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On June 02 2010 04:34 Seltsam wrote:
Okay, since the OP clearly just wants everyone to shower him with praise, since he's simply launched into a personal attack on everyone who has offered him anything other than that, this thread is worth very little in terms of constructive discussion.
So far, every hypothetical scenario you've come up with has your build pitted against a clearly inferior force in terms of time and resources invested, and your replays (which I did watch, contrary to your assertion) pit you against opponents who clearly are of a lower caliber of skill, regardless of the league they are in. If I scouted and saw you had that little, I would immediately assume fast expand (which is easily scouted, to either confirm or deny), proxy (also easily scouted), or hidden tech. Fast expansions and fast tech can both be taken care of by an early push, which is what an experienced opponent would likely do. Unless they scout the corner of your Nexus, they're quite likely to learn that something strange is afoot.
Even, on the incredible off-chance that none of that happens, there is never "literally a 100% chance" that what you have won't be scouted.
Your build is nothing more than a high-tech cheese, which means you're relying on your opponents' being absolutely incapable of extrapolating information from their scouting. I don't feel that that is a strategy that will prove consistently viable.
But if it makes you feel better, FabledIntegral I will pretend to concede that your build is utterly flawless and that no one would ever be able to counter it with anything, that a superior player than one of your opponents doing a similar build to theirs would also be brushed aside by your impenetrable (and somehow magically un-scoutable) Carrier might. I will then proceed to avoid this thread in the future.
Good hunting.
Personal attack on anyone else? Get over yourself, you're the first person to show an ample amount of idiocy in this thread. The third friggin' reply in the thread was a criticism, in which I openly conceded that there was a flaw in the build! The next player who watched the incorrect reps was personally apologized to via PM as well as me openly stating I apologize for screwing up.
Concerning seeing "nothing" in the base, it's one scan in one area. How big is the base? How do you possibly expect to get 100% information from one scan about the opponent? People usually scan after their first mule.
One of the players went all-in marines vs me on close positions and while he did break through, the carrier annhilated the marines. And he was pumping from 4rax. Do you realize if you decided to do a standard FE yourself you won't have the necessary resources to punish your opponent? And most FE's start before the second scan.
I'm completely baffled at what skill caliber you are hoping to see, if, as said, you are playing vs someone in Diamond who is in fact high ranked. Are you now putting yourself on the same skill level as Idra and White-ra? Because if in fact you are, realize that the Protoss play would also in fact be much more solid in turn. Isn't that what we are looking for? Builds that will work on the Diamond ladder?
Lacking to find something in a single scan on a map with a large main like LT means almost nothing. Proxy on a four player map is anything but "easy to scout," as well, and by the time it takes you to scout the map for proxy the carrier will already be out, assuming you start scouting for it immediately after the first scan. Because, as said, the second scan often is scanned on the carriers. They could just as well assume that it is a DT rush that is being hidden, or a void ray rush (which is handled COMPLETELY differently, as seen by the person rank 2 in the Diamond rep who had 3x the APM as me).
I never said there was a 100% of not being scouted, just that in the reps I posted, 100% of the scans missed. I never said that it wasn't even a cheese. I was saying it wasn't necessarily an all-in, and could be yet another "viable build," to incorporate into the pool of builds. I NEVER said it should be a standard play.
What was your ELO rank before the reset? I'm quite curious to see how strong your play was, relatively.
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This build interested me as I have generally been in the Anti carrier crowd. I figured I hadn't used them in a bunch of patches, so I might as well see what they are about.
I spent a few hours today playing a bunch of custom matches of varying matchups to see how the carriers held up. I followed the OP's formula to the letter and finally made some slight alterations later to try and pump them out a little faster.
The first thing I noticed was the sheer amount of time it takes to pump them out on 1 base. I am just going to out and out say that 1 base carrier is not viable on any level. They are horrifically slow to build on this and utterly cripple your ability to make anything except zealots. Leaving you unbelievably vulnerable to a myriad of attacks. So I modified the build slightly to expand right around the time the first carrier comes out and the second one starts building so I could incorporate an additional stargate.
However for the moment let us assume 1 base play as specified by the OP. If I try to one base and push, I am pushing with 1 or 2 carriers tops and a fairly weak ground force. The nasty part of carrier play is how much food they require and thus all the extra pylons it forces you to build. I found that with one base play if the opponent wasn't stupid that the carriers just did not pack enough power to make up for the distinct lack of ground forces. The biggest problem I found with this was even sacrificing econ, the fastest I could get my first carrier on the field was 8:15. Given how depressingly few ground forces I had at that point, I feel had my opponent been better and pushed I would have been done.
Now before I continue, I would like to state for the record that carriers aren't gimp. At critical mass they pack a very significant punch, and their ability to attack and leave the interceptors fighting while they get out of danger is nice. My argument has always been and remains that the cost/time investment for them simply isn't worth it.They don't do anything that something cheaper can't do better.
With that in mind I switched to the two base build, sticking mainly to the OP's starting build and using the first carrier then 2 to defend my expo while continuing to mass ground and powering my econ. This yielded far better results overall, but still left me with the previous conclusion. Even with 2 bases running, it proved to be a struggle to pump carriers while maintaining enough ground presence to defend myself against pushes. I also fear that most of my opponents today were "less then stellar" players, as I noticed them making multitudes of mistakes that effectively ensured I would not be wiped out.
I applaud the OP for giving carriers another go and for that matter making us stop and at the very least give them another look. I feel carriers have a place in 2v2, 3v3 and even 4v4 so long as the team works together. Allowed to mass they are a fearsome thing to try and defend against. However for standard 1v1 play, they simply fail to live up to their extreme cost and time to build.
Perhaps with the above observations in mind, we need to stop looking at the carrier as a broken unit. It is not broken or underpowered for that matter. I think the problem is that is just does not fit into any role in 1v1 play. It obviously has a role in single player, and it can clearly be used in 2v2 and above play. It simply fails to fill any beneficial role in 1v1 and as such tends to get labeled as broken or underpowered.
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On June 02 2010 08:05 Dekoth wrote:
This build interested me as I have generally been in the Anti carrier crowd. I figured I hadn't used them in a bunch of patches, so I might as well see what they are about.
I spent a few hours today playing a bunch of custom matches of varying matchups to see how the carriers held up. I followed the OP's formula to the letter and finally made some slight alterations later to try and pump them out a little faster.
The first thing I noticed was the sheer amount of time it takes to pump them out on 1 base. I am just going to out and out say that 1 base carrier is not viable on any level. They are horrifically slow to build on this and utterly cripple your ability to make anything except zealots. Leaving you unbelievably vulnerable to a myriad of attacks. So I modified the build slightly to expand right around the time the first carrier comes out and the second one starts building so I could incorporate an additional stargate.
However for the moment let us assume 1 base play as specified by the OP. If I try to one base and push, I am pushing with 1 or 2 carriers tops and a fairly weak ground force. The nasty part of carrier play is how much food they require and thus all the extra pylons it forces you to build. I found that with one base play if the opponent wasn't stupid that the carriers just did not pack enough power to make up for the distinct lack of ground forces. The biggest problem I found with this was even sacrificing econ, the fastest I could get my first carrier on the field was 8:15. Given how depressingly few ground forces I had at that point, I feel had my opponent been better and pushed I would have been done.
Now before I continue, I would like to state for the record that carriers aren't gimp. At critical mass they pack a very significant punch, and their ability to attack and leave the interceptors fighting while they get out of danger is nice. My argument has always been and remains that the cost/time investment for them simply isn't worth it.They don't do anything that something cheaper can't do better.
With that in mind I switched to the two base build, sticking mainly to the OP's starting build and using the first carrier then 2 to defend my expo while continuing to mass ground and powering my econ. This yielded far better results overall, but still left me with the previous conclusion. Even with 2 bases running, it proved to be a struggle to pump carriers while maintaining enough ground presence to defend myself against pushes. I also fear that most of my opponents today were "less then stellar" players, as I noticed them making multitudes of mistakes that effectively ensured I would not be wiped out.
I applaud the OP for giving carriers another go and for that matter making us stop and at the very least give them another look. I feel carriers have a place in 2v2, 3v3 and even 4v4 so long as the team works together. Allowed to mass they are a fearsome thing to try and defend against. However for standard 1v1 play, they simply fail to live up to their extreme cost and time to build.
Perhaps with the above observations in mind, we need to stop looking at the carrier as a broken unit. It is not broken or underpowered for that matter. I think the problem is that is just does not fit into any role in 1v1 play. It obviously has a role in single player, and it can clearly be used in 2v2 and above play. It simply fails to fill any beneficial role in 1v1 and as such tends to get labeled as broken or underpowered.
Not going to lie, their build time is pretty long, but with chrono it isn't *too* bad is it? Personally, I disagree with them being too effective at critical mass - I feel like if you have TOO many carriers then your ground force is relatively weak and you can't punish them for massing TOO many vikings or corrupters, just because of how the attack is different than SC1. I originally was testing them lategame and found them only to be useful vs small numbers of units...
Mind posting your rep? I'm curious why you say it isn't viable amongst *any* level. Just wondering how you lost, as vs lower level players I went literally on something like a 30 game win streak without losing a single game. And a zealot/carrier force is very strong vs something like hydras, especially when all you have is excess minerals you can channel it into cannons vs someone like Zerg. Thanks for trying it at least.
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On June 01 2010 13:30 onmach wrote:
I know I for one would love to see carriers in the game. I wish there were as much outcry for them as there was for ultras.
ultras are weak.. carriers arent.. p got loads of good units, and diverse units.. so they dont rly need carriers.
zerg only uses few units.. and all of them are similar .. thus its why
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After trying it out much more extensively, I do agree it definitely needs to be a surprise build vs Terran. At least, they can't scout the stargate with the first scan. The biggest problem I've encountered thus far is being unable to kill the scout as my build doesn't incorporate a quick stalker, and even more so annoying, a reaper that's used to scout my base (and then it causes havoc after scouting the fleet beacon). If the player doesn't scout with a reaper and misses the first scan, I feel that the first carrier can do tons of dmg to a Terran's first push. I let one Terran scout me right away doing it, and I was utterly demolished, no chance. Another player scouted it as well and although I barely held it off, I was unable to scout what he was doing, which was in fact a 1 base all-in without expanding, which steamrolled my new expansion and lack of units (producing from 3 gates).
If they do scout the stargate, they typically assume a void ray rush, which will consist of a marine heavy push but it's not as bad as thinking carriers.
Playing against Zerg more as well, the Carriers do very well vs Roach/Hydra but the build is demolished by someone who keeps his drone in and as a result is able to drone whore and tech to mutas (and thus early early corrupters). I still think Carriers aren't terrible vs Z, but the rushing isn't as viable as maybe the forward gateway expand -> forge build and transitioning into phoenix + carriers and zealot/stalker.
A thing about the early game carrier and why it's somewhat strong is it's ability to kill something like 8 marines, and then regen most of it's shields really quickly due to the new mechanic. It's most noticable when Terran is trying to use early vikings, which would obviously be used to kill the carrier rather than the interceptors.
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Well here is the thing Fable.
Rushing straight to carrier, the fastest you can get one is around the 8:15 mark. In standard play I can have a fairly significant army or have ended the game by then against some opponents. So yes it is pretty bad even with chrono boost.
http://www.sc2rc.com/index.php/replay/show/7171
There is a replay of someone I play against fairly regularly. We have both been rated 1700+ plat (Before the diamond league), so we know what we are doing pretty well. Our current rank is one derived of screwing off testing builds because we find it easier to test ladder vs custom. In this replay you will note that I keep my mins/gas spent pretty effectively during the phase in question. Though i admit this is not one of my best matches. I won because T simply waited too long to harass me. If you look at his forces early on, he had more then enough to cause me massive headache before I had that first carrier. Especially on a map this small.
Btw, when I said carrier wasn't viable on any level I referred to it as a strat. Not the level of the league. I am sure that carrier is perfectly viable in lower leagues simply because those players won't know what to do with them. Yes I won this match, but it was only due to the other players generosity in wanting to play a macro game instead of an aggression game. I base my conclusions entirely off timing as at a diamond level of play that is more important then anything else.
http://www.sc2rc.com/index.php/replay/show/7174
Here is a replay of me doing some aggressive 4 gate play using a proxy pylon. I won't go into the details of the replay other then to simply point out the number of units I am using and the timing. This match is literally over not long after I could of pulled out 1 carrier and had a fraction of the ground force. I don't know what level this guy was, I suspect not very high level as I didn't even really scout him much and he still allowed a handful of units to break his wall and gain me vision for warps. Again though this is more for timing perspective then anything.
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The value of the Carrier compared to the Void Ray seems to come from two major mechanical differences. The Carrier's damage has range on static defense/ranged ground and has a mere 1.5-2 seconds of ramp up time. This allows for hit and run tactics which do not work as well with Void Rays.
I believe the reason why the OP stuck to 1 base play, and successfully, was largely because of the ability to FF the ramp without sacrificing an expansion. Most ground pushes do not include a way to get around a choked ramp aside from pure force or a lucky break in the wall. It's fairly natural for one base to either push out and try and break in against a FE, or wait to break the enemy's initial push before expanding (and countering their expansion).
Assuming the initial enemy push can be held or their expansion harassed, the Carrier comes at a good time for a counter push/finishing blow.
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I've tried it a couple of times, this actually works vs. low level diamond players. I fully expect to get steamrolled when I try this on better players because it takes FOREVER to get two carriers out. In fact getting air weapons +2 takes a SHORTER amount of time. I get that done before my carriers are even out.
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D: Now all you need to do is opt for the mothership then its perfect =)
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I think a lot of people are under the train of thought where they only think of carriers in an army vs army scenario. Carriers with the right positioning can technically take out an infinite amount of ground forces (say for example, you have 1-2 carriers over the cliffs over the natural on Kulas Ravine and they have no air units yet). Carriers have insane harassment potential - they don't have to charge up like voids, outrange most things, and can attack while moving. I would say it really depends on the map for carriers to be able to be abused though.
I'm only in high plat (as random) / low level diamond (as protoss), so I don't consider myself a great player, but someone I played against once used his carriers to great effect against me on Kulas. I was playing as random, and spawned as Z. During the course of my scouting I saw an early Stargate, so I assumed he was going voids and I transitioned into mass hydra. When no voids came and there were instead 2-3 carriers harassing my natural from the cliff, I decided to move out with my 25ish hydras, thinking that I would steamroll him (I even had range upgraded). Instead he continually abused carrier range and the terrain, my lack of creep expansion for hydra speed (my fault), and anytime I would try to get vision he would just focus down my overlords. He would also have sentries to FF if i got close to hitting the carriers and just pull back. I still had eco up and running so I transitioned to corruptors but they got focused down pretty easily too as by this time he had 4-5 carriers + a few voids and a pretty small ground army. I was also despairing at the fact that I was losing to carriers when my army size was almost constantly 3x bigger than his so I wasn't really thinking straight because I think I could've still come out on top, but I had pretty much given up. Eventually his carrier containment strategy prevailed as I could no longer expand and I ran out of minerals, while he continued to expo. Obviously there were a lot of things I could've done better but the point is that on certain maps carriers have crazy potential, so I can see where the OP is coming from.
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Seems like you'll have trouble with early aggression since you're teching so fast. I'll bookmark this and watch the replays tomorrow (It's 3 AM here). It's interesting and I'm glad to see people experiment with units  I hope this looks cool and I'll give it a try tomorrow against a friend.
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Yeah, ive been tryin to incorporate carrier play as well into my BO. I have a different BO and can get carriers FASTER, but at the cost of being vunerable to 6 pool and any 7 rax reaper rush (because ur fist stalker or zelaot comes out at 2.24 and 6 pool comes at 2.16 real time).
Btw, tnx for tryin new things and bein corageus to make new strats work.
Im platinum player myself (didnt had much time to play after they pronounced diamond league) and also protoss and terran player (i mix between both) and ppl havent really fully tested all units (and they can do that in unit tester and Qxc's BO map really easy) BUT... just one thought>>
something for all of u to consider >
One carrier does more dmg to ARMOURED in 10 seconds time frame THAN 2 void rays combined! Once again the price and the build time of one carrier is the same as 2 voidrays. (160 sec)
One carrier does waayyyy more dmg than 2 voidrays to LIGHT units in any timeframe.
Go to the unit tester and TEST one upgraded +1 weapons carrier against 2 +1 weapons voidrays. Carrier wins with 40 hp left (fast interceptors upgrade carrier wins with 80 hp left!!!)
Carrier has 12 operational range (yes i know it has a range of 8) which means it will attack at 8 range BUT u can move carrier away further 4 more range and the interceptors will still do their job wich means any kind of viking micro against them is impossible.
Carrier has a 2 base armour , voidray has 0. (so for example if u have a sentry beneath ur carrier/s and cast guardian shield how much dmg marines can do? )
When hitting criticall mass od them (+3) if the opponent isnt ready in advance for that force he is dead. (for example if he sees 3 carriers and say.. "ohh ok im gonna build counter for them NOW" instead of allredy build counter).
Disatvantages>
- Again, they are not slow to build, their build time is same as 2 voidrays and at the same cost (4 more interceptors included) but they do require extra tech building.
- Interceptors can be shot down.
- they are very slow compared to say tier 3 colossi which go fine with ur main army while carriers do fall behind and u need constantly to babysit them.
- u absolutely NEED that +1 weapon upgrade for them to be more cost effective than voidrays, and also need that fast deplyment upgrade as well for them to trully shine,
- while building them u are left with a small army and in hero mode untill first carrier arrives to save u if they rush.
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When i play TvP, i end up making a delayed reaper so that i can scout his base, and save myself 300 minerals.
The reapers sees just about everything in their base. So unless they made a proxy this wouldnt work because id see it and go early aggro or even just start pumping vikings. (the reaper comes in at around the time you mentioned the starport making.
However, its good to see that people are using the carrier, its one of my favorite units from sc1 and its always great to hear new strategies using it.
And i wouldnt assume that its a void ray rush if the carrier were already being made, because there is a special animation when you warp in carriers that is distinct from the void ray one.
Also, in this same build i generally push out with 12-18 marines and 3 ghosts at around 6:30 mark. (when my stim and combat sheild have finished).
So say i did that, you have a small amount of zealots, and 1-2 sentries for FF. Now EMP the sentries and zealots. FF disappears really fast like, and the zealots have no shield get mowed down by stim. the carrier gets out at around 8:15 at the earliest right? that gives me a minute and fifteen seconds to kill your stargate and all your probes and pylons.
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I've been looking for at least some intelligent attempt at Carrier usage, and I personally only had success with 1 base Carriers, so with that thanks for posting this thread.
Unfortunately, this feels flimsy IMO. It is hard to defend against harass as well as early aggression, is possible to get scouted, and when it has worked for me it feels like a win that comes purely from the opponent being utterly unprepared.
Now, that isn't to say that 1 base Carriers can't be refined. I think those feelings I had were from defaults in my own play (I was ~D on ICCUP).
The only thing I want to know is if you have tried any 2 base/early expand Carrier strategies. It seems if you played defensively you could still have a solid army of Carriers and gateway units while running off of two bases would remove a lot of the cheesy feelings.
It seems like a Carrier and gateway unit army could be one of those things where you play defensively and focus on getting a macro advantage early on, scrape by the midgame, and then become very powerful in the late game.
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On June 28 2010 16:19 DocM wrote:
When i play TvP, i end up making a delayed reaper so that i can scout his base, and save myself 300 minerals.
The reapers sees just about everything in their base. So unless they made a proxy this wouldnt work because id see it and go early aggro or even just start pumping vikings. (the reaper comes in at around the time you mentioned the starport making.
However, its good to see that people are using the carrier, its one of my favorite units from sc1 and its always great to hear new strategies using it.
And i wouldnt assume that its a void ray rush if the carrier were already being made, because there is a special animation when you warp in carriers that is distinct from the void ray one.
Also, in this same build i generally push out with 12-18 marines and 3 ghosts at around 6:30 mark. (when my stim and combat sheild have finished).
So say i did that, you have a small amount of zealots, and 1-2 sentries for FF. Now EMP the sentries and zealots. FF disappears really fast like, and the zealots have no shield get mowed down by stim. the carrier gets out at around 8:15 at the earliest right? that gives me a minute and fifteen seconds to kill your stargate and all your probes and pylons.
No. Earliest carrier comes out at 5.30 minute mark without cutting a single probe, playing standard and having 2 warpgates, also 3 zelots and 2 stalkers. Just did a test in qxc's BO tester.
I have no idea who said 8.15 and how and where did he got that number, just simply isnt true. Do a carrier rush in BO tester and see for urself.
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As much as I liked BW Carriers, this is obviously a tech-cheese build akin to DT opening or whatever which relies on your opponent not knowing what's going on - in fact weaker than DT opening in many ways since it puts you so much further behind due to the costs - and quite frankly the "I place my Stargate away so you can't scan it and you'll be surprised" is copper league talk :\
I can't imagine any half-decent player NOT using a worker to scout your early BO; just as I can't possibly imagine any half-decent player NOT finding your "hidden" Stargate or not smelling there's something weird afoot when they see your buildings minus the Stargate. Doesn't take a genius to work it out, really.
As for one Carrier killing tons of Marines... I'm not 100% positive about this, but doesn't a pack of 10 stimmed marines pretty much insta-kill interceptors? Likewise a bunch of Hydras doesn't have to snipe your Carrier, they can just keep killing your interceptors and you're going to run out of minerals to replace them, lol.
EDIT: did a bit of testing and well... Carriers on 5:30 is a load of bollocks, didn't need to run any maps to figure that out but still. The earliest you'll manage is around 7:10, give or take, and this is WITHOUT building a sentry or indeed any other units at all. You can expect all kinds of very potent timing pushes by 7-8 minutes most of which will kill your Carrier btw, vs T you could have 20 Marines with a pair of Medivs in your base at that time. Furthermore, you're barely able to continue making Carriers off 1 Stargate gas-wise, there isn't even any room for the +2 upgrade; even Graviton Catapult cuts into your Carrier building time... You might as well make a Mothership instead, it'd probably work better. 
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This build would not work against higher-level players due to one huge factor: scouting. When they see one gate, one core they know something's up.
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5.30 real time. 3 zelots and 2 stalkers, normal build order, no probe cuts.
If 7.10 real time is the earliest u can get them then how can i assure u that ur SO wrong? I have to go to sleep now ill upload a replay later.
Check a bit ur APM and qxc's BO tester... btw in what league are u in?
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Sorry but any kind of tech tree rush will be demolished if scouted by any decent player. And, carriers are the top of the tech tree therefore taking the longest. You can't possibly suggest this as a standard strategy. It's a thing that MAYBE you can get away with once against a decent player.
If fact I challenge you to try it against me when the beta comes up
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Carriers are never viable.
Terrans have vikings that are easily made and own them way too hard.
Zerg has corruptors which after a spire are easily mass produced. Good speed, good damage and 2 amor really screws up carriers.
PvP they can work as they can actually fight stalkers and voidrays a bit but in PvP teching to them is sheer impossible. If the game doesn't end with gateway play it sure does with colossus play, especially since FF can be removed by colossi teching hard is just impossible.
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EPT
