EPT[D] TvZ, better to get +1 armor first? - Page 5
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phaleos
Australia105 Posts
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SheffiTB
Canada223 Posts
On September 29 2011 13:08 phaleos wrote: + 1 armor is useless because no zerg that is not retarded would rely on pure ling to fight marines. By the time +1 armor is done you would be at least 9 min into the game, there's noway your zerg opponent wouldn't have have blings by then. vs Bio Zerglings are only there to hold the terran army in place and banelings do the DPS. +1 armor does nothing against banelings whereas +1 attack helps with kiting banelings significantly. this is why we read the previous pages. | ||
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Blyadischa
419 Posts
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Hattori_Hanzo
Singapore1229 Posts
On the other hand, as other players have already mentioned, for everything else, +1 att is more sensible if you are going to invest the APM to keep them alive with support (medivacs, seige tanks, etc). | ||
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Caelyn0101
103 Posts
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Fairwell
Austria195 Posts
On September 29 2011 03:39 thobel wrote: No, its 6 and 6. The lings regen just a little health in the almost nonexistent time between shots. On occasion, you'll be able to get it in 5. Go grab five marines with +1, point them at a ling, and notice that it tends to not die in one volley. This appears to be a common misconception. The second point, however, is valid. I know that zerg units have a slow natural health regen, but marines shoot to fast. I've just tried it out in unit tester (without even using stim) and 5 marines with +1 one-shottet a ling. Once you hit +1 attack you usually also get stim ready around the same time for a good timing or stim is even finished way before that which makes your marines even shooter faster thereby giving zerg units less time to regen during shots. Apart from that most of the time several marines shoot at the same ling (the lings running into range first or being first while kiting back. When you just let a single marine shoot at a single zergling at a time (in this case also with stim) you need indeed 6 shots, once you grab 2 marines at once the regen won't kick in before the ling has already died (you can test it by grabbing 2 marines and shooting at a ling without using stim while sending back one of the two marines after doing 2 shots, the 3rd shot of the marine that stays finishes of the ling by doing the 5th shot altogether. So in most ingame cases marines shooting lings it will actually reduce the amount of shots. Thanks for pointing out this point though, I thought about adding a comment about regen not being important here since marines will stim (apart from early game small engagements where you usually won't have +1 anyways ...) and several marines will most of the time shoot at a ling, so I just assumed it would be no issue at all. So after testing it now we can see that like stated above it can sometimes don't do any benefits for you, mostly it will though. | ||
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SheffiTB
Canada223 Posts
On September 29 2011 14:08 Caelyn0101 wrote: What avilo said is 100% correct. any good player with decent micro gets + 1 wepons because armor only kicks in when u get hit. and if u micro well u can deny the zerglings surface area and alot of ur marines wont get hit. er go + 1 wepons becomes a much better choice . as marines are ranged and u will always be attacking lings or any other unit. The problem with this is that +1 weapons doesn't actually aid marines to kill zerglings faster. The zergling will regenerate one hp, making it 6 shots to kill a zergling with or without +1 weapons. | ||
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shawster
Canada2485 Posts
also banelings as you said before, drops, etc etc. +1 is just so much better. | ||
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j0ker
275 Posts
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the p00n
Netherlands615 Posts
On September 29 2011 05:29 jrdn wrote: I fail to see how uber micro somehow offsets the effectiveness of the test. If we start with the assumption that armor marines > attack marines vs lings...we see that the only reason this could be possible is that the increase in armor buys enough time for the marines to make more attacks. This is unchanged in a highly micro'd situation. At some point the zerglings will catch the marines and attack them. These attacks are then mitigated by the increase in armor as already posited by our OP and SheffiTB. Therefore, micro would not somehow bypass armor's effectiveness, instead it just extends the time duration of our test. On a different manner, I can see armor upgrades being very effective not only against lings but hydra and mutas as well. It doesn't, you are pretty much right. However, I have stopped replying a long time ago because the topic is filled with bronze leaguers who do not understand timings and theorycraft away (best example: the post directly above me). With early drops it is actually even better to get +1 armor due to dropping behind mineral lines, generating chokes which is much better for +1 armor too because +1 weapons does almost nothing, and the way TvZ builds flow you will be getting +1 weapons after +1 armor has been researched and then start double upgrades after 1/1 has finished, so there is only a very small window where you will only have 0/1 and in this window the zerg's responses are limited when dealing with early marine or marine drop pressure. The huge post with the youtube video about unit counters (although I appreciate the effort) is actually the most misinformed, ironically. The topic wasn't a question at first either, it was a statement, a TL mod changed it so it is now politically correct. | ||
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Micromancer
Canada116 Posts
The way I see it, these are the benefits to +1 attack over +1 armor. -your units are in a ball, because marines have range the more you get the bigger the ball is, the +1 attack applies to all of them, while the armor only applies to those getting hit. -Especially late game the Terran relies on raw damage output to stop the zerg melee from getting close enough to do damage. -Drops/Harass/Harass defense, you want to deal damage as quick as possible, if an actual force engages you you have such a small number of units you either pick up and leave or loose them any ways. -scales with stim Summary: In any general long term strategy the attack upgrades are going to be far more beneficial. Advantages of +1 armor and over +1 attack: -scales well in small engagements early on, perhaps before stim and bane ling speed come into play. Summary: I think there could be a case for a +1 in addition to combat shield pressure. There are already some strong combat shield timings i think it would be cool to add +1 armor to them. As long as you are planning on transitioning back to attack upgrades after. Normally I tend to time my stim upgrade to coincide with medivac production, as I feel that stiming before medivacs is a heavy commitment that puts your army on a timer. As long as you are planning on getting to 1/1 at some point, I feel it could very well be better to get the armor at the same time as combat shields, early on before unit numbers become large, and then get the attack upgrades as you get stim and medivacs out. Note: I think people are mis-interpreting the intent of the post here. The OP is not insisting that armor upgrades are better than attack upgrades in general, but was saying that depending on your upgrade timing it could be beneficial to your unit retention to get the +1 armor first, in a small time window early on in the game. Many people here are talking about mutas, and drops and what not, but by that phase of the game the T is often at 1/1, rendering the point mute. | ||
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Nightshake
France412 Posts
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TtwoR
Korea (South)10 Posts
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Sovern
United States312 Posts
People arguing that +1 attack is useful if you have micro are also wrong only because even with stim and good stutter stepping your units are still going to be hit because speedlings are faster than stimmed marines. The bottom line is that you can trade armies much more efficiently with +armor vs attack when it comes to zerg. | ||
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xlava
United States676 Posts
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Fairwell
Austria195 Posts
On September 29 2011 18:29 Micromancer wrote: Note: I think people are mis-interpreting the intent of the post here. The OP is not insisting that armor upgrades are better than attack upgrades in general, but was saying that depending on your upgrade timing it could be beneficial to your unit retention to get the +1 armor first, in a small time window early on in the game. Many people here are talking about mutas, and drops and what not, but by that phase of the game the T is often at 1/1, rendering the point mute. Very good point, you are actually pointing out what the OP obviously forgot to do. But now that you mentioned it and after rereading the OP, I think he was talking mainly about this stage of the game only and getting the right upgrade at the right time (like combat shield with +1 armor and then +1 attack with stim+medivacs maybe like you pointed out above). Unfortunatelly the OP didn't make it clear in his starting post and was even talking about having +3 armor on marines instead of +3 attack. That's why I think all or most people here interepreted it as a general question, whether you should prioritorise attack or armor upgrades for marines in this matchup instead of purely early game +1 attack or armor timings. | ||
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itsMAHVELbaybee
292 Posts
With combat shields and +1 armor you can apply pressure and a bit more aggressive with your pokes and have a better chance at coming out with more marines during fights. Keeping marines alive will always help your main push. By getting +1 armor first, you can delay your armory. Usually you try to time your armory for when +1 weapons would finish so you can continue and get +2. With +1 armor first though, you can delay the armory and spend the gas on getting more medivacs and tanks out. Lots of people have problem perfectly timing their upgrades and forget building the armory at a good time, especially when they are short on gas. With this idea you can stay on one ebay and use the upgrades when they would make the biggest difference. Armor in the early game and weapons in the mid-late game. Not a bad idea to start trying out. Remember back in BW days where you would get +1 armor against fast lurker tech. Edit: Regarding stutter step. No one has absolutely perfect stutter step micro unless your a Ursadak bot. You will still not have the dps equal to just standing there and firing. | ||
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Hattori_Hanzo
Singapore1229 Posts
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SheffiTB
Canada223 Posts
-can survive an extra 3 zergling shots (2 shots stimmed) -takes two banelings to kill a marine even after using stim w/o medivac support (people without gosu micro will waste an extra baneling on doing 1 damage to a couple of marines) -Reduces mutalisk damage from 9, 3, 1 to 8, 2, 0 -can survive tank splash while stimmed (if tank is attacking zerglings in melee range of stimmed marines, which is a typical ingame situation, marine can get an extra shot off before dying) -allows you to delay medivacs in order to get more tanks out Cons of +1 armor first: -does nothing against roaches -less effective in larger numbers* Benefits of +1 weapons first: -takes 1-2 less shots to kill a mutalisk (depends how many marines you have, if they're stimmed, etc) -takes 1 less shot to kill a baneling -can do more hit-and-run damage with drops -takes 3-4 less shots to kill a roach (depends on how many marines you have, if they're stimmed, etc) -allows you to delay tanks in order to get more medivacs out Cons of +1 weapons first: -does nothing against zerglings -less effective in smaller numbers *but by the time you have larger numbers you will likely have either +2 or 1/1 anyway In conclusion, I think early marine/tank and other direct pushing play would benefit more from +1 armor (unless your opponent defends with roaches), and early marine/medivac and other heavy harassment play would benefit more from +1 weapons. | ||
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Iatrokles
United States12 Posts
I haven't done any research / testing on this, I'm just giving a bit of input before I go to work. Let me know what ya'll think, because I actually have been going Weapons over Armor but might be going Armor in the future. | ||
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