Zerg real problem with mass carrier+how to fix

On August 06 2015 19:21 Big J wrote:
I'm not quite sure what it is, because it is impossible to differentiate between released interceptors and the usual interceptors, but interceptors are insanely strong at switching targets in LotV.
Once released there is a 14range deadzone in which nothing can reach the carrier. For example if you use vipers you need like 10 to get 5 into range of the carriers.

PB isn't very good on the carriers and you can't target interceptors so it's not really good.
Hydras lose against carriers.
Corruptors have been nerfed, yet I guess they are your best bet.

I guess what I want to say is that I don't know how to fight them, but I also don't want to say they are too strong or anything because they are hard to reach and expensive and probably you can just kill players trying to reach them. It's the same thing as currently in HotS, if you let P/T get to lategame you lose but roaches are pretty good.

On August 06 2015 20:59 [PkF] Wire wrote:
I'm not a fan of the release interceptors ability either. With recall it has very little counterplay.

On August 06 2015 16:43 Cascade wrote:
Some people are saying that parasitic bomb is really strong, but you don't seem to mention it. Do you think that may work?

Otherwise maybe you can show us a few replays, and someone can have a look at what is going on.

On August 06 2015 23:41 GGzerG wrote:
Parasitic bomb and problem is solved.

On August 07 2015 00:13 Energizer wrote:
I love how people are so ignorant about balance that they go out of their way to outright condemn any problem zerg has vs air by saying "just use pb".

Heres the thing, PB is only useful against clumped air units, units like phoenix, muta, medivacs and to a certain degree vikings and VR. What PB is terrible at is dealing with capital ships - you know - like the fucking carrier. When was the last time you saw a protoss who decided "Herp Derp ill just keep right clicking to keep all of my carriers clumped!". Carriers naturally spread out. And even if you hit 5 pb's on carriers, the best you can hope for is a removal of all their shields and hoping your corruptors can finish the job (dont worry, they wont).

But thats not even the biggest concern about the carriers, its the fact that zerg has to invest so heavily to dealing with those monstrosities that if the protoss player only makes 3-5 and invests in a ground army complete with archons, its nearly unbeatable. Even if you kill off those carriers, the interceptor release will be sure to wreck any remaining army you have if any.

On August 07 2015 01:31 avilo wrote:
Carriers are "broken" aka too cost efficient in every single match-up, including PvP. They beat their counters, just like parasitic bomb does.

Every game in beta where Protoss gets to mid/late game they just start spamming pure carrier because it is the new flying swarmhost. You can release interceptors which are just minerals, take out a base, fly away and come back with more interceptors. A good toss won't ever lose the carriers.

For Terran, there are only two real counters to carriers. You go mass mine/cyclone to kill the interceptors and that is basically you just hoping that the Protoss releases them in a cloud and you get lucky RNG mine hits.

The 2nd way is if you happened to be able to get up to 10-14 BCS which is near impossible in this economy and even then still probably loses to tempest/carrier/storm.

Zerg has no counter to mass carrier either. Parasitic bomb is pretty OP vs Terran, but doesn't do as much vs mass carriers if the Protoss just splits them up, nor is it feasible to get 10+ vipers vs carriers lol. They can release the interceptors and run away and you lose everything.

Glad someone made a thread to discuss mass carrier because these end game fantasy armies of "mass carrier" and mass brood + viper should not exist. There should not be armies in the game that you "get to" and then basically autowin imo.

On August 07 2015 01:46 Railgan wrote:
would like to throw this gif into the discussion of me playing against mass carrier

http://gfycat.com/DirectOfficialGuernseycow

On August 07 2015 02:49 Railgan wrote:

I simply wanted to show what it looks like ingame when Protoss has no idea what they are doing. The protoss simply amoved in that Gif and still ended up killing my army without even using his templars.

I just noticed that the Thread has no actual gameplay of what carrier engagements actually look like.

On August 07 2015 03:05 BisuDagger wrote:
I can't remember if they have, but the return of fungal range might help for this. I feel like fungal on a group of interceptors should kill all of them.

On August 07 2015 04:28 Sholip wrote:
I don't know if that's a solution but I think you can also Parasitic Bomb the Interceptors. Since they are pretty stacked up and have low HP, they should all die from a couple. Then you can kill the defenseless Carriers. If you PB the Carriers and they split, or you simply don't have enough PBs and the Carriers survive, you are screwed. But you can't split with Interceptors.
It's still depends on Vipers very heavily, though, and a couple of Feedbacks/Storms will make it kind of hard.

On August 07 2015 00:13 Energizer wrote:
I love how people are so ignorant about balance that they go out of their way to outright condemn any problem zerg has vs air by saying "just use pb".

Heres the thing, PB is only useful against clumped air units, units like phoenix, muta, medivacs and to a certain degree vikings and VR. What PB is terrible at is dealing with capital ships - you know - like the fucking carrier. When was the last time you saw a protoss who decided "Herp Derp ill just keep right clicking to keep all of my carriers clumped!". Carriers naturally spread out. And even if you hit 5 pb's on carriers, the best you can hope for is a removal of all their shields and hoping your corruptors can finish the job (dont worry, they wont).

But thats not even the biggest concern about the carriers, its the fact that zerg has to invest so heavily to dealing with those monstrosities that if the protoss player only makes 3-5 and invests in a ground army complete with archons, its nearly unbeatable. Even if you kill off those carriers, the interceptor release will be sure to wreck any remaining army you have if any.

It was changed precisely for that reason. Parasitic bomb can not target interceptors anymore.

On August 07 2015 06:36 KingAlphard wrote:


You're right PB isn't great against carriers. But it kills all interceptors which makes carriers useless and vulnerable. Same story as why widow mines are the best counter to carriers.


EDIT:
If this is true (I stopped going carriers when parasitic bomb killed 200 interceptors in 1 second) then PB isn't enough to counter carriers, but it still helps since you should have vipers in your army anyway. The below point remains:

You should realize that if carriers were so OP in LotV you would at least see them in HotS from time to time, instead, not a single protoss ever builds a carrier against zerg (maybe 1 game out of 1000, since I know someone will dig out that terminator vs dark vod).

In fact, the problem here is not that carriers became broken in LotV but the players who wouldn't be able to deal with carriers in HotS either where we can all agree that they are absolutely terrible. Fighting stats weren't improved, only building time, which is irrelevant in maxed out situations, and the 'release interceptor' command which is also irrelevant if you have enough anti air to kill the interceptors quickly.

Even without PB you could still apply the hots counter - mass spores which kill the interceptors immediately, vipers to abduct the carriers 2 at a time and safely snipe them with your corruptor cloud, a few infestors to lock on the carriers if they get too close to your static defenses.

On August 07 2015 01:46 Railgan wrote:
would like to throw this gif into the discussion of me playing against mass carrier

http://gfycat.com/DirectOfficialGuernseycow

On August 07 2015 07:28 KingAlphard wrote:
The problem with release interceptors is you can't focus fire (unless they changed it). This makes them weaker in most situations compared to when they are controlled by the carrier.

The thing with carriers isn't just the building time though. Building time is a nice improvement but carriers will still be worse than tempests as a lategame unit because of their low range ( they are outranged by abduct, fungal, vikings, yamato cannons, tempests, etc. ) and also the fact that interceptors are expensive and will die immediately against a maxed out army + AA static defenses, resulting in thousands of minerals loss.



Prime example of a zerg player having no idea on how to engage a skytoss army. For me this is like a gif of a zerg player amoving hydras into sieged tanks and complaining that tanks are OP. You need to abduct carriers one by one, snipe them with corruptors and retreat.
You can do this without losing anything because abduct has a higher range than carriers. All you need to do this is time, so you need a spore crawler forest + a few infestor to prevent your opponent from actually killing you before you can abduct all his carriers.
Again this engagement looks exactly like it would in HotS, so if you use this to prove that carriers are OP in LotV you would also be proving that they're OP in hots, while we know that the opposite is true.

On August 06 2015 16:31 wrj wrote:
As a player who plays the beta TONS of hours i can tell you my is my biggest problem with the carriers.
Yes they deal a lot of damage
Yes they can come out really fast which make them possible option for the protoss which i never said its a bad thing
Biggest issiue is the release interseptos

why?

First of all it can make them really cost effiect.To give u an example think of an army that contain 10 carrier and a mothership. Since zerg air unites are not that mobile as lings/roach/hydra etc... they cant defends all the bases so these 10 carriers come release they Interceptors on 1 zerg base and just recall back with the mothership and zerg got 2 option:
If they are lucky enough to be close to that base to actully try to defend it the protoss will loss some mineral but the zerg will loss a lot of unites which are gas based not to mention the fact that the only unit which kill Interceptors really fast is hydra.

on the worst case zerg wont make it in time and your base is lost even if your base has a lot of spore i seen how 10 carriers snipe that base before u can do something which very little risk.

Now lets look on the zerg case

Lets say i want to attack a base of protoss.
First of all the airtoss games rely on a lot of expend and i often see 10 cannons on each base which force u to bring at least half of your army to try to attack it, and if you try to bring all of your army, unlike zerg the protoss got air unites "nydes warm" called mothership so defending it is really easy
so until now we saw that carrier can be really cost efficient on attacking zerg and can deal with zerg attacks very easy

But what make it worst about release Interceptors on 200 supply vs 200 supply?
Since brood-war everyone knows that if u play vs carrier just focus them down and you will win the fight thing is there are 3 options that can happen

1)zerg will try to attack and see that they are too weak an try to run and will loss a lot of army because chasing carriers is SUPER strong so running is not an option

2)zerg will just force the Interceptors and leave the carrier. I tried it and the best unit to do that is hydra but hydra is very low hp which mean that until to will get to the carrier you will loss at least 70% of your army of hydra and if protoss got storms i seen how 20 hydra die without doing anything.

3)zerg focus the carrier using mass corupters and vipers:So far this was the best for me but still its not working, and thats because that even when i shoot all the carriers my unites have to fight against 8 Interceptors+what the carrier had built until he died(actually yes carrier can can make more than 8 Interceptors for the fights) and even if you killed half of the carrier army which is what happen to me on most of the cases still carrier army is way more cost efficient since zerg anti air are heavy on gas.

This is the point when i am sure people will say well you are zerg your eco need to be better than protoss one but to these people i say that i remind them that the only real harass zerg unit which can do something is muta and that not a smart thing to do vs airtoss which protoss got tons of harass unites and they can take bases with carrier really fast which in total make your eco weak

in conclusion; carrier is a very strong unit that can be fixed but just removing the release ability. The build time buff was enough to make them visible strategy on lotv

Would love to hear your commend about it

On August 07 2015 07:28 KingAlphard wrote:
The problem with release interceptors is you can't focus fire (unless they changed it). This makes them weaker in most situations compared to when they are controlled by the carrier.

The thing with carriers isn't just the building time though. Building time is a nice improvement but carriers will still be worse than tempests as a lategame unit because of their low range ( they are outranged by abduct, fungal, vikings, yamato cannons, tempests, etc. ) and also the fact that interceptors are expensive and will die immediately against a maxed out army + AA static defenses, resulting in thousands of minerals loss.



Prime example of a zerg player having no idea on how to engage a skytoss army. For me this is like a gif of a zerg player amoving hydras into sieged tanks and complaining that tanks are OP. You need to abduct carriers one by one, snipe them with corruptors and retreat.
You can do this without losing anything because abduct has a higher range than carriers. All you need to do this is time, so you need a spore crawler forest + a few infestor to prevent your opponent from actually killing you before you can abduct all his carriers.
Again this engagement looks exactly like it would in HotS, so if you use this to prove that carriers are OP in LotV you would also be proving that they're OP in hots, while we know that the opposite is true.

On August 09 2015 04:02 Nyast wrote:
I don't get it; even if carriers were OP, how do you get to snowball to such an army ?

In low numbers they're not really that good, so considering the insane macro Zerg has in LotV and the rate of depleting resources, Protoss is forced to take a third quickly and play a macro game in order to get to their "dream" carrier army.

But how does Protoss defend that third with just a few carriers ?

I see you guys mention 10+ canons, but wtf. Canons cost 150 each, and you'll need another 10 at the natural to survive ( otherwise Zerg can ignore the third and just go for a timing at the natural ). So you need 20+ canons to survive now..

So 20 canons, a third and multiple carriers to defend your bases, all of that at 6-7' ?

On August 09 2015 05:54 ZergLingShepherd1 wrote:
best way to balance it is to give PB more damage vs massive units or let PB target Interceptors like it used to be.

On August 09 2015 04:37 Tiaraju9 wrote:
"they can come out really fast"

That's not my experience playing the beta. I make my fast third base, the zerg scouts that I'm going to make carriers, he hits a timming where I have 3 or 4 carriers and I'm dead.

You can't sit back and let the oponnent build a 200/200 carrier army. In PvP, if I make 200/200 tempest army I'll win the game no matter what. Now I ask you: is this a problem in hots PvP for instance? No, because if you try to make such a army your oponnent hits a timing and you're dead.

On September 21 2015 23:35 BisuDagger wrote:


In a comparison, it seems like casting abilities are available in both games. Suicide scourge really make a difference though. I'm not sure anything in the SC2 Zerg arsenal can equal that level of air dps.

On September 21 2015 23:58 BisuDagger wrote:

There was one pro game a couple months ago that used carriers, but yeah scourge shutdown the ability to go carriers or arbiter. SC2 doesn't need that as you mention. I think an upgrade buff to infestor range should work. And maybe dmg upgrade for infested terrans.

On September 22 2015 00:05 wrj wrote:
Button line is,its not winnable on late game atm

On September 22 2015 00:06 CheddarToss wrote:

I don't like that. I can foresee that being absurdly OP in combination with Lurkers, maybe even with BLs. I would prefer an upgrade for Hydras that would increase their AA damage. That would also help Zerg against Terran air.


It is. It is even winnable on higher levels of skill (GM) let alone on lower ones, where balance is rarely the deciding factor. The key is having a lot of hydras and doing speedling harass and denying expos. You have to choke the Protoss and let him run out of minerals, and not play a NR30 game where at the end you engage his air army head on.

On September 22 2015 01:12 kiLen wrote:


So TLDR you are saying, don't let them get carriers. Well that mentality worked wonders in WOL didnt it? You can't have a unit comp which is unbeatable or absurdly strong, it will produce bad gameplay.

On September 22 2015 01:25 CheddarToss wrote:

Yes, that's what I'm saying you should be doing for now. The game is not even close to balanced in the earlier stages of the game, so why would you expect the late game to be balanced? Let Blizz do their work at balancing the most obvious issues and after those are taken care of, they will surely do something about Carriers, if they prove to be OP.

On September 22 2015 00:43 summerloud wrote:
this problem wouldnt exist if hydras were tier 1.5 and 1 supply like they should always have been before DB started to put his "more HP and terrible damage" design philosophy to SC2

On September 22 2015 01:39 crazedrat wrote:
WHen you attack the carriers with mass corruptor, make sure you divide your corruptors into groups so that they aren't all focusing a single carrier at once. You should be picking off carriers at least 2 at a time. Also you can add spores and spines, overmax, and then make sure to double max. You need like 7 bases really. And get some ultras, like 3 or 4 depending. Make sure to spread out the corruptor.... Etc.
I don't have a problem with mass carrier the bigger problem is when they have archon, tempest, carrier, ~voidray~, mothership, storm. It's ultra lategame but Zerg has nothing to deal with this. Feedback your viper, vortex your corruptors, shoot you down from a distance, no way to stop them expanding... It's ridiculous.
Closest counter I know is few broodlord, 3/3 corruptor, few viper, few infestor (NP mothership if possible), mass spores and spines, good attacks throughout the game... and if you can afford a double engage and kill a base, you may be alright.

Despite the balance issues, my biggest problem with airtoss is actually that I hate playing against it. It's boring. Really, really boring. The fight isn't even fun. It's a clumsy dumb fight. It takes 20 minutes to lead up to the fight. The whole time you're building these stupid unit compositions (pure corruiptor and spores and spines? That's the best you can?). 20 minutes the game itself is also boring, you just mass units and take bases. It's not rewarding to play at all. I don't know why protoss even enjoy this style. Even if it's strongest, as a protoss I would not play it. 20 m inutes... win or lose, next game. 20 minutes... repeat. I hate every game I play against this style, please balance it and make it more interesting somehow.

On September 22 2015 01:39 wrj wrote:


Sorry we try to change things.Carrier were op on HOTS as well and bliz didnt fix it and even if you didnt see them alot on HOTS,its mean it need to be op?so sorry if i dont trust bliz to fix stuff here.For real man swarm host were op for 1.5 year till fixed so unless we do something now it will be the same with carrier-2 years op till they fix it

On September 22 2015 01:52 CheddarToss wrote:

Your attempt to change the late game of a game in beta is misguided.

On September 22 2015 02:27 wrj wrote:


Do people read commends or what,i give feedback about op things on the beta so they change it whats wrong on it

On September 22 2015 02:31 CheddarToss wrote:

Your replay is not proof of Carriers being OP, that is what's wrong with it. People have given you good advice on how to deal with Carriers, yet you prefer to ignore it and keep whining.

On September 22 2015 04:13 DanteSSS wrote:
Just had to register to share my fun little experience with carriers.
So you guys remember Ultralisk with the new 8 armor in LotV? And the interceptors only deal rapid small zaps?
I tried letting a carrier attack an ultralisk ( both with full upgrades) and it took a solid ONE MINUTE to get to half health lol.
So from now on I'll just utilize >5 ultralisk with queen and hydra support to wreck his base as it's very unlikely that the toss has a formidable force on the ground (and even if he does, ultralisk :v ), while constantly expand and producing corruptors and brood lords.
Also the ultra comes out just as the carrier get full potential anw.
Edit: The only real threat is void rays which I'm more than happy to trade most my hydras for.

On September 23 2015 11:32 Axxis wrote:
Mods should remove this. Nothing constructive going on here, people have offered to help. People have asked for replays. Just balance whine about a beta test. . .

On August 07 2015 01:46 Railgan wrote:
would like to throw this gif into the discussion of me playing against mass carrier

http://gfycat.com/DirectOfficialGuernseycow

On September 24 2015 01:18 crazedrat wrote:
Even without the release interceptor protoss air is too strong. Mass PB might help along with corruptor, but it is such a dumb unit composition. Possibly give corruptors a better ability, because the one they have now is pretty useless. Maybe change the voidray to do less damage vs. armored. I don't see why Protoss needs this unit to focus down armored. ?

Possibly give corruptors a better ability, because the one they have now is pretty useless

Because of roaches. How else are you gonna kill them if you open air?

On September 24 2015 02:12 DinoMight wrote:
How does anyone manage to get to mass carrier playing against Lurker/Hydra pushes?

Unlike people who enjoy the abuse of carrier i act like a fair player,i ask for minimal and rational nerf same as i ask for nerf the broodlord+lurker+viper+corrupter combo cuz this is op as well vs terran so stop abusing stuff cuz you play protoss and admit somethings are op!

On September 24 2015 02:33 ROOTFayth wrote:
I personally don't make phoenix lately when I do that, I open 1g expo, add another gate, wp harass with 4 adepts while getting my 3rd and adding 3 stargates, usually I have 3 carriers out by the time a lurker push gets to my base, and then it's auto win because lurker not very good vs carrier

On September 24 2015 02:39 Cyro wrote:
I poke fun at the ones who are facing master-gm opponents and going straight lurker without scouting third base or inbase tech, there's been at least half a dozen of them so far. Lurkers are really good against ground though



I ask that they change it to an extention of your control of the 8 interceptors that you already have, there seems like no justification for the following stuff to happen:

interceptors no longer having leash range
interceptors no longer having control
interceptors no longer dieing when carrier dies
8 interceptor cap per carrier bypassed
interceptors exploding and costing 200 minerals per carrier per release to replace (this actually costs a LOT, oftentimes you're a little broke but it's like hey, just wait for 2k minerals before building any vital infrastructure or expanding because you have no interceptors)

If the release interceptor just acts as a way to control the interceptors that you already have (like being able to launch them at a ground location instead of a unit/building and then controlling them as normal, keeping leash range, not staying out or blowing up automatically etc) it would be a fun extension to micro and improve the ability and usability of the unit without buffing the combat or economic stats of it, it wouldn't have most of the problems that the weird new release interceptor mechanic has.

On September 24 2015 02:56 wrj wrote:


These are exactly the main problems and there is not even 1 good reason to keep them on the game and i am sure 90% of protoss players also think that!

On September 21 2015 23:07 BisuDagger wrote:
Bumping with this post:

Next, he made a strong tech swap towards zerglings with the adrenal glands upgrade

On September 24 2015 02:04 CheddarToss wrote:

Because of roaches. How else are you gonna kill them if you open air?

Well the point is Protoss shouldn't be able to kill every single unit with just a stargate.

On September 24 2015 02:04 Cyro wrote:
Release interceptor is fairly crazy. I have NO IDEA why it functions like it does and doesn't just act like a way to deploy interceptors regularly to a certain area of the map (instead of having to target a unit, even your own unit). If it just deployed them but they didn't deploy instantly, didn't stay out, didn't allow for carrier moving out of leash range and didn't get lost afterwards, it would be an added micro dimension to the carrier without being a balance problem.

Without that ability, zerg seems alright i think, at least much closer to balance. They can do well with economy and vipers are extremely strong



I've actually had some really good zergs screw me over with that. There was a kinda bad engagement where toss retreated to cannons and corruptors flew into toss base and ate the stargate pylons and fleet beacon then flew out again. In this particular case it abuses zerg being able to remax fairly fast while protoss needs to produce over time and losing 1 minute of production time can be deadly. They can also contribute heavily to crushing a nexus and/or static defenses instead of floating around doing nothing



As funny as it sounds, ultralisks too. Phoenix can't hit them, unupgraded ground units do not work at all against buffed crackling/ultra and carriers do half a damage to them because of their armor level. I don't know how good it actually is but some people do it at master level.

Void rays are not that amazing of a unit and the anti-armor damage mainly stands out against corruptors because corruptors can't AA well; if he's going VR heavy it's beneficial to play hydra-viper-spore-queen. Me+friend mainly mix in VR's as a response to corruptors and/or ultralisks.

They changed the corruptor ability. It doesn't mention a building attack, I assumed they removed it and replaced it. Am I wrong about that?.

Considering the corruptors are Zergs anti air, and they're armored, it's an essential problem.

But the overriding point is that Protoss should not counter everything with a stargate.

Why not? That's like saying that terran shouldn't be able to kill every single unit with mech. If a set of units has their own independant upgrades, production and researches then i don't see any problem.

It's not like people are not using a ton of templar to heavily support air toss - it's too good against hydralisk+viper to ignore due to storm and feedback shutting down some of the hardest carrier counters. Our games typically involve quite a lot of dark templar and zealots for base control and multi-pronged harassment too.

On September 24 2015 08:25 Cyro wrote:


It's been a week or so since i played air vs zerg, maybe i forgot one of the patch notes



That's why people are playing hydra-viper-spore or doing stuff like that stephano style ravager crackling. 8+ (sometimes more) vipers, a bunch of spore crawlers and most free supply on hydras is the hardest to deal with so far for me.

If you make corruptors and engage him when he doesn't have void rays (due to not building them or just having an army trade with you) you'll do ok. If you wait for him to counter your composition you won't do ok; corruptors are not very good in a situation where you both sit at 200/200 for 10 minutes and then hard engage on eachother.

On September 24 2015 08:25 Cyro wrote:


Again, why?

Okay well the crackling style relies on scattering your opponent around the map. That's not possible on alot of maps, and over time toss are going to learn to deal with that. I'm sure it's worth practicing but the problem of late game composition still remains. Ravager again it will work in the early game along with a bunch of crackings, but not as part of a late game composition.

There is just not a solid zerg composition that can go head to head with toss air. Toss are going to build voidrays

Because we need to be able to counter things.

The whole plan of 'build spores and spines' - but in the same breath say: "you cannot let the toss get maxed"

The high viper count is good but it's a desperation move and too much reliant on a few PB and lack of splitting

Because we need to be able to counter things.

Again, cracking ravager relies on moving the opponent around and this does not always work

As the metagame develops, what Zerg needs is a solid late game composition to deal with protoss mass air.

I am not commenting on TvP since I know nothing about it and it has nothing to do with this discussion.

Here we are discussing PvZ toss mass air

By the way, while we're on this dumb topic, Terran still needs a starport. They still need medivacs and vikings. Right?

On September 24 2015 10:19 crazedrat wrote:
Oh. So you get.... a few templar at the end and that's your argument? Even so the whole notion is irrelevant, this is just a word game.
I think we're already said everything meaningful about Toss air. I want the devs to look at this.
You aren't contributing anything except blabber at this point so we're done. Goodbye

On September 24 2015 09:08 Athenau wrote:
Mass air shouldn't be viable for any race because air blobs that kill everything while ignoring terrain are retarded.

it's like a 20 minute stalemate and then you collide in an uninteresting fight

On September 24 2015 14:53 ROOTFayth wrote:
you should really be annoying as hell though vs a protoss who's going full skytoss, you can't just let him take expands, otherwise you are kind of asking for a loss

On September 24 2015 19:27 Tyrhanius wrote:
Must be hard to do, but on the paper a infestor + ravager must kill this :
Fungal stun interceptors, then throw some corrosive bile on group of interceptors :
Interceptors have 40/40 hp, and fungal + corrosive bile do 30+60 dmg, so 1 corrosive bile can kill a fungaled interceptor.
Probably need some spores too protect your ravager + infestator, but worth testing imo.

Ofc old shool, mass spores + abduct must work too.

On September 24 2015 14:53 ROOTFayth wrote:
you should really be annoying as hell though vs a protoss who's going full skytoss, you can't just let him take expands, otherwise you are kind of asking for a loss

On September 24 2015 21:28 FLuE wrote:
If you go mass Ravs(like a ton of them) can you just pepper the sky and hit and run? Or do they simply just end up dying before you can get enough shots off?

On September 24 2015 21:51 wrj wrote:


I always end up being less cost efficient but maybe some pros can do it, and also let be honest here,13 ranage raveger is way too much and its 90% will be nerfed to something like 11 range and then i am not sure ravager will work well

On September 25 2015 08:48 DilemaH wrote:
So I just watched stephano face a mass air player and destroy him. Heres what he did:

1. Research melee/carapace upgrades. Begin making a ton of spores around the map, creating a split-map.
2. Mass counterattacks with 3/3 cracklings to deny bases and destroy infrastructure. They actually trade very efficiently with cannons. You want a few vipers to abduct the enemy army into your spore line so they can't end the game. While, you're stalling, get a huge bank and finish all your upgrades.
3. You want to bank a ton of resources. Stephano knows that, since the player has invested so much into a strong air army, their ground army is weak, therefore they have no way to do any real damage vs ultralisks. Ultralisks with max upgrades just cannot be killed by the air army. He also makes a ton of vipers and corruptors. From what I saw, he had 6-7 ultras, 10-12 vipers and the rest corruptors (with double upgrades of course.)
4. He engages. The protoss should have little bank and ways to replenish his army if he loses, but the zerg should be able to replenish his like 2-3 times. In the fight, he leads with the super-massive ultralisks to chase the templar away. He has a ton of overseers aswel so he assures that they die. Then, when they are far enough away, he runs in with the corruptors and vipers. He places all his energy in parasitic bombs and the corruptors do the rest. The parasitic bombs soften up the air and demolish voidrays, which naturally demolish corruptors. This works because the zerg has so much aoe, and the protoss' storms are chased away and killed by the ultralisks. If the templar moved forward into the ultras to storm/feedback, he would move back

Very convincing victory. If the protoss just did an all-in push into the spores, he could easily abduct them all in and have 3/3 cracklings demolish the remainder of the protoss' base.

I suppose if the protoss is going for an early voidray push, you could just make hydras.

On September 25 2015 11:19 crazedrat wrote:

If he destroys the toss with zerglings and takes so many bases, that's a win. I'm just looking ahead and I see this as a problem in the meta. If I'm being honest I also just don't enjoy the playstyle. It's very passive and the fight is odd. Anyway, the crackling solution isnt gona work on every map; it actually relies on the toss screwing up positionally (it puts the strain on them, certainly on maps like ruins, etc.); but there will be many games which reach ultra late game without toss being severely crippled. Moonlight cracklings don't work. It doesn't work all that great on Bridgehead either, or on Orbital. But yes this ultra / corruptor / viper is the army comp which Zerg shoots for at the moment. It's not really a magic bullet. Also, if you have 10-12 ultras... that's a ton of Ultras. About 70 food, you have about 60 food left for corruptors and vipers. I usually get 4 ultras. Did the toss have a ground / air comp in this game? Or was he basically all air?
Maybe this is a purely base killing comp. Did he fight the toss outside his base?
Pretty expensive to use that much money on ultras and throw away alot of your air like that. Sounds like not a typical game and stephano had mass cash which probably is not realistic for a good game.

On October 01 2015 06:06 XlorD wrote:
Basically you have to punish his fast tech with attacking midgame quickly before he gets more than 2-3 carriers. Problem is the PO, cuz it denies everything in this game

On October 01 2015 07:29 Matt` wrote:


Yep its completely broken protoss has basically infinite PO now, its impossible to do any pressure.

On October 01 2015 08:43 ROOTFayth wrote:

I dunno about that, I pressure a lot PvP, you can pressure you just can't mindlessly shove all ur units into the protoss

On October 01 2015 19:01 Matt` wrote:


Im talking about zvp and no you absolutely cannot do any pressure against good protoss, all it takes is a couple of pylons and 1 or 2 adepts to hold off infinite lings. They can take their third base with 0 risk now, and any midgame pressure is completely swatted away you basically HAVE to play lategame. It's a combination of PO and adept strength.

On October 01 2015 08:18 crazedrat wrote:
One thing to note about hydras is when they have 2 attack upgrades they kill interceptors in 1 less shot. Along with the strength of carapace upgrades, if you went for 2 fast evos before lair, skipping ling speed, for a 2-2 timing. .. let's say you know or suspect the enemy will go air, or the best strat is air on the map; or you dont need speed, etc. Such as on orbital or moonlight. Well you set yourself up for a strong timing with 2-2 hydras against likely 1-0 interceptors as the enemy is taking his 4th.
With the plus 2 attack upgrade hydras take 6 shots instead of 7 to kill an interceptor.
With 1 armor advantage over interceptors hydras take 20 shots to die instead of 16.
If you're lucky enough to have a 2 armor advantage you'd actually take 27 shots to die from interceptors.
So the carapace upgrade is really huge, it can change the life of your hydra from 16 potentially to 27, even with just 1 evo for a fast carapace upgrade if you get ahead of the protoss enough it's very good.
Also no one gets air armor fast so the ranged, once it reaches 2, is a big change.
Alternatively you can go for melee / carapace with just a very fast 1 evo before lair for carapace, hit with 1-2 (your hydras being 0-2), and your timing would be almost as strong while still having melee upgrades for a more adaptive opening and better lategame transition, etc..\
Another thing I've found that helps is if you defend the initial air harass with extra queens instead of spores you'll have 4 queens leftover for your push which can transfuse and tank damage when the protoss takes the 4th. Or simply spread creep if you don't go that route. But they can hold off oracle harass on a couple of the maps, at least initially, just 6 queens.