Good Morning/Afternoon. Hope you are having a nice day.
First off, take my words with a grain of salt. I’m no pro, or even play the game that much. But in the competitive matches i much enjoy to see with a beer in my hand, i’ve seen/heard that Zerg has a few things to say about some of his units, mostly talking about balance but i believe that, in reality, design is the root of the discussion here.
Ultralisk.
I love Ultralisks, they are the closest thing SC2 has to a Battering Ram, they remind me of the Mumakils from LOTR. But being as thicc as they are comes with a cost, derpyness on the battlefield.
Just like Thors, but not so much, they derp around a bit to reach their effective range, leaving them susceptible to heavy fire. Don’t get me wrong, upgraded ultras are a force to be reckon with and scary units once in range. But they problem they have now does not seem to be with stats or balance, but the desing of the ultra in my opinion (in my very humble opinion).
Being massive comes with pros and cons. Cons first just to discard them: easy target, big collision hulls(they get body blocked by other units or even themselfs), slow.
Pros of being T H I C C: Absorb damage for other units, body blocking the enemy, more effective sorround on the enemey.
The problem people describe is that ultras just seem to die too easily(AKA Paperlisk). Because of their big collision hulls, they get body blocked by their own units, they either never get in the fight or just die before reaching the objective. A bit sad for a unit with 500 hp and 7 armor…
Possible solutions i have heard are A) Make him smaller, B) Let him be able to walk over small units.
Imagine Immortals being as big as thors or ultras, that would be bad, they are good because they can maneuver around more effectively than massive units. But i’m againts the idea of making ultras smaller. The biggest benefit of being big is absorbing enemy splash damage from units like Colossi, Siege Tanks, Archos, etc. If you pay attention, they have juuuuust the right size so splash damage barely ever reaches units on their sides, like other ultras. This forces the opponent to micro their units to hit splash optimaly.
Units walking under them could work, but it would go againts the statement above. So probably this idea could work if small zerg units running under ultras are somehow protected from the damage that the ultra is supposed to absorve, like seen in the HoTS Opening Cinematic. Imagine a giant roof that follows your zerglins around as they run.
You see what i mean? This “balance” problem (if you want to call it that way) is a result of a desing problem with the unit. His own atributes are working againts his purpose.
To give you an idea from a completly different game, TF2. The Heavy has the biggest hitbox, and highest hp, he is easy to hit, but he can work around to cover other things with his size. But in TF2, allies can walk through allies, so anyone standing close to him will take the damage he was supposed to absorb alone (just like ultras), but the heavy cannot control what his allies do, in SC2 you can controll all your units, though, this has proven to be very hard. Seconded, he is slow and has a high DPS, but this works best when people are forced to come to the Heavy, rather than him chasing them. There is where i see ultras have some unexplored options. Ultras seem to work better when protecting and stopping an incomming wave of units like Zealots or Zerglings. But as a Battering Ram or chasing/sorrounding? not so much.
On the campaign ultras have the burrow charge ability, i’m not suggesting the full implementation of this in multiplayer though. But as burrow seems to see little use aswell, perhaps if they were able to stun or push units walking over them for a tiny bit (2 seconds is too long) ONLY as they unburrow seems more reasonable, as they have a very fancy unburrow animation already, this could aid in the ambush deparment while at the same time could create more interesting gameplay opportunities to both parties involved than just “reduced size of ultras”
As a side note, ultras seem to clash a bit with the roll of the banelings(no pun intended), other rts i have played tried to get rid of units that you want to sacrifice on purpose. Banelings are a necessity however, but they are much more effective at splash damage and breaking into a defensive position because they are much smaller, have a better structure damage and are, well, designed to splash all around, wich is ok, but then again, Why would you use ultras to do this when banes could do better?. Maybe Ultras could get their structure special attack back. Im not sure.
In summary, the concepts uses to create the ultra are: Living Battering Ram, Varguard Frontline, Heavy Assault. Wich are expresed in game as High HP, High DPS, Splash Damage, Massive Size.
But the sheer size of the unit is the only thing that seems to be working againts the concepts that make the ultra what he is, and even worse, taking it away could make the ultra stop being what he is. Yes, design is that delicate.
This is not to suggest that zerg is too weak or anything, in fact i believe they have a bigger problem with the infestor’s microbial shround right now (i would talk about it, but because of lenght, better left for another day). Im just trying to say that if there is 1 unit in the swarm that has not fully accomplished the purpose that it was given since it’s inception, it is the ultralisk.
Whatever they do to fix this, i hope they aim to the desing first, rather than pure balance of unit stats like size, attack, dps, etc. I believe the devs can work around the design of the ultra without breaking it.
What would you change about ultras? i would give ultras a massive glock
PD: sorry for any redaction problem, i’m not an english speaker so you may have read something funny that i have not even realised yet. No, i don’t use Google translator, that’s lame.
Have a nice day.