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TvP vs Mass Tempest + Carriers

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MockHamill
Profile Joined March 2010
Sweden1798 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-02-10 17:44:48
February 10 2013 17:42 GMT
#1
I have not won a single time against a Protoss player that goes mass Tempest with Carrier support. I go mass orbitals, sack SCV, mass Thors with Raven support but still lose every single time, even though my economy typically is equal or stronger than the Protoss player.

Pdd is good vs pure Tempest but interceptors with their double attack and large numbers eat up the Pdd fast. It is also very easy for Protoss to retreat a bit with their army as soon as they see you casting a large number of Pdd.

Seeker missile works in the unit tester but not in a real game. Ravens get killed before casting the missiles or the Protoss player simply retreats a bit so that all your missiles fizzles out. Battlecruisers are good vs Carriers but since Tempest is a hard counter to BC it does not really work.

Blizzard really need to increase the supply cost for Tempest or lower their hit points. But until they do so, is there any army that can defeat Mass Tempest with Carrier support for supply? If so please tell me.

SuperYo1000
Profile Joined July 2008
United States880 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-02-10 17:53:49
February 10 2013 17:48 GMT
#2
thor raven? why not mass viking raven composition? sure like you said carrier is good all around unit but once you drop his army number or you both are beating back it takes much longer for him to replenish a carrier tempest army. You can then follow up with bio or such
crashpoint
Profile Joined April 2012
Austria44 Posts
February 10 2013 17:55 GMT
#3
just go raven and mass vikings before u whine with thor raven ^^
also mass turret is very godo becasue i guess in that situation u have like 4 k money the turrets will shoot as many interceptors away as posssible before the actual fight is happening
also u should have like 15-20 starports 5 with techlabs
try that
Learn lots. Don't judge. Laugh for no reason. Be nice. Seek happiness. - Day9
Xequecal
Profile Joined October 2010
United States473 Posts
February 10 2013 17:57 GMT
#4
Bio annihilates Protoss air. Against what you listed, you could just make marines and vikings. Assuming they have HTs as well to storm things, you need to transition into ghost/viking. Interceptors are light and ghosts massacre them.

If you're asking for a mech counter, well there isn't one, as stargate is the counter to mech.
Sissors
Profile Joined March 2012
1395 Posts
February 10 2013 18:03 GMT
#5
It makes more sense for toss to go colossi + air than HT + air vs terran. You remove ghosts as counter, and add vikings which wont attack colossi with carriers/tempests around. Aditionally, marines are cost effective against carriers, sadly they are not supply effective, so honestly not that great besides for being easy to mass after a fight. Bonus damage of ghosts against interceptors is something I didnt realize before and that is a good one. Although I do wonder how long they will be alive against colossi.

Finally mass viking (+raven) is not a great idea imo. Sure you might kill the air, but mass stalker warpins will then kill you. Mass turrets is a much better idea, since they nicely help against interceptors. And yeah thors arent good against toss air.
LF[Media]
Profile Joined February 2013
United States58 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-02-10 18:07:57
February 10 2013 18:04 GMT
#6
Viking + Raven. Tempests suck vs anything but Battlecruisers, Broodlord, or Carriers. It's nice to have like 2-3 in a composition to extend your range and force engagements, but they aren't actually good fighting units. What league are you in, just out of curiosity? You shouldn't be losing to this. Mass Void Ray is the real powerful Skytoss composition. There is no reason to lose to Tempest/Carrier with Vikings and some Ravens for support.

As for the guy who is whining about mech, don't listen to that garbage. True mech needs mass Vikings, you can't go pure ground units. Worth noting that mech owns ground Protoss, despite what people will have you believe; Hellbats are dead even with Stalkers, i.e. 1 Hellbat and 1 stalkers will kill each other, and 10 Hellbats vs 10 Stalkers will end with maybe 1 Stalker left, simply because of the range; Hellbats beat Immortals as well. Try the unit tester; 3 Hellbats beat 1 Immortal with 2 Hellbats left; 2 Hellbats vs 1 Immortal is a tie. The counter to Mech is mass Void Rays; Carriers or Tempests lose to Vikings pretty badly, but Void Rays can do OK. Were it not for Voids, Protoss would have no counter. Against VRs, you need Vikings and you also need Ravens for Hunter Seeker Missile, since VRs do bonus vs armored, but with good HSMs, you can annihilate them. HSM + Viking counters toss air HARD.
<3 ZOWiE Gear <3
Novacute
Profile Joined September 2011
Australia313 Posts
February 10 2013 18:09 GMT
#7
PDDs nullify all tempest damage. Deploy up to 4, sit back and laugh as your seeker missiles and vikings clean everything else up.
Xequecal
Profile Joined October 2010
United States473 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-02-10 18:42:39
February 10 2013 18:29 GMT
#8
On February 11 2013 03:04 LF[Media] wrote:
Viking + Raven. Tempests suck vs anything but Battlecruisers, Broodlord, or Carriers. It's nice to have like 2-3 in a composition to extend your range and force engagements, but they aren't actually good fighting units. What league are you in, just out of curiosity? You shouldn't be losing to this. Mass Void Ray is the real powerful Skytoss composition. There is no reason to lose to Tempest/Carrier with Vikings and some Ravens for support.

As for the guy who is whining about mech, don't listen to that garbage. True mech needs mass Vikings, you can't go pure ground units. Worth noting that mech owns ground Protoss, despite what people will have you believe; Hellbats are dead even with Stalkers, i.e. 1 Hellbat and 1 stalkers will kill each other, and 10 Hellbats vs 10 Stalkers will end with maybe 1 Stalker left, simply because of the range; Hellbats beat Immortals as well. Try the unit tester; 3 Hellbats beat 1 Immortal with 2 Hellbats left; 2 Hellbats vs 1 Immortal is a tie. The counter to Mech is mass Void Rays; Carriers or Tempests lose to Vikings pretty badly, but Void Rays can do OK. Were it not for Voids, Protoss would have no counter. Against VRs, you need Vikings and you also need Ravens for Hunter Seeker Missile, since VRs do bonus vs armored, but with good HSMs, you can annihilate them. HSM + Viking counters toss air HARD.


Vikings can kite Void Rays forever, they do no damage at all against Vikings. Mass VRs is just terrible against Terran, in fact VRs in general are just bad against Terran other than for proxy Stargate allins. Tempests, on the other hand, are actually really good against mech Terran. Tempests can just keep shelling them, kiting, and whittling them down because mech is so immobile. Protoss absolutely wants Tempests with Stalkers and HTs to protect them from Vikings. They can't move the Vikings forward without them getting murdered by Stalkers or storm, and they eventually get whittled down.

Making a bunch of Ravens is just asking to get feedbacked out of the game. PDD can absorb Tempest fire sure, but the Tempests can just move back 10 units and you're still stuck. You can't drop PDDs all the way across the map, and if they ever get two HTs anywhere near your army all your energy stuff is just going to insta explode. Supporting with Ghosts is hard if you're spending resources on Ravens and mech units, low numbers of Ghosts can be sniped with blink Stalkers and microed around.

The ideal endgame composition you want is just pure Ghost/Viking with a few Medivacs to heal your Ghosts. Even on like 4 bases you'll probably never actually max out on that so you'll have to fill supply with Marines or Marauders, but a 30+ Ghost army is what you want to strive for in the late game. It works against any composition of Protoss units, as long as you scout and have an appropriate Viking count relative to what they're making.

The ONLY counter to Ghosts is Colossi and Tempests, Ghosts kill everything else. Low numbers of Ghosts fall to Zealots, but since they're ranged, once you get enough of them, Zealots melt. Even non-light units like Stalkers and Immortals look really crappy against pure Ghost when you have Medivac healing and they don't have any shields.

Once you've maxed out on your Ghost/Viking army, just attack them. Keep perma-scan up on them and EMP/snipe every HT before it gets any spells off. If their HTs can't cast, you win by default. There's nothing they can do to you. The Vikings will kill any Colo/Tempests they have and the Ghosts beat everything else.
Aveng3r
Profile Joined February 2012
United States2411 Posts
February 10 2013 19:00 GMT
#9
has anyone who has responded in this thread played a single game of hots? I havent seen one decent answer yet
I carve marble busts of assassinated world leaders - PM for a quote
KovuTalli
Profile Joined May 2010
United Kingdom325 Posts
February 10 2013 19:20 GMT
#10
Marines are the only cost effective counter to Tempests and carriers. This is coming from a Terran player who has played vs this comp quite a few times, Thor and viking are just too costly and not massable enough to counter, even focus firing/ Worse if you Amove and bugs out on interceptors.

You can also Amove the marines to get rid of the interceptors fast. Mines are also good for this reason as you can run them in under the Protoss Fleet, if you have other units taking aggro priority, Toss cannot focus fire them all.
"Milk tastes like milk" - Raelcun.
Decendos
Profile Joined August 2011
Germany1338 Posts
February 10 2013 19:24 GMT
#11
you are right about tempest having too much hp and doing too much damage vs massive air.

but heres some things you can try until it gets nerfed: a lot of ravens, some ghosts vs his HT, vikings and some thors (for splash vs interceptors). whats really important: get at least 5 ghosts academies and 5 nukes. if an attacks happens instanuke where his army is, throw down PDD and once he retreats from the nuke get your vikings and ravens for HSM and do free damage to his army. mass HSM is very strong in HOTS so get lots of ravens and vikings and just use nukes to get position advantage and have him run.
Everlong
Profile Joined April 2010
Czech Republic1973 Posts
February 10 2013 19:28 GMT
#12
I think they will lower damage of Tempests in next few patches, because they are so easily massed and there is basically no effective way to deal with them supply/cost wise and that is of course if you are even using them not against massive air targets.. They HAVE to do something about them, because TvP mech and ZvP, it's just another bl/infestor now..

I've had some success with BC/Raven/Vikings + some ground to snipe HT's, but it's really tough, because Protoss is always forcing engagement due to 15 range (Oracle ensures it is 15) and you slowly but surely lose supply and resources, because you can't engage, fly into storms/carriers, while Protoss can..
Rabiator
Profile Joined March 2010
Germany3948 Posts
February 10 2013 19:36 GMT
#13
Both Tempest and Carrier have two big problems:
- they are relatively slow and
- they cost a lot of resources (both in minerals & gas AND supply).

Thus the reasonable counter to them is to use lots of Marines to kill Interceptors (and Observers) while occupying the Tempests with an opponent it isnt good against. At the same time the bases of the Protoss should be constantly kept busy with drops. This will force the Protoss to be defensive and keep his fleet at home while the Terran can roam freely across the map. Obviously this is the strategy for larger maps and it doesnt relly work well on smaller / narrow ones, but killing bases is the best way to deal with such a fleet of superior tech on the way to winning the game. The medivac turbo speed should help a bit.
If you cant say what you're meaning, you can never mean what you're saying.
moskonia
Profile Joined January 2011
Israel1448 Posts
February 10 2013 19:45 GMT
#14
Vikings beat carriers and tempest both supply wise and cost wise. Just mass Vikings and maybe get a few ravens for HSM, but I am not sure about that. Simple mass vikings should be enough, but if the Protoss does not get any tempests or a only a few, you can use some battle cruises to snipe down Archons and Carriers with the Yamato Cannon (it only costs 100 energy now so you can use 2 per BC).
Assaulter
Profile Joined December 2010
Lithuania324 Posts
February 10 2013 20:12 GMT
#15
OP is obviously asking how to deal with mass protoss air WITH MECH, yet people suggest bio units... I've been struggling hard with air toss when meching too, i am only able to win if i detect that they are going air soon enough that i can just crank out several vikings and a few thors and go kill them before they mass up. in a lategame fight you can't really go mass viking, even if you get on top of his tempests they still have a ton of hp and then you're vulnerable to carriers and storms. And if you do win the fight you might not be able to deal with his mass warpgate warp in, so you can't go full air yourself, while he can.
Everlong
Profile Joined April 2010
Czech Republic1973 Posts
February 10 2013 20:16 GMT
#16
On February 11 2013 04:45 moskonia wrote:
Vikings beat carriers and tempest both supply wise and cost wise. Just mass Vikings and maybe get a few ravens for HSM, but I am not sure about that. Simple mass vikings should be enough, but if the Protoss does not get any tempests or a only a few, you can use some battle cruises to snipe down Archons and Carriers with the Yamato Cannon (it only costs 100 energy now so you can use 2 per BC).


You can't expect Protoss to go Pure Carrier/Tempests.. There will always be Templars to strom your vikings and then you are doomed. It's just broken, no need to explain enything, period.
kyllinghest
Profile Joined December 2011
Norway1607 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-02-10 20:27:30
February 10 2013 20:27 GMT
#17
Play bio and attack constantly in several locations. Expand rapidly, and try to get a good ghost count. This absolutely mauls p air.

As to people suggesting that the op wants solutions for mech vs mass toss air: thats just not gonna happend. Go bio versus air! Mech is to hard too trade and rebuild, and the p army will be the better one if you are passive.
"NO" -Has
BronzeKnee
Profile Joined March 2011
United States5217 Posts
February 10 2013 20:29 GMT
#18
This thread is dumb without replays. Where are the replays?

In my experience as a Protoss player, Stargate > Mech. Simple as that. At the same time, Bio > Stargate.
Guillermoman
Profile Joined October 2012
24 Posts
February 10 2013 23:33 GMT
#19
I've been playing Mech against Tempest/Carrier the same way I have played TvZ against Brood Lord. Basically, you need to see the multiple Stargates and once you do, you use your mobility during their transition phase to knock out expansions. Then when they switch to pure air, they don't have the resources to build the ideal Carrier/Tempest/Templar army. I don't have enough replays to post a pack, but so far I have not lost against a Protoss who switches to air.
Lactomar
Profile Joined September 2010
27 Posts
February 10 2013 23:48 GMT
#20
Why do people keep saying bio beats Tempest/Carrier? Any competent protoss is not going to have his capital ships over open ground. Or even on ground at all on some maps. And have you tried 6 marines against 1 carrier? The carrier wins supply for supply, so late game armies the carrier is going to roll those marines. The only hope is mass viking. Which sucks because viking is soooo bad against protoss ground.
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