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Day[9] took a lot of heat for saying that Idra was late getting Tier 3 against Cruncher. I thought I’d take a look and explore just how bad (or not) Zerg Tier 3 units are. In this Issue: The Ultralisk.
At first blush, this is the Zerg’s ultimate damage-dealer. Its attacks of 15 (35 vs. armored) each .86 seconds gives it the highest DPS in the Zerg army, regardless of target: 17.4 (40.65 vs. armored). That’s not bad; a stimmed marine does 10.5, a carrier does 26.66 and a Thor, highest against ground in the game, does 46.875. So the Ultralisk is playing with the big-boys here.
But Ultralisks also cost an arm and a leg. What happens if we divide the DPS by cost (taking each gas as being worth 1.66 minerals and each supply costing 12.5 minerals)? Ultralisk DPS per cost is 0.0246 (0.0574 vs. armored). That means that, for the price, an Ultralisk’s DPS is worse than every other Zerg ground unit against light and about the same as a Roach (Roach DPS per cost is 0.0565) against armored. For comparison, a stimmed Marine’s DPS per cost is 0.16728, a Carrier is 0.0283, and a Thor is 0.0662
So the Ultra really isn’t that bad at doing damage, especially against armored. But maybe I’ve been doing this the wrong way. See, all those comparisons are with units that use ranged attacks. What happens when we compare an Ultralisk to other melee units: the Zerglings, Zealots, DTs, and harvesters? Well, we find that, per cost, an Ultralisk against a light unit is WORSE than a harvester (0.0533 vs. 0.02459) and against an armored unit is about half as cost effective as a zealot (0.1066 vs. 0.0574). Melee units need to pack more punch to reward you for the effort of getting them in close. Ultras don’t seem to do that.
“But Ultralisks can absorb damage!” you say. I reply, “There are numbers for that, too.” An Ultralisk has 500 hit points, and we’ll say 3 armor (we all know the upgrade is mandatory). The average attack against armored units does 15.1 damage every 1.16 seconds. The armor value of 3 reduces that to 12.1 damage every 1.16 seconds, which means it takes an average of 41.48 hits to kill an Ultralisk. If we divide that by cost, we get 0.05856.
Just as above, the best comparison is against other melee units. So we find that a Zealot takes 0.095 hits per cost, a zergling takes 0.0822 hits per cost and the permanently cloaked DT comes in at 0.0265 hits per cost. (SCVs take 0.0528 hits per cost)
It looks like, cost for cost, the Ultralisk does less damage and can take less punishment than a Zealot…or even a Zergling! Of course, one Ultralisk only costs 1 larva. The 40+ zerglings that equal it in resource cost are 30 larva.
It’s here that quantitative analysis hits its limit. Siege Tanks and Colossi kill Zerglings and Zealots by the dozen, but I haven’t found a way to reflect that in the unit’s durability stats. And the Ultralisk itself does splash damage to units it attacks. Again, I don’t know how to add that. How many extra units are affected on average? Until I can know that, I can’t really do anything about it.
Also, there is the sheer bulk of the Ultralisk. The fact that it is so large means that it is difficult to bring the full weight of a platoon of Ultralisks to bear against your opponent, while his smaller ranged units employ a very high “DPS density” against you.
TL;DR/Conclusion: Disregarding unit size and attack splash, the Ultralisk is a unit that is clearly inferior to all other melee units in the game. However, factors that are difficult to analyze quantitatively such as the ability to give and receive splash damage, unit size, “DPS density”, and larva cost make it difficult to say authoritatively that the Ultralisk is a worthless unit. It’s not looking good though.
EDIT: Splash damage. I don't know how to do it accurately, but not including it has been undermining basically every point I might wish to make. I have to make several assumptions: each attack hits four units in addition to the target, and each additional unit is the same armor type as the target. So here you go: Ultra DPS per cost including splash is 0.057 (0.134 vs. armored). So, against armored units it finally looks like the Ultra is doing better than Zealots, but it still does worse than Lings (a hilarious 0.22 DPS per cost)
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wow u must be a math major. But this is good, I am a z player and i am constantly dissapointed in zerg's late game, ultras in particular. u can be 2-3 bases up, make a bunch of ultras that just die to a big mm or toss death ball, and suddenly ur broke and ur ultras are dead. Even if fully upgraded, they are just not cost effective. In BW, if u outmacroed ur opponent to the point of getting 5-3 ultras, u had pretty much won the game. Now making ultras is like getting robbed. cough*BUFF*cough
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It's some interesting theory crafting but I think the points that you admit you can't factor in are actually super important, perhaps more important than all the math you have done. Take, for example, a typical Terran army of marine/tank/thor/medivac. If one were to attack it while maxed on ling/bling, each tank shot is going to be kill a gazillion blings/lings, the marines can stim and run away until the blings are all dead, etc.
Now imagine attacking into such an army with ultra/bling instead. The bulk of the ultras will greatly reduce the splash damage of the tanks and thors. The ultras will tear through the armored units (tanks/thors) while the blings, which will survive much longer do to the spread of the ultras, might actually hit the marines. The marines can't stop to shoot the ultras because then the blings will catch up. Moreover, b/c ultras and blings have the same movement speed, they are easier to keep together than ling/bling.
This is of course mostly theory crafting about the elements you said were hard to qualify mathematically, but I think it's important not to completely disregard the ultralisk because of your math. In certain unit combinations they can be an extremely powerful addition to one's unit composition. One can't just call them inferior to lings (cough blue flame cough).
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It's a melee unit which is as much of a runner as a hydralisk. Too easy to kite, too easy to snipe. Roaches are better in every regard.
They should be smaller and faster imo.
Edit: Regarding the OP, you need to factor the supply too. Ultralisks have tons of HP for their supply cost, so theyll be more effective in a 200/200 army than T1/2 units.
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you need ultra and nydus to make them effective, nydusing bases and taking out production
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Ultras kill forcefields. That's pretty much the most useful thing a zerg can have if they don't want a pure air army in ZvP.
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Zerg just need to learn HOW to use them and when to use them. And yeah, nydus play with ultralisks seems like a good way to use them.
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Even if I don't believe the Ultralisk is a stellar unit, disregarding splash just doesn't make sense. If you can't model one of the variables, you can't call it worthless and keep analyzing the data and hope to get meaningfull results. When would an ultralisk damage only 1 unit in a protoss ball? Almost never I would say. His size and pathfinding definatelly makes his splash worse than equivalents, but it's a vital part of the unit.
His armor is a lot harder to rate than you make it seems like. High armor against marines/carriers? Awesome. Against tanks it's a diferent story. There are tons of units that do less than 15 damage a hit. If you looked at things like that, carriers would seem pretty damn good. Look how much they gain from upgrades. But you if take into account how much armor lowers it's damage, it's another story.
I would actually say the least meaningfull thing about the ultralisk is what you wrote about. If they walked over other units and had a larger splash radius, I doubt anyone would call them weak. Remember when it was "bugged" and almost guaranteed Fruitdealers victory in GSL?
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Another thing that goes unmentioned in your post: the ultralisk is 1 unit, while 40 zerglings are 40 units. the dps of 40 zerglings goes down as they get attacked and some of the units die, but the DPS of an ultraliisk stays the same until it has lost all of its hp.
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Has anyone here successfully used the ultra in a close/slightly behind situation? Because I've only ever seen them work out when you're so far ahead it's irrelevant which unit to make. Please post replays, because I'd love to see how it can be useful.
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tbh, I'd say damage and health per supply would be more useful, as ultras are mostly going to come into play late game when zergs are maxed and money is practically unlimited. Especially when zerg drones really hard, there's not a lot of supply left over, so supply-efficient units are a must.
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@JDuB: An ultra/bling composition certainly sounds like it would be very effective against all compositions (except air  ). Of course, there's a difference between "very effective" and "optimal", and I haven't seen that play from a lot of pros.
@SKC: Yep, disregarding splash is pretty silly. I really have no idea how to account for it though. What's the average number of units that are going to get hit? If I have that, I'm all over it.
Also, regarding "average damage", I arrived at the number used by taking a cost-weighted average of all units in the game, so Marines do count for more than Siege Tanks. But also don't forget optimization: a player who is microing during the battle is going to try to get Thors to attack the Ultralisks and Marines to attack the zerglings.
@benefluence: But that works both ways: 45 damage 15 hits and the Ultralisk can't do anymore damage. 45 damage 15 hits, optimally distributed, and there's still 25 Zerglings left doing damage.
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Ultra 1v1 in unit fights is terrible for cost effectiveness. The splash pretty much triples it's dps(due to the fast attack speed) against armoured units. Its very much like zerglings but with a much worst pathing. If you can get a surround with ultras they will become the most cost efficient units you can possibly make. Or if you screw up they will give you a free loss right there. I once a moved into a terran, but thanks to bunkers the path was too small for ultras so my lings and banelings ran in to get killed by tanks. But my ultralisks went the long way around and were attacking his third. It was on scrap btw.
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@Kovaz:
Damage per supply: Ultra 2.9 (6.77 vs. armored). Ling: 14.36. Hydra: 8
Hits per supply: ultra 6.9, ling 5.14, Roach 5.15
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I've always viewed ultras as a meat shield that allows your other units to do their job. It also has a very cheap supply cost. Those 40 zerglings may be as cost effective as an ultra, but you could have 3 ultras for the food cost in a 200/200 army. The larva cost is also very important. In fact, I'd agree with the other posters that the mineral/gas cost is probably the least relevant "cost" of the unit.
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Disregarding attack splash
The ultralisk would be insanely imbalanced in the dps department if it had better or on par DPS with single-target units.
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@Talack:
Damage per cost of Ultra: 0.024 (0.057 vs. armored), Siege Tank: 0.029 (0.042 vs. armored), Colossus: 0.025, Hellion: 0.025 (0.046 vs. light), Archon: 0.022 (0.031 vs. biological)
It's damage seems right in line with other splash-dealers. Of course, everything else has range (even the Archon!).
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On April 02 2011 06:53 tGhOeOoDry wrote:
TL;DR/Conclusion: Disregarding unit size and attack splash, the Ultralisk is a unit that is clearly inferior to all other melee units in the game. However, factors that are difficult to analyze quantitatively such as the ability to give and receive splash damage, unit size, “DPS density”, and larva cost make it difficult to say authoritatively that the Ultralisk is a worthless unit. It’s not looking good though.
These factors alone make quantitative analysis worthless. Also note that the armor will rarely be 3; competent zergs will also aim for ultras by upgrading regular carapace alongside. The sheer number of variables that can't be taken into account (all of which add to the ultra's viability save perhaps size) means saying something like "it's not looking good" is foolish.
If we looked at Thors, but removed their splash ability, how would they do against Muta? Not very well. Look at DTs and ignore their cloaking. How do they do? Pretty terribly. HT? They can't even attack! What a ripoff. While I'm not saying that ultras are a good unit (they probably aren't) numbers conclusions aren't authoritative or very useful.
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Editing OP to include extremely basic splash. I'm assuming hitting 4 extra units for no good reason at all, and that the 4 extra units are all the same armor type as the primary target.
Damage per cost: 0.057 (0.134 vs. armored).
So, against armored opponents it is better than zealots, and against light still far worse. Also, just for fun, you should know a Zergling does 0.229 DPS per cost. Woo!
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The biggest problem of the ultralisk is the unit size and speed imo. Ultras in BW were awesome cause they were fast, and not too large. I have lost many games were I've had really large number of ultras (10+) to pretty much kiting marauders, and as others have said, you really can't go pure ultra cost-effectively.
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EPT
