Hi everybody! I just used the research fonction and I didn't find a topic aswering clearly at this question:

I'm protoss and I heard that against terran you tend to choose the armour upgrade before the attack upgrade. I'm noob so I really don't know if this concept is true.

Can you explain why is it true/false and if we go armour upgrade first against every BO that the terran is doing.

Thanks for the help!

ClasH

Germany143 Posts

November 15 2010 13:04 GMT

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=169054

Silmakuoppaanikinko

799 Posts

November 15 2010 13:12 GMT

The basic reason is that it's best to see units not in 'dps' but in 'how many hits does it take to kill unit x, and how much time per second do I hit', because there's overkill.

For instance, it takes a zealot 3 hits to kill a zergling. Two hits is 32 damage, a zergling has 35 life, that's a sickening amount of overkill, basically 13 damage just wasted. But with one damage upgrade. It does 36 damage in one hit, thereby only overkilling 1 damage, which is very low. THerefore, against zerg, damage upgrade has a high priority because zealot against zergling is most likely to occur.

However, it will take a zealot 3 hits to kill a marine with 45 life, upgrade or no upgrade, so it's all pretty irrelevant here. The same with 60 life (combat shield), it will be four hits regardless of upgrade.

But it will take a marine 30 shots to kill a zealot without any armour upgrades (sounds insane, but they have a very high firing rate), and 35 for a zealot with +1 armour, so armour does matter here.

Likewise. Zerg wil often want carapace against Terran, because it will then take a siege tank two hits to a kill a ling. That's pretty enormous for one upgrade.

ToTcH

Switzerland27 Posts

November 15 2010 14:02 GMT

Thanks to both of you.

Silma, this idea of "overkill" is very interesting, I didn't thought about it. Thanks for the explanations.

Firebolt145

Lalalaland34498 Posts

November 15 2010 14:22 GMT

Curiously are those figures also taking the armor and shield into account?

Secondly, after you finish +1 armor, would you recommend getting +2 armor or +1 attack (assuming terran is Not getting upgrades)?

Markwerf

Netherlands3728 Posts

November 15 2010 14:23 GMT

Critical hits can be important but ONLY thinking that way like above me is stated is completely wrong too.
There are many things to consider between choosing between armor and attack upgrades.
Armor upgrades only affect armor and not shields so only affect a small part of the protoss army, against terran you'll be using mostly zealot with a few sentries and stalkers and colossi generally in which case armor upgrades do more because zealots have 100 hp and only 50 shield.
Attack upgrades benefit all your units but the protoss army against terran is actually fairly low in DPS. Colossi benefit quite well from the ugprade but they are low in number, zealots do a fair bit of running around instead of doing damage and don't change number of critical hits fast (a 0/0 zealot will take 4 hits to kill a 0/1 marine though) and stalkers benefit very little from attack upgrades.
Armor consequently does quite a bit against marauders and especially marines because they have high attack speed, low damage attacks.

All these things combined generally make it so armor is slightly better then attack against bio terran. Note that against mech terran armor is useless though so just go with attack then. Generally you'll be facing bio though so I would go with armor - attack - armor - attack - armor - attack. Lvl 2 armor won't really be better then lvl 1 attack for it's cost imo.

On a sidenote, against zerg and protoss you almost always want to be going lvl 1 attack first and often even lvl 2 attack, because in those matchups they generally use units with more damage (against which armor isn't too good). Only exception can be muta/ling.

Silmakuoppaanikinko

799 Posts

November 15 2010 15:11 GMT

On November 15 2010 23:22 Firebolt145 wrote:
Curiously are those figures also taking the armor and shield into account?

My calculations took into account that shield has 0 reduction

A zealot has 60 shield, so 6 damage from a marine takes 10 hits.

A zealot has 100 hp with 1 armor, so that's 5 hits each, or 20 to take it down.

So 30 in total, tadaa.

With 2 armor, that's 4 hits to the hp, so 25 hits, so 35 in total, tadaa.

Secondly, after you finish +1 armor, would you recommend getting +2 armor or +1 attack (assuming terran is Not getting upgrades)?

You know what, I'm going to write a program that does all this. So that I can feel useful. I'll keep you posted.

On November 15 2010 23:02 ToTcH wrote:
Silma, this idea of "overkill" is very interesting, I didn't thought about it. Thanks for the explanations.

Yeah, I never got how zealots could counter zerglings why they have extreme overkill before the +1.

So get that +1 fast, and try to always be one ahead of the zerg's caparace upgrade. It makes zealot very much more effective against zerglings.

Chronicle

161 Posts

November 15 2010 15:51 GMT

The main reason for +1 armour fast is because zealots have a base armour of 1 when their shields are down. With +1 armour and guardian shield zealots gain +4 armour vs marines 5 attack, which allows zealots to survive marines alot longer compared to +3 armour.

Provided you always have 1 more armour upgrade than they do infantry attack upgrade, marines will always do 2 daamge to guardian shielded zealots. If you can get 2 upgrades ahead (ideal situation) marines will do a measly 1 damage per hit to guardian shielded zealots. Thats why its important.

Hits to take down a zealots shields = 9
Hits to take down a zealots shields with guardian shield = 15

Normal hits to kill a zealot armour = 20
Normal hits for a marine to kill a non shielded zealot with guardian shield = 34
With Guardian shield and +1 armour = 50
With Guardian shield and +2 armour = 100

Overall without upgrades it takes a marine around 29 hits to kill a zealot. With guardian shield its around 50 hits, then with +armour its around 65 hits, then with +2 a massive 115 hits.

Geovu

Estonia1344 Posts

November 15 2010 16:37 GMT

On November 16 2010 00:11 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote:
A zealot has 60 shield, so 6 damage from a marine takes 10 hits.
Yeah, I never got how zealots could counter zerglings why they have extreme overkill before the +1.

So get that +1 fast, and try to always be one ahead of the zerg's caparace upgrade. It makes zealot very much more effective against zerglings.

A zealot has 50 shields, and zealots "counter" zerglings because they are better to have in a straight up fight than having stalkers or sentries, or immortals (and collosus die very quickly without support). Zealots beat zerglings cost for cost every time unless the lings get a perfect surround. 20 zealots can hold a choke vs infinity zerglings for 10 minutes, lol.

Pharcy

United States40 Posts

November 15 2010 17:57 GMT

#10

Gold league scrub checking in, very interesting points here that I hadn't really considered, I have a tenancy to default to +1 attack then +1 armor vs everything but I guess I have been doing it wrong.

I'm curious if/when shield upgrades should be researched though. Common sense tells me that after +1 attack and armor it would be worth upgrading once in place of +2 armor (as the cost difference drops significantly, 175/175 and 190 seconds vs 200/200 and 160 seconds) but at the same time I notice that a lot of the really good players go straight for the +2.

I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the lack of shield upgrades. The fact that zealots have less shield then armor is obvious, but stalkers tend to be a huge part of the mid game (when +2 upgrades are coming into play) and they are half and half. Furthermore the fact that shield upgrades affect buildings seems like it would make it marginally more difficult to lose buildings to marauder snipes against terran. Is there something I'm missing here?

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