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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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hey my men shietfein you got lucky. i was sifting through my replays and i found one that reminded me of you
a zvt on shattered temple (1 hour and 7 minutes long)
replay
notice how he drops, nukes and harasses my bases. he managed to nuke my bases since i didnt have spores. i then fixed this mistake and the game proceeded
as you can see, my opponent had the right idea with the ghost but sadly just overextended himself and got caught in a corner, had he cleared ALL the creep before i moved in i would have died. he also didnt snipe correctly (for some reason) but you can see how quickly these ultralisks die.
you can also see in this replay why you never go battlecruisers.(corrupter demolish the air)
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I'm a +700 Masters Terran.
I think you should use a lot of planetaries to block the attack paths and mass up tanks replacing your marines with ghosts. You want to aim for a Ghost, Tank, Thor mix with a lot of barracks to resupply with MMM.
You will not be able to beat this composition on open ground so you need to exploit its vulnerability (that it cant deal with drops). This approach works on maps where you can split them easily enough like Metal and Shak. You have to force him to attack into an almost unbreakable position or else you will just whittle away at him with drops and nukes.
You should also be able to get a higher supply then him because you can get a lot of OCs once your defence is set up
Also you should get a few vikes to go overlord hunting whenever he has no mutas or infestors.
On bigger maps like Tal'Darim altar I have no idea how you deal with it because he can just get wave after wave of units and deny your 4th or hit your main.
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I've seen a lot of pro korean streamers hold off this unit composition with just marine-tank by again as mentioned before, spreading out the units to deal the maximum splash, but also by building supply depots and buildings to create walls around the map to protect your units.
It may sound like a clumsy idea and a waste of money but it is extremely effective! And of course. a few ghosts and marauders in your army would really help.
On a side note, I doubt that this type of army will really be used on the new ladder maps
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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
a single BC or Banshee to be annoying is fine, but even a moderate number of multiple BCs/banshee is so bad against this. ultra/ling/bling will clean up the undersized ground army and then ultras will be free to run around shutting bases down. The ultras can run to a PF and kill it faster than BCs and even banshees can catch up. Have you ever tried to kill ultras in your main with BCs? it takes forever, and the zerg is remaxing the whole time (and you better believe the remax will include something that hits air).
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I've been using this style for almost 3 or 4 months now, and frankly at first I thought the entire thing was overpowered. Granted if you are way behind this composition just completely crushes your face in a manner so laughable that it makes you feel like a complete and total scrub. But even if you are ahead this can be extremely devastating.
The most important thing is to constantly drop bases, keep his base count low. Generally I tend to stay on 3 bases before I get my acid shovel up, but if the attack fails I will have a fourth hatchery to saturate. If I don't there really isn't much else to do but pray he dies to the second Ultra/baneling/ling attack while taking a super late fourth. As long as you keep harassing his tech/drones/bases, you should keep him on his toes enough that eventually the losses will rack up and come back to haunt the Zerg hard.
What makes this composition work is that it does damage insanely quickly. If you have a bioball and the Banelings trickle through into it slowly, thats it, you just lost all your bio and the Ultra's will clean up your siege tanks and you'll lose. Banelings are the real hero here, not the Ultralisks. Ultra's only allow the Banelings to go untargetted by the Siege tanks, because on their own they suck a lot. The only redeeming factor for the ultra's is that the army will have basically evaporated enough that they can do damage afterwards because the standing army can't kill them off.
What you absolutely NEED at minimum is high upgrades on your bio, atleast 2/2. You also need Siege tanks to target the Baneling pockets, and only the Banelings. Ultra's aren't the important targets just yet.
What really helps is nice simcity, either by Planetary fortressing up roads or putting random barracks/supply depots there to slow the army down. This allows your Bio to retreat efficiently.
What completely destroys this composition is ravens with seeker missile. Now I know these things are expensive and they certainly can't be transitioned into from a 3 base marine tank composition easily at all, but they kill off the baneling pockets so that the only thing remaining is th Ultralisks which can be taken down by your standing army.
Ghosts are optional I feel. Yes Ultralisks are really strong and snipe deals with them well, but the army moves in so quickly that you won't be able to get off a lot of snipes anyway. You're better off using that APM for more important things like dealing with the Banelings.
It is a really hard composition to deal with, and I feel that it directly counters not-extremely-well executed ghost transitions. I hardly lose with it on the ladder, but those are the kind of people that just do a quick 1.5 base marine tank push at the start to try to end the game quickly anyway and get behind massively after that.
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1250 master zerg
what leo23 said was correct. plus plus on using tanks on ledges.
Also, build random production buildings in the middle of the map to screw with pathing. Trust me. Ultras won't break through, you'll funnel ling bane through to death.
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I play terran right around the same level.
The way I see it, there are two things you can try:
1. Mech. It's hard to get the right setup, but the late game is mind numbingly easy once you have your bases and infrastructure set up.
2. Sacrifice scvs and mass orbitals for stronger max. You should have less than 90 scvs anyways, but if you go down to about 50, a 150 food max with a mule-driven economy is much better.
That's more of a late game TvZ setup in general, but yeah, I feel ya. That unit comp feels SO broken. Late game TvZ is much harder for terran than it is for zerg. Making the change to learning mech (and I don't mean thor/hellion - - that sucks horribly. You need tanks, banshees, vikings, etc. to support) is pretty tough... But it's just fundamentally more powerful.
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Besides the obvious - structure placement to constrict movement I would also advise heavy turtle style and getting into 40+ minute game. Zerg's peak point with that style comes between 15th and 25th(30th) minute normally. Once direct attack paths are secured by the T there is the option to try and engage with nydus or(and) drops behind his lines. If that fails it is game over for the Z in most cases. Once T gets heavy in gas - transitions into mostly ghosts, ravens and BCs he has the advantage.
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Anyone rattling on about building ghosts against ultra/ling variants is barking up the wrong tree. Bio with tanks is what all the top Terrans use to deal with this. A handful of ghosts is useful to deal with infestors but snipe is much more limited against ultras than brood lords. Set up a strong position, tanks spread with a choke and planetary fortress (assuming you can afford). Be very aware of attempted nydus worms / drop harass. Ideally have 2 drops around the map at the same time to snipe hatcheries and hopefully tech structures.
You absolutely cannot move out until 3-3 against this type of play unless he gets insanely greedy mid-game.
There was a game recently between MVP and Losira which showed bio & tank vs ultras, but I cannot remember where it was played
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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
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Master Zerg here.
Couple things are really important, never engage on creep and don't keep your units clumped. Zergs who like ultras tend to aggressively spread their creep, so it's important or you to aggressively deny their creep spread by sending a few marines out and scanning or adding a raven. I think you can try to turtle and play defensively with lots of tanks, PFs and OCs and getting a sort of deathball that is capable of countering infestors, ultras, and broodlords (i.e. lots of ghosts) while doing drops here and there. Or you can go almost pure bio, sinking more gas into medivacs, marauders, and eventually ghosts and quick upgrades and do lots of multipronged drops. It's especially good if zerg went quick hive but doesn't have mutas or a good number of infestors. You can pick up drops after they've killed some workers or tech structures and be really annoying with them. If the zerg really skimps on mutas and infestors, you can add in 1-2 vikings early to snipe overlords and a couple banshees with raven to stop creep tumor spread. Also, although I've never tested this out, a raven with a hunter seeker in very late game can be decent against brood lords, I suppose..
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Thorzain played a game in the Mousesports vs. Slayers match where he played this composition and he built ghosts, marauders, marines, and tanks with a few medivacs. Seems too me though it's all about engaging in narrow chokes, since ultra/ling/bling is pure melee, whereas Thorzain's comp was pure range.
The casting is garbage but the game is pretty good
Edit: the amount of bad advice and theorycrafting in this thread is unbelievable. Also, I understand that you are talking about an army that excludes infestors, but I feel that if Thorzain can beat a pro korean who has good infestor usage with this comp, you should be able to own a masters zerg that passes on infestors with this same comp. I don't understand why people think you need to switch to banshees, that is a terrible idea for so many reasons i don't even 
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Okay, the reason people have trouble winning with Ultralisks is that they are so easily countered and they can be kited pretty decently.
Marauders beat Ultralisks and are pretty good against Banelings (you still have to split your marauders, Banelings are inefficient against marauders but they are pretty good late game when resources don't matter too much)
So you can get marauders and target fire the Ultralisks or you can go Banshees. I don't generally recommend banshees unless you can manage massing up 20 without being scouted. If he scouts it, then you are screwed because he can just get Mutalisks and you lose.
So against Ultralisks, there is another flawed way with them. They are pretty big and clumsy, they have a hard time getting around. If you start massing those double pronged Marine drops, then you should have SOME success. Especially if you position the Marines behind mineral fields and then leaving when Ultralisks come. Of course, not many Zergs would send Ultralisks to deal with drops but the point stands, the zerg has a lack of anti air and you can just drop and pick up marines without losing anything.
By the way, this style is called Blitz Zerg for a reason. It is meant to break lines with a head on attack. It is pretty much all or nothing. So you should definetly try to split the map with Planetary Fortresses or make some Ravens and HSM the banelings if the game reaches that point.
So in general, Marauder/Marine/Tank will deal with Ultra/Ling/Bling. Harass a lot and keep pushing him back while you expand and make lots of barracks etc.
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When you get to 3 or 4 bases and you know zerg is on his lair tech you need to have around 5 tech lab barracks so you make ghosts if you see broodlords you can make ghosts, marauders if you see ultras and ghosts if you dont see either. I have won a very large number of tvzs because of this. Basically, mindlessly putting reactors on all your rax late game is suicide.
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On December 16 2011 05:29 Leargle wrote:
I play terran right around the same level.
The way I see it, there are two things you can try:
1. Mech. It's hard to get the right setup, but the late game is mind numbingly easy once you have your bases and infrastructure set up.
2. Sacrifice scvs and mass orbitals for stronger max. You should have less than 90 scvs anyways, but if you go down to about 50, a 150 food max with a mule-driven economy is much better.
That's more of a late game TvZ setup in general, but yeah, I feel ya. That unit comp feels SO broken. Late game TvZ is much harder for terran than it is for zerg. Making the change to learning mech (and I don't mean thor/hellion - - that sucks horribly. You need tanks, banshees, vikings, etc. to support) is pretty tough... But it's just fundamentally more powerful.
Mech is the opposite of what you want to do against this.
Ultralisks beat Tanks nicely, Zerglings surrond thors and banelings beat hellion.
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Marauders. You need marauders against ultralisks. I have almost no issues with marauder/marine/tank/medic composition. Pre spread, and concave back and forth to draw in attacks. Still must split against banes, but ultras are so huge you can semi route the banes by kiting around a side of your concave.
Ghosts do the same trick, and are more fun to use but a bit slower for me than a marauder transition. When I get 3/3 marauders out, I'm taking out hatcheries and spools/dens/warrens etc. 3/3 marauders wreck through ultras.
I also always just split my marines, let the marauders tank a bit when the banes come in.
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Ultrabanes are amazing versus Terrans.
Unless you have godly split and micro, it's quite hard to beat.
Going 15-20 siegetanks isn't viable either because any broodlord transition will absolutely crush you.
My suggestion is to build forward buildings like planetaries and bunkers.
That way, you waste the zerg's banelings when they attack in.
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On December 16 2011 06:01 KiLL_ORdeR wrote:Thorzain played a game in the Mousesports vs. Slayers match where he played this composition and he built ghosts, marauders, marines, and tanks with a few medivacs. Seems too me though it's all about engaging in narrow chokes, since ultra/ling/bling is pure melee, whereas Thorzain's comp was pure range. The casting is garbage but the game is pretty good Edit: the amount of bad advice and theorycrafting in this thread is unbelievable. Also, I understand that you are talking about an army that excludes infestors, but I feel that if Thorzain can beat a pro korean who has good infestor usage with this comp, you should be able to own a masters zerg that passes on infestors with this same comp. I don't understand why people think you need to switch to banshees, that is a terrible idea for so many reasons i don't even
Miya was terrible in that match.
He didn't use ultrabanes at all, it was just pure mass ultra with a sprinkle of banelings.
He engaged at a choke and let 8 ultras die.
He remaxed on more ultras.......no transition until his second army dies...
That was improper use of ultrabane strategy.
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On December 16 2011 03:12 BroboCop wrote:
...
p.s. i had the sickest game vs drewbie most base trading in the world.
your post made me stop caring about this thread, I want that replay. give it. NAOW!
ontopic though: indeed, the ultra/baneling/ling composition is designed to dominate the ground, and it does it quite well. as a matter of fact, it consist of the 3 best ground-antiground units in the game together.
something we can find at first glance is that it does not have any anti-air capabilities, and thus an air-heavy army would do well against it even if the ground-portion of your army would die.
p.s. of course this is not recommended.
inhumane amounts of tanks are known to work, especially with good position, but is impossible to achieve ingame.
massive amounts of ghosts work, but its a bit too hard to snipe zerglings and banelings at the same rate that said zerglings and banelings are approaching your army, not to mention the impossibility of acquiring enough ghosts.
in my opinion, maruaders are the answer, maruaders do well vs ultras, ok vs banelings and not great vs zeglings, and as such pure maruaders doesn't work, also, if you were to switch your armies focus from whatever you had to mass maruaders, it would inevitably take a great deal of time.
the solution is, as someone said before me, to dabble maruaders into your army and steadily focusing on maruaders as the enemy focuses on ultras, there is no hardcounter to ultra/ling/bling other than mass air and sick positioning, and you will have to deal with that by simply outplaying him.
however, the truly scary thing is when its not just ultra/ling/bling, but ultra/ling/bling/infestor+5mutas (mutas to discourage drop play, not intended for battle) the infestor makes the game completely un-microable, and thus the one weakness of ultra/ling/bling is removed, do note that if you have mutas, then you also have a spire, so efter freeing up some supply by, say, attacking, you will easily be able to build anti-air units in the event that the enemy went for mass air.
I have absolutely no idea how you are supposed to counter that army comp.
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PF + spaced out siege tanks should be all it takes to kill zling-bling-ultra (a huge mass of marines are obviously going to be with it as well)
• Ultralisks are not cost-effective against spaced out siege tanks
• Banelings do poorly vs both siege tanks and planetary fortresses
• Zerglings don't do particularly well vs tanks, and absolutely terrible vs planetary fortress. While a critical mass of lings could kill exclusively tanks, the PFs would deal with the critical mass like a knife through butter, especially helpful considering they don't cost any supply.
• PF's can't get fungaled or neuraled, and siege tanks are very good at dealing with those effects as well (especially if you target-fire infestors).
Downsides:
• PFs are very hard to effectively pressure with
• There's a huge weakness vs mutalisks or brood lords which zerg can easily tech to and win
overall probably much better to stick with a rounded build like ghost-marauder-medivac-tank-marine, and just work on micro, scouting, and positioning.
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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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