Protoss Carrier and SC2 - Page 3

mufin

United States616 Posts

September 12 2010 02:34 GMT

#41

carriers are like a mix between a broodlord and a battlecruiser.

They mess with the ai much like the broodlings do and have the range of a broodlord.

Their style of attacking is similar to the battlecruiser with a lot of small rapid fire shots and of course they can attack both air and ground.

I think their fine as they are its just that mass void rays with speed are much more deadly in a late game situation.

sl0w

United States447 Posts

September 12 2010 02:36 GMT

#42

I dunno, this strat just seems too dependent on the opponent not scouting the carrier which almost never happens in higher diamond play. I think carriers work pretty well in the late game as a support unit to soak up some damage with the intercepters but as your main opening...no. Besides, you mention the bioball push at around 9 minutes. Well you can micro your carrier as much as you want but they'll go down in 2 seconds to stimmed marines.

Ok, now that that's out of the way. replays?

kme

Serbia176 Posts

September 12 2010 03:17 GMT

#43

Carriers have the best DPS in the game. Their DPS against 0 armor targets is 160 which is insane. Each point of armor reduces their DPS by 32, that seems like a lot but even with that reduction the DPS remains insane. Of course each +1 attack gives you the same +32 and obviously if you go carriers you will have that upgrade lead.

Compare to the DPS of some other units:
Battlecruiser: ground: 43.48 air: 26.09 (equal upgrades carrier will have 64 DPS against BC)
Thor ground: 46.88 air: 8 air vs light: 16 (hmm, not counting splash, its only 60% more then a single stimmed marine against mutas)
Marine: 6.98 stimmed: 10.47
Viking air: 10 vs armored: 14
Stalker: 6.94 vs armored: 10.41 (lol marines have better DPS then stalkers)
Void Ray fully charged vs armored: 41.67
Hydralisk: 14.46
Corruptor: 7.37 vs massive: 10.52 (both without corruption)

As you can see, carriers are awesome.

Edit: This info is incorrect, carriers have lower DPS, I was basing my calculations on bad data

. But carriers are still awesome!

taketobreak

73 Posts

September 12 2010 03:22 GMT

#44

carriers beat vikings if the terran does not micro

vikings with micro can kite carriers because a carrier requires 6range to launch interceptors and vikings have 9range. vikings move faster than carriers too. that means vikings can shoot carriers while carriers are unable to shoot vikings.

carriers do not do 160 DPS. carriers with the upgrade launch all their interceptors and can start the battle doing 160 DPS (fully upgraded) however after that first second carriers damage is much lower

Seide

United States831 Posts

September 12 2010 03:25 GMT

#45

These threads and arguments are pointless without replays to back it up.
I mean we can speculate and post threads all day. As I can go ahead and make up some viable strat on paper and post it and say it got me somewhere.
People I can be playing against could be bad, or just don't know how to counter it. With replays you can look into a strategy and see what can go wrong and actually comment on the play.

kme

Serbia176 Posts

September 12 2010 03:32 GMT

#46

On September 12 2010 12:22 taketobreak wrote:Carriers do not do 160 DPS. carriers with the upgrade launch all their interceptors and can start the battle doing 160 DPS (fully upgraded) however after that first second carriers damage is much lower

This may be possible as 160 is just too much, but I couldn't find any other info so I assumed it remained the same (and I looked on several sites). I'm too lazy to open the editor now.

Cambam

United States360 Posts

September 12 2010 03:42 GMT

#47

Scrap station game
Kulas ravine game

Update: I've uploaded two replays of me and my diamond practice partner. He gets carriers both games. And of course, disclaimer, they were practice games and not perfect play, but they still illustrate the point that carriers can be powerful.

Scrap station game:

I couldn't have asked for more luck. I was already going corruptor/mutalisk when I first scouted the carriers.
I feel that if I had had more corruptors, I wouldn't have had enough of an army to deal with his ground forces

Kulas ravine game:

Like I said earlier, I scouted the carriers, but was in the process of fast expanding and therefore was in no position to attack, especially with his wall off in place.
Killing off the interceptors seemed to be effective, but it didn't stop him from killing tons of drones while I was doing it.
If the protoss pushes with both the ground army and the carriers at the same time, the interceptors do not have priority; the zealots and stalkers do. Therefore, the hydras will waste their dps on the meat shields and die to the super high dps interceptors.
Again, I feel like if I had more corruptors, my ground army would be too small to deal with his ground army.

Both games:

He gets +3 air attack ASAP, which as people have pointed out, is a super dps boost to carriers
Unlike bronze players, he doesn't get only carriers, which would easily be countered by mass corruptors, he gets only a few carriers and a big ground army.

So again, I don't see why people think carriers are underpowered. My protoss friend seems to have no problem affording them on two bases, he's safe from counter attack if I'm expanding as well, and getting too little or too many corruptors loses you the game. I think a big ground army like he gets in both games, plus the +3 air attack upgrade, makes carriers quite strong, if not overpowered. If I'm wrong, tell me how to beat it!

Mr.Minionman

United States164 Posts

September 12 2010 03:47 GMT

#48

I use them all the time. I'll collect some replays, and post them when I get enough. (note: specifically of the carrier, not nessecarily rushing to them)

T0fuuu

Australia2275 Posts

September 12 2010 06:09 GMT

#49

carrier build time is sooo slowwwwwww. And food cost is high but once they get on the field they never die. Only bad thing is that marines and thors eat interceptors. So ive had battles where i engage and lost half the interceptors right after launch.

Drfluffy

United States96 Posts

September 12 2010 06:47 GMT

#50

As I advance from a 500 pt diamond to 700 pt diamond, I gave up this carrier play completely and rely on 2 gate robo and or stargate now. In normal macro game transition to carrier is painfully slow and does not worth it unless I am attempting to crack open a stalemate.

I think carrier can use a boost in late game viablity.

Also, SC1 carrier was so microable because a bug preventing interceptors from returning to carrier, therefore all interceptors launch instantly. Graviton catapult need to make interceptors instant launch.

rocketboy77

171 Posts

September 12 2010 07:28 GMT

#51

On September 12 2010 12:42 Cambam wrote:
Scrap station game
Kulas ravine game

I just watched the first game. His macro was just way better than yours. You had 150 zerglings' worth of minerals at the end of the game, and there was nothing stopping you from taking more bases before he pushed.

Assymptotic

United States552 Posts

September 12 2010 07:34 GMT

#52

On September 12 2010 12:42 Cambam wrote:
Scrap station game
Kulas ravine game

Update: I've uploaded two replays of me and my diamond practice partner. He gets carriers both games. And of course, disclaimer, they were practice games and not perfect play, but they still illustrate the point that carriers can be powerful.

Scrap station game:

I couldn't have asked for more luck. I was already going corruptor/mutalisk when I first scouted the carriers.
I feel that if I had had more corruptors, I wouldn't have had enough of an army to deal with his ground forces

Kulas ravine game:

Like I said earlier, I scouted the carriers, but was in the process of fast expanding and therefore was in no position to attack, especially with his wall off in place.
Killing off the interceptors seemed to be effective, but it didn't stop him from killing tons of drones while I was doing it.
If the protoss pushes with both the ground army and the carriers at the same time, the interceptors do not have priority; the zealots and stalkers do. Therefore, the hydras will waste their dps on the meat shields and die to the super high dps interceptors.
Again, I feel like if I had more corruptors, my ground army would be too small to deal with his ground army.

Both games:

He gets +3 air attack ASAP, which as people have pointed out, is a super dps boost to carriers
Unlike bronze players, he doesn't get only carriers, which would easily be countered by mass corruptors, he gets only a few carriers and a big ground army.

Your game on Scrap Station, You knew he was turtling up and macroing carriers, yet you over committed to static defense when you should have taken a 3rd base with that wasted money. 2 base protoss > 2 base zerg usually

Also, you could have delayed zergling speed in favor of a faster lair or expansion since you knew he was going forge/FE. This faster lair would have allowed you to pop mutas up in time to harass his mineral line before he could have warped in cannons to defend his workers. Also, you got corrupters before mutas when his carriers hadn't even arrived yet. If you got mutas before corrupters, you could have dealt even greater damage to his economy.

Deleted User 55994

949 Posts

September 12 2010 08:17 GMT

#53

9:30 is far too late. Most 1 base pushes hit between 6-8min. Relying on 1 base cannons to keep you alive for almost 10 minutes is laughable.

NoirShinra

United States14 Posts

September 12 2010 08:58 GMT

#54

I recently played against a protoss player who went an early carrier. If I remember right, it came out either the 9ish or 12ish minute mark. That's a pretty big difference in SC time, but that's why I attached a replay!! The match was played in diamond too.

So there are some mistakes that I did, but I think my opponent made some more drastic mistakes which allowed me the win. BUT! If it weren't for them, the match would have been much harder and there's a good possibility I would have lost.

My scouting missed the fleet beacon, so I assumed void rays and seeing that carrier did cause some good over reaction on my side. And it wasn't like the carrier was the 'hero' carrier either, it had a decent ground force with it as well. I'm sure someone can refine this play and make it extremely viable in diamond level play for protoss.

Cheerio

Ukraine3178 Posts

September 12 2010 09:23 GMT

#55

Recently I played 4v4s to get into diamond and the carriers were qiute a find for me. Whenever someone got a shitload of upgraded carriers it was gg, there is just no stopping them, even vikings and corruptors fail as you need a shitload of them and you can't make all corruptor army but you can all carrier one.
1) Stargates can be nearly always kept hronoboosted as well as cybernetics making attack upgrade. It makes the it all much faster.
2) Interceptors mess up the AI of ranged units. In an even fight it gives an edge.

Ayrie

United States213 Posts

September 12 2010 10:02 GMT

#56

Carriers hurt like hell, but their interceptors get picked off too easily by the likes of stimmed marines and mass hydras. Worse yet, replacing interceptors for 8+ carriers is so expensive.
At least if you have a fleet beacon out and expand for more gas, you can get a Mothership too? That would make the carriers much less vulnerable to being FF'ed down brutally fast without a detector on their side that you can pick off or a scan.
It seems alot easier to mass corruptors or vikings to the degree that can counter the amount of carriers your opponent would have by the time that he could push out against you with it anyways.

avilo

United States4100 Posts

September 12 2010 10:09 GMT

#57

On August 24 2010 12:40 micronesia wrote:

Show nested quote +

Um are you sure that they eat through vikings like they are nothing? If the terran has had ample time and money to match the protoss with building air, then I think vikings with their dedicated air to air attacks with 9 range and focus firing with kiting style micro will win...

They really do eat vikings like nothing if it gets to that point in the game. It's incredibly tough to balance your resources and unit composition that late in the game because as the T, you have to have just the right amount of vikings to be able to suicide the first few into carriers while the rest get their volleys off, as well as have the ground army to hold off theirs.

If you have too many vikings, you kill the carriers and then lose to 200/200 gateways. If you have many vikings, but not the minimum you needed to beat the carriers...you lose both ground and air because thors suck versus carriers. Then you lose your entire ground army + the game.

All the Protoss has to do is...accumulate more carriers lol. He can keep making more and more till you lose, or skew your unit composition so heavily towards vikings that they can re-max a ground army to kill you.

Carriers are wtf powerful late game the times when it does go there and P gets them.

hoovehand

United Kingdom542 Posts

September 12 2010 10:20 GMT

#58

On August 24 2010 12:10 Hakker wrote:
TBH Carriers are probably the new scouts, they're slow, cost a huge amount for their usefulness, and their damage is horrendously low compared to other units at their tech level.

What carriers need is to have their interceptors have 1 shot so their attack doesn't double dip in armor, and bring back some of the micro mechanics that gave them a competitive place in BW.

Making as many gimmicky builds as you can come up with wont change the fact that the units design in SC2 is dated and unusable. You're basically relying on the other player not having scouted AT ALL or having a viking out, with 99% of terran will build anyways just because they can (they're terran).

the 2 attacks isn't really a problem, because you get double boost with your attack upgrades already.

the problem is that carriers cost a fortune and take about 30% longer to build than battlecruisers.

Alphasquad

Austria505 Posts

September 12 2010 11:58 GMT

#59

On August 24 2010 12:21 Drfluffy wrote:
I just did a test build, using zerg, with ZERO ground unit built (fastest scenario), it takes about 7:25 to have 4 corruptor.

In actuality though, zerg can hardly ever scout me due to their natural short coming when it comes to scouting. but yes, this build is not viable when a zerg scouts.

have you also tried how much hydras the zerg will get when having an untouched expansion?

Drfluffy

United States96 Posts

September 12 2010 14:36 GMT

#60

The current problem with carrier build is that it relays on not being scouted, that's a form of all in.

I am going to try to refine it into a build where carrier numbers slowly accumulate while macroing up and expand, and really use gateway units (especially HT as the main force)

Hell, I don't even need robo until later in this build because once scouted, you know they will be building viking/corruptor.

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