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On December 16 2011 05:57 knyttym wrote:
why are you testing with 110? Maxed armies terran will usually have a larger army because they sit around 60ish + because of mules and Zerg is 70ish+. So 140terran vs 130zerg is what you want to be testing assuming you are looking at maxed battles. I'm assuming you are because ups are at 3-3
took 1 try..
15 marauder- 30
4medivacs- 8
10 tanks- 30
42 marines - 42
Thanks for this. Everyone gave their opinions but it seems you were the only one that took the time to test this out on the test map. However I did try your setup just now and I can not consistently win (unless I have every single unit spread, which is not realistic.) Did you remember to get all the zerg upgrades 5/3 ultras, baneling speed, and adrenal glands? Since I cant seem to replicte your results.
For everyone else give this a shot:
Search for Unit Tester Online
Choose field in terrain.
Get all the zerg upgrades, give terran 3/3 bio and 3/1 mech and match the zerg supply at around 110.
* Obviously you want static defence such as bunkers and PFs and engage in a choke. But on a map like TalDarim its not easy to force this. Basically I want to focus on the tactics behind winning this fight rather than the overall strategy when facing this composition.
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Platinum Zerg here, (first post so sorry if it sucks)
This is a strategy I have been working on myself. However, I usually move to it after a standard ling/bling/few muta opening where I contain the Terran to 2-3 bases and take the rest of the map while teching to ultras.
I like ultra hive tech vs brood lord in this case because it hits a lot faster and it doesnt have a direct counter that can be quickly amassed like vikings. Ghosts and mauraders are reasonable options but the time it takes to put a bunch of tech labs on your barracks it usually enough time to slam in with ling/bling/ultra push. The ratio I go for is usually like 5-6ultra, 50lings, 50blings, with like 4 infestors/whatever mutas I have left.
To answer your question I think the best way to counter this is to actively do drops with marines/mauraders because it forces mutas or cripples the zerg's infrastructure/economy/APM. Ghosts or a heavy maurader transition work well but as I said before if its executed well you wont have quite enough time to get the numbers you need by the first push.
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i recomment his playstyle http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=227711
its mech a really good one that even beat guys like idra on auto match
you dont have to woory about bane ling ultra if you execute it like he does
because he has not the time to built to get hive when you you attack
imo metroGG plays one of the best mech i ever saw
watch 1 or 2 replay or vods it dont hurt
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okay, Nestea vs MMA, their most recent game is a great example of what to do. Nestea went for 5-3 ultras, infestors, zerglings, and banelings. MMA had like 4 ghosts, about ~10 tanks, and the rest of his ~170 food army was marauder heavy bio. MMA sieged his tanks pre-emptively, lured Nestea's units in with a few marines and unsieged tanks, EMPd the infestors, and stim/stutter-stepped everything else to death. it helped that he picked his engagement spot so that he could flank well with the ghosts and forced zerg into a sort of narrow spot.
i can't find the VOD for it, but its on GOMTV if you have a pass.
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On December 16 2011 09:07 aviator116 wrote:
okay, Nestea vs MMA, their most recent game is a great example of what to do. Nestea went for 5-3 ultras, infestors, zerglings, and banelings. MMA had like 4 ghosts, about ~10 tanks, and the rest of his ~170 food army was marauder heavy bio. MMA sieged his tanks pre-emptively, lured Nestea's units in with a few marines and unsieged tanks, EMPd the infestors, and stim/stutter-stepped everything else to death. it helped that he picked his engagement spot so that he could flank well with the ghosts and forced zerg into a sort of narrow spot.
i can't find the VOD for it, but its on GOMTV if you have a pass.
Don't even use nestea's game vs MMA as an example.
Nestea absolutely butchered ultralisk use.
He ran ling/ultras into tank/marines.
There were no banelings in sight
banespeed got researched at like 25 minutes, when MMA was already at his doorstep.
Worst use of ultralisk since Zenio dropped them into marine tank thor... (GSL code A Nov)
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On December 16 2011 11:06 neoghaleon55 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2011 09:07 aviator116 wrote:
okay, Nestea vs MMA, their most recent game is a great example of what to do. Nestea went for 5-3 ultras, infestors, zerglings, and banelings. MMA had like 4 ghosts, about ~10 tanks, and the rest of his ~170 food army was marauder heavy bio. MMA sieged his tanks pre-emptively, lured Nestea's units in with a few marines and unsieged tanks, EMPd the infestors, and stim/stutter-stepped everything else to death. it helped that he picked his engagement spot so that he could flank well with the ghosts and forced zerg into a sort of narrow spot.
i can't find the VOD for it, but its on GOMTV if you have a pass. Don't even use nestea's game vs MMA as an example.
Or also don't use MMA as an example 
Mimicking a top Korean Terran is looking too far.
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Why is there no replay?
Ultralisks tend to come after broodlords, when the siege tank count has been reduced, and maxing on ultras after you've already maxed on both ling/bane/muta in midgame and infestor/bl in the lategame means the games must always be extremely long. In split map scenarios, terran always win - not necessarily an imbalance, just a truth about how zerg units are less cost efficient (against protoss, zerg can become really cost efficient with bl/infestor so it's not as big an issue in zvp, and mutalisks usually end it in midgame anyways).
So I'd really suggest you need to post replays. letting Zerg get 6+ bases and you being stuck on anything less than 5 is a formula to lose, and that's probably your real problem.
But if this is just going to be a balance whine and theorycraft thread...
Well, really, banelings counter everything terran has. And what do you do to prevent zerg from just going 200/200 banelings and blowing everything up? Siege tanks!
The issue is that ultras don't really change that, as siege tanks, once at critical mass - which should be no problem in lategame when hive is reached and you are on 4+ bases - destroy ultras. It's like saying "damn, my siege tanks are getting owned by mutalisks, I guess I'll make more hellions!"
If Zerg forces your siege tank count too low (whether poor macro on your part and not having a factory per base, or losing them to the broodlord phase of the game), then ultralisks are going to just roll over your army, as ling/bane/ultra/infestor will beat any army with less than 10 siege tanks. So you HAVE to keep your siege tanks.
Thors are not useful, and marauders, quite frankly, aren't useful either (it's okay if the zerg is dying out, but in an even game, marauders aren't going to win it for you as they'll just get mutas, lings, infestors, or broodlords and lol at marauders, which are just poor against zerg in general). If you have ghosts, which you should because of infestors, and because of the previous bl phase, then you can add a lot of damage onto the ultras, but they aren't really great to add instead of siege tanks.
So if the opponent looks to be going Ultras, or you kill off his broodlords with great cost to yourself, you need to seriously pump up siege tank production, or else you'll get overrun by ultras.
Generally, Zerg has won the game if they can lower your siege tank count, so I think you are just losing too much to the broodlord phase or getting too many picked off by mutas or letting his mutas stay alive into the lategame because you aren't aggressive enough, and then you blame it on ultras. If you can maintain your siege tanks all game long, and not too many at any one big battle, you should be fine, even if zerg goes into ultras.
In short, if zerg is going for ultralisks, you need to ramp up siege tank production, and spread them out. That's why BL/Infestor into Ultra/Infestor is so damn deadly - they use the broodlords to take out siege tanks, then use ultras to finish you off. Really, anytime your siege tank count is too low, mass baneling can kill you, so re-watch your games and see if mass baneling wouldn't have done better. Ghosts are okay against ultras - actually when you hit critical mass of 15+, they are amazing, but what is most important is mass siege tanks. Your siege tank count should only be rising all game long, and by the time ultras come out they should just be getting obliterated immediately because you have so many damn siege tanks.
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I think the statement about losing by making ultras was made before their buildtime was lowered, which is a huuuge deal. Also if you think a zerg going ultras in lategame is scary you should see what a zerg with the same econ not doing ultras is capable of.
Hint: it's very scary!
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On December 16 2011 03:37 leo23 wrote:
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
I dont see why a good zerg would tech switch to broodlords. You only build a bit less anti air as terran. you need so much minerals banked for this switch and its so extremely weak in small numbers. You need atleast 4-6 infestors and 10+ broods for it to be any kind of effective lategame. That costs so much gas so if terran does what hes supposed to do this tech switch will just straight out kill the zerg. Even good zergs cant spread out enough units to defend lategame amount of bases unless its a ''smaller'' map. Also I dont understand your judgement and conclusions as if you were a godlike player yourself. anyway I think this comp would be very hard to deal with on maps like taldarim. Because you cant force fights in chokes so on this map i would just keep denying bases so he cant get such a expensive army, on other maps the chokes should help you win it and as said before PF's are great lategame
I think if you kill this huge army and you've been doing a good job dropping. the only way for zerg to win is with nydus or drop play after that becuase your position is too fortified.
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How good ultras are depends on the map.
One (mostly) map independent thing you should ALWAYS do versus ultra is transition into super turtly play with drops. Typically, when they transition to ultra the zerg is sacrificing their mobility and therefore their greatest defense versus drops. Multi pronged drop harass can help you win the battle.
Now the map dependent aspect is how well you can turtle as terran. The best counter to Ultras are buildings. If you have the money, two or three PFs at a choke to defend (i'm thinking shakuras) plus some barracks/bunkers makes it almost impossible for a zerg, groundbased army to penetrate (get building armor!). Your buildings don't even have to attack. Just build a bunch of barracks/bunkers/engineering bays/whatever you feel like. Ultra pathing really sucks when they get clumped up, and buildings make a huge difference.
Of course, if the map is really wide open (think tal darim), the amount of buildings you have to use to achieve this is kind of excessive.
tl;dr: build buildings in the middle of the map as a wall and drop him a lot.
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I enjoy using a similar set up against Terran mine being Ultra roach an infestor (which eats up so much gas but is well worth it) an that seems to win me quite a few games on ladder especially vs a mainly bio army (if I scout mech I change infestors to lings) but yea the only times I've really lost with that set up is to armies that were so spread that I couldnt abuse the strength of my composition which is vs clumped units which iv seen terrans of my level have in excess. Especially with fungals they wreck clumped bio armies though so do banelings in your case. Only advice I can think to give you is to spread your units the hell out man. GL in the future an hope you find the answer to your solution. (oh an usually I move out with 2/2/2 upgrades [melee/bio/ranged])
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mech wrecks ultras, and ultra/roach isn't really a good synergy. Roaches aren't very good against both bio or mech in lategame, due to high siege tank counts. If terran doesn't have many siege tanks, then ultras and banelings rape them, so as long as there aren't many siege tanks, you can do a lot of things that shouldn't work.
Heavy focus on upgrades (as opposed to quicker tech or tech units) isn't really optimal against mech either. It's good against bio, I suppose, but pure bio isn't really good in tvz except 2 base all-ins. For the most part, the math works out that +1 vehicle weapons on thors and siege tanks and hellions always do the same number of shots to kill zerg units, mostly regardless of their armor (+2 thors always 3 shot mutas, unless they are 0 armor in which case I believe it's 2 shot, roaches always die in 3 shots from tanks or thors, etc).
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EPT
