EPT[G] Ultras in ZvT /w image heavy + reps - Page 9
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bearjuice
United States98 Posts
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CuteSmallHydra
Canada120 Posts
On January 27 2011 00:13 SchLing wrote: Maybe, I just didn't read it like that. I do hope you are right though  There's no way I'd be able to control who replies to this thread and the thought never even crossed my mind. My statement was referring to my own discussion of my own games in the OP and to give readers an idea of the quality of the players participating in those games. | ||
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Johnny_Vegas
United States239 Posts
Watched the first four replays. Game 4 on Steppes of War was DAMN impressive. The ultra/banes absolutely erased his sieged tanks/w marine backup, haha wow. Sure you had a lead going into that fight, but I've lost a lot of games on that map after having a lead, so nice work. I've tried your strat and won and lost with it so far. I haven't played much lately so I was pretty rusty. The loss was on steppes of war, and I made the mistake of attacking the Terran's natural with just muta/ling, taking losses and putting me behind. The interesting part is I almost came back with a lower economy with Ultra/Bane, showing me their potential. I am still working on the timing of everything. One really important thing appears to be keeping those muta alive, as I didn't have any at the end of the game to help out. I lost the game because my rustyness caused my macro to slip and I didn't make enough drones, the Ultra/banes were solid. | ||
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pbecot01
41 Posts
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GenesisX
Canada4267 Posts
Ultralisks here I come! | ||
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Umpteen
United Kingdom1570 Posts
Nothing that you're saying about broodlords is wrong, as such - and I'm by no means certain your conclusions are wrong, for that matter. But I think they might be. The first reason is because of what I've seen. In all the endless army-exchanges I've seen in ZvT, I've seen broodlords do damage, but I've never seen them carry the momentum of the fight in Zerg's favour as decisively as the Ultra/baneling combo did in those replays and in my own games. In fact, what I pretty much always see when broodlords come out is a Zerg who has been liquidly mobile and responsive throughout the game, able to pick and choose his battles, suddenly pinned to the spot by the need to fight beneath and protect his expensive aerial siege units. In a great majority of cases I see broodlords struggle to get in position, only to do a small amount of damage before being chased down and killed, often because their supporting units have been distracted by the need to defend elsewhere. I do not recall ever seeing broodlords carry a fight from the open field back to the enemy base. If you watch the MrBitter VOD with LZGamer, you can see what I'm talking about - although they do not call attention to it. His broodlords accomplish virtually nothing as he struggles to position them and his ground army to best effect - and yet almost every time he attacks with ultralisks and banelings, he obliterates the Terran forces. The only time his Ultras let him down is when he presses home his attack without waiting for baneling support. Had he done so - a matter of a minute, no more - he would certainly have followed through to victory. The second reason derives from thinking about why the above should come to pass. For instance, Ultras die to stimmed marines in a straight-up dps race. But you can't win a dps-race with a tidal-wave of exploding banelings. All of a sudden, you're not chewing through 500 heavily-armoured hitpoints while the Ultralisk slowly gives you a haircut, you're chewing through 500 heavily-armoured hitpoints while a grenade goes off in your mouth. Think about attack priorities. Think of three or four ultralisks with a bunch of banelings as a rampaging planetary fortress with siege tank support: the fact you'd be able to kill the fortress eventually seems less relevant when the deadline is right now. Then there's tank splash. Obviously broodlords are awesome against tanks; far better in terms of damage exchanged if you set them up in the unit tester. Yet it rarely seems to pan out quite that way in the games I've watched and played - plus there's the problem of carrying the momentum of the fight with such sluggish units. Meanwhile, Ultralisks will each soak up around nine tank rounds, minimising splash onto the damage-dealing payload of banelings rolling with them. If the accompanying marines try to stutter-step or spread out, they'll just shoot the ultralisks too. Again, watch the MrBitter VOD: the only time his opponent wasn't instantly turned from Terran into terrine was when his marines stimmed and just ran the fuck away. I'm by no means suggesting that broodlords can't be awesome. But I think they're awesome in the way altogether too many Zerg units are awesome: only when deployed with exact correctness - and I think that theoretical awesomeness has potentially distracted a lot of players. Ultra/baneling, by comparison, seems rather like Gary Kasparov winning a chess match by suddenly punching his opponent in the face: unexpected and unorthodox, certainly, but surprisingly effective. | ||
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Sapphire.lux
Romania2620 Posts
On January 27 2011 04:16 ShindyK2 wrote: Ultras counter mech/viking heavy army. We dont see alot of them in the GSLs because many progamers know how to counter mech well, its not very mobile, and a bit all-in ish. N yeah broodlords good against tanks because they are just epic size manta-rays of death that shred mech units from a RANGE, where as Ultras are Melee and stim marine DPS + Tanks > Ultras unless you forced them into viking heavy with broodlords first. All the progamers know that Broods > Ultras when it comes to countering sieged tanks and this is a fact that has been accepted long ago... infact 3 seasons of GSLs ago... The days of mech will return with Ghosts to fight both Broodlords and Ultras. Mark my words :D | ||
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lindn
Sweden833 Posts
On January 25 2011 11:39 Pandain wrote: I haven't read everything yet but sounds really interesting. Just some questions: 1.While your teching up to hive, wouldn't there be a timing for terran to hit? Especially considering(if I'm correct) your saving supply to use for ultras? 2.Do the replays really show a true terran, not doing any gimmicky BC stuff? Just making sure. 3.When do you tech to ultras. when i get ultras i usually make a push just to get some of his killed and enough of mine killed to allow me to get ultras. so no. teching i myself aim for 18-20 min | ||
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imbs
United Kingdom320 Posts
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Harbinger631
United States376 Posts
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Umpteen
United Kingdom1570 Posts
today's ZeNEXByun vs LeenockfOu | ||
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Phanekim
United States777 Posts
On January 27 2011 18:54 Umpteen wrote: PS: You can add + Show Spoiler + today's ZeNEXByun vs LeenockfOu wow what a game changer. i haven't seen this big of a game changer since people started doing terran mech. like montaro from kali days. | ||
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HowardRoark
1146 Posts
It is not cost effective, but Zerg seldom is, but IF you have the money, it is unstoppable late game vs P. It is also great since it requires Protoss to split their death-ball. | ||
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Johnny_Vegas
United States239 Posts
On January 27 2011 20:06 HowardRoark wrote: Hey, I tried this out on the Protoss 200 ball some games, and it is a small miracle. But it works differently than the 3base ultra-bling vs Terran, because you abuse the fact that a baneling is only 1 food, so with 5-8 ultras and the rest (100 or less) banelings it crushes any P land-ball. This only works with good economics, but we have seen that Zerg sometimes have no chance to beat a 200 P ball, but with these 50-100 blings it eats everything, even armored, and having the ultras in front they can not forcefield and the Colox waste their damage on the ultras. It is not cost effective, but Zerg seldom is, but IF you have the money, it is unstoppable late game vs P. It is also great since it requires Protoss to split their death-ball. I tried it against Protoss, but my econ was even and he had better positioning, so it didn't work out. I totally agree it should work though. I think the basic element to mass banelings is they are highly effective against almost ANY concentrated ball of units (except very large ones like Thors, but the Ultras handle them). Here's a replay last night of me trying out Ultra/Bane/Speedling vs Terran. He was slightly favored, I am currently 2450 Diamond. http://battlereports.com/viewreplays.php?replaynum=34123 + Show Spoiler + That final battle was impressive stuff. In the past I NEVER would engage a terran with his army next to a planetary. In this game I caught his tanks unsieged, and he was mostly MMM with light tank support, so Ultra/Bane was really effective. He had a ton of Mauraders, its surprising how they all died, usually they shred Ultras, but even Mauraders can't handle that many banelings/speedlings. I really tried to follow the OP's advice of keeping my Muta alive. They did a nice cleanup job after the Ultra/Bane tornado. | ||
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HowardRoark
1146 Posts
On January 28 2011 00:26 Johnny_Vegas wrote: I tried it against Protoss, but my econ was even and he had better positioning, so it didn't work out. I totally agree it should work though. I think the basic element to mass banelings is they are highly effective against almost ANY concentrated ball of units (except very large ones like Thors, but the Ultras handle them). Here's a replay last night of me trying out Ultra/Bane/Speedling vs Terran. He was slightly favored, I am currently 2450 Diamond. http://battlereports.com/viewreplays.php?replaynum=34123 + Show Spoiler + That final battle was impressive stuff. In the past I NEVER would engage a terran with his army next to a planetary. In this game I caught his tanks unsieged, and he was mostly MMM with light tank support, so Ultra/Bane was really effective. He had a ton of Mauraders, its surprising how they all died, usually they shred Ultras, but even Mauraders can't handle that many banelings/speedlings. I really tried to follow the OP's advice of keeping my Muta alive. They did a nice cleanup job after the Ultra/Bane tornado. And you know what Johnny? The thing is that Collossus (as we all know) stand on top of the other units in the Protoss ball, so that is even more effective with banelings splashing both the Colo and the regular units. With some infestor running in the background, you could lock them all and then it is game. | ||
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Ksyper
Bulgaria665 Posts
Well late game ZvT is awesome for the zerg as long as they went for muta ling baneling. You have you're air upgrades, a spire, melee and armour upgrades and a lot of bases. You can tech switch to broodlords or ultras and bought are awesome because you have the needed upgrades and tech to make them work. | ||
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MorsCerta
United States234 Posts
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-184430.jpg) In this the terran I face goes marine/tank pressure a couple times that I fend off barely and then expands into marine/tank/thor and then I deny his 3rd for a while with poop ovys and when our armies meet (each of us around 140 supply) I destroy his. ![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-184431.jpg) In this my opponent plays passive and is on 3 bases at pretty much the same timing as me as I drop my 4th. Our armies meet on accident all spread out and once again, its not even close. 2800D+ facing similarly ranked terrans | ||
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Ridiculisk
Australia191 Posts
Ultralisk's are awesome IMO. I've never quite understood why no one liked them??? You don't even need many, like 5 - 6 along with your Ling/Bling is just deadly... In my experience large scale engagements (once the Ultra's are out) almost always end in your favour. Then it's just a matter of reinforcing with speedlings. (I always get the attack speed upgrade though) | ||
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dantroid225
United States56 Posts
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vdek
United States267 Posts
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-184551.jpg) I've actually been doing slings/blings/mutas into ultras for a while now. Going for +3/+3 melee upgrades while teching to ultras and it works really really well. But waiting for extra banelings makes it so much better. Made a youtube video of it via replay2avi.com, I'll probably recast it nicer later tonight. Part 1: Part 2: | ||
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