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[Q] What counters Ultralisks/Hydras as Terran? - Page 2

Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy
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Demus
Profile Joined May 2010
Netherlands305 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-10-06 12:58:27
October 06 2010 12:56 GMT
#21
most fights aren't about "he has this army, i have that army, X will win". Unit composition matters somewhat, but imo positioning is a lot more important. If the zerg manages to get a decent surround with his ultras while all his hydra's are relatively safe in the back in a good arc adding DPS then yes, you WILL lose. If he's fighting through either a narrow choke or you block his ultra's path with a few hellions / bunkers, his ultra's suddenly become a lot less effective and you can take down a good chunk of em.

Against these types of compositions, 1 A ing isn't going to work, just like it never works for zerg unless maybe with mass baneling (and even then, attacking at the right time in the right place is important).

still, ravens can help here: PDD helps with hydras, autoturrets can help choke the ultra's for a short time, giving you some free early shots and HSM just wrecks hydra balls.
TedJustice
Profile Blog Joined June 2010
Canada1324 Posts
October 06 2010 14:09 GMT
#22
The real "counter" to something like that, is not getting into that situation in the first place. I'm not the best player ever so I can't give you any specific tips, but I would suggest you focus on smoothing out the early game and being a little more agressive early on, even if you do no real damage, you want to make sure to be in the enemy's face all the time so that they're scared away from making drones.

Don't think "what kind of army can I make to beat his army?" Think about "when's the best time for me to attack so that he can't make a good army?"
Kryptix
Profile Joined August 2010
United States138 Posts
October 06 2010 14:46 GMT
#23
Hydra Ultra even if your in a better econ position as Terran I've found can't really be beaten because his second army comes in faster. Biomech does work unless he has just 1-2 infestors get off a fungal, then ultras cleave through all the bio in 3 seconds and its gg...
EriktheGuy
Profile Joined September 2010
Canada132 Posts
October 06 2010 15:43 GMT
#24
I sometimes find that Terran is a good counter to both those units.Give that a try next game.

User was warned for this post
In mathematics you don't understand things, you just get used to them. -Neumann
hoovehand
Profile Joined April 2010
United Kingdom542 Posts
October 06 2010 15:52 GMT
#25
the hard thing about dealing with ultras is that about 6+ pop out at the same time, which doesn't give you any time to prepare unless you scouted the ultra den.

unless you have a very high number of siege tanks, you'll get owned. but in that case, zerg player should have opted for broodlords.
Utena
Profile Joined August 2010
United States32 Posts
October 06 2010 16:52 GMT
#26
On October 07 2010 00:52 hoovehand wrote:
the hard thing about dealing with ultras is that about 6+ pop out at the same time, which doesn't give you any time to prepare unless you scouted the ultra den.
-snip-


I have to say I found this pretty amusing.

If the Zerg player is really sitting on 1200+ gas, plus the 36 extra supply needed to fit in 6 ultras. (Not counting the extra for the armor upgrade, which is almost required for them to be good)... Then something is wrong in this game. Either the Zerg is sitting on more bases than he can defend, or he's not macroing well and can be killed at any moment, or he's getting them 2 at a time and you aren't scouting or something.
Ekko
Profile Joined September 2010
United States72 Posts
October 06 2010 16:56 GMT
#27
Lets start over on this and talk about a checklist type system instead of the 200/200 thing i'll explain why in just a moment.

First does the zerg own the majority of the map? If so give up if they get ultras, you have lost.

Are you upgrades equal? If yes good, if no make them equal asap.

Do you have almost the same amount of expansions they do? If no get them quick, If yes good but...

...Do you have an ability to churn out units almost as fast as the zerg? This is the key to the silly 200/200 battles other races get into with zerg.

Zerg will lose head on 200/200 unit per unit BUT they will be replacing units faster than you can. This is how zerg wins the 200/200 battles and why they get soooo freaking many expansions. Its really the way you close the game as zerg.

You can not win a 200/200 reliably versus a zerg when they have 6 expos and you have 1.5. They will throw that 200 supply army at you expecting to lose it all but reduce you by 2/3's while they instantly build a new and improved 200 supply army to counter your predominant unit and you produce 30 supply worth of units in the same time period.
Don't try to jump a cliff in two leaps.
Cheerio
Profile Blog Joined August 2007
Ukraine3178 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-10-06 17:38:11
October 06 2010 17:33 GMT
#28
On October 06 2010 12:53 mOnion wrote:
Show nested quote +
On October 06 2010 10:45 GoodNewsJim wrote:
~1100 Diamond play

Lets say you have a 200 supply Terran army, and your Zerg opponent has 200


horrible way to think. in BW a Terran 200/200 mech army with full upgrades was unstoppable and everyone knew it. but the game was balanced. why? because you dont fucking attack something that big head on.

you're not going to counter it directly. ultra's are incredibly expensive and precious and slow to build. you need to be constantly whittling down the ultra numbers as best you can. other things you can do are things like dropping the main and killing the ultra cavern. scanning and catching ultras out of position. then there's the old attack his army and trade armies and reinforce faster.

many ways, none are "make A if he has B and he loses"

What? trading armies and reinforce with terran faster than a zerg opponent? Are you serious?
Whittling out ultra numbers? How do you do that effeciently? Killing ultra cavern is nice but zerg needs probably just 1 second to build all those ultras. It seams you are talking about a tvt or tvp, not about tvz.

To the topic. Hydras are very weak with no support. Try going for a timing push to kill him before hive tech kicks in, or die trying.
TheDrill
Profile Joined February 2010
Russian Federation145 Posts
October 06 2010 18:18 GMT
#29
There is one counter that beats any zerg lategame unit, but it may not be your idea of the perfect army composition.

Mass fucking raven.

Yes. Mass. Fucking. Raven.

List of units that counter ravens:
HT

List of units that raven doesn't counter:
HT



Bratok had games with much better raven use than that, but I can't find them. You'll just have to take my word for it, but ravens are fucking awesome and they even counter voidrays, phoenixes, carriers, bc, motherships, corruptors, mutalisks and vikings.

Shit turrets in enemy main, shit turrets at all enemy expos, shit marauders in enemy main, hsm enemy army to oblivion. Turret+HSM mutalisks and corruptors if they try to fight your ravens. HSM rapes hydra.
TERRAN MAROIDER RAGE
sikyon
Profile Joined June 2010
Canada1045 Posts
October 06 2010 18:24 GMT
#30
thor/hellion.

Thors can focus down ultras and ultras can't cleave well against them anymore. Micro hellions around to splash hydras to death. You gotta micro though, and you have to have as many thors as he has ultras.
Rebornlife
Profile Joined August 2010
Canada224 Posts
October 06 2010 20:57 GMT
#31
I have the best idea evar!
IF you get to 200/200 and ultras/hyrdas are what he has i have a crazy counter that might work!
Block off all chokes to your bases with multiple planetary fortress's with a few marauders behind to hit ultras faster and scvs to repair.
Make a shit ton of vikings and just constantly harass around landing in multiple bases at once or multiple huge landings.
Gimpb
Profile Joined August 2010
293 Posts
October 06 2010 22:43 GMT
#32
One thing that hasn't been mentioned much is obstructions of various types are quite effective against zerg ground in general, including ultras. So look for tight terrain or create some with buildings.
Kakisho
Profile Joined January 2010
United States240 Posts
October 06 2010 23:16 GMT
#33
I feel like this fight is 100% related to the Terrain. On a ramp, with a barracks and depots blocking it, the Zerg has NO CHANCE. Though someone must've said this before, Yamato cannon does full damage to Ultralisks.

I'd say, marauder tank thor, a bunker or two, and a plannetary fortress + the choke. You can even put your production buildings in the choke to just make it unstoppable wall. Get your SCV's hotkeyed or something so a huge chunk can go repair the buildings (the SCV's won't be hit by cleave, anymore). Now you're going to think that in that case, the Zerg'll just take the entire map and break through with broodlords, banelings, nydus, doom drops, or sheer numbers.

Since ultralisks are pretty high tier and expensive as well, they won't be too far ahead. Then you just mass ravens.

Point defense drones make zerg AA mostly useless, hydras can't hit your ravens, and are very suceptible to the missles. Corruptors are their best bet, as mutas get annihilated by the missiles. Just fly around, putting auto turrets everywhere, preferablly in tight areas, like behind mineral lines and also on cliffs. Eventually, the Zerg player will be forced to come to you, which'll make him lose the game.

The reason why ravens, instead of banshees, is because raven's have energy that restores itself overtime, making them more and more cost effective. Try it! I know I want to, if only I had the chance.
Cold wind, chilling.
zeidrichthorene
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
Canada83 Posts
October 06 2010 23:18 GMT
#34
One thing I've found to be pretty effective against just ultras is marines. Really.

For instance, if you're on the defensive, set up your marines in a spread pattern so that they don't all get splashed, but an ultralisk can't fit through the holes. Put them on Hold Position and add in some medivacs.

Ultralisks deal 17.5 damage per second or so to a marine.
Medivacs heal 13.5 damage per second to the marine.

It takes the ultralisk like 13 seconds to kill a marine with combat shields who is being healed by a medivac.

Behind the marine blockade you have whatever ranged units you want to use to kill the ultras.

Attacking it's a bit more difficult to deal with because you can't set it up like that, but in general, having some marines with a good number of medivacs will seriously hamper ultralisk movement. Having a lot of marines in a blob obviously gets trashed quickly, and if more than one ultralisk can hit at a time the medivac healing becomes a lot less exciting, but if you can force their pathing to work against them (not too hard to be honest), the ultralisks quite often get caught up trying to kill a single near-immortal marine for way too long.

Advancing, or caught off guard you can help this situation out a lot by just taking your marine blob, putting them on hold position, (especially if they've managed to form a bit of a concave already) and then pulling half of your marine force away.

Whatever you do, I've found the best meat shield against ultralisks is just marines healed by medivacs.
Vaporized
Profile Joined July 2010
United States1471 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-10-06 23:21:53
October 06 2010 23:20 GMT
#35
are u terran/toss more scared of ultras or brood lords? as a zerg i lean towards brood lords in my late army over ultras because kiting ultras makes me rage hard. i love sending my broodlord/corrupter/muta ball of death across the map to end games.

mixing some infestors in with ultras is a whole different story tho...
Randomaccount#77123
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
United States5003 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-10-06 23:30:46
October 06 2010 23:28 GMT
#36
--- Nuked ---
Ronald_McD
Profile Blog Joined November 2008
Canada807 Posts
October 06 2010 23:31 GMT
#37
MMM with Siege Tank and/or Thor support should be good. Last time I checked Thors 2-shot kill hydras? And they do a crapload to ultralisks

Siege tanks anihilate hydras, and are pretty good against ultras too
FUCKING GAY LAGS
Randomaccount#77123
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
United States5003 Posts
October 06 2010 23:33 GMT
#38
--- Nuked ---
Soulish
Profile Joined April 2010
Canada1403 Posts
October 06 2010 23:34 GMT
#39
stimmed marauders
me all in, he drone drone drone, me win
VanGarde
Profile Joined July 2010
Sweden755 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-10-06 23:56:47
October 06 2010 23:53 GMT
#40
DON'T be behind in upgrades. There is no reason to.

You will in a long game have to rely on both bio and mech because against zerg neither is selfsustained. Pure mech will die to mass muta and pure bio will die to banelings and die even harder to baneling/infestor/ultralisk.

Always get both vehicle and infantry weapon upgrades imo from the start and don't fall behind zerg. Armor upgrades I think are optional based on style and strategy but you should always aim for +3 bio weapons and vehicle weapons.

Then tank/thor/bio will do fine against ultras, just don't fight them in an awkward spot and most importantly FOCUS FIRE.

I cannot stress enough how important it is to focus fire ultralisks in a battle. They do soo much damage and they have soo much hp that if your units are shooting all of the ultras at the same time you won't stand a chance. You will just end up with a post battle scene of 10 ultras all at red health, and zero terran units. Ideally you should let your tanks shoot whatever the hell they like and then have your thors and marauders focus fire ultras, while keeping separate control groups or just selecting in battle to not have ALL of those units focus fire the same ultralisks.

You should always have Ravens along with your push in TvZ both because you need to clear creep tumors and scout burrowed units but also because they can PDD mutas or hydras. Two or more PDD's over the battlefield will ensure that the hydras remain nothing but a nuisance until the ultras are gone, and then those hydras are going to turn into pudding real fast.

Additional stuff to give you an edge is to not PDD until zerg has fully committed to the fight. Don't drop the drones until the ultras are in melee range otherwise zerg can just pull back and they will be wasted. Also don't drop all PDD's instantly, but drop them in sequences of two then the next two once the first are running low on energy. This also prevents zerg from making you waste them and then retreating.

If you have marines with your bio force try to sweep around your other units and make the marines form a wall for the ultras to chew through. Once marines are dead or if you have no marines use the marauders for the same purpose.
War does not determine who is right - only who is left.
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