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I play at 1000+ masters terran.
I keep hearing that Zergs only build ultras when they want to loose and I find it funny as that is the unit I have the most problems dealing with.
Specifically the problem I have is in the late game with both armies are fully upgraded.
I play quite standard TvZ and I usually feel quite confident going into the late game vs a zerg when they go broodlord/infestor, ultra/infestor, or mass infestor/ling.
However I cant seem to find the magic "counter" to Ultra, Baneling, Lings. I recently lost a TvZ on the ladder and noted what units he had in the attack. (I realize its pretty much open season to drop a zerg that goes mass ultra/baneling but you still need to somehow win that last BIG engagement).
10 ultras
66 lings
34 banelings
Total supply: 110
Coming out of the mid-game I usually have marines, tanks, medivacs (3-3 on bio and 3-1 in mech). To find a counter I have been playing around in the unit test map to see if adding a realisitic amount of tanks/thors/marauders/ghosts will make me beat this zerg army. After testing a lot of different games now with different compositions, positions (no chokes) and micro I still cant beat it with a 110 terran army.
Hope someone here can help me or link to a game where a pro terran deals with this zerg composition.
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Spread your units! The splash damage will destroy you if you're clumped... that's exactly what this composition is designed to do.
With tanks and marauders spread you should have no problems with this composition.
Also, Ghosts are extremely good against Ultras, though if he has 10 of them you probably are going to just need a lot of marauders.
Overall you need to post a replay of how the battle went down to really be able to say why you lost.
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On December 16 2011 01:54 TheSambassador wrote:
Spread your units! The splash damage will destroy you if you're clumped... that's exactly what this composition is designed to do.
With tanks and marauders spread you should have no problems with this composition.
Also, Ghosts are extremely good against Ultras, though if he has 10 of them you probably are going to just need a lot of marauders.
Overall you need to post a replay of how the battle went down to really be able to say why you lost.
I have tried this in the unit tester with all units pre spread and still dont win. If you know how to do it please test it on that map and tell me what units you used.
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Total zerg army cost 6500/3000 - zerg army comes out in waves, he should never have enough resources to create so many ultras at once. Anyway the counter is simply more mauraders. Ghosts are not good against ultra they are simply passable. The reason pros mass ghosts is so they can counter broodlord/infestor and also be safe to an ultra techswitch (since vikings cannot fight ultras). It is helpful to terran in the late late game to build alot of orbitals and sacrifice scvs so you can get ahead in supply.
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could you provide a replay?
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i don't know how to explain, but in my opinion, this build is really design to try to end the game with one wave and then re-max with pure lings and overwhelm your reinforcements. Once the siege contain is gone 3/3 cracklings can deal so much damage. I would say maybe do more drops mid-game just to pressure the zerg and prevent them to get the economy up to do this build. ling/ultra was really not too bad to deal with but with absurd amount of banelings it becomes a problem. Plant down some PFs in the choke points would help too. but I think deliberate drops are the only option out there. Once they are crippled the army size is nothing compared to well upgraded marine maraude tank ghost thor viking army.
Edit: I am high-diamond zerg player. I know my mechanics is not masters yet but my zvt is basically ling/infestor into fast hive + ultra/baneling/ling
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engage in chokes. If you engage in the open you will lose. Offensively as has been said before drop all over the place. Ultras in chokes are terribly bad.
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BC Banshee will win this battle pretty one sided.
Excesdive minerals on helions for harras/blings
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derpalisks.. exploit the ultras lack of ability to attack anything even remotely positioned. Good sim city helps with this. Marauders mixed in with marines and tanks should do it, unless you've been outmacrod to where the zerg can constantly throw units at you. ghost are also a nice addition to terran lategame against Z going ultra, since infestors will surely be on the field. Think tanks on the small high ground cliffs on shakuras, marauders wedged between buildings.plenty of tanks, and drops as you defend big pushes.
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On December 16 2011 02:54 Suitup wrote:
BC Banshee will win this battle pretty one sided.
Excesdive minerals on helions for harras/blings
Thanks for this useful answer.
On December 16 2011 01:50 ShaneFeit wrote:
I play at 1000+ masters terran.
I keep hearing that Zergs only build ultras when they want to loose and I find it funny as that is the unit I have the most problems dealing with.
Never listen to clueless Zerg whine. (;
Short answer: mix in Marauders (and/or Ghosts, depending whether your opponent went Broodlords first or not; if the Zerg opens with Ling/Infestors, he'll likely transition into Ultralisks) and fight in chokes. Building one or two PF in key areas will allow you to have a strong defensive position in which the Zerg should be reluctant to engage. But wherever you fight, it should be in a tight position so that Ultralisks have no room, and you should hit & run them (like you would do against charge Zealots) once most of the Zerglings are cleared.
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That's my lategame in ZvT, it's designed for quick upgrade play, the goal is to get to a ultra baneling army on 3/3 and with ultra armor upgrade. Like someone above said the goal for the zerg is to wipe your army, often at the cost of his own and flood you with cracklings. If you see infestor tech just after lair you should go really heavy on the upgrades if you are not doing it already and be greedy, the zerg has map control but he can't attack into siege tanks until ultralisks and a turret at each expansion will prevent infestor harass.
Also spread your tanks, with no mutas you can have long lines shelling as the zerg advances. I you want to drop do it as you
see his baneling ultra army ready to attack, he'll have to chose between running lings back to defend or attack. Focus the banelings over everything else, if the tanks fire on the ultras it's very bad for you.
If you don't lose everything in the engagement, don't be to eager to push, remember there's a few hundred cracklings coming very fast, take that opportunity to secure more bases and drop as much as possible.
Cute stuff is it's really lategame (someone did it to me, it worked and it was annoying) scan and drop mules on the banelings. You can also build planetary fortresses on the attack path to make ultras derp and funnel the banelings.
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the counter to ultralisk is microing. i'm not joking. ultralisk and banelings are a huge gas sink and if you make it so zerg is only on 3-4bases after you kill their infestors once they don't really have the $$ to rebuild them.
source: personal expereicnes against naama, drewbie, other high lvl master/gm terrans. p.s. i had the sickest game vs drewbie most base trading in the world.
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I'm not 1000+ Terran (actually Terran is my most mediocre race, as a random player), but here's my attempt at providing some help:
Skip the thors, siege tanks + bio should cut it with ghost snipes. There is no magic counter to this. Zergs (like me) complain Ultra as a losing unit because we aren't using it with 5/3 upgrades and in an amount above 5 and engaging in open area. Though it's unlikely in the late game (I call any ultralisk under 3/2 or under 'paperlisk'), I've watched many replays where 12~16 ultras get destroyed through a meat grinder made by marines and marauders (And clumped up) at a choke with siege tanks in the back. I don't believe there is any equal-food Terran ball that can take down a max-upgraded ultra-bling-ling army in wide open ground. Your siege tanks will seem to deal no damage to the Zerg before they reach your tanks in the face.
Terran late game should always have Ghost unless your Zerg still doesn't have hive. Ghosts are your way of dealing with BL and Ultras.
I don't have the apm to do this but you might. Preserve your ghosts in drops like Toss keeps HT's in prisms. You should have over 10 of them with chalk full of energy. Ultralisk production is still slow as hell after the reduced time.
The one that kills a Terran is when the Queens are with the Ultras with creep spread up to your face (by whatever means, like overlord). Other than 'don't let that happen', I don't know what you would do.
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that composition just dies to terran bio. if you have 3-3 marauders, you can be amazingly cost-efficient against ultras and banes especially if you stutter-step like youre playing protoss.adding banshees wouldn't hurt also.
ghosts...ehhh, they cost a a lot more gas, and they aren't THAT good against ultras.
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Don't add banshees at all. Their DPS is terrible against late-game ling/bling swarms with 5 armor ultras. The cost for Techlab+starports is a waste. Medivacs and marauders make way more use of the gas than banshees. Because if you mixed banshees, you'll only have around 3~4 of them and they're not gonna do shit until most of your infrastructure is wasted.
It's a waste of investment for air weapons in a TvZ when the midgame is most likely involving ling/bling/mutas (spire, corruptors on demand). Banshee's 12x2 gets cut down to 7x2. That takes forever for a fleet of them to kill a swarm of 500 hp ultras.
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120 supply worth of 3-3 thors will stop that zerg unit composition in A-move mode on creep. Nothing else comes close. Strike cannon does not help.
Ghost snipes aren't fast enough, and marauders in equivalent supply just die. Medivacs heal too slowly.
Of course 110 supply of pre-sieged 3-3 tanks do stop the composition, but you have zero anti-air and... well, you need to have him A-move into a tank line (also consider that in the unit tester tanks have full range vision).
Also worth considering is the fact that at this stage of the game you can sack your SCVs and use mules only to mine minerals, thus freeing more army supply than him (in the unit tester you can stop that composition with 150 supply of 3-3 marauders on stim ;-))
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terrain/building walls, drops, air units
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1100+ masters zerg here
you need to turtle while you your ghost count up. meanwhile try to deny as many expos as possible. chances are he is bad and doesn't have units spread out around his bases. he might have some spines if he is mediocre. in that case just do marauder drops.
for the engagement:
(NOTE: DO NOT MOVE OUT WITHOUT 3-3 OR 15 + GHOSTS, DO NOT ATTACK ON CREEP)
if the composition has no infestor then you pretty much won (but i don't think any zerg is that retarded but who knows)
just have the marauders in front, spread your marines evenly and get ready to snipe as fast as possible. STUTTER STEP, DO NOT GET SURROUNDED BY LINGS. Banelings should be easy to kill since they are OFF CREEP.
sadly the process is slow and painful since you have to deal with the zerg instant remax but if you keep your units you will be leaping ahead and ahead.
what you should really worry about is if you are facing a good zerg, the resupply will be broodlord, so when you are max pop down 2 extra starports with reactors.
nukes are great to kill bad zergs with bases that have no spores.
hope this helps.
btw a replay of yours would be better so i can point out your fundamental flaws specifically
edit: i want to emphasize that you NEED to kill bases
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the most importat thing in tvz is a high tank count. if you have it, this mass bling/ling style shouldnt affect you. You also have to build ghosts aggainst t3 zerg and learn to use snipe.
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Unit spreading makes a huge difference. The ultra is big, clunky and has a slow attack animation. When it runs into its first marine, it stops, blocking all the units behind him, and attacks, giving your tanks time to get a volley of shots off. Provided your army is sufficiently spread, it actually takes a while for the ultras and banelings to work their way through the army, meaning more tank shots taken. If you add in some micro either kiting with a group of infantry units or sniping with ghosts, it's entirely possible to hold it off decently. Keep in mind that ultra/baneling is very expensive, so while you're guaranteed to lose a big chunk of your army, if it doesn't crush your army it's not particularly cost effective.
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EPT
