Recently, I've been experimenting with New builds against each of the races. While trying all sorts of different odd combinations, there is one that I've found to be quite successful. I was trying to further incorporate carriers Into my play, and I came across something that felt Really Natural. It is something that has become one of my go-to builds against terran.Even if you do not like this early carrier play, I would like to know what people think about Carriers + high templar as a late game composition.
The basic concept of this build is that there are really only two (not including BC) Terran units that could possible could possibly be used to counter carriers - the Marine and the Viking.
If the terran player decided to get mostly marines, that is where your high TempLar come in with Psi storm, and if they go for mostly viking, you are also in luck. With this build, I do not tend to commit to heavily to Carriers. If the terran player overacts by making too many vikings, then you should have a much larger ground force than the terran. In addition. psi storm works Really well against stacked vikings.
This can also work particularly well due to the fact that if you harass heavily with the carriers and take many interceptor losses, you will spend lots of minerals replenishing them, leaving you with a lot of Gas for high templars.
Of course, there is still the huge issue that going for early carriers leave you open to early aggression. If he doesn't attack until you have you're carrier, you should be good fairly safe. However, sometimes I will delay the build a bit to get a forge and come cannons up front. If this does not outright prevent a terran aggression, it will at least delay it enough for your carrier to come out.
This builds gives me a lot of options so long as I make it out of the early game. I can continue to make carriers, and with the air attack upgrades, they are ridiculously powerful. If the opponent goes for heavy marines psi storm can confidently beat it. I feel like this is a strong strategy and would like to hear some feedback.
The second game is more recent and refined. This is one of the earlier games in which I used this build. We are close spawn in Metalopolis which makes harassing with carriers easy. I do make a fair amount of mistakes this game, and allow some heavy drops to do damage to me, but I feel this game shows the power that this build can have against someone going heavy marines.
This game is more recent and is after I have refined the build more. The opponent is also a high level player. He has both some marines and vikings out. But I only got 2 carriers, leaving my high templar heavy ground army superior to his marine army.
I watched the first replay. You cut probes at 25 and literally teched straight to carriers. No zealots, stalkers, sentries, nothing. You didn't even start warpgates until your first carrier was halfway done. The only thing you had to defend your base for the first 7mins were the 2 cannons in the front of your ramp (note jungle basin has a backdoor and neither of you got vision of it).
I'm going to guess both of you are at the Silver/Gold level.
Your opponent is really bad, he cut SCVs at 23, made a handful of marines to open the game and teched straight to thors. HE NEVER EVEN SCOUTED YOU but still blindly threw down a bunker at his ramp. The only "scouting" he did was sending a lone marine to the watch tower, he never even scanned your base prior to his thor rush which failed miserably.
As much as I love the idea of making carriers more viable in any match-up, this is not the way to do it. This build will lose to anyone who knows how to scout or make a timing push before the 8min mark.
edit: sorry I meant second replay, i did not watch the first.
havent watched replays just yet (i will do so) but it seems like this requires an excessive amount of gas + time to be viable to the extent that you would die to some cheese, rush, timing push or all in.
e.g. some one tried something like this against me a little while ago and he just died because he had no units + i had ghosts
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after watching the games
in the first one the terran didnt scout at all if he had u would have died to an all in.
In the second game again the terran didnt scout and then attacked ur carrier before he his upgrades finished (they had 10 secs left) if he had then ur carrier would have died
also the terran didnt really know how to deal with carriers and suicided heaps of units he then just get so far behind that he couldnt get any effective counters out by this point u tech to ht and he dies very slowly i.e. the game was over by the 10-15 min are but it stretched out to 45 mins
I don't understand people's fascination with early carriers. Carriers should be something you tech to naturally when you get on multiple bases and have the army, time and resources to support them. That said, yes carriers + HT do very well vs terran as carriers beat vikings for cost and terran marines and BC's are not good counters to carriers w/ HT support.
carriers and templars are definitely strong units to use against terran , but they cannot be rushed to as a strategy it is simply good unit composition to have at a certain point of the game
for example when the toss is finished saturated his first expansion thats the timing window in the game where he should definitely have storms or collossi against a terran opponent
after a toss finishes saturating his second expansion and is in 3base (but really this scenario in games is usually 2base because your first base is about to run out of minerals) there is nothing wrong with toss adding in carriers to his army. carriers are very powerful cost to cost you just cant really get/support them in the midgame with 2 bases
carriers are certainly a powerful lategame unit. LATEGAME. they dont suck. you cant base a strategy off carriers, but you can get them in the lategame and own. LATEGAME. if a toss gets carriers in the LATEGAME he is not a noob, he is smart. once again LATEGAME.
On December 19 2010 19:34 roymarthyup wrote: carriers and templars are definitely strong units to use against terran , but they cannot be rushed to as a strategy it is simply good unit composition to have at a certain point of the game
This, also vikings die suprisingly good to storm, Socke pulled this off a lot of times. It's like they say, carriers haven't become bad, it's just that in SC2, it's easy to react to them swiftly for all three races with warpgates, reactor, and general zerg macro.
But storm counters every reasonable counter to carriers in the Terran arsenal.
On December 19 2010 19:34 roymarthyup wrote: carriers and templars are definitely strong units to use against terran , but they cannot be rushed to as a strategy it is simply good unit composition to have at a certain point of the game
This, also vikings die suprisingly good to storm, Socke pulled this off a lot of times. It's like they say, carriers haven't become bad, it's just that in SC2, it's easy to react to them swiftly for all three races with warpgates, reactor, and general zerg macro.
But storm counters every reasonable counter to carriers in the Terran arsenal.
i dont think storm counters vikings that well... vikings can snipe carriers easily as vikings have 9 attackrange and carriers actually have a launchrange of 7 (but once launched the carrier interceptors can attack at 8range or something) im not exactly sure on the logistics
but a few HT counter marines (dont turn them into archons just have 4 ht or so to storm marines hah)
You're looking at stargate tech and templar tech. Both cost amazing amounts of gas. Heck, I could pull out a combination myself, lets say: Thor + Battlecruiser against zerg. Sure it sounds FANTASTIC, but realistically you'll get your ass whooped attempting some sort of build like that early or even mid game.
It's not feesible in the slightest, sorry to burst your bubble. But you can't just get a combination of units and go "This will work!"
On December 19 2010 19:39 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote:
On December 19 2010 19:34 roymarthyup wrote: carriers and templars are definitely strong units to use against terran , but they cannot be rushed to as a strategy it is simply good unit composition to have at a certain point of the game
This, also vikings die suprisingly good to storm, Socke pulled this off a lot of times. It's like they say, carriers haven't become bad, it's just that in SC2, it's easy to react to them swiftly for all three races with warpgates, reactor, and general zerg macro.
But storm counters every reasonable counter to carriers in the Terran arsenal.
i dont think storm counters vikings that well... vikings can snipe carriers easily as vikings have 9 attackrange and carriers actually have a launchrange of 7 (but once launched the carrier interceptors can attack at 8range or something) im not exactly sure on the logistics
Actually it's 8 and then 12.
And I beg to differ, storm counters vikings better than it does mutas, they have the same hp and vikings are much slower. Two storms over any fleet of vikings is goodbye for the vikings.
Check this, Socke is quite a fan of the carrier + ht combo, and he's pulled it off quite a lot.
and stalkers counter vikings very well
Barely, the dps of a stalker versus armoured is 9.72, and they have range 6 and hit only one viking at the time.
Storm does a 20 dps that ignores armour, hits a huge clump of vikings at the same time, and the caster range is 9. Even if you have twice as much stalkers as he has vikings, you still do not do as much dps to them as a good old storm.
I like the idea, and the two units certainly go very well together. The two units terran tend to turn to to deal with carriers, vikings and marines, can be mopped up quite nicely with HTs. Ok so a storm wont kill vikings outright but they bunch up like all air units so you can catch all of them with one storm dealing A LOT of damage, and making them die far faster to the carriers or ground units such as stalkers. It will force them to move away as well. I don't like the way you got to the combo though, it is far to fragile. If the terran had scouted in any way, he could have just walked up your ramp and killed you, cannons or no cannons. His economy was also terrible. I think a safer and more sustainable way to get them would be 3gate expand --> carriers + HT. This gives you a lot more survivability early game and would help to defend you against early pressure or all-ins that terran seem to favour against P.
Three. There are 3 units good against carriers. Marine, Viking, Missile turret.
A good concentration of missile turrets will wreck interceptors. Fly a barracks in front of the missile turrets to soak up hits. If his micro is bad (or if he a-moves), he'll lose a ton of interceptors shooting at it. Don't tell me that missile turrets are TOO expensive. Carriers cost 450 minerals at full strength, and they'll cost a hell of a lot more when interceptors start falling.
High Templar can't hurt structures. No, they can't use feedback on an Orbital Command, or a nuke silo, and I know how you wanted to stop those annoying scans/mules/nukes...
On December 19 2010 23:54 bobucles wrote: Three. There are 3 units good against carriers. Marine, Viking, Missile turret.
A good concentration of missile turrets will wreck interceptors. Fly a barracks in front of the missile turrets to soak up hits. If his micro is bad (or if he a-moves), he'll lose a ton of interceptors shooting at it. Don't tell me that missile turrets are TOO expensive. Carriers cost 450 minerals at full strength, and they'll cost a hell of a lot more when interceptors start falling.
High Templar can't hurt structures. No, they can't use feedback on an Orbital Command, or a nuke silo, and I know how you wanted to stop those annoying scans/mules/nukes...
That being said, if he wastes too much money on missle turrets, than you should have an advantage anyway after you shy away from Carriers and focus more on a ground army.
Also, I edited the original post to say that, even if this early carrier build is silly, I would still like to see what people think about late-game compositions of the same sort.
As the game develops, I think Terrans will see the value of teasing interceptors out of the Carriers and shooting them from outside the Carrier's range. It was virtually impossible in SC1 because interceptors got an instant refill from returning. Now, they're independent units that remember damage, and turret/marine does a LOT of damage.
I just can't wait for players to run in units with seeker missiles on their tail. Watch the interceptors swarm in, then BOOM.
On December 19 2010 15:50 tuestresfat wrote: I watched the first replay. You cut probes at 25 and literally teched straight to carriers. No zealots, stalkers, sentries, nothing. You didn't even start warpgates until your first carrier was halfway done. The only thing you had to defend your base for the first 7mins were the 2 cannons in the front of your ramp (note jungle basin has a backdoor and neither of you got vision of it).
I'm going to guess both of you are at the Silver/Gold level.
Your opponent is really bad, he cut SCVs at 23, made a handful of marines to open the game and teched straight to thors. HE NEVER EVEN SCOUTED YOU but still blindly threw down a bunker at his ramp. The only "scouting" he did was sending a lone marine to the watch tower, he never even scanned your base prior to his thor rush which failed miserably.
As much as I love the idea of making carriers more viable in any match-up, this is not the way to do it. This build will lose to anyone who knows how to scout or make a timing push before the 8min mark.
edit: sorry I meant second replay, i did not watch the first.
The second replay? We are definitely not at silver level. I am about 1100 diamond, nothing special at all, but definitely not silver level. Also, i believe my opponent was about a 2100 diamond player. http://sc2ranks.com/us/926383/Daveroid I'm not saying that makes him a good player, just that we are not at that low of a level.
And when it comes to the build, I do admit you are right - rushing for carriers this fast, at least in the way I did it, is too vulnerable in the early game. However, I still want to emphasize the power the carriers and high templars have in the late game against terran, even if a safer route was taken to get there.
Carrier/templar is unstoppable. It literally does not matter how much of an advantage you have in terms of resources as terran; you will not be able to kill the carriers. Just one of the many issues with TvP currently. Of course rushing to it is suicide, but slowly adding more carriers/templars is a guaranteed way to win PvT and something Socke does all the time because it is broken.
On December 20 2010 12:01 HalfAmazing wrote: Carrier/templar is unstoppable. It literally does not matter how much of an advantage you have in terms of resources as terran; you will not be able to kill the carriers. Just one of the many issues with TvP currently. Of course rushing to it is suicide, but slowly adding more carriers/templars is a guaranteed way to win PvT and something Socke does all the time because it is broken.
Battlecruisers take 2x2 damage from interceptors, or 32 damage from an opening volley. Not only can they cripple a carrier with Yamato, they don't even have to shoot it at all. They can just tank the interceptors like a boss, and wipe them all out no problem.
On December 20 2010 12:01 HalfAmazing wrote: Carrier/templar is unstoppable. It literally does not matter how much of an advantage you have in terms of resources as terran; you will not be able to kill the carriers. Just one of the many issues with TvP currently. Of course rushing to it is suicide, but slowly adding more carriers/templars is a guaranteed way to win PvT and something Socke does all the time because it is broken.
Nahhh, Socke lost that game where he went carrier/templar, despite pulling of some maestro storms, he was simply outmacroed in the end.
I agree that carrier / templar is powerful though, but getting to carrier + templar is another thing.
On December 20 2010 12:51 bobucles wrote: Battlecruisers take 2x2 damage from interceptors, or 32 damage from an opening volley. Not only can they cripple a carrier with Yamato, they don't even have to shoot it at all. They can just tank the interceptors like a boss, and wipe them all out no problem.
The carrier's true strength comes with +3 air attack upgrades, as it is the highest scaling unit in terms of attack upgrades. Each base interceptor attack is 5x2, meaning a fully loaded carrier will deal 10 damage per volley, per interceptor; this is a total of 80 damage per volley, per carrier. A +3 interceptor will deal 8x2 damage, which is 16 per volley, per interceptor; this is a total of 128 damage per volley, per carrier: an increase in DPS of 60%.
To put it in more blatant terms:
5 carriers with +3 attack will be an even match to 8 unupgraded carriers. (For reference, +3 attack costs 525/525 and 3 fully loaded carriers cost 1350/750; i.e. go for attack upgrades early if you're getting carriers).
On December 20 2010 12:51 bobucles wrote: Battlecruisers take 2x2 damage from interceptors, or 32 damage from an opening volley. Not only can they cripple a carrier with Yamato, they don't even have to shoot it at all. They can just tank the interceptors like a boss, and wipe them all out no problem.
The carrier's true strength comes with +3 air attack upgrades, as it is the highest scaling unit in terms of attack upgrades. Each base interceptor attack is 5x2, meaning a fully loaded carrier will deal 10 damage per volley, per interceptor; this is a total of 80 damage per volley, per carrier. A +3 interceptor will deal 8x2 damage, which is 16 per volley, per interceptor; this is a total of 128 damage per volley, per carrier: an increase in DPS of 60%.
To put it in more blatant terms:
5 carriers with +3 attack will be an even match to 8 unupgraded carriers. (For reference, +3 attack costs 525/525 and 3 fully loaded carriers cost 1350/750; i.e. go for attack upgrades early if you're getting carriers).
Yeah, their upgrades scale well, as do the armour upgrades for your opponent and their base armour..
Carriers I believe are not really intended to take out capital ships, they're great against lots of lesser enemies however because of their reasonable base armour, the fact that they barely overkill, and that base armour really affects them. Basically, see a carrier sort of like 5 phoenices shooting at an armoured target.
^ feedback > yamato cannon, and the carrier can kite BC's from there.
I don't really know how well thor/ghost works against this, but imo it's one of/the strongest PvT composition.
Sure, carriers can kite BCs, and templar can sometimes get lucky on using feedback (as they're prime targets for Yamato). But it doesn't mean jack as BC's have 3 base armor to the interceptor's 5 base damage. They can kill interceptors all day without even trying.
It takes over 100 interceptor volleys to kill a BC, or about a straight minute of interceptor fire. A BC can kill the interceptors in half that time(not to mention taking less damage as the kills rack up). GOOD. LUCK.
5 carriers with +3 attack will be an even match to 8 unupgraded carriers. (For reference, +3 attack costs 525/525 and 3 fully loaded carriers cost 1350/750; i.e. go for attack upgrades early if you're getting carriers).
Except NO ONE is going to be out teched by three entire upgrades. One? Yeah, against good timing. 2? Unlikely, and you're probably losing around that point anyway.
Anyone who keeps saying Socke always uses Carriers care to post some RECENT replays? Every time its the same vods from months ago...
The carrier's true strength comes with +3 air attack upgrades, as it is the highest scaling unit in terms of attack upgrades. Each base interceptor attack is 5x2, meaning a fully loaded carrier will deal 10 damage per volley, per interceptor; this is a total of 80 damage per volley, per carrier. A +3 interceptor will deal 8x2 damage, which is 16 per volley, per interceptor; this is a total of 128 damage per volley, per carrier: an increase in DPS of 60%.
This is wrong, Carrier attack doesn't scale at all, +1 attack may increase carrier damage by 2 per interceptor but + armor from the enemy reduces an interceptors damage by 2 per upgrade. Realistically, by the time Carriers come out the enemy is usually on +1/+2 armor upgrades already so you need +2 attack just to keep up with them...
On December 20 2010 13:44 Dommk wrote: Anyone who keeps saying Socke always uses Carriers care to post some RECENT replays? Every time its the same vods from months ago...
On December 20 2010 13:44 Dommk wrote: Anyone who keeps saying Socke always uses Carriers care to post some RECENT replays? Every time its the same vods from months ago...
This is just a personal caveat, but when you start talking about XvY, usually you put the race from whose perspective you're talking first (so since you're discussing protoss strategy vs terran, PvT)...unless I'm gravely mistaken.
Carriers are still, on the whole, quite inefficient at times, but this seems to be good...how do HTs fare vs Vikings?
On December 20 2010 13:48 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote:
On December 20 2010 13:44 Dommk wrote: Anyone who keeps saying Socke always uses Carriers care to post some RECENT replays? Every time its the same vods from months ago...
Got more than 1 vod that is also less than a month old?
fyi that game as played roughly 40days ago
Not really no. I've seen him use it a couple of times and it worked, I only did it once or twice and I never really planned for it. I just had those stargates and my phoenices were useless against those thors and I personally don't like to micro void rays around, so I rolled into it.
On December 20 2010 14:12 Z3kk wrote: Carriers are still, on the whole, quite inefficient at times, but this seems to be good...how do HTs fare vs Vikings?
Very good, vikings clump up very well, are slow, and have as much hp as a mutalisk.
battlecruisers definitely counter carriers the problem is they are slow moving however if you fight the toss base with 10 battlecruisers and just a-move them you will kill all of the interceptors easy and bc's tank carriers like a champ. feedback isnt too dangerous to bc's if you just yamato the first target possible when attacking like the first building you see to drain energy
Watched the second game, and the T's 2 Thor push was about 2 minutes slower than the build he was probably copying (badly) from a thread posted here yesterday. He also got starport, expanded and made a ghost academy before pushing with the same-sized army he should have had 2 minutes ago (~ 9 min mark).
A 3rax stim push at 7 min would have easily killed you without sentries to cut the T army in half. Or, 1 cloaked banshee a little bit later could have killed all your probes. You had neither cannons in your mineral line or observers + anti air. Heck, even a 3 hellion drop would halt all mining as your probes would have to retreat to the cannons at your ramp. Or 1 reaper...
As others have stated previously, Carrier/HT is an awesome composition IF you can get to it. Hopefully you can find ways to make your build safer. Have fun!
Carrier/chargelot/HT has worked pretty well against me, as long as the protoss is careful about kiting the carriers back when they get attacked. It's really gas intensive to handle templar warp in and carriers, but the strength of amulet HT can generally let protoss get an extra base. Feedback can prevent BCs from Yamatoing carriers, so the faster protoss ship can stay out of range. If BCs Yamato HTs, then they still don't have energy to Yamato the carriers too. HTs can also storm the marines that would shoot down interceptors, vikings, or repairing SCVs.
HTs are strong against bio, chargelots are good against all terran ground except micro'd hellions, and Phoenix are strong against drop harass, heavy banshee play or can act as meatshields for Colossus - and there's also 3 Gate VR attacks - so a lot of the pieces can be in place naturally. Just suddenly slamming out 4 Stargates at once is not a good way to transition.
If Carriers did 10 damage straight up and had a fairly lower build time they would be worth it (20 seconds longer than a Nexus or a Dark Shrine WTF). As it is now it's only worth it it for a sneaky lategame transitions PvT (WhatTheFu6Carriers??!?), and even then the only reason they work is because vikings like to excrete on void rays, and now that void ray speed is getting taken out it will only be worse.
It takes longer to build 5 carriers out of 1 stargate than it does to get +3 weapons upgrades out of a single forge. :|
I transition to carriers against t after I take my fourth base. I don't build colossi in this matchup so they will not have vikings. get your +1 air weapons when you have the free gas, and go mass gateway with templar in the midgame and get lots of upgrades. Then you can transition into 2-gate carrier and build a lot of stalkers/chargelots/templar out of your 12-15 gates.
once the carriers come out you want to chrono out ups for them as fast as possible. when you get maxed build a ton of gateways so you can do a 300 food attack.
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