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Yes Ultras used to suck so bad but Patch 14 ultras are a lot better than patch 12 ultras..
Day 9's 131 doesn't even matter, I have used ultras since patch 14 and I can say they are already decent units with a role. They are already viable, the reason you dont see them in competetive play is that there were only a few tournaments after patch 14 and most programers (I think) didn't want to risk using ultras yet since there were not much time to test them. However some of the latest plays do show ultralisk usage just like with Haypro and Check.Prime
IMO: crackling-infestor-ultra > roach-hydra-infestor when face Terran mech or Collosus-sentry
To the OP: Have you actually used them? Or did you just see that that they weren't the tournament replays you watched and instantly assumed that they are not viable?
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The Ultra has a lot of HP and its damage is vicious, plus Zerg have lots of ways to make it more mobile (drops, Nydus, creep). If it isn't 'viable' then I don't know what ever could be.
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Just half its collision size. You can instantly get the best of both worlds.
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Also, about the Ultra/ling synergy, how about giving Ultralisk attacks a non-stacking temporary armor debuff of -1 or -2? It would make cracklings do 1 or 2 more damage per hit, which would make an enormous difference in the overall damage per second of zerglings. Even if the Ultralisk dies, as long as it gets a single hit off on a blob of enemy units, the lings will be doing bonus damage to the army. Before someone accuses this of being too Warcraft 3 or WoW like, think of it like acid spores in Brood War, except non-stacking and for ground units.
You could also probably nerf their damage and make them more of a tank/support unit rather than an expensive damage dealer. Then you would only need a small number of Ultralisks to reap a decent benefit from having them in your army, making their cost not quite as prohibitive.
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Cost v effect is what makes the Ultralisk bad. If making them have no collision with light units will bring their effect to equal their cost then that is fine. Otherwise I think they should be cheaper as Broods always seems like the better choice.
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Seriously, if you look at the test results I've posted, I dont know how anyone could say the Ultra is viable.
Comparing the mineral/gas efficiency of Ultras, the only time you even break even is vs very select units.
Which means more often than not, your losing more than you gain with Ultras. You need to do 300/200 worth of damage to even cut equal with an Ultra. Nearly every matchup does not allow this.
Also, please name ANY scenario where a Ultra will be able to do more damage than a BL.
On June 14 2010 04:01 IKenshinI wrote:
Cost v effect is what makes the Ultralisk bad. If making them have no collision with light units will bring their effect to equal their cost then that is fine. Otherwise I think they should be cheaper as Broods always seems like the better choice.
This guy is on the money, which my test results clearly backup. They are simply not worth the cost. Especially when EVERY OTHER T3 UNIT has HEAVY ADVANTAGE in most of its matchups aside from the hard counters.
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If you give ultras no-collision with light units that means no surround w/ lings or zealots which is quite frankly bad. Other than that I think it's a neat idea
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Besides the fact that I disagree that the ultralisk is "unviable", removing collision with light units is not the way to go, because that is not the reason that ultra/ling isn't as good as in BW. The reason that they aren't as good as in BW is because everything does full damage AND often times has bonus damage vs armored. Thus the ultralisk feels more frail than in BW even though it has more armor.
But all this falls into the idea that what works in BW has to work in SC2, which is just foolishness. So what if ultra ling isn't as good as in BW anymore? You can do ultra/something else. If you watch TLO in his ZvT in the recent Day9 daily you can see that ultralisk roach ling is super strong.
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People seem to be ignoring the fact that brood lords are much much easier to counter as terran. Get 10-12 vikings out and your broodlords are pretty much dead. You cant kill vikings sitting on top of tanks and thors, so if a terran is going mech and you go brood lords, once he gets vikings out broodlords cease to be useful. Ultras will actually at least break even on being cost effective in general vs mech, making them the better choice as they don't have such a hard counter as brood lords do. They definitely perform better then any other zerg ground unit vs terrans.
And no, i'm not just going from the TLO daily, I was experimenting with them almost every terran mech game for the last week or so of the beta and found them to be the best choice against terran mech late game.
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On June 14 2010 03:40 Spyridon wrote:Show nested quote +On June 14 2010 03:37 Bull-Demon wrote:
I find it hilarious that all the sheep are saying ultras are viable just cause TLO said so. Would be nice if, ya know, people actually thought for themselves but I guess that would be expecting too much. Probably the same people a month ago that were flooding the forums with how much ultras suck. Yep. Like I mentioned, bust out the unit tester and see for yourself. Hell you can even make a Robo or Mech army to fight, and switch Ultras in and BL and see which perform better. You'll see that my above claims are all true. He has VERY few fights where he has an actual advantage, and far too many fights that he is equal or disadvantaged in. Heres a list of how the Ultra performs vs Terran units that it could attack and be attacked by... 1 Ultra vs 6 Marines - Ultra survives with half health. 1 Ultra vs 3 Marauders - Ultra survives with half health unmicroed. With Mara Micro, they recieve no damage due to the dodging bug. 1 Ultra vs Hellions - Ultras large advantage. 1 Ultra vs 2 Unsieged Tanks - Ultra survives with 50% health 1 Ultra vs 2 Sieged Tanks - Ultra survives with 60% health 2 Ultras vs 4 Sieged Tanks - Both Ultras barely survive (therefore the more tanks the worse ultras do) 1 Ultra vs 1 Thor - Ultra Barely Survives. Therefore, the only notable strengths Ultra has is vs Marines, Marauders, and Hellions. Tanks are not even worth listing, because barely surviving vs 4 tanks alone means that with fire from any other units, those Ultras woudl have been dead far before the Tanks. Also in a realistic scenario, Ultras do not perform very well vs MMM due to the huge amounts of focus fire, and simultaneous damage from the rest of their army. So what are Ultras real strengths? Lets compare that to the Broodlord. Broodlord has a heavy advantage vs Marauders, Hellions, Tanks, as none of them can hit a BL. Broodlord can only be hit by Marines and Thors. Broodlords easily handle Marines as they have to get very close to the BL to do their damage, which means going in to attack range of the other Zerg units. 2 Broodlords vs 2 Thors (both focus firing) = Both Broodlords survive (1 of them barely survived at 6 health). The weakest matchups for BL are still fairly even. That's the same scenario nearly every other T3 unit in the game has. T3 units are (typically) stronger than most other matchups aside from the hard counters. For example, Battlecruisers have a huge advantage over most units, where things like Corruptors only have a slight advantage if equal min amounts. Thors have a 50% advantage over most units. Even Immortals have far more strengths than the Ultra does. The Ultra was not designed to be stronger than most of it's matchups - which makes it unique for a T3 unit (or even T2). The only strengths it really has is vs t1 units, and even that's negligible due to his range and fact that they took away his DPS vs light units. I've analyzed EVERY SINGLE UNIT in the game this way. The Ultra seriously has far less performance than any other T3 unit if you factor equal mineral/gas values. As mentioned before, its barely on par with many T2 units.
Ultralisk: Hatchery-pool-lair-pit-hive-cavern = morph ultra
Broodlord: Hatchery-pool-lair-spire-pit-hive-greaterspire = morph corruptor-then morph corruptor to BL. They are both T3 But you can get ultras faster than BL's more so BC's and carriers
Also Ultras have a good synergy in combination with all 3 skills of the infestors
Frenzy: this is obvious
Fungal growth: To prevent kiting
Neural Parasite: When ultras tank its easier for infestor to MC
And ultras go along the melee upgrades you use for zerglings and banelings
Im not saying that ultralisks are a better choice than broodlords
But you cant just look at the unit itself, but the entire game.. the build, timing, the combo of your units, the effectiveness of your army composition against your opponent's etc.. And of course even though the chances are lower.. THERE will be times that its better to get ultras than BL's
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On June 14 2010 04:02 Spyridon wrote:
Also, please name ANY scenario where a Ultra will be able to do more damage than a BL.
Against Vikings, Phoenix, or Blink-stalkers, the ultra should be in much better shape.
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What about bringing a few Queens into the battle und transfuse the Ultras a few times? Just need to have creep by either Overlords or Creep Tumors.
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I've had a ton of luck lately with Ultras, especially after that last patch. I don't think they aren't viable at all, you just have to use them in appropriate situations and tailor your build around them. TLO does it quite well, when he survives early on ling/infestor and rushes to hive tech. Give it a try; as long as you are clever and keep your opponent contained, maybe even manage a little harassment with the infestors, you'll be fine once the Ultras hit the field. Ultras definately need the upgrades; fortunately if you stay using lings, your upgrade path is quite clear.
Of course no one should assume that Ultralisks magically work now because TLO said so. No one should assume they don't work because you don't see them a lot in VoDs. Try them yourself; they are a powerhouse, as long as you can get them in position correctly.
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Actually against protoss I cant see the ultralisk being more useful than the broodlord. A phoenix does very little damage against armored targets and ultralisks wont really have fun fighting blink stalkers either.
But as someone mentioned already vikings can be very annoying to deal with, so on some maps I can totally see ultralisks being used against terran. They still kind of suck on maps with battles happening relatively close to small chokes or stuff like that but on open maps like metalopolis they can work as TLO showed. Then again Im not yet convinced of them, as you have to focus heavily on melee upgrades, which means the terrans will get a good sense of whats comming and just starting to counter it with thor ability, air or whatever.
Regarding ZvZ I've honestly no idea how they'd work out, as I've literally never seen a ZvZ lasting to hive tech within the last patches.
We need to see them used in some more games to really comment on their usefulnes I'd say.
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[*]Send in Ultralisks first to absorb the first shots from tanks and then run past them with Speedlings and after that your ranged units.
Too bad there is no tank overkill in SC
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Ultras are the most awkward unit to maneuver in the game. Blizzard realized the mistake they made with the Thor and they adjusted his size and now it works quite well. They just need to do the same with the Ultra. The problem right now is you send in your ultras, they punch through the initial units with some losses and you STILL can't maneuver them through the gap they've just created. They're about as awkward as a teenage boy at a middle school dance. Shrink the model, improve the pathing, do something. I'd probably use them with a nerf if they improved this facet.
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Ultras are the most awkward unit to maneuver in the game. Blizzard realized the mistake they made with the Thor and they adjusted his size and now it works quite well. They just need to do the same with the Ultra. The problem right now is you send in your ultras, they punch through the initial units with some losses and you STILL can't maneuver them through the gap they've just created. They're about as awkward as a teenage boy at a middle school dance. Shrink the model, improve the pathing, do something. I'd probably use them with a nerf if they improved this facet.
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On June 14 2010 04:46 Conflict wrote:
[*]Send in Ultralisks first to absorb the first shots from tanks and then run past them with Speedlings and after that your ranged units.
Too bad there is no tank overkill in SC
Why would you prefer that over sending broodlings that are free for the same purpose?
On June 14 2010 04:34 w_Ender_w wrote:
I've had a ton of luck lately with Ultras, especially after that last patch. I don't think they aren't viable at all, you just have to use them in appropriate situations and tailor your build around them. TLO does it quite well, when he survives early on ling/infestor and rushes to hive tech. Give it a try; as long as you are clever and keep your opponent contained, maybe even manage a little harassment with the infestors, you'll be fine once the Ultras hit the field. Ultras definately need the upgrades; fortunately if you stay using lings, your upgrade path is quite clear.
Of course no one should assume that Ultralisks magically work now because TLO said so. No one should assume they don't work because you don't see them a lot in VoDs. Try them yourself; they are a powerhouse, as long as you can get them in position correctly.
Sure, Ultras share upgrades, but use that video as an example. TLO was attacking with 7-10 Ultralisks at a time for quite a few waves. At least 3. You know how easy 10 Broodlings w/ a few infestors would have won that game? Even without the upgrades? Hell, even without the infestors, that many Broodlords can handle 2-4 Thors easily. Sure, he could have went vikings, but replace those zerglings TLO used with Hydras or Mutas and the game would have been over in half the time. He was also spending most his time trying to break thru the tanks - that issue would have been solved. Thing is, Broodlords dont even need the upgrades to be more cost effective.
Besides, if u want upgrade synergy - Broodlings ALSO USE THE MELEE GROUND UPGRADES!
I'm not saying you "cant win with Ultras", but I am saying it's not worth the cash. You need the economic advantage just to cut even using Ultras. They are, by far, the least cost effective unit Zerg has.
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I wouldn't really want Ultras to walk over zerglings. it would let them close faster against tanks, yes, but when the tanks target your ultras, the splash kills all the zerglings underneath as well. As it is, any tank shot on an ultralisk saves many zergling lives. It would only be a buff if Ultras somehow also shielded the units underneath them from splash.
Perhaps a better buff would be to make small unit AI (zerglings) prioritize getting out of the way of a moving Ultralisk. This lets them close into combat range (like the stacking suggestion), while still saving your zerglings from AoE. if you combined with the +1 range suggestion so they synergize better with zerglings, Ultralisks would actually have to be nerfed in some way (I'd lower their damage probably)
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Sigh.
Nobody has tried ultralisks long enough since the last patch to determine if they're viable (though some like TLO definitely feel that they are).
I'm really beginning to dislike this attitude that the route to fixing 'problems' is through patches and not player skill and adaptation. The first response to adversity is now 'how can this be patched'?
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EPT
