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I've recently been curious about zerg hate for the ultralisk and the extreme efficacy of broodlords in any non mirror ZvX. Specifically the ability of zerg to pop 10+ broodlords, while maintaining a large support army (usually by suiciding the early game units and creating spine walls).
Here is the cost of a broodlord from Liquipedia: 300 minerals, 250 gas, 4 supply (Let us ignore the hive tech and greater spire part of it). This cost is paid in two parts, first when spawning a corruptor, and then when you finally morph it into a broodlord. The length of time between these two payments can vary, but typically is of the order of about 8 minutes or so (I'm not v sure about this). Would it make sense to revise the brood lord's cost based on this delayed payment? The present value of the future morphing cost is likely to be much less than this simple additive sum.
A comparison with the ultralisk (300 min 200 gas 6 supply) may help at this point. Ignoring the roles they play, the cost structure may explain why ultras are reviled by most zergs. Broodlords are morphed from corruptors, which accompany large standing armies. Ultras are usually made as a remax option (due to the high supply cost) or alongside cheaper, less supply intensive units (lings, banelings). Ultras massively eat into zerg banks, which means that once they die, the next zerg remax is drastically weaker (assuming the game is on even footing).
This may well be the reason for 'ultras are something I make when I'm already ahead', since being ahead implies a larger bank, which ultras dont affect as much. This is made worse by the ultras role as a huge tank and damage dealer, so they will inevitably be the first things to die, and tanks are pointless without something to tank for. This is imo pretty much the reason carriers/ battle cruisers are non viable in any match up. Broodlords however, have good survivability, and the disappearance of several broodlords does not affect the next remax, if the game is on even footing (?).
How much do you think broodlords actually cost i.e. how much do you discount the morphing cost and is it balanced out by the cost of hive tech and the greater spire?
Since I play protoss, what, in your opinion, is the most cost efficient way of combating brood lords? Is it the silver bullet-esque archon toilet, the more expensive, hard counter way of a void ray/phoenix switch or more indirect methods like dropping and harassing and chipping away at the zerg bank?
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Build Robo > Build Warp Prism
User was warned for this post
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I'm a Protoss player so from a Protoss perspective it is simply because BLs are a much more effective unit overall than Ultras. Carriers/BCs aren't seen much (actually you do see BCs in TvT) because of the long build times which necessitates multiple production buildings to make, whereas BLs do not have that issue due to zerg's production mechanics.
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The time cost of spawning a broodlord is also staggered across the corruptor and the brood lord itself, so it too, imo is less than the sum of the two.
Skyro: Yes, I was interested in opinions as to why they are more effective, my take is that it lies in the cost of the unit
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mothership and 4-5 archons are the most cost efficient way of combating everything zerg has.. I don't think voids are good at all seeming as they are more of an all in because once they die you won't be able to get more fast..
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BL are very, very, very expensive, more expensive than a colossus. and a lil more than an ultra. the difference for me, is utility.
the problem with ultras IMO is they cant hit air and you are left with a hole. with BL you can morph to BL, leave some as corrupter, and put all your excess larva into lings to stop those pesky stalkers from blinking right into you (which is a pretty bad idea unless you have a huge amount anyway)
another important to note is most (almost all) of zergs strategy ZVP is capitalize on how good mutas can be in the midgame, keeping the protoss penned in while the zerg takes a 3rd/4th and starts pumping out late game units while the toss is stuck on 2base. The natural transition to corrupter/bl is right there. whereas double evo chambers and ultra cavern may never be thrown down.
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I thought blink stalkers were the most organic way to combat a flock of Brood Lords. You don't really have to go out of your way to get them, and there will probably already be quite a few in the death ball of your choosing. Are the introduction of brood lords to your matches so devastating that they necessitate a hard counter?
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On December 30 2011 06:14 BreakfastBurrito wrote:
BL are very, very, very expensive, more expensive than a colossus. and a lil more than an ultra. the difference for me, is utility.
the problem with ultras IMO is they cant hit air and you are left with a hole. with BL you can morph to BL, leave some as corrupter, and put all your excess larva into lings to stop those pesky stalkers from blinking right into you (which is a pretty bad idea unless you have a huge amount anyway)
another important to note is most (almost all) of zergs strategy ZVP is capitalize on how good mutas can be in the midgame, keeping the protoss penned in while the zerg takes a 3rd/4th and starts pumping out late game units while the toss is stuck on 2base. The natural transition to corrupter/bl is right there. whereas double evo chambers and ultra cavern may never be thrown down.
I would disagree on this point, imo broods are much cheaper than their additive cost. My post ignores their utility, since the choice of broodlords in PvZ and ultras in TvZ have more to do with the cost effectiveness of each race's responses to these units (and their early game compositions). In this sense, both broods and ultras have tremendous utility, but the choice of one over the other is made by how easy it is for the opponent to macro up a counter.
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if you can get out like 3 stargate void ray fast enough then you can handle bls directly for the most part, but thats not going to happen too often. imo best way is to go blink stalker/collosus/void ray and just run around the BL with your essentially flying army or just warp prism around them with zealots and dts while you tech to mothership/archon.
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On December 30 2011 06:19 Hurricane Sponge wrote:
I thought blink stalkers were the most organic way to combat a flock of Brood Lords. You don't really have to go out of your way to get them, and there will probably already be quite a few in the death ball of your choosing. Are the introduction of brood lords to your matches so devastating that they necessitate a hard counter?
Broodlords in situations you normally find them, which is with a large supporting roach army sprinkled with infestors. Compare to situations in which you normally find ultralisks.
Personally, yes, I find the introduction of large numbers of brood lords a huge pain to deal with, since imo the macro situation i find myself in leaves me v slim avenues I can take to combat them. For example, with the current meta of muta ling into roach broodlord, I may find myself with too many stalkers and templar, archons, and no ready way to free up supply. I'm not interested in unit or situational counters per se to such an army composition, its more the macro decisions that make up your late game plan that I'm interested in. But this deviates from the specific topic, since it relies on better macro, scouting etc which I can obviously stand to improve. Better players take on this would be v valuable.
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I like the archon + mothership reaction. Archons in general are good and it's not like if you decide to go Voidray. The Z catches all the Voidrays in a fungal and they all die.
Archons in general are very strong so I like that way of dealing with it (I play Z)
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Another large factor is that you'll already (usually) have a mass of corruptors flying out and about in ZvP and ZvT that you can then make the spot decision to convert them on a need basis as well as the ability to -cancel-. If you start to make several ultralisks and then you scout 6 voids ready to slam at you, you're entirely dead.
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On December 30 2011 06:20 chestnutcc wrote:
I would disagree on this point, imo broods are much cheaper than their additive cost.
Hmm, could you explain further how they can be less expensive than their additive cost? Or did you argue that they are somehow "cheaper" than another unit with the same mineral/gas cost but that has less utility? I.e. that they have higher "value" per gas/mineral cost. Or do you mean something else? I tried reading the OP again but I could not quite follow.
I also wonder what you mean when you say that the time to morph a brood lord should be considered as less than the sum of making a corruptor and the morph to blord.
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Broodlords cost a lot, especially considering that you're taking a serious risk to attempt to tech to them.
I think hive tech upgrade and time should absolutely count, because it's very rare that you'll upgrade to hive for a reason other than broodlords. Starting with lair tech already, it costs 200/150 (100 sec) for Hive, 100/150 (100 sec) for G.Spire (and add on another 200/200 if you didn't already have a spire, sometimes the case vs protoss). Then 150/100 (40) for a corruptor and 150/150 (34) to morph to BL.
Grand total investment, from the time you decided "I think I'll try getting some broodlords": 600 minerals, 550 gas, and 4 minutes 34 seconds.
That is a looooooooong tech time considering you are already starting at tier 2! Also, you're not going to tech up to make just 1 broodlord... so with that and the potential cost of a spire if you didn't have one, you could be investing 1200/1200... maybe 1500/1500 or even more, and it doesn't pay off at all until the entire process is complete.
I know I've lost my share of games by making this investment and then dying in the next 4:30 because my opponent spent those resources on army and attacked me, and I fell just short because my money was wrapped up in BL tech.
So for this kind of investment... they damn well better be strong units without a mindless hard counter to them.
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On December 30 2011 06:33 straycat wrote:Show nested quote +On December 30 2011 06:20 chestnutcc wrote:
I would disagree on this point, imo broods are much cheaper than their additive cost.
Hmm, could you explain further how they can be less expensive than their additive cost? Or did you argue that they are somehow "cheaper" than another unit with the same mineral/gas cost but that has less utility? I.e. that they have higher "value" per gas/mineral cost. Or do you mean something else? I tried reading the OP again but I could not quite follow. I also wonder what you mean when you say that the time to morph a brood lord should be considered as less than the sum of making a corruptor and the morph to blord.
The idea is simply that of 'Do you prefer a dollar now, or a dollar tomorrow?'. If you have multiple payments at different points in time, their total value cannot always be simply the grand sum of all the payments. This is known as time discounting of payments and is the fundamental principle behind returns on bank deposit or investments of any sort.
On December 30 2011 06:34 Chocobo wrote:
Broodlords cost a lot, especially considering that you're taking a serious risk to attempt to tech to them.
I think hive tech upgrade and time should absolutely count, because it's very rare that you'll upgrade to hive for a reason other than broodlords. Starting with lair tech already, it costs 200/150 (100 sec) for Hive, 100/150 (100 sec) for G.Spire (and add on another 200/200 if you didn't already have a spire, sometimes the case vs protoss). Then 150/100 (40) for a corruptor and 150/150 (34) to morph to BL.
Grand total investment, from the time you decided "I think I'll try getting some broodlords": 600 minerals, 550 gas, and 4 minutes 34 seconds.
That is a looooooooong tech time considering you are already starting at tier 2! Also, you're not going to tech up to make just 1 broodlord... so with that and the potential cost of a spire if you didn't have one, you could be investing 1200/1200... maybe 1500/1500 or even more, and it doesn't pay off at all until the entire process is complete.
I know I've lost my share of games by making this investment and then dying in the next 4:30 because my opponent spent those resources on army and attacked me, and I fell just short because my money was wrapped up in BL tech.
So for this kind of investment... they damn well better be strong units without a mindless hard counter to them.
This is assuming you are rushing for brood lords, in which case, yes you will probably die. If you were rushing for broodlords, the time between payments is minimized and the total cost is effectively additive, so its a huge investment. My post was more about a normal game, where these payments would be staggered significantly.
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On December 30 2011 06:33 straycat wrote:Show nested quote +On December 30 2011 06:20 chestnutcc wrote:
I would disagree on this point, imo broods are much cheaper than their additive cost.
Hmm, could you explain further how they can be less expensive than their additive cost? Or did you argue that they are somehow "cheaper" than another unit with the same mineral/gas cost but that has less utility? I.e. that they have higher "value" per gas/mineral cost. Or do you mean something else? I tried reading the OP again but I could not quite follow. I also wonder what you mean when you say that the time to morph a brood lord should be considered as less than the sum of making a corruptor and the morph to blord.
Well you gain increased flexibility. With a completely upfront cost you pay for X now and are weak until X is finished. With the 2 stage morphing you get to pay some now, then re-evaluate the situation and opt to pay again for X. A good examples of how this can play out is if you:
1. Make a bunch of corruptors.
2. Spend all your money on other units.
3. As corruptors fly across the map bank money.
4. Morph to broodlords right before engaging the enemy.
Compare that to having to do
1. Wait for money (since you pay all upfront)
2. Make a bunch of broodlords.
3. Spend new income on other units
4. Fly them across the map.
In the first scenario you get to start the production earlier and you get some additional units earlier. In the second scenario you don't get those extra units until later with no benefit to yourself. So in the 2nd scenario you are weak from 1 to 4 when the 'other units' finish making. In the 1st scenario you are only weak from 1 until the other units finish making (around 3).
So in a way by being able to make a 2 tier investment you reduce the risk to yourself and the true cost of a unit should include the risk of its production.
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The cost of risk will certainly feature in the overall price, but I tend to ignore it here since its quite a volatile figure. Imagine asset pricing a brood lord.
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I would argue the overall cost is actually more than the sum of the corrupter+morphing.
Why?
Because in order to get brood lords, you have to go through corrupters. Your argument is that I pay essentially half up front for a corrupter, half at delivery of my broodlord, therefore the cost feels less.
I could see how that would be true, if corrupters had a purpose. Unfortunately, just about anything a corrupter can do, an equal cost of mutas can do better and faster. Nevermind that your ultimate goal is brood lords, which is obviously an anti-ground unit, which the corrupter is not.
What I'm trying to say is that, while you're trying to get this anti-ground unit, you have to spend a significant amount of time with a purely anti-air unit which is useless to you.
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Felnarion: For that to be true, there must be an active cost of having corruptors instead of other units. What you're saying is that the opportunity cost of the corruptors must be fed into the total price. I'm not sure what to say to this, since it is v situational, and should there be colossi or void rays, or should the P/T attempt to counter with voids/vikings, corruptors obviously have great utility here. One does not usually see mutas perform this function.
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broodies are nice in mirror as well. The hate comes from one unit needing micro, the other simply being a click. Though broodies allow micro, but still you see 10 broodlords die to a vortex, which should basically be something to never happen in a game.
But the true cost is what they cost, the morphing cost nothing else. You could have used corruptors to prevent drops or get air dominance, so in some situation they payed for themself already, where you can't incorporate the corrupter cost for the broodlord.
Calculating the teching cost to something isn't helpful. You should have a plan on how to get your high tech out, not just tech up and pray it works.
For example, teching up to mutas and use them for harassment, and try to save as much minerals as possible till you reach t3, meanwhile you get the ground attack/armor upgrades. Then you add adrenal glands on t3 and use your overmins and lings to tech up to broodlords.
The only interesting part should be how much extractors do you need to effectively use the tech. Because every fight messes up any timing calculation.
For example ultra compositions are low gas, using 6 extractors for them is almost over the limit you should use. Unless you still need upgrades or want to do a high gas unit switch.
PS: always fun to see zerg players die because they think they can win with only t3 units. And then you see 16 broodlords flying around or 12 ultras walking in a line and complain about their bank running dry so fast.
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EPT
