EPTEven if Ultralisks cost 3/2 m/g while mutas are 1/1, I don't see that saving enough gas for morphing all my slings into blings. But fortunately, you included replay and I'll be able to have a look at your play as soon as i get home.
Can't wait!
[G] Ultras in ZvT /w image heavy + reps - Page 4
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Google.
Germany50 Posts
Even if Ultralisks cost 3/2 m/g while mutas are 1/1, I don't see that saving enough gas for morphing all my slings into blings. But fortunately, you included replay and I'll be able to have a look at your play as soon as i get home. Can't wait! | ||
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ToastieNL
Netherlands845 Posts
I really, really liked this guide! Ty | ||
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ToastieNL
Netherlands845 Posts
On January 25 2011 22:41 Google. wrote: man, I can't wait to get home and watch the reps. I'm really interested in how you manage your mineral/gas ratio. Even the Muta/ling/bling is way too gas heavy and lately I tried out 1-2makro hatches and expos where I'd only mine gas. Even if Ultralisks cost 3/2 m/g while mutas are 1/1, I don't see that saving enough gas for morphing all my slings into blings. But fortunately, you included replay and I'll be able to have a look at your play as soon as i get home. Can't wait! I think the idea is to not mass- Ultralisk, but instead have some gas leftover to get banelings and upgrades. You can upgrade quite early if you don't invest a lot in your Mutalisk!! | ||
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DarKFoRcE
Germany1215 Posts
"For the majority of his games I was wishing Nestea would abandon his ling/baneling/muta builds and just go for ultralisks." In my opinion Nestea is currently the best zergplayer, and it seems very strange to me that some rather mediocre player thinks he knows way better than nestea does.. "The first terran push will always come before Ultras are ready, thus a good flank on creep is a necessity. Luckily zergs shouldn't have too many problems with the first push" Yes, youre right, the first push comes before Ultras. And no, its not easy to defend against if youre heavily investing in your ultra tech and melee/carapace upgrades. Furthermore, looking at your "battlereports", to me it seems like these games were decided early on, and not by your bright usage of ultralisks. As i said in my other post, ultras can be useful, but i think you are way exaggerating their usefulness. | ||
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Autunno
Brazil147 Posts
On January 25 2011 23:11 DarKFoRcE wrote: Sorry that i have to chime in here again, but i read the rest of the post, and it just tilts me super hard when i read stuff like the following: "For the majority of his games I was wishing Nestea would abandon his ling/baneling/muta builds and just go for ultralisks." In my opinion Nestea is currently the best zergplayer, and it seems very strange to me that some rather mediocre player thinks he knows way better than nestea does.. "The first terran push will always come before Ultras are ready, thus a good flank on creep is a necessity. Luckily zergs shouldn't have too many problems with the first push" Yes, youre right, the first push comes before Ultras. And no, its not easy to defend against if youre heavily investing in your ultra tech and melee/carapace upgrades. Furthermore, looking at your "battlereports", to me it seems like these games were decided early on, and not by your bright usage of ultralisks. As i said in my other post, ultras can be useful, but i think you are way exaggerating their usefulness. Maybe he is "exaggerating", but the main point of the post is: ultras are not useless, they can be very usefull if used with X units against Y composition. I don't think he meant this post to be a revolution on the way ZvT is played, breaking the tabu that ultras are an april fools joke, adding another strategy the zerg players can rely on. | ||
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Faze.
Canada285 Posts
On January 25 2011 12:00 Dhalphir wrote: why do people always say "i havent read the post but here's some questions" and without fail every time all of those questions were addressed more than satisfactorily in the post. Because they'd rather read 50 short and useless posts and watch not-so-funny youtube videos instead of reading one long and good post. Yet they want information out of it without reading it. In our time and society I believe it is called "spoiled kids", no offense. OT: Nice read, I also like ultras a lot and didn't really understand all the QQ threads about ultras being weak. I suppose if someone tries to go mass ultras it can't be good, but why would anyone think of doing that? O_o | ||
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sixzeros
72 Posts
The implications of unit speed are a mind blowing epiphany! I cant tell you how many games would have turned out differently had this idea been in the arsenal | ||
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BoonSolo
United Kingdom74 Posts
Thing is Im talking about making some extra queens with the extra minerals your going to have using this strategy, So you dont need to keep them in your base (unless its defending drop play) they can be with your army and while they are slower that blings/ultras on creep it isnt a huge difference, they can catch up once the engagement starts to heal the ultras. Also someone mentioned Destiny using roaches to tank the first shots from tank lines so ling/bling could rush in, I guarantee queens with carapace upgrades are better tanks than roaches, being able to transfuse each other and being bigger so take less splash damage. They make a nice alternative tank for the siege fire until the ultra's get out. | ||
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Dominator1370
United States111 Posts
It's fairly well known (I thought) that if you can afford to throw tons and tons of Banelings at your opponent, you've got a pretty good chance to break them. I can see where using Ultras to tank damage would make such a strategy more cost-effective and increase its success rate, but the fact remains, a lot of the difficulty in playing Zerg is getting to a point where you can afford to throw that many units at your opponent. It's still noteworthy, sure. The problem is that it doesn't really help Zerg get into a good position, it's just a good thing to do once you're there. I know from the games I've played and those that I've seen, Zerg seems to have more of a problem getting there than figuring out something to do once they're there at this point in the meta-game. | ||
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Treemonkeys
United States2082 Posts
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Carras
Argentina860 Posts
your discovery of the great sinergy of ultras and blings is amazing,ultras work better in open spaces,and blings will clear clumped units, or force the enemy to spread. blings have bonus vs ligth and ultras have splash , and ultras also do bonus vs armored =) your writting was pretty neat and descriptive too. i think i migth start using this transition in the future,i always did muta ling bling , with some roaches sometimes.. and then corruptor broodlord | ||
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Jermstuddog
United States2231 Posts
Anyway, I'm wondering if they wouldn't make your composition even stronger. The biggest drawback of using something like roach/ling/bling over ultra/ling/bling would be that roaches don't use the same upgrades offensively. This is fine as the only upgrade that REALLY matters for the roach offensively is +1 ranged. With +1 range, regardless of how much armor a stimmed marine has, it will never take more than 4 shots to kill him. Marauders are a losing fight anyway, so we don't worry about getting the shot lead on them. Other things to note: Roaches actually move slightly faster than Ultralisks but not so much that they'd separate away like lings do (0.05 speed faster). 3 Roaches have a total of 435 HP as compared to the 1 Ultralisks 500 HP. Roaches have a 3:1 gas ratio compared to the Ultralisks 3:2 ratio. For those same 300 minerals, you would only spend half the gas and get a 4th roach for free (still costs supply)! vs armored units, 1 non-upgraded Ultralisk does 40 DPS + splash, but vs unarmored targets, that same Ultralisk only does 17 DPS. 3 Roaches (lets not count the 4th one) do a standard 24 DPS against everything, so they sit somewhere in the middle. Roaches are more susceptible to splash damage and need to be manually rammed into the T army to be most effective (they take more micro). All of the supporting tech for roaches would be 350/200 + 1 drone in costs. This would get you the warren, +1 ranged, and roach speed (speed and +1 could be researched simultaneously), if you need another evo chamber it would be another 75 min + drone for a total of 425 minerals, 200 gas, 2 drones. Everything else would already be covered by the upgrades you're already getting. Not trying to replace the Ultra-based idea, but perhaps augment it as balancing Roaches in there will let you spend more minerals/supply and less gas if needed. | ||
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Antisocialmunky
United States5912 Posts
On January 25 2011 23:16 Autunno wrote: Maybe he is "exaggerating", but the main point of the post is: ultras are not useless, they can be very usefull if used with X units against Y composition. I don't think he meant this post to be a revolution on the way ZvT is played, breaking the tabu that ultras are an april fools joke, adding another strategy the zerg players can rely on. I think its more of the maps that make BroodLords > Ultras. The blizz maps are small with mostly narrow attack lanes with lots of cliffing opportunities. Like people who have been play testing the big new GSL map have indicated, Ultras do much better when spaces are open. I like the general composition and idea but as DF said, it may be tricky to get there when Terran isn't making mech fail blobs. But such is the problem with coming up with new stuff... You can have a nice unit composition but you must find a way to viably get there. I think this is the task for the OP if he wants to make this more than just a 'hey you can do this late game' thread. I think the unit composition is mutually complementary though because Ultralisks are great against mech due to their super high DPS + splash over time but need to be able to force their way to the key mech units or they are completely useless. Banelings on the other hand have super high burst damage per population point and thus can easily destroy a large portion of the stuff in the way of the ultras but they are single use so they can't finish off what's left over. Put them together and the banelings are able to clear out all the supporting units so the ultras can go right for the Tanks and Thors.  Sure Roaches are good for burst damage but they are 2 food and banelings are .5. Banelings upgrade via melee upgrades and they naturally don't screw up the ultra AI because they all explode so there's nothing for the ultras to get stuck on. Broodlords are nice if you can use them in such a way where they can't get hit easily but that's not always the case. | ||
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Reqq
43 Posts
One more big difference is that ultras will/should have 2 more armor than roaches in a late game engagement. If you're engaging a more tank/thor/rauder heavy army, then the bonus to armored is going to be super huge, and the +melee ups are going to tilt the scale further in the ultra department. Each up vs. armored for ultras is 4.6ish dps, while each up vs. armored for 4 roaches is just 4 dps. (You already mentioned the splash and the ups synergy.) OTOH, if you're engaging more rine heavy army, that 2 armor is gonna be crazy. 3/0 rines will be doing 3 damage a shot against 0/(3+1+2) ultras, about half of what they'll be doing to upped roaches. I'm not saying roaches are can't contribute, but I just don't see them filling a niche that ultras don't fill better. If you can't spend your minerals, moar lings! | ||
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Pestilence
Belgium41 Posts
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DarKFoRcE
Germany1215 Posts
On January 26 2011 02:04 Reqq wrote: Jerm: One more big difference is that ultras will/should have 2 more armor than roaches in a late game engagement. If you're engaging a more tank/thor/rauder heavy army, then the bonus to armored is going to be super huge, and the +melee ups are going to tilt the scale further in the ultra department. Each up vs. armored for ultras is 4.6ish dps, while each up vs. armored for 4 roaches is just 4 dps. (You already mentioned the splash and the ups synergy.) OTOH, if you're engaging more rine heavy army, that 2 armor is gonna be crazy. 3/0 rines will be doing 3 damage a shot against 0/(3+1+2) ultras, about half of what they'll be doing to upped roaches. I'm not saying roaches are can't contribute, but I just don't see them filling a niche that ultras don't fill better. If you can't spend your minerals, moar lings! Err, if youre engaging tank thor marauder you really dont wanna be using ultras or roaches anyway.. broodlords are the unit of choice there for sure. | ||
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Xeken
United States77 Posts
ultra does max damage as long as it is alive. Roach dps decreases as each one dies. As for the general point regarding dps comparison, there are many other randomizing factors (more wasted damage from roaches due to overlapping shot, concuss slow down, etc) that cannot be cured with infestor support vs bio, and slower spike dmg vs mech (which may or may not be an issue depending on how well the AI autotargets units). Secondly, as you said, splash dmg makes the actual dmg output of tanks significantly higher against roaches, so the hp comparison isn't accurate in that regard. Also, roaches do not take dmg as well against other units for obvious reasons, so the hp efficiency of roaches needs to be taken into account here. I can speak from experience that when going against a fortified position, a certain supply of ultra fair much better than equal supply of roaches, which is more often than not the limiting factor than resources. And I personally feel ultra is more resource efficient, although that is much harder to back up due to it being a situational claim. As for contribution to the thread, I suggest trying to use ling infestor spread all over the map to control instead of mutas. I think it's a very good alternative. I've been having good success polishing up the ling/infestor + hydra (if necessary)>ultra/bling (delay bling against mech for more ultra, get bling with ultra against bio). I've only lost when I was outplayed, and never because my build progression was weak against any specific build that T may throw out. | ||
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Autunno
Brazil147 Posts
On January 26 2011 02:03 Antisocialmunky wrote: I think its more of the maps that make BroodLords > Ultras. The blizz maps are small with mostly narrow attack lanes with lots of cliffing opportunities. Like people who have been play testing the big new GSL map have indicated, Ultras do much better when spaces are open. I like the general composition and idea but as DF said, it may be tricky to get there when Terran isn't making mech fail blobs. But such is the problem with coming up with new stuff... I think the unit composition is mutually complementary though because Ultralisks are great against mech due to their super high DPS + splash over time but need to be able to force their way to the key mech units or they are completely useless. Banelings on the other hand have super high burst damage per population point and thus can easily destroy a large portion of the stuff in the way of the ultras but they are single use so they can't finish off what's left over. Put them together and the banelings are able to clear out all the supporting units so the ultras can go right for the Tanks and Thors. Sure Roaches are good for burst damage but they are 2 food and banelings are .5. Banelings upgrade via melee upgrades and they naturally don't screw up the ultra AI because they all explode so there's nothing for the ultras to get stuck on. Broodlords are nice if you can use them in such a way where they can't get hit easily but that's not always the case. Good point about the maps. | ||
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windsupernova
Mexico5280 Posts
Not commiting to roaches, just use them to tank the fire damage so that the tanks don't destroy the blings?Roaches do have a nice speed compatibility with Blings and if a terran tries to kite chances are that your roaches will get free shots.Carpace upgrades work pretty well with this. Anyways, I feel like this is a nice thread, and lets remember that while Pros are better players than us they are still humans. They can make mistakes ,be biased or just didn't think of this. Also we should care about stuff working for us and if something like this stops working at higher levels we just have to adapt. I am not saying that we know better than pros, but I guess I am tired of people just saying that stuff won't work because Pros aren't doing it. | ||
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pwadoc
271 Posts
On January 25 2011 23:11 DarKFoRcE wrote: Yes, youre right, the first push comes before Ultras. And no, its not easy to defend against if youre heavily investing in your ultra tech and melee/carapace upgrades. In my experience, the midgame push is a lot easier to defend with bling/ling if you've invested in carapace/melee upgrades. | ||
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