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Zerg air (mass muta) will lose to an equal supply of either protoss or terran air. This should be pretty well known. The difference is that terran or protoss have to invest a huge amount of resources into starports/stargates to get mass air. Zerg only need to build one 200/200 spire. If you don't mass starports, you will be completely outmatched. 20 mutalisks will beat 10 vikings.
Even if their mutas get killed by your mass vikings, Zerg can rapidly tech switch back to ground units. A terran who goes mass starport won't have enough rax/factories.
Yes, mass vikings with upgrades will own any air units in the game. No, that doesn't make them an excellent counter to mass muta.
There's also a common mis-perception (due to massed Unit Tester battles) that upgraded mutas suck against other upgraded units. This is true in a fair fight, as Muta bounce damage gets completely negated by Armor upgrades. However, the optimal use for mutas is to snipe vulnerable targets (buildings, workers, small groups of units) and avoid fair fights. This actually makes Mutas dramatically stronger as they gain weapons upgrades (particularly when sniping buildings).
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Vikings are nice, but there are better ways to counter Mutas (=Marines with Stime and some Medivacs).
Tho i liked the Vikingplay in beta.
I didnt read all, so maybe it was asked already: The question is, how good do Vikings do with only one defense upgrade versus Mutas with no upgrade. Cuz thats realisticly what might happen, and armorupgrade >>> attack, cuz Mutas deal damage to 3 Vikings which each shot, which means that each armor upgrade saves you 3 dmg per Mutavolley.
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For late game my unit composition is essentially BC, Vikings, Tanks, and so far, IF i can reach late game, I haven't met a Z composition that can stop it
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On November 18 2010 07:00 Elean wrote:
From my point of view, vikings are not cost effective against muta.
I don't compare the cost of vikings with the cost of muta. I compare the cost of vikings with the cost of anything else in the terran army that can shoot air.
So if we look only at cost effectiveness, vikings might be the worst choice.
The real question is probably why do you want to make vikings to begin with ?
And once you have found an answer to this, you should ask yourself if it is worth it in comparaison with the advantages of the other anti-air solution terrans have.
Vikings are mobile, and can chase mutas who are sniping buildings. Marines are good for damage against mutas, but not as mobile.
Vikings can be used to scout, snipe overlords due to their comparative mobility. So yeah, there are plenty of reasons to build vikings. But I build only 6 vikings as standard, as the marginal utility decreases as you increase their numbers.
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the zerg can put all overlords on a stacking patrol cycle above a small group of hydralisks/queen... then speedlings will kill you.
it doesn't work.
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bumping, added more upgrade combinations per request, notably, +1 armor on viking will last you TWO muta upgrades (1/1 or 2/0), upgrading armor on muta is pretty useless against vikings.
Also for Z players who say they can just "dodge" the vikings, Vikings have Range 9. IF you even come within vision of a viking clump > 7 , you will lose at least 1 muta. IE. If you don't engage, you lose one muta, if you do engage, you can only do so if you have more mutas/better upgrades.
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Hello, I actually use this strat all the time. Throw in a couple of ravens and you can do alot more damage. A couple of pdds and the Vikings just tear thru them. If you have extra energy on ravens after pdd a turret adds alot of dps. I actually love seeing Zerg go muta because raven and king abdolutly dominate it
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I saw a pro game on scrap station not too long ago where one guy whent mass vikings. He layed down 3 starports and pumped them out quickly to supply block and land at expso. I'll try to dredge up the game. He eventually won but it got close as the zerg ground forces started to take their toll.
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Grounded Vikings lose to pretty much every Zerg ground unit (not banelings), cost-for-cost, but the margin is generally small. They have the range of a Hydra, and nearly the same DPS, with 50% more durability, at 50% higher cost (and they don't need a range upgrade). Paired with Stimmed Marine + Medivac, they should be fine, provided you're getting usage out of air mode.
If you're not using both modes, Vikings are underwhelming against anything but slow, armored air units/colossi.
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Did you guys see the GSL 3 game where the Terran goes 4 cloaked Banshee into mass Viking vs Zerg? Pretty sick build that rolled over the Zerg. While you can TheoryCraft why this is not a good build, it can work in practice, even at the pro level.
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Okay, maybe someone in the five pages before me told you this.... but if I see you massing viking, I'm just going to make a ling/roach/infestor army and kill you, and there isn't much you can do about it. In order to make these vikings, you have to transition to them, and the moment I see multiple starports with no labs, I'm just going to make more ground units. You can hunt my overlords until the cows come home, but vikings suck vs. anything on the ground, and I'll just wipe out your base.
Maybe I'm missing some information? I really think mass viking play is a horrible idea at any level vs. zerg. It's annoying, but that's about it. Vikings beat Mutas, that's nice.... if I don't make mutas/corrupters, then what?
And if you're making vikings in response to muta/corrupter, that means I already have the air superiority advantage, so I either have to let you make them, or you build up an army that defends it.
That defending army (marines) would be sufficient to counter the air. Just attack the zerg and win with your ball of units.
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if there's no muta in the air, what's gonna stop the vikings from killing every single overlord the zerg has/creates and supply blocking them permanently
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I think perhaps Vikings and Tanks would be a very powerful composition for lategame, but I don't really understand how you can make enough of either fast enough to dominate air or land. Fungal can really punish mass air all too easily.
I recently lost to mass Viking on Scrap, but the Vikings didn't really play that huge of a part once I got Infestors. I still teched to Broodlords, perhaps foolishly, but they worked well and I only really lost to a pretty massive army control fail. I think against Ultras mass Viking would not stand a great chance, and I think I could have just outright killed him with Roach/Infestor at many points too.
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The OP has given me great comfort to know I would probably only need to pile up at least 12 vikings in the mid-game and more in the late game to keep buildup my siege tanks/thors safely for the inevitable doom march.
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Have you guys ever tried a fast banshe and viking build?? I have done it a few times and it had worked really really well every time. 2 port both with tech labs fast and pump banshes first then after about 3 banshes making 3 or so vikings and with your banshes kill queens drones and any tech going on. With your few vikings scour the map for overlords. this has worked aslong as while doing this building a wall of three racks at your ramp and being really really good with your repairs if they have a ground army. so you will have like some rines at your front to ward them away and if they try to bust they have three fucking racks to take down.
I partly believe this worked cause they think to themselves "what kinda noob builds 3 racks for a wall in? This must be a new player that used to play fastest in starcraftbw. WTF banshes? VIKINGS? ATTACK!!! DAMN IT HE HAS A MARINE!!! and all his scvs waiting at the ramp to repair... sometimes this game makes me want to pour cereal on my head in disbelief"
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On November 19 2010 04:11 Setev wrote:Show nested quote +On November 18 2010 07:00 Elean wrote:
From my point of view, vikings are not cost effective against muta.
I don't compare the cost of vikings with the cost of muta. I compare the cost of vikings with the cost of anything else in the terran army that can shoot air.
So if we look only at cost effectiveness, vikings might be the worst choice.
The real question is probably why do you want to make vikings to begin with ?
And once you have found an answer to this, you should ask yourself if it is worth it in comparaison with the advantages of the other anti-air solution terrans have.
Vikings are mobile, and can chase mutas who are sniping buildings. Marines are good for damage against mutas, but not as mobile. Vikings can be used to scout, snipe overlords due to their comparative mobility. So yeah, there are plenty of reasons to build vikings. But I build only 6 vikings as standard, as the marginal utility decreases as you increase their numbers.
Vikings aren't very good at chasing mutas, maybe deter them for a time, but 9 times out of 10, if you chase a pack of mutas with vikings, you'll get ruined when the 5+ more mutas join them from the hatchery.
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Iv been trying to do a Helion harass into mass viking play, but always got shut down by mutas.
This is actually really helpful, perhaps il start reworking my build order with this in mind.
Thanks man :D
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The problem with this is application in my opinion. The difference is that Mutas are faster, can attack ground units all the time and more effectively and the fact is that you can make more then 2 Mutas at once because of Larvae(Taking Starport Reactor in consideration). If you invested that heavily into Vikings it really leaves you open to all sorts of other shit as opposed to a Zerg player just consequently getting Mutas anyway as apart of their build. I can't really see how going Mass Viking is a viable strategy. Besides, it's really not THAT easy to supply block Zerg players unless for some reason they keep all the Overlords in their base which is just bad play. The second someone sees 24 Vikings floating around the map looking for Overlords and they have Mutas, they're going to attack your Harvesters and by the time you get to your base to defend it or attack their's the Mutas are just going to run back. You then have grounded Vikings getting hit and by the time they can actually take to the air to attack Mutas you've probably already lost a few.
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On November 19 2010 03:54 Griffith` wrote:
For late game my unit composition is essentially BC, Vikings, Tanks, and so far, IF i can reach late game, I haven't met a Z composition that can stop it
I don't know if it's just me but I don't think I've ever actually allowed a Terran player to actually be able to Tech to Battlecruisers. You'd literally have to put not pressure on a Terran player in order for them to be successfully able to Tech to Battlecruisers. I'm sure there are plenty of pro games out there where people have but the only one I can think of off the top of my head is when it was TLO vs Dimaga and Dimaga just countered almost all of the above units you're referring to with Hyrdas.
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Early Mass Queen/Hydra kills this.
Terran won't have much on the ground if mass Vikings is where all the money is going.
Late game I doubt Vikings are what you really want to get to fight off Mutas.
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EPT
