EPT
. [G] Ultras in ZvT /w image heavy + reps - Page 2
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Plexa
Aotearoa39261 Posts
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WakingLife
Australia4 Posts
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Phanekim
United States777 Posts
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SpaceYeti
United States723 Posts
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CortoMontez
Australia608 Posts
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loving it
Canada271 Posts
On January 25 2011 13:57 CortoMontez wrote: Although I didn't watch the replay, I noticed that in the picture on JB, the terran had atleast 8 BCs. Despite doing little damage to your ultras due to their 6 armour, how effective would your ultras have been if the terran had researched weapon refit (yamato cannon), since he could have taken out a significant number of ultras very quickly, and used the BCs to melt through any less armoured units. In that game that you're specifically mentioning about with the picture, the Terran already lost anyways, he was off of one base that didn't have any more minerals or gas. What was he suppose to do with 8 BCS and no income while the zerg was on his 3 mining bases and easily pump any anti air unit and take out those BCS. If you're referring to just BC's in general in almost any game.... then just transition into mass hydras after your ground army dies. With this composition, you have GROUND dominance. So make the most out of that, even if the terran has equal numbers of BC's to your ultralisks. Those ultras and zerglings can take out all of the terran's mining bases if that terran sacrifices ground dominance. | ||
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Orome
Switzerland11984 Posts
How do you survive in those 10 minutes before you actually get to the ultras? Yes, you said that because of the fewer mutas you can get more banelings out, but the reason why those mutas are so crucial (besides harass defense, which you mentioned) is because you can buy yourself a lot of time with them. Just watch the Shakuras game between MVP and Nestea and looks at how much Nestea slowed down MVP's push with his mutas. Imagine your strategy in that situation. MVP's push would've come a lot sooner and stronger at that. I'm not saying this isn't viable, definitely not before I watch the replays (I can't right now), but this strategy has a big weakness for quite a long time. Teching to hive isn't that expensive in itself, but saving up for the ultra den, the ultra carapace upgrade and 5-6 ultras and waiting ages for them to actually pop is going to be extremely hard when all you have to defend is ling baneling and a couple of mutas. What I'm taking away from this thread is that ultra/baneling's a very powerful strategy and I'll try to remember that the next time I'm in a situation where I can actually make that unit mix, but to see it as your core strategy that your strategy leads to is very premature I think. | ||
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michaelhasanalias
Korea (South)1231 Posts
On January 25 2011 14:34 Orome wrote: I don't quite understand this. Of course you're going to do well if you can get hive and ultralisks up that early. The same would be true if you got broodlords that early. Maybe ultralisks really are the better choice and that's very interesting, but the fact that hive tech that early gives you a boost really isn't anything new. Your post was very well thought-out, but as far as I can see you failed to address by far the biggest issue with this strategy. How do you survive in those 10 minutes before you actually get to the ultras? Yes, you said that because of the fewer mutas you can get more banelings out, but the reason why those mutas are so crucial (besides harass defense, which you mentioned) is because you can buy yourself a lot of time with them. Just watch the Shakuras game between MVP and Nestea and looks at how much Nestea slowed down MVP's push with his mutas. Imagine your strategy in that situation. MVP's push would've come a lot sooner and stronger at that. I'm not saying this isn't viable, definitely not before I watch the replays (I can't right now), but this strategy has a big weakness for quite a long time. Teching to hive isn't that expensive in itself, but saving up for the ultra den, the ultra carapace upgrade and 5-6 ultras and waiting ages for them to actually pop is going to be extremely hard when all you have to defend is ling baneling and a couple of mutas. What I'm taking away from this thread is that ultra/baneling's a very powerful strategy and I'll try to remember that the next time I'm in a situation where I can actually make that unit mix, but to see it as your core strategy that your strategy leads to is very premature I think. With scouting information and muta harass. If he spots aggression, he can pop a speedling/bling army in 24 seconds. Saying "oh well you didn't hve anything to defend a push that didn't exist" is pretty illogical. If there was a push, he could easily have made the units to deal with it. Speedling/bling with mutas backstabbing will shut down almost any terran mid-game aggression. Even though bling doesn't do good damage vs 1 marauder, it does great dmg versus any ball of units, armored or not. And 15 banelings with 20-30 speedlings and spine crawlers is going to wipe out anything that comes on your creep. This is one of those builds (similar to a well-executed 4-gate or 2-rax bunker vs FE zerg) where the APM required to stop it is a bit higher than the APM required to execute it, and that's really why it's so good. Also, since baneling is the most cost-effective unit in the zerg army, having a baneling-centric army with a composition that maximizes baneling splash damage is very difficult to deal with, relative to the a-move/right click-move strategy necessary to execute it. | ||
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Encrypto
United States442 Posts
On January 25 2011 14:34 Orome wrote: I don't quite understand this. Of course you're going to do well if you can get hive and ultralisks up that early. The same would be true if you got broodlords that early. Maybe ultralisks really are the better choice and that's very interesting, but the fact that hive tech that early gives you a boost really isn't anything new. Your post was very well thought-out, but as far as I can see you failed to address by far the biggest issue with this strategy. How do you survive in those 10 minutes before you actually get to the ultras? Yes, you said that because of the fewer mutas you can get more banelings out, but the reason why those mutas are so crucial (besides harass defense, which you mentioned) is because you can buy yourself a lot of time with them. Just watch the Shakuras game between MVP and Nestea and looks at how much Nestea slowed down MVP's push with his mutas. Imagine your strategy in that situation. MVP's push would've come a lot sooner and stronger at that. I'm not saying this isn't viable, definitely not before I watch the replays (I can't right now), but this strategy has a big weakness for quite a long time. Teching to hive isn't that expensive in itself, but saving up for the ultra den, the ultra carapace upgrade and 5-6 ultras and waiting ages for them to actually pop is going to be extremely hard when all you have to defend is ling baneling and a couple of mutas. What I'm taking away from this thread is that ultra/baneling's a very powerful strategy and I'll try to remember that the next time I'm in a situation where I can actually make that unit mix, but to see it as your core strategy that your strategy leads to is very premature I think. The best way to answer this is: watch the replays. I watched them, and then I tried this out for myself, and if you're macro is very good, you can defend very well. Mass zergling / baneling / carapace upgrades combined with a VERY good creep spread (even if the mutas are delayed) can hold you off until 3 bases, or at least from what I have seen as of yet. Also, as a side note, I used this strategy (just to practice it) in 3v3s and ultra / bling seriously decimates everything on the ground. It is really hard to stop. | ||
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whatthefat
United States918 Posts
 ), this is exactly the kind of creative insight I was looking for.I too have been giving some thought to the place of ultras, and the role of unit speed in zerg army synergy: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=182807 It seems like you've come up with a very clever solution, combining ultras with banelings. I'll be sure to try this out. One more thought: it seems to me like the biggest weakness would be against marauder heavy compositions, since they deal very well with both ultras and banes. | ||
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Orome
Switzerland11984 Posts
On January 25 2011 14:40 mlbrandow wrote: With scouting information and muta harass. If he spots aggression, he can pop a speedling/bling army in 24 seconds. Saying "oh well you didn't hve anything to defend a push that didn't exist" is pretty illogical. If there was a push, he could easily have made the units to deal with it. Speedling/bling with mutas backstabbing will shut down almost any terran mid-game aggression. Even though bling doesn't do good damage vs 1 marauder, it does great dmg versus any ball of units, armored or not. And 15 banelings with 20-30 speedlings and spine crawlers is going to wipe out anything that comes on your creep. This is one of those builds (similar to a well-executed 4-gate or 2-rax bunker vs FE zerg) where the APM required to stop it is a bit higher than the APM required to execute it, and that's really why it's so good. Also, since baneling is the most cost-effective unit in the zerg army, having a baneling-centric army with a composition that maximizes baneling splash damage is very difficult to deal with, relative to the a-move/right click-move strategy necessary to execute it. With muta harass? That's the entire point of the build as far as I can see, you get less mutas so you can afford the hive and ultras earlier. You can't really threaten much of anything with muta harass unless you've got a good number of them out. And you can easily make the units to deal with midgame aggression? That's what ZvT's centered around at the moment and Zergs are struggling with it even if they have the bigger muta count and don't go for that early hive. | ||
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ChiknAdobo
United States208 Posts
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lphoenixl
Canada71 Posts
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CuteSmallHydra
Canada120 Posts
On January 25 2011 13:08 Immolate wrote: From the pictures it doesn't look very convincing. Weird army compositions and pure mech fighting in open areas? What do you mean by weird army compositions? Even before I started going Ultra's T's were making the exact same units. They'd always either go full mech or rine/tank (or banshee). But you're right though, Ultras are a finishing unit. You survive their mid-game push, make Ultras, annihilate their end-game push and finish the game. =P Watch the replays. There's no way I'd have had the same success if my Ultras weren't utilized as they were. On January 25 2011 13:25 Encrypto wrote: Do most of your games actually last to that 21 minute late-game mark? This really doesn't solve a lot of the mid-game marine / siege-tank timing pushes that most people die to Terran by. However, I do enjoy the way you deal with those pushes; lots of creep and lots of speed banes with +1 or +2 carapace. Well honestly I can't say that -most- of them last to that 21 minute mark, but some of them certainly do. There are still many games that end much earlier. Sometimes I will see that I have a clear advantage after an army trade while I'm still doing ling/bling/muta and I see an opening where I can win there and then. Other times I fail to defend one of the earlier pushes and get steamrolled before hive can even start. Thanks for the compliments about how I deal with the earlier pushes. I firmly believe that getting carapace upgrades are better than melee ups, and couldn't believe Nestea was doing melee ups instead of armor during the GSL semi's. I hope that the benefits of carapace ups spread out to other z's trying to deal with early-mid-game T pushes. On January 25 2011 13:25 Encrypto wrote:After watching your replays, there is one thing that confuses me.... You make a lot of zerglings at the start of the game - you only make lings when you hit around 15 drones. Do you have any data / thoughts behind this? It sort of seems like a waste to invest in a ling army so early on. In one of the games, you were significantly behind in the drone count, not to mention your spire was delayed substantially. I'm just wondering what the thought process is behind this. Which game is it you're referring to? If I know which replay it is I can give you a better idea of my thought process. But in general if I'm cutting drones for lings it's because I'm nervous that some sort of all-in might be coming. There were games where I scouted 3-4 rax and felt I needed the lings to survive the coming attack. In general I'm confident in my late game abilities that I'm not that worried about getting drones later instead. On January 25 2011 13:31 Deltablazy wrote: I'm however concerned about your third lost game. You said you lost to something like 15 reactor-ed barracks, this could potential mean that your build/idea is weak to the newly popular 4OC build. Could you expand a little bit more than you did in your OP about that specific loss. The terran had a solid 4 base economy that I couldn't budge at all. He had many, and I mean many barracks and factories that even after destroying his army over and over again he kept re-popping the units almost instantly. It was clear his macro was far above mine, and on top of that he continued dropping my expansions and such had my forces running all over. Him kept me on my toes and I didn't react properly. I would think if I had switched to mutalisks to handle the drops I would've faired better. As it was, I just got outplayed. His barracks lights literally never stopped blinking. The replay is pre-patch and the game occurred some 2-3 weeks ago. I tried to find the replay in my autosave folder, but I haven't had much luck since there are so many and they're just labeled by date (which doesn't help much. sigh). Since it was pre-patch I just shrugged it off and didn't include it in the replay pack. But I felt the loss was worth mentioning. On January 25 2011 13:36 XXXSmOke wrote: Interesting concept of the BW crackling ultra to the SC2 Ultra Bling. I think its almost mandatory that you add infestors tho. Stutter step is extremely effective vs ultra as what ends up happening is your ultras are chasing a huge ball of marines while my tanks get tons of free hits which plops your ultras. From my experience the Ultras step in to merely soak up the damage - aka the initial tank blasts. There are clearly LOTS of banelings that the marines tend to simply turn and flee, and if you engage on creep the banelings will eventually catch up to them. However, you might be right in that when much higher level T's get used to dealing with this, adding infestors for fungal might become a necessity. As of now, though, I find that they aren't needed at all. Worse case scenario you can chase the marines back off-creep where you can't catch up to them, let your ultra's take care of the tanks, and then run back to your creep with your banelings once the tanks have been dealt with. On January 25 2011 13:43 Plexa wrote: This is a good post, I can't comment on the validity on it since I'm not a Terran or Zerg, but it seems solid . Thank you very much. =) On January 25 2011 13:55 SpaceYeti wrote: Curious here. Do you not use infestors at all to bridge the gap between Lair and Hive tech and help you defend against timing attacks that come before your Ultras pop? Or are they too gas heavy to fit in? Truthfully, I haven't found a need for infestors. With a good creep spread, carapace and speed upgrades, it should be possible to defend against early terran pushes. The infestation pit, however, obviously needs to be made for the hive, and you find infestors necessary to stop the oncoming push, by all means you should definitely make them. Your goal is to survive, and so you should do so by any means. On January 25 2011 13:57 CortoMontez wrote: Although I didn't watch the replay, I noticed that in the picture on JB, the terran had atleast 8 BCs. Despite doing little damage to your ultras due to their 6 armour, how effective would your ultras have been if the terran had researched weapon refit (yamato cannon), since he could have taken out a significant number of ultras very quickly, and used the BCs to melt through any less armoured units. Yamato causes 300 dmg, which isn't really enough to kill an Ultra. You'd need 2 yamato's per ultralisk. On top of that it's also very energy taxing. In that terrans situation, I don't think it could've won him the game. His economy was razed, while I had just managed to saturate my fourth. I might've been able to keep him in his base long enough to mass up the corruptors or hydralisks needed to deal with his bc/viking force. On January 25 2011 14:45 whatthefat wrote: I too have been giving some thought to the place of ultras, and the role of unit speed in zerg army synergy: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=182807 A nice thread you have there. I hadn't seen it before. Heh, great minds think alike.  On January 25 2011 14:46 Orome wrote: With muta harass? That's the entire point of the build as far as I can see, you get less mutas so you can afford the hive and ultras earlier. You can't really threaten much of anything with muta harass unless you've got a good number of them out. And you can easily make the units to deal with midgame aggression? That's what ZvT's centered around at the moment and Zergs are struggling with it even if they have the bigger muta count and don't go for that early hive. In all 10 of the replays in the pack, not once did I opt not to get a spire. I did make a few mutas, not nearly enough to properly harass, but enough that there still existed the potential to harass. If the T sees a spire, he'll have to know that at any moment you can pop 10+ mutas when he sees you've been doing nothing but making ling/bling. It is the threat of muta harass that exists here and that regardless of how many mutalisks you have, will force the terran to spend money on turrets. As I mentioned in my starting thread, stopping the terran mid-game push is all about positioning. You need your banelings to hit his marines. Not the smartest statement there, but that's basically what it comes down to. His tanks are there to make sure your banelings don't hit his marines. You stay on your creep, you attack him when his tanks are unseiged. You get as many muta/ling/bling as necessary to make sure that happens. I've never once gone into a game thinking "I'm gonna get my hive tech started at 14 minutes this time around." Zerg is a reactionary race. There's no build order here: just a goal to head towards. I need to survive, and if necessary I will make more mutas than I originally wanted if it will mean I survive the next terran push. The ultralisks are something you transition to once you've gained sufficient advantage after disabling the earlier pushes. Of course, if the terran decides to turtle and NOT DO anything... then by all means tech to hive with only lings in front of your natural and third. Heck, I've done that, too, because the T's practically let me. Do watch the replays. You'll find this isn't "rush to ultras, win" but more "survive to ultras, win." I also disagree that broodlords would also work, as they don't tank for your banelings and are easily countered by vikings. Every T worth their salt will have a reactored starport in a TvZ. Ultras are not so easily countered. On January 25 2011 15:04 lphoenixl wrote: Hmmm.. I've looked at some of the replays and on some of the games the ultras weren't even needed to finish off the terran army. most of the time the terran had horrible macro and you simply could have crushed his army with the ling/muta/bling force you had. (ie. you clearly outmacroed him). For example, on one game on X'el Naga Caverns vs oGs. He did a lot of damage with his initial 2rax opening but once he made his 2nd orbital, he didnt float it down to his nat for like 2-3 mins and had about 3-4 scvs/mineral patch in his main before he finally took it. Seems like a fairly viable composition for sure but surviving till ultras pop would be somewhat hard if your facing a fairly competent terran. In general the Ultras are there to ensure victory. I'm not going to pretend macro was on equal footing in every replay. It never is, in any game. I'd argue against the fact that the Ultras weren't needed. You might say that if only because it was the banelings that do pretty much all of the damage. The Ultras are simply there to soak up splash and be the first in line to get hit so the 30 hp banelings won't have to. And personally I feel they do a very good job of accomplishing that feat. | ||
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Ghin
United States2391 Posts
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CookieMaker
Canada880 Posts
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ChiknAdobo
United States208 Posts
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Encrypto
United States442 Posts
On January 25 2011 15:14 CuteSmallHydra wrote: Which game is it you're referring to? If I know which replay it is I can give you a better idea of my thought process. But in general if I'm cutting drones for lings it's because I'm nervous that some sort of all-in might be coming. There were games where I scouted 3-4 rax and felt I needed the lings to survive the coming attack. In general I'm confident in my late game abilities that I'm not that worried about getting drones later instead. For example, every game when you open 15 pool 14 gas you drone to 15 supply and then make 6+ zerglings. And this is every game. Why make so many zerglings at the start of the game? Those could be drones. I couldn't find the exact replay, but from what I remember you never really "drone hard", and in some ways I like this. You seem to treat zerg as if it were toss or terran. For every round of injects you make, at least 1 or 2 are drones and the rest is army. This way, you never have a timing attack that completely slaughters you. Instead of treating zerg as a reactionary race (in this regard), you macro the same as, say, a terran would. Anyway, maybe I was wrong for the mostpart, but instead of staying significantly ahead in the drone count (like most zergs attempt to do), you generally seem to stay the same or a little on the lower side, and maybe this isn't a bad thing. Maybe your build doesn't need a stronger economy than your opponent as is usually recommended? Well my analysis is somewhat vague and haphazard, but these are just my thoughts. I love your build from what I have seen so far (and btw it works really well in team games), and don't get me wrong - I am not trying to critique you, just better understand your motives. Thanks again. | ||
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Orome
Switzerland11984 Posts
On January 25 2011 15:14 CuteSmallHydra wrote: In all 10 of the replays in the pack, not once did I opt not to get a spire. I did make a few mutas, not nearly enough to properly harass, but enough that there still existed the potential to harass. If the T sees a spire, he'll have to know that at any moment you can pop 10+ mutas when he sees you've been doing nothing but making ling/bling. It is the threat of muta harass that exists here and that regardless of how many mutalisks you have, will force the terran to spend money on turrets. As I mentioned in my starting thread, stopping the terran mid-game push is all about positioning. You need your banelings to hit his marines. Not the smartest statement there, but that's basically what it comes down to. His tanks are there to make sure your banelings don't hit his marines. You stay on your creep, you attack him when his tanks are unseiged. You get as many muta/ling/bling as necessary to make sure that happens. I've never once gone into a game thinking "I'm gonna get my hive tech started at 14 minutes this time around." Zerg is a reactionary race. There's no build order here: just a goal to head towards. I need to survive, and if necessary I will make more mutas than I originally wanted if it will mean I survive the next terran push. The ultralisks are something you transition to once you've gained sufficient advantage after disabling the earlier pushes. Of course, if the terran decides to turtle and NOT DO anything... then by all means tech to hive with only lings in front of your natural and third. Heck, I've done that, too, because the T's practically let me. Do watch the replays. You'll find this isn't "rush to ultras, win" but more "survive to ultras, win." I also disagree that broodlords would also work, as they don't tank for your banelings and are easily countered by vikings. Every T worth their salt will have a reactored starport in a TvZ. Ultras are not so easily countered. I can agree with all that, but that changes the message of this guide from a complete strategy and a very different way of playing ZvT to mostly a statement about a new unit composition. 'Ultra baneling's great. Use it if you can.' Still a very nice find, I'll try to test it tonight, I've been very frustrated with ZvT recently. | ||
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Terranium
Turkmenistan144 Posts
Broken image links. I can't agree with you when you said bling/ultra combo decimates a maxed out mech army. Unless flanked or caught unsieged, a maxed out mech army, ie tank count > 20 + supporting thors and hellions can easily wipe out a 200 supply ultra/bling combo with negligible casualty. This is especially true when you are fully upgraded in vehicle damage. I know this because I've played a ton of mech TvZ. Muta is a must for zerg's map control. If you have a low muta count, you easily give away the other half of the map to terran. In that case I'll be able to control the midfield very early with tanks and hellions and in late game I'll just build PFs at the map center and abuse mass viking to take out your expos. 2.5k master terran | ||
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