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On December 08 2010 05:58 GoldenH wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2010 05:28 FabledIntegral wrote:On December 08 2010 03:24 GoldenH wrote:On December 08 2010 03:12 FarbrorAbavna wrote:On December 07 2010 11:58 GoldenH wrote:So taking the advice of the forumgoers I went ahead and used sensor towers instead of pylons. But in addition to pylons I burrowed Zerglings underneath the path the ultralisk would take, to see if the Ultralisk did indeed do damage to anything underneath it. The results were quite surprising. First, the image from 1.2. We did it twice so there would be no question of the results. ![[image loading]](http://hammerand.com/goldenh/sc2/ultra.1.2.b.JPG) As expected, the sensor towers in front of the Ultra and to the sides took damage, but nothing underneath the ultralisk. The surprise was when I tried it in the current version. ![[image loading]](http://hammerand.com/goldenh/sc2/ultra.1.1.3.b.JPG) The first thing you notice is that I had to make the path wider. The ultra simply would not fit in the gap that it fit in in 1.2. This suggests a slight undocumented change in the size of the Ultra. The second thing you notice is that the Ultralisk damage radius was far larger. Not just hitting things underneath it, but also to the side. While no increase in range was made. If anything, the change in 1.2 represents a nerf; no further marines will be hit by the ultralisk's claws. PS I won't be using marines to test anything; in fact I won't do any further tests on the issue, I consider it closed. If you wish to do further changes I suggest using a field of burrowed zerglings; it's much quicker to make and gives good results. So now ultras arent dealing damage to as many units in one strike but you can fit more ultras in the same space(since they fit in smaller spaces now, if I understood this correctly). This to me sounds more like a buff than anything. Of course it's down to number crunching and actual playtesting to see just how big this change in size is and how that affects the game. If it changes how fast ultras can get to a target I'm seriously excited about it. I'm not sure you can actually fit more ultras next to each other, I mean, how much difference is there between a pylon and 2 sensor towers? I think another post in this thread may be right, and it may have just been due to the sensor tower glitch mentioned elsewhere in the patch notes. Anyway I don't think it's a big deal, I mean, the splash damage does a whole 5 damage to light units. Was it really that badass that blizzard had to take it out? really? By that same logic, it's not a big deal if it's removed, right? I think I've done enough rooting for Ultras to be good in this thread, that I shouldn't get troll replies like this one.
Only in your ignorance do you think it's one.
On December 08 2010 06:04 fdsdfg wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2010 05:42 Pewt wrote:On December 07 2010 19:28 Alpina wrote:On December 07 2010 19:24 FabledIntegral wrote:On December 07 2010 19:21 Alpina wrote:
Seems like ultra wasn't nerfed enough..
They are nerfing ultra every patch but cannot fix the bug were stimmed marauders can kite ultra forever.
Making ultras is worth now only if you already have big advantage imo. Everything kills them so extremely fast and BLs are just better overall. You even can't reinforce and rebuild army with ultras cause they take forever to make, at least they would lower their build time cause now it looks like you are building battlecruiser lol. Because, you know, you go pure Ultra and don't incorporate any speedlings (which counter Marauders and are an insanely good tanking of damage) or infestors for fungaling to prevent ANY kiting in your builds right? Such a stupid statement. Well you can do units outside of marauder also, didn't you know? What about infestor, i dont have 10 infestors with me, and 3 stimmed marauders can kill ultra just easily. ...and then you aren't kiting them (assuming anything other than marines or hellions, neither of which would be stellar in this circumstance, or assuming they are using infestors). Please, think before you post. (Also, stay on creep and you'll be fine) Can you give a Zerg army composition focused on ultras that would be able to beat a marauder-based composition at cost? Also, someone said zerglings are 'insanely good at tanking damage'... they're actually one of the worst. They have the highest dps:hp ratio in the game, which means tanking is the exact opposite of what they're good at. They're about as good as tanking damage as marines are.
I said this, and it was in reference specifically to marauder heavy armies. And they are exceptional damage tanks to marauders. Not only is it 4 shots to kill a single Zergling, but at the same time there is an extremely high amount of overkill due to the low hp, making Zerglings one of the best tanks possible for marauders. It's the ultras that actually deal the damage, not the Zerglings, which instead flank, surround, and tank, when it's vs marauder heavy armies.
Also cost is not entirely relevant simply because a Zerg economy is almost always surpassing a Terran economy lategame. Also, Zerg does not have to invest in the multiple production buildings, etc. If you want mass ultralisk, you can get it from one ultra cavern. And you can outproduce 6 factories with tech labs producing Thors if both sides try to rebuild after losing their armies entirely.
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On December 07 2010 21:32 L0thar wrote:
C'mon Zerg players, even Ret admits Zerg is OP against Terran in late game...if they got there, that's it, but that's another problem...
Really? Link please because out of all of rets post I have never seen him say that, seen him say the opposite though 
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Feel free to flame me if I am misintrepeting something, but how does this test give any conclusive evidence that ultras have been nerfed if we are testing it on a 1x1 sensor tower? You are only getting a granularity of 1 grid and while the ultralisk splash range is 2.5. If the splash center was moved by 0.5 grid its possible that testing with sensor tower is not capturing the full effects of the changes
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On December 08 2010 06:16 Mystgun wrote:
Feel free to flame me if I am misintrepeting something, but how does this test give any conclusive evidence that ultras have been nerfed if we are testing it on a 1x1 sensor tower? You are only getting a granularity of 1 grid and while the ultralisk splash range is 2.5. If the splash center was moved by 0.5 grid its possible that testing with sensor tower is not capturing the full effects of the changes
Taken by itself the sensor tower experiment isn't enough, but combined with the pylon test it is.
Pylon is 2x2, and two pylons in a row were hit by the same ultra attack.
Yet Sensor Tower is 1x1, again, only two Sensor Towers in a row were hit by the same ultra attack.
Also, the Sensor Towers in the corner were hit, but the Pylons in the corners were not.
This demonstrates that the ultra damage range is exactly 2 in both versions.
If you find this experiment lacking, by all means repeat the experiment yourself, with any changes you want to make. This is SCIENCE!!!!
![[image loading]](http://hammerand.com/goldenh/sc2/SCIENCE.PNG)
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I said this, and it was in reference specifically to marauder heavy armies. And they are exceptional damage tanks to marauders. Not only is it 4 shots to kill a single Zergling, but at the same time there is an extremely high amount of overkill due to the low hp, making Zerglings one of the best tanks possible for marauders. It's the ultras that actually deal the damage, not the Zerglings, which instead flank, surround, and tank, when it's vs marauder heavy armies.
Also cost is not entirely relevant simply because a Zerg economy is almost always surpassing a Terran economy lategame. Also, Zerg does not have to invest in the multiple production buildings, etc. If you want mass ultralisk, you can get it from one ultra cavern. And you can outproduce 6 factories with tech labs producing Thors if both sides try to rebuild after losing their armies entirely.
Actually Zerglings are exceptionally good tanks in general. Obviously everyone knows that roaches are tough so I'll compare ling hp to them. Even if you assume a 1:1 ratio of gas value to minerals you'll find that the roach is worth 100 resources for 135 hp to 25 for zergling's 35hp. For the roach that's 1.35 hp per resource and for the zergling that's 1.4. Now realize that like half of the units in the game have +armored bonuses, especially the marauders that double their damage, and then zerglings get tons of overkill HP from a lot of the larger units.
There's just a couple things that are very good against lings.
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On December 07 2010 09:58 Gescom wrote:
Pylons might be too large (ie. not enough granularity) to properly test this.
this
and the sensor towers too.
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On December 08 2010 07:29 Duban wrote:Show nested quote +I said this, and it was in reference specifically to marauder heavy armies. And they are exceptional damage tanks to marauders. Not only is it 4 shots to kill a single Zergling, but at the same time there is an extremely high amount of overkill due to the low hp, making Zerglings one of the best tanks possible for marauders. It's the ultras that actually deal the damage, not the Zerglings, which instead flank, surround, and tank, when it's vs marauder heavy armies.
Also cost is not entirely relevant simply because a Zerg economy is almost always surpassing a Terran economy lategame. Also, Zerg does not have to invest in the multiple production buildings, etc. If you want mass ultralisk, you can get it from one ultra cavern. And you can outproduce 6 factories with tech labs producing Thors if both sides try to rebuild after losing their armies entirely. Actually Zerglings are exceptionally good tanks in general. Obviously everyone knows that roaches are tough so I'll compare ling hp to them. Even if you assume a 1:1 ratio of gas value to minerals you'll find that the roach is worth 100 resources for 135 hp to 25 for zergling's 35hp. For the roach that's 1.35 hp per resource and for the zergling that's 1.4. Now realize that like half of the units in the game have +armored bonuses, especially the marauders that double their damage, and then zerglings get tons of overkill HP from a lot of the larger units. There's just a couple things that are very good against lings.
Well, there's a couple flaws in that:
1) Roach has 145 hp, not 135. It also has 1 armor.
2) Roaches are larger and less affected by splash.
Otherwise you are correct, I guess in my head I always did calculations with the zerg at 35 for 50, which is a pretty bad oversight.
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Well, Ultralisks are already not worth to get to be honest, after they hotfixed them...
I really felt comfortable with Ultraslisks before the hotfix, personally I dont think about getting them at any time, Hive tech is just a mess and the advantages are very low. Most of the time I just get Hive for the upgrades, when im already about to get those 2/2 upgrades or against toss If I have Spire already...
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On December 08 2010 07:50 ch4ppi wrote:
Well, Ultralisks are already not worth to get to be honest, after they hotfixed them...
I really felt comfortable with Ultraslisks before the hotfix, personally I dont think about getting them at any time, Hive tech is just a mess and the advantages are very low. Most of the time I just get Hive for the upgrades, when im already about to get those 2/2 upgrades or against toss If I have Spire already...
Just to correct your terminology.. a hotfix is something that doesn't affect the game code - similar to when they changed the map pool to remove DO and Kulas and added Shakuras and JB. Every patch is not a hotfix. It might be a stealth nerf (as ultralisk has had more than his share of), but not a hotfix.
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A granularity of 1 is far too big to draw any conclusions. Even a change in splash radius from 2.5 to 2.25 (a change of 0.25) represents a 19% loss of AoE area, and there is no way that a size-1 building could detect a change of 0.25.
That said, it seems likely that the ultralisk change is indeed a nerf and not a buff. That seems very peculiar as ultras sure don't seem like they deserve a nerf. They aren't exactly weak (ultras allow zerg to convert economic advantage to unit advantage MUCH more rapidly than other races) but they currently aren't effective unless your economy is far better than your opponent's.
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Yea this is an odd change. Maybe it's intent was to give Ultras a small buff but ended up being a nerf lol.
Glad to see OP tested this rather thoroughly.
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On December 08 2010 08:54 Piousflea wrote:
A granularity of 1 is far too big to draw any conclusions. Even a change in splash radius from 2.5 to 2.25 (a change of 0.25) represents a 19% loss of AoE area, and there is no way that a size-1 building could detect a change of 0.25.
The granularity is actually much less than 1.
We know that the size of the splash damage is the difference in the collision box of a pylon and a sensor tower.
This is .1 at the most.
Edit:
A graphical representation to make it clear. The yellow is the margin of error.
![[image loading]](http://hammerand.com/goldenh/sc2/possiblevariations.png)
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At this point I feel like the ultra is just a *really* expensive version of hallucination. It's there to add clutter and soak up damage while at the same time doing zero damage.
They are very nearly impossible to get a surround with and are super easy to kite in many, many situations. To make matters worse to make them 'effective' in any fashion you have to get 3 carapace upgrades plus chitinous plating. Like they said on the recent State of the Game podcast, "Ultras either win you the game or they lose you the game."
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i still miss the time when ultras could kill scvs around PFs..
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The Ultralisk’s arc-shaped damage area is now centered at the front of the Ultralisk instead of at its center.
doesnt state a nerf if you interpret "its" as the ultralisk....
however, if you interpret "its" as the unit/building the ultralisk is attacking, then it was a slight nerf as now the splash is closer to the ultra, and not farther away like we zergs want it to be...
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On December 08 2010 06:04 fdsdfg wrote:
Can you give a Zerg army composition focused on ultras that would be able to beat a marauder-based composition at cost?
...can you give me a Corrupter-based army that would be able to beat a Marine-based composition at cost? I'm not really sure what the point you're trying to make is. You seem to be implying that the fact that there is a unit that does well against Ultras means they aren't good against any other units, which is just silly.
That aside, the best reason I've found to make Ultras is in fact to finish off an opponent when I'm at an advantage, but that's significantly more important than it sounds. There really aren't any other Zerg units (besides Brood Lords) that allow you to go and bust your way into your opponent's base, advantage or no. Being able to bust your way in without leaving wave after wave of units at your opponent's doorstep, or waiting until your opponent can put together something to try to come back and win the game, can actually be helpful.
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Yes it can.. the question is "how much of an advantage do you need to have before you're allowed to win?"
Terran is great here.. any instantaneous advantage and there's 20 food of MMM in your base killing everything. Zerg is able to keep alive with a lot of work, but they need to be 5000 resources and 2 bases ahead before they can break down your front door. Protoss is somewhere in between.
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Did somebody say that marines are good against ultralisks? This is very very false. Fully upgraded, marines do 4 damage per shot. If the marines aren't upgraded (unlikely but possible) they deal 1 damage per shot. That is pathetic. The Ultralisk is exceptional against marines and zerglings.
But who cares if they are effective against marines and zerglings. I have much better counters to those units than the ultralisk, which with the current nerf will be extremely bad against all protoss units and perform poorly against Marauders as well. And Marauders can already kite us to death with sufficient micro.
We neeeeed our splash damage....
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On December 08 2010 14:53 DoubleReed wrote:
Did somebody say that marines are good against ultralisks? This is very very false. Fully upgraded, marines do 4 damage per shot. If the marines aren't upgraded (unlikely but possible) they deal 1 damage per shot. That is pathetic. The Ultralisk is exceptional against marines and zerglings.
But who cares if they are effective against marines and zerglings. I have much better counters to those units than the ultralisk, which with the current nerf will be extremely bad against all protoss units and perform poorly against Marauders as well. And Marauders can already kite us to death with sufficient micro.
We neeeeed our splash damage....
cost for cost and upgrade for upgrade marines are good against ultralisks. To compare unupgraded marines to a fully upgraded ultralisk seems a bit silly to me.
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I don't get it, zerg wasn't proving to be OP anyway, why the nerf? I swear it's the influx of terran tears...
Infestors were fine, I don't see a reason to nerf the fungal. It was practically zerg's only AA + detection in ZvT. Just make banshees even harder to counter for zerg, yep.
Ultras were weak BEFORE this patch. Stimmed bioballs can kite ultras off creep, zealot walls negate the damage. Seriously considering changing my ZvT build, but not sure what to now. Nothing good in terms of mobile AA (hydras are unusable) and mutas are ridiculous as a 'counter' unit due to their sheer cost and low in-battle effectiveness. All mutas are good for is harassing/defending off banshees and drops. If banshees are used in an army? what then? is zerg forced to run? wow...
All I'm saying is stop nerfing Zerg. Even now when I play as Terran i can see how bs it is. Unit effectiveness is exponential and gas cost is so low. So tempting to switch permanently to T it's not funny...
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you see OP, many people (including me) would really like to see some ultras vs units testing, which is a standard testing method in any other testing thread. why not test it myself you say?? caused' first of all you are the OP, you open this thread and try to make a point so you might as well do it right lol. secondly, some of us have no access to PTR duh!!!
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EPT
