TL;DR: Terran Air, like Terran Mech in SC1, is unbeatable at 200/200 3/3. How can Terrans take advantage of this?
Before I start off, I want to say that this thread is for discussion purposes only. There will be no replays posted by me, because I believe although the strategies discussed in this thread may be viable, I don't have the mechanics to pull it off successfully as a low Diamond player.
The Theory
When Beta for SC2 first came out, many people who played Terran tried the Mech strategy, and found that it was not as viable as it was in SC1. This holds true to this day: there is no pure Mech strategy that is viable at Diamond+ level.
What I would like to propose is this: against Protoss and Zerg, Terran Air the the equivalent of SC1's Terran Mech.
Now, you might be asking, "Madcow, you're nuts, how is SC2 Air anything like SC1 Mech?"
The answer is, Terran Air, when properly utilized in SC2, is unbeatable in a head-to-head confrontation by Protoss and Zerg, just like Terran Mech was in SC1. In SC1, a 200/200 3/3 Terran Mech army could only be wittled away by throwing waves of units at it, or by avoiding it completely and instead harassing bases. The same is true of Terran Air in SC2.
Evidence
The reason why SC2 Air is dominate is different from the reason SC1 Mech was dominant. SC1 Mech relied on incredible cost-efficiency with monstrous splash from tanks and mines, huge range from Siege Mode and Charon Booster, and the utility of the Science Vessel to dominate Zerg and Toss.
SC2 Air relies on speed, incredibly high DPS, long AtA range on the Viking, Cloak, and the insanely useful Raven to dominate Protoss and Zerg.
I will illustrate my points with some numbers here:
Speed: This one is obvious. Due to being an entirely air-based army. Terran Air is very mobile and able to strike from any angle, as well as being able to flank from multiple different directions. The speed of Air allows it to dodge Storm and mitigate Fungal Growth very well.
High DPS: The Banshee has some of the highest DPS against ground units of any combat unit in the game. Here are the DPS numbers against ground for all units in every race that do over 10 DPS.
Hydra - 14.45 Ultra - 40.65 to Armored, 17.42 normal Corrupter - 10.53 to Massive Marine - 10.45 w/Stim Marauder - 20 to Armored, 10 normal w/Stim Reaper - 16.36 to Light Ghost - 13.33 to Light Tank - 24.04 to Armored in tank mode, 15 to Armored in Siege Mode Thor - 23.44 Banshee - 19.2 Battle Cruiser - 35.56 Zealot - 13.33 Dark Templar - 26.56 Immortal - 34.48 to Armored, 13.79 normal Colossus - 18.18 Archon - 19.95 to Bio, 14.25 normal Void Ray - 41.67 to Armored charged, 16.67 normal charged Carrier - 26.67 with 8 Interceptors Mothership - 16.29
As you can see, Banshee DPS stacks up incredibly well. Add this to the well-known high AtA dps of the Viking, and you can see that Terran Air in SC2 has some of the highest damage of any unit composition in the game.
Long AtA Range: Vikings have the highest AtA range of any unit in the game.
Cloak: Cloak detection for both Zerg and Protoss involve flying units. Vikings are great at destroying flying units, and Ravens can detect Observers. Without detection, Toss and Zerg cannot counter your cloaked Banshees.
Raven Utility: Ravens are one of the best casters in the game, and their greatest spell is the Point Defense Drone. Against Zerg and Protoss, the PDD is effectively Dark Swarm from SC1. Zerg only has Infested Marines that can bypass the laser, and Protoss only have the Sentry, Archon, Void Ray, Carrier, and Mothership, all of which are highly ineffective units to use against an air-heavy army. Seeker Missile is also a good, if situational spell. When used on defense, it can buy you precious time as the opponent is forced to dodge the missile and move his units back. On offense, where retreat is not an option, the Seeker Missile can do heavy damage to groups of low-HP units. In this way, it is a bit like Psi Storm. The Auto-Turret, the weakest Raven ability, is still useful as a way to draw fire in a battle, or as a harassing tool.
Why It's Unstoppable
So, even with all these great points, why is maxed out Terran Air uncounterable for Protoss and Zerg? Well, it's mainly because of the PDD.
As previously mentioned, against Toss and Zerg, the PDD is a Dark Swarm. Sentries, Infested Terrans, Archons, Carriers, Void Rays, and Motherships can get around the PDD, but are overall terrible units against Banshees and Vikings.
Other options from Zerg include:
- Infestor + Hydra/Muta: This option Fungal Growths your Air ball, which conveniently also reveals cloaked Banshees. Unfortunately, smart PDD usage destroys Hydras. The Magic Box combined with multiple-angle flanking also makes it very hard for Infestors to maximize their Fungal Growths.
Other options from Protoss include:
- HT + Sentry + Stalker: Again, Magic Box as well as the mobility and speed of Terran Air can nullify Storm very well. Stalkers are neutralized by PDD, and Sentries aren't cost-efficient enough to fight off Banshees on their own. Smart PDD placement will also make them untouchable by Sentry fire.
- Feedback: This can be nullified by intentinally keeping your Banshee's energy low through Cloaking. In addition, perfect feedback usage on a high population Banshee count is very difficult. Just as Spawn Broodling was not often used because of the APM requirements, Feedback isn't a strong counter to Banshees due to the need for incredible micro.
Weaknesses
Many of the weaknesses of Terran Mech from SC! are also shared by Terran Air in SC2, namely that of proper positioning.
Improper positioning in SC1 got your tanks killed by mine drags, your Goliaths destroyed by Hydras, and your Vultures eaten by Dragoons and Storm.
Improper positioning in SC2 will leave you Fungal Growthed out of range of your PDDs, and killed by Hydras.
One key disadvantage of Terran Air compared to SC1 Mech is that Air is more gas intensive, and the Starport lacks a good mineral sink. As such, you will pool great amounts of excess minerals, which you need to find a way to utilize.
How to Build This Army
Now that we've established that Terran Air is a very powerful, nigh-unstoppable maxed army, how do Terrans take advantage of this?
That is the tricky part. Unlike Mech in SC1, Air in SC2 is not as strong on the defense. Therefore, a transitional early-game may be needed, where you establish a strong econ through other units, like the Siege Tank or Bio, and then switch over to Air once the necessary vespene nodes are secured.
Alternatively, Banshees could be incorporated into a harass-based build in the early-game, and then as additional bases are established, the Terran can transition into full-time Starport unit production.
There are no build orders recommended, simply because I have not discovered a safe way to transition to Air.
In conclusion, please remember that when I say Terran Air is unstoppable in a straight confrontation, I mean late game, where it is maxed army vs. maxed army. Just as Terran Mech in SC1 could by broken before reaching the critical number of Siege Tanks, Air in SC2 can be stopped before the Raven ball reaches the needed numbers.
This sort of reminds me of a thor banshee timing push where banshee are used while thors tank dmg.
just theorycrafting- instead of going 2 fac thors just go 1 fac into banshees/raven after a helion FE that way your air army can make up for your thor lack of mobility.
I did this throughout beta and stopped once I broke out of gold league because it didn't work. Not to just discount the post and say it doesn't work without anything to back it up(like the poster above me), but you need to provide replays. No matter how long and well thought out the post is its nothing but guesswork unless you give us replays, good or bad, of the strat being used.
On October 08 2010 16:44 klauz619 wrote: Mutas take a dump on vikings, phoenix also beat vikings in larger, equal numbers, surprisingly.
A maxed air army would just have zerg go equal mutas to vikings then auto win against the banshees.
Mutas are also made mostly useless by the Raven support. Clumped Mutas will get raped by a couple nicely timed Hunter-Seekers, and PDD will neutralize their first few volleys, giving Vikings somewhat of an advantage.
Don't forget that air also encompasses Cattlebruisers. If anyone wants to take those down, Mutas and Phoenixes won't cut it. Battlecruiser counters are usually countered by Vikings and PDD.
On October 08 2010 16:44 klauz619 wrote: Mutas take a dump on vikings, phoenix also beat vikings in larger, equal numbers, surprisingly.
A maxed air army would just have zerg go equal mutas to vikings then auto win against the banshees.
PDD.
Without the Raven, Terran Air would not be viable.
With the Raven, Terran Air becomes nearly unstoppable, due to the SC2 Dark Swarm, the PDD.
On October 08 2010 17:18 unaliased wrote: Except that 200/200 pheonix would crush this
PDD again.
Also, any competent SC player knows that you need to scout your opponent's army composition in order to adjust your own.
That's like saying SC1 Mech 200/200 Tank/Goliath/Vulture/Vessel Combination gets hard countered by 200/200 Guardians.
If you see your Protoss opponent having an overwhelming majority of his army as Pheonix, you adjust your army to have a large percentage of Vikings.
On October 08 2010 17:23 Gono wrote: I did this throughout beta and stopped once I broke out of gold league because it didn't work. Not to just discount the post and say it doesn't work without anything to back it up(like the poster above me), but you need to provide replays. No matter how long and well thought out the post is its nothing but guesswork unless you give us replays, good or bad, of the strat being used.
Like I said, I haven't figured out a safe transition to mass air, nor do I have the mechanics to pull off early Banshee harass while keeping up the strong macro needed to establish the expansions and gas needed to start pumping Vikings/Ravens/Banshees at the same time.
I don't know whether Terrans should be turtling early with Tanks + Bio, then transitioning to air once the natural is established, or whether to go with a harassing-based build with Banshees, then establish the natural, then transition into full air.
This strategy is only at the very rudimentary stages of exploration. It's like how Zerg was before Savior and his peers discovered the possibilities of Hive and Defiler play. After they discovered how good Defilers were, they then needed to hone their BOs in order to safely reach Hive.
On October 08 2010 16:44 klauz619 wrote: Mutas take a dump on vikings, phoenix also beat vikings in larger, equal numbers, surprisingly.
A maxed air army would just have zerg go equal mutas to vikings then auto win against the banshees.
Mutas are also made mostly useless by the Raven support. Clumped Mutas will get raped by a couple nicely timed Hunter-Seekers, and PDD will neutralize their first few volleys, giving Vikings somewhat of an advantage.
Don't forget that air also encompasses Cattlebruisers. If anyone wants to take those down, Mutas and Phoenixes won't cut it. Battlecruiser counters are usually countered by Vikings and PDD.
Also, in large engagements, the Seeker Missile becomes surprisingly useful, even when on the defensive.
The Seeker Missile allows Terran to abuse the Viking's huge range compared to other air units: When engaging, fire off a few Seekers. The enemy will either be forced to move his units back, all the while taking shots from 9-range Vikings, or simply eat the Missile. There are very few players in the world who can immediately move back the exact unit being targeted by the Seeker Missile in a 200/200 fight; most people will select a clump of units that look like they're getting targetted, move them all back, then manually split until they find the correct unit.
keep in mind: feedback can be used on PDD's themselves to completely nullify them.
I think stalker + templar + archon would be a viable response to an all air terran army. feedback spam on ravens, PDDs, and banshees, merge to archons for additional tanking and ground-to-air.
Large period of vulnerability before you have critical number of banshees to defend a ground push too.
1) Every Terran air unit is incredibly gas-heavy. Making a 200/200 army of pure air is nearly impossible and requires 4-5 gas-saturated bases to sustain production. I don't see how this would be viable.
2) I disagree about HTs. How does feedback take a lot of micro? All you do is hold the button and spam-click. Also, I don't think magic boxing would be enough to stop storms. Terran air is slower than mutas so you're going to be taking a lot more damage before you can move out of storm radius.
3) I am still skeptical that you could beat 200/200 mutas with a reasonable composition (i.e. not 10% ravens and 90% vikings). They can catch your air out of position and force you to waste PDDs.
I like the effort put into the post and it gives me a lot to think about but I see some problems. I'd love to see some of this in action.
Hey i just wrote a big post on something like this. The problem is that you require 3 base gas to get enough ravens, banshees, vikings, bcs, or whatever combo of air units you get. Having to protect that much area is a pain in the ass if you are straight teching for air.
I could see air being extremely good against zerg. BCs melt hydras, PDD covers from any zerg ATA or ATS zerg can throw at you, and even with PDD covering you can just yamato the expensive corrupters. I could see a hellion into banshee harass opening being transitioned into an air heavy lategame. You just need to secure your expansions. Other than that, 5-6 fully upgraded BCs + 4 or so Ravens is entirely unstoppable. PDD removes any threat, and yamato takes out the rest. Getting there is the problem
The only threat this runs into is high templar. Feedback destroys ravens, banshees, and BCs. Ether use your energy before the high temps come, or try and focus down whatever force the protoss sends to finish your Feedbacked units.
It seems like this would be about as hard to build as a mostly battlecruiser army, with supporting vikings and ravens. Doesn't seem viable at all, since the chance to max out 200+3/3 would be nearly impossible without forcing a map cutoff with tanks in TvT, and even then you'd probably want to opt for the BCs instead.
Don't want to shit on your parade, but feedback works on both PDD's and ravens. Also by the time you have 200/200 3/3 air, you're probably in your bed dreaming about it right after you got rolled by any 1 base play.
It's all about the transition I think, like the OP said. In theory it's pretty effective and I sometimes opt for BCs + misc air support if the game runs on very long, but it's hard to find the opportunity to transition into it and it's not really something you can definitively plan for from the start of the game. 60-70% of the time I have the opportunity to end the game far earlier with a well timed push to press my advantage. As far as the unit composition goes though, it's reasonably effective and something to keep in mind for very long games I suppose.
Personally, against protoss, BCs alone on top of your regular army will usually suffice due to their lack of good answers to it other than void rays (which get one shotted by yamato cannon).
This is not viable. There is a reason nobody does it - it does not work. Period. It takes too much time and too many resources to build the type of army you're thinking about without being crushed by Mutas, which can be built far, far faster than T air, and which absolutely demolish Vikings and Banshees. Ravens are simply too expensive to produce in the numbers you're envisioning, especially since the PDD is static and it's radius easily escaped by Mutas. Carriers also demolish Vikings once their numbers are large enough, because the vikings have to be focus-fired and will overkill their target, while the interceptors do not overkill at all. That's putting aside the fact that you'll be overrun by any competent opponent when you attempt this massive, gas-loaded transition, or you'll miss your timing window to end the game against an opponent too crippled to exert any pressure on you.
Surely this army isn't unstoppable completely, you would basically need the perfect composition or I don't think this could work.
If you don't have enough vikings, air kills you and if you don't have enough banshees, ground kills you as although PDD works in the way it does, you can just move away from the army and force him to waste them, then you snipe the banshees and there's nothing he can do.
Also, with enough Fungals you'll kill them eventually before they can do damage right? Since you can't shift viking modes while fungalled.
High DPS: The Banshee has some of the highest DPS against ground units of any combat unit in the game. Here are the DPS numbers against ground for all units in every race that do over 10 DPS.
i think you made a critical error right here...
banshee is 3 supply. if you want to compare dps of units, you surely have to take supply into account. also, you simply can't compare regular damage to splash damage.
in other words, banshee damage is about average versus ground units.
it's not viable because it's nigh-impossible to create a 200/200 air fleet unless you're on 4 bases versus the most passive player of all time.
it's like saying zerg is unbeatable with 200/200 broodlord/corruptor...
sorry but i just had to laugh when you compared banshee dps to 1 marine.
How do you get your amazing mass air army exactly?
Do you go straight to it from 2 base? Both races can easily scout and confirm your port heavy play, simply expand again, and out gas you. They can use their larger ground army to bully you from taking your 3rd.
Let's do some arithmetic: 2 base gas is ~450 gas/min. That's basically 2-3 ports if you make ravens + banshees. You will also be making only 1 raven/1banshee/~45s. That means you will be creating 4 food only with your gas.
AND: guess what, other races have amazing spells too. PStorm/Fungal destroy banshees/vikings trivially, and also devastate the gas starved mineral dump of marines that you will be forced to buy.
verry interesting discussion but i am wondering a bit about your dps figures wich you use to start your analysis It seems to me that you use the unupgraded dps while you basicly try to compare 3/3 upgraded armies, since upgrades scale differently for different units this could have a huge impact on the dps figures Wouldnt it be more reasonable to take the 3/3 dps figures against non specific targets?
On October 08 2010 20:20 GenericTerranPlayer wrote: I think i read somewhere that during blizzard's internal testing they found out 200/200 ravens are the strongest army. is that relevant here?
this was true when hunter seeker had 9 range and didn't require an upgrade. plus i have a feeling it cost 100 energy, and not 125 (so each raven could launch two without delay).
i think if you make any more than 1 raven you're severely gimping yourself against any standard strategy your opponent has employed. you'll lose to any versatile attack because you haven't enough gas to tech, upgrade or make an extra couple of siege tanks etc.
raven costs as much gas as a thor, PDD soaks up 200-280 damage from stalkers. erm a thor would soak up 400 damage and also deal a truckload of damage itself...
against standard builds, raven is only useful for detection and very careful timing pushes (pretty much the only time you would PLAN to use PDD).
In my personal tests, 200/200 Carriers beats everything 200/200, Carriers have 14 effective range after launch. 200/200 Ravens all firing Seeker Missles probably is the best air in the game, but that won't translate to the real world because of the energy requirement. Perhaps Vikings if they focused fired well, but 256 Interceptors get Vikings FAST, so you would need to be good.
On October 08 2010 17:18 unaliased wrote: Except that 200/200 pheonix would crush this
Vikings beat phoenixes in cost effectiveness, plus a couple of battlecruisers would utterly shut down phoenixes, mass void rays would do a lot better.
As for zerg. You would have a lot of trouble beating mass infestor hydra of just mass infestor with an air army. All the z player has to do is catch a chunk of your units with a single fungal and then drop 30 (4 nearly full infestors worth) infested marines and they would hose your army unless is was 90% banshees. Growth would also make cloak ineffective.
Im not saying mass air is bad. Terran air units are rediculously powerful. And while I realize that this is completely a theory discussion as the use of 200/200 air 3/3 is incredibly improbable unless you have already won the game. I think there are better things to spend your money on.
Mass battlecruisers with yamato and 2 ravens would probably be more effective.
Edit: additional tidbits
Battlecruiser A to A with +3 weapons is 50% more damage
On October 08 2010 18:39 Nihilnovi wrote: Don't want to shit on your parade, but feedback works on both PDD's and ravens. Also by the time you have 200/200 3/3 air, you're probably in your bed dreaming about it right after you got rolled by any 1 base play.
There was an issue with Patch 1.1 or something that apparently makes Feedback not work on PDD right now.
A 200 pop army of hydralisks and infestors would destroy terran air. Spam FG like a mad man and mop up with hydras.
a 200 pop army of stalkers and ht win. PDD starts losing efficiency in higher unit numbers due to the number of shots fired. Either the stalkers blink in for some initial damage or blink out to evade PDD placement. Or you could storm/feedback everything because it works well on all Terran air.
a 200 pop army of ghosts marines and thors. Emp stops all raven usage and permanently decloaks banshees.
On October 08 2010 18:39 Nihilnovi wrote: Don't want to shit on your parade, but feedback works on both PDD's and ravens. Also by the time you have 200/200 3/3 air, you're probably in your bed dreaming about it right after you got rolled by any 1 base play.
Just like Zerg Hive play with Ultra/Defiler/Crackling is a wet dream in SC1 right? There's no way there are any viable mid-game plays that allow them to get up to the number of gases needed to support Ultras and Defilers while upgrading carapace and melee from Evo Chamber, Consume and Plague, and Anabolic and Plating, right?
No, Zergs figured out a way to stall until 4 base, at which point they get their high-gas units and roll you.
It took 4-5 years and Savior (or was it GGPlay?) to figure out how to stall well enough, but they did manage to do it.
On October 08 2010 18:52 Mizzet wrote: It's all about the transition I think, like the OP said. In theory it's pretty effective and I sometimes opt for BCs + misc air support if the game runs on very long, but it's hard to find the opportunity to transition into it and it's not really something you can definitively plan for from the start of the game. 60-70% of the time I have the opportunity to end the game far earlier with a well timed push to press my advantage. As far as the unit composition goes though, it's reasonably effective and something to keep in mind for very long games I suppose.
Personally, against protoss, BCs alone on top of your regular army will usually suffice due to their lack of good answers to it other than void rays (which get one shotted by yamato cannon).
Exactly, the opening and the transition are everything when you're trying to craft a lategame army.
Flash's strategy in PvT allowed him to saftely expand and take a third while he macroed up an unstoppable 200/200 3/3 Mech army.
Zergs regularly stall Terran in the midgame with Muta and Lurker so that they can reach 4 base and Hive, then win with Ultraling + Defiler.
Part of the reason no replays or build orders are posted is because I'm not Savior, or Flash. I don't play SC2 professionally, and therefore I haven't engineered a transitional build order that allows Terrans to safely take 3 bases and get the necessary gas geysers to pump Banshee/Viking/Raven.
This thread was simply a poke in the right direction, where we first recongnize that "hey, Terran air is a powerful unit composition, can we take advantage of it?"
On October 08 2010 19:02 PanzerKing wrote: This is not viable. There is a reason nobody does it - it does not work. Period. It takes too much time and too many resources to build the type of army you're thinking about without being crushed by Mutas, which can be built far, far faster than T air, and which absolutely demolish Vikings and Banshees. Ravens are simply too expensive to produce in the numbers you're envisioning, especially since the PDD is static and it's radius easily escaped by Mutas. Carriers also demolish Vikings once their numbers are large enough, because the vikings have to be focus-fired and will overkill their target, while the interceptors do not overkill at all. That's putting aside the fact that you'll be overrun by any competent opponent when you attempt this massive, gas-loaded transition, or you'll miss your timing window to end the game against an opponent too crippled to exert any pressure on you.
Dark Swarm's radius was also static. And yet, the entire Zerg mid-lategame strategy is to stall until they can get Defilers out, at which point the Zerg can completely blunt most Terran and Protoss aggression.
And, nobody in this thread is saying that you should rush to this type of unit composition. The transitional period needs to be explored, and what build gets you to the lategame in the best position needs to be figured out.
On October 08 2010 19:15 Qikz wrote: Surely this army isn't unstoppable completely, you would basically need the perfect composition or I don't think this could work.
If you don't have enough vikings, air kills you and if you don't have enough banshees, ground kills you as although PDD works in the way it does, you can just move away from the army and force him to waste them, then you snipe the banshees and there's nothing he can do.
Also, with enough Fungals you'll kill them eventually before they can do damage right? Since you can't shift viking modes while fungalled.
That's the same as Terran Mech vs. Toss and Zerg in SC1.
If you had too many Goliaths, Hydras would kill you. If you had too many tanks, Muta would kill you. If you had too many Vultures, Dragoons would kill you.
Also, the point about PDD is also true for Swarm. Unintelligent Dark Swarm usage simply wasted Defiler energy, you could just move back from the Swarm and engage later.
However, properly placed Swarms WIN GAMES. The same holds true for PDD, and to an extent, Seeker Missiles
Also, perfect Fungal Growth is a counter to any unit composition. That doesn't mean that Zerg who reach Infestor tech always win the game. People make mistakes, Magic Box helps negate Fungals, etc.
High DPS: The Banshee has some of the highest DPS against ground units of any combat unit in the game. Here are the DPS numbers against ground for all units in every race that do over 10 DPS.
i think you made a critical error right here...
banshee is 3 supply. if you want to compare dps of units, you surely have to take supply into account. also, you simply can't compare regular damage to splash damage.
in other words, banshee damage is about average versus ground units.
it's not viable because it's nigh-impossible to create a 200/200 air fleet unless you're on 4 bases versus the most passive player of all time.
it's like saying zerg is unbeatable with 200/200 broodlord/corruptor...
sorry but i just had to laugh when you compared banshee dps to 1 marine.
Transitional play. Zerg and Terran made entire strategies involving stalling until lategame in SC1, and Cool demonstrated that it is still viable on Zerg in SC2 with his multiple games won by stalling until Ultras came out.
On October 08 2010 19:50 Shikyo wrote: So, why doesn't this outright die to mass corruptor, again?
PDD, Vikings out-range Corrupters, etc.
On October 08 2010 19:59 naventus wrote: How do you get your amazing mass air army exactly?
Do you go straight to it from 2 base? Both races can easily scout and confirm your port heavy play, simply expand again, and out gas you. They can use their larger ground army to bully you from taking your 3rd.
Let's do some arithmetic: 2 base gas is ~450 gas/min. That's basically 2-3 ports if you make ravens + banshees. You will also be making only 1 raven/1banshee/~45s. That means you will be creating 4 food only with your gas.
AND: guess what, other races have amazing spells too. PStorm/Fungal destroy banshees/vikings trivially, and also devastate the gas starved mineral dump of marines that you will be forced to buy.
----
Theorycraft debunked.
The exact way to stall until the necessary gas is acquired is not clear. I'm not a world-class player, I don't have the answer.
Mutas were devastated by Thors until Magic Box was discovered, and now they're on equal footing. The same strategy can be applied to Terran air. Air vs. Storm/Fungal will be a battle of micro.
Plus, with such a mobile attack force that is all airborne, why would you engage in a huge pack, instead of flanking from multiple directions, making it harder to storm you?
On October 08 2010 18:39 Nihilnovi wrote: Don't want to shit on your parade, but feedback works on both PDD's and ravens. Also by the time you have 200/200 3/3 air, you're probably in your bed dreaming about it right after you got rolled by any 1 base play.
Or we could try to keep ourself updated and realize that NO it does not work anymore
Anyway
How the fuck do you plan to get a great air army, with only making the most gas hungry units in the game, getting +1 upgrades, HSM, cloak etc. 2bases + 2 gas only bases?
Not sure how viable a heavy 200 army air Strategy is because like other have stated there is a bit of a gas issue.
But a possible stall tactic that might get you somewhere with this would be heavy viking harassment on overlords. if you're effective with the harassment you could artificially keep zerga number's relatively low while forcing zerga to sink larvae and mineral into overlord production. It should also screw around with zerga unit composition i.e. forcing hydra play or some kind of air counter.
On October 08 2010 18:39 Nihilnovi wrote: Don't want to shit on your parade, but feedback works on both PDD's and ravens. Also by the time you have 200/200 3/3 air, you're probably in your bed dreaming about it right after you got rolled by any 1 base play.
Confirmed Changes:
- PDD now counts as a building and cannot be feedbacked.
there is a good reason why good players rarely make more than about 2 banshee's, vikings and ravens through an entire match.
in bronze league you learn that if you mass banshee's, a mass speedling army can completely own your base faster than your banshee's can kill them. this can happen in late game or early game the same... you simply need splash damage or higher dps to take out mass ling - and the banshee ~6 dps per supply is useless, it's only a little more dps per supply than an scv.
On October 08 2010 18:39 Nihilnovi wrote: Don't want to shit on your parade, but feedback works on both PDD's and ravens. Also by the time you have 200/200 3/3 air, you're probably in your bed dreaming about it right after you got rolled by any 1 base play.
Or we could try to keep ourself updated and realize that NO it does not work anymore
Anyway
How the fuck do you plan to get a great air army, with only making the most gas hungry units in the game, getting +1 upgrades, HSM, cloak etc. 2bases + 2 gas only bases?
Topic starter already said that he was thoerycrafting. Please refrain from using offensive language. This forum is for gentlemen only.
EPT
