I have tested 32 speedlings with no other upgrades against 16 combat shield/stimpack marines, with +1 armor or with +1 weapons.
In a 1v1 setting (2 zerglings against 1 marine), one zergling survives against the marine with +1 weapons, 21 health left. However, the marine survives against the 2 zerglings with 2 hp left when he is given +1 armor instead.
In big fights, the results are even more dramatic:
These results are without micro. When you stutter step back (allowing for slightly more attacks from the marine's side and slightly less from the speedling's side), the results are approximately the same.
Against Mutalisks it gets a bit trickier, because most mutas aren't going to engage marines unless they are very small in number. Due to good players not engaging in muta/marine duels that make them lose (many) mutas, the upgrades seem to have a very small effect in a realistic battle, making +1 weapons slightly (although almost negligible) more effective as you will be taking a few shots at mutas when chasing them out of your base, resulting in more damage output. However, +3 armor proves to be more effective against mutalisks than +3 weapons, due to negating the bounce damage.
On October 01 2011 04:41 Xapti wrote: I think many people stated the many good reasons to get attack over armor (not to say that it's always better), but there should be a summary:
If you're going to do a post like this, make sure someone didn't alreaqdy do a summary on the previous page of the pros/cons of +1 attack vs. +1 armor early on.
1. Armor is most effective vs mutalisks and zerglings. In fact those are probably the only 2 units where it's better than getting attack. Banelings is the biggest issue in this sense since banelings' damage is not mitigated much by armor (it's effectively useless), and banelings are the biggest counter to marines (at least when used well). Armor is also useless against fungal growth.
Stimmed marines w/o medivacs or combat shields, but with +1 armor, can take 2 baneling hits. Without +1 armor, they take 1 hit before dying, because that +1 armor lets them survive on 1 hp, and unless your opponent is IMNestea, he won't be able to micro it so that a second baneling won't hit and do only 1 damage.
2. Critical mass. When an engagement is unbalanced, such as only 2/3 as may zerg units attacking as there should be, +1 attack would get the advantage I think, due to more enemies being killed before they even get to their target.
This would be true if +1 weapons affected the number of shots needed to kill zerglings (the main unit in the most popular ZvT composition, muta/ling/bling).
3. Similar to #3, exposed marines. Versus ground units of poor range (pretty much all the zerg ground units used in ZvT), marines will do better with +1 attack when they are sitting in a protected area such as behind the mineral line, on a ramp, behind a wall, behind or inside a bunker, behind held position (or attacking) SCVs, behind marauders, etc.
Yeah, but this would only happen either if you're dropping your opponent (which, on the previous page, I say in my conclusion that it's better to get +1 weapons if opening marine/medivac) or your tank line was broken (which it would be a hell of a lot tougher to break if you had +1 armor, tested and calculated)
4. Stim buffs marine's DPS, so it gets even more DPS when +1 attack is researched. It's not a big difference on it's own, but It is also —or especially— amplified when used with good micro control.
Once again, the main problem with this is that zerglings don't die faster when you have +1 weapons. How about combining the extra dps of stim with the extra survivability of +1 armor? I've tested it, and it's better against ling/bling/muta comps.
Also, something I'm proposing that I don't think has been said: It would depend on what the zerg is upgrading as well — attack or armor (or nothing). It might not make (in fact very likely wouldn't) armor a worse choice than attack, but it would even things out so there's less difference.
Thought I am not sure exactly what difference it would make, you are right that it is likely to make some kind of difference.
nice find dude, although I think stim and +1 is better then stim and +1 armor ; ), maybe thats why everyone gets +1 first because of marine DPS with stim?
On September 23 2011 15:13 ChrisGraphex wrote: nice find dude, although I think stim and +1 is better then stim and +1 armor ; ), maybe thats why everyone gets +1 first because of marine DPS with stim?
These results are without micro. When you stutter step back (allowing for slightly more attacks from the marine's side and slightly less from the speedling's side), the results are approximately the same.
Wait, what? How is no micro vs micro = same results. That makes no sense at all.
I can understand how with no micro +1 armor is better. But the reason you want +1 attack is because, your supposed to be microing. And if your doing that well, you aren't taking many attacks. That's the entire point behind micro, to minimize damage.
Add in terrain, other Terran units and micro and you will more than understand why you should always have +1 attack over armor. Ontop of the fact that stim adds to the effect of +attack and not with +armor.
On September 23 2011 15:03 the p00n wrote: In a 1v1 setting (2 zerglings against 1 marine), one zergling survives against the marine with +1 weapons, 21 health left. However, the marine survives against the 2 zerglings with 2 hp left when he is given +1 armor instead.
Which upgrade you are talking about? the word "he" is not that helpful. is the lings geeting the upgrade or the rines?
Well, you notice the results come out the same with a human microing the units instead of leaving them still...
So common sense tells you, if you are microing your units and not letting them get hit...the +1 weapons is always better because armor is going to do nothing.
Voila, now you know why every good player gets weapons, not armor.
These results are without micro. When you stutter step back (allowing for slightly more attacks from the marine's side and slightly less from the speedling's side), the results are approximately the same.
Wait, what? How is no micro vs micro = same results. That makes no sense at all.
I meant the same results by %. For example +1 armor is [x]% more effective than +1 weapons without micro, and +1 armor is close to [x]% more effective than +1 with micro. Perhaps I should have been more clear.
That being said, I feel like I have given all the information in this thread that is necessary and will therefor stop replying; as my bronze-senses are tingling and I can't really use another ban/warning.
I disagree with the OP's assessment. Although +1 armor is more effective than +1 weapons in marines vs lings, this kind of situation is only part of the bigger picture of TvZ.
Reasons why +1 is probably better: - Drops. - Stutterstep micro, and I have a hard time believing that it has no impact on the results. Perhaps the OP's stutterstep is not up to par? - Focusing down banelings. - +1 weapons scale with stim.
The logic is that nobody has ever won a fight by getting hit. You should be microing your marines to minimize the amount of attacks that he gets off while maximizing the amount you do. In situations like hiding behind mineral lines and in bunkers where many marines can attack without being hit Weapons might turn out to be better.
Ling attack damage is 5. 1 armor drops that by 20% to 4. A zergling takes 11 strikes to kill a 55HP marine with no armor, but 14 against a marine with 1 armor. The marine is 27.3% tougher vs a standard ling.
Marine attack is 6. +1 weapons upgrade increases that by 16%.
I always thought that getting attack upgrades was always better because all races really splash marines and marauders to death with tanks banelings and colossorum, but recently zergs have been making mostly lings and fewer banelings so armor will probably do better right now.
Ling attack damage is 5. 1 armor drops that by 20% to 4. A zergling takes 11 strikes to kill a 55HP marine with no armor, but 14 against a marine with 1 armor. The marine is 27.3% tougher vs a standard ling.
Marine attack is 6. +1 weapons upgrade increases that by 16%.
And that is pretty much completely irrelevant; look what azzur posted. Why would someone throw jusr mass splings against marines? that would be pretty dumb.
Ling attack damage is 5. 1 armor drops that by 20% to 4. A zergling takes 11 strikes to kill a 55HP marine with no armor, but 14 against a marine with 1 armor. The marine is 27.3% tougher vs a standard ling.
Marine attack is 6. +1 weapons upgrade increases that by 16%.
This math is undeniable. I am excited to see pro's try this out. I feel like this will be groundbreaking.
+1 Weapons vs regular zerglings is not a critical upgrade anyway considering that they autoregen immediately as they are hit. Without the upgrade, it takes 6 shots to kill a ling. With it, it still takes 6 shots, so early on, it can be argued that +1 armor is more beneficial.
+1 armor is better vs just speedlings, even if you are against a close wall. If you want to go for an early +1 upgrade with stim and combat shield timing attack, get the armor instead of weapons. If you want to go for the long game and do other things, get +1 weapons as they do better against muta harass, roaches, and banelings.
OP's stutter micro is not that great or hes not being entirely honest. I have bad stutter micro and win with 4 marines left in his same scenario (16 marines with +1 weapons vs 32 lings). Though I do have 12 left when I get +1 armor instead of weapons. This is a specific situation though.
+1 armor is only useful vs pure speedling, and partially vs mutas too I guess. Add infestors / roaches / banelings into the mix though, and the +1 armor doesn't really do much. Weapons upgrade is better.
Ling attack damage is 5. 1 armor drops that by 20% to 4. A zergling takes 11 strikes to kill a 55HP marine with no armor, but 14 against a marine with 1 armor. The marine is 27.3% tougher vs a standard ling.
Marine attack is 6. +1 weapons upgrade increases that by 16%.
And that is pretty much completely irrelevant; look what azzur posted. Why would someone throw jusr mass splings against marines? that would be pretty dumb.
There are builds that revolve around having a quick macro hatch and making a million upgraded zerglings; they can actually fight marines decently if you have the larva.
But yeah, in any other situation I think it's better to go for +1 attack. ;
I found this out a few months ago but saw no application in game. Medivac heal makes fighting lings silly, its the mutas you want to rip through. Banelings too make armour look stupid, its just not useful against it.
I feel like that 1hp instant regen of zergs should be removed. It really destroys a lot of the critical upgrade things that should be intended imo. Lings one example of that: They have 35hp, without regen, +1attack would be critical. Also Infestors currently dont die to 2snipes, because they regen 1hp between -.-.
In a ling vs marine cenario, +1armor should be always better (micro however you want, not reducing the number of hits needed is not influencing the outcome). +1attack IS a critical upgrade vs banelings though (reduces hits from 6 to 5). So you might still want to get attack first, since banelings are more frightening.
On September 23 2011 15:03 the p00n wrote: I have tested 32 speedlings with no other upgrades against 16 combat shield/stimpack marines, with +1 armor or with +1 weapons.
In a 1v1 setting (2 zerglings against 1 marine), one zergling survives against the marine with +1 weapons, 21 health left. However, the marine survives against the 2 zerglings with 2 hp left when he is given +1 armor instead.
In big fights, the results are even more dramatic:
These results are without micro. When you stutter step back (allowing for slightly more attacks from the marine's side and slightly less from the speedling's side), the results are approximately the same.
Against Mutalisks it gets a bit trickier, because most mutas aren't going to engage marines unless they are very small in number. Due to good players not engaging in muta/marine duels that make them lose (many) mutas, the upgrades seem to have a very small effect in a realistic battle, making +1 weapons slightly (although almost negligible) more effective as you will be taking a few shots at mutas when chasing them out of your base, resulting in more damage output. However, +3 armor proves to be more effective against mutalisks than +3 weapons, due to negating the bounce damage.
Do you honestly think in the millions of games of sc2 that have been played that people would be getting +1 weapons first if +1 armor were more efficient?
This kind of stuff was figured out in the first couple weeks of sc2 beta.... and one of the first posts explains your flaw in logic (no micro).
And who pushes out with only marines and who defends that with only zerglings?
I don't understand why this is open or in the strategy forum.
On September 23 2011 16:17 Jacen88 wrote: I feel like that 1hp instant regen of zergs should be removed. It really destroys a lot of the critical upgrade things that should be intended imo. Lings one example of that: They have 35hp, without regen, +1attack would be critical. Also Infestors currently dont die to 2snipes, because they regen 1hp between -.-.
In a ling vs marine cenario, +1armor should be always better (micro however you want, not reducing the number of hits needed is not influencing the outcome). +1attack IS a critical upgrade vs banelings though (reduces hits from 6 to 5). So you might still want to get attack first, since banelings are more frightening.
It isnt quite instant, just really quick. You can double snipe an infestor using shift queue with 2 ghosts and it will kill them.
[B]On September 23 2011 15:38 HwangjaeTerran wrote: I always thought that getting attack upgrades was always better because all races really splash marines and marauders to death with tanks banelings and colossorom, but recently zergs have been making mostly lings and fewer banelings so armor will probably do better right now.
Also,lings are awesome.
While lings are awesome, your use of Latin is awesorom.
On September 23 2011 15:07 jjhchsc2 wrote: wow that is a huge difference. then why would pros get plus one first
I don't know.
Some get armor, but it all depends on your playstyle.
Marines mostly aren't used as a straight pushing unit, their purpose is to be dropped and deal as much damage as possible. Medivacs can keep your marines alive regardless so all that counts at that point is their damage output (other than lings everything still dies faster).
I've tried 9 minute mass marine pushes with +1 armor and CS and it's definitely lethal vs people that try pure unupgraded speedling defense. Against spinecrawlers and some banelings you're pretty much screwed though unless you have godly baneling focus firing and splitting micro with regular 'ol marines.
Against pure speedling yeah, armor is better. But when dealing with banelings, mutas and dropping to harass, +1 weapons is just better. Most pros will double engineering bay anyway so I don't think it is much of an issue
Armor is good against units that do a lot of attacks but have low damage per attack aka speedlings. . So yea nothing new here. I'd rather get combat shields if you want to make your units live longer but thats me.
I think people arent giving OP enough credit. In the picture, it clearly show the power of +1 armor and the potential. This make sense at why +1 armor is good in SMALLer engagements. But in larger engagements, +1 attack is much much better.
I think if you have over 25+ marine or around there, that when +1 attack starts to shine. Why? Simply cause the marine will be clumping up and shielding one another thus the need for the armor is lessen and being clump up, they can dish out more DPS in a concentrated area. This mean that if people are planning to do a stim combat shield timing and an ebay upgrade timing before mutas, then they should probably consider +1 armor over +1 attack simply cause +1 armor will scale better in smaller engagements.
Of course if they go roaches then your +1 armor is pretty useless but roaches in TvZ are out of the norm :p
On September 23 2011 15:03 the p00n wrote: I have tested 32 speedlings with no other upgrades against 16 combat shield/stimpack marines, with +1 armor or with +1 weapons.
In a 1v1 setting (2 zerglings against 1 marine), one zergling survives against the marine with +1 weapons, 21 health left. However, the marine survives against the 2 zerglings with 2 hp left when he is given +1 armor instead.
In big fights, the results are even more dramatic:
These results are without micro. When you stutter step back (allowing for slightly more attacks from the marine's side and slightly less from the speedling's side), the results are approximately the same.
Against Mutalisks it gets a bit trickier, because most mutas aren't going to engage marines unless they are very small in number. Due to good players not engaging in muta/marine duels that make them lose (many) mutas, the upgrades seem to have a very small effect in a realistic battle, making +1 weapons slightly (although almost negligible) more effective as you will be taking a few shots at mutas when chasing them out of your base, resulting in more damage output. However, +3 armor proves to be more effective against mutalisks than +3 weapons, due to negating the bounce damage.
Do you honestly think in the millions of games of sc2 that have been played that people would be getting +1 weapons first if +1 armor were more efficient?
This kind of stuff was figured out in the first couple weeks of sc2 beta.... and one of the first posts explains your flaw in logic (no micro).
And who pushes out with only marines and who defends that with only zerglings?
I don't understand why this is open or in the strategy forum.
You'd be surprised. It took almost 8 months before people started realizing that it was much more effective to get Combat Shields before Stim in TvT. And for a long time people thought Hellions were worthless except for killing workers. Anaheim showed us that they were phenomenal units in general in TvT. And in BW, it took almost a year and a half for people to realize that Defilers and Science Vessels were actually really good.
I think the OP's got a good point. I think I'll stick with the attack upgrades because +attack is more effective against all the units that my marines fear: Banelings, Roaches, Infestors, Ultras. But I can definitely see how +1 armor would be more effective for a one base infantry timing attack.
I think the people arguing that +attack is better with more micro are silly. The more +armor you have, the *longer* you can stutter step as well, which is just as important. The same thing applies to a ball of marines sitting against a wall. Sure every marine gets the +1 attack, but the more armor the group has, the longer the +armor group will survive vs the +attack group. It doesn't matter if the marines in the back aren't getting hit; everything the zerglings are attacking has the +1 armor so it doesn't matter what the back unit's armor upgrades are. Its the exact same reason why you want Marauders in front of Marines vs Zerg
I think this revelation especially important to the early game, where its often better to have hp than extra dps until medivacs pop.
Now after medivacs pop, of course +attack is better because survivability isn't as important. But I think the OP has a good point that +armor first is better in certain situations.
On September 23 2011 16:47 michaelhasanalias wrote:
On September 23 2011 15:03 the p00n wrote: I have tested 32 speedlings with no other upgrades against 16 combat shield/stimpack marines, with +1 armor or with +1 weapons.
In a 1v1 setting (2 zerglings against 1 marine), one zergling survives against the marine with +1 weapons, 21 health left. However, the marine survives against the 2 zerglings with 2 hp left when he is given +1 armor instead.
In big fights, the results are even more dramatic:
These results are without micro. When you stutter step back (allowing for slightly more attacks from the marine's side and slightly less from the speedling's side), the results are approximately the same.
Against Mutalisks it gets a bit trickier, because most mutas aren't going to engage marines unless they are very small in number. Due to good players not engaging in muta/marine duels that make them lose (many) mutas, the upgrades seem to have a very small effect in a realistic battle, making +1 weapons slightly (although almost negligible) more effective as you will be taking a few shots at mutas when chasing them out of your base, resulting in more damage output. However, +3 armor proves to be more effective against mutalisks than +3 weapons, due to negating the bounce damage.
Do you honestly think in the millions of games of sc2 that have been played that people would be getting +1 weapons first if +1 armor were more efficient?
This kind of stuff was figured out in the first couple weeks of sc2 beta.... and one of the first posts explains your flaw in logic (no micro).
And who pushes out with only marines and who defends that with only zerglings?
I don't understand why this is open or in the strategy forum.
You'd be surprised. It took almost 8 months before people started realizing that it was much more effective to get Combat Shields before Stim in TvT. And for a long time people thought Hellions were worthless except for killing workers. Anaheim showed us that they were phenomenal units in general in TvT. And in BW, it took almost a year and a half for people to realize that Defilers and Science Vessels were actually really good.
I think the OP's got a good point. I think I'll stick with the attack upgrades because +attack is more effective against all the units that my marines fear: Banelings, Roaches, Infestors, Ultras. But I can definitely see how +1 armor would be more effective for a one base infantry timing attack.
I think the people arguing that +attack is better with more micro are silly. The more +armor you have, the *longer* you can stutter step as well, which is just as important. The same thing applies to a ball of marines sitting against a wall. Sure every marine gets the +1 attack, but the more armor the group has, the longer the +armor group will survive vs the +attack group. It doesn't matter if the marines in the back aren't getting hit; everything the zerglings are attacking has the +1 armor so it doesn't matter what the back unit's armor upgrades are. Its the exact same reason why you want Marauders in front of Marines vs Zerg
I think this revelation especially important to the early game, where its often better to have hp than extra dps until medivacs pop.
Now after medivacs pop, of course +attack is better because survivability isn't as important. But I think the OP has a good point that +armor first is better in certain situations.
stimmed stutter-stepping marines won't ever take a shot to slow lings, and who has only slow lings off creep vs terran at 9 minutes into the game?
OP makes a sweeping generalization across the entire matchup based on a limited and inapplicable sample size.
I can't think of a single game situation where it could possibly be useful to invest in +1 armor over +1 attack, given combat shields, stim, no creep, no zergling speed or upgrades, and no micro.
Can you?
Almost every unit and army composition in the game fares better with +1 armor over + 1 attack in a-move situations with no micro.
Micro gives you the ability to maximize dps while minimizing damage taken, making the +1 attack more valuable in almost any situation where it's possible to micro.
Very very very useful. I think this really only applies to TvZ though; and I generally double upgrade in TvZ anyway - any idea on TvP? I would guess weapons is better vs Protoss overall, but idk. Thank you for the post though ^^
+1 armor is not useful unless you plan on doing a very specific timing push, (in that case its more efficient to spend that money on shields over +1 armor).
Think of it this way. When you are 3/0, you wont insta lose to 2/2 or 3/3 ling/ultra.
When you are 2/1, vs 2/2 or 3/3 zerg units, your marines are not going to be able to kill them before your tanks start splashing your own units. Armor is useless against the top 5 marine killers late game.
Banelings Fungal Siege tank splash Ultras Cracklings with higher upgrades
Unless you go double ebay, which is usually a bad idea.
i like fast +1 armor first, but the reason is mostly because i will delay my tech and +2 won't be able to start until 1/1 is done anyway. (in that case i get the +1 armor mostly cause of marauder)
There is a reason though why +1 armor can turn out horrible. That is if the opponent gets +1 armor. And from all the t1s marine are the only one ranged, so the longer the fight takes the longer you have to micro. And you don't want to micro all they time while the opponent just has to a click and push you further and further away from their base so they can macro up.
Thats why you prefer +1 reduces the micro time by alot, so you can concentrate on macro.
On a sidenote Bunker gets +2 armor for pretty much the same then +1 armor, turning them into pfs if the zerg goes for mass lings for defense and not get +1 fast.
So both is viable and you are most of the time on 3/1 before the zerg reaches hive anyway. But the marines purpose generally midgame is to defend harassment, that means the opponent will not engage, making armor not necessary, but damage important. and since marines working as meatshields generally protecting gas units, and shields and +1 armor is a bit gas overkill for that sort of attack.
so upgrades are also about what the opponent does. Thats why you want +1 armor against toss as zerg, because their +1 weapons are evil and you want to defend, so prolonged battle = yay. But if you know the zerg goes +1 armor, you want +1 armor yourself, so their +1 armor was pretty much useless, which means zergs should go for +1 weapons to be save the +1 armor, and not get destroyed totally by +1 attack. So many mind games with upgrades yay !
PS: as for tvp armor upgrades are awesome for marauder vs zealot.
About stutter step vs zerglings : Unless you're stutter stepping your units closer to a wall or choke or some other positional advantage, what could it earn you? I mean, essentially by stutter stepping you'd be artificially increasing the range of your marines by (the distance stutter stepping marines can move backward while firing) temporarily, but you'd only be doing that for a small number of marines, and once the zerglings get into range the effective cap of how many zerglings can hit how many marines would start to diminish the returns of stutter step micro anyhow, as the speed difference between speedlings and marines would mean the zerglings would make up the ground lost by the marines while firing anyhow, and neither side would have gaps between attacks. I could be wrong, but in any case it would not surprise me in the least to learn that against speedlings, any marine stutter step performed at any level less than perfection would not cause a net gain.
About armour vs attack:
Attack should favour marines in large numbers, shield should favour marines in small. Ultimately, marines start to win the marine vs speedling battle significantly when the available surface area for zerglings to attack is greatly outclassed by the damage being produced by the marines... who, being ranged, will have a lot more surface area to attack. Because of that, unless you're planning to make less than 25 marines, attack should favour you over shield in any situation where more of your marines are shooting them than they have zerglings hitting you.
Marines are most efficient when they're not being attacked, and you should always as a terran player strive to position them where the fewest of them can be attacked. If you're doing this, attack should benefit you more than armour.
I just tested this out on unit test map with 4 tanks and 20 marines vs. 6 mutas, 7 banelings and 48 speedlings. Each time, I picked one marine upgrade (stim/combat shield) and one +1 upgrade (armor/weapons). The zerg won every engagement except the time when I had stim and +1 armor. Combat shield with +1 armor, combat shield with +1 weapons, and stim with +1 weapons all lost.
+1 attack is better because it scales better once you get more and more marines. In low marine counts, its pretty obvious +1 armor would be better.
The +1 attack isnt just for fighting lings.... but also fighting other units such as mutas. When fighting mutas, +1 attack makes a very very big difference.
If u also use stim with +1 attack, it scales better as well.
I'd still get the +1 attack because of mutalisks and siege tank splash. Attack just lets you clean up injured stuff faster.
in TvP though, +1 armor is huge if you're doing an all-in. SCVs take 4 zealot shots and marines with combat shield take 7 stalker hits if you don't stim. That's 1 hit more per unit.
Combine that with 1-2 ghosts, it makes for a sick all-in timing.
On September 24 2011 08:49 Staboteur wrote: About stutter step vs zerglings : Unless you're stutter stepping your units closer to a wall or choke or some other positional advantage, what could it earn you? I mean, essentially by stutter stepping you'd be artificially increasing the range of your marines by (the distance stutter stepping marines can move backward while firing) temporarily, but you'd only be doing that for a small number of marines, and once the zerglings get into range the effective cap of how many zerglings can hit how many marines would start to diminish the returns of stutter step micro anyhow, as the speed difference between speedlings and marines would mean the zerglings would make up the ground lost by the marines while firing anyhow, and neither side would have gaps between attacks. I could be wrong, but in any case it would not surprise me in the least to learn that against speedlings, any marine stutter step performed at any level less than perfection would not cause a net gain.
If you stutter step perfectly you don't lose DPS time, and it decreases the DPS you take from lings because not only can they not get a surround off, only a few of them will be attacking at a time while all your marines are firing.
On September 28 2011 16:20 saritenite wrote: I'd still get the +1 attack because of mutalisks and siege tank splash. Attack just lets you clean up injured stuff faster.
in TvP though, +1 armor is huge if you're doing an all-in. SCVs take 4 zealot shots and marines with combat shield take 7 stalker hits if you don't stim. That's 1 hit more per unit.
Combine that with 1-2 ghosts, it makes for a sick all-in timing.
Against mutas (once again, i tested this) it doesn't matter whether you get +1 armor or +1 weapons. +1 weapons is better with large terran armies because a smaller percentage of the army is getting hit by zerglings and muta splash, but in large armies you will probably already have +3 armor if you prioritize armor upgrades, which nullifies muta splash.
Also, you do know infantry +1 upgrades don't increase siege tank damage, right?
On September 28 2011 17:37 CatNzHat wrote: You're just being retarded, you don't get armor for lings vs marines, you get armor for lings vs tanks and blings vs tanks.. there comes a point in TvZ where if you're getting 1 shot by tanks, you're lings are gonna be pretty useless.
Speaking of retarded he's talking about marine upgrades not ling upgrades? btw +1 mech weapon one shot ling regardless of ling armor.
On September 28 2011 17:37 CatNzHat wrote: You're just being retarded, you don't get armor for lings vs marines, you get armor for lings vs tanks and blings vs tanks.. there comes a point in TvZ where if you're getting 1 shot by tanks, you're lings are gonna be pretty useless.
I'd carefully read a post before calling it retarded because he wasn't talking about Zerg upgrades at all.
On September 28 2011 16:04 DreamRaider wrote: +1 attack is better because it scales better once you get more and more marines. In low marine counts, its pretty obvious +1 armor would be better.
The +1 attack isnt just for fighting lings.... but also fighting other units such as mutas. When fighting mutas, +1 attack makes a very very big difference.
If u also use stim with +1 attack, it scales better as well.
Dead marines can't shoot.
Being alive for the 1.5246s for Muta and .5s for zerglings does mean the difference between a dead bio-ball and a dead muta/ling ball.
+1 attack is good when you plan to deploy your marines where they won't get shot at much. Such as mineral line drops, stutter stepping against melee units (ling, zealot, etc) or in mass marine builds.
I'd carefully read a post before calling it retarded because he wasn't talking about Zerg upgrades at all.
Now don't we feel foolish?
not at all, the OP is extremely poorly worded, no way to tell what unit the upgrades are referring to without looking at the title :D
Nice instead of admitting your mistake and saying oops I got confused when you are the only one in the thread who made this mistake you try and blame the OP saying he has poor wording.
"However, the marine survives against the 2 zerglings with 2 hp left when he is given +1 armor instead."
Pretty clear to me. If you're gonna do something stupid again by asking me why it's clear it's because if he was referring to the lings it would be "however the marine survives against the 2 zerglings when they are given +1 armor"
"Against Mutalisks it gets a bit trickier, because most mutas aren't going to engage marines unless they are very small in number"
That part of the OP must have really confused you! "hmm why is he talking about muta vs marine if hes talking about ling armor/ weapons".
If you actually read the post there are many ways you can logically figure out he was talking about marines without him explicitly saying "is +1 armor on marines better".
On September 23 2011 15:03 the p00n wrote: I have tested 32 speedlings with no other upgrades against 16 combat shield/stimpack marines, with +1 armor or with +1 weapons.
Unfortunately no single post here so far actually saw the huge flaw your testing brings along. Tests like these can be useful if you exactly know how to interpret the results which I firmly believe you are not doing.
Even without testing it's pretty obvious that getting +1 armor over +1 attack for your marines in a marine vs zergling only battle without any micro apart from a-move is going to benefit you way way more. +1 attack provides your marines with 1/6 (16.66%) more dps vs zerlings while +1 armor reduces each attack from a zergling from 5 to 4 dmg resulting in 1/4 (25%) increased surviveability (yes you need to calculate +25% surviveability here instead of -20% received dmg because that's how you compare these values for this purpose ... i studied maths).
However, if you invest the same amount of supply and ressources into your marine-only-army and the zerg player does the very same you will end up losing in smaller numbers by a-moving and winning once the ball gets big enough. I absolutely recommend also checking out this link here first before you proceed reading:
Please note that this video is about "hardcountering" in Starcraft 2 using marines vs zerglings as examples but the very important thing shown in this video which is very relevant to your test is that you forgot to test in different unit numbers and also including chokes etc. For example even stalkers can win vs pure speedlings if they have a very big ball or are standing in a choke or are couple with some ff or good simcity building placement which all reduce the surface and therefore attacking area of speedlings while normally in an open area or smaller numbers speedlings would just wreck stalkers.
So why did I write above that I firmly believe you are totally missinterpreting it and why are pro's almost always (like 99%+ of the time) going for +1 attack first?
Well if you watched a good amount of pro replays or play at a decent rank (like masters etc) yourself, you will see realise that first of all this calculation is only useful when all zerglings or most of them are actually able to hit your marines (that means you have just a small group of marines vs his small group of lings thereby allowing all or most of his lings to attack your marines simultaneously). If this is not the case only the marines taking damage from the speedlings will benefit from the armor upgrade and all other marines not getting hit yet (because they are standing in a choke or on the inside of a big marines ball etc) don't benefit from the armor upgrade so far, but they benefit from the attack upgrade already all the time, killing the lings quicker and thereby once the marines on the outside are dying, there are simply less lings left. So +1 attack benefits you here 100% of the time, while +1 armor doesn't.
Now just some things that come immediatelly into my mind when +1 attack does benefit you more: - You drop marines in a medivac and try to snipe drones/tech etc and load marines up before they die and leave. - You actually don't just a-move your marines into his lings and actually use stim kiting (see most of his lings won't be attacking most of the time because of your stim kiting). - You abuse building simcity/chokes etc. - You use marines in bunkers/behind walls for defence. - You use a bigger marine ball vs his bigger zerlings count ... the bigger the number the better for you.
Now some even way more important ones: - Do you know any high level tvz macro game where the terran relies on marinse only? You simply can't be neglecting the usage of siege tanks etc otherwise the zerg player will just counter you with better unit compositions like banelings. So you stim forward pick some units of or lure them back into your siege tank fire. Or you simply stim kite + snipe banelings before they connect etc etc. - Your maines need to fight vs other zerg units as well. What if the zergs adds banelings/roaches/spines etc?
There are probably so many more reasons, but the important point here is that yes your very specific test in very specific circumstances (you tested with a certain amount of units in a 100% open area with only a-move in unit tester ... these are 3 huge facts you used for this test which can and will be very different in normal games, you never ever will fight in such a marine counter in open fields without any other unit support by only a-moving ever if you don't have to). Your disregarded all the other situations/facts. These are the reasons why even David Kim himself said in an interview (i think it was autumn last year) that you need to be very careful testing stuff in unit tester because of the constraints which can be very different from a real game. They even made mistakes like these themselves in the beta, testing 1supply roaches with 2 armor vs immortals and concluding it's fine while actually in reality it takes forever to match the immortal count vs a roach count when gateway units are so weak vs 2 armored units because a robotics facility is needed and immortals take quite long to build.
However, in some situations armor upgrades are indeed better than getting attack first, like you stated in small open and especially mostly unmicroed engagements with marines vs lings only or in marine vs muta only battles because of the bounce damage. The majority of situations calls for +1 attack though, that's the reason pro's opt for it.
I'm not trying to bash your post or anything, just trying to point out why your testing is absolutely flawed. There had been numerous threads like these already since release and most people posting only test something in very specific circumstances and deduct therefore that it has to be always like this. A very good example of this is a thread which had been closed a long time ago where someone claimed broodlords being too weak because marines in equal cost can kill them easily and since broodlords take longer to make and are higher tech are way too weak. What the guy did was going into the unit test map, making one broodlord and marines for the same ressources with stim and then attacking the broodlord with the marines ... the marines won. But when you actually go into a game and fight broodlords, you can snipe them with marines if they happen to be out of position and their number is kinda low or you killed his supporting ground army already but otherwise with their range 9.5 vs range5 and with support like inestors with fg, banes, lots of speedlings streaming in and blocking your way etc etc your marines won't even make it in range.
Ling attack damage is 5. 1 armor drops that by 20% to 4. A zergling takes 11 strikes to kill a 55HP marine with no armor, but 14 against a marine with 1 armor. The marine is 27.3% tougher vs a standard ling.
Marine attack is 6. +1 weapons upgrade increases that by 16%.
This experiment, while solid knowledge for Marine vs Zergling in the early, early game, cannot really be applied to anything larger than that (such as the entire TvZ early game). The post above me explained it in very good detail, but I'd just like to provide an example to illustrate why you cannot say +1 Armor is better to get first for the matchup, just based on the greater percentage of "improvement" in Marine vs Ling in a controlled environment.
Same deal against Roaches:
+1 Weapons: reduces shots required to kill an unupgraded Roach from 30 to 25. (20%!) +1 Armor: reduces shots required to kill a non-Combat Shield Marine from 3 to 3. (0%!)
+1 Armor must suck! Well, what if we add Combat Shield? Then +1 Armor requires a Roach to take 5 shots instead of 4 to kill that Marine (20% more!). Now its even!
But what if we look at the amount of extra shots a Roach can get off inbetween the 5 extra shots required to take him out? It takes 4.15 seconds for a Marine to fire 5 times. That's 2 extra shots! +1 Armor has given us -16% over +1 Attack!
But Roach attack speed is 2, what if 3 Marines are firing at the same time? Then the Roach dies in before getting to fire those extra shots, so does +1 Armor suddenly = +1 Attack, except with extra 20% survivability?
Statistics can be represented to suit one's hypothesis quite easily, I'd just like to advise caution about a test with so few samples (ie. army sizes, terrain differences).
On the other hand, 0/1 Marines do perform statistically better than 1/0 Marines against 0/0, 0/1 and 1/0 Lings (especially early game, when he has Speed and you don't have Stim AND Medivac support). Stutter step is all fine and dandy, until you get trapped by a Ling flank midway to his base, because early on there's no way for Terran to scout Zerg unit numbers unless you really want to waste MULEs.
Been doing a push on combat shield / +1 armor for a long time now. It almost always does significant damage, just in terms of lings chewed up.
It lets you start sending in waves of marines that will trade cost-efficiently versus lings, before you even have medivacs out, and before zerg is done droning on two bases. You can keep creep all the way back in his base with just a bio force.
Why is everyone saying that +1 weapons lets marines kill lings faster? It does *nothing*. Marines kill lings in 6 shots, either way.
If +1 weapons made marines take one fewer shot reliably, then fine -- there would be an argument to be made. But it's completely ineffectual against 0/0 lings.
On September 29 2011 02:08 thobel wrote: Why is everyone saying that +1 weapons lets marines kill lings faster? It does *nothing*. Marines kill lings in 6 shots, either way.
If +1 weapons made marines take one fewer shot reliably, then fine -- there would be an argument to be made. But it's completely ineffectual against 0/0 lings.
Marines with 1/0 vs lings with 0/0 is one shot less (5 instead of 6). But apart from that, you often will have different units engaging at the same time (together with siege tanks for example etc).
May be helpful for bronze to diamond who idle their units and don't bother to micro. Even 0/0 will have better results with micro compared to upgrades.
Do you honestly think in the millions of games of sc2 that have been played that people would be getting +1 weapons first if +1 armor were more efficient?
This kind of stuff was figured out in the first couple weeks of sc2 beta.... and one of the first posts explains your flaw in logic (no micro).
The amount of fail in that logic is so painful it hurts.
If everyone "assumed" what people did before was the correct and the most efficient way of doing things, there would never be any growth in strategies at all.
For example, I haven't seen anyone mention that it might actually be more efficient for bronze and silver-level players to get +1 armor instead of +1 weapons; after all, they're at the level where their micro is hardly going to be stellar. (wow, talk about ninja reply one post above -_-)
On September 29 2011 02:52 Fairwell wrote: Marines with 1/0 vs lings with 0/0 is one shot less (5 instead of 6). But apart from that, you often will have different units engaging at the same time (together with siege tanks for example etc).
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.
Just because the +1 armor marines survive better (and effectively kill zergling packs better) doesn't mean it's always the better decision to research. Marines attack a bunch of things, not just zerglings. A Terran player who wants to multitask and use drop play would probably rather get +1 weapons instead. An early timing push where marines' dps needs to be increased in order to kill structures faster would probably favor weapons too.
Interesting results though it isn't too surprising considering how low powered a zergling's attack is; +1 armor makes a huge difference against unupgraded lings.
With micro the total damage of the marines goes way up so the +1 attack becomes much more threatening, this is assuming stim is used of course, the armor is good i suppose if you're completely incapable of kiting. and you're just going to let the marines get hit.
Also, marines don't typically engage a flock of zergling w/o some sort of support, most often tanks and in that situation the zerglings are not the threat to your marines; the banelings are. And in that situation you'd rather have +attack considering +armor doesn't help much vs banes.
Attack upgrades scale with stim, armor upgrades do not.
In an engagement, only a few marines in a group will reap the benefits of an armor upgrade at any given time (ie, only a few marines would be getting attacked by lings). On the other hand, all marines will be attacking lings at any given time, meaning all the marines in the group reap the benefits of an attack upgrade during the entirety of the engagement.
Proper stutter-step micro allows marines to deal the same DPS while taking less damage.
Look at the big picture: marines are the core DPS units in a terran army. Why would you forgo an increase in DPS for an increase in survivability? It makes no sense. To make an analogy, would you prefer your ultras to have armor upgrades or attack upgrades? Additional armor upgrades would obviously scale much better since ultras already have high armor.
Of course, the scenario presented by the OP is extremely situational. If you add in banes, mutas and medivacs into the mix, +1 attack is clearly advantageous--armor upgrades don't do shit against banes. As for the mutas, there's a general consensus in the BW community that +1 weapon is better than +1 armor. The logic behind this carries over to SC2 as well: mutas are harassment units, not DPS units. Your marines should try to kill mutas, not survive against them (killing mutas mitigate harassment potential whereas surviving against mutas do nothing to mitigate future harass). Besides, mutas aren't supposed to fight marines anyway.
And +1 attack doesn't stack with combat shields, while +1 armor does.
Context is important. If you're thinking about doing an early marine timing, where you're mostly going to have zerglings as a response, the +1 armor is better. If you're going bio heavy, you're going to be getting double ups at the latest starting with 2/2.
If you're talking marine-tank push, +1 weapons will be better.
Also +1 weapons does reduce the # of marine shots to kill a baneling from 7 to 5, for what its worth.
On September 29 2011 05:09 thobel wrote: And +1 attack doesn't stack with combat shields, while +1 armor does.
Context is important. If you're thinking about doing an early marine timing, where you're mostly going to have zerglings as a response, the +1 armor is better. If you're going bio heavy, you're going to be getting double ups at the latest starting with 2/2.
If you're talking marine-tank push, +1 weapons will be better.
Also +1 weapons does reduce the # of marine shots to kill a baneling from 7 to 5, for what its worth.
Read my post in the page before this. I tested out a small army of marines and tanks against a much larger army of mutas, lings, and banelings. The terran won in only one of 5 situations; the one where he had stim and +1 armor.
On September 29 2011 05:15 SheffiTB wrote: Read my post in the page before this. I tested out a small army of marines and tanks against a much larger army of mutas, lings, and banelings. The terran won in only one of 5 situations; the one where he had stim and +1 armor.
Yeah it makes more sense in that context even, since the +1 armor is great vs mutalisks, and you need the stim to stop lings from getting in range of the tanks.
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.
Against a Ling/Muta army this definitely makes sense, but against a more roach-centric army or if you want to utilize drops, then I think that +1 attack makes more sense.
with +3 amor your mariens are still alive after 2 fungual growth
fungual do 30 dmg now vs them
your marines have 55 hp with shield so in order words fungual do 2x 27dmg since you have 3 armor that means marines dont die but have only with 1 hp then
so you need 3 fungual or if you are lucky you can pull them back and let them heal
On September 29 2011 07:24 perser84 wrote: with +3 amor your mariens are still alive after 2 fungual growth
fungual do 30 dmg now vs them
your marines have 55 hp with shield so in order words fungual do 2x 27dmg since you have 3 armor that means marines dont die but have only with 1 hp then
so you need 3 fungual or if you are lucky you can pull them back and let them heal
Armor does not reduce the effects of fungal growth.
On September 29 2011 07:24 perser84 wrote: with +3 amor your mariens are still alive after 2 fungual growth
fungual do 30 dmg now vs them
your marines have 55 hp with shield so in order words fungual do 2x 27dmg since you have 3 armor that means marines dont die but have only with 1 hp then
so you need 3 fungual or if you are lucky you can pull them back and let them heal
Armor does not reduce the effects of fungal growth.
Well the point is you dont want your marines being attacked at all, and you want to do as much damage as possible as quickly as possible with your marine/tank/medivac. The marines arent meant to tank dmg... They're meant to snipe down hatcheries from drops, pick off mutalisks andkite zerglings through tank seige fire. Yes this seems like a more logical response if you're doing a marine/medivac mkp style though. So cool finding ^^
On September 23 2011 15:03 the p00n wrote: I have tested 32 speedlings with no other upgrades against 16 combat shield/stimpack marines, with +1 armor or with +1 weapons.
In a 1v1 setting (2 zerglings against 1 marine), one zergling survives against the marine with +1 weapons, 21 health left. However, the marine survives against the 2 zerglings with 2 hp left when he is given +1 armor instead.
In big fights, the results are even more dramatic:
These results are without micro. When you stutter step back (allowing for slightly more attacks from the marine's side and slightly less from the speedling's side), the results are approximately the same.
Against Mutalisks it gets a bit trickier, because most mutas aren't going to engage marines unless they are very small in number. Due to good players not engaging in muta/marine duels that make them lose (many) mutas, the upgrades seem to have a very small effect in a realistic battle, making +1 weapons slightly (although almost negligible) more effective as you will be taking a few shots at mutas when chasing them out of your base, resulting in more damage output. However, +3 armor proves to be more effective against mutalisks than +3 weapons, due to negating the bounce damage.
Do you honestly think in the millions of games of sc2 that have been played that people would be getting +1 weapons first if +1 armor were more efficient?
This kind of stuff was figured out in the first couple weeks of sc2 beta.... and one of the first posts explains your flaw in logic (no micro).
And who pushes out with only marines and who defends that with only zerglings?
I don't understand why this is open or in the strategy forum.
If properly kited, lings should hardly ever be attacking the marines. That argument has already been made, and I hope you believe it by now.
Plus in ball vs. ball fights, all of the marines will always be shooting, and only the front line will be taking damage, unless something went horribly wrong. Assuming you have a ball of 24 marines, and the front 8 are getting hit by lings, your +1 weapon is use 3x as much as your +1 armor. This would, of course, diminish as your marines die, but will never be as important as that up-front burst damage is (again, if you kill the lings before they get to you, you take no damage, so the faster you kill them the better off you are)
If you REALLY need more proof, it was in style for a long while (and I still see it quite often) to get a fast +1 carapace, which takes you from 6 shots to kill a zergling to 8 (including the regen). A 33% difference. A quick +1 weapon counteracts that huge difference.
It has been stated before, but I want to give the numbers why. A 0/0 mraine does 6 damage. A 1/0 marine does 7 damage. A zergling has 35 hit points, but almost instantly regens 1 hitpoint when hit. Therefore you should treat him like 36 hp except for weapons that one shot him. A 0/0 marine needs 6 shots to kill a zergling. A 1/0 marine cannot kill a zergling in 5 shots due to regeneration 1 lifepoint stays. So the +1 attack is useless for pure marine vs zergling/speedling.
About the micro. Micro will change notinh because of 2 /(3) reasons. 1. The reason that +1 attack is useless in this scenario 2. An increase in efficiency with micro would impact both cases in the same way. You may be able to deal out more attacks per atack recieved (same with the ball vs ball situation were some do not get hit),. but this ratio increases the same way independant of the upgrades. And both upgrades can make the same use of it. It might me intuitive that this favours heavy attack but it does not. If you can get 50% more shots of before you die, you can kill 50% more lings, but when two numbers get increased by a percentage the larger number stays the larger number. (3). Once the zerg has speed he might suround you anyway,
Thats incredibly interesting. I will be getting +1 armor as a primary upgrade in a few of my upcoming matches to see how it fairs, I almost always got +1 weap because of the DPS increase with stim. But it seems maybe thats the incorrect tech for early game.
+ 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.
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.
You stutterstep with stim/medivacs, thus giving you survivability, and while you stutterstep, you're not getting hit, making the armor less used, so generally less useful.
Let's look at specifics, against mass slings, +1armor/stim is superior. Since stutter stepping is delaying the inevitable surround, spamming [s] key to force marines to re-target weakened lings. (this helped me many times, not sure if placebo) Thus if your opening is mass marines against sling/bling, +1 armour/stim is what you'd want to tech to. This situation is similar to the unit tester model.
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).
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.
On September 29 2011 02:52 Fairwell wrote: Marines with 1/0 vs lings with 0/0 is one shot less (5 instead of 6). But apart from that, you often will have different units engaging at the same time (together with siege tanks for example etc).
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.
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.
+1 weap is so much better for situations in tvz. bunch of mutas fly over, plus 1 weap more chance of killing them. +1 armor is for more efficiency vs mutas and lets be frank that's totally irrelevant.
also banelings as you said before, drops, etc etc. +1 is just so much better.
this is interesting, but weapons is just better. you dont want your marines getting hit by zerglings in a straightup fight, and weapons is better against everything else. battles and minibattles in tvz are all about killing things asap. killing drones/tech/spines asap while dropping. killing lings and banes asap so that your tanks can do their job. killing mutas asap when you are fending off harass or catching them in the map. any just marine vs just zergling fight should be taking place in some sort of choke that gives his lings bad surface area, again a situation in which weapons is just better.
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.
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.
I've known this for quite a while now after messing around with a unit tester. +1/2/3 armor is better if you're playing a mass bio style TvZ but +1 attack is better in TvP/TvT. People can argue that +1 attack is better for getting rid of banelings but banelings can be target fired fast if you have the micro.
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.
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.
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.
The greatest benefit of +armor is the early window when you don't have or plan to medivacs, simply using an attrition style TvZ to trade armies more efficiently than Zerg.
Benefits of +1 armor first: -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.
Well +1 armor also would help out with say Infestors as well with their fungal growth, it does 1 second of damage every four seconds, with the extra armor, that is 4 more damage taken off of Fungal Growth's damage, and if your marines are fairly split, this could provide pretty durable it would seem.
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.
On September 30 2011 23:16 Iatrokles wrote: Well +1 armor also would help out with say Infestors as well with their fungal growth, it does 1 second of damage every four seconds, with the extra armor, that is 4 more damage taken off of Fungal Growth's damage, and if your marines are fairly split, this could provide pretty durable it would seem.
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.
Armor does not prevent any damage from Fungal Growth.
loooool, this thread is full of hilarious idiots who can't understand the concept that unit retention = damage no matter how awesome your micro is. That said I would still get +1 weaps first for all the other things you shoot other then lings, typically I am not losing the game to mass lings.
Early-game vs a zerg I always get +1 armor and combat shield up, since the life expectancy of a marine is increased by almost 50% (9 hits + 2 for armor + 2 for Combat Shield) vs lings and queens. I usually do my push at 8 min FYI for the person who said that the earliest you can get +1 armor is 9 min. However, as stated above, these upgrades do nothing against banelings or roaches. That is why I push early and bring a few marauders with concussive so I can deal with banelings. This build outright wins about 40% of the time, and since I expand behind it (1-racks FEing) this sets you up really well for mid-game.
I can see how with no micro (in lower leagues) this will be helpful as they're letting their marines get hit many more times than they would with good micro. The reason pro players get attack instead of armor is because they are microing amazingly the whole time, so armor is basically counter-productive since they're not taking many hits anyway.
I think many people stated the many good reasons to get attack over armor (not to say that it's always better), but there should be a summary:
1. Armor is most effective vs mutalisks and zerglings. In fact those are probably the only 2 units where it's better than getting attack. Banelings is the biggest issue in this sense since banelings' damage is not mitigated much by armor (it's effectively useless), and banelings are the biggest counter to marines (at least when used well). Armor is also useless against fungal growth.
2. Critical mass. When an engagement is unbalanced, such as only 2/3 as may zerg units attacking as there should be, +1 attack would get the advantage I think, due to more enemies being killed before they even get to their target.
3. Similar to #3, exposed marines. Versus ground units of poor range (pretty much all the zerg ground units used in ZvT), marines will do better with +1 attack when they are sitting in a protected area such as behind the mineral line, on a ramp, behind a wall, behind or inside a bunker, behind held position (or attacking) SCVs, behind marauders, etc.
4. Stim buffs marine's DPS, so it gets even more DPS when +1 attack is researched. It's not a big difference on it's own, but It is also —or especially— amplified when used with good micro control.
Also, something I'm proposing that I don't think has been said: It would depend on what the zerg is upgrading as well — attack or armor (or nothing). It might not make (in fact very likely wouldn't) armor a worse choice than attack, but it would even things out so there's less difference.
Overall... I'd say due to the effectiveness vs zerglings, it could be very good to use when running mass-marine early-game timing attack. I also think some tests should maybe be done regarding the effectiveness of marine-marauder with +1 attack compared to just marines (or marine-marauder) with +1 armor if they want to get a bigger picture of which may be more effective in the right circumstances
We know there are pros and cons to having +1 attack first or +1 armor first.... but honestly, everyone should get both upgrades same time. Earlier upgrade > slightly bigger army.
On October 01 2011 04:55 DreamRaider wrote: We know there are pros and cons to having +1 attack first or +1 armor first.... but honestly, everyone should get both upgrades same time. Earlier upgrade > slightly bigger army.
I'm not sure this is always the case. There will be times and game states where the extra 250 minerals and 100 gas for an earlier 2nd ebay and +1 or /+1 could set you behind. I personally enjoy double upgrading, but one fairly common thing that I (and others) do is to single-upgrade +1/+1, then as it finishes, armory and 2nd ebay finish and double upgrade to +2/+2. A lot of the time you just don't have the resources in a tight early game for double upgrades, though I can see how you could make a build order that allows for it.
On October 01 2011 04:41 Xapti wrote: I think many people stated the many good reasons to get attack over armor (not to say that it's always better), but there should be a summary:
If you're going to do a post like this, make sure someone didn't alreaqdy do a summary on the previous page of the pros/cons of +1 attack vs. +1 armor early on.
1. Armor is most effective vs mutalisks and zerglings. In fact those are probably the only 2 units where it's better than getting attack. Banelings is the biggest issue in this sense since banelings' damage is not mitigated much by armor (it's effectively useless), and banelings are the biggest counter to marines (at least when used well). Armor is also useless against fungal growth.
Stimmed marines w/o medivacs or combat shields, but with +1 armor, can take 2 baneling hits. Without +1 armor, they take 1 hit before dying, because that +1 armor lets them survive on 1 hp, and unless your opponent is IMNestea, he won't be able to micro it so that a second baneling won't hit and do only 1 damage.
2. Critical mass. When an engagement is unbalanced, such as only 2/3 as may zerg units attacking as there should be, +1 attack would get the advantage I think, due to more enemies being killed before they even get to their target.
This would be true if +1 weapons affected the number of shots needed to kill zerglings (the main unit in the most popular ZvT composition, muta/ling/bling).
3. Similar to #3, exposed marines. Versus ground units of poor range (pretty much all the zerg ground units used in ZvT), marines will do better with +1 attack when they are sitting in a protected area such as behind the mineral line, on a ramp, behind a wall, behind or inside a bunker, behind held position (or attacking) SCVs, behind marauders, etc.
Yeah, but this would only happen either if you're dropping your opponent (which, on the previous page, I say in my conclusion that it's better to get +1 weapons if opening marine/medivac) or your tank line was broken (which it would be a hell of a lot tougher to break if you had +1 armor, tested and calculated)
4. Stim buffs marine's DPS, so it gets even more DPS when +1 attack is researched. It's not a big difference on it's own, but It is also —or especially— amplified when used with good micro control.
Once again, the main problem with this is that zerglings don't die faster when you have +1 weapons. How about combining the extra dps of stim with the extra survivability of +1 armor? I've tested it, and it's better against ling/bling/muta comps.
Also, something I'm proposing that I don't think has been said: It would depend on what the zerg is upgrading as well — attack or armor (or nothing). It might not make (in fact very likely wouldn't) armor a worse choice than attack, but it would even things out so there's less difference.
Thought I am not sure exactly what difference it would make, you are right that it is likely to make some kind of difference.
These results are without micro. When you stutter step back (allowing for slightly more attacks from the marine's side and slightly less from the speedling's side), the results are approximately the same.
Wait, what? How is no micro vs micro = same results. That makes no sense at all.
I can understand how with no micro +1 armor is better. But the reason you want +1 attack is because, your supposed to be microing. And if your doing that well, you aren't taking many attacks. That's the entire point behind micro, to minimize damage.
Add in terrain, other Terran units and micro and you will more than understand why you should always have +1 attack over armor. Ontop of the fact that stim adds to the effect of +attack and not with +armor.
Wholeheartedly agree, and this is the reason I will transition to a +1 attack sometimes from a 2rax. One of my main reasons is b/c of Banelings though, takes less shots to kill em and they are significantly more important to focus.
Stimmed marines w/o medivacs or combat shields, but with +1 armor, can take 2 baneling hits. Without +1 armor, they take 1 hit before dying, because that +1 armor lets them survive on 1 hp, and unless your opponent is IMNestea, he won't be able to micro it so that a second baneling won't hit and do only 1 damage.
Seems like a highly unlikely situation where you'd have 1+ armor but not combat shields!
Stimmed marines w/o medivacs or combat shields, but with +1 armor, can take 2 baneling hits. Without +1 armor, they take 1 hit before dying, because that +1 armor lets them survive on 1 hp, and unless your opponent is IMNestea, he won't be able to micro it so that a second baneling won't hit and do only 1 damage.
Seems like a highly unlikely situation where you'd have 1+ armor but not combat shields!
Actually what I was trying to imply with that post is that it's better to get stim and +1 armor than combat shields and +1 armor.
P.S. Huge fan and I'm honored you replied to my post.
On October 10 2011 15:08 Licorices wrote: I always get double upgrades.
Thank you for your extremely insightful post. Now everyone will know and the argument will be settled: Some random guy gets double upgrades in TvZ.
But seriously, If you're going to make a post, please make sure it contributes to the discussion. Some builds don't allow for double upgrades, like most tank push builds. If the discussion at hand doesn't affect you, just move on. Even saying "just get double upgrades" is better than this kind of post (though saying double upgrades are better, without saying why, doesn't contribute much either).
Honestly from what I've read in this thread it seems armor would be more beneficial to a '10 minute' tank push with siege. It would certainly help to get stim first instead of combat shield.
In short; what i did before: siege, combat shield, +1 attack what seems bettter: siege, stim, +1 armor
On October 10 2011 13:53 Liquid`Jinro wrote: EDIT: Nvm I misread.
Stimmed marines w/o medivacs or combat shields, but with +1 armor, can take 2 baneling hits. Without +1 armor, they take 1 hit before dying, because that +1 armor lets them survive on 1 hp, and unless your opponent is IMNestea, he won't be able to micro it so that a second baneling won't hit and do only 1 damage.
Seems like a highly unlikely situation where you'd have 1+ armor but not combat shields!
Actually what I was trying to imply with that post is that it's better to get stim and +1 armor than combat shields and +1 armor.
P.S. Huge fan and I'm honored you replied to my post.
I guess I could see some very specific fast upgrade builds around this idea o.O Would need a lot of testing tho.
On October 10 2011 13:53 Liquid`Jinro wrote: EDIT: Nvm I misread.
Stimmed marines w/o medivacs or combat shields, but with +1 armor, can take 2 baneling hits. Without +1 armor, they take 1 hit before dying, because that +1 armor lets them survive on 1 hp, and unless your opponent is IMNestea, he won't be able to micro it so that a second baneling won't hit and do only 1 damage.
Seems like a highly unlikely situation where you'd have 1+ armor but not combat shields!
Actually what I was trying to imply with that post is that it's better to get stim and +1 armor than combat shields and +1 armor.
P.S. Huge fan and I'm honored you replied to my post.
I guess I could see some very specific fast upgrade builds around this idea o.O Would need a lot of testing tho.
I was thinking along the lines of a 3 tank push w/stim (MKP transition from reactor hellion) and follow up with +1 armor or a 2fact transition from 2rax with a bit of a later stim/+1. Stim and +1 armor with a tank push is nearly unstoppable.
Stimmed marines w/o medivacs or combat shields, but with +1 armor, can take 2 baneling hits. Without +1 armor, they take 1 hit before dying, because that +1 armor lets them survive on 1 hp, and unless your opponent is IMNestea, he won't be able to micro it so that a second baneling won't hit and do only 1 damage.
Seems like a highly unlikely situation where you'd have 1+ armor but not combat shields!
An example I use for TvZ is after reactor hellions with 2 fact transition, with a double armory/single eng bay after I go for the 3 siege/bfh timing. In this case, I always get +1 armor, since I'm going mech, and the marines are only for anti-mutalisk support to my main army, not for the damage. Typically at this point in game, I will not have combat or stim done, nor would it prove anywhere near as beneficial.
Ohh, forgot to say that +1 armor also benefits scvs, which when pushing with mech based armies is a big advantage.
mmm i like the stim +1 armor idea, but you would be screwed against a fast +1 attack from the zerg. But thats the cool think about the upgrades, the ones of the opponent also play a role .
Sry to up this post, but i think you have forgot a very important thing : If you go late game, and zerg is going to make ultra 5/3 vry fast, if you're +2 attack you'll deal 2 damage at each shot (8 - 6), instead of 3 (9 - 6), so if you have the +3 instead of the +2, you have a +50% dps against ultra... Not bad no ?
By the time you get 3 armor, your opponent should be way past mutalisks. Usually they will be on hive tech at this time, and being behind in attack upgrades vs ultras with 5 armor is not a good thing
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/yUeBy.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/7FSl4.jpg)
