|
Last night I had a bit of an epitome. I was thinking about ways to make gateway units more viable against MM, and I got thinking about upgrades.
Typically in early-mid game PvT (pre colossi/storm) you will encounter marine heavy forces, often with marauders. The zealot becomes a very key unit in this scenario since it absorbs damage and forces the terran player to move back while you stalker/sentry/immortals can do damage. When your wall of zealots dies, it exposes the squishy stalkers to MM fire (which tears them up ridiculously fast).
Guardian shield provides somewhat of a reprieve from stimmed MM instantly melting your zealots by granting an additional 2 armor. This makes a significant difference, reducing marine damage from 5 to 3, a 40% reduction.
Now, as far as upgrades go, I started to think about which is going to be a better option for dealing with MM (with combat shields & stimmed once). The performance differences are as follows:
(Keep in mind that this isn't accurate to an in game scenario since I'm not taking into account multiple unit types attacking simultaneously).
BASELINE (No upgrades)
Zealot vs Marine: 3 hits
Zealot vs Marauder: 8 hits
Stalker vs Marine: 5 hits
Stalker vs Marauder: 9 hits
Immortal vs Marine: 3 hits
Immortal vs Marauder: 3 hits
+1 Attack
Zealot vs Marine: 3 hits
Zealot vs Marauder: 7 hits
Stalker vs Marine: 5 hits
Stalker vs Marauder: 8 hits
Immortal vs Marine: 3 hits
Immortal vs Marauder: 2 hits
Summary:
+1 attack is nearly useless vs marines (unless were talking combinations of 2 zealot hits + 1 stalker hit), marginally effective for stalker/zealot vs marauder, and of huge benefit for immortal vs marauder.
BASELINE
Marine vs Zealot: 29 hits
Marauder vs Zealot: 17 hits
Marine vs Stalker: 30 hits
Marauder vs Stalker: 9 hits
Marine vs Immortal: 57 hits
Marauder vs Immortal: 21 hits
Guardian shield:
Marine vs Zealot: 47 hits
Marauder vs Zealot: 22 hits
Marine vs Stalker: 47 hits
Marauder vs Stalker: 10 hits
Marine vs Immortal: 92 hits
Marauder vs Immortal: 25 hits
So obviously guardian shield is a huge boon, but then when you add in +1 armor with guardian shield....
Marine vs Zealot: 63 hits
Marauder vs Zealot: 22 hits
Marine vs Stalker: 60 hits
Marauder vs Stalker: 10 hits
Marine vs Immortal: 113 hits
Marauder vs Immortal: 25 hits
Summary:
+1 armor in combination with guardian shield drastically increases the durability of protoss units against MM.
There are probably some mistakes due to rounding in those numbers, but I don't have excel handy to make a spreadsheet so thats as good as it gets.
I'm new to protoss and I just realized this the other day. Makes a huge difference against early game MM. Obviously this means I will be upgrading +1 armor before attack vs MM. I'm really curious about builds which include an early forge in order to maximize the effectiveness of tier 1.5 against terran. If you are fast expanding (1gate) vs T it doesn't seem reasonable to get a really early +1, and with 1 base colossi you are going to want the gas anyways. What do you guys think? I'm not exactly a PvT scholar, but I haven't really seen any forge FE builds.
|
Yep TvP would be even harder if Protosses actually thought about their upgrades instead of automatically opting for +1 weapons.
With +1 armor and Guardian Shield it takes 50 Marine shots to get through a Zealot's HP only (not including shields).
|
It's very common for protoss players to get armor before weapon upgrades against terran bio. It helps your zealots stay alive longer to let your colossus and/or templars do the damage.
|
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Marine
I'm not sure if when you're talking about guardian shield it is supposed assumed that you already have +1 armor, but marines do a base damage of 6 not 5. So normally, guardian shield reduces from 6 to 4.
EDIT: It would be awesome if you added colossus to the data (# of hits to take down marine/marauder) since colossus plays a huge role in DPS.
|
On November 15 2010 07:14 slam wrote:http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/MarineI'm not sure if when you're talking about guardian shield it is supposed assumed that you already have +1 armor, but marines do a base damage of 6 not 5. So normally, guardian shield reduces from 6 to 4.
Zealots have 1 base armor
|
On November 15 2010 07:15 Nadagast wrote:Zealots have 1 base armor
o.0
How did I never notice that...
damn. I feel like an idiot now. xD
|
On November 15 2010 07:10 Wr3k wrote:
+1 Attack
Immortal vs Marauder: 2 hits
Summary:
+1 attack is of huge benefit for immortal vs marauder.
If they get +5 dmg against armored, how can they kill marauder if he has 125 hp?
edit: from 2 hits that is
|
On November 15 2010 07:23 Debeli wrote:Show nested quote +On November 15 2010 07:10 Wr3k wrote:
+1 Attack
Immortal vs Marauder: 2 hits
Summary:
+1 attack is of huge benefit for immortal vs marauder.
If they get +5 dmg against armored, how can they kill marauder if he has 125 hp? edit: from 2 hits that is
Stim costs 20 hp
|
Russian Federation798 Posts
On November 15 2010 07:23 Debeli wrote:Show nested quote +On November 15 2010 07:10 Wr3k wrote:
+1 Attack
Immortal vs Marauder: 2 hits
Summary:
+1 attack is of huge benefit for immortal vs marauder.
If they get +5 dmg against armored, how can they kill marauder if he has 125 hp? edit: from 2 hits that is
I assume because terran stim before each fight?
Anyway +1 attack will just cancel this out if worst comes to worst. But good idea
|
Funny way to look at things, what if i have a medivac, that is also a valid assumption -.-'
|
your calculations for number of hits required to kill protoss units are wrong, because armor doesn't apply to their shields. +armor is probably still better, but armor upgrades not applying to shields does make them worse
|
PvT:
-go for +1 armor first when you're going vs T bio with an anticipated transition into colossi, then +1 attack (should finish when colossi start coming out), then alternate.
-if you're going zealot templar against bio with almost no robo, get +2 armor before +1 attack. by then you should have a second forge and can start the attack upgrades.
early gateway vs bio, the armor is important, because bio attack values are small but rapid, so the -1 in damage is a big deal.
robo vs bio, attack is important, because colossi and immortal attack values are huge, each +1 upgrade = +2/+5 for immortals and +2*splash for colossi
mass zealot + storm, armor is important for zealots to tank while storm deals the DPS. again, its against bio, each -1 in damage is a higher and higher percentage in damage reduction, especially with GS, and since you'll have an early twilight to get to templar, you can start +2 armor earlier.
PvZ:
-get +1 attack if you are keeping up pressure and he's showing lings. if he goes roaches, you can start robo units and your +1 attack will be huge with immortals and colossi
-get +1 armor if you are playing defensive (reasonably early expo) and he's probably going straight to mutas. alternate with attack, so you have good attack upgrades in the late game for immortals vs ultras.
+1 attack while early pressuring forces zerg to either keep up upgrades, get his lings 2shotted by your zealots, or transition to roaches. which allows you to get robo and make use of that huge multiplier on robo upgrades (see PvT above)
+1 armor while defending prepares you for mutaling, which both do small, rapid attacks = each -1 in damage reduction is a high percentage.
PvP:
attack. colossi.
edit: the "how many hits does it take herp derp" line of reasoning is really flawed. 99% of the time there's a mixed unit composition and/or medivacs in PvT. even in PvZ you will not get pure anything unless you are doing blink stalkers.
|
How often are your zealots in range of that guardian shield? Almost never, sentrys like to sit back with the stalker ball, if you move them in range they will get sniped. so that guardian shield ends up not benefiting the zealots at all
|
The data you gathered isn't really that useful, since typically you will have a mix of units, and it won't just be one type of unit vs. one type of unit.
So if you have one Zealot and two Stalkers attacking a stimmed Marine for instance,
Base:
16 + 10 + 10 = 36 dmg (Marine still alive)
+1 weapon
18 + 11 + 11 = 40 dmg (Marine dead)
(not saying that your conclusion is wrong, just that your calculations aren't as conclusive as you seem to think.  )
|
On November 15 2010 07:33 lao wrote:
edit: the "how many hits does it take herp derp" line of reasoning is really flawed. 99% of the time there's a mixed unit composition and/or medivacs in PvT. even in PvZ you will not get pure anything unless you are doing blink stalkers.
Obviously, but I'm not going to write a program to calculate the exact results. This serves as a good enough example.
|
On November 15 2010 07:38 shingbi wrote:The data you gathered isn't really that useful, since typically you will have a mix of units, and it won't just be one type of unit vs. one type of unit. So if you have one Zealot and two Stalkers attacking a stimmed Marine for instance, Base: 16 + 10 + 10 = 36 dmg (Marine still alive) +1 weapon 18 + 11 + 11 = 40 dmg (Marine dead) (not saying that your conclusion is wrong, just that your calculations aren't as conclusive as you seem to think. )
I'm aware that I'm not taking into account attacks from multiple unit types, but I don't see what you are getting at with what you just wrote. Marines w/ combat shield have 45 hp after a stim.
Perhaps you mean that with +1 attack 2 zealot hits and one stalker hit kill a marine, whereas without +1 they don't.
|
My point is that since you're not taking into account attacks from multiple unit types, your calculations don't really reflect what happens in the real game and are not that useful.
EDIT:
Yes, in the situation I describe, +1 attack actually makes a difference. And there are other situations where that's also true. So +1 attack is not as useless as looking at "one unit vs. one unit" makes it seem.
And I just noticed that Marines have 45 hp and not 50. So my example is actually bad. Whoops.
|
+1 armor and guardian sheild will of course increase the durability of terran units, no shit sherlock...
User was warned for this post
|
Well, of course theres the whole "But what about compositions" arguement. But bottom line is that if a protoss goes forge FE against terran, they should get +1 armor against bio (which is standard basically, whens the last time you saw pure mech lol), NOT +1 weapons, which was the original point trying to be made.
|
On November 15 2010 07:47 OriginalBeast wrote:
+1 armor and guardian sheild will of course increase the durability of terran units, no shit sherlock...
He's enlightening those of us who may not have realized that such a drastic change is present when the two overlap.
If you don't have anything insightful to post, please refrain from posting it.
I did not realize how drastic of a change it was when using both, I'll definitely be sure to get an early +1 armor from now on. Never really thought about the early ups vs Terran for some reason O_o
|
Canada340 Posts
On November 15 2010 07:49 Zvendetta wrote:
Well, of course theres the whole "But what about compositions" arguement. But bottom line is that if a protoss goes forge FE against terran, they should get +1 armor against bio (which is standard basically, whens the last time you saw pure mech lol), NOT +1 weapons, which was the original point trying to be made.
you can FFE versus terran...?
i've never even tried that because it just sounds silly. you'd stand no chance if he scouts you and goes either tanks or drops or banshees (unless you throw down a whole whack of cannons, that might hold off banshees.)
|
On November 15 2010 07:57 KaoReal wrote:Show nested quote +On November 15 2010 07:49 Zvendetta wrote:
Well, of course theres the whole "But what about compositions" arguement. But bottom line is that if a protoss goes forge FE against terran, they should get +1 armor against bio (which is standard basically, whens the last time you saw pure mech lol), NOT +1 weapons, which was the original point trying to be made. you can FFE versus terran...? i've never even tried that because it just sounds silly. you'd stand no chance if he scouts you and goes either tanks or drops or banshees (unless you throw down a whole whack of cannons, that might hold off banshees.)
can't FFE against terran. ranged tier 1 units make cannons nonviable.
i think he means gateway or gateway-robo FE builds.
|
Unfortunately this has been posted multiple times in multiple threads, yes, +1 armor is the best thing to go with GS against heavy MARINE compositions since for every +1 upgrade, they gain a substantial % of dmg reduction.
But against heavy marauders compositions you really should be opting for +1 attack since the marauders shots are so slow.
Enjoy.
|
I like fast +1 armor against marine/banshee openings since I'm getting a forge for cannons in some cases anyway.
|
The only issue is the Protoss have shields.
That means you need +1 Armor +1 Shields. Viable but expensive. But worth every penny.
|
On November 15 2010 08:37 lao wrote:Show nested quote +On November 15 2010 07:57 KaoReal wrote:On November 15 2010 07:49 Zvendetta wrote:
Well, of course theres the whole "But what about compositions" arguement. But bottom line is that if a protoss goes forge FE against terran, they should get +1 armor against bio (which is standard basically, whens the last time you saw pure mech lol), NOT +1 weapons, which was the original point trying to be made. you can FFE versus terran...? i've never even tried that because it just sounds silly. you'd stand no chance if he scouts you and goes either tanks or drops or banshees (unless you throw down a whole whack of cannons, that might hold off banshees.) can't FFE against terran. ranged tier 1 units make cannons nonviable. i think he means gateway or gateway-robo FE builds.
Yes, I just meant any sort of FE variant that is viable vs terran. They can go 1rax FE, protoss can go something along the same lines also. Its just so you have the economy to support +1armor while constantly producing units.
After reading the stats, it seems zealot (heavy or not), benefits the most from +1armor, as you saw +1 weapons is only marginally better against marauders, but then again in super small small numbers you have stalkers as well, so with the lots staying alive longer the stalkers get more hits in.
|
hey, great calculations, it's nice to know how many hits it takes to kill stuff to get a general idea, but don't go overboard. You're forgetting that the terran units are going to stim at least once, stalkers are going to be firing at them, possibly medivacs healing...
+1 armor is great though, especially if you are going templar tech. For colossus tech you really want the attack upgrades sooner though 
|
The exact number's are quite irrelevant. Terran will rarely ever be using a pure marine or pure marauder army anyway by the time you get a upgrade.
The armor upgrade is indeed a slight bit better then attack though the difference is minimal. Both upgrades aren't that stellar compared to other techs (such as charge or colossus range) so I wouldn't put any rush in getting these upgrades.
I usually go forge after or at the same as charge (which is after colossus & colo range for me) and then upgrade lvl 1 armor, lvl 1 attack, lvl 2 armor, lvl 2 attack, lvl 3 armor , lvl 3 attack. Occasionally I switch order after level 1 prioritizing attack if i'm getting heavy templars and more archons at that point (which obviously benefit ALOT from attack and nothing from armor).
|
On November 15 2010 23:30 Markwerf wrote:
The exact number's are quite irrelevant. Terran will rarely ever be using a pure marine or pure marauder army anyway by the time you get a upgrade.
While true, I'd say the cases where they are using pure marines (marine banshee raven style pushes) are the ones that could really become easier with upgrades - and they're also the ones you usually get a faster forge against.
In such cases the decision is obvious, as +1 attack has little benefit as numbers show, compared to the sizable increase in survivability. Against that push buying time is the most important thing, as stim and pdd are limited.
|
Hmm +1 armor is probably better almost any time against bio play then +1 attack BUT it's not something you want to rush for imo. Forge and cannons are quite useless early on against terran and you don't want to go with an armor upgrade and cannons to stop a marine banshee raven push...
Because there was 1 game in GSL 2 where cannons were used to stop a raven push people think that cannons are actually good agianst that... Trust me, they aren't. Cannons are insanely crappy against PDD and to stop a banshee/raven/push you are better off investing all extra money in a stargate + phoenix then in a forge and cannons. Armor upgrades do quite little against banshee's and those pushes generally come before you have +1 armor done anyway.
|
How often are your zealots in range of that guardian shield? Almost never, sentrys like to sit back with the stalker ball, if you move them in range they will get sniped. so that guardian shield ends up not benefiting the zealots at all
Wrong! Against MM, sentries should be up with the zealots trying to put force fields behind the marines and marauders and stop the kiting. Early game against MM I like to favor zealots and sentries and be somewhat light on stalker count (depending on how many marauders T has). Good force fields make all the difference and Guardian Shield with +1 armor are huge and integral to my early game against Terran.
|
thank you OP for an informative post. I have benefited a great deal.
@lao, thanks as well for your additions.
|
One thing to note is that templar damage doesn't get upgraded ever- and it will be your main damage dealer assuming you lived long enough to actually get storm. In that situation, unit durability will be a massive concern. If you already have armor/shield upgraded you're in a very good position.
|
There have been a few posts here and there about the importance of upgrading armor against terran MM pushes.
Naturally, gaurdian shields a VERY important, but are easily FF'd down by smart terrans. Still, if you manage to get your +1 armor before they get +1 infantry weapon you will have a decent timing window. Still, its hard to bust a terrans front door with nothing but gateway units so this window can be used as a window to safely expand as you know you currently have the upper hand if the armies were to engage.
+1 upgradd, +1 base armor, +2 guardian shield makes the marines hit your zealots and stalkers for 2 (TWO!) damage per shot. Sweeter than honey that is.
|
Excellent post, and replies, thanks very much for posting, somehow I must have missed this topic if it was posted before.
As a side note, you might consider changing 'epitome' to 'epiphany', definitely might help you sound more credible.
|
too bad that marauders shit on your armor upgrades, and thats the one unit im having the most problems with ever since beta 
|
I find it more useful +2weapon than +2armor. But idk about +1/+1 instead of +2/+0 or +0/+2
|
I started going for ~6 gateways off 2 bases with upgrades vs bio and then taking a 3rd and it's been working really well you can really notice the difference the armor upgrades make especially if you manage to get ahead of terrans in upgrades. I'm even on a huge winstreak vs terrans now although i still want to play around with the forge timing.
|
I've wanted to get a forge into PvT but i really never do till 2nd base is up and running when really i need my zealots to survive the first few waves
|
i think u mean epiphany, not epitome. epiphany is a sudden realization while epitome is a perfect example
|
There is an absolutely huge flaw with this reasoning and it comes in the form of the medivac.
The medivac heals faster then a zealot deals damage without +1 attack. However with +1 attack a zealots and stalkers become "medivac piercing". Furthermore, the difference between 3 hits and 2 hits for immortals against marauders is gigantic.
If a terran player gets medivacs in any sort of timely manner you need collossi or +1 attack in order to deal with it properly.
At the same time, +1 armor is also a very large edge against terran like your post suggests. To achieve both +1 armor and +1 attack before your terran opponent can get his own upgrades, I prefer double forge when I can get away with it. Since you have two forges, you can't get the most out of them unless you get a fast twilight council as well, so my two base shape generally goes something like 4 gates, 1 robo with bay, 2 forge, 1 twilight.
By getting charge fairly quickly, you can really punish the terran through the mid game, especially if they went for the increasingly popular tank play.
|
On November 18 2010 15:06 goldenwitch wrote:
There is an absolutely huge flaw with this reasoning and it comes in the form of the medivac.
The medivac heals faster then a zealot deals damage without +1 attack. However with +1 attack a zealots and stalkers become "medivac piercing". Furthermore, the difference between 3 hits and 2 hits for immortals against marauders is gigantic.
If a terran player gets medivacs in any sort of timely manner you need collossi or +1 attack in order to deal with it properly.
At the same time, +1 armor is also a very large edge against terran like your post suggests. To achieve both +1 armor and +1 attack before your terran opponent can get his own upgrades, I prefer double forge when I can get away with it. Since you have two forges, you can't get the most out of them unless you get a fast twilight council as well, so my two base shape generally goes something like 4 gates, 1 robo with bay, 2 forge, 1 twilight.
By getting charge fairly quickly, you can really punish the terran through the mid game, especially if they went for the increasingly popular tank play.
This should read "+1 attack advantage," as infantry armor negates the Zealot's attack boost. Besides, if 1 zealot negates the healing done by 1 medivac, that's honestly a good trade. 1 zealot costs 100 mins, 1 medivac costs 125+100 gas. If a second zealot or a sentry starts attacking said marine, then it's going to get sliced in half, and with the +1 armor advantage, they'll have quite a bit more time to do it.
Of course, this is ignoring the fact that by the time your opponent has medivacs, you have either a Colossus or a HT (most likely the latter, since Charge is on the same branch of the Protoss tech tree as HTs), and either of those units (especially combined with good FFs) are just pew pew 10 marines dead.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
