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Agreed with the 'scan is not the answer' argument. Picture the scene...
It is steppes of war. You have scouted about the Protoss base, and there are pylons all over, and he's taken both his gas. There are too many potential areas to place tech for you to catch in a single scan. You're still concerned that the toss might pull some shit, so you scan anyway, and you see 2 gateways.
2 gateways.
Ok, genius's, fucking tell me how that helps? I can totally use that information to tell that he has :
1) expanded
2) doing a shitty variation of a 4gate (most 4gates are a one-gas build, but some people are weird)
3) 1/2/3 gate robo.
4) stargate tech, either in his base or proxied somewhere
5) DT tech, either in his base or (most likely) proxied somewhere. This does happen a LOT on the ladder, and whilst early pressure builds do kill particularly greedy protosses that try this shit, it's still an infuriating build.
oh wait, I fucking can't, beacuse scan is a very expensive and risky move to try and scout the protoss!
Regular Void ray play is, as mentioned by eocheic, countered by having a few marines handy (reactor Rax-ftw!) and also by having a very tight base layout so the voidray has to go quite deep into your base to shoot stuff. So much easier to kill that way (especially if you have some stim ready!). Void ray busts I have not seen very much of on ladder to be able to comment about, I'll admit that, but it is rather obnoxious that a protoss can charge up on neutral buildings like rocks and mengsk statues.
Ugh><
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This is so freaking biased, I like how you actually state P >>>>> T late game in your first game.
Now I don't disagree that VRs are broken but this is just so much bias it's making me sick.
You also say you need to do an all-in build to protect against this which is .... an all-in? I see no problem in this.
Making an expo when you suspect this (and even knew) is nothing but wierd.
EDIT; Was actually second game.
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On October 10 2010 10:26 Gsk wrote:
This is so freaking biased, I like how you actually state P >>>>> T late game in your first game.
Now I don't disagree that VRs are broken but this is just so much bias it's making me sick.
You also say you need to do an all-in build to protect against this which is .... an all-in? I see no problem in this.
Making an expo when you suspect this (and even knew) is nothing but wierd.
There's some bias, but there's plenty of legitimate points.
The P > T late game is a pretty well acknowledged fact by a lot of folks.
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On October 10 2010 05:35 link0 wrote:
In game 1, he screwed up his build or else he'd have more than just a zealot and a sentry at his ramp (in which case moving up the ramp would be really risky). I was satisfied in scouting that he didn't FE and wasted one FF. Losing a handful of very early units as in T v P or P v T is just a huge setback that I didn't feel was worth risky.
Game 2, yea I should have put down a PDD. However, VR's lasers aren't affected by PDD and it'd be shot down in a split second. It wouldn't have mattered the slightest.
Once again, my point was that the 3gate VR build is not possible to stop, but that it forces you to 1) Not wall up, ever 2) Blindly go stim bio every game with a focus on marines.
that's a good start
also try improving your micro tricks once you have mastered those 2 points. It can make the whole difference.
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Finally someone posts about this stupidity. Back when I played T I was constantly complaining about voidrays being a broken unit. I don't know why this hasn't gotten more attention. Voidrays uncharged are pretty damn pathetic. Charged, they're just impossible to combat with proper support. 3 gate VR is a pretty allin build, but it's difficult - sometimes impossible to scout. The reaction you need is really awkward, and on top of that, it definitely does add an element of BO luck into TvP.
Also when you remove all the games won by this and other stupid luck-based allins, it's much easier to see the difficulty for P in standard TvP. I don't like how P's best solution to standard play is these kinds of dumb allins.
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P does have (conceptually!) a stronger late game because their army scales better because most of it is sick splash damage. Picutre like 8 colosi with +2/3 attack upgrades. Now picture a bioball running into it.
This got worse with the tank and BC nerf.
The main issue is that, for terran, we have MMM+ ghost, maybe vikings, and that's our entire unit lineup for the whole game. Once we have reactor starport, 3+ rax and maybe a ghost academy we've hit our lategame unit composition. All we can really do is take more bases and make more of just those units! This isn't to say it's weak, it's just that it scales linearly wheras the Protoss colosi and HT scale exponentially. The more powerful splash damage they can bring out the better, which is why you can regularly see huge colossus/ht groups melt a large bio army in seconds.
This isn't to say it's completely awful for Terran. Terrans can still try siege tanks, and terrans can make some truly obscene movement plays and harassments to stay ahead with them medivacs, etc. It's just that in straight up engagements, the later the game goes on the better for protoss if he's massing up all those sweet AoE murderers (unless the Terran hits them with a truly nasty sucker punch, like drop-killin a nexus or a bunch of probes).
EDIT-
pulled from the Drewbie interview:
ROOT.Drewbie:
TvP is a really hard matchup. Theres 2 kinds of P users, the macro tosses and the allin tosses. Agaisnt the allin tosses, you just have to stop their first attack and you win. But I feel like in the late game, P units are more cost effective than T units. It's not necessarily imbalanced, because if T keeps the pressure on the entire game, then they can out expand the P.
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Oh dear god... I just read through a good portion of this thread. We HAVE to get some strategy forum restrictions. I feel so bad for great players like Avilo and Link0 getting shittalked by gold league champions who think they've figured out the entire game. It's just a joke now. I feel about sc2 strategy the way I feel about the battlenet forums. It doesn't matter how good your post is and what you say because the noobs will just flock to it and spout nonsense nonstop until your OP is so covered in bullshit that you have wade up to your eyeballs in it to find any good information.
TL please do something. =[
Edit: and to keep this reasonably on track:
Voidrays should be changed dramtically. I'm not talking about little balance tweaks. I want to see a complete unit redesign. Blizzard should've realized they botched the voidray in beta, but I think amidst the chaos of balancing out marine/scv allins and other more pressing matters it got overlooked by the community. I do think that most people simply don't comprehend how the voidray is bad game design, but I assure everyone that link0 is right - it is.
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You need a replay, with no replay its just another QQ post..
Edit: But you know what, if you happen to scout the stargate before it pumps out the voids, you win! And if not.. LoL
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i think if you do a 2 marine techlab, stim as soon as it lands, and then throw down cc ---> 3 more rax scout with reaper. Once u see this, u can just pump marines throw an ebay, and then have a bunker + 1 turret at an entrance, while pumping marines. It holds it very nicely and u have an expo up.
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I def. think void ray charge needs to be changed. They are meant to originally be strong vs units with large hp like the battlecrusier but as of now, charged they own basically everything
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I don't see the problem. Vikings or stimmed marines can counter them. If you scout void rays in time, you can shut it down completely. Denied void rays are a huge resource sink, which will in the end most probably lead to the loss of the Protoss opponent. If you miss to scout or suspect it and don't have the perfect timing, you will lose. But that's alright, because if you are unsure about your enemie's opening, just always play safe and build enough marines or a viking. Therefore you would end up being predictable. This separates you from better players.
I do not deny that void rays are hard to counter!
I'd probably play an early push or try to pull off perfect scouting like off factory + one reaper + scouting all usual off stargate positions.
Nevertheless, the void ray should be examined in future. I don't like that their are only two different damage stages, while three are shown and the last one is extremely good vs. armored and fairly weak against non-armored. It's weird.
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Canada1637 Posts
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This thread is awesome on so many levels. Especially the part where Masq put it so succinctly.
The forward-pylon-precharge, is a beast, especially since it can be started before the pylon even finishes if the protoss were so inclined. Which is the issue, the void-ray as a concept is great, but I don't think blizzard saw this being used to pre-charge on it's own units/buildings. I give a lot of credit to protoss players for adapting its use; but I think this straddles the line between clever and circumvention of the way the unit was intended to be used. Anyway, moving on:
<comments about how blind vikings should be built>
<comments about how scan should be used to confirm a stargate>
<comment about how protoss has 1 other opening so it's easy to spot>
Meanwhile, back at the ranch. After a bit of testing with my resident protoss player friend, I drew some conclusions. On the protoss side, a little micro goes a long way. That's I think part of the point Link0 is also touching on. Void Rays, as fragile as they are, are not so fragile when behind a healthy amount of stalkers. There's a number of variables that go beyond scouting. Just to name a few, stim/shields/unit comp/micro are pretty much the biggest. (This of course has all been mentioned but I'm reiterating incase some people missed it).
It also puts terran in a dangerous position that even if it succeeds, you're pretty committed to a stimmed, and potentially unmedivac supported army. Tbh, I think teching to vikings on the sight of a stargate might be a bit reckless, you have a small window to do so, between your 2nd/3rd production building. I think it puts you too spread out where I think you need numbers to basically clog up and surround protoss units. I can't say exactly that marine/raven/banshee really will help either, especially for the cost.
Of course the same could be said for the Protoss as an expansion may be delayed, as well as a significant investment of gas has been made towards the voids.
You need xel naga towers to spot a probe coming out, and you need to put a unit on patrol in certain areas. This of course is a map-based issue so some areas might be better than others, but it's not as cut and dry as "doing x->getting y".
This all just shows how you need to know your opponents playbook and open with a build that keeps you flexible that you aren't pouring too much into teching that will be more expensive, when for a cheaper alternative, you can just pump cheap marines and control group your marauders to a different group.
bottom line: proxy-charge void ray is tough. and is not easily defended even with scouting, and it's only made harder if your opponent has any sort of micro.
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On October 10 2010 10:25 iaguz wrote:
Agreed with the 'scan is not the answer' argument. Picture the scene...
It is steppes of war. You have scouted about the Protoss base, and there are pylons all over, and he's taken both his gas. There are too many potential areas to place tech for you to catch in a single scan. You're still concerned that the toss might pull some shit, so you scan anyway, and you see 2 gateways.
2 gateways.
Ok, genius's, fucking tell me how that helps? I can totally use that information to tell that he has :
1) expanded
2) doing a shitty variation of a 4gate (most 4gates are a one-gas build, but some people are weird)
3) 1/2/3 gate robo.
4) stargate tech, either in his base or proxied somewhere
5) DT tech, either in his base or (most likely) proxied somewhere. This does happen a LOT on the ladder, and whilst early pressure builds do kill particularly greedy protosses that try this shit, it's still an infuriating build.
oh wait, I fucking can't, beacuse scan is a very expensive and risky move to try and scout the protoss!
Regular Void ray play is, as mentioned by eocheic, countered by having a few marines handy (reactor Rax-ftw!) and also by having a very tight base layout so the voidray has to go quite deep into your base to shoot stuff. So much easier to kill that way (especially if you have some stim ready!). Void ray busts I have not seen very much of on ladder to be able to comment about, I'll admit that, but it is rather obnoxious that a protoss can charge up on neutral buildings like rocks and mengsk statues.
Ugh><
There's more then one way to scout. You could do it the old fashioned way but that might require APM. You could really just replace the words "void ray" with "cloaked banshee" and the post would be identical.
Scout better, learn to deal with surprises, practice more. Too many terrans go for a full on mass marauder build against P and assume they've already countered the collosi. 
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Yeah, void rays are my least favorite unit in SC2 - they are completely one sided, either doing nothing or virtually ending the game.
I like the idea of protoss having a good air-to-ground unit to at least force some anti air, but the mechanic is just really dumb. I'd like to see the charge work as an energy ability, where it could use it's super-charged attack, but then not be able to shoot at all once it was out of energy. That way it would be able to serve it's original purpose of countering things like BC's and carriers, something that it doesn't even do now.
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On October 10 2010 10:33 PROJECTILE wrote:Show nested quote +On October 10 2010 10:26 Gsk wrote:
This is so freaking biased, I like how you actually state P >>>>> T late game in your first game.
Now I don't disagree that VRs are broken but this is just so much bias it's making me sick.
You also say you need to do an all-in build to protect against this which is .... an all-in? I see no problem in this.
Making an expo when you suspect this (and even knew) is nothing but wierd. There's some bias, but there's plenty of legitimate points. The P > T late game is a pretty well acknowledged fact by a lot of folks.
It's a fairly biased statement because there's been no evidence brought forth. The only time Protoss wins is in the lategame because 1 Bunker > all midgame aggression. You never see Protoss win early game so everyone is biased into thinking hur dur lategame OP. A new build arises that can beat the 1 Bunker and actually ends it midgame against tech heavy and greedy openings. So now you guys are crying over Void Rays. I'm sure Blizzard will nerf it in a hearbeat and Terran can resume never needing to react to their opponent whilst the equivalent Banshee/Marine/PDD will still require Protoss to blind counter.
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This is the only build thugnificent does on ladder vs terran. Sadly I've lost to it too many times T_T
You pretty much have to have a timing for a blind bunker if you do not have any scouting intel. Just skimming through this thread, a lot of the higher level terrans (1.7k+) say it's strong, and everyone else just gives stupid suggestions.
The only thing Terran should ever scan for is an expansion, everything else is a coinflip/gamble vs good tosses.
Although it is a pretty gay build, it does have its counters/ways to beat it. Namely being pro active with scouting, or knowing the timing(which is easy since we have an in-game timer now), and just not over reacting. As soon as the voids are dead, protoss is pretty screwd.
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On October 10 2010 10:25 iaguz wrote:
Agreed with the 'scan is not the answer' argument. Picture the scene...
It is steppes of war. You have scouted about the Protoss base, and there are pylons all over, and he's taken both his gas. There are too many potential areas to place tech for you to catch in a single scan. You're still concerned that the toss might pull some shit, so you scan anyway, and you see 2 gateways.
2 gateways.
Ok, genius's, fucking tell me how that helps? I can totally use that information to tell that he has :
1) expanded
2) doing a shitty variation of a 4gate (most 4gates are a one-gas build, but some people are weird)
3) 1/2/3 gate robo.
4) stargate tech, either in his base or proxied somewhere
5) DT tech, either in his base or (most likely) proxied somewhere. This does happen a LOT on the ladder, and whilst early pressure builds do kill particularly greedy protosses that try this shit, it's still an infuriating build.
oh wait, I fucking can't, beacuse scan is a very expensive and risky move to try and scout the protoss!
How is this any different than in TvX, where T can produce cloaked banshees that you cannot really scout. Hell, even when you scout the terran base, 10s after you scout he can swap his addons around and be producing different units.
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Personally, I would prefer that P had a viable air unit and not the, in my opinion, gimmicky Void Ray (I'll say I'd take the Scout, even). The whole "build a proxy pylon to pre charge" is pretty ludicrous in my opinion, and I can see how this can be take advantage of ridiculoously in some maps like Blistering Sands or wherever you can safely build a hidden pylon near the opponents main. Having an air unit for me to deal *effectively* with Marauders would also be nice.
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On October 10 2010 11:53 iaguz wrote:
P does have (conceptually!) a stronger late game because their army scales better because most of it is sick splash damage. Picutre like 8 colosi with +2/3 attack upgrades. Now picture a bioball running into it.
This got worse with the tank and BC nerf.
The main issue is that, for terran, we have MMM+ ghost, maybe vikings, and that's our entire unit lineup for the whole game. Once we have reactor starport, 3+ rax and maybe a ghost academy we've hit our lategame unit composition. All we can really do is take more bases and make more of just those units! This isn't to say it's weak, it's just that it scales linearly wheras the Protoss colosi and HT scale exponentially. The more powerful splash damage they can bring out the better, which is why you can regularly see huge colossus/ht groups melt a large bio army in seconds.
This isn't to say it's completely awful for Terran. Terrans can still try siege tanks, and terrans can make some truly obscene movement plays and harassments to stay ahead with them medivacs, etc. It's just that in straight up engagements, the later the game goes on the better for protoss if he's massing up all those sweet AoE murderers (unless the Terran hits them with a truly nasty sucker punch, like drop-killin a nexus or a bunch of probes).
EDIT-
pulled from the Drewbie interview:
ROOT.Drewbie:
TvP is a really hard matchup. Theres 2 kinds of P users, the macro tosses and the allin tosses. Agaisnt the allin tosses, you just have to stop their first attack and you win. But I feel like in the late game, P units are more cost effective than T units. It's not necessarily imbalanced, because if T keeps the pressure on the entire game, then they can out expand the P.
Ravens, Battlecruisers, and Banshee harass would like to have a word with you.
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EPT
