in general the best counter to carriers are AMOR upgrades
a carrier does 8*2=16 shots
that mean every amor upgrade decreases the carriers damage by 16
so a coruptor will take 48 les dmg from a carrier if he has 1 amor upgrade
also the 16 dmg less mean that a carrier needs 2 shots more to kill a hydra (2 shots are exaktly 16 dmg with 1 amor)
since that attacktime of a interceptor is suprisingly long (about 3 seconds) thats quite a lot

michaelhasanalias

Korea (South)1231 Posts

January 11 2011 01:18 GMT

#42

On January 11 2011 06:07 bobucles wrote:
Corruptors will get the job done, but they will crumble without focus fire micro.
Spore crawlers are not very effective as they cost heaps of minerals and have poor DPS for the price.

Infestors are a good idea, but you won't get in range to use neural parasite without tunneling. Carriers can kill them in one volley with a weapon upgrade. If you swarm superior infestor numbers (which is much easier than superior corruptor numbers), you can comfortably control 3/4 of a carrier fleet while sniping the rest.

Unfortunately, NP'ed units are not treated as hostile (even though you only get 15 seconds!) so you'll have to WAIT for them to shoot you again, or frantically spam A-click to kill them before the 15 seconds are up. NP'ed units can not be hit by fungal growth.

Infested Terrans... now we're talking. If you ever needed superior AA support, dump a pile of infested Terran on the field. Carriers are virtually impossible to micro, so they'll inevitably waste shots on the infested Terrans, and it'll buy your other AA forces time to settle the score. Don't try to kill interceptors without them.

This is exactly the mindset for why everyone is bad with infestors and doesn't use them ever.

Only an idiot would make an entirely infestor army.

Additionally, your information about engagement is misleading at best, but more correctly just plain wrong.

Carrier range is 8 (pre-engagement), and NP is 9. Carriers a-moving will not engage an infestor at range 9 when NP is in range. Only once interceptors are launched can they outrange infestors. In other words, in order to launch interceptors, they must be within NP range.

you're going to engage with hydra/corrupter/queen/etc and all of those units that are capable of ATTACKING the carrier take interceptor priority over the infestor.

Both of these factoids allow you to very easily get in NP range without the risk of having your infestors sniped.

Again, any time the opponent makes a unit bigger than 100/150/2, infestors are viable (for neural parasite). Raven, High Templar, Archon, Battlecruiser, Thor, Brood Lord, void ray, carrier.... if you see the opponent making these units, compliment your army with infestors and NP. It is a COST EFFECTIVE counter.

Leviance

Germany4079 Posts

January 11 2011 02:23 GMT

#43

man OP should just have watched Socke vs Forsen Game 3 on Ragequit.tv to witness how Corruptors rape Carriers

HardCorey

United States709 Posts

January 11 2011 14:24 GMT

#44

The real problem with carriers is when they are supported by a ground force of gateway units. Stalkers to shoot down corrupters or zealots and stalkers to get in the way of hydras while they get dealt good damage.

Think about the unit mix as a whole instead of just countering the single unit. It should be relatively easy to figure out whats the best thing to build against any single massed unit but when you take full army compositions into account it can be an entirely different scenario.

GreEny K

Germany7312 Posts

January 11 2011 14:33 GMT

#45

At work so I can't watch the replay but I would imagine that it is relatively the same concept as BW. The hydra don't have to kill the carriers themselves, but mainly the interceptors. No ammo = no attack, same advice to the people that bitch about marine versus carrier... Dont have to kill the carrier attack the interceptors.

bobucles

410 Posts

January 11 2011 16:12 GMT

#46

Additionally, your information about engagement is misleading at best, but more correctly just plain wrong.

And yet it is more realistic than your theorycrafting. Infestor heavy armies are very versatile and have synergies with just about every Zerg unit.

If you NP spam Carriers, Infestors are GOING to die. Accept it. +1 range is not a big difference, and it won't matter when Infestors are stacked 3 range deep. Carriers aren't the ONLY thing on the field, and even if they are NP isn't going to do it all alone.

If you successfully NP carriers, they won't just... kill themselves. This is the biggest weakness with NP right now. Units under your control are considered FRIENDLY. It is very difficult to get rid of friendly units! So you can NP the ENTIRE carrier fleet. Big deal. They'll sit there. They'll sit there until NP wears off, and then they're killing Infestors again. You HAVE to deliberately leave SOMETHING hostile in order to maximize damage, which means taking some hits in turn. Infested Terran have good potential here, as they can quickly clear the sky if there are only a few hostile squadrons at a time. Splitting the fleet in half is pretty damaging as is.

You are also making the terrible assumption that Carriers are fighting over open plains against ground units, and they're rushing straight for the Infestors at the BACK. Any flying unit that does this DESERVES to die, and it is in no way representative of the unit's abilities.

Mass carrier is very dangerous against Zerg, but takes forever to get rolling. Sometimes the best option is just to kill him before the game gets that far.

DoubleReed

United States4130 Posts

January 11 2011 16:20 GMT

#47

Another option that I'm not hearing a lot of people posting is Queens.

Queens are often better than hydralisks against carriers, because they have significantly more health and won't melt nearly as fast as hydralisks. Transfuse is also very efffective as Carriers do lots of little damage so normally you'll have the necessary time for Transfuse micro. They also outrange hydras, and range is important.

Corruptors "hard counter" carriers mostly because of the building time. You can build a TON more corruptors before he can make a sufficient amount of carriers. Mass Carrier will kill you, but the advantage is that hopefully you can use a static, medium force of Corruptors to pick off the Carriers before there are too many.

Personally, if I see a carrier, I make like 6-8 corruptors and then get in my opponent's face. You can pretty powerfully discourage carrier/phoenix play, if you have aggressive corruptors out on the field.

aka_star

United Kingdom1546 Posts

January 11 2011 16:24 GMT

#48

mass corrupters buddy, grade air spit on the carriers and single target them with atleast 2.5x corrupters to his carrier count. Around 20 will 1 shot a carrier so engage with a few more to compensate for loses and you'll have no probs