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Hi All,
I was wondering on what people do when it comes time to upgrade. I see a lot of posts regarding early build orders etc but not a lot mentioning upgrades such as Armor or Ground Weapons.
A lot should depend on build, but generally what is a good course of action? Someone mentioned that shields should always be the first upgrade since it affects all units? If so when do you do it, considering it is pricey and could hinder unit production early game.
If you are going PvT Stalker/Void build, do you upgrade the ground weapons/armor or do you upgrade the air one?
What is the most economical/bang for your buck?
Just wanted to get some opinions or consensus ideas. I am a newish player and this seemed like an important topic that I rarely see discussed (I did do a search).
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I'm just a mid-plat player, but from what I've seen initial upgrades depend on the MU.
Against zerg, attack upgrades are great, because +1 lets zealots 2-shot zerglings, and +2 lets collossi 1-shot them.
Against terran, armor upgrades tend to be the way to go, because they're good vs. MMM balls (along with guardian shields).
Against protoss, I really don't know. I usually get attack upgrades, but it probably doesn't matter much what you upgrade because it's the mirror.
One more thing is that if you are going carriers, the air attack upgrades are really essential, because each interceptor takes two shots, so +1 is +16 damage, and +2 is +32 damage for each carrier.
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Basically you want to start getting upgrades when it is economical to do so.
For example, if you have one zealot you do eight damage. If you get the upgrade for ground attack, you'll do nine damage (not worth it).
You need about eight zealots to make the upgrade worth it compared to just getting more zealots.
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get a forge right after your nat start kicking in b4 getting any additional gate => any match up (except vZ where u may wana get forge first)
vT: mostly +1 attack since chargelots and colossi get lots out of it. if you going air consider getting shield since its for both air and ground but keep in mind that its VERY VERY expensive.
vZ: +2 attack no matter what you do. after that consider getting +3 or +1 amour. reason: +2 colossi kill lings in 1 hits.
vP: get attack. Why? because its the cheapest and assuming your enemy not getting any upgrade, +1 can let you get a head pretty far. I have beated a PvP where the other guys has 2 colossi + gateways unit when i only have +1 chargelots and stalkers.
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As someone said before - it's economical timing. Say I have 3 gates up and a robo (or any equivalent build) - my econ eventually pulls ahead where I am building pylons and units while maintaining a surplus of minerals. Get an upgrade! And it gives you a great outlet for chronoboost.
Or expo, but that's another thread.
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It really depends on the match-up, and what your opponent is doing. A few key things to keep in mind:
Charge and Blink are really strong upgrades for their respective units. More damage is normally better for Protoss, so weapons is a solid choice. Shields are ok, but typically not as good as armor upgrades (for the cost).
My general rule is to support the units I'm building the most of.. for example... if I'm up against a Terran going marine/tank, I build a lot of Zealots, get charge, and go for weapon and armor upgrades. If your getting a mix of voids and stalkers, get both air and ground weapons upgrades, get blink and void speed. Weave these upgrades into your normal production. I'd start with blink and void speed because of a much greater cost-to-benefit ratio.
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Much of the upgrade section is about personal preference about what you like to build, IMO.
PvP
Charge is a great start, as Chargelots are really strong against pretty much anything on the ground except the colossus. Even blink stalkers are going to take some damage from your chargelots, and if you attack a pure stalker force with chargelots and maybe throw an immortal into the mix, you're golden. +1 attack is usually my first Forge upgrade of choice here, especially if you deepen into the robo tech.
PvT
Unlike what someone else mentioned, I like getting +1 armor here instead of the +1 attack early on. Chargelots with +1 armor can soak up a very big amount of shots from a terran bio ball, especially if GS in in the picture, as +1 extra armor enable you to soak up to several extra shots. +1 attack might help you against marauders by reducing attacks needed to kill it by 1, but it won't do any good against marines, with or without combat shield. Tanks are pretty much dead anyways if the chargelots make the distance, so I rarely care for that in the early stages of the game. After the +1 armor I like to spend money on attack upgrades if I see that the terran has forgotten about his own upgrades, as if you get +3 attack, immortals two-shot marauders if they have +1 armor or less. When facing off against a terran with a mix of zealots, immortals, HT, some stalkers and a few phoenixes, you are in a very good position with these upgrades.
PvZ
It's more and more common now for zergs to get a fairly quick evo chamber and go for +1 carapace, especially among diamond level players. If you see a zergling-heavy build and you manage to pull off a +1 weapons timing attack, you're golden. However, the carapace upgrade nullifies this advantage very quickly, and the weapon upgrades more or less become just a counter to the zerg's carapace upgrades, and if he goes zergling heavy, zealots will still three-shot a zergling unless he got +3 carapace and you got no weapon upgrades. Stalkers will 4-shot a zergling if the carapace upgrade is less than 2 above your weapon upgrades. If you like to use archons (which are great against Z), weapon upgrades are very nice, and Colossi greatly benefit from this as well. I find blink a very nice tool against Z, as they don't have many ground units that deal bonus damage to armored units until they get hive tech, and you can do alot of damage with this before he's gotten that far into his tech tree.
Common for all matchups
Get charge rather sooner than later. Period.
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For weapons/armor upgrades, I never get sheilds since they don't stack cumulatively with base armor, which is usually more effective.
I always buy them when I am in a stalemate or faceoff position. If one side has the advantage (me or my opponent) I never spend money on upgrades - more units is usually better or even an expo or something. However, when our armies are not engaging and we're staring each other down/lull in the fighting, that's when I'll start to invest in the upgrades. They do take awhile to kick in.
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I get attack vs Zerg always. And armor vs Terran always. Protoss is iffy as it usually ends before I need upgrades. Attack would probably be preferred. I usually get them after my natural is up and I know it's reasonably safe.
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As Protoss against Zerg, I like to go weapons first, to get ahead in the zergling vs. zealot weapons race.
For my second forge, however, I usually go shields. The reason for this is that I use archons, which are great units against zerg in general, but especially so against zerglings and mutalisks. Going shields also gives a small added bonus of making any photon cannons you make more resistant to attacks.
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lots of good feedback on upgrades here. here's something people didn't add about air upgrades: they increase the DPS of air units more (proportionally) per upgrade than the ground ones. VRays get a ~60% dps increase when non-charged at +1 (5 per tick versus 8 per tick).
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Terran - Armor
Zerg - Attack
Protoss - Balanced
I tend to go straight Armor/Attack versus Terran/Zerg, unless if they hit level 2 in something, then I'll snag the opposite one since it's a cheap counter.
On August 25 2010 03:53 bombcar wrote:
Basically you want to start getting upgrades when it is economical to do so.
For example, if you have one zealot you do eight damage. If you get the upgrade for ground attack, you'll do nine damage (not worth it).
You need about eight zealots to make the upgrade worth it compared to just getting more zealots.
With fast warp in time, that's really not true as it's pretty easy to pump units. I would say it's more a question of when you have your optimal number of production structures.
Also, if it's armor it's not the size of your army, it's the size of their army.
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If uncharged, Void Rays are gonna lose a lot of battles against other units, so you don't really want to care much about that. In addition, most of your forces will be ground forces unless you are going for a very heavy air build (which most races can counter pretty easily), thus the ground army upgrades are usually what you will focus on first. However, air upgrades should be considered as the later stages of the game approach, indeed.
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Attack upgrades are so much better. Always. The exception might be mass marine ghost for armor upgrades (which along with guardian shield make your units a beast). I really can't think of another exception that matters as much =/ Maybe shield armor if for some reason you have a ton of Archons tanking Zerglings.
Shield and armor will each only apply to half your unit. Attack increases your whole attack. The more units you have that gain more than 1 per upgrade (zealots, collosi, immortals, voids, etc), the more it worth, whereas armor is always 1 armor. If I see them going Zergling heavy and I dont have a TC up I will sometimes get armor before my 2nd level of attack.
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I upgrade shield and armor when my opponent has units with fast cooldowns (Marine, Zergling, Zealot, Battlecruiser, etc), but I have units with slow cooldowns.
I upgrade attacks when I have units with fast cooldowns (Zealot) and my opponent has units with slow cooldowns.
This is because the attack, armor, and shield upgrades will activate after each cooldown. If my opponent's units have fast cooldowns, I'm best off upgrading armor. (And vice versa for activating my attack upgrade when I have units with fast cooldowns.) This way, I get the most bang for my buck.
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The only time I get armour first is for zealots vs mass marines, since marines have particularly low damage per shot, otherwise damage is more important.
Also +1 air attack is fairly cheap and I usually buy it if my air units will be doing anything more than hit and run harrass, since it's at a building I have anyway.
I can't usually afford the upgrades until after expanding, gas can get pretty tight as Protoss often has to race to high tech units.
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Would it be alright to throw down a second forge during at the start of the mid game?
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On August 25 2010 03:53 bombcar wrote:
Basically you want to start getting upgrades when it is economical to do so.
For example, if you have one zealot you do eight damage. If you get the upgrade for ground attack, you'll do nine damage (not worth it).
You need about eight zealots to make the upgrade worth it compared to just getting more zealots. Not quite. Much more important than how much damage your units do is how many hits it takes to kill their target. A zealot with +1 kills a zergling in 2 hits instead of 3. That's a much bigger advantage than just 1 additional zealot.
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On August 31 2010 08:49 Newtybar wrote:
Would it be alright to throw down a second forge during at the start of the mid game?
If you plan to go heavy on ground forces, it is more often than not a good idea.
However, you also want to pay attention to what your opponent is upgrading and what units your army will consist of. Sometimes one extra attack or armor upgrade won't give any benefits, but of course, in the majority of the situations you will encounter, they always help. There was a very nice spreadsheet about most of the upgrades around, but haven't seen it for quite some time. You can study it to see what upgrades are beneficable at what point.
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PvZ prioritize attack upgrades. Any type of upgrade is good in this matchup. However, level 1 attack upgrade makes zealots 50% better vs zerglings, and level 2 attack makes colossi 100% better vs zerglings. I often cut my 3rd gateway to get a forge down early for a very strong zealot/sentry push timed to hit right before the Z gets a spire.
PvT prioritize armor upgrades. If you combine armor upgrades with the sentry guardian shield ability, you make zealots SO POWERFUL against bio. +1 armor upgrade, with guardian shield, reduces marine damage to 2 per shot. +2 armor upgrade with guardian shield reduces marine damage to 1 damage per shot. Wow. Also, +1 armor upgrade with guardian shield reduces marauder damage from 10 to 6 vs zealots... just get armor upgrades, it scales really well. I get my forge usually before I take my natural.
PvP whatever your style is. Stalker/colossi - get damage upgrade since you will probably be microing a bunch to reduce the damage you take. If you have more zealots and sentries it could be a good idea to get armor upgrades. I don't even really bother with upgrades in this matchup until I am 2 or 3 basing - I'd rather invest that in a tech advantage or tech diversity early on.
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On August 25 2010 09:45 Ndugu wrote:Shield and armor will each only apply to half your unit. Attack increases your whole attack. The more units you have that gain more than 1 per upgrade (zealots, collosi, immortals, voids, etc), the more it worth, whereas armor is always 1 armor. If I see them going Zergling heavy and I dont have a TC up I will sometimes get armor before my 2nd level of attack.
It really doesn't matter whether it applies to "half" your unit or not. I feel like this is just a common irrational concern surrounding armor upgrades.
Upgrades don't scale equally in all cases. Some units get +2 damage off an upgrade, others will just get +1, some will get +1x2. In fact even if they are on paper equal, they rarely are in reality. Sometimes that upgrade will make a huge difference (Zealot +1 attack versus Zerglings) sometimes it makes no difference at all (+3 armor against Siege Tanks).
Saying armor doesn't upgrade your shield therefore it's BAD is just being intellectually lazy.
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EPT
