Considering the recent trend of analyzing matchups such as this, I thought I'd write my ideas about using zealots to defeat carriers.
Sooooo... you are playing the artsy PvP matchup (or perhaps you were playing PvZ or PvT and your opponent hacks). You and your opponent are so evenly matched, or so dumb that you can't take advantage of each other's mistakes, that the game is lasting 30+ minutes. Your opponent decides to copy Grrrr... (he invented carriers) and go carriers. You prefer playing Protoss like a man and winning with zealots (go Reach fighting~) so you decide to counter with zealots.
Now, the most important thing that I'd like to point out (and for you poker players this is similar to having 72o) is that YOU KNOW WHERE YOU STAND. He has carriers and you have zealots; you're in DEEP SHIT. However, the game is far from over. In fact, there are many things which you can do to even the tides.
Some facts about Starcraft you may or may not already know: 1. All mineral patches and gas geysers are on the ground (unless he hacks) 2. Zealots move faster and have higher damage than a carrier (16 vs a girly 6 [no offense zia, you can kick my ass]) 3. All buildings are on the ground. 4. Your mission in the Brood Wars is to destroy all enemy buildings. Killing units is often times just a fancy exercise- your zealots are sufficient.
So now that I have pointed out these little-known gems of information, you are starting to put together the pieces of the puzzle that spells "Victory". However, hold off on hitting those alt+j keys just yet. How exactly are we going to use these awesome advantages of the almighty zealot to triumph? Here are some helpful tactics:
1. Every 15 seconds or so, send in a few zealots to his carriers as if to attack. This will make him feel like he is beating you badly and will distract him from other happenings. 2. As the carriers go around the map ravaging your defenseless bases, you can go around even FASTER and STRONGER with your zealots to ravage HIS bases. He won't even know what's going on until it's too late. 3. If you are playing a pro, then he is likely to send his carriers at your zealots to defend his base. You have 2 options here: a.) Run your zealots away and attack another part of his base b.) Since pros often use mini-maps to observe the movements of the game you can use this against him. Send your zealots charging at his carriers in a large clump (do NOT send them single file because he will figure out they are zealots). He will freak out that a bigass army is coming at him and he'll run away or just alt+q+q right there (he'll F10+e+s+q if he's fancy or alt+x+x if he's pissed)
Also a VERY important side note. I have conducted numerous tests with varying amounts of micro in order to simulate realistic in-game conditions and have concluded these results: Carriers will defeat zealots in small numbers and large numbers, but zealots will actually defeat carriers if the numbers are in the middle.
That about wraps it up. I had to consider heavily for a very long time if I should release this sacred information so I hope you all deeply appreciate the fact that I did. Thank you and good luck.
We can also take some probes with the raging zealots and use them to build pylons and then battery shields inside the enemy's base. This way zealots will become invencible.
Now, the most important thing that I'd like to point out (and for you poker players this is similar to having 72o) is that YOU KNOW WHERE YOU STAND. He has carriers and you have zealots; you're in DEEP SHIT. However, the game is far from over. In fact, there are many things which you can do to even the tides.
NonY
I almost laughed out loud at this The rest wasn't as good tho, but that one paragraph made it worth my while.
IMO mass zealots is the natural counter to carriers, and it is wonderful since you wont need gas to beat his fleet if on gorky you only have min only expansions and he goes carriers, have a good laugh and pump zeals from 30+ gates Honestly, i dont know why noobs like carriers since they cant attack. anyway, i admit they make good scouts, i often put one carrier on my cliff on lt to detect gay drops and one or two carriers to check islands
carriers kill buildings faster imo. They dont do only 6 damage, more than 1 interceptor attack at the same time. Also, good ppl dont just look at the minimap, if they see any units on minimap attacking their base, most likely they're gonna check whats happening and not ignore it...
On December 16 2004 15:19 Hippopotamus wrote: It's also good to bring some dark archons with your zealots so you can maelstorm the carriers and destroy their base as their fleet is unable to move.
Maelstom is short so it would be waste and it works vs carriers?????
On December 16 2004 15:19 Hippopotamus wrote: It's also good to bring some dark archons with your zealots so you can maelstorm the carriers and destroy their base as their fleet is unable to move.
hehe... w00t... I was just about to post somethign on this
I never thought of it that way.... Carriers < Zealots...
I'd like to add more to this strat with another strat that was mentioned here before, you should go all zealots right....then u take all the gases on the map, cuz no gas = no win rite? he cant remake carriers either hahahaahah!
HOLY SHIT guys. I just played a game where I massed Carriers and the other guy masses Zealots. But dude, the guess what happened?!? The Zealots actually climbed in top of each other, and made this huge stack, and jumped onto the Carriers and attacked them! I am not kidding. OMgomogmom there were like ten of them stacked! But them my Interceptors knocked the stacks over.
also upgrade "Zealot flying capability" as fast as you can so they can fly and seize carriers hostage - 1 zeal takes 1 carrier. then get all the intereceptors from the carriers, mind control them and send them to help your zeals to kill the opponent faster.
or like other guy suggested, don't worry about carriers at all, they can't attack.
I understand what he was trying to do, but this wasn't even remotely funny... spoofs like this only work when the humor is more subtle, trying to go over-the-top on a mockpost just doesn't work for me.
I think most of us have seen something like that happen, a player with mmmmm 8 carriers but with only 1 or 2 pylons, so he decides to attack and looses his remaining buildings... and i mean GOOD players...
I remember some zvp of Pusan or some other good p who did that... i wanted to beat his ass, if you have 8 carriers, and the enemy has like 6 lings and you have only 1 pylon left... leave half in your base and go attack with the other half... but nope he goes out with everything and the last 6 units the zerg has kill the pylon and GG -_-
Yeah, after a few hours of thinking I've realized that the carrier user can hide pylons and still ravage the zealot player's base but zealots have the "morph into observer" upgrade so just me theorycrafting again
If u attack carrier from behind with zealot u have some chance that u will hit its engines and cause carrier to fall down on the ground - but careful it will crush all units under it when it crashes. Sometimes if u don't have enough zealots to crush carriers its good to halucinate more zealots with ht,since u will have lot of gas and storming isn't very good if its sunny - this often results in oponent typing : OMG u have so many of them, and just gg alt+q q. I personally use carriers only for scouting - like already said put one on the cliff to detect gay drops and other one patrols around the map.
for those of you who "get it" but dont like it- well, i tried to make a lot of references to actual ideas/strats that have been posted here before.. so to appreciate the article you'd have to have been reading the strategy forum for a while
for those of you who dont like my strategy, and think it's ridiculous... i challenge you to a best of 5. you can find me on east or europe as NonY)NuT
It's not really a joke and it's not really completely serious either
It's very funny AND it has some uses. whenever my opponent goes carriers i send my zealots where his units arent to take out some buildings and free up some psi. you dont base your strat around it though, but to me it was a pretty funny read
On December 17 2004 11:46 BigBalls wrote: haha, you guys are idiots
It's not really a joke and it's not really completely serious either
It is joke. Read first post again.
im gonna have to agree with bigballs on this one. it is a joke by the fact that you wouldnt produce more zealots unless you didnt have gas or something.. but if you have zealots then you should certainly suicide them for more supply or send them at his expansions ASAP to maybe take a few out.
anyway, some of it is joke but it also explains what you really should do if you have zealots vs carriers. the real joke is when a player forgets about his zealots upon seeing carriers and does nothing with them
Here is another; Start game with 2gate build. Add gas few seconds later, and just pump zeals only, add few gates. Get leg-speed, and then get out with all your zeals. You have scouted him at beginning of the game, so just target all groups to Nexus. There is usually a hole where zeals can go. Then just keep pumping zeals, maybe expo/add few gates. Works perfectly.
On December 16 2004 14:02 NonY wrote: Considering the recent trend of analyzing matchups such as this, I thought I'd write my ideas about using zealots to defeat carriers.
Sooooo... you are playing the artsy PvP matchup (or perhaps you were playing PvZ or PvT and your opponent hacks). You and your opponent are so evenly matched, or so dumb that you can't take advantage of each other's mistakes, that the game is lasting 30+ minutes. Your opponent decides to copy Grrrr... (he invented carriers) and go carriers. You prefer playing Protoss like a man and winning with zealots (go Reach fighting~) so you decide to counter with zealots.
Now, the most important thing that I'd like to point out (and for you poker players this is similar to having 72o) is that YOU KNOW WHERE YOU STAND. He has carriers and you have zealots; you're in DEEP SHIT. However, the game is far from over. In fact, there are many things which you can do to even the tides.
Some facts about Starcraft you may or may not already know: 1. All mineral patches and gas geysers are on the ground (unless he hacks) 2. Zealots move faster and have higher damage than a carrier (16 vs a girly 6 [no offense zia, you can kick my ass]) 3. All buildings are on the ground. 4. Your mission in the Brood Wars is to destroy all enemy buildings. Killing units is often times just a fancy exercise- your zealots are sufficient.
So now that I have pointed out these little-known gems of information, you are starting to put together the pieces of the puzzle that spells "Victory". However, hold off on hitting those alt+j keys just yet. How exactly are we going to use these awesome advantages of the almighty zealot to triumph? Here are some helpful tactics:
1. Every 15 seconds or so, send in a few zealots to his carriers as if to attack. This will make him feel like he is beating you badly and will distract him from other happenings. 2. As the carriers go around the map ravaging your defenseless bases, you can go around even FASTER and STRONGER with your zealots to ravage HIS bases. He won't even know what's going on until it's too late. 3. If you are playing a pro, then he is likely to send his carriers at your zealots to defend his base. You have 2 options here: a.) Run your zealots away and attack another part of his base b.) Since pros often use mini-maps to observe the movements of the game you can use this against him. Send your zealots charging at his carriers in a large clump (do NOT send them single file because he will figure out they are zealots). He will freak out that a bigass army is coming at him and he'll run away or just alt+q+q right there (he'll F10+e+s+q if he's fancy or alt+x+x if he's pissed)
Also a VERY important side note. I have conducted numerous tests with varying amounts of micro in order to simulate realistic in-game conditions and have concluded these results: Carriers will defeat zealots in small numbers and large numbers, but zealots will actually defeat carriers if the numbers are in the middle.
That about wraps it up. I had to consider heavily for a very long time if I should release this sacred information so I hope you all deeply appreciate the fact that I did. Thank you and good luck.
NonY
I think probes are better.. i mean they are half the price, and when ur not using em to pilage and rape mass goons/zeal, u can use em to mine...
I lost today, going all out zealots in mid-end when he had 3 gas and I had spotted sgates, to my mind came this thread and I decided for a try. It didnt work... with some temps in there it would probably have fried the entire carrier fleet.
On May 20 2005 07:51 Ceril wrote: I lost today, going all out zealots in mid-end when he had 3 gas and I had spotted sgates, to my mind came this thread and I decided for a try. It didnt work... with some temps in there it would probably have fried the entire carrier fleet.
You just didn't follow this strat! You didn't do it properly! No one can lose with this strat vs carriers!
nony are u retarded ? the guy making carriers only have to make some gay canons and with some zeal/archon army + his carriers + canons will own u pretty hard 8/
On May 25 2005 08:56 Darki[CKG] wrote: nony are u retarded ? the guy making carriers only have to make some gay canons and with some zeal/archon army + his carriers + canons will own u pretty hard 8/
rofl, you are the retarded one, its a joke dumbass.. i hope you are joking to..
Haha, nostalgic memories - I love threads like these because we can quickly rule out the people that a) cannot take a joke (stupid) b) doesn't find it funny (stupid) c) finds it funny (yes) d) wins becuase of this thread (godly)
On May 25 2005 08:56 Darki[CKG] wrote: nony are u retarded ? the guy making carriers only have to make some gay canons and with some zeal/archon army + his carriers + canons will own u pretty hard 8/
Is that well done sarcasm or just stupid post? Because I can't say what it is
EPT
The rest wasn't as good tho, but that one paragraph made it worth my while.
jk![[image loading]](http://www.kupatrix.com/upload/uploads/1089677934_MC%20Perfect%202.jpg)
