Funnily, because of its current mechanics allowing for the charge to roll-over after the first target is dead, the void ray loses its design function. Like ^ said it was designed to beat big units. Rather than giving voidrays extra damage to massive they gave them the charge and by allowing the charge to carry over they've basically given Protoss a unit that when utilized to its full potential would give you a unit that has 1.) advantage of being air
2.) fairly robust
3.) insane amounts of damage to all unit types

Pfhor

123 Posts

October 09 2010 06:20 GMT

#22

I saw this one very entertaining PvP in the GSL (I believe it was sanZenith vs oGsInca), both players used void rays to great effect by charging them up on their own buildings and using their own units to juggle the charge to the opponents base (I believe if you time it right juggling doesn't do any damage to your own units). I would hate to see that play taken away, and I don't feel void rays are broken enough against Terran to justify it.

dinmsab

Malaysia2246 Posts

October 09 2010 06:28 GMT

#23

On October 09 2010 15:20 Pfhor wrote:
I saw this one very entertaining PvP in the GSL (I believe it was Zenith vs Inca), both players used void rays to great effect by charging them up on their own buildings and using their own units to juggle the charge to the opponents base. I would hate to see that play taken away, and I don't feel void rays are broken enough against Terran to justify it.

Void rays alone are not broken. You could void ray rush the shit out of any decent T and we won't complain as its relatively easy to defend. The problem is when your better than average toss figures out that he can attack the terran with both void rays and gateway units early on exactly when the terran isn't great at defending either forces. 3 rax+stim is a viable way to beat this but you're still going to lose a few buildings at your choke and maybe a refinery or so. It's a hard build to deal with, not impossible.. but definitely very hard. I've never won vs any toss doing this btw.

Chocobo

United States1108 Posts

October 09 2010 06:36 GMT

#24

I absolutely agree with the OP. Voidrays are just insanely strong when charged, and attacking together with a solid ground army makes them incredibly hard to stop.

At first I thought that the charge should drop after switching a target or two... but perhaps a time limit would be better. Maybe a full charge could last 10-15 seconds, or whatever's appropriate.

I'm honestly surprised that void ray strats like this aren't used more in high level play... I can only assume that the pros have more effective ways to deal with voidrays than us mere mortals, and that maybe it is balanced after all. I can't see it though.

Anyway, I very seriously doubt Blizzard would change the voidray at this point.

LtLolburger

New Zealand365 Posts

October 09 2010 06:37 GMT

#25

Void rays are hardly a counter to battle cruisers or thors at all, as if they start attacking uncharged they will get beat down so hard its not even funny, as they are made of the finest protoss paper mache. Thus they NEED the ability to keep charge between targets. They have been through a constant nerf gauntlet since beta, they are fine as is.

If you scan the protoss base and see only 2-3 gateways and no robo, you should assume hidden stargate and definitely be considering making more marines or vikings. 2 or so well placed turrets, with your engineering bay which you should be getting anyway, are also a good investment.

PhilipJWitow

29 Posts

October 09 2010 06:48 GMT

#26

I disagree with your argument that it's too difficult to scout and therefore too difficult to counter. Maybe you just need to adjust your build to always be wary of this.

I fail to see how this is any different from a Protoss versus a Terran. I can't see what they're building, they can be doing something cheesy like fast banshees, and I pretty much have to sit in my base because if you are just doing a MMM ball I'm going to get rolled unless I tech up.

Why not post some replays or something? Maybe it is incredibly overpowered and we just can't see. But we need some evidence first.

Deleted User 3420

24492 Posts

October 09 2010 06:53 GMT

#27

your suggested change to charge mechanic will ruin void rays in pvt, it will make marines do awesome against them

Nemesis

Canada2568 Posts

October 09 2010 07:02 GMT

#28

I've always thought that the charge mechanic in void rays is very gimmicky. As it stands, if they are uncharged, they are not very good units, but once charged they are very strong units.

Shikyo

Finland33997 Posts

October 09 2010 07:09 GMT

#29

On October 09 2010 14:50 Chill wrote:
You haven't proven your point. You've just said "They do this and it's impossible to stop".

Pretty much this, as I started adding in a lot of marines after the ~4 initial Marauders, I haven't had any problems with a proxy Void Ray unless the map was a broken pos like Desert Oasis.

Fontong

United States6454 Posts

October 09 2010 07:13 GMT

#30

I would be a decent fix to this if buildings weren't armored, while at the same time being a fix for marauder damage against buildings.

Vaporak

70 Posts

October 09 2010 07:14 GMT

#31

Do you have any replays to post? I'd love to see a good voidray strategy in PvT!

CocoA

Panama169 Posts

October 09 2010 07:15 GMT

#32

as link0 said if you know its coming its not hard to stop since you can 3 rax, but sacrificing and going 3 rax every game will just make you go all in every game not knowing what hes doing, personally i think T has to expo and going 3 rax and massing bio isnt going to help you expo since you somehow have to attack if the protoss didnt go void rays
not sure if i explained myself

Techno

1900 Posts

October 09 2010 07:17 GMT

#33

I agree with the OP. I think that void rays should charge faster but lose charge switching targets. This would make them better in standing armies but worse at desssssssssstroying a base that didnt know they were coming. The counter arguement is you should always prepare enough for a few voids not to be an autolose. But I think voids could and should be changed.

Any unit that you can just mass is annoying.

thesauceishot

Canada333 Posts

October 09 2010 07:22 GMT

#34

Toss player here. I think the mechanic should be adjusted, but not to the solution that you've provided. I wouldn't mind seeing a faster charge with a lower max damage output. They just feel like such a huge commitment and are not consistently effective, when banshees and mutas are more versatile.

Kiarip

United States1835 Posts

October 09 2010 07:27 GMT

#35

I agree with Linko.

I'm not sure about your solution though. From one point of view it seems really good, because then void rays will be good against stuff with lots of health, bad against stuff with little health.

But on the other hand it will make micro'ing voidrays impossible

PROJECTILE

United States226 Posts

October 09 2010 07:32 GMT

#36

I don't necessarily doubt some of what the OP is saying, but I'd love to see some replays of what he's talking about, win or lose (from high level players)

Regular John

Netherlands25 Posts

October 09 2010 07:44 GMT

#37

you shouldnt have to prepare for just one unit so you don't autolose when it comes around.

edit: i'm not sure about the losing charge thing, that would make VR so much weaker now, but they are too sick when fully charged imo.

Ao_Jun

Denmark396 Posts

October 09 2010 07:46 GMT

#38

It's been said before - it's incredibly hard to help you with no rep... All the people agreeing with you can be having problems with voidrays for all sorts of different reasons. And the people disagreeing can never have seen the specific strat.

I rarely lose to VR's, when i go:

rax --> 2 marines --> reactor --> second rax(tech lab) --> fac--> Port --> raven --> switch techlab port to reactor fac.

maybe a bunker early

klauz619

453 Posts

October 09 2010 07:47 GMT

#39

Void rays are pretty dangerous for bio heavy terran who focuses on marauders, which seems to be what 95% of terran do.

Haven't had problems with them against marine/banshee though, which is sweet.

I'd prefer if void rays charged up twice as fast, but lost their charges whenever they swap targets, they're pretty idiotically designed, they aren't anti-armor or anything, they just do disproportionate damage as long as you can pre-charge off one of the thousands of available methods.

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/88468-1v1-terran-protoss-xelnaga-caverns#rd:undefined;markup

PhiliBiRD

United States2643 Posts

October 09 2010 07:48 GMT

#40

i completely agree, i discovered this many months ago...

a strong void ray push IS UNSTOPPABLE without knowing its coming, and there really is no good way to know ahead of time.