|
UPDATE: Gotten rid of incorrect replays, checked them all and added descriptions of how the games went! Sorry for putting in the TvP's I was playing, I've been experimenting with a 15 CC build that I was using when the beta first started (apparently TLO has done it since then) into heavy mech (4 facts). Lots of success there too since of the Immortal nerf  .
So looking at a more recent topic, Carriers were discussed and the general opinion was that they were subpar to their SC1 counterpart.
However, I have been messing around with carriers lately, and I've been trying out a 1-base carrier rush. And I mean rushing right to carriers.
I've only lost a single game to another player so far using it, but then again, I only have about ~9 tries vs Diamond ranked players (yet around 30-0 vs plat and below). However, the one game I lost I definitely still could have won, I was just caught with my pants down as two of my carriers were on the wrong side of hte map as a roach/hydra force crushed my natural, and I killed the roach warren stupidly in his base instead of the hydra den, and such. I'm still getting used to playing Protoss as a whole, as I've never played them in the beta really until the last week (Zerg is my main, I was rank 1 Plat in my division and ~1900-1950 before the reset).
The strategy goes...
9 pylon
13 gateway
14 assim
15 assim
17 pylon
18 zealot
get core as soon as minerals allow after zealot, and build a stargate in a remote location in your base you don't think they will scan. as the core finishes, your second unit is a sentry, and immediately after you lay down the stargate you start teching +1 air weapons. as soon as the stargate finishes, a fleet beacon, and then obviously a carrier right after. Chrono the carrier, and it should finish around the time +1 air weapons finishes. You're pumping zealots constantly from your gateway as this is occuring. Don't show the first carrier unless they are rushing and you need it. Also get +2 air weapons as soon as +1 finishes, and get carrier upgrade for fast deployment (almost kills a viking instantly with the first hits).
If you're playing vs Zerg, you get a forge with your excess minerals and expand to a natural with cannons while you move out with two carriers and your zealot/sentry force is to defend at home (the sentry is to FF early rushes and buy times, you'll usually have 2 FF and almost a third ready by the time a typical rush hits).
It works both in PvT and PvZ. Not at all PvP though for obvious reasons. I like to transition into zealot legs
http://www.2shared.com/file/BBsHgnRr/Lost_Temple__157_.html
+ Show Spoiler +PvT vs a Diamond player on LT cross positions. Misses scouting carriers on his first scan. Goes rax with reactor -> factory with tech addon -> starport. Sends first dropship to my base to scout my build, sees carriers, immediately pushes out with 10 rines + 2 tanks before Carrier has finished. Immediately also builds a reactor on his starport to mass vikings. Hold off first push by delaying with FF and carrier mops up 10 marines and two tanks easily by itself.
http://www.2shared.com/file/oz192vID/Lost_Temple__156_.html
+ Show Spoiler +PvZ vs a Diamond player on LT close positions. Goes 13 pool -> expand. After seeing me one base he builds two spine crawlers and has ling speed. Decides to tech to roaches -> roach speed upon lair tech, which is when my Carrier hits. Desperately tries to counter attack my natural with roaches and throw up an evo + hydra den but I easily crush him
http://www.2shared.com/file/xEInhr2r/Python.html
+ Show Spoiler +Not the best player, but ranked Diamond nonetheless. Opens 2rax on Python, although his first rax is late, possibly due to my probe blocking, and transitions into a 4 rax MM combination where he attacks at 70 supply, killing my natural, but my 2 carriers easily mops up his units. I counter attack with now 3 carriers, owning his newly built natural (floated when he pushed out) and his desperately building turrets + viking while building not enough rines from 4 raxes. Easily beaten. As said, not the best play (I think he was rank 89 Diamond), but you can watch for some whiny bitching about it being a "super cheese."
http://www.2shared.com/file/pSXQ7K9o/Metalopolis__34_.html
+ Show Spoiler +Found the guy who I played in this match and got him to make a post, which I'm quoting. He's rank 2 Diamond, and it was literally my FIRST time trying this strategy out on LADDER, as my main race is Zerg, and I was hesitant to try new strategies out as Protoss on a Zerg account. He has very solid play imo, with around 150 APM throughout the game according to the APM counter (although aren't you supposed to multiply it by like 1.3 or something to get the actual amount??). Most likely the most entertaining game, and although it isn't TOO useful the Mothership makes an appearance too! A macro game. + Show Spoiler +On June 01 2010 14:48 never_Nal wrote:I am the Terran on the game at question, I dunno if this build counters my type of fast expo, witch is meant to be somehow as the scbw siege expand, actually almost the same. Here is my thought process on what I was able to scout, surely I was preparing for void rays, so i just got the engbay and got Hi-Sec auto tracking for the +1 range on my turrets, making my tanks safe to any type of voidray+4gate break, shortly after no attack coming I see Carriers, this is actually super problematic to my build, since I will focus on Factory not Starport, and we all know that Thors DO SUCK against carriers, so I had to change my tech path and game plan, witch affects my entire timings and unit structure, while I am aiming for a 3 fact timing push, where I have 1 tech lab and 2 reactors, and just leapfrog against Protoss ground army, this guy completely demolished my game plan just by going Carriers from 1 base. So since Thors suck against armored air units, Terran needs to get vikings, so this wouldn't be a problem in mid-late game, where I just add the structures pretty easily and quickly, but if the carrier comes as fast as it does on this build, I have to stop producing tanks/factories and star adding starports + viking+ lots of extra micro, not only that but I have to come up with some kind of unit composition to be ready or even have a slight timing against the CarrierBuild, and In fact i really thought I had one, when I was almost 1 shooting the carriers with my viking group, and so I did pushed, and kill a ton of his units, but his ground army owned mine since I was making sooo many Vikings my ground army lacked power and quantity. I don't think the build is SUPER STRONG, but the follow up is,he knew that I was heavy on vikings therefore my ground army was weak. As I Stated Before I don't know if this build was completely counter to my Siege expo, or if it actually does great against almost every Terran opening  . If anything is misunderstood please quote and I will gladly explain.
http://www.2shared.com/file/gUEil80c/Lost_Temple__148_.html
+ Show Spoiler +PvT vs a Diamond player on LT. I had already played this player before four games earlier, but didn't realize it at the time. As a result, he remembered my carrier strat and went for an all-in marine push as Terran, adding on up to four raxes on one base and attacking with pure marines before my carrier got out. FF is able to delay for a short timing, but I fuck up using it and I need zealots to buy time. He is able to take out the pylon powering my gateway and get some probe kills, but the first carrier easily wipes out all the remaining marines, and it's a downhill slope from there, where he continues pumping from 4-5 raxes pure marines with slight viking support on 1-base.
http://www.2shared.com/file/-eM1bsqG/Lost_Temple__147_.html
+ Show Spoiler +PvZ vs a Diamond Player (I THINK, IF I recall correctly). He opens 14 pool -> 17 hatch (standard). Is able to scout that I am going fast air and thus drone whores insanely off having only about 4 lings, while getting a few spores for any Phoenix/Void ray he might expect. Transitions into Roach/Hydra (builds both buildings at the same time) and moves out to my natural to break it at the exact time my Carriers are hitting his natural. I do some dmg to him at the natural while I'm able to hold off his attack despite not having carriers there (had three photon cannons + FF usage moved him back). He immediately expands to the Gold afterwards and continues Roach/Hydra, which works fairly decently until I can build up my carrier numbers as well as simply just build up unit count. You really see my inexperience as Protoss as I try to use forcefields well and simply suck. I am barely able to expand to my third as I mine out my main and almost my natural, and he hits me with Roach/Hydra and mass corrupter (probably ~12). However, I've reached a high carrier count by now (12) and with blinking stalkers am able to demolish his push, counterattack, and win, when he is on 4 bases
http://www.2shared.com/file/MR2T8voF/Lost_Temple__146_.html
+ Show Spoiler +PvT on LT. No idea what his rank. Merely posted to show how it played out vs a cloaked banshee rush when I didn't have any stalkers. Went to his base with carriers and completely owned it, as his starport could only produce one viking at a time (which 2 carriers with the fast deploy upgrade nearly instantly kill within a second) and raped anything he had. He could have done much more with his cloaked banshees admittedly, but he was going to lose in a base trade anyways simply because of the lack of banshees (only two), and the fact cloak will run out eventually. His defense was relatively weak because he had been counting on tanks as a major part of defense.
I don't know how to make the files uploaded show how other people are uploading them, with the matchup and everything, but I believe these are the diamond matches I've played using the strategy (with the exception of the last game, which is just vs a banshee rush. No idea his rank). I'll be back in a bit to specify a more specific BO please look more at the early game than my lategame because as said I just started Toss within ~1 week. My forcefields are generally awful and my macro using protoss isn't too impressive yet.
The reps include showing getting hit by all-in marines, viking transitions to counter, hydra/roach play, etc.
The [D] is more so discuss than me claiming it is a very viable strategy seeing as I have limited experience in Diamond playing as toss.
|
Thank you for taking the time to try a carrier build and making it work instead of just whining about them being a useless unit. Great job :D
|
Maybe I'm just internet-retarded, but I couldn't readily figure out how to download the files. It seemed like every button I clicked brought me to a new and more fearsome advertisement. 
*edit: I figured it out, jk!
|
Sounds interesting. Must be susceptible to a number of early timing pushes though surely?
I look forward to looking at the replays and good effort for showing what will probably be at least a good example of the best current carrier centred build.
|
doesnt your build get annihilated by fast concussive shell marauder or reaper play? with such a late cyber core i dont see how you can defend reapers or marauders with just zlots
|
On June 01 2010 13:19 Chen wrote:
doesnt your build get annihilated by fast concussive shell marauder or reaper play? with such a late cyber core i dont see how you can defend reapers or marauders with just zlots
You can probably Core before the second Pylon and skip the Zeal if you need a fast Stalker. I'm pretty interested in trying this out, although, this just sounds like a riskier Void rush to me.
|
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.
|
18 zeal is too late, this would only work on a few maps and even then if you got luck positions. Otherwise this would be very weak vs an early rush.
i dont think this is too viable vs protoss who decide to go void rays, or terran who scan / scout and then go viking, and that you are sacraficing a lot for a suprise attack that seems weak to a standard build that keeps options open for tech.
|
Interessting build, I'll give it a shot after work today.
How does it handle a fast muta counter from Z?
|
|
|
Watched 2 replays (well one was with no carriers so...).
I wasnt really interested in the build order, it is too weak to be able to hold of any kind of strong early even mid-game agression.
Just wanted to see what good carriers could do...
And well they're even worse than I thought :/ I mean they take FOREVER to build, 120s is ridiculously long (compared to BC for example). It's as long to get a carrier as it is to get the tech (60 + 60). Well you can chrono them at least... from only one stargate...
Then they do crappy dps for such a late, costly and long to build unit.
I mean they don't stand a chance compared to void rays in their state.
Was cute though.
|
On June 01 2010 13:19 Chen wrote:
doesnt your build get annihilated by fast concussive shell marauder or reaper play? with such a late cyber core i dont see how you can defend reapers or marauders with just zlots
It does get raped by fast reaper play, but it's rarely seen nowadays. I guess I could incorporate faster scouting and choose not to get the second assimilator if scouting it. It's something I *have* worried about it but haven't encountered it yet, simply because I haven't seen it done lately (in those 30-0 games I said I went vs Plat and under it wasn't done a single time either).
People don't typically push out with Marauders because they assume you are on one base play and will be strong enough to overwhelm them. By the time they get a decent amount (5-6) your carrier is literally already on the way, and the somewhat early sentry has enough energy for 2 (and maybe 3, depending when they push out) forcefields to delay. Your zealots then hold them off afterwards, or try somewhat, until the carrier comes out, in which it will kill all the Marauders relatively quickly, force them into a panic as they can only pump marines, which die very fast considering the carriers are doing 14 dmg per hit.
That was my first ladder game vs a Terran? And it was in fact a Diamond player, I checked his ranking after the game and I myself am in Diamond. The other were custom games. Sorry, I did in fact type this before being called into a meeting for a college club, so I looked at my most recent games in which I'm aware I thought I all went carriers. I'll be sure to check them soon and update, but it's not a troll.
Can someone tell me which reps aren't the Carrier ones so I can delete it for convenience? I admit I should have taken a longer time to actually check out the reps, but they were in fact Diamond players that I've played recently.
EDIT: Something is currently wrong with my profile, it shows Diamond rank 6 (which I am) but if I look at the profile it says I'm not in any league and that my bonus pool is over one million points... haha. Otherwise I'd prove he was a Diamond and show you it was my first PvT on ladder. Although I just talked to him and he said he's rank 2 in his Diamond division!
EDIT2: I just deleted the 155 file... sorry that was a wrong match! You're wrong though, match 148 is NOT corrupted. I just rewatched it myself. Maybe you don't have the correct map file for LT because you haven't played it in the most recent patch? I checked 154 and it was only a Gold player, I apologize.
On June 01 2010 13:45 mistermetal wrote:
18 zeal is too late, this would only work on a few maps and even then if you got luck positions. Otherwise this would be very weak vs an early rush.
i dont think this is too viable vs protoss who decide to go void rays, or terran who scan / scout and then go viking, and that you are sacraficing a lot for a suprise attack that seems weak to a standard build that keeps options open for tech.
I never said it would work vs P. In fact I explicitly said it wouldn't work vs P. Why is 18 zeal too late, with the exception of I admit that it would lose to a reaper rush, and I should tweak it. I'm not necessarily saying it should be a standard build, and possibly a cheese build, but a viable cheese build (kinda like 2fact speed vultures vs Zerg in SC1 being fairly reliant on not being scouted and still fairly all-in but able to still compete in the game as you'll most likely still do SOME dmg).
You'll also notice every single game the Terran attempted to scan and MISSED the first scan. You don't put it in a place the Terran will often scan, which is like most surprise builds, you put them in a place you don't think they'll scout. That's nothing new and not new to SC2.
|
I hardly think that someone with 1K+ Posts will be trolling this bad.
On the other hand, I would love this to work lol. I can actually see it working just based on the surprise factor lol, I saw a game where artosis lost to a mothership rush, so anything's possible (TvP, artosis 1base pushed with marauders and marines quite early)
|
I am the Terran on the game at question, I dunno if this build counters my type of fast expo, witch is meant to be somehow as the scbw siege expand, actually almost the same.
Here is my thought process on what I was able to scout, surely I was preparing for void rays, so i just got the engbay and got Hi-Sec auto tracking for the +1 range on my turrets, making my tanks safe to any type of voidray+4gate break, shortly after no attack coming I see Carriers, this is actually super problematic to my build, since I will focus on Factory not Starport, and we all know that Thors DO SUCK against carriers, so I had to change my tech path and game plan, witch affects my entire timings and unit structure, while I am aiming for a 3 fact timing push, where I have 1 tech lab and 2 reactors, and just leapfrog against Protoss ground army, this guy completely demolished my game plan just by going Carriers from 1 base. So since Thors suck against armored air units, Terran needs to get vikings, so this wouldn't be a problem in mid-late game, where I just add the structures pretty easily and quickly, but if the carrier comes as fast as it does on this build, I have to stop producing tanks/factories and star adding starports + viking+ lots of extra micro, not only that but I have to come up with some kind of unit composition to be ready or even have a slight timing against the CarrierBuild, and In fact i really thought I had one, when I was almost 1 shooting the carriers with my viking group, and so I did pushed, and kill a ton of his units, but his ground army owned mine since I was making sooo many Vikings my ground army lacked power and quantity.
I don't think the build is SUPER STRONG, but the follow up is,he knew that I was heavy on vikings therefore my ground army was weak. As I Stated Before I don't know if this build was completely counter to my Siege expo, or if it actually does great against almost every Terran opening .
If anything is misunderstood please quote and I will gladly explain.
|
Having just tried it (albiet with my own slight twist) I found it quite effective. The terran player had a nice mix of sieged tanks, marines and medics outside my base, but my 3 carriers and a ton of zealots pushed through easily. I find it very nice not because of the direct power of the carriers (in fact I find them quite weak) but that (like the above poster) the effect on army conposition is brilliant. The terran I faced had to pump a ton of vikings which almost cut through my carriers, but meant that his ground army got annihilated by my mass of chargelots. (There was 0 gass left for anything else lol)
|
Seems like a build that relies alot on the opposing player not scouting you sufficiently for the first couple of minutes and not trying any early pushes. If you can keep the element of surprise then you'll be in okay shape, but since so much is left up to chance I'd be hesitant to try it in any semi-serious game, as really any kind of straight tech to T3 units on 1 base is pretty weak. The opposing player gets the map, and with scans and everything the terran really should have an idea of what you're doing. Thanks for trying it out && posting though, always nice to see new strats being used
|
On June 01 2010 15:19 afirlortwo wrote:
Seems like a build that relies alot on the opposing player not scouting you sufficiently for the first couple of minutes and not trying any early pushes. If you can keep the element of surprise then you'll be in okay shape, but since so much is left up to chance I'd be hesitant to try it in any semi-serious game, as really any kind of straight tech to T3 units on 1 base is pretty weak. The opposing player gets the map, and with scans and everything the terran really should have an idea of what you're doing. Thanks for trying it out && posting though, always nice to see new strats being used
Actually, your carrier comes out around the time he would scan the second time, assuming he used his mule the first time. You can almost ensure him mis-scouting you with the first scan if you put them in a remote location in your base. The reps posted show a player who already knows the build and goes all-in marine, and the FF on ramp (can do it twice) and then the zealots afterwards are enough to hold it off. Obviously if you scout something like 1-base all-in roaches you wouldn't do the build (you can scout yourself and react as well, you know!).
|
This is an excellent build for the current PvT/PvZ match-ups because Terrans usually go Marauders or some sort of mech build that gets demolished by carriers, and Zerg like to fast expand and power drones using a small amount of lings that your zealots can easily handle, allowing to get super fast tech safely. I really like how you incorporate +2 air weapons into this build that allow even 2 carriers to demolish a small anti-air response.
Also I think this can defend well against many of the all-in pushes by Terran and Zerg by utilizing FF and the first carrier if you need to. One thing that concerns me is a baneling bust that will hit well before your first carrier pops up. You will basically be playing blind once the lings come out against zerg. Is there some way to incorporate an early stalker into the build so it can prevent a baneling bust and also help take out any OL that are trying to peek in?
|
*** mistake post plz delete was using it to "preview" a blog and hit post instead of preview by mistake***
|
Hmm. This would be an interesting transition from a phoenix/chargelot type build for midgame PvT. I think I'm going to hop in the build order tester and see what I can figure out.
|
No matter how bad, as someone above mentioned, thanks for your hard work on trying to populate this unit! I tried it in Diamond league against (lower) diamond players, it works, and sometimes it doesn't. Gets killed by all in pressure, e.g. mass 3 or 4 rax timing attack. And sometimes its just hard to stop the scans, depending on the map =(
|
This build is obviously awesome if you can hold off early pushes, which will inevitably come when your opponent comes and sees basically nothing. While every build has strength and weaknesses, this build is vulnerable to any early/midgame pushes, including early marauder pushes, speedlings, mass hydra, fast mutal, 2 starport, etc, as well as not being able to punish FE. I don't see it working beyond platinum, as better players will constantly scout and see what you are doing/whats shooting at the ramp.
|
well i really cant imagine, that this would work against a normal mech bo with 2 rax rines, fac, starport. for marines i think really destroy carriers.
but i wait for the reps and chech this out.
|
Yeah, like an earlier poster, I'm wondering how this will work when used as a transition rather than a rush. As was suggested Phoenixes obviously transition well into it, but it also goes well into void rays. I think the major question here is what does the Carrier do that the ray doesn't. It certainly is different, and you can't just simply say that the void ray is better in every way, but how well does it fare against the usual counters to the void ray transition?
|
Like several posters before me, I think it's admirable that you're trying to incorporate Carriers into your play and find a niche where they can nestle comfortably, rather than simply complaining.
Unfortunately, after watching your replays (and after having tried a few builds of my own incorporating Carriers), I feel like the exact same build would work exactly the same except better if you just dropped the Fleet Beacon and got a Void Ray or two instead of Carriers.
I think that's the big concern that people have with Carriers -- not that they are 100% useless when you have them, just that other things always work better in almost any situation.
For instance, 350 minerals and 250 gas (not even counting cost of tech) can buy you 3 stalkers with change left over (350/250/6 vs. 375/150/6; 3 stalkers is actually slightly cheaper, depending on how you look at it) and they're better at handling air. Carrier + Fleet Beacon easily buys you two Void Rays, which can annihilate a couple of Vikings (I think), and do very well against ground. Void Rays are susceptible to early Marine assaults, but 350/250/6 + Fleet Beacon + Stargate buys you somewhere in the area of 6 or 7 Zealots. I haven't done the math, but if you delay gas and use those Probes to mine minerals instead, you could probably get almost 10 Zealots, and in less time than it would take to get 1 carrier (even including Pylon build time).
Again, it's awesome that you're trying to incorporate the Carrier into your play, but from what I can tell, with proper scouting, you could easily see what general direction your opponent is going. Then, with your knowledge of your opponent's plan, you could adjust your unit composition to be significantly more effective (and more efficient) than if you had simply gone Carriers.
And as if that wasn't enough, the Carrier build you're suggesting seems to rely heavily on an opponent's lack of knowledge, and, as far as my play goes, I am extremely reluctant to force myself into a position where I am relying on an opponent's lack of competence as opposed to relying on my own competence.
I really want to stress again that I think it's great that you tried it out, but I really don't think it's viable play.
|
The problem with the carrier is just the counters it has. Vikings and corruptors absolutely own them and are both quite easy to mass fast with reactor or the zerg building mechanism. Carriers dont even have the mobility advantage anymore over their counter so there is almost no use in getting them. In PvP they can be ok but as their is NO defensive advantage in that matchup there is just no chance the game will reach that far.
Imo, the viking needs a small nerf to make the carrier more viable in PvT at least (this would also be good for TvT). The viking is too good as is at countering broodlords and colossi already so I think this can be justified. A mothership buff would also help to see more carriers as that would make getting the fleet beacon less of a waste.
|
Can't watch replays because at work. It seems that you will likely be very screwed if anyone even smells a stargate, which they will. I had someone try this, had 2 carriers a small ground force and even a mother ship.
Man o man did my small numbers of hydras just eat them for breakfast. It wasn't even funny. He vortexed, I moved my hydras in, banelings ate his ground army...vortex ends...carriers and mothership dead.
|
On June 01 2010 17:49 DragonDefonce wrote:
This build is obviously awesome if you can hold off early pushes, which will inevitably come when your opponent comes and sees basically nothing. While every build has strength and weaknesses, this build is vulnerable to any early/midgame pushes, including early marauder pushes, speedlings, mass hydra, fast mutal, 2 starport, etc, as well as not being able to punish FE. I don't see it working beyond platinum, as better players will constantly scout and see what you are doing/whats shooting at the ramp.
Every rep except one I posted was vs a Diamond? And there was a Diamond rank 2 player I did it vs, what are you possibly talking about Platinum for? That's highly irrelevant.
On June 01 2010 19:42 Seltsam wrote:
Like several posters before me, I think it's admirable that you're trying to incorporate Carriers into your play and find a niche where they can nestle comfortably, rather than simply complaining.
Unfortunately, after watching your replays (and after having tried a few builds of my own incorporating Carriers), I feel like the exact same build would work exactly the same except better if you just dropped the Fleet Beacon and got a Void Ray or two instead of Carriers.
I think that's the big concern that people have with Carriers -- not that they are 100% useless when you have them, just that other things always work better in almost any situation.
For instance, 350 minerals and 250 gas (not even counting cost of tech) can buy you 3 stalkers with change left over (350/250/6 vs. 375/150/6; 3 stalkers is actually slightly cheaper, depending on how you look at it) and they're better at handling air. Carrier + Fleet Beacon easily buys you two Void Rays, which can annihilate a couple of Vikings (I think), and do very well against ground. Void Rays are susceptible to early Marine assaults, but 350/250/6 + Fleet Beacon + Stargate buys you somewhere in the area of 6 or 7 Zealots. I haven't done the math, but if you delay gas and use those Probes to mine minerals instead, you could probably get almost 10 Zealots, and in less time than it would take to get 1 carrier (even including Pylon build time).
Again, it's awesome that you're trying to incorporate the Carrier into your play, but from what I can tell, with proper scouting, you could easily see what general direction your opponent is going. Then, with your knowledge of your opponent's plan, you could adjust your unit composition to be significantly more effective (and more efficient) than if you had simply gone Carriers.
And as if that wasn't enough, the Carrier build you're suggesting seems to rely heavily on an opponent's lack of knowledge, and, as far as my play goes, I am extremely reluctant to force myself into a position where I am relying on an opponent's lack of competence as opposed to relying on my own competence.
I really want to stress again that I think it's great that you tried it out, but I really don't think it's viable play.
Void rays are hard countered early game by things such as static defense (aka a spore colony or turret). Also, two queens easily take out a void ray because their initial attack is so weak and they need to powerup, while the initial carrier attack will kill a queen within SECONDS. Literally within 2-3 seconds the Queen will die, before you would have even done 50 dmg with the void ray. They also rape hydras, while void rays will die to hydras. They also rape marines, while void rays die to marines... etc. etc.
Carriers are much better than void rays in these scenarios until maybe the "massed" state.
On June 01 2010 21:47 Markwerf wrote:
The problem with the carrier is just the counters it has. Vikings and corruptors absolutely own them and are both quite easy to mass fast with reactor or the zerg building mechanism. Carriers dont even have the mobility advantage anymore over their counter so there is almost no use in getting them. In PvP they can be ok but as their is NO defensive advantage in that matchup there is just no chance the game will reach that far.
Imo, the viking needs a small nerf to make the carrier more viable in PvT at least (this would also be good for TvT). The viking is too good as is at countering broodlords and colossi already so I think this can be justified. A mothership buff would also help to see more carriers as that would make getting the fleet beacon less of a waste.
Did you watch the reps? The viking counters didn't work at all because of how EARLY the carriers are out. That's the point. They have to stop building ground army and pump out vikings from reactors, in which your stalker army with blink is free to rape any siege tanks on the ground with marine support, while carriers still can fight *somewhat* toe to toe with vikings. Remember that wtih the carrier deployment upgrade they'll be killing a lot of vikings nearly instantly. Watch the game vs Clockwork (the one that was on metaopolis and has the screenshot).
On June 01 2010 23:33 Chex wrote:
Can't watch replays because at work. It seems that you will likely be very screwed if anyone even smells a stargate, which they will. I had someone try this, had 2 carriers a small ground force and even a mother ship.
Man o man did my small numbers of hydras just eat them for breakfast. It wasn't even funny. He vortexed, I moved my hydras in, banelings ate his ground army...vortex ends...carriers and mothership dead.
Odd, because Carriers are ridiculously effective against Hydras. I played a silver player who went pure hydra after drone whoring (no lings, no roaches, etc.) just coincidentally when I went this build and I still steamrolled him in seconds. From what I've seen, Carriers absolutely dominate hydralisks, especially with chargelot support, which is incorporated from the build.
|
On June 02 2010 00:14 FabledIntegral wrote:
Odd, because Carriers are ridiculously effective against Hydras. I played a silver player who went pure hydra after drone whoring (no lings, no roaches, etc.) just coincidentally when I went this build and I still steamrolled him in seconds. From what I've seen, Carriers absolutely dominate hydralisks, especially with chargelot support, which is incorporated from the build.
dont take into account games against players who arn't diamond, everything from a decent player works against them. My friend made scouts look imba vs D/D- players, you need at the very minimum diamond level players.
From my experience a good hydra ball wipes the floor with carriers. if they arn't really far behind, hydras hold position and MELT all your interceptors. its faster than 3/3 gols tbh.
|
First of all, I think it's cool that you're trying out new stuff, this is the beta after all.
I've been playing random since getting mac beta a couple of weeks ago and I have never used or seen anyone use carriers in a ladder game. Coincidentally, I have not spent much time scheming about how to use carriers but this thread has gotten me thinking about it.
As you refine your build, I suggest you experiment with opening differently in PvZ. I've had a lot of success in this matchup by opening 2gate and transitioning to a fast expo. If you can get your expo up safely you'll have delayed your carrier tech in exchange for double the economy and, possibly more importantly, double the chronoboost. I'd expect this to result in similar timings of your first carriers coming out and you'd be in much better shape economy-wise in the mid-game.
I'll test out my theory-crafting when i have time and post some reps.
|
On June 02 2010 00:18 Chen wrote:Show nested quote +On June 02 2010 00:14 FabledIntegral wrote:
Odd, because Carriers are ridiculously effective against Hydras. I played a silver player who went pure hydra after drone whoring (no lings, no roaches, etc.) just coincidentally when I went this build and I still steamrolled him in seconds. From what I've seen, Carriers absolutely dominate hydralisks, especially with chargelot support, which is incorporated from the build. dont take into account games against players who arn't diamond, everything from a decent player works against them. My friend made scouts look imba vs D/D- players, you need at the very minimum diamond level players. From my experience a good hydra ball wipes the floor with carriers. if they arn't really far behind, hydras hold position and MELT all your interceptors. its faster than 3/3 gols tbh.
I can confirm this.
|
On June 02 2010 00:18 Chen wrote:Show nested quote +On June 02 2010 00:14 FabledIntegral wrote:
Odd, because Carriers are ridiculously effective against Hydras. I played a silver player who went pure hydra after drone whoring (no lings, no roaches, etc.) just coincidentally when I went this build and I still steamrolled him in seconds. From what I've seen, Carriers absolutely dominate hydralisks, especially with chargelot support, which is incorporated from the build. dont take into account games against players who arn't diamond, everything from a decent player works against them. My friend made scouts look imba vs D/D- players, you need at the very minimum diamond level players. From my experience a good hydra ball wipes the floor with carriers. if they arn't really far behind, hydras hold position and MELT all your interceptors. its faster than 3/3 gols tbh.
Whether or not he's silver I'm talking about the number of hydras he went. He played quite well for a silver player in terms of keeping up with macro, it's just his strategy sucked (pure drone whoring --> pure hydra). I'm fully aware how shitty silver players are, but merely witnessing a hydra vs Carrier force with chargelot backup was pretty decimating to the hydras.
Watch the PvZ vs the Diamond player who went roach/hydra if you don't believe me. Hydras weren't working at all and he tried to transition into mass corrupter, which lost because at the time I had stalkers as well.
On June 02 2010 00:42 sputnik.theory wrote:
First of all, I think it's cool that you're trying out new stuff, this is the beta after all.
I've been playing random since getting mac beta a couple of weeks ago and I have never used or seen anyone use carriers in a ladder game. Coincidentally, I have not spent much time scheming about how to use carriers but this thread has gotten me thinking about it.
As you refine your build, I suggest you experiment with opening differently in PvZ. I've had a lot of success in this matchup by opening 2gate and transitioning to a fast expo. If you can get your expo up safely you'll have delayed your carrier tech in exchange for double the economy and, possibly more importantly, double the chronoboost. I'd expect this to result in similar timings of your first carriers coming out and you'd be in much better shape economy-wise in the mid-game.
I'll test out my theory-crafting when i have time and post some reps.
Absolutely no way for you to get the carriers out around the same time as you literally build a stargate as soon as the core finishes, and you chronoboost the carriers as soon as the Fleet Beacon finishes. You'd probably have 3 carriers with my build as your first one comes out, and it'st he initial carriers that cause SO much dmg.
On June 02 2010 00:45 junemermaid wrote:Show nested quote +On June 02 2010 00:18 Chen wrote:On June 02 2010 00:14 FabledIntegral wrote:
Odd, because Carriers are ridiculously effective against Hydras. I played a silver player who went pure hydra after drone whoring (no lings, no roaches, etc.) just coincidentally when I went this build and I still steamrolled him in seconds. From what I've seen, Carriers absolutely dominate hydralisks, especially with chargelot support, which is incorporated from the build. dont take into account games against players who arn't diamond, everything from a decent player works against them. My friend made scouts look imba vs D/D- players, you need at the very minimum diamond level players. From my experience a good hydra ball wipes the floor with carriers. if they arn't really far behind, hydras hold position and MELT all your interceptors. its faster than 3/3 gols tbh. I can confirm this.
God damn it confirm what? That you shouldn't take into account silver players? That you are diamond and can wipe the floor with silver players? Hydras melt interceptors faster than 3/3 goliaths?
|
I'll try it versus zerg and see what happens. I'm top 5 diamond (only ~450ish points though).
I already just do VR variations in virtually every PvT and I don't see how this could be an improvement. All of the T counters to VRs already restrict the T army composition enough that just mass gateway units dominate.
Speedlots should help a lot versus hydras, but I definitely wouldn't want engage more than a dozen hydras without the ground army. That should be doable though.
|
I like how this build times itself so that +1 upgrade finishes at the same time as the first carrier. I wonder if it would be viable with this build, to one base and rush for a mothership to do a 1 or 2 carrirer push with lots of zealots and a mothership.
|
I find I prefer fewer carriers with a pheonix into +2carriers, with a few zealots on the ground as fodder. But this build seems pretty legit, carriers stack just ridiculously well with upgrades, they can melt anything. You have to be on the ball with all your positioning and what not.
|
On June 02 2010 03:41 maleorderbride wrote:
I'll try it versus zerg and see what happens. I'm top 5 diamond (only ~450ish points though).
I already just do VR variations in virtually every PvT and I don't see how this could be an improvement. All of the T counters to VRs already restrict the T army composition enough that just mass gateway units dominate.
Speedlots should help a lot versus hydras, but I definitely wouldn't want engage more than a dozen hydras without the ground army. That should be doable though.
The thing is, it's a completley different situation than void rays. I find void rays to be more of the critical mass unit that Carriers were in SC1, while Carriers in SC2 are very effective if you rush them and only have like 3-4.
1 viking vs 1 void ray is close. 1 carrier will kill 1 viking before the viking gets the third (maybe even second) shot off. One carrier can easily kill 10 nonstimmed marines. They also don't need to be in the range of static defense when attacking, which is critical early game when you only have 1-2 void rays (you have to avoid static defense). Carriers are very effective at sniping units, void rays are NOT.
I've done void ray rushes, but I definitely like the carriers much better as long as you dont die to an early all in. But as said before, in response to ppl keep saying that they'll go all-in, watch the reps. Terrans never scout it with the first scan and if you place the building right as I did, even sacrificing an OL won't let them see the stargate or fleet beacon. Ask yourselves, do you really think it's the best to go all-in when toss isn't expanding? Most people assume some sort of timing attack, and are hesistant to attack, until they get at least a few units (like 6 marauders or something) in which you have bought enough time that FF can finish the rest.
|
Marines.
Fifteen Marines with Stim and Combat Shield (which, if you count basically any ratio of conversion from Gas to Minerals is still significantly fewer resources and less time invested than Carriers) can kill 2 Carriers with 8 Interceptors each, and Graviton Catapult upgraded.
Additionally, 6 Vikings (also a significantly smaller investment than 2 Carriers) can kill 2 Carriers.
Imagine, then, you're against an opponent who isn't totally incompetent (note that this is not a comment on the skill level of the opponents in the replays; it is simply a facet of the hypothetical scenario). The chances he won't scout the Stargate are quite small. He will then respond one of two ways: with Marines or Vikings (or a crapload of Turrets if he doesn't plan on winning). By the time you have a Carrier out, he will have produced... hmm.. I haven't done the math, but I would guess something along the lines of 20-25 Marines? That is a fairly conservative estimate I think. Those 20 Marines will absolutely decimate your Carriers, with or without Combat Shield.
By the time you get 2 Carriers, he will have at least 6 Vikings, which, again, will decimate two Carriers. Chances are he'll have more, too.
I can't speak much for PvZ, since I haven't tried Carriers in quite a while, and don't play Zerg (I have a Terran practice partner, though, which is why I try to speak for Terran), but from replays I have seen, it seems rather like Hydralisks, when focus-firing, can down Carriers rather quickly.
But, even through all of my doubts, you have my support for continued testing, as I would really like to see Carriers find a home somewhere in the game.
Although, unfortunately, I feel like they will continue to fill no acceptable role until they receive some sort of speed buff (allowing them to move out of danger while the Interceptors continue to deal damage).
|
On June 02 2010 04:11 Seltsam wrote:
Marines.
Fifteen Marines with Stim and Combat Shield (which, if you count basically any ratio of conversion from Gas to Minerals is still significantly fewer resources and less time invested than Carriers) can kill 2 Carriers with 8 Interceptors each, and Graviton Catapult upgraded.
Additionally, 6 Vikings (also a significantly smaller investment than 2 Carriers) can kill 2 Carriers.
Imagine, then, you're against an opponent who isn't totally incompetent (note that this is not a comment on the skill level of the opponents in the replays; it is simply a facet of the hypothetical scenario). The chances he won't scout the Stargate are quite small. He will then respond one of two ways: with Marines or Vikings (or a crapload of Turrets if he doesn't plan on winning). By the time you have a Carrier out, he will have produced... hmm.. I haven't done the math, but I would guess something along the lines of 20-25 Marines? That is a fairly conservative estimate I think. Those 20 Marines will absolutely decimate your Carriers, with or without Combat Shield.
By the time you get 2 Carriers, he will have at least 6 Vikings, which, again, will decimate two Carriers. Chances are he'll have more, too.
I can't speak much for PvZ, since I haven't tried Carriers in quite a while, and don't play Zerg (I have a Terran practice partner, though, which is why I try to speak for Terran), but from replays I have seen, it seems rather like Hydralisks, when focus-firing, can down Carriers rather quickly.
But, even through all of my doubts, you have my support for continued testing, as I would really like to see Carriers find a home somewhere in the game.
Although, unfortunately, I feel like they will continue to fill no acceptable role until they receive some sort of speed buff (allowing them to move out of danger while the Interceptors continue to deal damage).
What a friggin' dumbass comment. I provided a friggin' rep of someone going all-in marines from 4rax KNOWING my build ahead of time. Why don't you watch the damn reps before posting your idiocy? Show me one rep where they had 6 vikings, or one rep where they had 20-25 marines.
The chances he doesn't scout the stargate was literally ONE HUNDRED PERCENT because htey were built in locations not usually scanned. 20 marines would absolutely get RAPED by 7 zealots and 2 carriers, as I've been saying you have zealots as well.
God you have a worthless post.
|
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.
|
I've been using a Carrier tech build in ladder for the past few patches and it works quite well in the right circumstances (this is more or less map specific but of course some pushes can and will stop it) overall I don't think Carriers are nearly as underpowered as some people make them out to be. Getting 3-4 at the right time when an opponent is unprepared for them it can be surprisingly effective, and it has won me many games in both 1v1 and 2v2. However, it can be countered, and it's far from an 'unstoppable Carrier tech' not that anyone implied that it was, but just pointing out. Protoss can easily stop it with a standard 3 gate core rush, unless the player is either very bad, or goes for a greedy build at the same time on a large map (you won't tech carriers on Incineration Zone obviously). Zerg I've had very mixed results facing them doing it, Roaches and Lings can be handled quite easily with a handful of zeals and a few well-placed cannons. Banelings will stop the build dead in its tracks (in fact pure blings will probably wipe out your whole base and force a GG). Versus Terran is where this build is most effective, if you see them going for a Mech, Bio, or Expansion build it is a great strategy to use, especially since most Terrans will anticipate Void Rays from you, not Carriers (in other words T's don't need Vikings to stop a VR rush, just Marines and turrets). You will want to be very careful about the T getting a star port as Carriers can take Vikings up until a point (4 per Carrier is this point, unuped) if you see a lot make Phoenix, or expand and switch to ground forces if Carriers really looks problematic. Essentially to make this build work versus Terran you have to get one or two Carriers out and 'surprise' them, in other words do it versus MMM Terrans, and get them before the (10-12 min) timing push/drop comes out. If you do this there will be almost no defense for the T as they won't have any Vikings, and will start producing them when they see Carriers. Kill their Starport and its basically GG.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
D: Now all you need to do is opt for the mothership then its perfect =)
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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?
|
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
|
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.
|
5:30?
Even so, id have around 12 marines and 2 ghosts by that time. stim wouldnt be finished, but if i saw the carrier being made with my reaper (once again gauranteed unless its a proxy, even then its dicey), then i would get stim early instead of combat sheild, get 1 ghost, make 20 rines. and considering i dont get combat shield or a second ghost (lots of extra gas there), i could probably get a medivac up too. i doubt your carrier would stand a chance when i emp it then stim it down.
|
On June 28 2010 19:32 Lighioana wrote:
Sorry but any kind of tech tree rush will be demolished if scouted by any decent player.
Duh. That doesn't mean you cant do it. You see it in pro BW sometimes.
And to whoever was talking about their bio+ghost running thru this -- what makes you think you'll be able to emp all the sentries? Any 'decent player' is going to have a probe or some kind of spotter and see your push before you get to the ramp, drop an FF, and get out of EMP range. See how the theorycrafting goes both wasy? Of course it is a vulnerable build, that doesn't mean its not viable.
|
Carriers are OP relative to vikings. One fully upgraded carrier can take down 5 fully upgraded vikings iirc. Vikings melt to carriers when they are supposed to counter them.
|
On June 29 2010 04:00 nujgnoy wrote:
Carriers are OP relative to vikings. One fully upgraded carrier can take down 5 fully upgraded vikings iirc. Vikings melt to carriers when they are supposed to counter them.
I don't even play protoss as my main but carriers op? Even if one carrier can take 5 vikings (yeah right :D) carriers are costly and very late tech. You just try to get few carriers with full upgrades without being completely destroyed :f
|
Vs Terran i've been doing a 2 gate wall off -> zealot sentry pressure and expand -> carrier timing push. carriers are nice especially since they do 8(+1)x16 damage. each interceptor fires twice, and some good carrier micro means the carriers themselves are untouched, and you can autocast build interceptor to maximize efficiency.
The key to making carriers work is as soon as cyber core finishes to start +1 air. then get warp gate and then +2 air. (at least w/ my build) warp gate finishes as you are transitioning to your mass gateway section and so immediately allows you to reinforce your few zealots and couple sentries that are trying to pin the enemy in with a bunch of units and you get about two carriers and another full cycle of units and then push. you limited their options to anti ground (and likely factory play or marauder play) by the early pressure and unit choices, and they can't switch to marine viking in time to stop the carriers and they seem to be able to push you back right as the third carrier arrives and that will end it. at least that was my experience in the week before beta ending. I have 0 data on vs zerg or protoss though.
|
On June 29 2010 04:23 Piski wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2010 04:00 nujgnoy wrote:
Carriers are OP relative to vikings. One fully upgraded carrier can take down 5 fully upgraded vikings iirc. Vikings melt to carriers when they are supposed to counter them. I don't even play protoss as my main but carriers op? Even if one carrier can take 5 vikings (yeah right :D) carriers are costly and very late tech. You just try to get few carriers with full upgrades without being completely destroyed :f
I tested this out, I didn't believe my eyes but yes, one fully upgraded carrier took down a ridiculous amount of fully upgraded vikings. I believe it was 5 which costs 750/375.
And I said carriers are OP relative to vikings, not that carriers are OP in general. I have no comment on whether carriers are OP in general.
|
Massed carriers are extremely hard to deal with in team games, not sure this particular build is viable but they certainly aren't an underpowered unit.
|
Carriers also take a long time to build, to even mass them you need like 12 Stargates and you still gotta wait for like 2mins.
|
On June 29 2010 05:43 Interfect wrote:
Carriers also take a long time to build, to even mass them you need like 12 Stargates and you still gotta wait for like 2mins.
That's not true. For example, in pro BW games, progamers use 2 starports. After 2 cycles, you have 4 carriers, and from there on they will be able to participate significantly in battles and control the flow. You don't need 12 carriers to effectively use them. And really you only generally have put down 12 starports in money maps and not in low money maps. This is roughly similar in SC2 as well.
And again, I am saying that carriers are OP in relation to Vikings which are supposed to counter them, not that they are OP in general because I haven't been able to test much of it.
|
I watched 2 of the replays of OP and I thought it ended up being a strong build. Probably not something that will become mainstream but not nearly as bad as everybody here is saying. As for the hydra vs carrier debate. Hydras are not nearly as good against carriers as you would think.
|
On June 29 2010 05:21 nujgnoy wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2010 04:23 Piski wrote:On June 29 2010 04:00 nujgnoy wrote:
Carriers are OP relative to vikings. One fully upgraded carrier can take down 5 fully upgraded vikings iirc. Vikings melt to carriers when they are supposed to counter them. I don't even play protoss as my main but carriers op? Even if one carrier can take 5 vikings (yeah right :D) carriers are costly and very late tech. You just try to get few carriers with full upgrades without being completely destroyed :f I tested this out, I didn't believe my eyes but yes, one fully upgraded carrier took down a ridiculous amount of fully upgraded vikings. I believe it was 5 which costs 750/375. And I said carriers are OP relative to vikings, not that carriers are OP in general. I have no comment on whether carriers are OP in general.
One carrier can kill 20 vikings, which is 9001 minerals and 2805 gas.
|
On June 29 2010 08:14 lololol wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2010 05:21 nujgnoy wrote:On June 29 2010 04:23 Piski wrote:On June 29 2010 04:00 nujgnoy wrote:
Carriers are OP relative to vikings. One fully upgraded carrier can take down 5 fully upgraded vikings iirc. Vikings melt to carriers when they are supposed to counter them. I don't even play protoss as my main but carriers op? Even if one carrier can take 5 vikings (yeah right :D) carriers are costly and very late tech. You just try to get few carriers with full upgrades without being completely destroyed :f I tested this out, I didn't believe my eyes but yes, one fully upgraded carrier took down a ridiculous amount of fully upgraded vikings. I believe it was 5 which costs 750/375. And I said carriers are OP relative to vikings, not that carriers are OP in general. I have no comment on whether carriers are OP in general. One carrier can kill 20 vikings, which is 9001 minerals and 2805 gas.
1 viking costs 150/75 iirc, so 20 vikings cost 3000 1500. Unless you mean vikings in assault mode, I don't think one carrier can kill 20 vikings when both parties have been given attack command towards each other. If you don't have the beta, I think there's a TL rule against posting w/o any knowledge of the game.
|
On June 29 2010 08:37 nujgnoy wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2010 08:14 lololol wrote:On June 29 2010 05:21 nujgnoy wrote:On June 29 2010 04:23 Piski wrote:On June 29 2010 04:00 nujgnoy wrote:
Carriers are OP relative to vikings. One fully upgraded carrier can take down 5 fully upgraded vikings iirc. Vikings melt to carriers when they are supposed to counter them. I don't even play protoss as my main but carriers op? Even if one carrier can take 5 vikings (yeah right :D) carriers are costly and very late tech. You just try to get few carriers with full upgrades without being completely destroyed :f I tested this out, I didn't believe my eyes but yes, one fully upgraded carrier took down a ridiculous amount of fully upgraded vikings. I believe it was 5 which costs 750/375. And I said carriers are OP relative to vikings, not that carriers are OP in general. I have no comment on whether carriers are OP in general. One carrier can kill 20 vikings, which is 9001 minerals and 2805 gas. 1 viking costs 150/75 iirc, so 20 vikings cost 3000 1500. Unless you mean vikings in assault mode, I don't think one carrier can kill 20 vikings when both parties have been given attack command towards each other. If you don't have the beta, I think there's a TL rule against posting w/o any knowledge of the game.
No, I was just one upping your bullshit.
The question is, why are you posting without having any knowledge about the game?
1 carrier killing 5 vikings at equal ups. What game are you playing?
|
On June 29 2010 08:45 lololol wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2010 08:37 nujgnoy wrote:On June 29 2010 08:14 lololol wrote:On June 29 2010 05:21 nujgnoy wrote:On June 29 2010 04:23 Piski wrote:On June 29 2010 04:00 nujgnoy wrote:
Carriers are OP relative to vikings. One fully upgraded carrier can take down 5 fully upgraded vikings iirc. Vikings melt to carriers when they are supposed to counter them. I don't even play protoss as my main but carriers op? Even if one carrier can take 5 vikings (yeah right :D) carriers are costly and very late tech. You just try to get few carriers with full upgrades without being completely destroyed :f I tested this out, I didn't believe my eyes but yes, one fully upgraded carrier took down a ridiculous amount of fully upgraded vikings. I believe it was 5 which costs 750/375. And I said carriers are OP relative to vikings, not that carriers are OP in general. I have no comment on whether carriers are OP in general. One carrier can kill 20 vikings, which is 9001 minerals and 2805 gas. 1 viking costs 150/75 iirc, so 20 vikings cost 3000 1500. Unless you mean vikings in assault mode, I don't think one carrier can kill 20 vikings when both parties have been given attack command towards each other. If you don't have the beta, I think there's a TL rule against posting w/o any knowledge of the game. No, I was just one upping your bullshit. The question is, why are you posting without having any knowledge about the game? 1 carrier killing 5 vikings at equal ups. What game are you playing?
Do upgrades even do anything? I mean Carriers get +1 attack on each interceptor for each attack upgrade which would be perfectly offset by the armor ups... and assuming that Vikings get +1 (+2 overall, one for each attack), then it would be perfectly offset by Carrier armor/shields?
How much HP do vikings have btw? Because carriers with +3 will do 128 dmg per volley, and you get +2 really quick on the build I have, typically before Terran builds their first armory, so I'm wondering if a quick +3 would be worth it, especially since Terran tends to upgrade bionic ups first.
|
I tested this, and I was wrong. Sorry about making that claim.
I had tested this in a unit tester map before and a carrier did take down 5 vikings with me thinking that they both had full ups. The map must have been in a bugged state.
|
On June 29 2010 08:45 lololol wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2010 08:37 nujgnoy wrote:On June 29 2010 08:14 lololol wrote:On June 29 2010 05:21 nujgnoy wrote:On June 29 2010 04:23 Piski wrote:On June 29 2010 04:00 nujgnoy wrote:
Carriers are OP relative to vikings. One fully upgraded carrier can take down 5 fully upgraded vikings iirc. Vikings melt to carriers when they are supposed to counter them. I don't even play protoss as my main but carriers op? Even if one carrier can take 5 vikings (yeah right :D) carriers are costly and very late tech. You just try to get few carriers with full upgrades without being completely destroyed :f I tested this out, I didn't believe my eyes but yes, one fully upgraded carrier took down a ridiculous amount of fully upgraded vikings. I believe it was 5 which costs 750/375. And I said carriers are OP relative to vikings, not that carriers are OP in general. I have no comment on whether carriers are OP in general. One carrier can kill 20 vikings, which is 9001 minerals and 2805 gas. 1 viking costs 150/75 iirc, so 20 vikings cost 3000 1500. Unless you mean vikings in assault mode, I don't think one carrier can kill 20 vikings when both parties have been given attack command towards each other. If you don't have the beta, I think there's a TL rule against posting w/o any knowledge of the game. No, I was just one upping your bullshit. The question is, why are you posting without having any knowledge about the game? 1 carrier killing 5 vikings at equal ups. What game are you playing?
Wait...seriously? I mean i'm assuming you micro'd the vikings so they focus fired the carrier...but still. This is so counter-intuitive.
|
|
|
On June 29 2010 09:22 sinn wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2010 08:45 lololol wrote:On June 29 2010 08:37 nujgnoy wrote:On June 29 2010 08:14 lololol wrote:On June 29 2010 05:21 nujgnoy wrote:On June 29 2010 04:23 Piski wrote:On June 29 2010 04:00 nujgnoy wrote:
Carriers are OP relative to vikings. One fully upgraded carrier can take down 5 fully upgraded vikings iirc. Vikings melt to carriers when they are supposed to counter them. I don't even play protoss as my main but carriers op? Even if one carrier can take 5 vikings (yeah right :D) carriers are costly and very late tech. You just try to get few carriers with full upgrades without being completely destroyed :f I tested this out, I didn't believe my eyes but yes, one fully upgraded carrier took down a ridiculous amount of fully upgraded vikings. I believe it was 5 which costs 750/375. And I said carriers are OP relative to vikings, not that carriers are OP in general. I have no comment on whether carriers are OP in general. One carrier can kill 20 vikings, which is 9001 minerals and 2805 gas. 1 viking costs 150/75 iirc, so 20 vikings cost 3000 1500. Unless you mean vikings in assault mode, I don't think one carrier can kill 20 vikings when both parties have been given attack command towards each other. If you don't have the beta, I think there's a TL rule against posting w/o any knowledge of the game. No, I was just one upping your bullshit. The question is, why are you posting without having any knowledge about the game? 1 carrier killing 5 vikings at equal ups. What game are you playing? Wait...seriously? I mean i'm assuming you micro'd the vikings so they focus fired the carrier...but still. This is so counter-intuitive.
Uh... read into the tone of his post. He's saying it *wouldn't* happen like that.
|
|
|
LOL Hey sinn, I actually was the one who was wrong @. @. The testing I did in the past was wrong. Sorry to make you rage when I'm the one who failed
|
On June 29 2010 09:25 nujgnoy wrote:
LOL Hey sinn, I actually was the one who was wrong @. @. The testing I did in the past was wrong. Sorry to make you rage when I'm the one who failed
LOL np things like this happen. no real rage just confusion. I just wish they'd make carriers more viable somehow...orrr that someone would find a good use for them :D They made the floating fortresses of the other races (battlecruisers, broodlords) viable T_T. I'm not complaining, just jealous :D
|
On June 29 2010 09:15 FabledIntegral wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2010 08:45 lololol wrote:On June 29 2010 08:37 nujgnoy wrote:On June 29 2010 08:14 lololol wrote:On June 29 2010 05:21 nujgnoy wrote:On June 29 2010 04:23 Piski wrote:On June 29 2010 04:00 nujgnoy wrote:
Carriers are OP relative to vikings. One fully upgraded carrier can take down 5 fully upgraded vikings iirc. Vikings melt to carriers when they are supposed to counter them. I don't even play protoss as my main but carriers op? Even if one carrier can take 5 vikings (yeah right :D) carriers are costly and very late tech. You just try to get few carriers with full upgrades without being completely destroyed :f I tested this out, I didn't believe my eyes but yes, one fully upgraded carrier took down a ridiculous amount of fully upgraded vikings. I believe it was 5 which costs 750/375. And I said carriers are OP relative to vikings, not that carriers are OP in general. I have no comment on whether carriers are OP in general. One carrier can kill 20 vikings, which is 9001 minerals and 2805 gas. 1 viking costs 150/75 iirc, so 20 vikings cost 3000 1500. Unless you mean vikings in assault mode, I don't think one carrier can kill 20 vikings when both parties have been given attack command towards each other. If you don't have the beta, I think there's a TL rule against posting w/o any knowledge of the game. No, I was just one upping your bullshit. The question is, why are you posting without having any knowledge about the game? 1 carrier killing 5 vikings at equal ups. What game are you playing? Do upgrades even do anything? I mean Carriers get +1 attack on each interceptor for each attack upgrade which would be perfectly offset by the armor ups... and assuming that Vikings get +1 (+2 overall, one for each attack), then it would be perfectly offset by Carrier armor/shields? How much HP do vikings have btw? Because carriers with +3 will do 128 dmg per volley, and you get +2 really quick on the build I have, typically before Terran builds their first armory, so I'm wondering if a quick +3 would be worth it, especially since Terran tends to upgrade bionic ups first.
They both get +1 from attack ups, so armor cancels it out.
The only difference would be +3 effective hp, since an attack hitting both the shield and the hp would be reduced by both armor values. It's 2 at no ups(0 shield, 2 base armor) and 8(3 shield, 5 armor) at full ups, but the attacker would deal +3 damage as well, so it's a difference of 3 damage.
If an attack depletes the shield exactly, and the next one hits the hp, then there would be no difference.
Vikings have 125 hp and attack ups for carriers are +20% damage each, so they are very effective, even if you don't kill a viking in a single volley.
Apart from 1 carrier vs 3 vikings, where they are about equal, the vikings have a noticable advantage over carriers at equal upgrades. Even just 2 carriers vs 6 vikings, results in 2 vikings surviving.
Vikings are actually cost effective vs all air units, but aren't a hard counter to any of them except BCs(because they can kite them to hell and back), so if the other side has an advantage in army size/upgrades, they can face vikings just fine.
|
On June 29 2010 09:24 FabledIntegral wrote:
Uh... read into the tone of his post. He's saying it *wouldn't* happen like that.
Sorry that was a misquote...I was talking more to nugjnoy XD
|
On June 29 2010 09:33 lololol wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2010 09:15 FabledIntegral wrote:On June 29 2010 08:45 lololol wrote:On June 29 2010 08:37 nujgnoy wrote:On June 29 2010 08:14 lololol wrote:On June 29 2010 05:21 nujgnoy wrote:On June 29 2010 04:23 Piski wrote:On June 29 2010 04:00 nujgnoy wrote:
Carriers are OP relative to vikings. One fully upgraded carrier can take down 5 fully upgraded vikings iirc. Vikings melt to carriers when they are supposed to counter them. I don't even play protoss as my main but carriers op? Even if one carrier can take 5 vikings (yeah right :D) carriers are costly and very late tech. You just try to get few carriers with full upgrades without being completely destroyed :f I tested this out, I didn't believe my eyes but yes, one fully upgraded carrier took down a ridiculous amount of fully upgraded vikings. I believe it was 5 which costs 750/375. And I said carriers are OP relative to vikings, not that carriers are OP in general. I have no comment on whether carriers are OP in general. One carrier can kill 20 vikings, which is 9001 minerals and 2805 gas. 1 viking costs 150/75 iirc, so 20 vikings cost 3000 1500. Unless you mean vikings in assault mode, I don't think one carrier can kill 20 vikings when both parties have been given attack command towards each other. If you don't have the beta, I think there's a TL rule against posting w/o any knowledge of the game. No, I was just one upping your bullshit. The question is, why are you posting without having any knowledge about the game? 1 carrier killing 5 vikings at equal ups. What game are you playing? Do upgrades even do anything? I mean Carriers get +1 attack on each interceptor for each attack upgrade which would be perfectly offset by the armor ups... and assuming that Vikings get +1 (+2 overall, one for each attack), then it would be perfectly offset by Carrier armor/shields? How much HP do vikings have btw? Because carriers with +3 will do 128 dmg per volley, and you get +2 really quick on the build I have, typically before Terran builds their first armory, so I'm wondering if a quick +3 would be worth it, especially since Terran tends to upgrade bionic ups first. They both get +1 from attack ups, so armor cancels it out. The only difference would be +3 effective hp, since an attack hitting both the shield and the hp would be reduced by both armor values. It's 2 at no ups(0 shield, 2 base armor) and 8(3 shield, 5 armor) at full ups, but the attacker would deal +3 damage as well, so it's a difference of 3 damage. If an attack depletes the shield exactly, and the next one hits the hp, then there would be no difference. Vikings have 125 hp and attack ups for carriers are +20% damage each, so they are very effective, even if you don't kill a viking in a single volley. Apart from 1 carrier vs 3 vikings, where they are about equal, the vikings have a noticable advantage over carriers at equal upgrades. Even just 2 carriers vs 6 vikings, results in 2 vikings surviving. Vikings are actually cost effective vs all air units, but aren't a hard counter to any of them except BCs(because they can kite them to hell and back), so if the other side has an advantage in army size/upgrades, they can face vikings just fine.
and this entire argument could be solved using the build tester...
good job guys...
|
Each interceptor gets +1 damage for both of it's attacks each upgrade. but thats not the point.
1 fully upgraded carrier > 6 unupgraded vikings. and considering most people don'tupgrade their air fleet as terran it's not unreasonable for that situation to occur.
though +2 attack allows carriers to 1 shot vikings. which is pretty nice.
|
On June 29 2010 10:15 PrinceXizor wrote:
Each interceptor gets +1 damage for both of it's attacks each upgrade. but thats not the point.
1 fully upgraded carrier > 6 unupgraded vikings. and considering most people don'tupgrade their air fleet as terran it's not unreasonable for that situation to occur.
though +2 attack allows carriers to 1 shot vikings. which is pretty nice.
I believe you need +3? At +2 they do 7*16 (each interceptor does 7 dmg, there are 16 shots).
|
On June 02 2010 00:18 Chen wrote:Show nested quote +On June 02 2010 00:14 FabledIntegral wrote:
Odd, because Carriers are ridiculously effective against Hydras. I played a silver player who went pure hydra after drone whoring (no lings, no roaches, etc.) just coincidentally when I went this build and I still steamrolled him in seconds. From what I've seen, Carriers absolutely dominate hydralisks, especially with chargelot support, which is incorporated from the build. dont take into account games against players who arn't diamond, everything from a decent player works against them. My friend made scouts look imba vs D/D- players, you need at the very minimum diamond level players. From my experience a good hydra ball wipes the floor with carriers. if they arn't really far behind, hydras hold position and MELT all your interceptors. its faster than 3/3 gols tbh.
chargelots.
gg.
.
+ Show Spoiler +the build is chargelot carrier, transitioning into stalker lot carrier once expo up. chargelots themselves do well vs hydras, and will allow carriers to be safe if positioned correctly, raping the shit out of hydras. I do this with BC+marauder+tank latelatelategame vs zerg at diamond level. by late i mean late lol.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/JBenr.jpg)
