On January 10 2011 17:00 closey wrote:Shameless copying my guide from the official forums:
(But hey, it's my own guide!)
WARNING: WALL OF TEXT AHEAD
*Note: Any italics are special terminologies I made up on the spot. You can find their meaning
hereIndex(use search function to jump):
1. Introduction (INTR)
2. The Psi-Storm (PSII)
3. The build (BULD)
4. Important details (IMDE)
5. Micro technique and gimmick stuff (WEEE)
6. The ADS special (FUNN)
6. Natural enemy (ENDD)
(INTR)
OK, although stating the obvious
The carrier is the best ship for spell castingYeah, for real.
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So...What are we talking about?[/size]
Since interceptors are greatly favored amongst many carrier players, many spells of the carriers have been overlooked. Look back in your past 10 games. How many barrage have been fired? Take a count at the feedback that's been used. When is the last time you see a vortex?
Waste! It's a waste! You are negating the most awesome part of the carrier by going pure ceptors, You are LIMITING YOURSELVES!
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Free your mind[/size]
Apart from the
closed opening for carrier, stop getting catapults! Ceptors are no fun anymore. You have wasted enough ceptors for the rest of your life. Time to learn something different:
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The Electromagnet Storm[/size] (PSII)
But I prefer calling it the Psi-Storm.
What is it?The Psi-storm is an AoE spell of the carrier. It carries the following characteristics:
1. It deals gradual damage over a period of time. Precisely, 160 damage over 5 seconds.
2. It is instant cast.
3. It damages friendly units like other AoE spells.
How's it advantageous for you?The build for caster carrier revolves heavily around psi-storm. Over 80% of the game you will be using psi-storm over and over again, and be relying on it. Psi-storm consists of the following distinct advantage:
1. This spell does 160 damage on an area over a short period of time. It will kill small units quickily and swiftly, especially the creeps which gives you money. Also, it is of great use when helping an ally dealing with
biters chasing them. While its damage is lampshaded by other unit's AoE, 160 is ALL you need through out the game as you will be aiming at the creeps mainly.
2. A spell that is instant cast can be combined with the
Psi-fart to prevent stalling of your ship. Mobility will be the least of your worry if you are constantly on the move and smart to not stay behind too much.
3. Friendly fire you say? That means apart from killing enemy creeps, you can use it to kill your OWN creeps. While it gives you no money and kills, it would deny your opponent some farm to a certain extent.
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OK I get it I get it! What next?[/size]f (BULD)
Constantly lay down storms and upgrade energy. A little later into the game when you can cast 3 storms in a row, this will be a cue when you start turning into a OP farmer. Do not be surprised when you are getting 3~4 times the amount of kills than your teammates later. This is NATURAL.
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And?[/size]
Figure the rest on your own!
Just joking. The reason I wrote this article is so you don't need to. Generally once you reach 300 energy, it's time for 'fun'. Apart from warp(which I assume you have), warp technology will be favorable if your team is on the offensive position, else, you can skip it for later and keep upgrading your energy.
The OpeningStandard
closed opening is absolutely must. After that, depending on how well you farmed on your first farming run you will be choosing between:
1. Immediate warp storm----if you farmed over 200 minerals before 5 minutes, go for it! Get a warp(to get to the field fast) and a storm(for the storm) and start storming. You only have 1 storm initially, so choose your first psi-storm wisely. Predict where enemy creeps will come and BOOM! You will be left with 50 energy so stick with your teammates and shoot with them till you can lay down another storm for extra money. And upgrade energy when your team is retreating.
2. Extra lasers-----This might not be your fault, but if you have failed to gather enough minerals for a warp and a psi-storm before 5 minutes, it is VITAL to get 3 more laser upgrades to 1 shot level 2 creeps past the 2 minute mark. It is not a shame to be unable to gather enough minerals early, it can happen.
After that, it's straight forward. Upgrade as much energy as possible, and when you have extra minerals to boot, get warp technology. Warp in to the front, lay down as many storms as you can, and warp back to upgrade more and warp back to the front again. A few well placed storms will net you 300~700 minerals, added bonus if they are sending out on
biters.
*Note: storms WILL loose their effectiveness against
biters over time, so do not hesitate to lay down multiple storms to get rid of high level interceptors to prevent them to lay down too much damage!*
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Awesome! Anything else?[/size] (IMDE)
Not much. Be it feedback or emp, once you get too much energy even when your energy returns to zero you will regenerate them fast enough to lay down storm after storm. Most annoying might be the lockdown, which will stop you from casting your delicious spells even if your have energy. But then, once it wears off you can immediately storm the hell out of everything.
In addition, caster carrier is quite weak in the beginning. You will be using every trick you have up your sleeve to hang in there before the goodies arrive. More on that later.
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Later? More like, NOW![/size]
Yeah, "storm and storm and storm" pretty much covers up everything basic. I'm amazed how long I managed to drag it out. But apart from storm, there are a few important things that you should know. Some I have repeated in the OP ray guide, but I have to repeat them here:
Know where your enemies areApart from turning enemies into red, enemy capital ships show up as a large blob of red which is fairly easy to spot. The next thing you should do is...count. Keep count the number of large dots are on the mini-map. If they are engaging your teammates or your creeps, they will show up. The best scenario is that you see 6 red blobs very close to your base with half your team occupying them while you hog a lot of farm. However what if some are missing on the mini-map? That is when you need to think of the possibilities...
1. They are afk/noobs and are still sitting in their base. A great scenario, but don't bet on it.
2. They are walking out from their base ready to give you a good spanking. Unless there are multiple mukes/void rays (yamato/plasma barrage/Bio-Plasma discharge) that is coming towards you, you can still get away safely.
3. They are in the void area where your creeps don't reach. They might trying to ambush you. You can usually notice this when you see 6 ships ahead and all of a sudden, half of them disappears backwards into the void.
OH SHIT! RUN!Knowing where your enemies absolutely helps you on this topic. For example, if you are getting hit by 2+ mukes, you will most likely be out of shields. But don't panic! First you need to know where the mukes come from---if all of them come from ahead of you(i.e. their base), you can probably run straight home like a little squirrel. But chances are, some of them are from behind you and if you just run straight, you are dead as they will intercept you, fire another muke to finish you off forever and ever.
Avoid enemies in a huge arc. If all of them are coming towards you, you can probably run towards one of their towers, past it (taking a few hits) and into the void where creeps doesn't reach. This gives you 2 advantage: The creeps doesn't harm you anymore, allowing your shields to moderately recharge and two, the enemies cannot see you while your creeps will be spotting for you. You can then choose to run along the side of the map sneakily to avoid them(if they don't do a wild guess and chase) or if they do bend towards the corner, get help. Keep your screen on them so you see which direction they're heading and use the minimap to issue orders for your ship and direct it to safety.
This is of course assuming your entire team are douche bags and won't warp in to save you. Once in the dark, if some of your teammates warp in they can help fend you off as well, sometimes even making a counter and kill.
Use pingBling! How do you do that mini-map bling-bling thing which makes an alert and a sound? Hold alt and click on where you want the alert to appear. Don't spam it pointlessly! They are generally for the following purpose:
1. Alert and organizing teammates of a lone enemy ship for ganking
2. Responding to previous alert
3. Call for help. You probably need to type out, in caps, "HELP" along with the ping. Probably click it a few more times to depending how much you are panicking.
4. General alert of dangers, write something like "careful, all 6 enemies gathered there!" before doing the ping or your team will rush to their doom before you can say "don't go!"!
(WEEE)
The step-ceptThe carrier will be lacking in dps against other builds. To compensate for the lack of damage you are doing, it's time to call in some friends: the interceptors.
Many players make the mistake of launching ALL interceptors from afar towards enemy ships. WRONG! By doing this, you are making the following mistakes:
1. Your ship will slow down and come to a halt by the time all your
biters launch, making you a sitting duck if exposed, or making you unable to catch up with your team and fire your lasers. Your
biters are support roles. Lasers and missiles are what hurts early game.
2. Your
biters are weak early. Doing this will allow your enemy to kill them off at leisure without worry. Free minerals for them, NOM.
That's where the move step-cept comes in. With the improved interceptor launching mechanism, it is POSSIBLE to launch your biters while keeping constant speed. Here is how you do it:
1. Make your ship move towards enemy
2. Press "R", and click on enemy ship like normal, but here comes the catch:
3. Immediately before you slow down, move again without launching all interceptors. Repeat step 1 and 2. You can launch all 10 by repeating this 5 times if done perfectly, without slowing down at all.
Added bonus if you can kill their biters first, and launch them at close range so your ship tanks the shots for your biters, allowing them to continue doing damage with your main ship.
The psi-fartCasing the electromagnet storm will cause your ship to come to a complete halt. While this is OK when you have your entire team covering for you(still no good), it will be DEADLY to you when you are running away, and wish to cast a storm behind you to destroy the biters chewing you off. You cannot afford to stop. You mustn't!
Master the
psi-fart, a technique which allows you to cast psi storm on the move:
1. Cast electromagnetic storm
2. Immediately, hold down shift and right click. if you're on the offense, you can right click on the same spot you stormed and chase course later. If you are running, you will need to be very quick when clicking the opposite direction of your storm!
3. if needed, do a normal right click to cancel orders. The point of psi-fart is to maintain your speed, so mis-clicking empty space is OK. Practice makes perfect.
Forced stallTaking advantage of how the psi-storm makes your ship come to a complete halt, if you wish to go backwards but no matter what you are going in a huge arc, might help to come to a complete halt. Just storm anywhere.
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How to storm[/size]
Remember how I said a few well placed storms will net you 300~700 minerals? How to place the storms is the key:
Notice how the creeps come from the base, the left tower and the right tower? And they all fly in formation in a straight line once launched? Picture a thick line along their routes. We can call each of them one 'lane'. Notice there is also three mini 'lanes' among each lane? You need to find that out first. Once you can picture a nice, straight line which will tell you where the creeps are going, you have got the basics!
1. Storm ahead. Since psi-storm does damage over time, the way to exert maximum damage is to storm ahead of said target, so they stay in the storm for the longest period of time. This is especially important towards the later of the game as creeps gain more and more hp.
2. Storm between you and the creeps. The psi-storm, once it scratches even one creep, will attract the entire lane(large) towards you. Storming in between you and the creeps will ensure every single creep in the lane pass through the storm and doom.
3. Storm where your creeps are passing! No you don't get money from it, but you will deny your enemy of creeps to kill and less money for them.
4. Storm yourself. Really, 160 damage is NOTHING. Even a void ray can stand there and eat the entire 160 damage while laughing. Biters can't. The point of this is to get rid of the high level biters that are swarming around you. If can't kill them with your first storm when they're nicely lined up, this will make a difference between kill or killed. You kill the biters? You eat less damage from them, at the cost of just 160 extra damage from yourself.
5. Death before dishonor! Since psi-storm does friendly damage, attempt suicide if you sure you're going to die. At least those scumbags won't get money when they killed you. And quit the game before your ship blows up so your teammates gets the bonus minerals split from you.
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Well...all you have been talking is storm. Where are the big guns?[/size](FUNN)
Since you will be focusing on your energy a lot, your physical dps will likely be lower than average. While barrage spam sounds fun, the 12 seconds stun time can actually be quite dangerous for you so make sure you know what you are doing! But if you really want a big gun...behold the
ADS special:
Feedback + Storm + Barrage
Consuming a whopping 350 energy for this super combo, This combo can deal a maximum of 2560 damage on one target over 6 seconds with no penalty. If you have energy, add another round of psi storm, no, TWO more round of psi storms in your victim's way.
Since feedback and storm are instant cast, you can chain it with barrage pretty darn well. And since you are a caster build the 12 second of stun time on barrage should regenerate you the majority of 350 energy back, making the ADS special quite spam-able.
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Your Natural Enemy[/size] (ENDD)
Your natural enemies:
1. Lockdown Destroyer. This is seriously PAINFUL since your build relies on spells so much. If this happens, quickly disengage and get away from said destroyer. Your spells do have higher range than lockdown anyways!
2. Team Feedback: Having an almost unlimited supply of energy can backfire on you sometimes. If your opponent has 2+ carriers with trigger-happy feedback, you will be taking a regular 600 damage every few seconds. Sine your energy is so high there really is no way to prevent this damage. Just get the heck out of there.
3. Early corruptors: What!? Yeah, corruptors, while they appear to be weak against psi-storm, they can take two storms each on the minimum. It is a huge waste to try storm them---abuse their slow speed and run away from them. Your storm are best saved for the creeps!
4. Rangers: Since most spells has short range ships with extreme range will screw you up pretty bad, especially at the 'warp back to upgrade' bit. Watch out.
5. Your own teammates: Even the mighty Darth Vadar's has his weakness: his legion of incompetent Storm Troopers. Get your own team of Jedi Knights while you fire up your psi-storm!
Happy hunting!
EPT
Nice build.
