3 Zealots coming in at 300 mineral / 0 gas / 6 supply You only need a gateway to make a zealot. As tier 1 as it gets. A gateway costs 150 minerals.
1 Ultralisk coming in at 300 mineral / 200 gas / 6 supply A tier 3 unit which needs hive (150/100 for lair + 200/150 + hive) and a Ultralisk cavern for 150 / 200.
Now I guess the idea was to make the ultralisk strong versus armored units with this patch. But with the splash / cleave damage nerfed it's not effective at all even vs clumped up zealots / stalkers / marauders etc. (which wasn't even mentioned in the patch notes, what's up with that?). The healthpool was also reduced so significantly, is it really worth it teching up to ultras if they're countered so hard by tier 1 units? The zealots can just stand in front of the stalkers and the rest of the protoss army and just block off the ultras from doing any real damage to the vulnerable units. They don't even need immortals to fight the ultralisks.
So how would the ultralisk fare against a terran armored army then? Not very well, stimmed mauraders & marines that are actually micro'd will kill off ultras very, very, EXTREMELY quickly. Not to mention that we still have the issue of ultras not doing any damage on fast moving targets, not sure if this is a bug or intended:
I actually kind of liked the patch 11 / 12 ultralisk, it was a decent unit to pump out when you had a lot of extra resources and you wanted to finish off your opponent. Especially since the roaches weren't nearly as supply efficient towards the late game army when you want to pack as much punch as you can within the 200 supply.
I'm really happy about the force field breaking however, that is exactly what the ultralisk needed, but unfortunately after trying out the ultralisk in patch 13 I think it's a nerf.
before anyone says the ultralisk only lost because the zealots were microed so as to not receive splash damage
i tested 3v1 where all 3 zealots took splash damage from every attack and the outcome was the same. the zealots took more damage (1 red, 1 barely yellow)
but still 3 zealots > 1 ultralisk
*EDIT*
On May 23 2010 22:09 Jugan wrote: Wait so you're saying you get to micro your zealots, but the ultra can't micro itself into a better position?
Ultralisks were pretty sick against long limbo lines of zealots with 100% splash but now they'll be considerably worse against those, and a bit better against stalkers.
I was saying ultra were going to be imbalanced, however seeing the massive splash nerf I see that they were actually making ultras worse.
Upgrades and a real situation will make a massive difference. In reality they'll still be very effective against zealots and are not going to be needed to counter zealots anyway, since roach hydra is already really effective vs them. They should help a lot against stalker/sentry balls.
EDIT: Hmm, did they ninja slow down the attack? It just seems slower than it was. might be game speed or something.
Why don't they just change the speed upgrade to the completely necessary thing it was in BW, an upgrade that made the unit actually fast. And also, since the unit is now 450 life, 4 supply would be better. Remember in BW, you wouldn't want any units, even zealots, near your unupgraded ultra (speed or extra armor).
I used ultras one game in patch 12 when I had a 200 army supply for a while and map dominance. My opponent was turtling so hard that I just spawned larvae for a while and then threw all my hydras and lings at him and instantly spawned 160 food of maxed upgrade ultras. Sadly, they did not take out all his bases (wow~!) and I had to get broodlords.
oh noes!!! zerg are gonna get run over by zealots!!! blizz quick fix it!!!!!
On May 23 2010 22:21 XGDragon wrote: Just give it a shitton of HP. I'm talking 900 here.
whoa you're talking command and conquer epic unit there.
blizzard don't intend to make the ultralisk a win or lose unit. each race has multiple ways to deal with basic unit types without including their 'massive' ground unit. in patch12 the ultralisk was basically a melee version of the colossus... at least in patch 13 the ultralisk is considerably better against armored units (not including their natural counter marauder/immortal)...
you rarely see more than a total of 2-3 thors or colossus in a whole match and you rarely see a single broodlord, battlecruisers or carrier. we shouldn't expect to see more than a total of 2-3 ultralisks in a whole match either.
They should give the Ultra a charge where it just stomps across knocking shit back a little bit and just runs to it's target. Kind of like big elephants
On May 23 2010 22:24 ToT)OjKa( wrote: They should give the Ultra a charge where it just stomps across knocking shit back a little bit and just runs to it's target. Kind of like big elephants
no more stupid abilities please just tweak it's god damn stats so it's worth building? is it really so hard?
On May 23 2010 22:24 ToT)OjKa( wrote: They should give the Ultra a charge where it just stomps across knocking shit back a little bit and just runs to it's target. Kind of like big elephants
# Costs 25 energy. # Targets a single biological unit which deals 25% more damage and is immune to snare, stuns, and mind control for 30 seconds.
o Overseer
+ Contaminate spell added:
# Costs 75 energy. # Targets a single enemy structure which cannot train units or research upgrades for 30 seconds.
+ Infested Terran spell added:
# Costs 125 energy. # Infested Terrans have the same stats as those previously created by the Infestor and are placed directly under the Overseer when spawned.
o Ultralisk
+ The Ultralisk has been renamed the Crapalisk to better reflect his nature. + Life decreased from 600 to 450. + Damage changed from 25 to 15 (+25 Armored). + Damage versus structures increased from 60 to 75.
Hotkey Changes (English Only):
* Zerg Set Worker Rally Point changed from R to G. * Zerg Spore Crawler changed from W to A to avoid conflict with the Select All Warp Gates hotkey.
Battle.net Interface
* Revamped summary pages for player Profiles and Leagues & Ladders. * Added a Help system with tech trees and other tips and tricks. * Removed identifier from the character naming process and added the ability to refer friends for invitation into your party or lobby. * Updated the Battle.net user interface to consistently use a nested menu system. * Added in-game blocking and player muting.
On May 23 2010 22:24 ToT)OjKa( wrote: They should give the Ultra a charge where it just stomps across knocking shit back a little bit and just runs to it's target. Kind of like big elephants
no more stupid abilities please just tweak it's god damn stats so it's worth building? is it really so hard?
what i don't understand is why they don't just make the ultra faster, remove splash, and up the damage. i guess it's cause zerg don't have good enough late game splash or something (lol banelings)?
Well the sc2 ultralisk does a lot better than the sc ultralisk did vs 3 zealots. I don't understand why ultras are 6 supply now instead of 4 when they aren't even worth 2 due to all the counters for them in Tier 1 tech.
So what we learned from this is that if you are up against a protoss ball you are not gonna send your ultras head first into it. Youre actually gonna have to micro them to position them correctly. gosh! wtf? But hmm..if youre making ultras then you probably arent making only ultras. No you probably are making perhaps lings or some other unit(realistically more than just one support unit) and the wise choice would be to send them in first so they can mop up/occupy the light units and then you come charging(well jogging really) into those meaty armored units with your ultras, ideally. Besides, saying that stimmed marauders that are kited can kill ultras well isnt that true for pretty much anything they can shoot at.
I'm not trying to dis someone or anything, I'm just saying.
Oh and Ultras pre patch 13 where this all purpose unit that could pretty much take on almost anything except for a few situations(marauder and terran mech stand out in particular). A situation where they would just melt like ice in a owen and even if you would get them up in their face they really didnt do much. This has now changed with the added bonus against armor, but if they were to keep ultras from pre patch 13 and just added the bonus dmg you would end up with one unit that can kill anything without really breaking a sweat(especially when backed up by a handfull of lings or an infestor or two whom would FG) and that is just imbalanced. Did this fix the problem? maybe, maybe not. but thats why we have beta. Not to do these cherry picked situationes but to try a unit out on the actual battlefield.
I do like this post by the op though. Now I know that if an army is comprised of mostly light units I'm gonna have to pay more attention and not just a-move my ultras as was the case pre patch 13.
On May 23 2010 22:38 mahnini wrote: what i don't understand is why they don't just make the ultra faster, remove splash, and up the damage. i guess it's cause zerg don't have good enough late game splash or something (lol banelings)?
No, it needs the splash. It would be such a stupid unit without the splash.
Ultra should also have more armour, something like 3 base. Therefore max would be something like 3 + 3 (from evochamber) + 2 (from den) = 8 armour fully upgraded. Return its HP to 650.
Possible optional upgrades; - A non-energy ability that does large AOE with short cool down but significantly less damage DPS than standard attack. (May have short stun but that seems a little too ... RPG-like). Toggle-able autocast.
- Burrow-move.
- Maybe a literal "charge" ability where the ultra moves linearly & rams opponent's units causing pushback of 3 tiles.
- Some sort of toughen ability where it can tank more damage than normal for a short period of time.
On May 23 2010 21:43 bargaw wrote: that pretty much sums up ultralisk
he dies instantly vs 1tank+4marauders
he need 2things: -charge, to be able to do any dmg -undying rage(delays death by few secs), so he will able to do ANY dmg
I feel like this is the exact opposite of what should happen.
Instead of beefing up the Ultra to be able to live while the 'terrible terrible damage' syndrome still exists in game, they need to slow down everything else. Why does everything do crazy damage in this game? Everything is inflated from what it was in BW, it's terrible for the game.
This is what I feel is inflated: Marauders with 20 explosive damage (Marauders are essentially cheaper Dragoons with less HP that don't need a range upgrade and instead have a cheap snare upgrade) Marines went from 40 hp to 45-55 hp Reapers at Rax tech being able to hop cliffs and do 18 damage to Light Roaches doing 16 normal damage Hydras doing 12 normal damage instead of 10 explosive Banelings doing 35 damage per Baneling to Light units
Air units having inflated damage numbers in general to make up for them all essentially being Valkyries: (not being able to move shoot like SC1) Banshees with 24(!!) ground damage Vikings with 28 to armored and 20 to light air damage BCs and Carriers with absolutely insane damage rates (each interceptor does 5x2 !) Charged Void Rays doing crazy damage, able to drop anything armored extremely rapidly Phoenixes doing 20 damage to Light Brood Lords spawning insane amounts of meat shield for free
Vultures (Hellions) went from 20 concussive to 24 concussive + splash (this is very much related to the moving shot scenario from above, the unit loses its smooth control and to still be a useful unit needs higher damage) Dark Templars went from 40 normal to 45 normal Missile Turrets went from 20 explosive to 24 normal and went from 200 HP to 250 Immortals doing 50 damage to armored Tanks doing 60 normal damage in siege mode, with splash, is insane. The tank's role is 100% flipped from BW. In BW they do explosive damage and so they do great vs large units (dragoons, ultras, lurkers, etc) and poorly vs small units (think zealots) but in SC2 they do less damage but it's normal, so they are great at killing tightly packed clumps of low HP units (zerglings, marines, banelings, zealots) but not as good at killing high HP large units like Ultras, Thors, Colossus, etc Goliath x3 (Thor) went from 36 normal damage to ground in BW to 60 normal to ground in SC2, and 60 explosive to air in BW to 48 'concussive' (sorta) plus splash in SC2 Bunkers went from 350 HP to 400 Photon Cannons went from 200 HP to 300
I am probably forgetting some other inflated things also. I think people sometimes lose perspective at how much damage has gone up in this game. So many units have received a damage buff, or have been made easier to use, or have been made more effective by tightly packed units, or have been given splash damage.
I think the fact that so many things have been inflated lead to races needing super powerful weapons to compete. I'm talking about things like: Immortal's Hardened Shield and 50 damage to armored Crazy Ultralisk HP (it had 600 HP and was still considered weak!) Brood Lords spawning huge amounts of meat shield Marauders being basically cheaper Dragoons Marines getting extra HP Colossus being essentially a Reaver with the micro done for you. In BW to have a weapon as powerful as a Colossus, you needed a Shuttle to carry the Reaver if you wanted it for anything other than defending one spot. In SC2 you can just make 10 Colossus and a-move them with your army. It makes the game far easier and increases terrible terrible damage syndrome since (correct me if I'm wrong) a big reason why even progamers couldn't have 10+ Reavers with their army was because the micro is too hard.
What I'd do: Add a little bit of chaos when you move a pack of units. They don't need to spread out and go everywhere but they shouldn't stick together like a super tight ball either. Call it 'Battle Chaos' or something. Units pack together way way too much in this game and it increases the 'terrible terrible damage' syndrome that the game has, and it looks stupid and unrealistic. Slow down damage across the board, try to un-inflate damage that has gone so high. This would let Zerglings and Ultras be better units, with lower damage they have more time to reach targets. I'd change Hydras and Roaches to 1food units, lower their costs, and nerf appropriately. Zerg needs to feel like more of a swarm. Give air units (all units really but air in particular) back the sharpness of control that you had in SC1. Right now when a unit fires it's rooted in place for far longer than it is in SC1. Most units feel like a Valkyrie, so they need to have super high damage to compensate. Lower the damage and give them mobility back. Make the Thor smaller and reduce the cost by 1/2 to 2/3s. Mech needs a Goliath (even though mech is very powerful now, I think that's at least in part because the counters are so strong: armored air units, the Factory cannot deal with armored air units) Change Tank siege mode damage to something like 40 + 30 vs armored.
I'd probably change other things too, this is just what I can think of atm.
This video sum up the situation pretty well. I really hope that they are not too much in balancing stuff as it seems to need much more developing fixes.
On May 23 2010 21:43 bargaw wrote: that pretty much sums up ultralisk
he dies instantly vs 1tank+4marauders
he need 2things: -charge, to be able to do any dmg -undying rage(delays death by few secs), so he will able to do ANY dmg
I feel like this is the exact opposite of what should happen.
Instead of beefing up the Ultra to be able to live while the 'terrible terrible damage syndrome' still exists in game, they need to slow down everything else. Why does everything do crazy damage in this game? Everything is inflated from what it was before, it's terrible for the game.
because this is starcraft. not warcraft
warcraft features few units that do low damage with high health pools and lots of abilities/spells
starcraft is about alot of units with alot of damage and low health pools.
But seriously, you people keep putting ultras in situations to which they're CLEARLY not suited, and then making googly eyes when they lose. What do you expect?
On May 23 2010 22:22 tarsier wrote: you rarely see more than a total of 2-3 thors or colossus in a whole match and you rarely see a single broodlord, battlecruisers or carrier. we shouldn't expect to see more than a total of 2-3 ultralisks in a whole match either.
That's like saying Protoss should only get 2-3 Carriers in a whole match. Get the Stargate. Get the Twilight Council. Get the Fleet Beacon. Get the interceptor launching upgrade. Get another upgrade that doesn't exist for Carriers but is required for Ultralisk. Then only make 2-3, and watch them die instantly.
On May 23 2010 22:39 Chuiu wrote: Well the sc2 ultralisk does a lot better than the sc ultralisk did vs 3 zealots. I don't understand why ultras are 6 supply now instead of 4 when they aren't even worth 2 due to all the counters for them in Tier 1 tech.
heh isolated situations are fun.
thor gets owned by marauder, marines, zealots and zerglings.
colossus gets owned by marauder, roach, stalker.
ultralisk gets owned by marauder, marine, zealot and zerglings.
none of these units are any good on their own unless you're using drop play.
We have to stop thinking about ultralisks as the BW unit, it clearly has a different use in this game. The most common argument is that some type of dark swarm or massive amounts of HP (relating to it being unkillable before it reaches the opponent head on) but instead you could get only a few ultralisks and make drops to destroy expos, main production buildings, destroying forcefields or surround. Ultralisks cannot be a decent part of your army to face another army head on (tanks or w/e). We need to start thinking of creative ways to use the unit instead of trying to make it the same unit it was in BW.
Note that ultralisks will rarely get surrounded by zealots like this, attacking armies usually end up fighting eachother in a line, where the ultralisks splash will make it much more efficient vs zealots
On May 23 2010 22:22 tarsier wrote: you rarely see more than a total of 2-3 thors or colossus in a whole match and you rarely see a single broodlord, battlecruisers or carrier. we shouldn't expect to see more than a total of 2-3 ultralisks in a whole match either.
That's like saying Protoss should only get 2-3 Carriers in a whole match. Get the Stargate. Get the Twilight Council. Get the Fleet Beacon. Get the interceptor launching upgrade. Get another upgrade that doesn't exist for Carriers but is required for Ultralisk. Then only make 2-3, and watch them die instantly.
it's not really up for debate... just watch high level replays and tell me how many games you can find where a player has >3 colossus or >3 thor or bother to tech for broodlord/carrier/bc at all.
the reason you very rarely see them in high level play is because mass broodlord/carrier/bc will fail 99.9% of the time unless a) you've already won or b) the other player has totally failed at scouting. this is almost exactly the same as broodwar. they're truely unstoppable units if your opponent is poor and didn't get enough anti air because he didn't scout.
as for thor and colossus, massing them is overkill and totally weakens your army. you only need as many thors as it takes to cause a player to think twice about making mass air, you only need as many colossus as it takes to make a player think twice about pumping mass light units and you only need as many ultralisks as it takes to make people think twice about pumping mass armored units like stalker/roach etc... i don't know - we'll find out whether it works or not in time.
Terrible terrible damage is right... the glaring issue I see with this is late game if your opponent is making all armored units and you decide ultras will be good it won't take him any time or significant investment to switch back to the non armored units he was making early game to completely destroy you. If they're going to make ultras so bad against everything but armored make them more available without the huge cost/time investment.
We should give the Ultralisk a ranged and melee attack! If the enemy is too far, you can use its Kaiser Boomerrang tusks to hit up to four units for x amount of damage and WAM. It can dudes behind forcefields and make those m3 combos look like targets!
Joking aside, I think the Ultralisk is going to need fixing on how fast it attacks/moves and its upgrades made either cheaper. I think the problem is that so many other units are ranged and have the ability to be micro'd better than an ultralisk can in that late of game and won't necessarily be the tank.
On May 23 2010 22:22 tarsier wrote: you rarely see more than a total of 2-3 thors or colossus in a whole match and you rarely see a single broodlord, battlecruisers or carrier. we shouldn't expect to see more than a total of 2-3 ultralisks in a whole match either.
That's like saying Protoss should only get 2-3 Carriers in a whole match. Get the Stargate. Get the Twilight Council. Get the Fleet Beacon. Get the interceptor launching upgrade. Get another upgrade that doesn't exist for Carriers but is required for Ultralisk. Then only make 2-3, and watch them die instantly.
it's not really up for debate... just watch high level replays and tell me how many games you can find where a player has >3 colossus or >3 thor or bother to tech for broodlord/carrier/bc at all.
the reason you very rarely see them in high level play is because mass broodlord/carrier/bc will fail 99.9% of the time unless a) you've already won or b) the other player has totally failed at scouting. this is almost exactly the same as broodwar. they're truely unstoppable units if your opponent is poor and didn't get enough anti air because he didn't scout.
as for thor and colossus, massing them is overkill and totally weakens your army. you only need as many thors as it takes to cause a player to think twice about making mass air, you only need as many colossus as it takes to make a player think twice about pumping mass light units and you only need as many ultralisks as it takes to make people think twice about pumping mass armored units like stalker/roach etc... i don't know - we'll find out whether it works or not in time.
What? They can go mass armored unit or mass light unit and still be fine. Do you think a mech T is really going to stop making tanks and thors if they see ultras? That's absurd. Same goes for P with stalker and immo. Ultra is weak against both light and heavy units, and to make matters worse, you need 2 upgrades on them before you send them out. No one has to change their army composition when they see ultras, because it's weak against all, and it's unquestionable that Blizzard's buff was actually a nerf. They might not realize it yet, but it wouldn't be the first time that Blizz thought they were improving something while actually making it worse.
On May 23 2010 22:21 XGDragon wrote: Just give it a shitton of HP. I'm talking 900 here.
whoa you're talking command and conquer epic unit there.
blizzard don't intend to make the ultralisk a win or lose unit. each race has multiple ways to deal with basic unit types without including their 'massive' ground unit. in patch12 the ultralisk was basically a melee version of the colossus... at least in patch 13 the ultralisk is considerably better against armored units (not including their natural counter marauder/immortal)...
you rarely see more than a total of 2-3 thors or colossus in a whole match and you rarely see a single broodlord, battlecruisers or carrier. we shouldn't expect to see more than a total of 2-3 ultralisks in a whole match either.
Do you really think, that 1 ultra is at least near as good as 1 colossus or thor?
On May 23 2010 22:11 RRated wrote: Why don't they just change the speed upgrade to the completely necessary thing it was in BW, an upgrade that made the unit actually fast. And also, since the unit is now 450 life, 4 supply would be better. Remember in BW, you wouldn't want any units, even zealots, near your unupgraded ultra (speed or extra armor).
I would even go as far as to say, the ultra the way it is now should be 4 supply and 200/200 or 225/200
Exactly how I feel about this post. one vs X situations (especially with zerg) will occur once on a blue moon, and if they do occur it should still be possible for tier 1 to beat tier 3 units, as both videos show.
So long as none of the pathing doesn't screws up it becomes an even battle with either side winning by just a few hits. . .
After upgrades you can either match their resources with more zealots to continuing winning with just A-move or you can micro the battle a little.
It took a little practice but with 9 +2/+1 Chargelots I was able to beat 3 Ultralisks with +1 Attack and +3 Armor
I'm still siding with the suggestion of making the Ultralisk a "no gas" unit (Big Zergling)
A lot of Teir 1 units can still beat them with a little micro I could see this being a subtle, but big improve to the gameplay and how people control their armies
1 zealot beats a roach as well.. shocked me one game where a protoss had a zealot on a zel naga tower, un upgraded.. so i sent one roach, had +1 spine attack on him and the roach actually *lost*.
You can't compare SC2 to SC1 like that and expect real (decent) players to make anything of it.
Ultras were useful in very few situations in SC2 already. Killing zealots was one of their strong points and one of their few redeeming factors. This nerf makes them even less useful.
However, it's true that showing 1 ultra vs zealots is just like showing 3 reapers against a tank and saying "see, we can't use reapers in this particular situation".
The thing is, most of the time you WILL find yourself strugging to get your ultras to hit mechanical units as it's really easy to move zealots in front and whatnot.
Seems like ultras suck just like in BW I just don't see a role for them but maybe we'll see one evolve. I'm not sure what their role or ability should be but I kinda liked the 600 hp having them as a tank. All I know is I'm tired of seeing mass hydra without support working very well.
I always thought that ultras were suppose to be the shield that tanks all the zealots while hydras and roaches do the dps or whatnot. guess not so anymore.
I really think that blizzard shouldn't have worried about prepatch ultra + frenzy being too strong and just left it the way it originally was. It might be more effective that way
If we're going to pitch dumb abilities, I might as well pitch in.
Give the ultra its armor upgrade standard, replace it with a new upgrade. Give if a semi-scientific sounding name. The ultra has an ability that lets it , for five seconds, become stationary, and immune to damage, or raise its armor to something ridiculous (20ish?). Give it a 30 second cool down. If Ultras are going to be so damned expensive, they should at least tank their weight in resources. Plus it would add some micro, so everyone wins.
On May 24 2010 00:45 KillerPenguin wrote: Seems like ultras suck just like in BW I just don't see a role for them but maybe we'll see one evolve. I'm not sure what their role or ability should be but I kinda liked the 600 hp having them as a tank. All I know is I'm tired of seeing mass hydra without support working very well.
Wait wait wait... The Ultra sucked in BW? Since when?
Blizzard doesn't know what role they want to give to the ultralisk, it's quite disturbing. I don't understand why they fear of making them a too powerful a+click AE damage unit. They didn't hesitate with the colossus, then they nerfed it making it more balanced.
They will never have returns on the ultralisk if players never use them. After the release of the game, they won't try big changes because of a possible imbalance. They had to do it in the beta
On May 24 2010 00:45 KillerPenguin wrote: Seems like ultras suck just like in BW I just don't see a role for them but maybe we'll see one evolve. I'm not sure what their role or ability should be but I kinda liked the 600 hp having them as a tank. All I know is I'm tired of seeing mass hydra without support working very well.
Wait wait wait... The Ultra sucked in BW? Since when?
I'd like to know this too o.0. Ultralisk saved my ass soo many times in BW, in SC2 i can't even rely on it to even do anything
i think whoever is willing to do this should try a few different scenarios. massive vs. massive, massive + tier 1 massive counter vs. massive + tier 1 massive counter, etc. doing a single test against a single unit like this doesn't mean shit. you can do this for all of the massive units, or any unit in the game in general. it's the multiple situations that make you see what is really viable and what is not.
I say you post a bunch of videos with ultras fighting other units than zealots. I take away from this that Ultras are not good against zealots and nothing more. Unless you're out there massing 1 damn unit all the time without any sort of composition than it doesn't even matter.
ultras were supposed to be badass tanks, now they just die to everything
tier 3 units are supposed to be awesome with only a few counters and stream roll most other units, but with ultras pretty much every unit in the game counters it
but see when we look at 3 zealots vs 1 ultra we fail to see how this unit interacts while with the rest of the army mass lings between ultras are great cause it lets the lings get in there while enemy focusing on ultra
i think marader tank will fall vs ultra ling since maraders take 3 hits to kill a zergling even if the zergling reaches the marader army tanks will kill the ling and deal splash damage to their own units no?
The armor upgrade will make it change by a whole lot, especially since Zealots are 2 x 8 the upgrade alone will reduce that to 2 x 6, and in higher numbers the splash gets a whole lot better.
Making the ultralisk a unit that gets a bonus against armored was a wrong move imo as this makes it quite hard to use in 'typical' battles outside the mirror. Protoss will ALWAYS have a decent chunk of zealots in their army later on as it's their mineral sink (all other units have a 1 : 2,5 ratio or worse of minerals to gas and you collect at 1:4 while fully mining) and terran will generally have either marines or hellions at their front line. As a result ultralisks have a really hard time reaching the unit they are supposed to counter.
Personally I think the ultralisk should just be a more efficient roach later on which is slightly more effective at anything and especially more population efficient, but impossible to really mass because of the high gas needs. At the moment it serves a bit of a vague role as it's not really more effective then roaches at normal fightning but beats armored units which are generally situated in the back and tend to counter the ultralisk itself (marauder, stalker, immortal, thor). A anti ground armored unit for zerg makes sense but it doesn't really fit the ultralisk imo, as all the mineral outlets are light, which people are bound to make later on. As of now it only really makes sense in the mirror, but seeing blizzard's patch pattern they don't really focus on the mirror so thats probably not intended (they didn't change terran viking spam for example).
lol... i like the comment about how if you send in 10 ultras vs 1 banshee the banshee wins... I think it's time to add rocket launchers to the back of the ultralisk, and then add stim as a researchable upgrade. :D .
On a more serious note, I'm on the same track with everyone who thinks that the ultra needs more life. It dies too quickly, especially if the reason they buffed it was to counter T mech? How does that make sense?
On May 24 2010 03:54 f0rgiv3n wrote: lol... i like the comment about how if you send in 10 ultras vs 1 banshee the banshee wins... I think it's time to add rocket launchers to the back of the ultralisk, and then add stim as a researchable upgrade. :D .
On a more serious note, I'm on the same track with everyone who thinks that the ultra needs more life. It dies too quickly, especially if the reason they buffed it was to counter T mech? How does that make sense?
add some sickle arms and we're good to go vs. tier 1
On May 23 2010 22:09 Jugan wrote: Wait so you're saying you get to micro your zealots, but the ultra can't micro itself into a better position?
SO it can run away while the zealots get free hits on them?!??!?!?!?
I mean, i think the ultras best way it to not be microed right there T.T
Um... dude. It's surrounded. It's not dealing splash damage. That is the worst imaginable situation for an ultra to be in.
Yeah, but as soon as you'd back the ultra up, he'd just get another surround off on you + free hits
And so you... don't attack 3 zealots with your ultra. I'm not sure I get why this is so hard.
Okay. Once he has you in a triangle form and you back up in any direction, the zealots hitting him will chase and get a couple hits off, and once he sees you moving to reposition, he will just move his zealots so they dont group up, so no AOE can be damaged, while occasionally getting a hit off. This, and the fact that after one zealots lost its shields, it can back off to regen, and then come back into the fight (shields regens faster than ultras HP)
On May 23 2010 22:09 Jugan wrote: Wait so you're saying you get to micro your zealots, but the ultra can't micro itself into a better position?
SO it can run away while the zealots get free hits on them?!??!?!?!?
I mean, i think the ultras best way it to not be microed right there T.T
Um... dude. It's surrounded. It's not dealing splash damage. That is the worst imaginable situation for an ultra to be in.
Yeah, but as soon as you'd back the ultra up, he'd just get another surround off on you + free hits
And so you... don't attack 3 zealots with your ultra. I'm not sure I get why this is so hard.
Okay. Once he has you in a triangle form and you back up in any direction, the zealots hitting him will chase and get a couple hits off, and once he sees you moving to reposition, he will just move his zealots so they dont group up, so no AOE can be damaged, while occasionally getting a hit off. This, and the fact that after one zealots lost its shields, it can back off to regen, and then come back into the fight (shields regens faster than ultras HP)
These kinds of tests are pretty misleading. In ZvP the zerg is going to have other units mixed in. Even doing 5 ultras vs 15 zealots would be better.
I'm not saying ultras aren't underpowered, because I don't know. But I don't think this is a great way to test it. I do think they may have nerfed the ultra's life too much.
this is a dumb video. Funny but dumb. That ultra has no upgrades, and upgrades affect zealots so much because their attack is 2x8 or whatever. So yeah, dont fight zealots with 1 unupgraded ultralisk, we get it.
Ultralisk are a large melee unit unit that need to be leading the army to be any sort of effective. They are also easily prone to being surrounded and stopped in their tracks.
Zealots are small melee unit that has an ability to rapidly engage enemy units, especially those leading the army. This ability also allows them to surround units easily.
Zealots are much cheaper than Ultralisks and much more common.
Even if the Ultralisk is perfectly capable of fighting off armored targets like Stalkers, their large size and general lack of mobility makes them prone to be stopped by zealots that are much cheaper than them. You could argue "Immortals are countered by zerglings" but Immortals have the benefit of being a ranged unit that can be protected in a blob and does not need to be in the grill of the unit they are countering.
Ultralisks can't be designed as a counter to a specific type of unit because, outside a very few situations, they can't really decide who they are fighting. I can tell my Immortal to attack that Ultralisk over there because it has a ranged attack and with some certainty, I can assume that the Immortal is doing damage. I can't say the same for the Ultralisk.
Kind of sad actually. Even if they give it a charge so it can do all of it's damage, and even with splash zealots still win. I really don't think the health nerf was warranted.
i was starting to think the ultralisk was more geared towards late game drop tactics along with say lings or hydras but i don't think those are very do-able on these current maps
70 damage to buildings is pretty sick on paper, that's a handful of shots from one ultra to kill a pylon, and probably quite a bit faster than an immortal
but still cost-wise, unit build time,a nd the amount of space and pre-planning they take.... they're just for show IMO i'd never be scared of ultra compositions unless i were in the worst of situations especially after seeing that the bare minimal to solo one without losses is your #, 3 !
i can see some change to getting the utralisk into position quicker, or to deal more damage alone, would make getting them a lot more of a nicer idea, but on second thought, it's not like they take all 6 eggs on a hatchery to train
it's just one egg out of the six of 300 mins + gas
On May 23 2010 22:22 tarsier wrote: you rarely see more than a total of 2-3 thors or colossus in a whole match and you rarely see a single broodlord, battlecruisers or carrier. we shouldn't expect to see more than a total of 2-3 ultralisks in a whole match either.
That's like saying Protoss should only get 2-3 Carriers in a whole match. Get the Stargate. Get the Twilight Council. Get the Fleet Beacon. Get the interceptor launching upgrade. Get another upgrade that doesn't exist for Carriers but is required for Ultralisk. Then only make 2-3, and watch them die instantly.
it's not really up for debate... just watch high level replays and tell me how many games you can find where a player has >3 colossus or >3 thor or bother to tech for broodlord/carrier/bc at all. the reason you very rarely see them in high level play is because mass broodlord/carrier/bc will fail 99.9% of the time unless a) you've already won or b) the other player has totally failed at scouting. this is almost exactly the same as broodwar. they're truely unstoppable units if your opponent is poor and didn't get enough anti air because he didn't scout.
as for thor and colossus, massing them is overkill and totally weakens your army. you only need as many thors as it takes to cause a player to think twice about making mass air, you only need as many colossus as it takes to make a player think twice about pumping mass light units and you only need as many ultralisks as it takes to make people think twice about pumping mass armored units like stalker/roach etc... i don't know - we'll find out whether it works or not in time.
bcs and carriers are used at the highest levels of play in bw, and have been successful even when the opponent knows they are coming and has resources.
In sc1, 3 zealots do just as well vs an ultra as they do in sc2. For 100 extra minerals, you get frenzy+splash+force field destruction. You even get a nice bonus to buildings, which makes them great vs static defense.
I'd like to see you run this "test" with more realistic numbers and upgrades.
On May 23 2010 22:09 Jugan wrote: Wait so you're saying you get to micro your zealots, but the ultra can't micro itself into a better position?
SO it can run away while the zealots get free hits on them?!??!?!?!?
I mean, i think the ultras best way it to not be microed right there T.T
Um... dude. It's surrounded. It's not dealing splash damage. That is the worst imaginable situation for an ultra to be in.
Yeah, but as soon as you'd back the ultra up, he'd just get another surround off on you + free hits
And so you... don't attack 3 zealots with your ultra. I'm not sure I get why this is so hard.
Okay. Once he has you in a triangle form and you back up in any direction, the zealots hitting him will chase and get a couple hits off, and once he sees you moving to reposition, he will just move his zealots so they dont group up, so no AOE can be damaged, while occasionally getting a hit off. This, and the fact that after one zealots lost its shields, it can back off to regen, and then come back into the fight (shields regens faster than ultras HP)
this is under the retarded assumption that the only 4 units on the entire map are 1 ultra and 3 zeals. in any realistic situations the ultra is hitting at least 4-5 zeals at the same time no matter what, since there is an army for both players. You dont understand this game if you dont realize that the video showed the ultra in the absolute worst position possible, nothing can change that. and if you apply micro to one side you must apply it to the other, ie when you run zeal away then bring it back immediately, ultra would auto-target damaged zeal.
I've seen ultras tear through upgraded M&M Balls; however, the ultralisks still lose while the M&M army also loses a hefty amount. The way to solve this? Don't mass ultralisks, use only a few to support your army like 1-3 colossi supports a good gateway army.
/shrug, why does a tier 3 unit get owned by 3 tier 1 units, that end up costing less and can be put out 50x quicker at an even quicker pace?
For those saying put it up against army vs army or put it against stalkers and what not, please do not, i don't want to die even more inside.
To sum up the unit, they are no longer Ultra, just the lisk. Wtf is the point of teching to them? To counter stalkers? lol.
The issue with thinking, get 1-4 ults to support your army like Thors and Colossi, is that, the tech for both is very convenient, Protoss is 2.5 as well as Terran, and not only sooner, but 1 extra building is required, while Zerg is tech 3 for their massive unit, and have to get the building, and the upgrades for them to be any good at all. A lot of people were saying, ya well the ults dont have the armor upgrade or anything from the evo chamber... exactly. When's the last time a anyone has said, oh goodness, that thor doesn't have any weapon upgrades, he's going to lose to 6 zerglings.
The unit is very broken and Blizzard is failing miserably.
EPT
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