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Replay: http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=download&id=183511
In a lot of pro replays I've seen where the Zerg player has a dominant lead, then techs to ultralisks, they usually end up being the loser.
I'm a 2000 Diamond Zerg player who just got back into laddering after taking about a two month break. I've been doing well against equal or higher-ranked players so far (knock on wood), and I've even been winning a lot of my ZvZs (which used to be my weakest matchup by far).
In my most recent game, I played a Terran player (who was around 2300 Diamond at the time of this writing). He was slightly favored. I usually don't have a big problem with Terran. Out of all three races, my win/loss ratio is highest VS Terran.
The game starts out pretty typical. I scout my foe doing a double rax opening, and I feign roach tech in favor of speedlings (and eventually banelings). I unsuccessfully banelings bust through his wall while expanding, retreat, swiftly nullify his counter attack, double expand, tech to mutas, stay on top of my upgrades, and let him get his natural. I have a somewhat unsuccessful muta harass on his worker line in his main, but I am able to retreat without losing a single mutalisk.
At this point, I'm mostly saturated on my main, natural, 3rd and gold expos, while he's on his main and natural. I'm getting more money than I know what to do with.
As I'm getting my 5th base, I notice he's expanded to his 3rd. At this point, I tech switched to roaches (the main reason for this is because I saw a Thor in his base, and thought he was going to pump out thors to go with his siege tanks). Anyway, I rush my roaches in to take out the Planetary Fortress defending his 3rd base. Before I go on any further, let me quote a recent (supposed) note in the recent patch change:
Repairing SCVs now assume the same threat priority as the unit they’re repairing.
Well, after A-clicking my roaches towards the PF, I saw my foe have all his SCVs auto-repair the PF. I had just assumed that my roaches would start attacking the SCVs. I was wrong. In fact, all of my roaches started auto-targeting the PF, and NOT the repairing SCVs. I can only assume that PFs DO NOT COUNT AS UNITS...
Rage aside, I pulled out and regrouped. I decided that I'd just send a bunch of banelings to quickly take out the PF. I was successful in that, and I killed off most of his SCVs in the process.
Some bad microing on my part then ensued, and I was at a disadvantage, briefly. My foe took out two of my bases with a huge bio ball. I was able to neutralize it with speedlings and banelings, and I quickly rebuilt.
Here's where I think I lost the game.
I then built about nine ultralisks. At this point, I was almost maxed on my ground-unit upgrades. So these ultras should be pretty potent. And they kind of were...but unfortunately, they just eat up so much money. After I maxed on ultras and speedlings, I went and attacked his gold expo. I lost most of my army at the cost of taking out his gold expo again. I was doing a pretty good job keeping him on two bases. Upon watching the replay, I can see that he was out of money.
But so was I.
I was mined out of my main, natural and gold. My 3rd was barely getting anything, and my 5th was taken out by a drop. He then attacked my 3rd again. I didn't have any anti-air, because all of my money was invested in ultras. He had about six medivacs filled with bio, and all I had were my blings to swarm around the meds to try to intercept any units dropped. My foe was clever by dropping marauders down one at a time to cause the blings to explode on them. He wasted all of my blings, then took out my 3rd again. My ultras were burrowed at this point because most of them were in critical HP.
At this point, I had just barely enough money to make one final expansion just nearby his base at the 3 O'Clock position. But because of mules, he was able to pull ahead faster, out macro me, and get the win.
I'm not claiming that Terran is OP. I understand why I lost (even though that lack of SCV auto targeting was BS). I'm annoyed that I wasn't able to beat a 2 base terran as a 4-5 base Zerg. But like I said, the biggest nail in the coffin was getting ultralisks. I should have instead gotten more mutalisks, or perhaps tech to Brood Lords. My main point is that ultralisks are just a terrible, cost inefficient unit. I don't think I've won a game where teching to ultras was the deciding factor.
What I'd like to know from you all, is what do you all think about ultralisks? Is there really a legitimate use for them? I have yet to find one.
tl;dr: Ultras suck, and the SCV auto-repair tweak apparently does NOT affect them when they're repairing PFs.
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You lost when your baneling bust didnt work, lost a ton of units trying to kill a PF, dont blame the ultras.
If you are curious though ultras are best used after you get broodlords, force a ton of vikings hard switch to ultras to save the day.
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If you are 2k diamond, then why would you ever build ultralisks? The spawn ultralisk button is actually an April foolf's joke that is still left in the game for some reason.
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I thought the only effective way of using ultras was combined with infestors where they can fungal growth and prevent kiting
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"Repairing SCVs now assume the same threat priority as the unit they’re repairing."
The word of the day is "same". If your units are on a-move, and all the repairing scvs are behind the PF, your units will continue to attack the pf, because there is no other unit more threatening, and the planetary fortress is closest.
If you move your units off to the side for a bit, they will start killing scvs.
note: School is starting in 5 minutes, so wont have time to watch your replay quite yet. Will update this post when I do 
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The change to SCV priority was mainly aimed at melee units, which would actively avoid attacking the SCVs and run around ineffectively as a result. Note that the SCVs have the same priority as the PF, not higher, so attacking the PF first is perfectly fine.
From the description you give of your game, it sounds more like the problem was being wasteful of resources in general, not specifically the cost of ultras. Having an economic edge won't be enough if you are too reckless about losing units. Conversely, if you do just want to crush your opponent under weight of numbers, you need to protect your expansions well to ensure you maintain the economic advantage required. Can't say more than that until I've watched the replay.
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I think that ultra can be a really good super late game tech switch after brood lords. If you come in with like 5 brood lords in the real late game then you can use ultra to clean up. I guess you kinda need to be ahead to use them but I think that they will be used eventually.
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I find them useful in ZvZ when you want to transition out of muta ling bling, and you have the melee and carapace upgrades in a lategame ZvZ involving multiple bases. In that situation they can be effective massed against hydra roach. But yeah this really is a rare situation >_>;;
Against Terran and Protoss I really don't see why anyone would make them...
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The auto-repairing SCVs are still a problem as far as I know. they won't get priority over what they are repairing really. I've still had this happen with thor all-ins when zerglings would dart around the SCV's trying to attack the thor even though all i did was surround then a-click the ground.
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I don't watch the replay (time), but ultralisks are still viable in many cases (e.g. idra used them a while ago in his GSL match against a terran). so, if you fear to lose your ultra army and being broke after attacking his gold (probably due to strong fortifications and PF), just don't attack it, secure a 4th and 5th base safe these from drops (you can even put a ultra in every base), and if T tries to move out with unsieged tanks, crack him with ultras and deny his 4th...
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Hi,
. Im in the same case as you (stopping 2 months) But havent been doing that good ^^
I usually stick on muta ling bling as long as possible. I think you overreacted going mass roaches after seing only 1 thor. I usually tech switch to roaches only if I see him making ONLY thors. Dont forget to scout constantly.
Concerning ultralisks, they get raped if not used in the proper way. I really believe that vs Terran the best way is the Brooloord -> ultra transition, that you ve probably seen if you follow the pro scene.
Hope this helps.
The idea is to tech T3 -> greater spire. Pump out a few broolords and push out. You want to force your opponent to change his army into vikings. Use your mutas agressivly to make him feel the urge to build more vikings.
At the same time you push out, build Ultra cavern and get upgrades. Your goal with the broods are to make those 10-15 ultras that come out, extremly effective because the army comp is made for anti broods.
Dont over commit your army, backoff, run back into the fight. You need him to really go for those vikings.
Btw, you can sometimes outright kill him with broods if he doesnt go for vikings, if you see more bio coming into the fight, he probably is stubborn and just bring in more muta/bane/ling, while keeping your broods alive at all cost. Dont forget broods = tanks unsiege = perfect timing to attack!
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On January 24 2011 17:11 Kamikiri wrote:
You lost when your baneling bust didnt work, lost a ton of units trying to kill a PF, dont blame the ultras.
If you are curious though ultras are best used after you get broodlords, force a ton of vikings hard switch to ultras to save the day.
or you can just make more banelings with the gas used on ultras... you are going to do more damage with 8 banelings than 1 Ultra would ever do. Unless the terran makes mech..
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add a replay, the suicide into the pf sounds like the cause
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broodlords, which force lots of vikings, then a tech switch to ultra/ling can be very very deadly, but it usualy requires at least 5 bases and is very late game. Usualy you attack, lose your whole army, and then pump like 15 ultras, which finish off the rest of his army.
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you need to stop A-moving with your entire army on one hotkey. the battle at 22:35 was perfect example of why you lost this game. you had your entire army of 22 mutalisks, 29 banelings, and 20 speedlings on one hotkey and attack moved into 4 undefended tanks. (you had 9 other mutas that werent on any hotkey). those tanks should have been killed by your muta ball without any losses. but because you just a-moved your whole army you spent 10 banelings killing them. you then proceeded to attack move what was left of your army into his ball of marines. well guess what mutas are faster than banelings which meant he was able to kill off most of your mutalisks before your banes even reached them. as well you funneled the banelings in that narrow gap between his command center and barracks.
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On January 24 2011 17:17 Excludos wrote:
"Repairing SCVs now assume the same threat priority as the unit they’re repairing."
The word of the day is "same". If your units are on a-move, and all the repairing scvs are behind the PF, your units will continue to attack the pf, because there is no other unit more threatening, and the planetary fortress is closest.
This. It has been bothering me though, because the mechanics means a "autorepair" terran will beat an a-moving zerg.
For instance:
Your roaches will attack the SCV's repairing on the side you are attacking from, but once you start shooting the SCV's the PF takes no damage so they will stop repairing and move away from you. Your roaches then start attacking the PF again and the SCV's will start repairing, but this time from the "backside" where the roaches will not attack them.
On PF's and thors, if you are attacking UP on a map against said unit the grapics of said unit will hide SCV's repairing from behind it (which happens automaticly, ref. the above). Personally i find it hard to target the SCV's repairing from behind a thor when im attacking up a map, and have even lost clutch maps to an unkillable thor where i would have to turn my "camera" to manually target and counter something that happens automaticly for the terran.
Only easy way i found of dealing with it is zerglings and/or surrounding the repaired unit/building with my ranged units - which is sort of counterintuitive because you never know what you are moving into range of. And the times this occurs is typically in the very close situations with few units (since u cant outdamage the repair), typically you don't want to let it get pod shots when this happens.
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I watched your replay in-depth before commenting. You did not lose because of Ultralisks, nor because of SCV auto-repair. You lost because of the 32-33 minute mark. Watch closely at the T's choke ramp what you do. You take >800dmg from sitting at the mouth of the ramp, trying to egg forward Ultralisks which are almost 8x bigger than a Marine. You have 37 banelings sitting at your expansion around the 33 minute mark. Why didn't you run your banelings into his ramp and explode on his 22 marines? 6 Ultras (you had that many at this point), despite being critically injured, will win you that game, provided you attacked with intelligence. (You visibly tried to A->Move up that ramp, and that is suicide).
Ultras are an endgame unit. With that said, you cannot A->Move with them. I saw no evidence of micro during the 32 minute mark. (This correlates with at the 18 minute mark how you lost 9 mutalisk for no reason).
I feel your pain brotha, I'm a Z myself. But that game was not lost because of Ultras. It should have been won as clear as day when you took out his last remaining expo at the 31 minute mark. That was it. He was lifting off, and getting ready for his final attack. You researched Missile Attack Rank 3... for what? You also researched Overlord Drop... Why not drop 9 Ultras into his main, and flank with the banelings? But meh, that's the thing about RTS.
Going back to your point though, and the general reasoning for this thread: I do agree that Ultralisks are nothing like they were in BW. They have been nerfed. However, they are still VERY good. Ultras are not meant for Bio units in SC2 though. They do extra damage to Armored units, so why use them against almost pure marine? Waste of money and efficiency. You could have morphed 100 Zergling and just crushed his face with ease instead.
Re-watch your replay in-depth, and focus very heavily on the 31-35 minute mark. That was where your mind just went numb, and you didn't know what to do with all those units you had. You should have easily destroyed him at that point.
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ultras are better than they were in BW
100 more HP, do much more damage against armored, and moves faster on creep
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Problems with your game,
1. Your drone count the entire game was terrible. There were many times where the terran had more scvs (not including mules) than you. That is a losing situation just there. You 2 kindof base traded and he continued to make scvs and u stopped all drone production. Being on 17 drones for 10min is not good.
2. Poor unit control, you seem to a-move your units and let them die. roaches on PF, you let tanks get free shots on ur ultras because you did not micro them (they were content to wait in line behind 1 ultra attacking 1 marine) one of the most sad things was when u let the terran drop single units on your mass banelings towards the end of the game. He kill around 6 banelings with 1 marine.
3. upgrades, you waited way too late to start upgrading your units. His infantry was 2/2 before you even started your first upgrade.
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EPT
