Question regarding upgrades

[Aznargo]

In all SC2 games that I've seen, they always get the weapons upgrades before the armor. And I've just been wondering why that's so? Keeping your units alive is just as important as having them dish out more damage .

[Hammy]

Pretty frequent question:

It depends on what units you're making and what your opponent is making.
If you've got a bunch of low-cooldown units, you might want to opt for damage. If you're fighting against low-cooldown units, get armor. If it's both, then it's case specific.

There are some very specific situations which you should know about:

Zealots vs Zerglings: zealots always get +damage so they can kill zerglings in 2 hits instead of 3; this means that zerg needs to get +carapace if he wants his zerglings to stay on equal grounds.

In this instance, it also depends on how you're playing. It'll never be pure ling vs zealot, and 1/0 lings will shred 1/0 stalkers if you can bring down the zealot front. So you could go for 1/0 if you're going ling/bling and have the right number of blings to evaporate his zealot front before they deal damage.
The safe route would be to go 0/1 though, especially if your follow-up is hydra.

Roaches vs Zerglings: intuitively +damage lings work great, since they get a huge benefit from that upgrade, HOWEVER, if the roach player goes +damage, he'll 2shot zerglings, so the zergling player might have to consider dual evo chambers if he wants to stay well ahead in a pure roach vs zergling confrontation => +1 carapace is essential for zerglings when facing +1attack roaches

[SuperKiller]

In all SC2 games that I've seen, they always get the weapons upgrades before the armor. And I've just been wondering why that's so? Keeping your units alive is just as important as having them dish out more damage .

the effect of +weapons is greater than the effect of +armor in most situations.

roaches, if player1 gets +1 weapon upgrade, that's +2 attack, player b gets +1 armor, its still +1 armor, and player 1 still does +1 damage, with a cheaper upgrade.

[Aznargo]

Pretty frequent question:

It depends on what units you're making and what your opponent is making.
If you've got a bunch of low-cooldown units, you might want to opt for damage. If you're fighting against low-cooldown units, get armor. If it's both, then it's case specific.

There are some very specific situations which you should know about:

Zealots vs Zerglings: zealots always get +damage so they can kill zerglings in 2 hits instead of 3; this means that zerg needs to get +carapace if he wants his zerglings to stay on equal grounds.

In this instance, it also depends on how you're playing. It'll never be pure ling vs zealot, and 1/0 lings will shred 1/0 stalkers if you can bring down the zealot front. So you could go for 1/0 if you're going ling/bling and have the right number of blings to evaporate his zealot front before they deal damage.
The safe route would be to go 0/1 though, especially if your follow-up is hydra.

Roaches vs Zerglings: intuitively +damage lings work great, since they get a huge benefit from that upgrade, HOWEVER, if the roach player goes +damage, he'll 2shot zerglings, so the zergling player might have to consider dual evo chambers if he wants to stay well ahead in a pure roach vs zergling confrontation => +1 carapace is essential for zerglings when facing +1attack roaches

Ah, thanks so much! .

[MulletBen]

As stated by Hammy, it really depends on what units you have, and what you are facing. That's why you'll see most players get +1 armor before +2 attack.

Also, all armor upgrades increase armor by +1, while attack upgrades sometimes increase by +2, +3, or more. Most units will benefit more from increased attack than armor. Since upgrades affect multiple units, it is usually a more well balanced choice to get + attack vs.+ armor.

[Taerix]

There are a few cases where you might want to get armor before weapons, like zerglings vs Zealots for example. But weapons will usually be more effective, especially for ranged units, since weapons will be enhancing all of their damage, while armor will only be helping the ones that are getting attacked.