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It has come to my attention that Zerg players seem to have concluded that the Zerg has a weak late game in ZvP as the Protoss army seems to incinerate the Zerg army quickly. This is wrong.
What is this?
What this is is a Zerg late game anti-death ball composition for ZvP which mimics a raid group from World of Warcraft in it's composition to great effect. The basic composition is using Ultra/Queen/Hydra as stand ins for Tank/Healer/DPS.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/3u3q7.jpg)
How terrifying!
Why that composition?
The ability of Queens to heal 500 health while doing more anti-air DPS than a Stalker (Queens use their anti-air against Colossus and have enough range to fire from behind the Hydralisks (you may even consider not getting Hydralisk range to help your Queens get in range for attacking/healing easier)) and the insane damage output of Hydralisks combined with the ability of Ultralisks to get in your face and stay there, not to mention that they have +6 armour with max upgrades to make their health drop that much slower (they specifically have an extra +2 armour upgrade guys, come on) makes for a lean army where every unit fills a tight role. Just make sure to play with health bars on and spam Transfuse as fast as you can on whichever Ultralisk is taking most damage (the main tank!) and you'll negate the majority of the entire damage output of the enemy army. It may be of note that in these replays I use 100 supply for Zerg, which contains 10 healers, 25 DPS and 5 tanks. Halve those numbers and you've got a near exact WoW 25 man raid composition.
Of course, being a solely Protoss player myself I can only theorize about the composition, you'd have to get there yourself. But what I can do is go into meum's Unit Test Map and pit an army against an army.
Replay
ZvP, 100 Zerg supply, 150 Protoss supply (the Stalker/Colossus/Void Ray "Death Ball")
Upgrades: Hydra range, Colossus range
Outcome: Zerg wins with 54 supply remaining
+ Show Spoiler +
So, thoughts on this composition?
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Needs amazing creep spread to have a chance.
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My thought on this composition are, Fantastic! it forces the protoss player to choose a different playstyle, PvZ is very 1 dimensional if this works well then it should be able to change that people will begin to try Immortals/High temps. Or anything would make me happier PvZ is a bore playing with the same composition everytime.
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well if the unit composition he's calling for requires a more-than-regular amount of Queens, wouldn't you say creep spread is out of the question?
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The tricky part will be getting to it, also what do you upgrade? all 3? or just armour and melee or range attack?
I feel that a standard death ball with a decent number of immortals would do well vs this kind of composition, also you couldnt fight off creep AT ALL as queens are just so slow off creep.
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As day9 would say, that's a nice late game plan, now you have to think about "how to get there".
Btw i watched the replay and basically you microed ( obviously ) hard the zerg units and zero micro the protoss one, i feel that if the voidray focus down the "tanks" instead of the dps you will.. well, wipe 
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On February 20 2011 18:14 L3g3nd_ wrote:
The tricky part will be getting to it, also what do you upgrade? all 3? or just armour and melee or range attack?
I feel that a standard death ball with a decent number of immortals would do well vs this kind of composition, also you couldnt fight off creep AT ALL as queens are just so slow off creep.
As many upgrades as possible would be best. It's worth noting that since you have no air units and the Protoss does, the centralisation of Protoss upgrades means nothing, and if anything he's at an upgrade disadvantage as he now needs more upgrades than you to max out on them.
And as for Immortals, if he makes them, you've successfully stopped the death ball! I'm not sure Immortals would even be a great idea in his situation, as sure you might kill the Ultralisks, but without as many Colossi, the Hydralisks are going to rip you to pieces. Immortal/High Templar sounds like a good mix to counter this army (you can even Feedback the Queens!), but if that's what he's switched to, then this army composition has successfully filled it's role of stopping the so called "death ball" and you're back to playing a reactionary race. And come on, creep spread? You've got mass Queen :D!
On February 20 2011 18:21 Renar wrote:As day9 would say, that's a nice late game plan, now you have to think about "how to get there". Btw i watched the replay and basically you microed ( obviously ) hard the zerg units and zero micro the protoss one, i feel that if the voidray focus down the "tanks" instead of the dps you will.. well, wipe
Yeah, I had to just attack move so I could spam Transfuse, but the Protoss army was 50% bigger in supply which I feel makes up for it.
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On February 20 2011 18:06 SausageLinks wrote:
well if the unit composition he's calling for requires a more-than-regular amount of Queens, wouldn't you say creep spread is out of the question?
Wouldn't you say opponents would, oh I don't know maybe kill the creep tumors? Floating an observer where your army is going takes a lot less attention than spreading and maintaining creep. To be offensive with this composition you need creep the length of the entire map.
That something not easily accomplished when you have to macro and fend off his pressure etc.
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So first thing is that this combo is very gas intensive you should have like 4+ bases to support that.
Second thing is Ultras are crap without upgrades, you need maxed upgrades on them to be worth something, so you need to start upgrading them from the begining of the game.
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On February 20 2011 18:22 branflakes14 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 18:14 L3g3nd_ wrote:
The tricky part will be getting to it, also what do you upgrade? all 3? or just armour and melee or range attack?
I feel that a standard death ball with a decent number of immortals would do well vs this kind of composition, also you couldnt fight off creep AT ALL as queens are just so slow off creep. As many upgrades as possible would be best. It's worth noting that since you have no air units and the Protoss does, the centralisation of Protoss upgrades means nothing, and if anything he's at an upgrade disadvantage as he now needs more upgrades than you to max out on them. And as for Immortals, if he makes them, you've successfully stopped the death ball! I'm not sure Immortals would even be a great idea in his situation, as sure you might kill the Ultralisks, but without as many Colossi, the Hydralisks are going to rip you to pieces. Immortal/High Templar sounds like a good mix to counter this army (you can even Feedback the Queens!), but if that's what he's switched to, then this army composition has successfully filled it's role of stopping the so called "death ball" and you're back to playing a reactionary race. And come on, creep spread? You've got mass Queen :D! Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 18:21 Renar wrote:As day9 would say, that's a nice late game plan, now you have to think about "how to get there". Btw i watched the replay and basically you microed ( obviously ) hard the zerg units and zero micro the protoss one, i feel that if the voidray focus down the "tanks" instead of the dps you will.. well, wipe Yeah, I had to just attack move so I could spam Transfuse, but the Protoss army was 50% bigger in supply which I feel makes up for it.
Trust me, 200% increase in army is not better than micro, 50% don't even get started.
The composition you built for zerg is a VERY late game one. Protoss can amass the composition you put out for then a good, solid, 10 min before you. It would be more realistic to use roaches as tanks, as ultra tech (and 6 armor upgrades at it) come VERY VERY late.
Don't get me wrong, that composition well microed can kill an equal supply protoss army (the combination you put) very efficiently. Catz proved it. But if they mix some 2 or 3 HT to feedback your queens, you're probably dead meat, as it kill a queen for 50 energy a pop.
But then again, if the protoss deliberately pull 1 zealot a time ahead of his army (stalkers do alright, but may die a lot faster) it will probably screw your ultra AI and bug then in place until you kill the zealot, meaning you lot a huge amount of DPS from the ultras and sometimes your Hydras/Queens will be so far behind the huge ultras that they won't even hit the stalkers/colossus killing your ultras.
The thing about ultras is that the enemy just needs to pull one unit ahead of his army and screw the AI pathing and they basically out of the fight.
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On February 20 2011 18:44 Alpina wrote:
So first thing is that this combo is very gas intensive you should have like 4+ bases to support that.
Ultras are the same cost as his Colossi and you don't need that many of them as the idea is they don't die, and Hydras cost the same gas as Stalkers. Not even close to gas intensive. If Protoss can mass 300/200, 250/150 and 125/50 units on 2 bases, I'm fairly sure Zerg doesn't need 4+ bases to do something less gas intensive.
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On February 20 2011 18:22 JTouche wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 18:06 SausageLinks wrote:
well if the unit composition he's calling for requires a more-than-regular amount of Queens, wouldn't you say creep spread is out of the question? Wouldn't you say opponents would, oh I don't know maybe kill the creep tumors? Floating an observer where your army is going takes a lot less attention than spreading and maintaining creep. To be offensive with this composition you need creep the length of the entire map. That something not easily accomplished when you have to macro and fend off his pressure etc.
Killing the tumors will pull the army out of position, so you can drop, nydus, ling runby, engage in a favourable position or see it coming.
If he uses part of his army then you can kill it off/push it back easily.
And you can easily replace the tumors.
On February 20 2011 18:44 Alpina wrote:
So first thing is that this combo is very gas intensive you should have like 4+ bases to support that.
Second thing is Ultras are crap without upgrades, you need maxed upgrades on them to be worth something, so you need to start upgrading them from the begining of the game.
Yeah that's on the money I think I'll explain it abit more though.
Collosi kill hydras really well, ultras kill collosi in a pitched fight, but stalkers are an effective ''unit that dies'' thus meaning the ultras can't kill off the collosi. So you need range damage and melee damage ups to kill off the stalkers.
The ultras will suck up all your queens energy soo fast without armour ups rendering them far less effective. So you need armour ups.
Upgrades take ages to upgrade so you need a lot of time and they cost a lot of gas so you need alot of geysers which means alot of bases, which in turn means it's difficult to defend them all.
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Good units, but if there is no creep this ball is terrible.
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looks good in theory, will suck most of the time in actual games. In ZvP, in a macrogame, alot comes down to how long you can delay his third and how well you can trade units as early as possible. this doesnt help with it at all.
also, even when you get there, good protoss players wont let you spread creep right until outside their bases, so you cant even use the usual superior mobility on ground.
and then, once protoss gets to his voidray/colo/mothership combination (maybe with some immortals mixed in because of the ultras..) youre not going to heal fast enough to prevent your shit from dying in a couple of seconds.
so overall, i dont really see this working in situations where you havent already won anyway for whatever reason. if you have any actual proof of it working in highlevel games, i'd be thrilled to see replays.
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On February 20 2011 18:14 L3g3nd_ wrote:
The tricky part will be getting to it, also what do you upgrade? all 3? or just armour and melee or range attack?
I feel that a standard death ball with a decent number of immortals would do well vs this kind of composition, also you couldnt fight off creep AT ALL as queens are just so slow off creep.
Since Ultras are the tanks you should go with full carapace upgrade, full ranged attack for the hydras (they are the DPS and also benefit from carapace upgrade) and queens. If protoss are waiting for a timing attack you could possibly spread your creep really good and when they finaly come to you, you can kill is forces and counter attack.
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I agree wholehearted with what darkforce had to say. That being said, I would love to see someone pull this off. You could make a vod of it and have the famous ony wipe vocals playing in the background! HANDLE EET!
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If someone has a copy of evo chamber, it would be great to see hoe long it would take to reach this build. Just having hydras and lings early or relying on lings+spine crawlers to hold early aggression is not entirely unreasonable, especially with queens out.
This is not a bad unit composition, but it is just that - a unit composition. Let's give it a fair shake and try hard to see if it has actual potential before immediately dismissing it.
For the build to have potential, you should be able to reach certain milestones in time. If we forgo roaches, we have to rely on lings and hydras early. This is not unreasonable. The question then becomes: how do we stop the protoss player from just killing us when he has 3 colossi? To stop this from happening, we need something beyond hydras and lings at approximately 12 minutes.
Sadly, I'm on holiday right now and don't have access to a computer. If I would, I would try developing this idea further. Again, if someone has evo chamber, try to set reasonable milestones and see what you can do. With queens, hydras and lings, it's definitively possible to survive until colossi start being pumped out. The protoss player would not go immortals if he scouts a number of hydras.
Therefore, I would think the success of this build hinges completely on whether or not we get some sort of power unit to bridge the gap between hydra/ling until ultras cone out. We obviously wanted to avoid corruptors and roaches if at all possible, which leaves us really only with infestors as an option. Specifically, I would think neural parasite in addition to fungal growth could work in delaying the push until the ultras pop.
Obviously, this is just informed theorycrafting, but this is how I would approach trying to develop this idea of an unit composition into an useable build. Let's not immediately dismiss the idea - let's try it out and see what elements of it work.
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On February 20 2011 19:00 branflakes14 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 18:44 Alpina wrote:
So first thing is that this combo is very gas intensive you should have like 4+ bases to support that. Ultras are the same cost as his Colossi and you don't need that many of them as the idea is they don't die, and Hydras cost the same gas as Stalkers. Not even close to gas intensive. If Protoss can mass 300/200, 250/150 and 125/50 units on 2 bases, I'm fairly sure Zerg doesn't need 4+ bases to do something less gas intensive.
Why do you compare ultras to collosi? Few collosi can wipe out every ground unit zerg has with good ground support and good forcefields. Few ultras gonna die until you even come close to toss army. You need a lot of them and upgraded to be worth something.
What about bases you are again just theorycrafting. Toss can get a deathball on 2 bases, so you want to say that zerg can go ultras on 2 base? LOL
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On February 20 2011 20:44 Alpina wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 19:00 branflakes14 wrote:On February 20 2011 18:44 Alpina wrote:
So first thing is that this combo is very gas intensive you should have like 4+ bases to support that. Ultras are the same cost as his Colossi and you don't need that many of them as the idea is they don't die, and Hydras cost the same gas as Stalkers. Not even close to gas intensive. If Protoss can mass 300/200, 250/150 and 125/50 units on 2 bases, I'm fairly sure Zerg doesn't need 4+ bases to do something less gas intensive. Why do you compare ultras to collosi? Few collosi can wipe out every ground unit zerg has with good ground support and good forcefields. Few ultras gonna die until you even come close to toss army. You need a lot of them and upgraded to be worth something. What about bases you are again just theorycrafting. Toss can get a deathball on 2 bases, so you want to say that zerg can go ultras on 2 base? LOL
"Protoss can get a huge 300/200/6, 250/150/3, 125/50/2 death ball off 2 bases but Zerg just doesn't have the resources to do the same." - every Zerg player ever. You'd think creep reduced income from mineral patches or something.
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On February 20 2011 18:00 JTouche wrote:
Needs amazing creep spread to have a chance.
If only that composition had some way of spreading creep...
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Queen/Ultra alone, even without the hydras mixed in, sounds like an amazing composition on paper and i think CatZ has shown on the daily that it can indeed work out very, very well, but i think the problem is getting there and surviving long enough on something else to get a meaningful amount of ultras out. so how does one do that?
I think a queen heavy opening with roaches while getting melee upgrades might get you there, but every time i play, its so much easier to just stick to roaches and i never manage to get to the ultras. has anyone worked out a smooth way of getting to the lategame composition?
that being said, i think a spire will still be necessary at some point along the way since colossi will be out earlier then ultras and harder to deal with then ultras. i also think that it might be necessary to spice it up with some infestors for fungal growth, especially if the Ps stalkers are blink-upgraded.
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The main problem with that composition, is that it relies on keeping a couple of ultras alive.
And that just wont happen against a toss deathball.
The protoss player can just box his whole army, and tell it to attack an ultralisk.
The ultralisk, will get one-shot. Thus, no healing from the queens is possible.
Then, once your ultras are dead, the toss deathball rips you appart.
And the other problem is, even if you do somehow manage to keep the ultralisks alive, the void rays will do massive (pun intended) damage to them, and charge up on the ultras getting healed.
Once the void rays charge up, your army gets vaporized pretty much instantly, and once again, all healing becomes useless.
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On February 20 2011 21:03 branflakes14 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 20:44 Alpina wrote:On February 20 2011 19:00 branflakes14 wrote:On February 20 2011 18:44 Alpina wrote:
So first thing is that this combo is very gas intensive you should have like 4+ bases to support that. Ultras are the same cost as his Colossi and you don't need that many of them as the idea is they don't die, and Hydras cost the same gas as Stalkers. Not even close to gas intensive. If Protoss can mass 300/200, 250/150 and 125/50 units on 2 bases, I'm fairly sure Zerg doesn't need 4+ bases to do something less gas intensive. Why do you compare ultras to collosi? Few collosi can wipe out every ground unit zerg has with good ground support and good forcefields. Few ultras gonna die until you even come close to toss army. You need a lot of them and upgraded to be worth something. What about bases you are again just theorycrafting. Toss can get a deathball on 2 bases, so you want to say that zerg can go ultras on 2 base? LOL "Protoss can get a huge 300/200/6, 250/150/3, 125/50/2 death ball off 2 bases but Zerg just doesn't have the resources to do the same." - every Zerg player ever. You'd think creep reduced income from mineral patches or something.
Can't you read what I wrote? If you have, let's say, 4-5 collosus you can kill XX amount of hydra, etc if controlled well, if I have 4-5 ultras then they just die before reaching your huge army. You need much bigger army to fight toss deathball.
Thing is some protosses just can't understand no matter how many times you say that.
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I guess the problem here is that Zerg armies are usually spam-unit based, meaning they have large quantities of weak units. The queen's transfuse is meant to keep things alive, which is much better on armies with low unit count but high unit quality. Thus a contrast appears. It is difficult to implement queens in armies with large unit counts, since it would take %$#*%& APM to transfuse each little unit. Low max hp also lowers transfuse efficiency.
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On February 20 2011 18:00 JTouche wrote:
Needs amazing creep spread to have a chance.
Dude, there are a lot of queens for a reason..
On February 20 2011 22:08 Alpina wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 21:03 branflakes14 wrote:On February 20 2011 20:44 Alpina wrote:On February 20 2011 19:00 branflakes14 wrote:On February 20 2011 18:44 Alpina wrote:
So first thing is that this combo is very gas intensive you should have like 4+ bases to support that. Ultras are the same cost as his Colossi and you don't need that many of them as the idea is they don't die, and Hydras cost the same gas as Stalkers. Not even close to gas intensive. If Protoss can mass 300/200, 250/150 and 125/50 units on 2 bases, I'm fairly sure Zerg doesn't need 4+ bases to do something less gas intensive. Why do you compare ultras to collosi? Few collosi can wipe out every ground unit zerg has with good ground support and good forcefields. Few ultras gonna die until you even come close to toss army. You need a lot of them and upgraded to be worth something. What about bases you are again just theorycrafting. Toss can get a deathball on 2 bases, so you want to say that zerg can go ultras on 2 base? LOL "Protoss can get a huge 300/200/6, 250/150/3, 125/50/2 death ball off 2 bases but Zerg just doesn't have the resources to do the same." - every Zerg player ever. You'd think creep reduced income from mineral patches or something. Can't you read what I wrote? If you have, let's say, 4-5 collosus you can kill XX amount of hydra, etc if controlled well, if I have 4-5 ultras then they just die before reaching your huge army. You need much bigger army to fight toss deathball. Thing is some protosses just can't understand no matter how many times you say that.
Were ultralisks supposed to have the same role as colossi?
They. Are. Powerful. Tanks.
The queens and armor upgrades also guarantee that. They're not designed to shoot lasers and kill low hp units like the colossi; they kill armored units.
Now, how do they get in range? They get in range just like how zealots get in range: support.
What is this support for ultralisks? Queens.
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On February 20 2011 23:10 iChau wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 18:00 JTouche wrote:
Needs amazing creep spread to have a chance. Dude, there are a lot of queens for a reason.. Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 22:08 Alpina wrote:On February 20 2011 21:03 branflakes14 wrote:On February 20 2011 20:44 Alpina wrote:On February 20 2011 19:00 branflakes14 wrote:On February 20 2011 18:44 Alpina wrote:
So first thing is that this combo is very gas intensive you should have like 4+ bases to support that. Ultras are the same cost as his Colossi and you don't need that many of them as the idea is they don't die, and Hydras cost the same gas as Stalkers. Not even close to gas intensive. If Protoss can mass 300/200, 250/150 and 125/50 units on 2 bases, I'm fairly sure Zerg doesn't need 4+ bases to do something less gas intensive. Why do you compare ultras to collosi? Few collosi can wipe out every ground unit zerg has with good ground support and good forcefields. Few ultras gonna die until you even come close to toss army. You need a lot of them and upgraded to be worth something. What about bases you are again just theorycrafting. Toss can get a deathball on 2 bases, so you want to say that zerg can go ultras on 2 base? LOL "Protoss can get a huge 300/200/6, 250/150/3, 125/50/2 death ball off 2 bases but Zerg just doesn't have the resources to do the same." - every Zerg player ever. You'd think creep reduced income from mineral patches or something. Can't you read what I wrote? If you have, let's say, 4-5 collosus you can kill XX amount of hydra, etc if controlled well, if I have 4-5 ultras then they just die before reaching your huge army. You need much bigger army to fight toss deathball. Thing is some protosses just can't understand no matter how many times you say that. Were ultralisks supposed to have the same role as colossi? They. Are. Powerful. Tanks. The queens and armor upgrades also guarantee that. They're not designed to shoot lasers and kill low hp units like the colossi; they kill armored units. Now, how do they get in range? They get in range just like how zealots get in range: support. What is this support for ultralisks? Queens.
Man, read before writing. He tried to compare toss and zerg units by resources, and I said that it's stupid because you need a TON of ultras to be effective, and you don't need TON of collosi to be effective, so 2 base zerg with ultras is not possible.
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On February 20 2011 22:08 Alpina wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 21:03 branflakes14 wrote:On February 20 2011 20:44 Alpina wrote:On February 20 2011 19:00 branflakes14 wrote:On February 20 2011 18:44 Alpina wrote:
So first thing is that this combo is very gas intensive you should have like 4+ bases to support that. Ultras are the same cost as his Colossi and you don't need that many of them as the idea is they don't die, and Hydras cost the same gas as Stalkers. Not even close to gas intensive. If Protoss can mass 300/200, 250/150 and 125/50 units on 2 bases, I'm fairly sure Zerg doesn't need 4+ bases to do something less gas intensive. Why do you compare ultras to collosi? Few collosi can wipe out every ground unit zerg has with good ground support and good forcefields. Few ultras gonna die until you even come close to toss army. You need a lot of them and upgraded to be worth something. What about bases you are again just theorycrafting. Toss can get a deathball on 2 bases, so you want to say that zerg can go ultras on 2 base? LOL "Protoss can get a huge 300/200/6, 250/150/3, 125/50/2 death ball off 2 bases but Zerg just doesn't have the resources to do the same." - every Zerg player ever. You'd think creep reduced income from mineral patches or something. Can't you read what I wrote? If you have, let's say, 4-5 collosus you can kill XX amount of hydra, etc if controlled well, if I have 4-5 ultras then they just die before reaching your huge army. You need much bigger army to fight toss deathball. Thing is some protosses just can't understand no matter how many times you say that.
Didn't you watch the replay? The Ultralisks don't die, that's the whole point of this. Their size reduces Colossus splash, their armour mitigates more damage than any other unit in game (except Hardened Shield in the right circumstance), and their health pool is so big that you have enough time to react with Transfuse. That's not even including their ridiculous splash damage. The only problem with this army composition is surviving long enough to get there, otherwise it's the perfect way of beating the "death ball". And this is not a gas intensive army. You don't need to spam Ultralisks, you just need to keep the ones you have alive.
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On February 20 2011 23:30 branflakes14 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 22:08 Alpina wrote:On February 20 2011 21:03 branflakes14 wrote:On February 20 2011 20:44 Alpina wrote:On February 20 2011 19:00 branflakes14 wrote:On February 20 2011 18:44 Alpina wrote:
So first thing is that this combo is very gas intensive you should have like 4+ bases to support that. Ultras are the same cost as his Colossi and you don't need that many of them as the idea is they don't die, and Hydras cost the same gas as Stalkers. Not even close to gas intensive. If Protoss can mass 300/200, 250/150 and 125/50 units on 2 bases, I'm fairly sure Zerg doesn't need 4+ bases to do something less gas intensive. Why do you compare ultras to collosi? Few collosi can wipe out every ground unit zerg has with good ground support and good forcefields. Few ultras gonna die until you even come close to toss army. You need a lot of them and upgraded to be worth something. What about bases you are again just theorycrafting. Toss can get a deathball on 2 bases, so you want to say that zerg can go ultras on 2 base? LOL "Protoss can get a huge 300/200/6, 250/150/3, 125/50/2 death ball off 2 bases but Zerg just doesn't have the resources to do the same." - every Zerg player ever. You'd think creep reduced income from mineral patches or something. Can't you read what I wrote? If you have, let's say, 4-5 collosus you can kill XX amount of hydra, etc if controlled well, if I have 4-5 ultras then they just die before reaching your huge army. You need much bigger army to fight toss deathball. Thing is some protosses just can't understand no matter how many times you say that. Didn't you watch the replay? The Ultralisks don't die, that's the whole point of this. Their size reduces Colossus splash, their armour mitigates more damage than any other unit in game (except Hardened Shield in the right circumstance), and their health pool is so big that you have enough time to react with Transfuse. That's not even including their ridiculous splash damage. The only problem with this army composition is surviving long enough to get there, otherwise it's the perfect way of beating the "death ball". And this is not a gas intensive army. You don't need to spam Ultralisks, you just need to keep the ones you have alive.
so you take a replay where an uncontrolled protoss army loses to your composition as a proof that your composition is good? whats next? wanna write strategies and upload replays against the easy AI as a proof for how great it is?
i admittedly dont have a very high opinion of your strategy, but i would actually be very happy to be proven wrong, but so far youre not doing a very good job at that.
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The big question is how are you going to stop the 3rd and 4th base from the P? If they get it up, it does not matter that you have some ultras to attack.
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I actually tried it! And i don't think it will work... Without creep you will die to kiting colossus and stalkers because your queens wont get in range for transfuse and your hydras will be slow as hell.
So if they control the creep it will be an easy win for them, and you have no way of stopping them from killing creep tumours.
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This build actually works pretty well as long as you have the APM to:
Keep your creep spreading during the mid game. Hide unused tumors off to the side, keep using those extra queens you are making, and have creep spread along several attack routes so that even if he kills all the tumors along one lane, you can hold him, then counter attack along another.
Keep up your transfuses.
This build also gets demolished once the toss gets up a templar archives. A few feedbacks will wipe out the queens in instants, and he can either pull back to make the used up templar into archons, or make a few extra HTs to storm down the hyrdas.
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Ultra/hydra/queen is very dependent on positioning. If the zerg player engages the deathball out in the open, can get a nice concave and a nice surround with ultras, then the deathball will die. If the zerg player tries to attack up a ramp, or through a choke, the zerg forces will get slaughtered.
Hydras aren't the only dps in this composition, in fact I would argue that against stalker/colo/void, that the ultras will out dps the hydras. Un-upgraded Ultras do 40 dps to stalkers and colo, toss in the splash, and they eat stalkers for breakfast. However, Ultras only do 17.4 dps to non-armored units, kinda pathetic. A protoss player can take advantage of this by having zealots in front of his stalkers. Sure the zealots won't last incredibly long against the hydras, but they will soak up a lot of potential damage from the ultras, giving the toss time to focus fire the ultras down. Better yet, you could use Archons, which are only psionic, do bonus damage to biological, and have 350 shields. They are also large, meaning that the ultra splash will be largely in-effective against them.
In truth hydras are absolutely terrible. Infested terran are so much more cost effective. An infestor with 200 energy can spawn 8 IT's. This means that each IT costs roughly, 12.5/18.75, and 1/4 a supply each. They do only 5.2 less dps than a hydra, but receive the same dps increase from upgrades.
Using infestors, you can much more easily surround the deathball with IT's, than you could with hydras. You can have the infestors burrowed under your army so that they can launch IT's farther. You can NP the void rays and use them to kill the colossi, and you can fungal growth the army to keep it from running away. Infestors allow for superior dps/cost potential, can nullify the ultra's / brood lords counter, and allow you to control when and where you engage.
I don't think hydra/ultra/queen is the answer to the deathball. I am pretty certain that something involving infestors is. (Mostly because of how crappy hydras are)
Edit: I haven't had the opportunity to use infestors against the deathball, but I have used it against a templar heavy army. I can upload a replay if people want.
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Australia8532 Posts
On February 20 2011 19:24 DarKFoRcE wrote:
looks good in theory, will suck most of the time in actual games. In ZvP, in a macrogame, alot comes down to how long you can delay his third and how well you can trade units as early as possible. this doesnt help with it at all.
also, even when you get there, good protoss players wont let you spread creep right until outside their bases, so you cant even use the usual superior mobility on ground.
and then, once protoss gets to his voidray/colo/mothership combination (maybe with some immortals mixed in because of the ultras..) youre not going to heal fast enough to prevent your shit from dying in a couple of seconds.
so overall, i dont really see this working in situations where you havent already won anyway for whatever reason. if you have any actual proof of it working in highlevel games, i'd be thrilled to see replays.
I was typing a replay to this thread and thought i'd scan through for a relevant answer.. and i saw your highlighted post and it pretty much said everything i wanted to say so basically - thank you TL for highlighted users - and thank you Darkforce for your post
Don't feel like this strategy would work at a high level
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pretty sure catz did this on day9s daily but with only ultra/queen in the lategame. all against 3600+ master protosses too. I think the real problem would be getting the queen number to where you need it to be. The toss can easily engage you several times in the early-midgame to reduce your queen count and then retreat with ff or something, idk.
Tbh, this is basically like a stronger version of roach/hydra. The ultras are like the roaches, usually the ones that should tank the damage and do decent dps themselves while hydras do even more dps but are a bit more squishy. In this case, ultras are great tanks and easy to transfuse (cus they're so huge, so easy to click on em), and do pretty good dps if you get all your ultras in a great concave + forcefields won't work.
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The funniest part about this analogy is how almost no one plays a tank, akin to how almost no one gets Ultralisks.
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United States7483 Posts
Well, if your ultralisks are just there to tank damage and your hydras to deal it, armor upgrades will be all you really need for the ultras. Ranged damage ups and armor ups should be plenty for this composition.
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On February 20 2011 23:30 branflakes14 wrote:Didn't you watch the replay? The Ultralisks don't die, that's the whole point of this. Their size reduces Colossus splash, their armour mitigates more damage than any other unit in game (except Hardened Shield in the right circumstance), and their health pool is so big that you have enough time to react with Transfuse. That's not even including their ridiculous splash damage. The only problem with this army composition is surviving long enough to get there, otherwise it's the perfect way of beating the "death ball". And this is not a gas intensive army. You don't need to spam Ultralisks, you just need to keep the ones you have alive.
hydra queen ultra and max upgrades
definitely not a gas heavy composition.
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This is a good thought, but is going to run into allot of problems vs a good opp. Why?
1) Gas. You're going to need 3-4 base to support this. In combination with the tech heavy build (3/3 fast, fast hive, fast ultras, etc), you're going to have a hell of a time getting your 3rd base secure, not to mention your 4th.
2) Time. Zerg need to slow down Protoss's 3rd base. You're teching AND expanding like crazy early. If you even survive, there's no way you are going to be able to delay your protoss's 3rd unless you invest a ton in roaches with roach speed. If you're investing in this, your tech is delayed, you're using up a ton of gas, and your end game army mix is thrown off.
3) Creep. You're going to have a stugglebear time of protecting your creep tumors, as a good protoss, he's going to use an obs to restrict creep, and until you have ultras out, your queen/hydra mix isn't going to be able to deal with gateway/colo. Without the creep spread to support this composition, your hydras and queens are super immobile.
That being said, if you are significantly outplaying someone, you can make just about anything work. I'm sure there are people you can beat with this, but I feel against a quality protoss, this build just doesn't add up to a win.
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@ Darkforce
There is a double length Day9 daily episode about this. RootCatz was laddering going mass queen + ultra/brood lord. It looked awesome. I can't speak about the value of this build once it's not surprising anymore but it killed some menacing armies. You should check them out if you haven't and get your own impression.
http://day9tv.blip.tv/file/4737515/
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On February 21 2011 00:23 DarKFoRcE wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 23:30 branflakes14 wrote:On February 20 2011 22:08 Alpina wrote:On February 20 2011 21:03 branflakes14 wrote:On February 20 2011 20:44 Alpina wrote:On February 20 2011 19:00 branflakes14 wrote:On February 20 2011 18:44 Alpina wrote:
So first thing is that this combo is very gas intensive you should have like 4+ bases to support that. Ultras are the same cost as his Colossi and you don't need that many of them as the idea is they don't die, and Hydras cost the same gas as Stalkers. Not even close to gas intensive. If Protoss can mass 300/200, 250/150 and 125/50 units on 2 bases, I'm fairly sure Zerg doesn't need 4+ bases to do something less gas intensive. Why do you compare ultras to collosi? Few collosi can wipe out every ground unit zerg has with good ground support and good forcefields. Few ultras gonna die until you even come close to toss army. You need a lot of them and upgraded to be worth something. What about bases you are again just theorycrafting. Toss can get a deathball on 2 bases, so you want to say that zerg can go ultras on 2 base? LOL "Protoss can get a huge 300/200/6, 250/150/3, 125/50/2 death ball off 2 bases but Zerg just doesn't have the resources to do the same." - every Zerg player ever. You'd think creep reduced income from mineral patches or something. Can't you read what I wrote? If you have, let's say, 4-5 collosus you can kill XX amount of hydra, etc if controlled well, if I have 4-5 ultras then they just die before reaching your huge army. You need much bigger army to fight toss deathball. Thing is some protosses just can't understand no matter how many times you say that. Didn't you watch the replay? The Ultralisks don't die, that's the whole point of this. Their size reduces Colossus splash, their armour mitigates more damage than any other unit in game (except Hardened Shield in the right circumstance), and their health pool is so big that you have enough time to react with Transfuse. That's not even including their ridiculous splash damage. The only problem with this army composition is surviving long enough to get there, otherwise it's the perfect way of beating the "death ball". And this is not a gas intensive army. You don't need to spam Ultralisks, you just need to keep the ones you have alive. so you take a replay where an uncontrolled protoss army loses to your composition as a proof that your composition is good? whats next? wanna write strategies and upload replays against the easy AI as a proof for how great it is? i admittedly dont have a very high opinion of your strategy, but i would actually be very happy to be proven wrong, but so far youre not doing a very good job at that.
[url blocked]
This is a replay done the same way as the first, except this time instead of 100 supply of Ultra/Queen/Hydra, I used 200 supply of Hydra/Roach/Corruptor against the 150 supply of Protoss, and did as much corrupting as I could with the Corruptors and focused Colossi as best I could, and the Protoss wins. Since the Protoss army is attack moved in both replays, lack of micro can be cancelled out as a common factor. If this isn't solid enough evidence that Zergs are tackling the "death ball" wrong in the late game, then nothing ever will be and Zergs should continue to complain about their race being underpowered. The upgrades I used were Roach speed, Hydralisk range and Colossus range.
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On February 21 2011 18:27 branflakes14 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2011 00:23 DarKFoRcE wrote:On February 20 2011 23:30 branflakes14 wrote:On February 20 2011 22:08 Alpina wrote:On February 20 2011 21:03 branflakes14 wrote:On February 20 2011 20:44 Alpina wrote:On February 20 2011 19:00 branflakes14 wrote:On February 20 2011 18:44 Alpina wrote:
So first thing is that this combo is very gas intensive you should have like 4+ bases to support that. Ultras are the same cost as his Colossi and you don't need that many of them as the idea is they don't die, and Hydras cost the same gas as Stalkers. Not even close to gas intensive. If Protoss can mass 300/200, 250/150 and 125/50 units on 2 bases, I'm fairly sure Zerg doesn't need 4+ bases to do something less gas intensive. Why do you compare ultras to collosi? Few collosi can wipe out every ground unit zerg has with good ground support and good forcefields. Few ultras gonna die until you even come close to toss army. You need a lot of them and upgraded to be worth something. What about bases you are again just theorycrafting. Toss can get a deathball on 2 bases, so you want to say that zerg can go ultras on 2 base? LOL "Protoss can get a huge 300/200/6, 250/150/3, 125/50/2 death ball off 2 bases but Zerg just doesn't have the resources to do the same." - every Zerg player ever. You'd think creep reduced income from mineral patches or something. Can't you read what I wrote? If you have, let's say, 4-5 collosus you can kill XX amount of hydra, etc if controlled well, if I have 4-5 ultras then they just die before reaching your huge army. You need much bigger army to fight toss deathball. Thing is some protosses just can't understand no matter how many times you say that. Didn't you watch the replay? The Ultralisks don't die, that's the whole point of this. Their size reduces Colossus splash, their armour mitigates more damage than any other unit in game (except Hardened Shield in the right circumstance), and their health pool is so big that you have enough time to react with Transfuse. That's not even including their ridiculous splash damage. The only problem with this army composition is surviving long enough to get there, otherwise it's the perfect way of beating the "death ball". And this is not a gas intensive army. You don't need to spam Ultralisks, you just need to keep the ones you have alive. so you take a replay where an uncontrolled protoss army loses to your composition as a proof that your composition is good? whats next? wanna write strategies and upload replays against the easy AI as a proof for how great it is? i admittedly dont have a very high opinion of your strategy, but i would actually be very happy to be proven wrong, but so far youre not doing a very good job at that. [url blocked] This is a replay done the same way as the first, except this time instead of 100 supply of Ultra/Queen/Hydra, I used 200 supply of Hydra/Roach/Corruptor against the 150 supply of Protoss, and did as much corrupting as I could with the Corruptors and focused Colossi as best I could, and the Protoss wins. Since the Protoss army is attack moved in both replays, lack of micro can be cancelled out as a common factor. If this isn't solid enough evidence that Zergs are tackling the "death ball" wrong in the late game, then nothing ever will be and Zergs should continue to complain about their race being underpowered. The upgrades I used were Roach speed, Hydralisk range and Colossus range.
So your imaginable unit composition with unit tester "proof" is enough evidence for this to work?
Thing is you can't just blindly take a unit composition. No zerg is going to get hydras and then ultras - he just die before that, so what should I use before I get ultras? Attack with roach/hydra and get crushed and then wait for my reinforcing ultras (who produces 5mins) to get my "perfect'' unit composition while protoss deathball is moving towards my main?
You are just blindly looking at late game composition, but it's so hard to get there. Usually you got range upgrades for roaches and hydras, but in this case you need melee upgrades for ultras, right? So again it's not easy to transition from roach/hydra/corruptor into ultras.
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On February 21 2011 19:09 Alpina wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2011 18:27 branflakes14 wrote:On February 21 2011 00:23 DarKFoRcE wrote:On February 20 2011 23:30 branflakes14 wrote:On February 20 2011 22:08 Alpina wrote:On February 20 2011 21:03 branflakes14 wrote:On February 20 2011 20:44 Alpina wrote:On February 20 2011 19:00 branflakes14 wrote:On February 20 2011 18:44 Alpina wrote:
So first thing is that this combo is very gas intensive you should have like 4+ bases to support that. Ultras are the same cost as his Colossi and you don't need that many of them as the idea is they don't die, and Hydras cost the same gas as Stalkers. Not even close to gas intensive. If Protoss can mass 300/200, 250/150 and 125/50 units on 2 bases, I'm fairly sure Zerg doesn't need 4+ bases to do something less gas intensive. Why do you compare ultras to collosi? Few collosi can wipe out every ground unit zerg has with good ground support and good forcefields. Few ultras gonna die until you even come close to toss army. You need a lot of them and upgraded to be worth something. What about bases you are again just theorycrafting. Toss can get a deathball on 2 bases, so you want to say that zerg can go ultras on 2 base? LOL "Protoss can get a huge 300/200/6, 250/150/3, 125/50/2 death ball off 2 bases but Zerg just doesn't have the resources to do the same." - every Zerg player ever. You'd think creep reduced income from mineral patches or something. Can't you read what I wrote? If you have, let's say, 4-5 collosus you can kill XX amount of hydra, etc if controlled well, if I have 4-5 ultras then they just die before reaching your huge army. You need much bigger army to fight toss deathball. Thing is some protosses just can't understand no matter how many times you say that. Didn't you watch the replay? The Ultralisks don't die, that's the whole point of this. Their size reduces Colossus splash, their armour mitigates more damage than any other unit in game (except Hardened Shield in the right circumstance), and their health pool is so big that you have enough time to react with Transfuse. That's not even including their ridiculous splash damage. The only problem with this army composition is surviving long enough to get there, otherwise it's the perfect way of beating the "death ball". And this is not a gas intensive army. You don't need to spam Ultralisks, you just need to keep the ones you have alive. so you take a replay where an uncontrolled protoss army loses to your composition as a proof that your composition is good? whats next? wanna write strategies and upload replays against the easy AI as a proof for how great it is? i admittedly dont have a very high opinion of your strategy, but i would actually be very happy to be proven wrong, but so far youre not doing a very good job at that. [url blocked] This is a replay done the same way as the first, except this time instead of 100 supply of Ultra/Queen/Hydra, I used 200 supply of Hydra/Roach/Corruptor against the 150 supply of Protoss, and did as much corrupting as I could with the Corruptors and focused Colossi as best I could, and the Protoss wins. Since the Protoss army is attack moved in both replays, lack of micro can be cancelled out as a common factor. If this isn't solid enough evidence that Zergs are tackling the "death ball" wrong in the late game, then nothing ever will be and Zergs should continue to complain about their race being underpowered. The upgrades I used were Roach speed, Hydralisk range and Colossus range. So your imaginable unit composition with unit tester "proof" is enough evidence for this to work? Thing is you can't just blindly take a unit composition. No zerg is going to get hydras and then ultras - he just die before that, so what should I use before I get ultras? Attack with roach/hydra and get crushed and then wait for my reinforcing ultras (who produces 5mins) to get my "perfect'' unit composition while protoss deathball is moving towards my main? You are just blindly looking at late game composition, but it's so hard to get there. Usually you got range upgrades for roaches and hydras, but in this case you need melee upgrades for ultras, right? So again it's not easy to transition from roach/hydra/corruptor into ultras.
All I'm suggesting is a late game composition which crushes Colo/VR/Stalker, an army that Zerg players are struggling with at the moment. I'm not saying how to get there or how to play until you get that composition, all I'm saying is that late game Zerg isn't as weak as Zerg players seem to be making it out to be if you can get the right composition.
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People bash on him far too much, at least appreciate the fact that the composition is thought through, if you are not convinced about it to work then don't bother trying it out.
However, if you are at least convinced by the composition, try some custom games and figure a build order out how to get there.
I agree that this isn't finest strategy thread on the forum, but you guys are just bashing him for the sake of bashing. There are also people who just say zerg is underpowered and that the toss composition is imba (*cough* idra & artosis *cough*). At least he is thinking about countering it.
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On February 21 2011 19:47 diLLa wrote:
People bash on him far too much, at least appreciate the fact that the composition is thought through, if you are not convinced about it to work then don't bother trying it out.
However, if you are at least convinced by the composition, try some custom games and figure a build order out how to get there.
I agree that this isn't finest strategy thread on the forum, but you guys are just bashing him for the sake of bashing. There are also people who just say zerg is underpowered and that the toss composition is imba (*cough* idra & artosis *cough*). At least he is thinking about countering it.
That's cool that he comes with new idea, but you should expect a lot of criticism if you just give a late game unit composition w/o any replays or transitioning or anything 
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hmmmm was so effective.. but how to get there. Obviously tech up to hive as soon as possible, whilst at the same time taking at least two expansions and holding of the early/mid game protoss pushes.
:SSS if only!
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HAHA i totally agree dusterr...How will we ever get gosu creep spread off a queen build!?!?!?!?! GG : )
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Though not exactly what the OP posted, I've had success going roach/hydra/ultra. Here's a replay where I won head on against a colossi/void/stalker death ball (I was maxed and while he wasn't, but I did have 40 zerglings in my army that didn't do any damage).
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/143101-1v1-protoss-zerg-xelnaga-caverns
It's really nice not having to worry about force fields or having useless corruptors after the battle. The key to the effectiveness of this unit composition is using the ultras to soak up damage as you get a good surround.
But how to tech to ultras without dying mid game? I opened with a 5 roach rush and creep blocked his expo.. You get a huge economic advantage mid game and lets you tech to ultras quicker. I detail the strategy here
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Im glad to see that more people are trying to incorporate queens into their plans
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I like the idea. I would say that the limiting factor is the ultralisk build time. You would open queen/roach, transition to roach/queen/hydra, and then you could either a) transition to corruptor, as usual or b) try to delay with roach/hydra/queen and rush to ultras. The problem with a) is that you'll only build ultras after losing your maxed roach/hydra corruptor army, and they take FOREVER to build. In the meantime he may well roll your 3rd/4th base(s). The problem with b) is that you may not be able to hold stalker/collosus/sentry with just roach/hydra/queen, which you'll have to do to get ultras out in time.
That said, this composition does not look too bad if he opts for early air. It will delay his collosus push timing significantly enough that you could feasibly have ultras up in time, or close to in time. Also, you'll be totally fine pumping queens and hydras to fight his air harrass. I'll have to test it. I have a protoss buddy that likes to open forge FE into air, so I'll run a couple games.
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The key is making a lot of Ultralisks. Once enough colossus get out, the Hydralisks will get fried to the bone and in order to NOT get your Hydralisks fried, you will need to make a LOT of Ultralisks. Because of this, you will need to get your fourth expansion.
Colossus/Void Ray will easily rip this build to shreds unless you can effectively use Tranfusion. In THAT case, a Protoss can easily make some High Templars and Feedback the queens, causing death for only 50 energy which then leaves Hydralisks and Ultralisks. Hydralisks will fall to the Colossus then and Ultralisks will get kited by the stalkers and such.
Of course, like any other Unit Compositon, this one has flaws. But I think that this composition is countered by just basic, standard unit compositon from the Protoss.
Granted, a Queen can easily shoot a Colossus or a Void Ray but the Colossus can just simply be moved back ever so slightly and the Void Rays can target the Ultralisks. Since Ultralisks fall so easily to Void Rays, Transfusion will have to be VERY effectively used.
Not to mention, Stalkers can easily kite the Ultralisks so maybe some fungal growth can be added.
I also think that in order to adapt to Void Rays you might need the Hydralisks CLOSER to the front lines, but then the colossus will simply shoot the Hydralisks, resulting in fried Hydra.
Another thing, this build is quite immobile. Say that you get a new expansion and a void ray comes and shoots it. It will take years for those Hydralisks to get to the expansion. You start to lose map control and before you know it the Protoss is outbasing you.
In short, this build is immobile (no map control) and is countered by the standard unit composition you can expect from a Protoss.
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Seems like a cool composition, but seems extremely gas heavy, especially if you factor in melee/carapace upgrades. It's definitely not an early or mid-game composition, which means you'll need to transition out of Roach/Hydra/Corruptor into this once you're on 4+ bases, but a good Protoss will probably not let up his pressure long enough for you to radically change your composition. Creep spread will be great with so many Queens, but good Protoss are also very active about taking out tumors whenever they can get away with it. All it takes is a Stalker and an Observer. You can keep placing them because I'm sure you'll have plenty of Queen energy but that's extremely micro intensive, as is constantly transfusing Ultralisks that are taking focused Immortal fire.
I definitely think Ultralisks have a place in ZvP, I just don't know what it is yet. The ability to break force fields and annihilate Stalker/Colossi compositions can be beneficial, but it only takes a thin wall of Zealots and a handful of Immortals to reduce their effectiveness drastically. And with all the upfront costs (tech/upgrades) to make Ultralisks worth it, having to immediately switch away from them after one engagement seems like a net loss.
I like the though you put into the post though, and as an ex-WoW player I can appreciate the logic behind it keep up the good work!
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yeah, i mean it is good in theory, the only problems are that you need tons of creep, which takes away queen energy. It also requires all upgrades from the evolution chambers, which gets very expensive. it also is not a very quickly-replenishing army. when you lose those 10 queens, unless you are on 10 hatcheries it will take FOREVER to get them again.
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God I hate it when lesser players throw out their theory crafting and state it as facts... This strategy will never work at high lvl because against a good protoss you wont have creepspread anywere near his base, and also, you must continuosly pump out queens in order to get the right amount in your "death ball" lategame which will suck mid game when u need to prevent the toss from getting his 3rd... Nice try but no banana
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On February 23 2011 12:20 Skinnyowllegs wrote:
God I hate it when lesser players throw out their theory crafting and state it as facts... This strategy will never work at high lvl because against a good protoss you wont have creepspread anywere near his base, and also, you must continuosly pump out queens in order to get the right amount in your "death ball" lategame which will suck mid game when u need to prevent the toss from getting his 3rd... Nice try but no banana
You raise some valid points about creep spread and getting enough Queens but is it really necessary to call somebody a "lesser" player? He put a lot of effort into the original post and even if all that comes of this thread is somebody, somewhere decides to use Ultralisks more in ZvP, it's a positive thread on TL.
No need to be so negative. You pointed out some flaws, albeit the same ones that everyone else pointed out. Leave it at that.
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EPT
