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I am hoping to start a discussion about conservation of the Ultralisk in ZvT and how important it is to the match-up.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/X1j7x.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/SPuyU.jpg)
Focus fire can take down an Ultra relativity quickly.
In fights where you have multiple Ultras I feel like sending in Ultras that are in the orange to red health is just allowing them to die before contributing anything. I saw this today in Violet's games against Supernova in the IEM Finals as well.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/CJmET.jpg)
3 transfusions can restore an injured Ultralisk to near full HP
Even the top level pros are not perfect on injects during a match, especially once the game reaches a point where ultras are an option. Is it beneficial to send an Ultra completely out of the battle to get tranfused until the next big engagement?
The big question I want to open up to the community What benefit does an injured Ultra contribute to an engagement, and how important would it be more beneficial to leave them out completely to be transfused?
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Zergs plz dont make ultras against terran, unless yo got BANES
User was temp banned for this post.
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On February 12 2012 08:22 Monkeybacon wrote:
Zergs plz dont make ultras against terran, unless yo got BANES
Or Infestors.
And yes, Queens in the lategame are, imo, an extremely strong option that is hardly utilized at all. Should be used with both Brood Lords and Ultralisks. It's almost comparable to puling your bioball back so Medivacs can heal some of the damage done by Stim.
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In the middle of a fight, people can easily make them explode by right clicking them, as you said, so zergs tend to have a difficult time pulling them back, especially with all the other units that 'should' be behind them.
As for why Violet and other top zergs seem unwilling to send their wounded ultras to the clinic...I'm not completely sure what the deal is. Perhaps they don't think about it, or perhaps they hate their ultralisks as much as the rest of us.
Perhaps we'll never know.
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I feel that there are fundamental flaws with the way that the ultralisk functions in this matchup:
A. It's size makes pushing up/down ramps impossible. As an initial siege breaker, it's amazing.
B. It's expensive on food, and to make several of them before doing a trade with ling bling muta / infestor ling requires you to sit at pre-max and let the terran expand (split map) or set up an MVP style ghost/king/tank line.
C. Mechanically, the unit's attack is flawed. This allows drastically cheaper units (marauders/marines) to abuse a zerg who attempts to either jump to ultras or to switch to ultras. Perhaps after the inclusion of the ghost nerf, properly rotating through hive tech will be more effective.
D. On certain maps, it's just not a viable option. Shakuras Plateau, in my opinion, is a brood lord only map. Mutas function well, and the air upgrades (even though most players neglect to proactively upgrade air) make brood/corruptor insane.
I like the ultra as a tier 2 siege breaker works amazingly well, maybe 3-5 to smash a siege line off 3-4 bases. However, in full split map scenarios I think it can only be effective if nydus'd.
I disagree with your statement about larva injections being too laborious for a player on 4-5 bases, in most zvt games I end up capping all my hatches with larvae: I pull queens not because I'm too slow to inject, but because they're just going to die from drops if I leave them around - might as well have them spam heal broods.
Hopefully, the charge ability in hots will completely change the role of the ultra, but at the moment I simply cannot rely on them to pull through the late game. I've seen countless zergs smash their terran opponent through the early and mid-game, switch to ultras, and then just get picked apart and lose.
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On February 12 2012 08:33 Ooshmagoosh wrote:
In the middle of a fight, people can easily make them explode by right clicking them, as you said, so zergs tend to have a difficult time pulling them back, especially with all the other units that 'should' be behind them.
As for why Violet and other top zergs seem unwilling to send their wounded ultras to the clinic...I'm not completely sure what the deal is. Perhaps they don't think about it, or perhaps they hate their ultralisks as much as the rest of us.
Perhaps we'll never know.
Its the same thing with mechers or people with red medivacs. You just don't ever "have enough time" and will. Its hard to think during games about something else then macroing and trying not to die.
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has anyone tried using overlord drops with queens in them so they can heal alongside the ultras?
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sometimes I try to burrow my red ultras to save them temporarily, because I know they are getting focus fired. If I chase the enemy away I unburrow them and bring them home. There's no reason to bring a red ultra into a fight because it won't actually do any damage.
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I don't see a situation where Ultras would ever be preferable to broodlords. In ZvT, the main issue is Siege Tanks, and siege tanks own ultras. You really need to get rid of the siege tanks before you can get ultras out, and when that scenario occurs, you've already won the game and will do just fine with mass lings/banes/infestors/etc (really mass bane owns everything T except siege tanks).
However, a GM player much better than myself, has said that Ultras are really good against siege tanks, and that you want to go BL/Muta/Infestor (this is implying 'quicker' hive than I normally play, meaning you aren't going pure Bl/Infestor, but rather getting broodlords earlier in the game when you still have lots of your mutas, and you use the mutas as AA and use them haphazardly to refill on bl and then ultras, I suppose), and then go mass ultras to clean up I guess.
I don't know. I mean, he's a way better player than myself, and I don't want to presume to talk in his place (he's welcome to post here, I'm sure he knows I'm talking about him here), but I think the idea is use BL to lower tank count and then refill on mass ultras to clean up.
I just feel, personally, that you should never make Ultras, and siege tanks in high enough numbers rape ultras, as well as the fact that Ultras do nothing to stop Terran from turtling and can't do anything to break an entrenched Terran, while Broodlrods can. I like to go pure BL/Corruptor/Infestor, use queens in the lategame to counteract snipe, and just keep remaxing on BL/Corruptor/Infestor until I can break enough of Terran that I can then remax on ling/bane and run him over. I just don't see Ultras ever being a gamechanger, either they are worthless, or you've already won and could've just went Bl/Infestor or mass ling to seal the deal.
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Ultralisk burrow micro. Just remember it takes 2 seconds for Fatty the Utralisk to get out of site. Otherwise, your reinforcements should be their reincarnation and a ton of cracklings.
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On February 12 2012 09:13 Belial88 wrote:
I don't see a situation where Ultras would ever be preferable to broodlords. In ZvT, the main issue is Siege Tanks, and siege tanks own ultras. You really need to get rid of the siege tanks before you can get ultras out, and when that scenario occurs, you've already won the game and will do just fine with mass lings/banes/infestors/etc (really mass bane owns everything T except siege tanks).
However, a GM player much better than myself, has said that Ultras are really good against siege tanks, and that you want to go BL/Muta/Infestor (this is implying 'quicker' hive than I normally play, meaning you aren't going pure Bl/Infestor, but rather getting broodlords earlier in the game when you still have lots of your mutas, and you use the mutas as AA and use them haphazardly to refill on bl and then ultras, I suppose), and then go mass ultras to clean up I guess.
I don't know. I mean, he's a way better player than myself, and I don't want to presume to talk in his place (he's welcome to post here, I'm sure he knows I'm talking about him here), but I think the idea is use BL to lower tank count and then refill on mass ultras to clean up.
I just feel, personally, that you should never make Ultras, and siege tanks in high enough numbers rape ultras, as well as the fact that Ultras do nothing to stop Terran from turtling and can't do anything to break an entrenched Terran, while Broodlrods can. I like to go pure BL/Corruptor/Infestor, use queens in the lategame to counteract snipe, and just keep remaxing on BL/Corruptor/Infestor until I can break enough of Terran that I can then remax on ling/bane and run him over. I just don't see Ultras ever being a gamechanger, either they are worthless, or you've already won and could've just went Bl/Infestor or mass ling to seal the deal.
I definitely agree that I think broodlords are the best in most situations but in cases for example where a terran over produces vikings ultras have a little more viability.
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On February 12 2012 08:40 Clubmeh wrote:
I feel that there are fundamental flaws with the way that the ultralisk functions in this matchup:
A. It's size makes pushing up/down ramps impossible. As an initial siege breaker, it's amazing.
B. It's expensive on food, and to make several of them before doing a trade with ling bling muta / infestor ling requires you to sit at pre-max and let the terran expand (split map) or set up an MVP style ghost/king/tank line.
C. Mechanically, the unit's attack is flawed. This allows drastically cheaper units (marauders/marines) to abuse a zerg who attempts to either jump to ultras or to switch to ultras. Perhaps after the inclusion of the ghost nerf, properly rotating through hive tech will be more effective.
D. On certain maps, it's just not a viable option. Shakuras Plateau, in my opinion, is a brood lord only map. Mutas function well, and the air upgrades (even though most players neglect to proactively upgrade air) make brood/corruptor insane.
For point A, I just want to say : Why the hell do you want to attack a ramp ? (if you're not on shakuras plateau  )
For B and C : If you see ultralisk as tanks (i.e units that are just here to take dmg, and not to really deal any), they are sth like 2 times more supply efficient than zerling (the other unit that serves as meatshield). You don't need to make 20 ultras, I think 5-6 with good support and good army control can cut it.
For point D : I agree, they just don't fit in any maps.
On February 12 2012 09:13 Belial88 wrote:
I don't see a situation where Ultras would ever be preferable to broodlords. In ZvT, the main issue is Siege Tanks, and siege tanks own ultras. You really need to get rid of the siege tanks before you can get ultras out, and when that scenario occurs, you've already won the game and will do just fine with mass lings/banes/infestors/etc (really mass bane owns everything T except siege tanks).
However, a GM player much better than myself, has said that Ultras are really good against siege tanks, and that you want to go BL/Muta/Infestor (this is implying 'quicker' hive than I normally play, meaning you aren't going pure Bl/Infestor, but rather getting broodlords earlier in the game when you still have lots of your mutas, and you use the mutas as AA and use them haphazardly to refill on bl and then ultras, I suppose), and then go mass ultras to clean up I guess.
I don't know. I mean, he's a way better player than myself, and I don't want to presume to talk in his place (he's welcome to post here, I'm sure he knows I'm talking about him here), but I think the idea is use BL to lower tank count and then refill on mass ultras to clean up.
I just feel, personally, that you should never make Ultras, and siege tanks in high enough numbers rape ultras, as well as the fact that Ultras do nothing to stop Terran from turtling and can't do anything to break an entrenched Terran, while Broodlrods can. I like to go pure BL/Corruptor/Infestor, use queens in the lategame to counteract snipe, and just keep remaxing on BL/Corruptor/Infestor until I can break enough of Terran that I can then remax on ling/bane and run him over. I just don't see Ultras ever being a gamechanger, either they are worthless, or you've already won and could've just went Bl/Infestor or mass ling to seal the deal.
I disagree on the fact that ultras are worthless. It's just that it seems people want to use them for things that they are not designed for. I don't see why you say tanks own ultras, as long as there are not a stupid number (15+) of tanks(in which case bls is the way, as your friend told you), they dont kill ultra so fast (even more if you try not not have them all clumped).
Ultras are pretty good at breaking planetaries and fight terran in open area. And In most of the map (well nearly all but shakuras), the terran can't take a 4rth without having to set up a defence in a really open area (see the 4rth on tald'arim, or even on antiga), where with good flanks ultra can do some magic with appropriate zerling/baneling support.
I do really prefer ultra to broodlords, because broodlords are so slow that you are pretty all-in (you can't retreat if things turn bad, wheras with ultra you can run and loose nothing).
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Ultras are really good on maps for pushing the terran back into their natural, but at that point all your damage dealers will have died, not pulling back ultras will just lose you minerals as they are really bad at chokes, which basically is the terran base. And when you pull something back, why not repair it. So lategame its really nice to get queens for transfusing your t3 units. For example a broodlord, can be transfused to full health, so a red broodie in battle can get revived by one queen up to 4 times. Anyway ultras in the red, is like not repearing your mech units. Wasted supply, and in sc2 you reach the max so easily, that every hp counts.
And thats a reason why mech doesn't work for most people, because they don't repair and then lose because they are not cost effective, or have 4 red thors in a battle and are suddenly 24 supply behind hehe.
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ultras don't have allot to do with the map and shit the onley reason they actualy work so good for stephano is cuse he get's his upgrades so fast without an upgrade advantage ultras are trash
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Ultras are a good unit for tanking damage, so normally I would try avoid sending in weakened ones, but at the same time, it's such a bit investment money and food wise that you can't really afford not to. In terms of in the match up, brood lords are just better to deal with the terran units. good vs mech, good vs tank lines..only issue is vikings which some fungal growth can deal with =D
That said, if they invest very very heavily in vikings, then ultras become viable..I see them as basically a follow up to brood lords if your opponent is too heavy on anti air...in other words situation specific lol
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On February 12 2012 08:22 Monkeybacon wrote:
Zergs plz dont make ultras against terran, unless yo got BANES
Pretty much. I love it when my opponent zerg goes ultra against me without banelings.
and then enjoy it later when they ragequit.
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Well it is one of the fundamental things about Starcraft, that 1a'ing will not get you the maximum value from your units. Transfuse, Burrow, pulling injured ones away, putting your army in a big concave and maintaining a good formation as you engage the Terran army will make them that much more effective.
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On February 12 2012 11:00 saMas wrote:
ultras don't have allot to do with the map and shit the onley reason they actualy work so good for stephano is cuse he get's his upgrades so fast without an upgrade advantage ultras are trash
Actually ultras have a lot to do with the map, the more open the better. If you have better upgrade you can A-click the terran army (because when a marine does 1 dmg to an ultra they become quite hard to kill), but otherwise if the map is suited enough you can fight even with even upgrade, you just have to engage a little bit smarter
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On February 12 2012 11:00 saMas wrote:
ultras don't have allot to do with the map and shit the onley reason they actualy work so good for stephano is cuse he get's his upgrades so fast without an upgrade advantage ultras are trash
I agree with saMas. If you watch viOlets games today he always had fast upgrades, which made his ultras really good,along with his Infestor/bling.
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rushing to 3/5 ultras with lings infestors and massing queens and with good creep spread Usually terran tries something with maybe 1/1 and then ultras just rape everything and if they are stuck on 2 bases just sac a bit of lings and get BL's. Fitzhere is really good at this style of play and its actually fun to do.
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EPT
