I've seen this strategy used a few times; and on a lot of maps I think it's underused. Basically you don't produce any arbiters until after you have a critical mass of carriers. It seems like one of the best strategies to beat a defensive macro orientated T like flash. A couple arbiters can act as force multipliers with carrier/ground and are perhaps better use of gas than HT. Besides the cloaking benefits which will inevitably save you some damage taken during the course of the game and force away gas from tanks/goliaths into vessels, effectively reducing the size of his mech ball, they also have very useful spells. They can recharge their energy and be of more use over a longer game than non-spell casting units.
Here's Kal using the strat against Flash; Kal was a bit outplayed as Flash is a better player than him but you can see in the late game that if Kal could have kept mining his critical mass carrier + arbiter combo would have been impossible to deal with.
Some uses for the spells which I don't know why you hardly ever see are: 1. stasising SCVs to allow for CC snipe - You see so many times that a player is able prevent his CC from being sniped by carriers only because of repairing SCVs. Had there been one or possibly two stasises the CC most certainly would have been sniped; but one or two extra carriers would have made no difference.
2. recalling carriers - carriers are very slow and once you have 8-10 they compose the majority of your army, keeping them in more ideal positions on the map for a larger portion of the game through the added mobility of recalls can be a huge force multiplier. You can keep your carriers battling the large portion of his tank/goliath army and then once he is on the retreat you can immediately recall to his 4th CC and stasis snipe it, or to his factories/depots/armories, then recall back to wherever else you need your carriers. Two arbiters used in this way seem much more beneficial to me than an extra carrier and HT or something of the like. No other unit combination for 8 supply is going to come close to this level of force multiplying.
I think this game is a prime example of how sacrificing some carriers and HT for arbiters, after reaching a critical mass of carriers, and using the tactics above would have helped:
I thought the stork vs flash game was a prime example of how it could have been pulled off effectively. There was a point in the game where stork was on 5 bases and maxed and had about 12 carriers and was pumping nothing but carriers/goons/zealots/HT. My logic is that about 4 minutes before this point in the game stork could have dropped his arbiter tribunal with his excess money, costing him no units, and then brought his army back to max supply with some arbiters instead of just carriers/goons/zealots/HT. Then 2 minutes later when Flash is relying his 4th and even 5th base to be mining while he pushes out with his maxed tank/goliath army, stork could employ the before mentioned arbiter carrier tactics to carry him to the win.
On December 24 2010 12:08 krndandaman wrote: well, normally you don't transition to arbiters from carriers for many reasons A) They both are stargate units and both take shitload of time to make B) gotta focus on massing carriers first. you cant just half ass it at like 4 carriers then go to arbiter. it defeats the whole purpose of going carrier. C) both are fucking expensive
the only time you should be able to transition from carrier to arbs is when you're really really rich and ahead of the game. i dont see how this is possible when you and terran are even. your opponent has to already be in a terrible position if this works.
I don't think the OP is saying to rush carriers and then arbs soon after. Rather, after toss reaches a critical mass of carriers, then (and only then) supplement carriers with one or two arbiters, rather than continuously pump carriers.
@OP: It certainly sounds promising, could you provide some replays of you using this build? I've almost never seen it used in pro-games (apart from the one you linked), but then again, 12 nexus PvP is never used at the pro-level, though it is a pretty viable build for most ICCUP players.
On December 24 2010 12:32 FlaShFTW wrote: as long as you have 100000 bases, you will never be able to do that.
they take sooo long to build. i really dont advise it.
What? An arb takes only slightly longer to build than a carrier, and you can build the extra tech (templar archives+arbiter tribunal, assuming you already have citadel for speedzeals) concurrently while your first carriers are building. The only concern is that you might not have enough gas for it all, but on macro maps like f/s where usually both p and t get their thirds relatively early, that's not as much of an issue.
arbs are underused; i say go for it brother, people don't try different strategies because the pros don't do it, but I've used that combo to great efficiency; and also great ruin.
I remember Kal doing an Carrier/Arb strat vs Flash.. which sorta failed, but I don't remember the game too well lol. There was also Shuttle vs Baby, where Shuttle horribly fails w/ his CArriers, but transitions into Arb/normal army and rapes baby LOL
On December 24 2010 15:08 ArvickHero wrote: I remember Kal doing an Carrier/Arb strat vs Flash.. which sorta failed, but I don't remember the game too well lol. There was also Shuttle vs Baby, where Shuttle horribly fails w/ his CArriers, but transitions into Arb/normal army and rapes baby LOL
Guys, I wonder if MASS hallucinated Carrier into Arbiters will work, dope Terran into thinking Mass cariers are coming but in fact, the Toss is doing the regular Arbiter builds and run over the Terran. This way, you won't overcommit into making too much stargate AND keep up the ground pressure.
You guys know whats even better than mass carrier and arbiter? Doing that but also get dark archons and mind controll an scv and start massing battlecruisers to supplement your carriers and arbiters. Think about it, you can recall your carriers and battlecruisers all around the map, plus stasis enemy goliaths and micro your carriers around to kill the rest of the units. And then yamato everything else. Imo thats the most underused of good strategies like these.
On December 24 2010 15:33 Xiphos wrote: Guys, I wonder if MASS hallucinated Carrier into Arbiters will work, dope Terran into thinking Mass cariers are coming but in fact, the Toss is doing the regular Arbiter builds and run over the Terran. This way, you won't overcommit into making too much stargate AND keep up the ground pressure.
This would never work....
First let's ignore the fact that hallucinated carriers lack interceptors
You'd need a fleet beacon, hallucination, one carrier, and at least 6 templar, whose energy you are wasting on hallu so they won't be able to storm if terran pushes.
That's like 1500 gas....
Terran would simply macro-roll you since you wasted so much money on hallu
On December 24 2010 12:08 krndandaman wrote: well, normally you don't transition to arbiters from carriers for many reasons A) They both are stargate units and both take shitload of time to make B) gotta focus on massing carriers first. you cant just half ass it at like 4 carriers then go to arbiter. it defeats the whole purpose of going carrier. C) both are fucking expensive
the only time you should be able to transition from carrier to arbs is when you're really really rich and ahead of the game. i dont see how this is possible when you and terran are even. your opponent has to already be in a terrible position if this works.
I don't think the OP is saying to rush carriers and then arbs soon after. Rather, after toss reaches a critical mass of carriers, then (and only then) supplement carriers with one or two arbiters, rather than continuously pump carriers.
@OP: It certainly sounds promising, could you provide some replays of you using this build? I've almost never seen it used in pro-games (apart from the one you linked), but then again, 12 nexus PvP is never used at the pro-level, though it is a pretty viable build for most ICCUP players.
That's correct. I think I got the idea from a Kal game as was mentioned earlier but he didn't use the tactics I mentioned much or at all.
I thought the stork vs flash game was a prime example of how it could have been pulled off effectively. There was a point in the game where stork was on 5 bases and maxed and had about 12 carriers and was pumping nothing but carriers/goons/zealots/HT. My logic is that about 4 minutes before this point in the game stork could have dropped his arbiter tribunal with his excess money, costing him no units, and then brought his army back to max supply with some arbiters instead of just carriers/goons/zealots/HT. Then 2 minutes later when Flash is relying his 4th and even 5th base to be mining while he pushes out with his maxed tank/goliath army stork could employ the before mentioned arbiter carrier tactics to carry him to the win.
Arbiters make carriers better but this isn't really a strategy. This is just standard PvT carrier transition with adding arbiters if you have money. All carrier play is this, it's just sometimes they have the gas to do it and sometimes they don't.
You usually go Arbiter first before the carriers anyway. Otherwise, your ground army is gonna get stomped a lot of the times without an arbiter to stasis and cloak. Carriers are usually a lategame transition, and by that, I mean a pretty late lategame transition depending on how hard the Terran is pressuring you/pushing you/etc.
On December 24 2010 15:33 Xiphos wrote: Guys, I wonder if MASS hallucinated Carrier into Arbiters will work, dope Terran into thinking Mass cariers are coming but in fact, the Toss is doing the regular Arbiter builds and run over the Terran. This way, you won't overcommit into making too much stargate AND keep up the ground pressure.
This would never work....
First let's ignore the fact that hallucinated carriers lack interceptors
You'd need a fleet beacon, hallucination, one carrier, and at least 6 templar, whose energy you are wasting on hallu so they won't be able to storm if terran pushes.
That's like 1500 gas....
Terran would simply macro-roll you since you wasted so much money on hallu
That's your opinion. I beg to differ.
It's a mind game. All terran needs to see is the carriers which would force them to tech switch into nothing but goliath basically throwing them off their intended game plan. Who said the carriers needed intercepters or even had to go offensive to "look real". I bet 1% of Terrans would suspect hallucinated carriers. If they scan 1 stargate and see mass carriers the Terran player's going to assume the protoss "hid the stargates elsewhere". The Terrans mass of goliaths will be their downfall as they will reduce the number of vultures made which is critical for handling zealots and dragoon. Then the protoss force could sweep the Terran fleet when they decide to go offensive or take the map while the Terran decides to stay defensive and pump goliath until they believe their fleet is strong enough to handle the carriers when in actuality there was only one carrier. There's a strong possibility that the Terran also wouldn't make science vessels (Because it's easy for carriers to snipe them and their gas consuming) leaving ample room for some easy stasis and storms. I'm a top level Terran player so I'm sharing a view of how a high level terran thinks, our response and the counter to the situation. I don't advise this strategy to only be done after the toss has 3-5 gas but it's sure to work if done right.
If you're going to try and trick the terran, why bother with hallucination?
I've actually done this before--in games when you're 200/200 and have thousands in the bank, I sometimes build a fleet beacon in a place I think my opponent will scan to cause him to freak out and attack with his army into a disadvantageous position and/or build goliaths. Really, what's going to scare the Terran is not several hallucinated carriers (by the way, Hallu has a time limit. You have NO guarantee that Terran will scan during that time limit, and if you try to attack, Terran will notice the lack of interceptors). There is really no reason to invest in more than the fleet beacon itself and MAYBE one carrier (although lategame I find that I need constant arbiter production most of the time) in an attempt which may fail to trick your opponent.
To be more on topic, I prefer arbiter -> carrier transitions vastly to carrier -> arbiter. You get the arbiters initially as push defense with stasis while securing several expos, then hide a bunch of stargates somewhere. Recall somewhere to do damage and free up supply, then make Carriers in that freed up supply. Since terran is 200/200, even if they scout the carriers, they are forced to attack to waste units so they can build goliaths. You can use this knowledge to force them to attack into a flank or a similarly disadvantageous position, then use your carriers to mop up the rest
On December 24 2010 15:33 Xiphos wrote: Guys, I wonder if MASS hallucinated Carrier into Arbiters will work, dope Terran into thinking Mass cariers are coming but in fact, the Toss is doing the regular Arbiter builds and run over the Terran. This way, you won't overcommit into making too much stargate AND keep up the ground pressure.
Didn't someone gg upon seeing hallucinated carriers but thought they were real?
EPT
