I tried today my new idea involving Void Rays and later Carriers and Mothership. I failed pretty hard all game long, because it was my first game of day and first test of this strategy ^^, but still won it pretty easily. Would this be viable? I am in gold division and got beta key eight days ago.

Replay: http://www.sc2rc.com/index.php/replay/show/997

keV.

United States3214 Posts

April 09 2010 12:52 GMT

I think it is definitely viable, just have to be careful not getting overrun by gateway stuff before your tech finishes. P ground isn't a great counter to P air, that is certain. Stalker v VR isn't bad but its not favorable like Marine v VR. Stalker v Carrier is completely impossible. It's really good if the toss tries to go fast robo and doesn't get an obs first.

Amber[LighT]

United States5078 Posts

April 09 2010 13:10 GMT

It's viable, but up until the mothership got destroyed in that patch in early March, I haven't made them at all. I love how your opponent walked right into your cloaked units with no obs... lol what was he expecting? He even had the obs over your fleet beacon + 1 stargate.

This build might be better if you use the phoenix strat, if you have the micro to pull it off.

TwilightStar

United States649 Posts

April 09 2010 13:12 GMT

I've been experimenting a little bit with protoss air builds, and in PvZ I found phoenixes to lift up queens (to kill them) is somewhat effective, it's like a corsair that can attack ground

Bane_

United Kingdom494 Posts

April 09 2010 13:36 GMT

With a stargate-focussed build would it be worth getting the +1 air attack first instead of warp gates?

GoDannY

Germany442 Posts

April 09 2010 13:50 GMT

I tend to go warpgate first, since once I get some more phoenix Zerg tends to switch to mass hydra where warpgate is absolutley neccesary. If you use your phoenix also later in the game the +1 upgrade is definatley worth it, even if you just hit and run overlords/overseer or collosus.

Anyway I think a that hard tech is not viable. Adding Voidray instead of Colloss / Immortal works quite well (last played it before the reset tough) but you have to manage to do some harrass since voidrays are veeery expensive and gas heavy.

Teching hard to carrier wouldn't work since they are very vurnerable in small numbers to stakers and sentries. If you have a slight advantage in macro terms (e.g. got the gold expo earlier and denied his) you can happily try to do that hard switch (never did it myself tough). I'd imagine that this also has a huge psychologic effect on the enemie like "woot 5 carriers already"?

iaretehnoob

Sweden741 Posts

April 09 2010 14:29 GMT

also: is it just me or do void rays lose to carriers for cost, as they all die before their attack charges up?

(and somehow I still fail at storming carriers, since AoE is so small and you have to aim at the ground below them...)

Welmu

Finland3295 Posts

April 09 2010 17:15 GMT

Yeah, Phoenixes would work better. I just wasted 4 Void Rays for nothing in that game =/. Maybe 1 Phoenix for scout and then Carriers/Mothership would be good? If I would mass Phoenixes there is no point to get carriers =D (and I want to make em work)

Markwerf

Netherlands3728 Posts

April 09 2010 21:43 GMT

Carriers are crap against a toss ground army, stalker/sentry beats it quite hard because of guardian shield. Every interceptor doing 2 less damage hurts alot and stalkers got decent DPS against air.

I don't really know how the new voidray does against stalkers, i think stalkers still beat them pretty effectively in which case going air is still not really viable.

WorkersOfTheWorld

United States619 Posts

April 10 2010 01:36 GMT

#10

I won most of my PvP matches this week with void rays, but i had been for a while. Just amazing how few protoss check for proxy stargates in PvP. Mass zealots at your ramp, advertise to you opponent that you certainly need to be punished by colossai, bait him out when his colossus pops, send in however many rays you have (i usually have 4-6 depending on how much early agression there was) to demolish his pylons, and then engage his army (make sure to kill the colossus first ofc.

Continue to use those rays to harass, amass even more gateway units (or expand if you only got a slight advantage), and finish him off.

Alou

United States3748 Posts

April 10 2010 02:04 GMT

#11

I use voids in PvP to harass. They were great at destroying expansions that were just getting up and sneaking around the back to kill assimilators real quick. I dont go carriers much though. Usually transition into robotics and pump out immortals and colossi after that.

WorkersOfTheWorld

United States619 Posts

April 10 2010 02:12 GMT

#12

On April 10 2010 11:04 Alou wrote:
I use voids in PvP to harass. They were great at destroying expansions that were just getting up and sneaking around the back to kill assimilators real quick. I dont go carriers much though. Usually transition into robotics and pump out immortals and colossi after that.

Exactly. Rays are really just a transition unit. I've found the carrier and mothership to be units that just aren't viable unless i've already far out-macro'd my opponent, regardless of what his race is.

roymarthyup

1442 Posts

April 10 2010 04:05 GMT

#13

im a plat toss and ive found economically as long as my enemy doesnt out macro me, spending ALL my resources on void rays and my leftover minerals on zealots out of 2 gateways will beat any army my enemy has, even mass stalker + a couple sentry or pure mass stalker

mass void rays + spending your leftover minerals on zealots when you run out of gas is unbeatable as toss in my opinion

never focus fire with the void rays, just attack-move with them. if the void rays focus a target and kill it in less than 3 seconds, they will not ramp up their damage

in fact some times when you attack-move your void rays they focus the same target so sometimes you need to select 4 void rays and make them attack a seperate target and keep doing this until all your void rays are attacking different targets to ramp up

if your enemy gets blink stalkers you get speed void rays (which outrun blink stalkers). still do not focus fire blink stalkers just attack-move your void rays

dont get speed zealots. that 300 gas is better spent on 2 more void rays

Markwerf

Netherlands3728 Posts

April 10 2010 12:53 GMT

#14

That's quite odd then roymarthy as 2 stalkers beat a voidray quite easily despite being cheaper by 50 gas. When the numbers get bigger this is even more clear as voidrays don't really benefit from focus fire in the way you explained while stalkers obviously do.
Your spare mineral zealots won't help win that as his zealots will be better with upgrades they share with stalkers, whereas you have to choose which one to upgrade.
I just can't see the use in voidrays for PvP at plat level as they require a hefty investment (stargate) for something that is quite easily countered by stalkers with blink. Increased speed may make them better as a harassment tool but that costs quite a bit as the fleet beacon is so damn overpriced.

It's also hard to keep him from just pushing your base with voidrays as the defensive advantage in PvP is minimal. As far as harassment goes they are 'ok' but i'd rather go with warp prism + colossus or simply colossus which are far better at killing probes.

Whiplash

United States2928 Posts

April 10 2010 12:58 GMT

#15

I will try a voidray into carrier build, its pretty easy to just block off your choke to a ground army and then you harass with void rays into getting carriers, sounds like a potentially solid strategy.

Alou

United States3748 Posts

April 10 2010 14:13 GMT

#16

I usually use warp prism to attack from the back of the base simultaneously. I'll sneak it in and just begin warping in zealots. Attack the probes while I move in the front with my army. Usually he gets caught in between and I can break any front static defense apart.

Edit - For harassment, I don't target probes. I usually target the assimilators (Protoss need gas so bad and that extra time means you can transition to immortals and still be close to them if they went for robotics first) or if I don't see any stalkers the nexus itself. Usually I can get away with taking down the whole nexus if I get there with two early enough.

xzidez

Sweden147 Posts

April 13 2010 11:02 GMT

#17

I've faced this twice recently an both time they failed hard : ( Stalkers with blink just chase down the void rays while they are trying to harass and suddenly you play 1 vs 3 bases. With the stalkers that he used for the voidrays there is no way you will get enough carriers before you get obliterated.

Mass stalkers then a pair of colossus to tear down the defense seems to be a pretty solid counter to this.

Markwerf

Netherlands3728 Posts

April 13 2010 12:35 GMT

#18

voidrays suck pvp don't bother making them. They were 'ok' before but they were nerfed in damage against armor, were made more expensive and lost a point of armor. In other words stalkers chew them up now. Carriers are not really worth the tech in any matchup imo as they are simply countered too easily for the effort it takes to get them. Vikings, corruptors and stalker/sentry all beat them cost effectively and are all relatively easy to mass. In pvp it's insanely hard to tech to them as well as the defensive advantage is very little, even expoing is hard in this matchup let alone missing 300 200 for the damn fleet beacon. The mothership itself might be worth it for vortex, but I would only consider that when sitting at 180 pop.

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