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Hey everyone,
My first post here :-) been lurking for a while though.
I'm starting to do pretty well in PvT, but I have a serious issue. I don't know what the Protoss air counter to vikings is. Is it Void Rays or Phoenixes? Specifically when the terran guy builds like eight vikings and puts them over a bio ball.
And if the counter is Phoenixes, should I be darting in, sniping a viking and darting out, or chasing them down if they get separated from the bioball?
Also, can anyone link me to a good unit counters chart so I don't have to keep asking these sorts of questions?
I used search by the way, and saw no results under PvT air viking counters.
Thanks for your help!
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Who cares if the terran has 8 vikings above his bioball? Just make ground units and demolish his ball. His vikings won't serve. In xvx the pheonix wins against vikings (barely). Void rays are a bad idea unless you have speed voidrays (which is very high in the tech tree).
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Well, I really care if he has 8 vikings above his bioball, because I use Colossi to counter the bioball. And 8 vikings will tear through my Colossi. I've tried using gateway units to counter a bioball, but it doesn't usually work. I either get kited to death, or stimmed with medivac support, or more commonly my ground army gets EMP'd and then eaten.
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Use High Templars to counter BioBalls. Colossus are too easy to counter, (Vikings & other stuff) but High Templars are great if you spread them from EMP.
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I would try storm instead of collosi vs the bioball. If he has vikings you should be able to win handily and then it just becomes a matter of avoiding emps with your temps
as a terran I prefer to fight people who go collosi because the viking range is just huge
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If the Terran overextends on vikings, then don't get phoenixes because he'll beat you on air. Instead, stop producing colossi and go storm instead. With 8 vikings, that's a considerably smaller bio ball that the terran has, so going straight gateway units will do the job.
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That is a rough one. Baiting with one colossus and heavy stalker support should help get rid of the vikings. Blink stalkers if you really want to finish them off. But airwise, you are at the disadvantage in that situation. Micro I think is the only real solution. Engage and fade, engage and fade. You have the shield recharge advantage.
Or try a carrier support or two. Yeah, it is up there, but he has 8 vikings. Two or three carriers should be roughly equivalent.
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Ok, thanks very much for the helpful replies! I really like using the collosus, but I guess if I see him start to spam out vikings I'll switch to templar tech instead.
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Ordinarily, Phoenixes are about 1:1 with Vikings in terms of resource costs, and Phoenixes will tend to win, given equal numbers (25 more gas spent per unit than the Terran, so it evens out). Neither unit gets bonus damage against one another and the Vikings get the first shot off, but Phoenixes are particularly tough, with 180 total health compared to the Viking's 125. There's really very little you can do with Phoenixes after this point, though. Its not like Terran's have flying Supply depots you can run around the map sniping. If he's very Tank-heavy, then getting lots of Phoenixes is a pretty good idea. The best use of them is to charge them ahead of your assault to pick up tanks. Don't be afraid to lose them to Marines. At the very least they're causing a distraction for the Marines while you've disabled the Tanks and close the distance with your army, which is good.
Void Rays CAN counter Vikings, but only in a very specific set of circumstances. If you send one Void Ray at one Viking in an open field, it'll probably win if he doesn't kite. If he kites, you'll lose. But, then, you spent almost double the resources (250/150 vs 150/75) and lost. Given equal resources (2 Vikings per Void Ray), the Void Ray is guaranteed to lose in an open field when it starts with zero charge.
If Void Rays start the fight fully charged, one Void Ray CAN beat one, two, even three Vikings pretty easily ASSUMING they're not kiting. If they're kiting, you're boned again.
However, if you have the Flux-Vanes upgrade AND the Void Rays start the fight fully-charged, the Vikings are in for a WORLD OF PAIN. This is a tactic I employ quite a lot against Terrans in late-game (the hard part is living long enough to pull it off). Sneak some upgrade Void Rays into the side of their base and charge off a building. When the Vikings show up to defend, charge straight towards them (you're about 30% faster, so they can't kite) and tear them to pieces. The ONLY thing in the Terran arsenal that can threaten your Void Rays now is a big cluster of Marines. Thors are only a threat if its one-on-one and its getting repaired. The Terran is pretty much locked into using Marines for defense, is rendered immobile and slow to respond to Void Ray attacks, has to leave his front-door exposed whenever you send Void Rays to snipe worker lines (time to push those Tanks and win the game), or build Missile Turrets literally fucking everywhere (and if they don't build them right at the edge, you can sneak in a Warp-Prism and do Chargelot or DT harassment).
However, given that, the most logical follow-up to a unit that the Terran responded to with Vikings with (Collossi or Void Rays) is Psi Storm. Go to ground and use Psi Storm to demolish the bio-ball instead of relying on units like Collossi.
Another alternative is to say to hell with the Vikings. Treat your Collossi the same way you treat them when an overwhelming number of Corruptors show up over a Roach/Hydra ball - fuck 'em. Charge forward and get them to deal as much damage as possible before they drop and hope you've got enough shit left over to punish an expansion or two.
I'm also particularly fond of going back to the Stargate and adding a couple of Void Rays to my army at this point, then keep them away from the fighting until post-Psi Stormage. Aim your Psi-Storms at the Marines and Vikings and your Void Rays can mop up them, and then the rest of the army with ease. Eliminate those two threats (or at least severely cripple them with Psi Storm damage) and there's literally nothing left the Terran has which can threaten your fully-charged Void Rays.
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If he does straight up MMM, you should skip collossi and go to HT tech. If he goes mech, then you'll want to mass collossi to hassass and pick off things out of position, then go air.
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Nice post bidby, thanks so much for taking the time to write all that =) I like your idea of getting speed upgraded Void Rays and charging them on the Terran base. At that point in the game most of the time they won't be spamming marines, it's much more likely they're going for vikings / battlecruisers / whatever. But as you said the trick is getting there. I'll stick with the Colossi into HT tech for now, but if I start losing heavily doing that I'll have to find a new build order that focuses on gateway units / HTs.
Thanks again.
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Vikings beat all Protoss air. There was a period in beta when a friend of mine would expand and mostly go tank/viking, and there wasn't anything on the ground that beat a lot of tanks, and the same was for air and vikings. Phoenix's, void rays lose in equal resource count. Even fully charged void rays lose in equal resource count. Couple this with the fact that the Terran can make two at one time and you have yourself a problem.
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Charged Rays don't lose to Vikings at cost. I'm not sure they lose to anything, actually, except maybe Yamatos killing half of them outright at the start of a battle.
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On August 04 2010 04:57 Salv wrote:
Vikings beat all Protoss air. There was a period in beta when a friend of mine would expand and mostly go tank/viking, and there wasn't anything on the ground that beat a lot of tanks, and the same was for air and vikings. Phoenix's, void rays lose in equal resource count. Even fully charged void rays lose in equal resource count. Couple this with the fact that the Terran can make two at one time and you have yourself a problem.
I believe this is the reason they let fully-charged, upgraded Void Rays dominate Vikings so badly. It feels overpowered as all hell, but then you have to realize what Vikings do to a Protoss before it can be employed.
I'd really rather they looked at both units and made the dynamic between those two units and their synergy with armies (e.g. Void Rays are next to useless in a straight-up brawl) a little less punishing.
On August 04 2010 05:09 Voyager I wrote:
Charged Rays don't lose to Vikings at cost. I'm not sure they lose to anything, actually, except maybe Yamatos killing half of them outright at the start of a battle.
Not if they start the fight uncharged, they certainly don't. Hydras, Marines and Vikings are their biggest threats.
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Stalkers, the resource efficient counter to vikings is stalkers. You already have the tech to produce them and they will beat a viking one on one. Yes, your opponent can focus fire on your stalkers, but then all of your more efficient ground to ground units will crush him.
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most of the pros use templar vs bio balls but man its hard to micro and easy to mess up.
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protoss doesnt really have a good air counter to vikings, but stalkers work wonders, and like its been said, if you see vikings switch to temps for the bio ball
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For your PvT unit counters chart, Ill give you both ways so you know.
Zealots > Marines and Marauders (however, in small groups with concussive shells, marauders can kite zealots which is why they never leave home without .....
Zealots are week against helions, ghosts with emp and siege tanks that are already delpolyed and behind a wall of infantry.
Sentrys .... not really a hard counter to any terran unit but extremely effective at preventing reinforcements and keeping marines/marauders from kiting or running away. Worth a late game hallucination, nothing scares a terran player like 6 fake colossuses attached to your army.
Stalker > Vikings, Medivacs, Reapers, and Banshees - Don't be fooled, Stalkers are useful against ground units as well, but don't do enough damage to justify their pricetag and their vulnerability to marauders and marines. When the enemy has no air units, your Stalkers are best kept behind the zealots, use them to pick off marauders to take advantage of their bonus to armored units.
Additional note: If you have an observer at you opponents base and can keep tabs on his army, stalkers are a great unit to flank with. Right as your opponent sees your zealots and deploys his tanks, bring the stalkers in from behind and blink them to take out the tanks quick. Then use your sentries to split their marine ball in half and tear them apart.
Stalkers are weak against marines, marauders, thors, and siege tanks unless combines with a zealot force.
Immortals > Marauders, Siege Tanks, Thors, and Buildings - Immortals are the definition of a hard counter. They do 150% more damage to armored units and have a hardened shield which makes them ideal for taking on Siege Tanks and Marauders, however, any good terran player will have both of those units surrounded by marines. Compound this with the issue that immortals have a short firing range and must move to the front of the line right behind the zealots to fire, they probably wont be fighting tanks. Many players try to attack the tanks in the back row only to see their immortals melt before getting a shot off. I would instead recommend that you focus fire the immortals on the enemy marauders as this will allow your zealots to feast on tender marine meat.
Contrary to the popular appeal or the immortal, they should not make up a large portion of your ball. Four or five immortals is plenty of damage and your money can be better spent on 2 stalkers or 2 zealots and a sentry to thicken your "cushion".
Immortals are weak against marines.
Colossus(LongLegs) > Marines, and marauders - as the game progresses and both players gain larger armies, the zealots vs. MM's battle will shift back in the terran players favor. This is because, the more zealots you have the longer it takes them to spread out on the field and start attacking, while the terran ranged units can all start firing before your first zealots gets a hit off. As a result, the Colossus becomes your new weapon to fight larger bunches of terran infantry with. Their area effect attack will punish the terran player for having a tight ball of units instead of rewarding them. They are invaluable late game especially with their range upgrade (which you should purchase before getting a second colossus.
The reason for this, is that with 9 range and a wall of zealots, the enemy will never be able to reach your LongLegs without vikings. In addition to being walking towers of fiery death, the Colossus has (with its air vulnerable hight) the ability to see over cliffs which, when combined with a few immortals, can allow you to more safely dismantle the terran players wall. Of course, the colossus can also walk up cliffs and harras enemy harvesters and bases when the main enemy ball is not at home. This strategy is more risky against a terran player though because LongLegs alone die to vikings fast.
LongLegs are weak to Vikings, Banshees, and Marauders that are allowed to get close.
Dark Templars > Bad Players and People who leave their supply depots down when they leave base.
DT's are worth investing if you get into the late game with a terran player and need a way to attack them without risking a big loss. Warping four DT's behind a terran mineral line or hitting the production facility of a unit they just lost most of in the last skirmish can be fatal to a terran players standing. It can also act as a distraction while you move an attack force into place.
Dark Templars are weak against smart players who have a raven and keep an eye on their surroundings.
High Templars > Marines and Marauders and support units like Ghosts and Ravens.
Many people prefer to go the HT route against terran players to avoid having to deal with vikings. The biggest problem with this strat, is that before a HT can be effective against a bio ball, you have to build the twilight council and the templar archives and then research psi storm. You also need to have the templar on the field for a minute to get their energy up. Going down this path gives the player access to Blink and Chargelot upgrades, but no additional units. Going down the Colossus path give the player access to Immortals, Warp Prisms, and most importantly Observers. The Colossus is also combat ready upon arrival, though much more costly.
HT's have many advantages however, they can feedback ghosts and ravens doing a large chunk of damage and rendering the units essentially useless. The templar can also Archon Warp when they finish spending their enery and become a tank that is powerful against bio balls and air units. It is usually better to invest in HT's during the late game, after confirming that ghosts/ravens are in the enemy's army.
Hight Templars are weak against ghosts, especiallyw ith emp, siege tanks, and helions.
Void Rays > small groups of units, siege tanks, marauders, bases and battlecruisers.
Due to immense nerfing, void rays are now much less viable as part of an army and more suited to cheese. Void rays can be useful late game, but usually, one can find a better use or their money, if the enemy starts grinding BattleCruisers however, voidras are an efficient counter. It is not advisable to use void rays against vikings because they are not cost efficient, however, like Dark Templar, Void Rays are great harrassment and are difficult to fight once they are at full power without a large amount of air support.
Pre Charged void rays are weak against marines, vikings, and Thors. Post Charged void rays are weak against vikings.
Carriers........why?
Thats all we have time for today kids, hope my two cents helped a bit.
Note: Many people disagree about High Templars, Dark Templars, and Void Rays, I don't think these units are bad, I just think that they exist for specific purposes.
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Vikings don't kite Void Rays that well tbh Bibdy and Pheonixes win 1 on 1 but not on equal cost.
Void Rays are pretty good against Vikings and so are upgraded Carriers. They still aren't exactly cost efficient. Your best bet is using stalkers.
VRs uncharged, upgraded Carriers, and Pheonixes do well in the sense that the Terran has to be close to your resource cost in units in order to beat you. Charged VRs are excellent against Vikings especially with the speed upgrade. Upgrades can change this dynamic a lot.
Still, Vikings aren't the best units against Protoss armies in general and do not dominate air unless the Terran matches you in resources spent. It also doesn't help that Stalkers are great all around units and kill Vikings easily.
The only problem I see is that Battlecruisers with Yamato plus Vikings for support may be overly powerful, but then again there are still Stalkers with blink and precharged Void Rays. (Also BC's ground DPS is almost enough to kill a stalker in the time it takes to Yamato)
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EPT
