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Thanks for bumbping.
As a plat, this is really getting on my nerves. Getting all your lings shredded before the banes are even close. Having same speed would be really nice. That's where Ultras come in.
Nice find! Will check replays.
Basically the point I'm trying to make is that with an army comp like this, you end up being extremely vulnerable to drop play, and counter drops aren't really the solution, as terran is then given the liberty to turtle as hard as they want with sensor towers and bunkers and tanks sieged way back in a defensive position. As soon as zerg's units start running around trying to deal with the drop play, terran can start to become aggressive again. Marine marauder medivac ghost with maybe a few tanks (or possibly ravens) ends up with a deathball, whilst maintaining equal if not greater mobility via medivacs (a few vikings, sensor towers, and turrets, completely destroy the threat of drops, with a very small food or cost investment, terran will usually have the tools to deal with drops fairly easily at the point in the game where they're actually a threat.
Have 10 Mutas sitting around to deal with drops. In addition, you will have excess minerals probably, so get a ton of spines in addition.
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As long as pretty much every map has major chokepoints (and sometimes layered chokes like Shakuras), Ultralisks just don't seem very good to me.
If you want your lings and blings to survive, you need to split them up and come from multiple angles. If they are in a choke, you can't do this, but Ultrarisks wouldn't help you in that situation either. They get destroyed by a siege line of tanks, they get destroyed by marauders, they get destroyed by snipe (And are super EZ to target with it), all the while never actually closing melee range to deal damage. And if you want to break a fortified position, Which makes more sense - The huge long range unit that causes tanks to friendly fire, or the fat melee unit which will block your zerglings and die on the way in?
Lots of platinum players in here extolling their virtues but lets be honest, are we smarter than every progamer zerg who thinks they suck? Probably not. Anyone in masters wanna come in here and defend the "Ultralisks > Broodlords" viewpoint in this current patch, even after the Ultralisk build time buff? If not, this thread seems kinda silly. If so, convince me to use them again, because right now I only build them as a joke if my opponent should have already left the game.
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Essentially, the ultrabane army is a throwaway army.
I always have infestors to defend at home and making broodlords while the ultrabanes are out on their suicide mission.
So ultrabane--->infestor/brood is how to deal with most terrans.
Unless I see like 16 tanks, then I dont make the ultras.
lol
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On November 18 2011 19:02 darkscream wrote:
As long as pretty much every map has major chokepoints (and sometimes layered chokes like Shakuras), Ultralisks just don't seem very good to me.
If you want your lings and blings to survive, you need to split them up and come from multiple angles. If they are in a choke, you can't do this, but Ultrarisks wouldn't help you in that situation either. They get destroyed by a siege line of tanks, they get destroyed by marauders, they get destroyed by snipe (And are super EZ to target with it), all the while never actually closing melee range to deal damage. And if you want to break a fortified position, Which makes more sense - The huge long range unit that causes tanks to friendly fire, or the fat melee unit which will block your zerglings and die on the way in?
Lots of platinum players in here extolling their virtues but lets be honest, are we smarter than every progamer zerg who thinks they suck? Probably not. Anyone in masters wanna come in here and defend the "Ultralisks > Broodlords" viewpoint in this current patch, even after the Ultralisk build time buff? If not, this thread seems kinda silly. If so, convince me to use them again, because right now I only build them as a joke if my opponent should have already left the game.
No, but we need to work with our mechanics we have available, too, and here having the same speed comes into play.
Also, "coming from different angles" and "flanking" and stuff sounds really really awesome on paper, but if you mess that up even by a small margins, it ends up with first one half of your army being shred to bits, and then the other half.
If, of course, you are mid master to GM, this may not be for you.
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On November 18 2011 19:02 darkscream wrote:
As long as pretty much every map has major chokepoints (and sometimes layered chokes like Shakuras), Ultralisks just don't seem very good to me.
If you want your lings and blings to survive, you need to split them up and come from multiple angles. If they are in a choke, you can't do this, but Ultrarisks wouldn't help you in that situation either. They get destroyed by a siege line of tanks, they get destroyed by marauders, they get destroyed by snipe (And are super EZ to target with it), all the while never actually closing melee range to deal damage. And if you want to break a fortified position, Which makes more sense - The huge long range unit that causes tanks to friendly fire, or the fat melee unit which will block your zerglings and die on the way in?
Lots of platinum players in here extolling their virtues but lets be honest, are we smarter than every progamer zerg who thinks they suck? Probably not. Anyone in masters wanna come in here and defend the "Ultralisks > Broodlords" viewpoint in this current patch, even after the Ultralisk build time buff? If not, this thread seems kinda silly. If so, convince me to use them again, because right now I only build them as a joke if my opponent should have already left the game.
Maybe I'm a platinum player but I know when to make Blords and when to make ultras. Against some army compositions I feel ultras are better than Blords due to their mobility and tanking damage. Also against terrans which make preemtive vikings.
Also, I find very arrogant to just discard the OP build just because most PROs don't support it (although I have seen some good zerg using ultras with great success in big maps where BLs are slow as hell) Someone should remember all the high skill gamers in their ivory towers than 95% of people playing starcraft is mid diamond and below, where this composition can work wonders if well used.
Not everyone can have Destiny infestor micro or Idra's muta control. But my enemies are not MVP or MMA to shutter step their ball against my ultra ling bling so... who cares.
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On November 18 2011 19:02 darkscream wrote:
As long as pretty much every map has major chokepoints (and sometimes layered chokes like Shakuras), Ultralisks just don't seem very good to me.
If you want your lings and blings to survive, you need to split them up and come from multiple angles. If they are in a choke, you can't do this, but Ultrarisks wouldn't help you in that situation either. They get destroyed by a siege line of tanks, they get destroyed by marauders, they get destroyed by snipe (And are super EZ to target with it), all the while never actually closing melee range to deal damage. And if you want to break a fortified position, Which makes more sense - The huge long range unit that causes tanks to friendly fire, or the fat melee unit which will block your zerglings and die on the way in?
Lots of platinum players in here extolling their virtues but lets be honest, are we smarter than every progamer zerg who thinks they suck? Probably not. Anyone in masters wanna come in here and defend the "Ultralisks > Broodlords" viewpoint in this current patch, even after the Ultralisk build time buff? If not, this thread seems kinda silly. If so, convince me to use them again, because right now I only build them as a joke if my opponent should have already left the game.
Nobody needs to convince you of anything.
It's a strategy that works for a lot of people. DRG won a match against Jjakji using ultrabanes just recently on the gsl.
Take your elitism and condescending attitude elsewhere.
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On November 18 2011 18:23 CatNzHat wrote:Show nested quote +On November 18 2011 17:39 Oboeman wrote:All of the images that I'm seeing here are catching terran out of position, and none of them are showing 5 medivacs harassing zerg expansions forcing tons of cash to be dumped into spines, and allowing terran to build up a deathball (usually the existing marine tank medivac marauder army + ghosts built during the time bought with drops).
None of them are showing 7 overlords full of zerglings unloading in a terran base or 39 infested terrans popping up behind a mineral line either. I think ventral sacs significantly increases the effectiveness and viability of any of these non-mutalisk compositions. it's an insanely useful upgrade. Basically the point I'm trying to make is that with an army comp like this, you end up being extremely vulnerable to drop play, and counter drops aren't really the solution, as terran is then given the liberty to turtle as hard as they want with sensor towers and bunkers and tanks sieged way back in a defensive position. As soon as zerg's units start running around trying to deal with the drop play, terran can start to become aggressive again. Marine marauder medivac ghost with maybe a few tanks (or possibly ravens) ends up with a deathball, whilst maintaining equal if not greater mobility via medivacs (a few vikings, sensor towers, and turrets, completely destroy the threat of drops, with a very small food or cost investment, terran will usually have the tools to deal with drops fairly easily at the point in the game where they're actually a threat.
From my experience, as long as I keep my zerglings in multiple control groups I can handle multiple drops with minimal damage and without putting myself too far out of position. Multiple control groups is very very important.
Also from my experience, although terran has the tools to deal with drops fairly easily, the drops still always work very well. As soon as terran units start running around trying to deal with the drop play, zerg can start to become aggresive again. > .
Out of curiosity, have you faced much zerg drop play? It's something that I have seen very little of, which surprises me because I do it with a ridiculous success rate, but I haven't seen any other zergs really doing it in ZvT since Fruitdealer in season one.
Most terrans cut corners against ling infestor and only build 1-2 turrets per base, which seems reasonable, but it does not stop a drop. When you pull units back to try to clear zerglings out of your base, I always try to fungal you on your ramp, and I am using the rest of my army to search for a vulnerability to catch and destroy unprotected siege tanks and planetary fortresses. For fun, I bring a queen along in my big drops to spread creep in your base. It's not a big deal but it'll force a scan later. I am throwing away zerglings, but they are units I had already made (so they aren't potential drones lost) and easily replaced.
After the first drop they start adding more turrets, but usually I can just bring empty overlords and drop on the turrets anyway. Or I can drop somewhere else. Or if it really does become impregnable, I'll fly 20 overlords into your sensor tower anyway. do you feel lucky?
I think zerg drop play is very powerful, but still relatively unexplored. Right now to me, it feels completely overpowered, but that's because most terrans I play against on the ladder don't have a response in their playbook yet, because pro players don't have to deal with it and no one has written a guide yet. If it does become standard, I expect that it'll still be a strong strategy with strengths and weaknesses.
+ Show Spoiler +If you are interested, I have uploaded a bunch of replays of my ladder games with zerg drop play. Unfortunately not Ultra+bane, but almost always Ultra+ling+infestor. http://drop.sc/search?utf8=✓&mu=tvz&player=oboemanI also made a video compiling my highlights of zerg drops I would also be happy to practice it against you ingame Oboeman.146 on NA Server. I've been waiting for several weeks for a terran player to handle it well on ladder, to no avail. so I'd love to churn out a bunch of games to see how terrans should be responding (and consequently, how I can take the next step to improve it, or get a better understanding of when to NOT drop)
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i would suggest getting creep spread and and bringing your oves to poop creep and going for ultra/hydra etc. Awesome comp
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Definitely late, but I just wanted to say thank you to CuteSmallHydra for this. I started using the build shown in these replays right after reading this thread many many months ago, and I improved my ZvT a TON. Beating Diamond opponents easily while in plat. I quit playing for a while and came back only a few months ago, and started looking for some new build orders to focus on macro and I started using Spanishiwa's Ice Fisher Build, but in ZvT I remembered the basic premises of this thread "zergling baneling, mutalisks to protect from drops, banshees, etc. or to gain map control and harass, and Ultras as soon as possible." Even though I open with the Ice Fisher build, my ZvT game plan is still based on the concepts in this thread, and I don't often lose in ZvT. Thanks CuteSmallHydra, this thread is the basis for everything I do in ZvT.
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Liquid_Zenio!
Y U NO ULTRABANES?!
Does it pain anyone else to see zenio lose like 100 supplies worth of ultralisks using a silly ultra/ling/drop?
I died a bit inside...again
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I am so appalled that it's been more than one year after this great article was published...many pro-gamers are still using ultralisks wrong. Here are some rules to live by after you have read the opening post. I am basing these rules off my own experience and watching all the major tournaments of SCII since the beta...feel free to discuss/disagree.
1. You should never EVER mass ultralisks...EVER
2. Ultrabanes are always better than Ultralings against marine/tanks
3. Do not use Ultrabanes against mass thor/tanks...get broodlords.
Now another thing people need to freaking realize is that Ultrabanes is not the way to finish the game.
Ultrabanes is a tool to wipe out something completely from the map...think of it, as a fast moving nuke.
Once you nuke the opponent, both you and your opponent will be temporarily weak, but that's the beauty of it...you are abusing the larva mechanic to make another army before they can regain theirs. Thus, we add a few more rules to live by.
4. When you are making ultrabanes, ALWAYS get a greater spire and prepare to get a bunch of corruptors. This is how you end the game.
I think about ultrabanes/ infestorbrood like boxing...Your ultrabanes are your left hand jabs which you can use to take out half an army or a planetary or two...Your right hand of infestorbroods deliver the final knockout punch. You can't fight well without both hands!
5. Ultrabanes must never be used off two bases...you cannot afford it. If you're behinds, just do infestorbrood and pray.
6. Use ultrabanes to hit and run on expansions. Just wipe it out and leave, do not stay to engage the opponent's army.
And most importantly!
7. DO NOT MAKE MORE THAN 4 ULTRALISKS!!!!!!
If you think about it, ultralisks are awful at dealing damage to a Terran ball, they should be used for what they really are...meat shields for your damage dealer: the banelings. And that's the whole point I think a lot of people are missing!
YOU NEED A DAMAGE DEALER!! ULTRALISKS don't do that much damage for their costs/collision size!
~end rant.
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+ Show Spoiler +On April 02 2012 15:07 neoghaleon55 wrote:
I am so appalled that it's been more than one year after this great article was published...many pro-gamers are still using ultralisks wrong. Here are some rules to live by after you have read the opening post. I am basing these rules off my own experience and watching all the major tournaments of SCII since the beta...feel free to discuss/disagree.
1. You should never EVER mass ultralisks...EVER
2. Ultrabanes are always better than Ultralings against marine/tanks
3. Do not use Ultrabanes against mass thor/tanks...get broodlords.
Now another thing people need to freaking realize is that Ultrabanes is not the way to finish the game.
Ultrabanes is a tool to wipe out something completely from the map...think of it, as a fast moving nuke.
Once you nuke the opponent, both you and your opponent will be temporarily weak, but that's the beauty of it...you are abusing the larva mechanic to make another army before they can regain theirs. Thus, we add a few more rules to live by.
4. When you are making ultrabanes, ALWAYS get a greater spire and prepare to get a bunch of corruptors. This is how you end the game.
I think about ultrabanes/ infestorbrood like boxing...Your ultrabanes are your left hand jabs which you can use to take out half an army or a planetary or two...Your right hand of infestorbroods deliver the final knockout punch. You can't fight well without both hands!
5. Ultrabanes must never be used off two bases...you cannot afford it. If you're behinds, just do infestorbrood and pray.
6. Use ultrabanes to hit and run on expansions. Just wipe it out and leave, do not stay to engage the opponent's army.
And most importantly!
7. DO NOT MAKE MORE THAN 4 ULTRALISKS!!!!!!
If you think about it, ultralisks are awful at dealing damage to a Terran ball, they should be used for what they really are...meat shields for your damage dealer: the banelings. And that's the whole point I think a lot of people are missing!
YOU NEED A DAMAGE DEALER!! ULTRALISKS don't do that much damage for their costs/collision size!
~end rant.
Agreed, ultra bane is the strongest ground army you can have, it absolutly wipes the terran army and the point is to reset armies so that your crackling reinforcement wave can close in into the production.
It goes very well with a fast melee upgrade style, if you manage to keep at least a 1/1 advantage over the terran it's excellent.
5-6 ultras is all you need, over that they derp over each other, and you don't use for damage first, mostly to tank the damage.
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I don't think 4 is enough... I would say about 6.
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I don't like 6....
6 is 36 supplies
Realistically you only need 4 to charge a tankline.
4 is enough to take down a planetary even with repairs.
Using only 4, you get 12 supplies extra for infestors/broods/corruptors.
The point is, you don't need many ultralisks because they don't actually deal the damage.
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Does this strategy really work against stutter stepping marines? In the OP, the dangers of hellions kiting this comp was already mentioned, but stutter stepping marines is the same principle.
I personally use Infestor w/ Ultras because the gas going to banelings is just so inneffeceint since they rarely connect with their targets unless you can get a surround. Most of the time they're forced to connect against tanks unless you want them to continue dying for nothing.
I think we can all agree that Infestors are much more effeceint than banelings. If you don't, then watch Stephano win games against Terran while being on equal bases simply because he makes more use out of his gas with Infestors than with Mutas and Banelings. Infestor play allows him to tech faster and get more upgrades for his end-game comp, which is very similar to the end-game comp discussed here.
By sticking with ling / infestor in the mid-game it allows you to not only get Ultra / Bane in the end game, it allows you to get Ultra / Bane / Infestor with Max Upgrades not just max armor.
Granted, ultra/banes take out a planetary much quicker and possibly more efficeintly than ultra/infestor/ling (especially with max attack upgrades), which is why I wait until the end game to get my bane nest (a good timing would be to build your bane nest with your ultra cavern).
On April 02 2012 18:42 neoghaleon55 wrote:
I don't like 6....
6 is 36 supplies
Realistically you only need 4 to charge a tankline.
4 is enough to take down a planetary even with repairs.
Using only 4, you get 12 supplies extra for infestors/broods/corruptors.
The point is, you don't need many ultralisks because they don't actually deal the damage.
Just a minor critique but, I don't know about just getting 4 Ultras... If that's all you can afford with your gas, then definitely just go for it, but if you have enough gas to get 6-8, and you're left with 3-4 after your initial wave, your reinforcing lings will still have meatshields.
Yes, your initial wave may not have as much DPS as it could have BUT, let's face it, you're not going to be able to remax to 200 with just lings if your entire army is dead.... there's absolutely no way you'll have that much larvae lying around. What happens if the terran opponent has great sim city and walls off from your "onslought" of 25 pairs of lings? You just gave him a chance to get back in it, and now you have to wait for Ultras or Brood Lords, or morphing banes... something!
However, if you still have some ultras left, then you'll be a lot closer to 200 supply once you use up all your larvae on lings. In this way, you'll be able to steadily maintain a maxed army more easily.
In addition, by this point in the game your queens usually have excess energy for transfuses, so if you're fast enough, you can heal up your leftover Ultras and reingage with your reinforcements ASAP.
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What's do the ultras do if Terran target fires down the banelings? Sure ultra bane sounds amazing if Terran tank shots hit the ultras, but what if the Terran player is really good, target fires banes and kites ultras.
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Hey all, interesting to see my old ultra/bane guide being bumped after over a full year having passed since I'd written it. The bump was brought to my attention by a PM from someone complimenting me on the guide and asking whether I preferred using mutalisks or infestors.
Before I answer that, I must point out that this guide is clearly old and outdated. There are four things that immediately come to mind as to why this is so:
1) Back when this was posted, terrans still did many 1-base all-in's/cheeses and had only just started recovering from BitByBitPrime syndrome. Also as mentioned in my OP, scv repair was truly imbalanced back then. Nowadays, at least from what I know, many T's open 2 fact hellion or BF hellion into fast expo. I mentioned in the OP how it's really, and I mean REALLY hard to deal with mass hellion when all you're making is ling/bane with delayed mutalisks. You'll need some really good sim city or a different opening to combat this. My original openings in the now gone replays (RIP megaupload) are simply no good.
2) Back when this was posted, Infestors sucked hardcore. This was why Idra's muta/ling/bane was the go-to strategy in ZvT. There was simply no other equal at the time. It was only some time after I had already written my guide that Infestors received their many buffs over the next several patches. The style of play Stephano uses, while pretty damn awesome right now, simply wouldn't have worked with the Infestor's fungle doing less damage and having a much longer duration for the full DoT to take effect. If Stephano used Ultras back when I had first written this guide, it would've been the exact same way I used them - basically the ultra/bane composition.
3) Back when this was posted, terrans did not devote even nearly as much of their energy/resources/time to delaying creep spread as they do now. Going back to point one here - if they open hellion and can't find any place to poke, they WILL keep their hellions just outside your creep and prevent further expansion. This greatly reduces the effect of the early speedling/speedbanes that I recommended as the best way of keeping yourself alive to early terran pushes. Stutter stepping marines were never a problem when I engaged on creep. Nowadays it's not as easy to have the entire map covered in purple as it used to be.
4) Back when this posted (I really say that a lot, don't I? Truly shows the age of this guide), Ultralisk build time was 70 seconds. I believe it's now 50? Or was it 40? I don't even know anymore. The point is that one of the main factors of this guide was to make people include Ultralisks in their very first maxed army composition, rather than going 200/200, losing a battle, and then trying to remax/reinforce with Ultralisks. That simply did not work, yet that strategy was common advice found coming from many high level players (the whole brood lord to force vikings, lose entire army then remax on Ultras strat lost more often than not). Now however, with the ultralisk build time having been drastically lowered, it stands to reason that zergs should have an easier time reinforcing an already existing army with Ultralisks, given that they don't blow all their resources into that. Always keep in mind that you need a way to deal with marines when going Ultralisks, as Ultras themselves simply don't fulfill that role. You'll need either infestors or banelings to compliment your ultralisks.
So to answer the original question, at the time this guide was written, I simply could not prefer to use Infestors over Mutalisks. Infestors weren't all that good, and muta/ling/bane was the best zerg could offer to combat all the 1base all-in's terran had and still offer a way to go on the offensive (via muta harrass). My guide did, however, inspire others to further stray away from the standard muta/ling/bane composition and experiment with using infestors as an alternative - such as this guide from MrBitter posted a few weeks after my own - http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=193058 - his OP even links back to this thread here.
In the PM it was also asked what builds I use now, seeing as the guide is hella old. Truthfully, I no longer really play SC2 right now. I don't even remember when I stopped. It must've been around sometime last summer. I still played a bit every now and then, but no longer the excess that I did when I wrote this guide. Back then I considered myself one of the top players, at least on the NA server. Now I'm obviously nowhere near that close. I opened up my SC2 today for the first time in over a month just to look up my ZvT replays and see if I could write up anything about how my play had evolved and post some more modern replays now that all the old ones were gone. Unfortunately when trying to load my latest replay, I was presented with the message that I could only watch it offline since the patches were incompatible so I immediately gave up on that idea.
So to conclude, a big thanks to everyone who read this guide and gave my old playstyles a shot. I like to think that it had at least somewhat of an impact on the zerg scene and how zergs approached ZvT and Ultralisks as a whole. If I end up taking up SC2 again and get high up there on the masters ladder again, I'll be sure to post newer replays and comment on how my ultra/bane playstyle had changed over time. Thanks for reading!
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On April 02 2012 18:42 neoghaleon55 wrote:
I don't like 6....
6 is 36 supplies
Realistically you only need 4 to charge a tankline.
4 is enough to take down a planetary even with repairs.
Using only 4, you get 12 supplies extra for infestors/broods/corruptors.
The point is, you don't need many ultralisks because they don't actually deal the damage.
I think a good rule of thumb is that you never want a second row of ultralisks in a battle.
If you do make 6-8 of them, you better have a huge open field to engage in, or some way to flank.
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Ultra baneling has been my kill-move for ages against terrans. It's pretty damn good, and 3-3 cracklings are the ultimate remax. No way in hell terran has enough hellions left over after a baneling ultra attack to deflect the numbers of rallies you can throw at them.
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FFS!!
Stephano just lost because he used ultralings....
FREAKING!!
USE ULTRABANES!!!
gahhh!!
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EPT
