On June 08 2011 00:59 Derez wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2011 00:37 bobwhiz wrote:
I guess the question is-
Does the massability of tier 1 units make their upgrades more essential than mech upgrades?
You've given a partial 'no' as an answer. I'm wondering what is generally true. Your answer is helpful though.
The answer to that question depends both on the style you are playing and the style your opponent is playing. To stick with TvZ as an example:
- In a 'standard' game, where you go marine/tank midgame and your opponent goes muta/ling/bling, 1-0 mech is the most relevant in the long term (excluding hitting certain timings), because it counteracts all zerg ground armor upgrades. After that (in my opinion) infantry upgrades have a bigger impact on the game, due to the fact that if you keep upgrading both weapons and armor, marines keep getting stronger and stronger vs mutas because there's no zergs that upgrade both weapons and armor on air, not to mention bounce damage gets reduced even if the zerg stays on par with his upgrades.
(This doesn't mean you shouldn't research inf upgrades before mech upgrades or whatever, just saying that in relative importance, mech 1-0 has the biggest impact on the game).
- When facing roach/bling/ling tho, I'd say all mech upgrades have a bigger impact on the game, because tanks 'outscale' your opponents upgrades. For example: a 3/3 marine vs a 3/3 roach deals equal damage to a 0/0 marines vs a 0/0 roach, while a 3/3 tank vs a 3/3 roach deals 12 damage more then a 0/0 tank vs a 0/0 roach. I'd also say that in this matchup, armor on infantry could become more useful then weapon upgrades, due to the fact that you're more or less delaying roaches with marines (imperfect counter in the first place), while your tanks deal the real damage to them.
Then again, this is nothing but theorycraft, and getting 1 upgrade doesn't exclude getting the others.
Does this help in any way? ;p