[G] Ultras in ZvT /w image heavy + reps - Page 15

On April 07 2012 08:20 neoghaleon55 wrote:
FFS!!
Stephano just lost because he used ultralings....
FREAKING!!
USE ULTRABANES!!!
gahhh!!

On April 03 2012 04:06 CuteSmallHydra wrote:
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Before I answer that, I must point out that this guide is clearly old and outdated.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!