgrades, one Ultra will beat one Thor with ~90 HP left. With 3/3 upgrades, the Ultra will beat the Thor with ~106 HP left. If multiple Ultras and multiple Thors are involved (big blobs with no micro), the Thors lose horribly due to splash damage.
Using Strike Cannons on an Ultra will leave him with 1 hp. Shooting him first, then using cannons, will kill him easily. The problem is that after the Thor finishes firing Strike Cannons, there is a REALLY long delay before it can move or fire. This can actually be bad in larger battles. Targeting an Ultra that would have died anyways basically just "self-stuns" your Thor, decreasing overall DPS.
disagree here, pure thor v pure ultra is not a realistic fight at all.
assuming equal supply, X thors w/ 250 mm cannon + army will always beat X ultras + army. 250 mm strike cannon will essentially kill off all ultras immediately.
On July 26 2010 04:00 Kahmunrah_ wrote: pretty useful information here.. any testing done on carriers?
Apparantly its bugged =/
Although Carriers are fairly micro dependent against most GROUND anti-air. Unlike short-range battlecruisers, they should never be fighting things like Hydras or Stalkers in straight-up battles. 8 range ftw. Is it true that interceptor's stay out up to 9 range if you move them back, but require 8 to launch? Been meaning to confirm that somewhere for a while.
Carriers versus vikings, void rays, and corrupters would be interesting since thats the type of battle where carriers will be forced to fight straight up.
Even moreso, I want speed upgraded Void Rays against vikings, with and without being charged first. I strongly suspected speed upgraded vrays would wtfpwn vikings.
On July 25 2010 08:08 Ndugu wrote: Very good thread. Would love to see more!
Do speed upgraded void rays pwn vikings for cost? Been wondering this for a while.
I tested this awhile back and the answer I got was no. Void Rays are very expensive, especially in gas. Equal cost Vikings seems to beat them unless the VRs already have a full charge (I didn't test w/Fazing).
Hm, I wonder how they would do with full-charge into a+move, or with fazing.
I really want a late game carrier build to be viable against Terran, but Vikings are just so good. Would love to be able to surprise counter-them with speedrays.
Also been trying to figure out exactly how much carriers get per air weapons upgrade. Intercepts hit twice, so is it 5+1x2 times 8? Or do they only gain +1 per upgrade, despite 2 attacks, like phoenixes (I believe).
corrupters beat carriers (given both are focus fireing, as non focus fire they corrupters target the intercepters and lose badly), with about a 2 corrupters (300/200) to 1 carrier (350/250). Its not as bad as I thought. With corruption micro before you attack used you can save maybe a single corrutper vr 5 carriers, (so its 9 corrupters vr 5 carriers rather then 10:5). Carriers also tend to do a litle better with small numbers (like BCs because they stay at full firepower the whole time). I personaly thought that corrupters would rape carriers, given that they get a huge bonus vr massive. But carriers do a lot of damage. I picked corrupters because with proper micro carries beat anything on the ground (as they can move while they attack and abuse cliffs). My guess is with proper micro you might even be able to come out even with corrupters as carriers (and corrupters are the best thing zerg has against carriers).
Still I would love to see a game that starts out going voidray vr zerg, and then transitions into carriers. Well microed carrires can kill a lot of hydra.
Note on marines vs ultras: Although they are bad because ultras have 3 armour, they aren't that bad for a pure tanking role. If they are in front with a reasonable spread they can take a decent amount of ultra damage while marauder/thor/tank do most of the damage. Ultras kill marauders as fast as marines.
Downside of the mutas thors is you can't test for SCV's repairing them and marines mixed in. That's what the REAL situation of muta vs thor is, you never just see 4 mutas fighting one thor with no support units aside from drops.
On July 26 2010 04:31 obsid wrote: corrupters beat carriers (given both are focus fireing, as non focus fire they corrupters target the intercepters and lose badly), with about a 2 corrupters (300/200) to 1 carrier (350/250). Its not as bad as I thought. With corruption micro before you attack used you can save maybe a single corrutper vr 5 carriers, (so its 9 corrupters vr 5 carriers rather then 10:5). Carriers also tend to do a litle better with small numbers (like BCs because they stay at full firepower the whole time). I personaly thought that corrupters would rape carriers, given that they get a huge bonus vr massive. But carriers do a lot of damage. I picked corrupters because with proper micro carries beat anything on the ground (as they can move while they attack and abuse cliffs). My guess is with proper micro you might even be able to come out even with corrupters as carriers (and corrupters are the best thing zerg has against carriers).
Still I would love to see a game that starts out going voidray vr zerg, and then transitions into carriers. Well microed carrires can kill a lot of hydra.
If it's lategame and you can afford high temps it's easy to pick off corrupters as well considering you can feedback them and also have blink stalkers.
If your facing thors+scvs, add about 1 extra muta per 3 scvs, and target the scvs first. SCVS repair at an insane rate, and there is no way your going to out damage what they repair. Also note that thors have a higher attack priority then repairing SCVs so if you a+move into thors+scvs, mutas get killed totlay and compleatly with no loss on the terran side. (PS. I think they should change the attack priority of repairing scvs to be equal to attacking scvs which is the same as all other units). Use the delete and insert keys to look "around" the thor and focus fire down the scvs on the other side. Also note when you start targeting the scvs first, the scvs will come to repair the ones you target making it easier to kill them all.
On July 26 2010 04:50 obsid wrote: Carriers kill vikings per cost. I Think BCs will kill carriers though, With a EMP though, I think vikings can kill carriers.
This isn't true. Well, the first part isn't. Equal cost is 3 Vikings per Carrier. With no micro accept attacking the Carrier directly the Vikings win. With micro the Vikings win and also take no damage. Vikings are basically a hard counter to Carriers. If you ever mass them the Vikings win so easily that it's stupid. In a 4v12 for instance either 1, or no Vikings are lost. The first Carrier dies before launching any Interceptors, the second dies when Interceptors begin to launch, the third dies about halfway through the launching process and then the fourth will either barely kill 1 Viking, or will die before it has a chance. If you micro the focused Viking away as soon as it gets hit the first time then you'll always walk away with all Vikings in tact. Viking v. Carrier is a hard counter.
BCs also wreck Carriers 1v1 and are equal roughly cost (400/300 vs 450/250). A Carrier actually takes something stupid like 50 seconds to kill a BC when both are fully upgraded. It's not remotely fair. The BC attacks until the shields are down (~4 seconds) and then hits Yamato and the Carrier dies instantly. Even without Yamato they kill Carriers with around 250 health left. Void Rays struggle against them as well actually. Especially with decent micro on Yamato (it instantly kills a VR from full health).
This is exactly why Carrier vs Terran doesn't work. If you just a-move then Carrier vs Viking/BC is a fairly even exchange, but only because of the AI problems. As soon as you target fire Carriers are just weak slow moving targets. Not as bad as a Mothership, but still pretty bad.
1) While ghosts don't stand a chance with their normal attack, if they have full energy, snipe is good enough to defeat them - you should try this out.
2) You mentioned "- In a real game, your tanks should be behind other units or on cliffs." But keep in mind, "in a real game" (assuming the zerg player isn't a complete noob), the zerg will have overlord drop by time they have ultralisks. Dropping them makings them even more effective before, and no cliff can save them.
And for those thinking that the Terran could just have enough antiair to prevent drops - if that is the case, you can just walk in the base because they don't have enough ground power. (This excludes battlecruiser, but that's easily countered by much less corruptors or infestors, leaving you room to have dominance otherwise.)
*sigh* More bad information in the first post as well, this time in regard to Ultras vs Marauder/Marine. Ultras do not move faster than Stimmed Marines and Marauders. They actually move quite a bit slower. They only outrun them on creep. Just tested to confirm because it sounded off. 2 Marauders beats 1 Ultra. Depending on how crazy with micro you want to get so does 4 Marines. I'd dismiss Marines as any type of counter though due to the work involved.
On July 26 2010 05:41 harky wrote: *sigh* More bad information in the first post as well, this time in regard to Ultras vs Marauder/Marine. Ultras do not move faster than Stimmed Marines and Marauders. They actually move quite a bit slower. They only outrun them on creep. Just tested to confirm because it sounded off. 2 Marauders beats 1 Ultra. Depending on how crazy with micro you want to get so does 4 Marines. I'd dismiss Marines as any type of counter though due to the work involved.
Maybe he meant including the attack time - not just running?
On July 26 2010 04:50 obsid wrote: Carriers kill vikings per cost. I Think BCs will kill carriers though, With a EMP though, I think vikings can kill carriers.
This isn't true. Well, the first part isn't. Equal cost is 3 Vikings per Carrier. With no micro accept attacking the Carrier directly the Vikings win. With micro the Vikings win and also take no damage. Vikings are basically a hard counter to Carriers. If you ever mass them the Vikings win so easily that it's stupid. In a 4v12 for instance either 1, or no Vikings are lost. The first Carrier dies before launching any Interceptors, the second dies when Interceptors begin to launch, the third dies about halfway through the launching process and then the fourth will either barely kill 1 Viking, or will die before it has a chance. If you micro the focused Viking away as soon as it gets hit the first time then you'll always walk away with all Vikings in tact. Viking v. Carrier is a hard counter.
BCs also wreck Carriers 1v1 and are equal roughly cost (400/300 vs 450/250). A Carrier actually takes something stupid like 50 seconds to kill a BC when both are fully upgraded. It's not remotely fair. The BC attacks until the shields are down (~4 seconds) and then hits Yamato and the Carrier dies instantly. Even without Yamato they kill Carriers with around 250 health left. Void Rays struggle against them as well actually. Especially with decent micro on Yamato (it instantly kills a VR from full health).
This is exactly why Carrier vs Terran doesn't work. If you just a-move then Carrier vs Viking/BC is a fairly even exchange, but only because of the AI problems. As soon as you target fire Carriers are just weak slow moving targets. Not as bad as a Mothership, but still pretty bad.
You have no idea what you're talking about, even remotely in the Carrier vs Viking analogy. Carriers are very decent vs Vikings. First of all, in a 1v1 (1 viking vs 1 carrier) a viking gets 2 shots off, MAYBE 3 max, vs a carrier. You're also more likely to have Protoss air ups than have invested in Viking air ups. Carriers can kill a viking, retreat, and get back up to 100% health from their shields, while a Viking can NOT retreat from a carrier once under fire. You are absolutely spewing massive amounts of ignorance in this topic when it's obvious you have no personal experience using them.
Am I saying 4 carriers will win? No, I'm not. But if 4 carriers will "barely kill a viking, if even," then you're just shitting around random facts to people and causing ignorance on this forum.
Sorry, I wasnt counting the mineral cost of the intercepters, yea after that I think 3 to 1 is the right ratio for even. Still its hard to say because carriers are a lot more gas heavy, while vikings are a lot more mineral heavy, so it depends on how much you value gas at a given point in the game. But I still think carriers are even in that fight at a 3 viking:1 carrier ratio.
Although I am assumming the faster intercepter upgrade. Its practicly required if your going carriers in anyway. Without that upgrade vikings rock carriers before they even get a chance. With no other upgrades for eather side, vikings beat carriers in a 1:3 ratio (its about 1:2.8 before carriers win). With full upgrades (for both sides) however carriers beat vikings in a 1:3 ratio, although lose in just about anything above a 1:3 ratio.
1 Carrier 0/0/0 beats 3 vikings 0/0/0), although its very close (carrier usualy has low red hp in the end).
2 vr 6, the 6 vikings win usualy (2 vr 5 and carriers win), unless both are moving twords each other to start (the lower air distance really helps carriers out a lot in this fight). Still this is very very even almost and it can go eather way
3 vr 9 vikings usualy win, but its very close (like down to 1 vikings in low hp). 3 v 8 and carriers win totaly.
So yea vikings win at exactly 1:3 ratio if everyone is unupgraded, but at a 1:2.8 ratio or so I think carriers win with the faster intercepter upgrades.
In a maxed upgrade fight (where everyone has every upgrades) carriers win at 1:3 ratio, but lose to anything above that.
On July 26 2010 06:12 Barrin wrote: While it is good to see how they fair in straight up fights, these units do not cost the same, and therefore these results are extremely flawed. Do not take them at face value.
Indeed... you also have to consider other things such as Carriers being effective vs ground armies will vikings are not, thus too many vikings and you'll steamroll their ground army with yours, etc. Vikings are much more fragile, if you get into a quick skirmish and decide to retreat, carrier shield can regen while Vikings, although being allowed to be repaired, typically die before they get the opportunity to simply because a single volley from a carrier takes out most of a vikings HP.
On July 26 2010 04:34 Slayer91 wrote: Note on marines vs ultras: Although they are bad because ultras have 3 armour, they aren't that bad for a pure tanking role. If they are in front with a reasonable spread they can take a decent amount of ultra damage while marauder/thor/tank do most of the damage. Ultras kill marauders as fast as marines.
Thats not true, marines go down way faster than marauders due to size and splash damage. Marines are small and so ultras can tear through 5 or 6 at a time. Marauders and larger and so ultras only tear through 2 or 3 at a time.
Ultra vs SCV, Reaper, Ghost, Hellion, Viking: Are you kidding? - No testing was done.
I would think reapers ghosts and vikings would do great vs ulta with micro. Reapers should kite ultas easily. Vikings could do land lift micro and not get hit. As for ghosts, I'm not sure how many snipes are needed, but it should be fairly close cost for cost with ghost who are spread out and use snipe.
Edit: I would think even hellions could do well with micro.
Wow man, your example is perfectly analagous to those martial arts dojos that teach you some extremely bullshit techniques and convince you it will work in a real fight...
Go ahead and try using reapers and vikings to counter ultras in a real game and see what happens. Ill give you a hint, same thing that happens to the nerd practicing kung fu when he gets into a street fight, you'll get beat down badly.
NATO, no it doesn't matter. The speed difference combined with the range makes it a moot point. Ultras die before getting a hit in. On creep Ultras do run faster, which makes me think that's where he tested it.
FabledIntegral, test it yourself if you don't believe it. The issue is as follows: Vikings are faster and have a longer range, while Carriers must gets Interceptors out to even attack. This when going 3v1 the Vikings can simply move out before being destroyed one at a time, then when the next wave of attacks goes off they can shoot the Carrier, then move away again. With absolutely no micro the Carrier is left with ~75 health. If Vikings are moved away so that the Carrier is forced to attack a full health Viking the Carrier dies with all Vikings badly damaged. If the Vikings snipe instead they take no damage. Interceptors launch from range 8, Vikings attack from range 9. Because of the difference in movement speed this allows Vikings to hit and run a Carrier to death without ever taking serious damage. The larger the numbers the worse it is for the Carriers. If you'd like some fun try to micro 12 Vikings vs 12 Carriers. Once you get the hang of it you'll be able to win.
also it depends on production capabilities, a terran who goes vikings(starports with reactor) will be able to produce more than the protoss will(even with the chrono-boost)
Your right in that vikings do attack at 9 and carriers launch at 8, but unless your fighting a computer AI only, pulling back as vikings dont work, as the carrier can continue to attack while it moves. 12 carriers will OWN 12 vikings easy.
On July 26 2010 07:05 harky wrote: NATO, no it doesn't matter. The speed difference combined with the range makes it a moot point. Ultras die before getting a hit in. On creep Ultras do run faster, which makes me think that's where he tested it.
FabledIntegral, test it yourself if you don't believe it. The issue is as follows: Vikings are faster and have a longer range, while Carriers must gets Interceptors out to even attack. This when going 3v1 the Vikings can simply move out before being destroyed one at a time, then when the next wave of attacks goes off they can shoot the Carrier, then move away again. With absolutely no micro the Carrier is left with ~75 health. If Vikings are moved away so that the Carrier is forced to attack a full health Viking the Carrier dies with all Vikings badly damaged. If the Vikings snipe instead they take no damage. Interceptors launch from range 8, Vikings attack from range 9. Because of the difference in movement speed this allows Vikings to hit and run a Carrier to death without ever taking serious damage. The larger the numbers the worse it is for the Carriers. If you'd like some fun try to micro 12 Vikings vs 12 Carriers. Once you get the hang of it you'll be able to win.
You tell me to try it, but I've used Carriers probably more than almost anyone else in the entire Beta on the Diamond ladder. You're talking about a 1 range difference - even the pros will hardly be able to take advantage of that. Mutas vs Archons in BW --> Mutas have one more range, but you would not by any means say that Mutas hard counter Archons. Carriers can move while attacking, and once deployed, have an attacking range of 12. Also, you can not use any type of patrol move to attack vs Carriers simply because if Interceptors are deployed, which they almost for sure will be, it won't target the Carrier, while I believe (emphasis on the believe) if you manually target the Carrier, they actually stop to turn around and fire, meaning it's impossible to kite Carriers.
Your situation will almost never play out in an actual game. Even if it does, I would bet you hundreds that you're completely full of shit when you say 12 Vikings vs 4 carriers results in not a single viking dying, especially because your scenario definitely had no mention of kiting. To continue, because vikings can't stack all on each other like in SC1, you can't effective kite with large amounts of Vikings vs Carriers, so your point is moot. It only works to exploit the range if all the vikings are stacked on top of each other. By no means are Vikings a "hard counter" they are a soft counter, and even if they are a hard counter the fact that Carriers >> ground and Vikings << ground means you'll probably win a battle if you've managed to get 4 Carriers and they bought 12 Vikings.
On July 26 2010 09:25 obsid wrote: Your right in that vikings do attack at 9 and carriers launch at 8, but unless your fighting a computer AI only, pulling back as vikings dont work, as the carrier can continue to attack while it moves. 12 carriers will OWN 12 vikings easy.
Nah, try it. The issue is that Vikings move substantially faster than Carriers. While a deployed Carrier does have a range of 10 (not 12 as the above poster implied), that only matters for a very short period of time. We're not talking about stutter stepping like Marauders, but moving entirely out of range and reengaging. Thus 'sniping' and not 'kiting'. Again, try it yourself. In very low numbers pulling one back entirely does indeed work and at large enough numbers sniping comes into play as mentioned.
Try it out. Take 12 Vikings against 12 Carriers and from outside either units range have the Viking's attack a Carrier. As soon as the missiles fire move away entirely until the Interceptors return. Usually only 3-5 will be able to launch and only 2-3 are able to fire. Meanwhile you've already killed 1 Carrier.
Edit: Just a note, if you haven't seen it; Yes, Vikings can indeed all stack. They only spread when stationary. There is a spread after the firing when using an attack command to move. They spread much further as you retreat, but a quick patrol loop and they'll be clustered again. If you haven't seen a Viking UFO before you're missing out.
Yes against the computer AI I can kill like 10 (maybe 12) carriers with just 12 vikings, but with a human on the other side of that I dont think it will work. We can try it out if you want next tuesday .
I'll probably be too busy laddering to worry about it, hehe. It's also not too applicable in a serious game. Most of the fun Viking v. Carrier stuff I've done is in big FFA games. Really though what do you think you'd be doing better than the AI? The AI is fairly stupid, but not when it comes to attacking units and following units. There's little that can be done to overcome a faster unit that's simply doing a hit and run.
Either way the definition I've always seen used is that Hard counter = wins even with lower investment and Soft = wins at equal investment. So I'd still have to put Viking in the 'hard' range even if you could only kill say 5 with 12, which is extremely easy.
On July 26 2010 09:25 obsid wrote: Your right in that vikings do attack at 9 and carriers launch at 8, but unless your fighting a computer AI only, pulling back as vikings dont work, as the carrier can continue to attack while it moves. 12 carriers will OWN 12 vikings easy.
Nah, try it. The issue is that Vikings move substantially faster than Carriers. While a deployed Carrier does have a range of 10 (not 12 as the above poster implied), that only matters for a very short period of time. We're not talking about stutter stepping like Marauders, but moving entirely out of range and reengaging. Thus 'sniping' and not 'kiting'. Again, try it yourself. In very low numbers pulling one back entirely does indeed work and at large enough numbers sniping comes into play as mentioned.
Try it out. Take 12 Vikings against 12 Carriers and from outside either units range have the Viking's attack a Carrier. As soon as the missiles fire move away entirely until the Interceptors return. Usually only 3-5 will be able to launch and only 2-3 are able to fire. Meanwhile you've already killed 1 Carrier.
Edit: Just a note, if you haven't seen it; Yes, Vikings can indeed all stack. They only spread when stationary. There is a spread after the firing when using an attack command to move. They spread much further as you retreat, but a quick patrol loop and they'll be clustered again. If you haven't seen a Viking UFO before you're missing out.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe they only stack incredibly temporarily, and even when flying begin to slowly unstack. If you're talking about picking off a carrier every minute or so, that's anything but hard countering and the simple fact other units are going to be in the play (aka blinking stalkers, etc.) makes the argument completely null. One range isn't exactly huge, and a single fuckup would mean you'd lose a LOT of vikings. And all the interceptors are deployed nearly simultaneously with the launch upgrade.
EDIT: And you're still completely wrong about the 12 vs 4 situation, which is the main thing I was calling you out on. The 12 range was merely assumed from what other people have said repeatedly, although I admit I haven't confirmed it myself.
I tested out 6 vikings vs 2 carriers and the viking micro doesn't seem to work. It really only works when the toss doesn't have the graviton catapult upgrade, because otherwise, you can't avoid getting hit once by every interceptor in that carrier. As long as the carriers are resonably bunched together, "sniping" is rather ineffective, all the interceptors get 1 round of shots at the vikings as they retreat. It may work if you have a standing ground army, like thor/marines, which you lure the interceptors into, but that's not the question.
I would call vikings a soft counter, just a+ move into carriers and your toast, 3 carriers can take 10 vikings if the vikings are attacking the intercepters. With focus fire on both sides, I would call it usualy even (esp with high upgrades on both sides). With really good vikings micro you might be able to get a resource advantage abusing the 1 range diffrence. So I would defintaly say that means a soft counter (requires good micro), to beat carriers with vikings.
I am away from my regular computer right now so I can't check the unit speeds in SC2. However, I definitely tested marine/marauder runspeed vs ultralisk runspeed before running the "kiting" tests. I don't remember exact in-game displayed unit speeds but they were something like this:
If you add in other units, viking kiting absolutely disappears (phoenix or stalkers for example). Also if you try to snipe the carriers, the player will most likely go back to sniping your buildings. Air damage is also way more practical to upgrade than air armor, so having x/3 vikings is quite a leap in feasibility, where as carriers gain 16 damage per upgrade (8 * 2). A huge mass of vikings will cause the terran to just lose a ground battle though, where carriers will rip up the ground army as well.
On July 26 2010 10:54 obsid wrote: Carriers vr what Zato?
Carriers beat stuff on equal resources that you wouldn't expect; Vikings for instance, and more strikingly Void Rays which are explicitly advertised as a counter to them. They beat Thors handily, and also Hydras iirc, and in large numbers beat even Stalkers in my tests. Units that beat carriers head on include Battlecruisers and Corruptors (too much armor on those against the interceptors' 5x2 attack), as well as Marines (they will demolish your interceptor count).
I dont know I can kill 3 carriers with 5 voidrays which is about equal in value (mind you voidrays dont see to own carriers at all, maybe they come out even though). The real key in voidray vr carrier battles is charge, in small to medium numbers the voidrays do just fine, but at very large numbers (like 10 carriers), the voidrays will actualy kill the first carrier too quickly (if you focus fire), and most of the voidrays wont be charged up enough to kill the rest of the carriers, but if you split fire onthe first carrier, the carriers will rip the voidrays appart with focus fire. Also there doesnt seem to be a lot you can do with micro in this fight, the voidrays can keep up with the carriers and both of them have moving attack.
If the voidrays enter any battle with even close to even resource cost and already charged (on rocks or something), they kill tons of carriers.
can i just go ahead and applaud your effort, but this must be some of the most misleading data ever. There is no micro involved, and no unit mixing, meaning that none of these scenarios will ever lead to fruition. The thors vs ultras one is particularly misleading- if a thor strike cannons an ultra and ONE MARINE is nearby, the ultra dies before the end of the cannons and the thor takes like ~90 damage. No transfusion on the queens? Why do u think that multiple queens is good vs air...
On July 26 2010 11:48 obsid wrote: I dont know I can kill 3 carriers with 5 voidrays which is about equal in value (mind you voidrays dont see to own carriers at all, maybe they come out even though). The real key in voidray vr carrier battles is charge, in small to medium numbers the voidrays do just fine, but at very large numbers (like 10 carriers), the voidrays will actualy kill the first carrier too quickly (if you focus fire), and most of the voidrays wont be charged up enough to kill the rest of the carriers, but if you split fire onthe first carrier, the carriers will rip the voidrays appart with focus fire. Also there doesnt seem to be a lot you can do with micro in this fight, the voidrays can keep up with the carriers and both of them have moving attack.
If the voidrays enter any battle with even close to even resource cost and already charged (on rocks or something), they kill tons of carriers.
I tried 5 Carriers vs. an equivalent number of Void Rays on XGDragon's Unit Tester, and the Carriers absolutely demolished the Void Rays (Void Rays weren't pre-charged). It's not even close. And no, the Void Rays weren't shooting the interceptors or anything of the like.
On July 26 2010 12:02 Zoltan wrote: can i just go ahead and applaud your effort, but this must be some of the most misleading data ever. There is no micro involved, and no unit mixing, meaning that none of these scenarios will ever lead to fruition. The thors vs ultras one is particularly misleading- if a thor strike cannons an ultra and ONE MARINE is nearby, the ultra dies before the end of the cannons and the thor takes like ~90 damage. No transfusion on the queens? Why do u think that multiple queens is good vs air...
That being said the thors vs mutas was well done.
He's unit testing for hard counters. It's not misleading if you understand what he's testing.
So, given this data, Ultralisks are pretty much lolpwn against Terran, since you will never have enough room to manouver 40 Marauders against 12 Ultras. And those Ultras will be accompanied by 9435623454 lings. Enough whining about Ultras not being good enough then?
On July 26 2010 19:05 Sabresandiego wrote: If you just go by the unit tester, hellions lose to every unit in the game cost for cost. If you micro them however things change.
Busted
10 Hellions vs 20 Marines.
If you do nothing other than move the blob of hellions where the first row is touching the blob of marines and stop, hellions win by a large margin. (this causes about 1/2 the marines to die on the first attack)
10 Hellions vs 40 Zerglings.
With no micro they actually do lose here, until you get Infernal Pre-igniter, then it's no contest regardless of how many upgrades the lings have.
This is no different from the amount of micro he does on most of these tests. Go figure that hellions are actually good against the units they're good against eh?
On July 26 2010 14:56 MangoTango wrote: So, given this data, Ultralisks are pretty much lolpwn against Terran, since you will never have enough room to manouver 40 Marauders against 12 Ultras. And those Ultras will be accompanied by 9435623454 lings. Enough whining about Ultras not being good enough then?
You whine about not enough room to manouver 40 Marines? How do you expect anyone to manuover 12 Ultras in the same space? You can be happy if you are able to have 3 of those 12 Ultras attacking.
I think Ultralisks are fine. Their damage can be avoided by placeing a single unit a little bit in front of your ball of units and can be countered by the right terrain usage or by air.
No, lets keep complaining about the 1 good unit Zerg has against Terran when there are only 8 good units Terran has against Zerg... Totally Zerg favored matchup there...
Wow, i would never say that Ultras beat Marauderers with stim. It felt so easy when i was kitting zerg opponent ultras with my MM ball. We werent on creep thou, i dont know if you tested on creep or not?
On July 26 2010 19:05 Sabresandiego wrote: If you just go by the unit tester, hellions lose to every unit in the game cost for cost. If you micro them however things change.
Busted
10 Hellions vs 20 Marines.
If you do nothing other than move the blob of hellions where the first row is touching the blob of marines and stop, hellions win by a large margin. (this causes about 1/2 the marines to die on the first attack)
10 Hellions vs 40 Zerglings.
With no micro they actually do lose here, until you get Infernal Pre-igniter, then it's no contest regardless of how many upgrades the lings have.
This is no different from the amount of micro he does on most of these tests. Go figure that hellions are actually good against the units they're good against eh?
Uh.. you just confirmed his point.
Also a lot of these are really misleading as others have said - especially looking at Vikings vs Corruptors.
Vikings have the range advantage and can score a lot of free damage from kiting. Vikings also are HALF the gas of a corruptor, so it's really not fair to face them 1v1.
You didn't face BC vs Hydra 1v1, you actually looked at cost - why didn't you with a 100/150 unit vs a 125/75 unit?
Ultras vs thors, why don't you use strike cannons? They have the ability for a reason. Yes if you use it stupidly it will be worthless, just like if you psi storm your own units. An HT counters Marines even though you can waste psi storm if you want.
That doesn't confirm the point at all in regard to Hellions. Zerglings are about the only thing that requires much micro and that's only before Speed + Igniter are researched. Once those two are if you're testing them you should just A-move anyway because micro barely matters. If you attack move Marines into Hellions the Marines get slaughtered. If you attack move fully upgraded zerglings into fully upgraded Hellions the Zerglings get slaughtered. Same for Hydras. Same for Zealots. Hellions + Igniter are amazing against light units. The problem is they're so one dimensional that you never see some big Hellion vs Zealot battle. It's too easy to just go Stalker, or Roach, or Marauder against them.
I feel like Hellions should beat sentries, which are definitely more expensive. Reapers as well.
On July 26 2010 14:56 MangoTango wrote: So, given this data, Ultralisks are pretty much lolpwn against Terran, since you will never have enough room to manouver 40 Marauders against 12 Ultras. And those Ultras will be accompanied by 9435623454 lings. Enough whining about Ultras not being good enough then?
Pity it's hard to ever get 12 Ultras at once, especially because 12 ultras = 72 supply.
On July 27 2010 02:35 EvasivE wrote: brilliant. queens are def underrated i should incorporate them more often.
Problem is if you focus on building them then you can't go on the offensive. For example, you build mass queen because they have a decent amount of air. Well now when you move out your army will get slaughtered by the enemy unless you bring all your queens along. Yeah, they are good, just don't overestimate them.
On July 26 2010 19:05 Sabresandiego wrote: If you just go by the unit tester, hellions lose to every unit in the game cost for cost. If you micro them however things change.
Busted
10 Hellions vs 20 Marines.
If you do nothing other than move the blob of hellions where the first row is touching the blob of marines and stop, hellions win by a large margin. (this causes about 1/2 the marines to die on the first attack)
10 Hellions vs 40 Zerglings.
With no micro they actually do lose here, until you get Infernal Pre-igniter, then it's no contest regardless of how many upgrades the lings have.
This is no different from the amount of micro he does on most of these tests. Go figure that hellions are actually good against the units they're good against eh?
Uh.. you just confirmed his point.
Also a lot of these are really misleading as others have said - especially looking at Vikings vs Corruptors.
Vikings have the range advantage and can score a lot of free damage from kiting. Vikings also are HALF the gas of a corruptor, so it's really not fair to face them 1v1.
You didn't face BC vs Hydra 1v1, you actually looked at cost - why didn't you with a 100/150 unit vs a 125/75 unit?
Ultras vs thors, why don't you use strike cannons? They have the ability for a reason. Yes if you use it stupidly it will be worthless, just like if you psi storm your own units. An HT counters Marines even though you can waste psi storm if you want.
I've got no idea where you got the funny numbers from, but 3 out of 4 of them are wrong. Corruptors are 150 minerals and 100 gas, while vikings are 150 minerals and 75 gas. The vikings do win over corruptors and phoenix in direct combat, as long as they have the same total cost.
On July 26 2010 15:01 t3tsubo wrote: roaches versus zealots and roaches versus thors plz, roaches versus thors only because of Idra's awesome hold against TLO in the KOTB tourney
Thors are pretty good against anything that isn't a tier 1 unit (And not bad against tier 1 either), but they have a huge problem with attack priority versus air. If you watch Idra's hold the Thors target Mutas and Overlords while the Roaches are attacking.
On July 26 2010 13:48 NeWnAr wrote: Check Roaches vs Zealots pls.
Attack move 1v1 zealots beat roaches which is true in small numbers. Any small scoot and shoot micro leaves the zealots losing badly regardless of numbers.
It should be noted that Ultras and Tanks are much better and much worse respectively in the unit tester. Ultras tend to splash everything in the unit tester and tanks can't be placed in an advantageous position.
On July 26 2010 14:56 MangoTango wrote: So, given this data, Ultralisks are pretty much lolpwn against Terran, since you will never have enough room to manouver 40 Marauders against 12 Ultras. And those Ultras will be accompanied by 9435623454 lings. Enough whining about Ultras not being good enough then?
Bad zergs are going to keep complaining until they finally see some pros abusing ultras (which have been good for a while, and are now overpowered) and they'll copy.
On July 26 2010 15:01 t3tsubo wrote: roaches versus zealots and roaches versus thors plz, roaches versus thors only because of Idra's awesome hold against TLO in the KOTB tourney
Thors are pretty good against anything that isn't a tier 1 unit (And not bad against tier 1 either), but they have a huge problem with attack priority versus air. If you watch Idra's hold the Thors target Mutas and Overlords while the Roaches are attacking.
On July 26 2010 13:48 NeWnAr wrote: Check Roaches vs Zealots pls.
Attack move 1v1 zealots beat roaches which is true in small numbers. Any small scoot and shoot micro leaves the zealots losing badly regardless of numbers.
It should be noted that Ultras and Tanks are much better and much worse respectively in the unit tester. Ultras tend to splash everything in the unit tester and tanks can't be placed in an advantageous position.
It's good they target Mutas I feel as they are the only antiair most of the time.
On July 25 2010 08:02 Lexvink wrote: First off, lol @ your teammate who thought mutalisk beat corruptors with base 2 armor. The problem with this is that it only considers the fight is a direct open fight. For example the Ultralisk vs a Thor. Sure, ultralisk beats a Thor in a straight up battle, but as the number increase, the Thors will do much better. Then what if the Ultralisks are fighting in a choke, the Thors would destroy an equal amount of Ultras. However, if the Ultras are able to get a flank, the Ultras would do much better.
You also do not give enough information with these myths. For example, your Battlecruiser fighting Hydralisks is it in an attack move fashion from 1 to another? Without creep? With creep? Do the hydras unburrow under the BC?
Dude, you're being silly. OP plastered his post with MORE than enough disclaimers for you to be able to answer all of these "questions" yourself. He was just being very general and dispelling a few myths about "unit x hard counters unit y", which is nice.
On July 26 2010 14:56 MangoTango wrote: So, given this data, Ultralisks are pretty much lolpwn against Terran, since you will never have enough room to manouver 40 Marauders against 12 Ultras. And those Ultras will be accompanied by 9435623454 lings. Enough whining about Ultras not being good enough then?
Bad zergs are going to keep complaining until they finally see some pros abusing ultras (which have been good for a while, and are now overpowered) and they'll copy.
The ZvT issue has never been how good ultras are, it's T's mech push before Z can tech to ultras. Don't label all zerg players as bad just because they are all losing the ZvT matchup so badly.
On July 27 2010 05:07 Percutio wrote: It is abused with overlords pretty easily. I think if the priority was lowered then it would help them out a lot.
It might also be caused by the long air range and animation when compared to the ground attack.
I'll use this in the future, never realized it would prioritize a nonattacking unit over an attacking unit!
On July 26 2010 14:56 MangoTango wrote: So, given this data, Ultralisks are pretty much lolpwn against Terran, since you will never have enough room to manouver 40 Marauders against 12 Ultras. And those Ultras will be accompanied by 9435623454 lings. Enough whining about Ultras not being good enough then?
Bad zergs are going to keep complaining until they finally see some pros abusing ultras (which have been good for a while, and are now overpowered) and they'll copy.
So in response to zerg players complaining about the ultra being underpowered you respond by complaining it is overpowered... My head hurts.
On July 27 2010 05:07 Percutio wrote: It is abused with overlords pretty easily. I think if the priority was lowered then it would help them out a lot.
It might also be caused by the long air range and animation when compared to the ground attack.
I'll use this in the future, never realized it would prioritize a nonattacking unit over an attacking unit!
You should test it out to see exactly how the priority works.
I'm pretty sure they attack overlords over ground units as long as the overlords are in range first (Most of the time this will be true considering the Thor air attack range).
On July 27 2010 05:07 Percutio wrote: It is abused with overlords pretty easily. I think if the priority was lowered then it would help them out a lot.
It might also be caused by the long air range and animation when compared to the ground attack.
I'll use this in the future, never realized it would prioritize a nonattacking unit over an attacking unit!
You should test it out to see exactly how the priority works.
I'm pretty sure they attack overlords over ground units as long as the overlords are in range first (Most of the time this will be true considering the Thor air attack range).
I don't think that has with priority to do at all. All units keep their target untill the target is either dead or out of range. I don't think overlords would be targeted if there where a choice between them and an attacking unit.
On July 27 2010 05:07 Percutio wrote: It is abused with overlords pretty easily. I think if the priority was lowered then it would help them out a lot.
It might also be caused by the long air range and animation when compared to the ground attack.
I'll use this in the future, never realized it would prioritize a nonattacking unit over an attacking unit!
You should test it out to see exactly how the priority works.
I'm pretty sure they attack overlords over ground units as long as the overlords are in range first (Most of the time this will be true considering the Thor air attack range).
I don't think that has with priority to do at all. All units keep their target untill the target is either dead or out of range. I don't think overlords would be targeted if there where a choice between them and an attacking unit.
Read my previous posts, I was saying that I think it happens mostly because of the difference between Thor air range and ground attack range.
On July 27 2010 05:07 Percutio wrote: It is abused with overlords pretty easily. I think if the priority was lowered then it would help them out a lot.
It might also be caused by the long air range and animation when compared to the ground attack.
I'll use this in the future, never realized it would prioritize a nonattacking unit over an attacking unit!
You should test it out to see exactly how the priority works.
I'm pretty sure they attack overlords over ground units as long as the overlords are in range first (Most of the time this will be true considering the Thor air attack range).
I don't think that has with priority to do at all. All units keep their target untill the target is either dead or out of range. I don't think overlords would be targeted if there where a choice between them and an attacking unit.
Read my previous posts, I was saying that I think it happens mostly because of the difference between Thor air range and ground attack range.
Yeah, I get that. Just wanted to point out that I didn't think priority had anything to do with it.
On July 27 2010 05:07 Percutio wrote: It is abused with overlords pretty easily. I think if the priority was lowered then it would help them out a lot.
It might also be caused by the long air range and animation when compared to the ground attack.
I'll use this in the future, never realized it would prioritize a nonattacking unit over an attacking unit!
You should test it out to see exactly how the priority works.
I'm pretty sure they attack overlords over ground units as long as the overlords are in range first (Most of the time this will be true considering the Thor air attack range).
I don't think that has with priority to do at all. All units keep their target untill the target is either dead or out of range. I don't think overlords would be targeted if there where a choice between them and an attacking unit.
Not true with workers at least. If you tell your workers to attack lings, they are prioritized (assuming they initiate contact first), and then if marines come behind and start shooting the lings, they still prioritize workers UNTIL you tell the workers to stop on attack move.
My current assumption, and possibly the assumption of others, is that a force of roaches will be able to approach and deal more DPS to tanks (before burrow) than a group of hydralisks do. Is that actually accurate (both for on creep and off creep)? Maybe the 6 range of hydras means they'll get more damage off even if they die faster. The problem with this myth would be that it changes for different #s of tanks.
On July 27 2010 05:07 Percutio wrote: It is abused with overlords pretty easily. I think if the priority was lowered then it would help them out a lot.
It might also be caused by the long air range and animation when compared to the ground attack.
I'll use this in the future, never realized it would prioritize a nonattacking unit over an attacking unit!
You should test it out to see exactly how the priority works.
I'm pretty sure they attack overlords over ground units as long as the overlords are in range first (Most of the time this will be true considering the Thor air attack range).
I don't think that has with priority to do at all. All units keep their target untill the target is either dead or out of range. I don't think overlords would be targeted if there where a choice between them and an attacking unit.
Not true with workers at least. If you tell your workers to attack lings, they are prioritized (assuming they initiate contact first), and then if marines come behind and start shooting the lings, they still prioritize workers UNTIL you tell the workers to stop on attack move.
I never said attack priorities don't exist, they do. I just commented that the case when overlords were attacked before other units was because they were the only target in range when the attacking started.
That isn't very realistic. Ghosts cost too much gas and even a full energy Ghost can only do 360 damage to an ultra and it takes a lot of time and micro to pull off that many snipes.
It isnt that unrealistic. the only unrealistic part is its unlikly all your ghosts will be at full energy. But a full energy ghost, does beat an ultra per cost. As far the time and micro, its not that hard, you just select all your ghosts, press the snipe key, hold shift, and spam click on the ultra. As your ghosts can be invis, you should be able to get in range.
On July 28 2010 17:28 obsid wrote: It isnt that unrealistic. the only unrealistic part is its unlikly all your ghosts will be at full energy. But a full energy ghost, does beat an ultra per cost. As far the time and micro, its not that hard, you just select all your ghosts, press the snipe key, hold shift, and spam click on the ultra. As your ghosts can be invis, you should be able to get in range.
They don't...
Per total cost with the minimum of units then yes, but that is trading a lot of gas for minerals and gas is going to be the limiting factor. There are few ways of cueing up 12 snipes per ultra not to mention the ultras reach the ghosts in the time it takes for a couple of rounds of snipe to go off. If you just hold shift and the ultras charge at you then you will lose ghosts faster than you can spend their energy or kill ultras. The only real way to do all the snipes at once is to block the ghosts in, get vision of the ultras, cue up 12 snipes per ultra, and then unblock the ghosts.
That might let the ghosts win only if the ghosts are full energy and are present in higher gas cost totals than the ultralisks.
The fact is that 360 damage won't kill an ultra, besides the fact that the ultra will already be hitting the ghost before the ghost can finish doing all of its snipes. Cloak wastes 2 potential snipes at the least and it can be countered easily.
Thors with 150mm cannons hard counter Ultras. Ghosts do well against ultras because of the snipe ability, but massing them does horribly against Ultras. Similar to Broodwar, just having a lot of units is the best way to deal with Ultras(unless they are marines).
On July 29 2010 05:49 GoSu] wrote: Thors with 150mm cannons hard counter Ultras. Ghosts do well against ultras because of the snipe ability, but massing them does horribly against Ultras. Similar to Broodwar, just having a lot of units is the best way to deal with Ultras(unless they are marines).
Of course, remember that if the Thors have 250 mm Cannons then they're much more vulnerable to NP.
Nice job with this. I would still say that vikings medium counter corrupter and pheonix with micro, the range 9 is crazy huge so it's not that hard to micro and kite, I'd say with good micro the vikings will take less than half as much damage while still doing about the same damage themselves.
It seems now that thors don't stun ultras that the only counter to ultra is air. Marauder and thor are basically even, not counters. I think Terran with a critical mass of tanks and thors and hellions and marauder in front shielding and running around can beat ultras though. That's the best ground counter to ultras I know. Hellions aren't too bad against ultra if they kite, they can make the ultras run around a lot more while thors and tanks deal damage.
Vikings can't kite Pheonix, but they are more cost effective anyways. They can only get 1 or 2 extra shots off when kiting Corruptors because of Corruptor range and speed.
EPT
Been wondering this for a while.
