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Is there any reason armor is almost always preferred over shields?
There are only 6 units that have more HP than shields, HOWEVER, they are units that are quite important to the protoss army:
Zealot, Immortal, Colossus, Void ray, Phoenix, Carrier.
Is armor preferred over shields purely because of the cost?
50/50 doesn't seem to be a reasonable amount to take +1 armor over +1 shields since shields can regenerate and a lot of units have equal if not more shields than HP
And I thought it might be because of the time but I just found out they actually have the same research time.
I'm not referring to a +1 shields fast timing attack or anything, but in general why would you get armor over shields?
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Well before it used to be because of the extra 100/100 it cost.
But since the patch unless I'm doing something really zealot heavy or hitting a timing say against marine only or something like that I prefer the shield.
In addition to regenerating it also helps your building and non ground units.
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Before it used to double the research cost and now they are a lot closer.
Also against Terrain it's really bad against EMP. For other match-ups it's probably at least worth looking at. However Armor is probably still going to end up being better because of the fact that you tank more with zealots.
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Shields will regenerate, "hull" damage on Protoss units is the only damage in SC2 that cannot be healed through any means (except in team games  ), but the biggest reason why Armor is better is because of Zealots, especially with Guardian Shield. Shield upgrades are good lategame or for specific plays (eg Blink Stalker play because you take shield damage -> blink away) but overall I don't think you can really justify going shield over armor
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Russian Federation164 Posts
please use search function, this is discussed A LOT!
briefly:
-it's chipper (eventually u'll get 3/0/3 for the cost of 3/2/0)
-base 1 armor
(say, marines deal 6 dmg per attack, + shields will be 20% (6/5) more effective, armor will be 50% more eff (6/4))
-most units have health >>> shields
-people rarely micro good enough to get damage ONLY on shields
-pure math says that, say, a +1 armor zealot will be able to survive 10 more marine shots, while +1 shield one - only
4 (random numbers, use search)
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One strong reason is because in PvT, terran can just EMP all your shields.
EDIT: ninjad
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The 1 base armor is the main thing. Although there are some factors that can push shields over armor. The obvious one is shields regen. So it depends on the type of game you're working towards/what's happening. If you're going blink stalkers, for instance, if you play it like most do, you'll be pulling them away as soon as your shields are low, and if the battle goes long enough you'll even get some good regen going, making shields obviously very strong.
Also, of course archons are extremely strong with shield upgrades, being that they have a shit ton of shield health, but no base armor. Also the units they are strong against(lings, mutas) are units which are greatly effected by armor(read:the stats).
if you're to be doing minor pokes and prods, in nearly all circumstances shield would probably be better. For final battles where there's no chance of retreat, armor is probably superior to shields.
And of course, against terran, emp.
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Shields are better than armor against Zerg. Against mutalisks shields are far superior due to the mechanics of the bounce damage and because they make your cannons more resilient, while against roaches the difference between armor and shields is so miniscule it's pretty irrelevant.
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Also worth noting and quite exploitable is if an attack does more damage than you have shields it'll calculate your shield armor + your life armor in to the amount the attack is reduced by.
Example, if a marine is going to hit a stalker for 7 and your upgrades are +1/+1/+1 and the stalker is at 80/80 health and 1/80 shields, the attack will only do 4 damage (2 life armor, 1 shield armor). Pretty crazy.
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United Kingdom20284 Posts
Il use marines for an example.
In a fantasy situation that would probably very rarely happen but what people would really really love to see when they are opening double forge - terran doesnt realise how early you got your upgrades or your chronoboost numbers, and you are able to chain chrono 2-2 and attack just before his 1-1 finishes. It is 2-2 to 0-0.
Marines do 6 damage.
Guardian shield lowers that to 4 damage.
If i had +2 shields, my zealots would take 2 damage from marines while its 50 shields were still up.
If i had +2 armor, because zealots also have 1 base armor, it would take only ONE damage from marines for its 100hp health pool.
See the difference now?
Shields have their place, they are amazing vs muta ling (due to blink stalkers having good synergy with them, and more importantly, shields also affecting all protoss buildings, which is a MASSIVE mutalisk damage reduction with glaive wurms bouncing around, and also a massive damage reduction to lings very low base damage) and of course not forgetting archons are great vs everything PvZ aside from large infestor counts and/or brood lords, and they dont benefit from armor upgrades.
In SOME PvZ games, shield upgrades are great, and they are underused right now, it probably shouldnt become the standard, but it should be an option, but in PvT, upgrading shields before armor against bio is kinda stupid with zealots having twice as much HP as they have Shields, 1 base armor, and of course the existance of EMP
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Not saying you guys are wrong, but I haven't seen much discussion about how it affects air play. Phoenix in particular, against zerg.
Given the strength of pheonix play, given the strength of zealot archon, given the vulnerability of cannons in PvZ versus mutas...I think shields are definitely worth a hard look. It protects better than armor against ling counters, protects all buildings against mutas, has great synergy with a mobile attack/retreat force which works well against zergs in general, allowing you to control when they make units and when they make drones, and simultaneously protects air and ground units.
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Canada13389 Posts
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/search.php?q=shield upgrade&t=t&f=-1&u=&gb=date&d=
next time use search this has been discussed to death.
Armor ups were much cheaper and continue to be a bit cheaper at a time in the game where gas is the limiting resource. Taking a fast third means armour can be worth it but off two base you can't. Between blink, twilight council, robo units, stalkers and attack upgrades its too much to get shield.
In PvZ most protoss prioritize attack upgrades before anything else. In PvT attack and armor double ups are more effective for the bulk of your army - chargelots.
So armor is generally a late game thing or something you get after you have so much gas income the cost relative to the unit composition you want to make is negligent for shield upgrades.
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is there a good forge fe build that goes from a fast +1 attack with zeals (without cyber) to +1 shields blink timing to +2 air +2 shieds carrier zeal stalker allin?
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i wonder how a blink stalker shield timing attack would do against vP or vZ. Gonna experiment with that later today :D
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you get +2 armor then +1 shield, mostly because of the cost and the way your tanks work. (though in sc2 people strangely started to go for +3 armor and still do it, well against terran right now its understandable). Anyway, Zealot has more hp then shields and they are supposed to be the tanking units, thats why armor > shields. basically Zealots can't run away, so they will never have shield regeneration. The rest of your army will pull back when zealots are down, so no shield damage will be applied to be regenerated.
Shield benefits air play and buildings though, but you don't intend to get air units hit as well as buildings attacked.
Anyway the Zealot is the reason and he has more hull then shield.
and yes tons of threads out there.
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Because your shields are unlimited, your armor is not.
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@ZeromuS, Maybe it's just me but I could not find this in the search. I would not have guessed "shield upgrade" was the right search command. Maybe it would be good to get a post on the search command noobs (like me) are going to be using. So like shield vs armor.
I thought the reason for this could be that armor reduces damage on shields, which is not the case. So because armor does not help while shields are still up, protoss are happy to lose shields and fight with their regular hp.
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On February 16 2014 21:17 Roodvlees wrote:
@ZeromuS, Maybe it's just me but I could not find this in the search. I would not have guessed "shield upgrade" was the right search command. Maybe it would be good to get a post on the search command noobs (like me) are going to be using. So like shield vs armor.
I thought the reason for this could be that armor reduces damage on shields, which is not the case. So because armor does not help while shields are still up, protoss are happy to lose shields and fight with their regular hp.
There's also a rule (and a special notification) when you necro a thread. This wasn't needed...
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ships are rarely useful in big army battles and emp, speaking against terran.
in the other matches ups probably cause most units have more hp than shields.
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EPT
