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On October 12 2010 22:53 Perscienter wrote:Show nested quote +On October 10 2010 16:03 Perscienter wrote:I tried to model a mutalisk vs mutalisk fight and have a few questions. - What is the minimum damage caused in SC2?
- How are fractions computed in damage calculations?
- Does the damage being caused by the bounce relate to the damage caused to the previous target?
I'm still wondering about those. Any ideas?
Not 100% sure:
1. Minimum damage is 1. I don't believe damage can be negated completely 2. Can't answer. 3. I think the mutalisk damage goes 9 - 3 - 1 for an unupgraded Mutalisk. If you upgrade armor the damage is 8 - 2 - 1. If you upgrade weapons it will be 10 - 4 - 2.
Mutalisk info
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On October 13 2010 00:24 dcberkeley wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2010 00:16 Shikyo wrote:On October 10 2010 03:07 ichangedmyname wrote: There really is no easy answer. If I had to break down what to get against the 3 races I would say.
TvT - Armor TvZ - Weapons TvP - Either Why on earth would you go for Armor in TvT? Assuming your opponent gets +1 weapon and you get +1 armor, all their mech units will deal more damage in comparison and their Marauders will deal more damage in comparison to yours. You will have no advantages in any situation. Huh? On the other side, all your mech will suffer less damage in comparison?! I don't understand your logic. You're just saying you would deal more damage with weapons upgrade. Which is obvious. On the other hand, his logic is probably that in TvT, which is dominated by high damage, slow shooting, armor will let you survive an extra hit or two and therefore you will be able to do one more hit on them, which is far more effective than getting a little bit more damage in.
The only time this occurs is if there is a "critical" hit number. + Show Spoiler [EXAMPLE FROM BW Source: Liquipedia] + TvT Weapons upgrades are very important in TvT, as they allow you to kill off an opposing Siege Tank in two shots, instead of three. This ability allows you to break tank contains much more easily, and also gives you an advantage when trying to blitz through a tank line. Since defensive upgrades cannot prevent your Tanks from dying to sieged Tanks in two shots (once two attack upgrades are done), armor upgrades are rarely seen.
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On October 13 2010 00:24 dcberkeley wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2010 00:16 Shikyo wrote:On October 10 2010 03:07 ichangedmyname wrote: There really is no easy answer. If I had to break down what to get against the 3 races I would say.
TvT - Armor TvZ - Weapons TvP - Either Why on earth would you go for Armor in TvT? Assuming your opponent gets +1 weapon and you get +1 armor, all their mech units will deal more damage in comparison and their Marauders will deal more damage in comparison to yours. You will have no advantages in any situation. Huh? On the other side, all your mech will suffer less damage in comparison?! I don't understand your logic. You're just saying you would deal more damage with weapons upgrade. Which is obvious. On the other hand, his logic is probably that in TvT, which is dominated by high damage, slow shooting, armor will let you survive an extra hit or two and therefore you will be able to do one more hit on them, which is far more effective than getting a little bit more damage in. I have a siege tank with +1 attack. You have a siege tank with +1 armor. My siege tanks deals 53 damage per attack to your siege tank, your siege tank deals 49 damage per attack to my siege tank. Your units will take MORE damage in comparison with armor.
On October 13 2010 00:30 .ImpacT. wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2010 00:24 dcberkeley wrote:On October 13 2010 00:16 Shikyo wrote:On October 10 2010 03:07 ichangedmyname wrote: There really is no easy answer. If I had to break down what to get against the 3 races I would say.
TvT - Armor TvZ - Weapons TvP - Either Why on earth would you go for Armor in TvT? Assuming your opponent gets +1 weapon and you get +1 armor, all their mech units will deal more damage in comparison and their Marauders will deal more damage in comparison to yours. You will have no advantages in any situation. Huh? On the other side, all your mech will suffer less damage in comparison?! I don't understand your logic. You're just saying you would deal more damage with weapons upgrade. Which is obvious. On the other hand, his logic is probably that in TvT, which is dominated by high damage, slow shooting, armor will let you survive an extra hit or two and therefore you will be able to do one more hit on them, which is far more effective than getting a little bit more damage in. The only time this occurs is if there is a "critical" hit number. + Show Spoiler [EXAMPLE FROM BW Source: Liquipedia] + TvT Weapons upgrades are very important in TvT, as they allow you to kill off an opposing Siege Tank in two shots, instead of three. This ability allows you to break tank contains much more easily, and also gives you an advantage when trying to blitz through a tank line. Since defensive upgrades cannot prevent your Tanks from dying to sieged Tanks in two shots (once two attack upgrades are done), armor upgrades are rarely seen.
No, because the opposing attack upgrade completely negates the armor upgrade and even gives a bonus.
Terran has all ranged units so it's not like with Zerg where your Zerglings have to get carapace in order to even get to attacking distance(plus it affects both ranged and melee units for Z).
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If you are terran, its generally better to get weapons first in all cases.
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On October 13 2010 00:29 Amber[LighT] wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2010 22:53 Perscienter wrote:On October 10 2010 16:03 Perscienter wrote:I tried to model a mutalisk vs mutalisk fight and have a few questions. - What is the minimum damage caused in SC2?
- How are fractions computed in damage calculations?
- Does the damage being caused by the bounce relate to the damage caused to the previous target?
I'm still wondering about those. Any ideas? Not 100% sure: 1. Minimum damage is 1. I don't believe damage can be negated completely 2. Can't answer. 3. I think the mutalisk damage goes 9 - 3 - 1 for an unupgraded Mutalisk. If you upgrade armor the damage is 8 - 2 - 1. If you upgrade weapons it will be 10 - 4 - 2. Mutalisk info
Not sure if the same holds true in SC2 but this would be false in BW. If you upgrade damage you do 10 - 3.33 - 1.111 for a net gain of +1.444 damage. Armour gets you a net reduction in damage of 3; therefore the armour upgrade is more than twice as good. Not even factoring in that armor would also help your overlords.
As far as the op's question it's a simple question of math.
Almost all attack upgrades increase damage by 10-18%. All armor upgrades reduce the damage done to you by the enemy's units by exactly 1, therefore the percentage decrease varies from as much as 20% (in the case of a zergling) to a negligible amount (in the case of very high damage attacks like siege tanks or banelings). Therefore, generally speaking the damage upgrades are more likely to be useful. Note though that some attacks are X2 or even in the case of the Thor air attack X4, which means absolutely nothing in game terms aside from the fact that armour will count double (or quadruple) against that particular attack, making the armour upgrade more useful than it appears at first glance against these kinds of attacks. Of course everyone knows from SC:BW the importance of the protoss +1 attack vs zerg +1 carapace in zealot vs zergling because of this mechanic.
Another factor comes into play though; ranged vs melee units. Generally, melee units have much higher dps, but that dps doesn't come into play nearly as reliably as a ranged unit's dps because the melee unit is much more likely to die before getting a decent amount of attacks in. Therefore, for most melee units, increasing their armour is actually more likely to increase their dps since it will increase their chances of closing to melee range and beginning to deal damage. Ranged units, likewise, generally have less HP and armour than melee units, and thus for them upgrading their attack damage is also the best way to increase their survivability against melee units. Increasing their armour when they have low HP and are facing very high dps melee units makes neglible difference. But increasing their attack and thus allowing them to pick off more melee units before they can get into melee combat reduces the enemy dps significantly.
Bottom line is that if you are terran all your units are relatively low hp, low armour, ranged units. Attack is always the best choice.
As protoss, armour helps your zealots immensely against most zerg ground units, especially zerglings (but does nothing for your other melee unit, archons), and against marines too (but not marauders so much) but damage is much better for your stalkers, immortals, colossi, (and archons too since armour is useless to them) therefore damage is also a first priority, though armour is still quite useful.
As zerg armour is key for your zerglings, ultras, and even roaches vs enemy zerglings and MMM, and armour is better in muta vs muta too. Armour also has the benefit of affecting all ground units, whereas attack is divided into two categories. Therefore armour is the best first choice for zerg in most situations.
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On October 13 2010 00:43 Shikyo wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2010 00:24 dcberkeley wrote:On October 13 2010 00:16 Shikyo wrote:On October 10 2010 03:07 ichangedmyname wrote: There really is no easy answer. If I had to break down what to get against the 3 races I would say.
TvT - Armor TvZ - Weapons TvP - Either Why on earth would you go for Armor in TvT? Assuming your opponent gets +1 weapon and you get +1 armor, all their mech units will deal more damage in comparison and their Marauders will deal more damage in comparison to yours. You will have no advantages in any situation. Huh? On the other side, all your mech will suffer less damage in comparison?! I don't understand your logic. You're just saying you would deal more damage with weapons upgrade. Which is obvious. On the other hand, his logic is probably that in TvT, which is dominated by high damage, slow shooting, armor will let you survive an extra hit or two and therefore you will be able to do one more hit on them, which is far more effective than getting a little bit more damage in. I have a siege tank with +1 attack. You have a siege tank with +1 armor. My siege tanks deals 53 damage per attack to your siege tank, your siege tank deals 49 damage per attack to my siege tank. Your units will take MORE damage in comparison with armor. Show nested quote +On October 13 2010 00:30 .ImpacT. wrote:On October 13 2010 00:24 dcberkeley wrote:On October 13 2010 00:16 Shikyo wrote:On October 10 2010 03:07 ichangedmyname wrote: There really is no easy answer. If I had to break down what to get against the 3 races I would say.
TvT - Armor TvZ - Weapons TvP - Either Why on earth would you go for Armor in TvT? Assuming your opponent gets +1 weapon and you get +1 armor, all their mech units will deal more damage in comparison and their Marauders will deal more damage in comparison to yours. You will have no advantages in any situation. Huh? On the other side, all your mech will suffer less damage in comparison?! I don't understand your logic. You're just saying you would deal more damage with weapons upgrade. Which is obvious. On the other hand, his logic is probably that in TvT, which is dominated by high damage, slow shooting, armor will let you survive an extra hit or two and therefore you will be able to do one more hit on them, which is far more effective than getting a little bit more damage in. The only time this occurs is if there is a "critical" hit number. + Show Spoiler [EXAMPLE FROM BW Source: Liquipedia] + TvT Weapons upgrades are very important in TvT, as they allow you to kill off an opposing Siege Tank in two shots, instead of three. This ability allows you to break tank contains much more easily, and also gives you an advantage when trying to blitz through a tank line. Since defensive upgrades cannot prevent your Tanks from dying to sieged Tanks in two shots (once two attack upgrades are done), armor upgrades are rarely seen.
No, because the opposing attack upgrade completely negates the armor upgrade and even gives a bonus. Terran has all ranged units so it's not like with Zerg where your Zerglings have to get carapace in order to even get to attacking distance(plus it affects both ranged and melee units for Z).
The liquipedia source was directed at armor will let you survive an extra hit or two and therefore you will be able to do one more hit on them, in the post above mine.
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It's pretty simple.
Yur T? Get Attack Yur P? Get Attack Yur Z? Get Armour
Or after getting your core army, just start double upgrading.
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Really think about who in your army is attacking, who is defending, and what they are being attacked by. If there is a specific unit matchup, then you can do some math. It's common as terran to have a few damage soaking units in front (maruader/thor) and a large group of marines in back. In this case, you can really amp up your army with infantry weapon upgrades. In the ZvT matchup, +1 ground weapons allow zealots to kill zerglings in 2 attacks instead of 3. I suggest going the Day9 route on this. Instead of trying to come up with general rules, try to come up with a few hard and fast rules for specific situations. If I am fighting zealots vs speedlings --> ground weapons
If I have a lot of marines in the back --> infantry weapons
If he is attacking my infantry with mutalisks --> infantry armor
Experiment with those ideas, develop more rules over time. Try to be concise (get upgrade X at 20 food, etc). If you have a concise rule to apply, it will be mechanical during the game, requiring little attention to execute.
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In TvZ, with: Bio-Attack, marines gaining a point of attack each upgrade vastly improves their attack damage, up to 50% more effective. Factory units - Armor, mostly going up against either ling or mutalisk, and few have a double attack, so its better to get vehicle plating for these to improve survivability since it adds up. Improving attack never improves the AtK ratio. Air - Attack, almost every unit has a double attack, so it doubles the effectiveness of attack upgrades
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Since several people were asking:
Health and damage are accurate down to 1/4096.
Minimum damage is 0.5, but if the damage is less than 0.5 in the first place then it is dealt directly.
Mutalisk damage is 9->3->1, attack upgrades increase this by 1->0.333->0.111 each(exact values for the bounces are 1364/4096 and 455/4096, totalling 4092/4096 and 1365/4096 at full upgrades), so against mutalisks upgrading armor reduces more damage than their attack upgrades provide.
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doesn't really matter as long as u get both pretty fast
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I think it really depends on the units you're using, and the units you expect your opponent to be using.
The problem with armor is that +1 armor always results in a unit simply receiving 1 more armor. But some units such as tanks and marauders receive scaling damage from attack upgrades. For example, a +1 siege tank goes from 35 + 15 vs armored to 38 + 17 vs armored, which in reality results in +3 or +5 damage.
But another thing to consider is the rate of fire of your units. In the siege tank example above, yeah you get +3 to 5 damage, but the tank fires very slowly so you wont be applying that extra research damage very often. But a stimmed marine (or crackling) can fire off 5 shots while the siege tank is on cooldown, So even though +1 attack upgrade only gives marines/zerglings one extra damage, it's really like +5 damage because they can apply that +1 so often.
Another thing to consider is splash damage. If you're opponent is using lots of splash (tanks, thors vs air) obviously armor will become a bit more attractive because +1 armor across each unit hit by the attack with reduce the total damage received by the total number of units hit. The same goes for units that have x2 or x4 attacks, since you "gain" the benefit of applying your armor multiple times on that single round of attacks.
Of course, the opposite thing applies to units that have x2 or x4 attacks; in those cases +1 attack really becomes +2 or +4 because its applied to each individual attack in the round. But again, this assumes you're teching faster than your opponent, and that your damage gain per attack upgrade is greater than +2.
Also another thing to consider is the HP totals of the units your fighting against. +1 attack zealots vs 0 armor zerglings is brutal because then the zealot can 2-shot the zergling instead of 3-shot, and if you're attacking with a pure zealot force that means that your zealots gain +50% extra effective damage vs zerglings in a straight-up fight to the death. But again, this factor assumes that your opponent has not picked up the +1 ground armor themselves, and if they did, this aspect of upgraded damage is reduced significantly.
I think a good rule of thumb is that in the early/mid game, go armor vs units that have a fast rate of fire, and attack vs units that either have a slow rate of fire or you know your opponent isn't upgrading as fast as you and you can exploit an HP advantage. Of course this doesn't apply to every unit in every situation, just a rule of thumb.
And then in the mid/late game, re-evaluate your unit composition. If you're using lots of multiattack units (like thors, vikings, banshees, etc) start favoring attacking upgrades, otherwise use the same early/mid game process.
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T v T - Attack T v P - Attack T v Z - Attack
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Edit my old post for wrong. I thought some units would spread their attacks if they had multiple attacks (like turrets in the campaign), but this is false. If a unit with multiple attacks kills another unit with it's first attack, it does not get the remaining attacks. So it seems it's really not worth getting weapon upgrades for thors vs. zerg as AtK remains the same for several units.
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There are so many reasons to get 1 over the other in so many different cases, and they are all viable at some point in the game, but it is really down to your unit composition and what you're "winning unit" is.
1. Generally, get them. Doesn't matter which one first, unless you have a timing attack planned. Some Examples: - PvZ: Attacking with Zeals early, get +1 weapons then attack because zeals 2 shot lings - PvT: "Winning Unit" I chose to tech for is High Templar... get ground armor so that EMP and marines have a tougher time against unshielded zealots/stalkers, Marauders have tougher time against unshielded zealots/HT - PvP: Ground weapons and armor: This fight will be between gateway/colossus armies, get both with preference for weapons (2/1 or 3/1) - PXXvXXX: Yeah, sure, it's 3vs3, I'll mass carriers... Air weapons and air armor exclusively, maybe shields - 2gate/Stargate timing: Get shields? Don't really know, but I think shields would be best because only mass marine can beat this build at the time in the game that it comes
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Ok I think you need to devise the situation into two parts: What should I FIRST upgrade,
and then what should I be upgrading over the course of the game.
A lot of people have given great information about why you should research armor or upgrades first in early mid game, and you really have to take each one as individual scenarios, but as the game progresses you should be considering how much you're investing in the army composition you have.
For example, in Starting off with +1 weapons will make mutas much more efficient at killing workers, however, what if the terran transition into thors? I remember watching HD or one of the youtube commentators find that mutas have a threshold against thors. Unupgraded thors take FOUR shots to kill mutas if they have +2 armor researched, therefore the *perfect* (don't take this at face value though) for a zerg heavily investing in air would be to aim for getting +1/+2. BL's also benefit more from armor upgrades, so this would lend you enough gas to achieve a sizable army that isn't hindered in size because of upgrades.
As far as ground forces go, the farther/longer the game progresses the more effective upgrades will be. Weapon upgrades and armor upgrades do essentially cancel eachother out, but it comes to a point where you're economy can support double upgrade buildings (engineering bay for bioball, double evos for zerg, double forge- but if you stick with chronos well you may not need it.)
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This other thread details 'attack to kill' ratios for all units as of Oct 9 2010, including upgrades. It is extremely relevant to this thread. @ OP If you do not know what attack to kill (AtK) ratio is, it's simply the number of attacks one unit needs to kill another. It can vary with upgrades, and help you decide which upgrades to take. For example, 0/0 zealots kill 0/0 zerglings in 3 (AtK=3) hits, while 1/0 zealots kill them in only 2 (AtK=2) hits. Furthermore +2/0 zealots do not do any better than the +1/0 zealots (AtK=2). This means that upgrading zealot weapons once is increasing damage output by 50%, and increasing a second time increases damage output by 0% (in this particular unit matchup). This means that lvl 1 ground weapon upgrades can be very important in the ZvT matchup.
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Depends on your build order more so than the race you are fighting, if your in a defensive stance for the first few mins of your game and have extra cash for an upgrade ide get armor. if you are planing on early aggression get the weapon upgrade. also think about what you opponent has for an army if he/she has many high dps units it might be a good idea to get armor, if they have some heavy but slow hitters get the weapons upgrade to take them down faster so you take less losses. it all depends on the situation that you are in.
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EriktheGuy has some very strong intelligent points about upgrades. I want to take it onestep further--
Remember that upgrades will essentially cancel each other out.
+1 weapons are negated by +1armor, minute differences aside.
So, knowing that if a protoss is opting to build +1 weapons to make his lots 2shot lings, you can anticipate this by preparing +1armor for your zerg army. (You have to really think about the descision though since its 50 min 50 gas more expensive) In ZvP, ground armor is definitely more important to specifically nullify the bonuses toss get from weapons.
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Regardless of what I'm facing (I'm Terran), I do the following.
Infantry: Weapons first Mech: Weapons first Ships: Depends--if I'm going MMM I upgrade the armor first so Medivacs are tougher, but if I'm going air-attack I upgrade weapons first.
I'm also a big fan of dual upgrade buildings. Does anyone else do this? I find it lets me out-tech my opponent so whatever I do is more effective (since I've never seen anyone actually do the same thing I do with more than one upgrade building).
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