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Mailing
United States3087 Posts
Void Rays are the ABSOLUTE counter to both zerg T3 units, there is almost no harder counter in the game. The only units that can fight voids are corruptors and hydra. Hydra die before the colossus do, almost always. Corruptors are not only weak to void rays themselves, but stalkers also do great damage to them. If you think Muta can fight the deathball, that's a jokie. | ||
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MagisterMan
Sweden525 Posts
On April 02 2011 08:39 Mailing wrote: The only units that can fight voids are corruptors and hydra. Hydra die before the colossus do, almost always. Corruptors are not only weak to void rays themselves, but stalkers also do great damage to them. That is why you target the colossi with corruptor and the voidrays with hydras. | ||
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tGhOeOoDry
United States48 Posts
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Refreshe
United States141 Posts
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Dalavita
Sweden1113 Posts
On April 02 2011 08:48 Refreshe wrote: The reason, I feel, that the ultras are not that good is because of tier 2ish unit counters against the ultras i.e Marauders and Immortals. Those two units completely murder ultras. Here's the problem with ultras. Their intention is to be used when you're on enough bases that you can support going 200/200 with t3. If T/P didn't have any cheap massable specialist unit to fight the ultras, they'd just get stomped at that point. The only thing they need to fix with Ultras is their pathing. Anything else would more than likely turn them into a deathball unit. | ||
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Angelbelow
United States3728 Posts
On April 02 2011 08:39 Mailing wrote: The reason saying IdrA should of got T3 sooner was sketchy was not because ultra are bad against protoss (they are), but because Cruncher had like 15 void rays. Void Rays are the ABSOLUTE counter to both zerg T3 units, there is almost no harder counter in the game. The only units that can fight voids are corruptors and hydra. Hydra die before the colossus do, almost always. Corruptors are not only weak to void rays themselves, but stalkers also do great damage to them. If you think Muta can fight the deathball, that's a jokie. Agreed. Void rays would just own any tier 3 unit idra could have gotten out. | ||
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Crescend1
Poland108 Posts
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Rettet181
United States32 Posts
ANd averagely, human and his dog has 3 legs. Fixing that to: "On average, a man and his dog has 3 legs." Fantastic saying haha, I've never heard it before. | ||
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QtreadzSD
8 Posts
“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. I don't think it's that simple. You can't say because an ultralisk has three armor that damage over time is simply decreased by 3. For instance, if an ultra has three armor and a marine does six damage, every shot will be mitigated by 3 damage, and the damage over time is HALVED, not decreased by three. (6 damage/shot * five shots/sec = 30 damage/sec, 3 damage/shot * five shots = 15 damage/sec. Notice, 15 (not 27) is half of 30.) This leads us to the conclusion that ultralisks vs marines have a cost effective hp/cost ratio of around 0.1, higher than any of the other units that you calculated. To have a completely valid comparison between tanky units, you must now take the armor capabilities of all the tank units you are comparing vs all the different units because the armor of your tank decreases the damage over time by a FRACTION, not an additive value. By all means, you can average the cost effectiveness of one unit against all of the other units in the game and then compare once more. Since ultras, I believe, have the highest armor in the game, they will not nearly be as horrible as you might think. On a side note: Yes, ultras are too damn expensive. edit: Damage over time further decreases with +3 carapace alongside. Marines will end up doing 1 damage, nearly 1/6 the damage over time as before. | ||
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tGhOeOoDry
United States48 Posts
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awesomoecalypse
United States2235 Posts
against armies with lots of splash damage--meaning almost any late-tier protoss or terran army, or any zerg army with lots of infestors--the vast majority of the zerg ground army becomes *incredibly* inefficient. Like, 6+ Colossi can kill an *infinite* number of t1 and t2 zergs. The entire Zerg philosophy is the idea that, even if you can't outright kill your opponent or trade armies with the first exchange, you can do some damage with the first wave, then remax immediately and hit them with another, until they've been whittled down and destroyed. When all your units melt from a ball of Colossi, this isn't possible. Ultras, with high armor, high hp, regeneration, immunity to FG snare effects, and huge size...are literally the *only* Zerg ground unit that doesn't just vaporize once the aoe splash damage comes out. But, as you say, they're woefully inefficient in terms of dps for cost. This means that, ideally, Ultras would be used to tank AOE damage, allowing the other zerg units to get into position and deal damage. What throws a wrench in this is that Void Rays are so fucking good against massive armored (and everything Zerg has except hydras and corruptors, the former of whom melt to colossi and the latter is woefully one-dimensional)...hence, the effectiveness of the Colossi/Void Ray deathball. But that doesn't mean Ultras don't have a role. They do. Its just that right now, for Toss at least, the unit whose role is "kill shit like Ultras" is one that Zerg are really, really bad at dealing with. If Hydras or Corruptors were better, Ultras would shine. | ||
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FuzzyLord
253 Posts
On another note, the Ultralisk is actually very good at absorbing damage. The only downside is that in order to absorb the damage, you have to have max armor upgrades. | ||
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chaosdarkprince
Ecuador52 Posts
On April 02 2011 09:20 QtreadzSD wrote: I don't think it's that simple. You can't say because an ultralisk has three armor that damage over time is simply decreased by 3. For instance, if an ultra has three armor and a marine does six damage, every shot will be mitigated by 3 damage, and the damage over time is HALVED, not decreased by three. (6 damage/shot * five shots/sec = 30 damage/sec, 3 damage/shot * five shots = 15 damage/sec. Notice, 15 (not 27) is half of 30.) This leads us to the conclusion that ultralisks vs marines have a cost effective hp/cost ratio of around 0.1, higher than any of the other units that you calculated. To have a completely valid comparison between tanky units, you must now take the armor capabilities of all the tank units you are comparing vs all the different units because the armor of your tank decreases the damage over time by a FRACTION, not an additive value. By all means, you can average the cost effectiveness of one unit against all of the other units in the game and then compare once more. Since ultras, I believe, have the highest armor in the game, they will not nearly be as horrible as you might think. On a side note: Yes, ultras are too damn expensive. edit: Damage over time further decreases with +3 carapace alongside. Marines will end up doing 1 damage, nearly 1/6 the damage over time as before. I was just about to point the same mistake... but still i think the analysis is pretty accurate. I think the thing that was pointed out in both the article and the reviews about ultra's size is remarkably true. they are TOO bulky, so their splash (which is supposed to stack tremendowsly) can't be effective enough due to their size and speed, practically this guys need to be in low numbers and in large (not to say HUGE) areas so that they -mixed with other army types- can really realease full damage, so splash is not THAT of a critical factor (at least in real fights), tanks and collosus for example, get an splash that is almost 100% effective regardless of the terrain and more importantly location (a collosus or a tank does not "runs around" the army trying to find a spot from which they can attack and they really DON'T care for fights in chokes). So yeah, the thing about their size-movespeed must be dealt (i say it as a protoss) for ultras to really hit the arena... Or at least they should be made more REAL cost effective. | ||
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LilClinkin
Australia667 Posts
edit: IMO the only weakness of the ultra is its bad path finding. This can be mitigated by carefully selecting where you fight your battles, and putting effort into setting up good flanking positions such that your other units will not obstruct the ultralisk. | ||
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awesomoecalypse
United States2235 Posts
You can't make a mathematical argument to conclusively say the ultralisk is a horrible unit. It is supposed to be used in synergy with other zerg ground units. Just like a ball of stalkers isn't great, and a ball of colossus isn't great, if you combine them together, their effectiveness is far more than the sum of their parts. 4 ultras combined with a huge swarm of zerglings and banelings with infester support is capable of tearing through any protoss ground composition you could think of. Ultras tank the splash damage and break forcefields, allowing lings and banelings to get a surround and deal massive dps rather than get melted instantly. Fungal growth is icing on the cake. This would be what would happen, if Void Rays weren't the ultimate anti-Ultra tool, or if Zerg had a good way to deal with Void Rays. Unfortunately, they kinda don't. So yes, against gateway+Colossus, Ultras are the magic ingredient. Which is why every Toss transitions out of that to Colossus+Void Ray before Ultras can make an impact. | ||
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Jumbled
1543 Posts
The other point to remember is that converting supply into an arbitrary mineral cost does not make for a good analysis. The two should be treated separately. | ||
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awesomoecalypse
United States2235 Posts
The other point to remember is that converting supply into an arbitrary mineral cost does not make for a good analysis. The two should be treated separately. Very true. The later the game gets, the more important supply cost becomes, and the less important mineral cost becomes. | ||
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Taf the Ghost
United States11751 Posts
The basic answer to the problem is not a per-unit comparison but a Marginal-unit comparison. It's not a question of 1 Marine vs 1 Ultralisk, it's a question of 20 Marines vs 4 Ultralisks. If you add a 5th Ultralisk, does the situation turn in your favor? What about a 6th? The problem with UItralisks is the maximum useful is 4 on almost all maps. 6 Going into a fight is probably the most you want to have on the field at any 1 time. Unless you're pulling a last-second Ultras switch, which means you're going to be just plowing them right into the opponent. Most of the rest of the units in the game don't have anywhere close to the limitations to the utility of their numbers. Ranged-DPS numbers don't stop having good Marginal utility until the "ball" can't shoot all the way across itself. Once the spacing issue can be quantified, then we'll be able to really compare them. | ||
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tGhOeOoDry
United States48 Posts
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awesomoecalypse
United States2235 Posts
On April 02 2011 11:00 Taf the Ghost wrote: As with what came up in another of the threads that tried to analyze units by numbers, the concept of "DPS Density" is important, and why the Ultralisk is so weak. The basic answer to the problem is not a per-unit comparison but a Marginal-unit comparison. It's not a question of 1 Marine vs 1 Ultralisk, it's a question of 20 Marines vs 4 Ultralisks. If you add a 5th Ultralisk, does the situation turn in your favor? What about a 6th? The problem with UItralisks is the maximum useful is 4 on almost all maps. 6 Going into a fight is probably the most you want to have on the field at any 1 time. Unless you're pulling a last-second Ultras switch, which means you're going to be just plowing them right into the opponent. Most of the rest of the units in the game don't have anywhere close to the limitations to the utility of their numbers. Ranged-DPS numbers don't stop having good Marginal utility until the "ball" can't shoot all the way across itself. Once the spacing issue can be quantified, then we'll be able to really compare them. This would be true, if the point of Ultras was high dps. Its not. The Zerg army already has some of the highest-dps for cost, and dps-density, units in the game. In particular, Lings dps for cost is *insane*, and Hydra dps density is very,, very good (which is why Hydras melt Stalkers despite, on paper, seeming to be about even with them). The point of Ultras is to tank damage, particularly splash damage, so those high-dps, lower tier units can get a flank, close the distance and start dealing heavy damage. This is also why Ultras are so damn big, so that they absorb a lot of splash. Making them smaller might marginally improve their dps, but it still wouldn't make their dps for cost *or* density nearly as good as that of Lings or Hydras. In other words, unless you outright buff their damage, teching to Ultras for higher dps will never ever make sense. The *only* point of the Ultra is to tank damage, and for that they need to be big. The problem, at least in ZvP, is that Ultras really, really suck against Voids. Like, it is unbelievable how worthless they quickly become if Voids are on the field and free to focus them down. And Zerg...kinda suck at dealing with Voids. If Hydras or Corruptors were better against Void Rays, Ultras would start to shine, because if Voids can't focus them then Toss doesn't have much that can quickly kill an Ultralisk. Meaning Ultras can do the job they were designed for, tanking lots of damage. Which means lings and hydras can actually get into range and flank the deathball without being vaporized. | ||
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