An Appeal To The Community - Page 7

On January 26 2011 06:41 BlasiuS wrote:
When I get hive, I almost always get broodlords over ultras, especially when terran is going marine/tank, for a few reasons:

1. broodlords tank way more cost-effectively than ultras, for quite a few reasons:
- they fly, ultras don't; as a result, broodlords aren't affected by tank fire at all.
- they have range 9, ultras are melee
- every time broodlords attack, broodlings are 'spawned' instantly in melee range, which means they don't have to travel to get into melee range (unlike ultras), and also means that broodlords/broodlings draw friendly tank fire more quickly & efficiently than ultras. Notice that when you attack a staggered siege tank line with ultras, terran goes and stims his marines and runs back, and when you attack a staggered siege tank line with broodlords, terran goes 'OH SHIT UN-SIEGE AND HAUL ASS NOW'
- broodlings are free and instant with every broodlord attack, ultras cost resources & time...A LOT of resources & time. Let me emphasize here, until terran gets vikings, broodlords are constantly reinforcing instantly and for free. I mention this because you talk about reinforcing...NO unit reinforces as efficiently as broodlords, it's not even close.
- tanks do bonus damage vs armored, ultras are armored, broodlings are not. You're actually lowering a marine/tank army's overall damage if you use broodlords over ultras.

2. ultras require upgrades to be effective, broodlords don't, however that leads to my next reason...

3. broodlords benefit from melee/carapace AND air upgrades, whereas ultras only benefit from melee/carapace upgrades. Thus, when you go muta/ling/bane mid-game, your upgrades match up, and as a result late-game broodlords actually synergize better with muta/ling/bane than ultras do.

The only drawback is that broodlords are more vulnerable to vikings, however if you are ahead in bases and don't throw away your muta ball in the mid-game, you can use your mutas to defend your broodlords.

My ideal late-game army against marine/tank is fully upgraded crackling/bane, my ball of mutas (anywhere from 15-30 mutas), and 4-6 broodlords, with level 2 air attack upgrade (once greater spire finishes, I can resume upgrading air armor as gas allows).

Now if terran starts to overproduce vikings to counter my broodlords, at that point I'll switch to ultralisks.

On January 26 2011 08:26 Toxigen wrote:

Actually, this is false. Tank damage is so high because of splash and almost nothing else. Their single target damage to armored targets in siege mode is actually less than their unsieged DPS. Ultralisks, when hit by tanks, are so large they absorb ALL splash. A tank shot hitting an ultralisk will result in 0 zergling or baneling deaths. A tank shot hitting a broodling will probably spill over onto zerglings and banelings.


The downside is that broodlords are slower.

A greater spire takes 100 seconds to morph. An ultralisk cavern takes only 65 seconds. Granted, the upgrade does take 110 seconds to finish. However, if you start the upgrade once the cavern completes, that means that your first round of ultras will have the upgrade within 40 seconds after spawning.

If you add the build time of a corruptor to the time it takes to morph a broodlord, it's actually 4 seconds longer than the build time of an ultralisk (74 seconds). Something for your consideration:

Cavern+armor upgrade= 175 seconds (ultralisks are out by 135 seconds)
Greater spire+corruptor build time+morph time= 184 seconds

Ultralisks are also much less vulnerable to marines after the upgrade. A fully-upgraded ultralisk against a fully upgraded marine will only take 3 damage a shot.


Broodlords don't synergize better, they just synergize. Ultralisks share all the same upgrades too. If you don't go mutalisk heavy, spending money on air upgrades isn't necessary, which offsets (imo) the cost of the ultralisk armor upgrade. Why spend 100/100 or more on air attack upgrades if you'll only build 8-12 mutalisks all game long?


This isn't always the case. Often, vikings are parked on top of thors next to tanks. A broodlord will take damage from vikings and if mutalisks intervene, they'll eat thor missile damage. Corruptors are a slightly better response, due to being armored and have 2 base armor. If he doesn't have any thors, then yes, you're correct... but can you really remember any times you've come up against a late-game Terran without thor support?

Personally, I think it might be better to give switching the tech a shot. Start with a couple ultralisks and then switch into broodlords to help unsiege tanks and then swarm in with a couple ultralisks to take shots while the ling/baneling cleans up. I still think the OP's use of ultralisks shows promise.

On January 27 2011 02:30 BlasiuS wrote:


How is a tank shot hitting a broodling going to do splash damage to zerglings & banelings? Broodlings spawn right next to their target in melee range; do you pull back your broodlings and group them with your other units? rofl, of course not. Tank shots hitting broodlings will only splash other broodlings (and tanks, and marines). Who cares if splash damage is hitting free units? Every point of damage that broodlings take, is wasted terran damage. I maintain that tanks will do less damage to your army overall if you're using broodlords over ultras.



Your math is wrong. You can build your corruptors while the greater spire is building, so that they're ready to morph as soon as the greater spire completes. So actually it's just greater spire + morph time = 134, which makes them about even if you don't wait for the armor upgrade, and makes ultras significantly slower if you do.

Either way, that doesn't change the fact that ultras require upgrades to be effective, broodlords don't.



it's debatable, but I believe even without air upgrades, broodlords benefit more from melee/carapace upgrades than ultras do. So even if you don't get air upgrades, broodlords scale better.

besides, anything more than 10 mutas, and you should be getting level 1 air attack anyway.



Uh, throwing away your mutas is a big mistake. You can always avoid such a mistake. So yes, it is always the case. Muta + a few corruptors can handle vikings long enough for your broodlords to do their damage.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, are you saying because of 1-3 thors on the field, that the drawbacks of broodlord outweigh the drawbacks of ultras? Let me remind you of some of the commonly-mentioned ultra drawbacks, NONE of which broodlords have:

-can't fly; very slow off creep
-requires at least 2-2 in melee/carapace to be cost-effective
-melee only
-too big, gets stuck on units and runs around dealing no damage.
-as a result of the above two, ultras are completely useless in a choke. This one deserves special mention, it means that unless you're fighting in an open area, ultras' effectiveness are severely reduced; broodlords don't have this problem at all.

Compared to the drawbacks of broodlords:

-slower than on-creep ultras
-vulnerable to vikings

These points have been made over and over again, by ladder & tournament players alike.

Another thing that favors broodlords: ultras don't force the terran to get a different unit, whereas brood lords force terran to get vikings, which are basically useful only for countering the brood lords.



ultras can certainly be useful, but never as good as broodlords as a first hive tech choice. There's a reason why zerg will almost always opt for broodlords over ultras when they get hive. Actually, there's many reasons, they've all been known for the longest time, I just reiterated them in my post to remind our readers. Because of all of those reasons, the advantages of choosing broodlords first greatly outweigh the advantages of choosing ultras first. But I do think that switching to ultras when terran starts getting a huge fleet of vikings is a good idea.

That was quite a long post, but I wanted to address the each of the points that were made.

On January 27 2011 03:29 Toxigen wrote:

This is true if you're not engaging with the rest of your army.

However, once (if?) you actually engage, you're still getting splashed. 35+ damage splashed around a ball of lings (or targeting a broodling and splashing onto a ling trying to get in range) is way more damage (and DPS lost) overall than a 500 hit point ultralisk losing a 10% of his life.

The fact of the matter is, ultralisks help mitigate splash which is the number one (if not only) reason why Terrans even use siege tanks. Mitigating splash does more to keep your actual units alive than spawning "free" ones. That's my point.


Okay, I'll concede this. However, it's still interesting to note that to make the times competitive, you'll have to spawn corruptors beforehand and they'll be useless supply until the other tech kicks in, which if you're going the ultralisk route, you could actually max on useful units, including ultralisks, while waiting for ultralisk armor tech to finish.

Either way, we're talking a negligible amount of supply and mere seconds, so I won't go into this any further.


Every unit requires upgrades to be effective. Ultralisks require one 150/150 upgrade and no spire upgrades. Spire attack upgrades (remember your point about synergy earlier) require at LEAST 100/100. I don't see ultralisks requiring any more upgrades than broodlords do.


I'm not sure what you mean by "benefit more," in this situation. If you're talking about broodlings, tanks 1 shot them, so armor doesn't really help them there. Attack definitely would, because there's more of them attacking and at a faster rate than the ultralisk. Then again, the ultralisk has splash and gets a lot of damage vs. armored from upgrades. I guess it's situational. I wouldn't agree broodlords scale better without more proof. Ultralisks do shrug off marine fire like nobody's business (at least when compared to zerglings). Marines are decent against low numbers of broodlords if they can get close enough.


I currently overdo it on mutalisks but feel like my army is far too flimsy for most of the mid-game. I'm starting to wonder if there's a better answer out there that provides a bit more security/stability. Eating one bad splash hit from a thor while harassing really hurts when your first line of defense is mutalisks.


I never advised throwing away mutalisks. You've still not explained how I'm magically able to hit and run engage these vikings within range of thor AA without losing mutalisks. That was my point. Mutalisk range is too short. To get into range of the vikings, you'll eat thor missiles. You'll lose more than the Terran.


Actually, this would be the opposite of the point you're construing that I'm making. I'm saying that:
1. You shouldn't use ultralisks as a re-max unit.
2. You should transition to ultralisks without throwing away your army to re-max.
3. Opening ultralisks as hive-tech and then switching to corruptors/BL hasn't been explored, and maybe it should be.
4. You don't need to have an army comprised of all ultralisks for ultralisks to be effective -- in fact, more than 3 probably hurts more than helps.
5. Saying that mutalisks can protect your broodlords from vikings is unrealistic if the Terran has thors supporting the vikings. You'll lose the broodlords and maybe mutalisks (again, please don't somehow misinterpret this as me advocating through mutalisks away [?]).

Are these really drawbacks?

Fair enough -- ultralisks can't fly. But they're the same speed as speed banelings off creep. Would you disqualify the use of banelings against Terran by virtue of their speed? Why the double standard against ultralisks?


So does the rest of your ling/bling army. You should have these upgrades anyway. This isn't a drawback.

These are actual drawbacks (as opposed to saying that "ultralisks can't fly," while most of the rest of your army can't either). They can be lessened by simply making less of them:



They're also slower than off-creep ultralisks. In fact, off-creep ultralisks are TWICE AS FAST. Off-creep.


This might be true. The current thinking is: BLs force vikings, Z switches to ultralisks, vikings are useless. However, going ultralisks first means he's not going to have the vikings for a BL switch later, perhaps improving the effectiveness of those BLs. How come the logic doesn't work both ways? It just seems like blind BL bias.


I think the one of the points of the OP is that ultralisks are a shitty standalone unit, yet that's how everybody uses them (a re-max after broodlords of like 10 ultralisks). I think he's arguing for using ultralisks like how people use broodlords, which I honestly rarely (never?) see: 3-4 total as a supplement to your current army. Nobody would suggest that you sacrifice an army and re-max with broodlords. They're easy to kill unsupported and they take too long. Yet people do it with ultralisks even though ultralisks are similar in both regards?


I appreciate it.