IF YOU DO NOT READ THIS POST THOROUGHLY ESPECIALLY THE BOLD PARTS IT MAY EASILY CONFUSE YOU
The first number represents how many attacks a unit takes to be killed by the listed unit without the +1 attack upgrade while the second number reflects how many attacks it take to be killed with the +1 upgrade
Directly underneath each unit that unit's damage is listed for your referencing.
Terran Units
The Marine 0 armor 6 damage per shot
Hp 45 (Unstimmed or Stimmed with Combat shield) Zealots 6/5 Sentries 8/7 Stalkers 5/5
Zealots often only kill marines one psi blade swipe faster. It is unlikely that a zealot will only launch half of its attack round on a marine and unless the zealot is able to attack another target with the other psi blade (I’m not sure they will even do this) the upgrade is wasted. Please note that this principle applies to any situation where a zealot takes one less psi blade swipe to kill a target.
Stalkers only kill a non stimmed marine with combat shield faster with attack upgrades. Sentries receive good benefits but they are not primary damage dealers and are the only ones that significantly benefit.
The Marauder 1 armor 10 damage per shot +10 armored
125 HP (Unstimmed) Zealot 16/14 Sentry 21/18 Stalker 9/9
105 HP (Stimmed) Zealot 14/ 12 Sentry 18/15 Stalker 8/7
The Ghost 0 armor
10 dmg + 10 versus Light
100 HP Zealot 13/12 Sentry17/15 Stalker 8/7
Protoss Units (Only Health points are being calculated because shields do not benefit from the +1 armor increase) (+1 armor is not calculated on the first amount of damage that splashed over from shield damage.)
The first number represents how many attacks a unit takes to be killed by the listed unit without the +1 armor upgrade while the second number reflects how many attacks it take to be killed with the +1 upgrade. Health is adjusted for damage after shields are down and armor is calculated.
The zealot 1 armor 8 damagex2
96HP Marine 20/24
100 HP Marauder 12/13
90HP Ghost 5/5
The Stalker 1 armor
10 damage +4 vs armored
76 HP Marine 16/19
80 HP Marauder 4/5
80 HP Ghost 9/10
The sentry 1 armor
6 damage per attack
38 HP Marine 8/10
40 HP Marauder 5/5
40 HP Ghost 3/3
This data shows that against terran armies with a healthy marine count that the + 1 armor upgrade is more beneficial. The data for ghost is mostly gratuitous seeing as there is rarely a high enough number of them early game to account for a large amount of damage. Against a marauder heavy army it may be more beneficial to get a + attack upgrade but by the time large numbers of marauders are frequent immortals (or colossi) should be present which will 3 shot or overkill them frequently no matter what upgrades are present.
Guardian shield be accounted for also because armor does not scale linearly. A zealot with one armor takes 20 shots for a marine to deplete its hp. A zealot with 2 armor (base + +1) takes 24 shots to for its hp to be depleted by a marine. A zealot with total 3 armor (base + GS) takes 32 shots for its hp to be depleted by a marine. While a zealot with 4 armor (+1 + GS) takes 48 shots to be killed by a marine. Armor is more effective per point when more armor is added.
In my opinion + 1 armor is generally the safer bet. When a terran player micros their units away from zealots it prevent them from constantly firing (also prevents your stalkers) This means that ever extra hit your zealots take will make a terran army move backwards (if possible) and spend apm to avoid zealot melee damage. It should be noted that while a +1 armor upgrade will counter a +1 damage upgrade for a marine it will not do so for marauders as they receive +2 damage (+2 vs armored ) per attack upgrade. Also a Terran + one armor upgrade will always equalize the effects of a gateway unit’s attack upgrade. In my experience by the time colossi are being produced one can expect to be upgrading both ground attack and ground armor. The effects of armor versus marines may look more powerful than they actually are if you don't take into account that marines attack very quickly.
your post is very confusing, i guess the wording makes it very hard to differentiate what the different numbers are representing according to the first few sentences.
I`m a huge fan of +armor chargelots vs bio. If you load up a unit tester, you can see that 100 supply of +3 attack chargelots will lose to an equivalent supply of MMM, while +3 armor chargelots wipe out the ground forces and survive with about 8 zealots. If you`re going Colossus, I can see a strong argument for attack, but armor is the way to go for gateway units.
Just a fyi I think your sentry vs marauder is mistyped (18/21 vs 21/18) even though it doesn't make much of a difference anyways.
I think armour matters more early game since it's base on forcefields cutting the terran ball in half if not more pieces in order for the zealots to close and do damage. Increasing the lifespan of the zealots(meatshields) results in greater damage done by stalkers before they start being killed off. Later in the game however I think with tech, e.g. colossi, weapons is more important since if colossi can reduce a marine to being one shot by a stalker/zealot vs 2 shot, that makes a far larger difference than the zealot(assuming you have charge) getting to the army alive to deal the damage.
Really interesting post, i had already noticed that ToD and Adel usually go armor first (not only first upgrade). Yet i think looking at those numbers isn't enough, as it was said above if you're going for colossi attack has a really strong argument. Furthermore, a lot of timing pushes arrive before your first upgrade is done, even if you chronoboost, making the case of early upgrade not so signifiant.
I've been trying it out in ladder and it works so well against bio Terrans.
But yes, Stalker attack upgrade scales terribly. I would prefer armor against the rapid fire bio units of Terran. But the plus side is that the inevitable colossi later on get a huge boost from attack upgrades (because of AoE).
Armor is better when zealots can't hit the MM ball but can tank shots against it, which is most of the time against a good T player. Even with charge, zealots are not reliable damage dealers, only damage takers.
+ 1 armor b4 + 1 attack because simply, terran units shoot more than toss units so each extra armor benefits us more than each attack thats more damaging because we fire less than t units.
I think the main reason why toss got + damage was to prepare for the collossi. I think +1 immortal will 2 shot stimmed marauders but not sure. So considering if you are going robo heavy than damage isnt a bad choice but if you opt to go for gateway heavy than armor is defintely the way to go. I am not sure how +damage effects collossi though.
All the theorycraft is worthless realy. I mean you didn't account for the fact that with +1 it only takes 2 zealot attacks and 1 stalker shot to kill a marine insted of 2 zealot + 2 stalker. Or maybe its a hurt marine, what then?
IMO this "amount of hits" concept is greatly overrated by many.
Armor is great against marines, but absolutly worthless against tanks. Weapons are allways good. You should just upgrade weapons or bouth at the same time, unless you have a very good reason to get armor with your build.
On March 12 2011 16:30 Tsabo wrote: All the theorycraft is worthless realy. I mean you didn't account for the fact that with +1 it only takes 2 zealot attacks and 1 stalker shot to kill a marine insted of 2 zealot + 2 stalker. Or maybe its a hurt marine, what then?
IMO this "amount of hits" concept is greatly overrated by many.
Armor is great against marines, but absolutly worthless against tanks. Weapons are allways good. You should just upgrade weapons or bouth at the same time, unless you have a very good reason to get armor with your build.
Debbie downer...
Armor is good against tanks too, I'd rather have it than not have it...
On March 12 2011 16:30 Tsabo wrote: All the theorycraft is worthless realy. I mean you didn't account for the fact that with +1 it only takes 2 zealot attacks and 1 stalker shot to kill a marine insted of 2 zealot + 2 stalker. Or maybe its a hurt marine, what then?
IMO this "amount of hits" concept is greatly overrated by many.
Armor is great against marines, but absolutly worthless against tanks. Weapons are allways good. You should just upgrade weapons or bouth at the same time, unless you have a very good reason to get armor with your build.
Debbie downer...
Armor is good against tanks too, I'd rather have it than not have it...
No shit? I'd rather have warp prism speed then not to have! According to your logic, thats reason enough to get it before anything else, right?
A lot of these comments don't make sense. Tanks, vikings, colossi, these things all come latter in the game you're ignoring the word EARLY. I specifically said early because later in the game you can almost always afford to have two forges running at once.
I find that it is often good to get + armor earlier on in the game unless you are going for some type of timing attack with +2 on colossus, and if your going templars you want armor over attack 100% of the time. Also note that +armor is always better against a marine heavy army but generally terran get more marauders then marines as the game progresses due to the potency of storm and colossus.
EPT
