"Carrier Has Arrived" Refreshing New PvZ Strategy - Page 15

On March 26 2011 03:52 sylverfyre wrote:
As a zerg, I find that I have a friggin MISERABLE TIME trying to beat protoss if my third base gets slowed down - something that a gateway push doesn't really accomplish (ling/roach/bane/whatever can hold it) and a colossus push is too slow for (third is up and running before colossus push is ready). A void ray lasering my third hatch while I have to build shit to deal with phoenix harass would make me shit bricks - sure, I'll have anti air to deal with phoenix harass... but IN MY BASE, and not AT MY THIRD unless it's like tal'darim altar and my third is close enough to my base that I dont have to move that far off creep to get hydras/queens there.

I honestly feel like that's one of the major strengths - the ability to slow 3rd+ bases of the zerg. Less sure about the DT transition, but it would probably work OK since overseers have to fear for their lives and the zerg might not be able to handle taking a 4th/5th base against Air+DT.

upgraded Chargelots actually do pretty decently against hydras, too, without a roach front for them, and this play is going to make the zerg want to skew more heavily towards super-squishy hydras. Maybe adding storm at some point just to murder hydras even MORE, though storm is less helpful against corruptors (though corruptors won't save the zerg from the zealot heavy ground comp)

In terms of remaxing, if the zerg can only kill interceptors and not the carriers themselves, those "remax" basically instantly. (well, in time for the next fight for sure) Food for thought.


A) Colossi are nowhere in the game plan. Literally nowhere. Reread the game plan.
A.5) It's actually cheaper (in all 3: gas/mins/time) to go Stargate opening -> tech to carriers with catapult upgrade than it is to go Stargate -> Tech to colossi with range upgrade.
B) The build is designed for 3 bases with full gas saturation, and has a well-thought-out plan to get there on even terms.





1) What? Sentries have the ability to shut down speedling/baneling attacks like, entirely. This build has A) the ability to adapt to such aggression and B) Cannons/At least 1 void ray to assist in this defense.

The weakest point in a 3gate expand, IMO, is when the protoss pressures the zerg with their sentry-zealot mix. The goal of such pressure is to force the zerg to quit droning without cares, but toss runs a risk of losing that push in the middle of the map. This build doesn't need to pressure as hard with this because it has void ray and phoenix en route which can pressure with pretty much zero risk of the retreat being cut off.

2) Carriers vs Hydras is skewed towards carriers. No really. Especially off-creep. Worst thing that happens is you lose some interceptors but kill some hydras and back off (hydras can't chase effectively) and interceptors are way cheaper than hydras.

which brings us to 3:
You do have to build corruptors, hydras can't handle carriers with no air support, as mentioned in 2.

4) Chargelots (the assigned mineral dump) will murder hydras cost for cost if you don't make any roaches.

Your theorycrafting has holes everywhere. I wants me some other people trying this out. I'm a mid diamond zerg looking to practice against this!


@OP - stick with the +1 attack for ground, IMO. It brings Zealot vs Hydralisk (a matchup you are expecting) from 6 hits (81 HP effectively.. 1 hp regens immediately) to 5 hits. From there, shields might be nice if the zerg doesn't get carapace.

On March 26 2011 06:13 CrAzEdMiKe wrote:
I wrote a really long detailed post and then my computer decided to eat it, so I'm going to quickly point out a few things that I feel are the REAL strengths of the build.

A) It's super safe early to mid game. Since you have a really fast and mobile harass force, you can leave the bulk of your army at home which keeps you very safe. You also get a very good scout off of what your opponent is doing as well as being virtually invincible from Mutalisk harass.

B) The Zerg is only capable of going for a few routes of dealing with this type of strategy. The Protoss player finds out pretty quickly what route the Zerg chooses to go and adapts his build accordingly (If he sees a lot of Corrupters, he makes lots of Voids, Infestors, HT etc). This all sounds super simple and everyone should do it, but it's not often you are able to really really scout what kind of unit composition the opponent is going. This is why Mutalisk harass is often so effective when the Zerg employs it, not only does it harass the opponent but the Zerg knows what kind of units the opponent will have to make in order to deal with the Mutas, and then techs in advance.

C) Straight to Mothership access. I made a huge deal about this in previous posts, and I made a super long detailed one before I lost it here... But if you don't believe that Mothership is awesome in PvZ, then you clearly haven't tried it.

I honestly don't believe that the build is designed to be played like "You make X of this unit, Y of this unit and Z of this unit and the Zerg cannot stop you!" The build is meant to provoke a certain type of reaction and if you execute right, you are already getting a step ahead of your opponent by preparing whatever it is that you need to fight that unit he's planning on untilizing.

Again, I wanted this to be way more detailed... But meh. You get the picture.

On March 26 2011 04:17 DuneBug wrote:
Mass void ray would probably be more effective against virtually all zerg unit compositions except infestor/hydra play.

Corruptor is the best counter in the game to the carrier because of its +massive damage and because of its base 2 armor. At even upgrades interceptors do 6 damage per volley to a corruptor.
Yes you can mix in void rays, but even if zerg loses battle one he'll outproduce you on the 2nd round.

Carriers are viable in virtually every MU until the opponent overproduces the counter unit to kill them.

What really should be mentioned is archons. Archons guarding the carriers will do tremendous damage to clumped corruptors, and magic boxing corruptors is not what zerg wants to do going into a carrier fight. It doesn't even require that many archons. Psi storm works in theory but in practice zerg can move his corruptors on top of your army to prevent you from storming.

On March 26 2011 05:12 Bellygareth wrote:

You're not considering an hydra "allin" kicking before you can get archons and maybe even speed for your zealots. On the smallest maps (2v2 maps), I see your strat fail to that hydra attack, which can be allin but it doesn't matter because it'll work and kill you right there.

I have no experience against it on the largest maps, but then again on largest maps zerg probably have other options and can try to harrass with lings against your slow carriers for ex. < I have yet to see how it plays out.

On March 18 2011 13:58 Hierarch wrote:


Carriers DPS is actually insane when they get +2 or +3 air attack, and to replace the aoe for late game the intercepters help by messing up targeting AI, the 1st replay I posted demonstrates this quite well.

On March 26 2011 06:54 Uhh Negative wrote:

Ehh not really. Only true if the zerg gets no armor upgrades. Yes, it adds +2 damage to each interceptor but each interceptor only goes out every 3 seconds and if the zerg has +1 armor it acts as essentially +2 armor against carriers. I've played toss doing 2 base carrier type play and it just dies so easily to mass hydra.

On March 26 2011 07:38 Hierarch wrote:


Well good thing this isn't a 2 base carrier strategy then...

On March 27 2011 11:31 Ownos wrote:
So I watched your replays. I think it's too much to go more than 4 phoenixes. Past experience dictates if you dink around too much with phoenixes they can just waltz in with an all-in-ish hydra timing attack. I suppose since it's easier to transition to carriers than it is to colossus you could afford maybe 6 or even 8. Honestly, I was playing today and going more than 4 makes me very uncomfortable. From what I saw you get a LOT of phoenixes.

And I don't really like transitioning to void rays (and a lot of them in fact). Chances are the zerg is spamming hydras in response to your phoenixes and the void rays don't do that well vs the hydras and if they hit you with a hydra push it could be gameover. If I were a zerg, once I have enough spore crawlers up I should be able to attack and win or at leasts slow you down.

Personally, I have always liked to get carriers after the phoenixes. That way if the hydra push does come you can micro the carriers + zealots around to edge out a win. Only when the carriers are revealed, then I transition to void rays to anticipate the inevitable "holy crap my hydras just died to carriers time for operation 16+ corruptors". This happened so many times today. And with +2 weapons the corruptors are no match. They will almost always be behind in upgrades.

And I don't get my third until at least 2 carriers (1 cycle) or if the map is large I can get it during the phoenix attacks (slightly earlier).

So I flipped around the carriers/void ray transitions and I find that works much better.

On March 27 2011 13:58 DeepElemBlues wrote:
if there is one deciding factor to me for PvZ, it is how well i use my force fields. sure you can talk about rolling a protoss over, but with the standard 3-gate expand, good cannon placement and un-noob forcefield use, you just arent going to be rolling over a protoss nat. which is why going muta harass or getting a quick 4th is as far as i know the standard zerg response to toss 3g sentry expand.

On March 27 2011 13:58 DeepElemBlues wrote:
i like what gemini did in his replay, and nice to see my man bitters watching in!

unless youre playing on something as awful as slag pits, its easier to get and defend a third as protoss vs zerg now, which is great for us toss because that imo is the biggest timing window zerg has to crush us, in between start of third nexus and getting decent saturation on it. after that we have the economy to make big splashy units like colossus or carrier.

geminis third was so delayed that it definitely obscured how strong what he was doing would have been if hed had his third fully producing 3-4 minutes earlier than it was, he never got more than 2 carriers on the field at a time i believe. not making VRs and colossus and going phoenix/stalker/sentry/carrier/zealot off a better-timed 3rd i think would have been incredibly powerful with carriers providing the major dps, phoenix raising, zealot/ff tanking and stalkers hitting corrupters or raised units.

3 is the magic number of bases to have the money to start experimenting with new unit compositions and styles of play, and im glad to see it. zerg and terran are adapting to deathball, protoss isnt allowed to try to adapt to their adaptations?

yes you might roll me over with a baneling sling bust or bling hydras or roach all-in, but just as likely im not an idiot and position my cannons and gateways and ffs so u either pull back or lose all ur units and dont kill my natural either way. blizzard wants macro games otherwise the naturals and thirds wouldnt be so easy to get to and defend except again on awful maps like slag pits.

there are a lot of things you can try to do with this build and i am going to check them out; one thing i would change is the dts. you might as well get warp prisms or try to hide pylons and warp-in/drop zealots on expansions; more economical and just as if not more effective than dark templar.

if there is one deciding factor to me for PvZ, it is how well i use my force fields. sure you can talk about rolling a protoss over, but with the standard 3-gate expand, good cannon placement and un-noob forcefield use, you just arent going to be rolling over a protoss nat. which is why going muta harass or getting a quick 4th is as far as i know the standard zerg response to toss 3g sentry expand.

this build to me attempts to find another way to get protoss safely through that sometimes sticky transition from t1 to 2.5 that they need to go kill some bugs effectively and with a unit for your major dps that isnt colossus yay!

On March 27 2011 14:19 CrAzEdMiKe wrote:


This is something that I really like about this build actually. I had that happen to me today where I opened up with the Sentry expand and my opponent opted to go for Muta harass. By the time Mutas ended up in my base, I had plenty of Phoenix to take care of them.

I personally like having about 8 Phoenix as they are in a large enough number that they can do some serious harassment. With four it's kind of like sending in one Hellion to harass vs sending in 4. Yes you can harass with one Hellion, but you can do a LOT of damage with 4. Same principle... And I find that Phoenix don't ever really become "useless" as they do a ton of scouting, keep the opponent on his toes and also when that engagement occurs, lifting up a bunch of the DPS is soooo good (namely Hydras).

When I wrecked a huge chunk of his economy with my Phoenix (I had over 10 since he went heavy Muta) he basically had to all in me and tried a baneling bust... Even though my Forcefields were absolutely atrocious, it still wasn't even close. Granted, we're both terrible players so our micro/macro was by no means superb... But I do feel that the strategy is sound as I feel very secure when I'm utilizing it.

Thanks :D

I try to hide pylons around the map, the reason DT's work so well is that my phoenix "harass" stops once i go down to 1-2 phoenix and then i just use the as really good scouts, so because of this zerg is not as likely to have pre-built spores at their 4th and 5th expansions which makes it easy pickings for DT's. Also DT's are amazing combat units for this build, overseers are so easy to kill with air units, and DT's do amazing damage in battle, and the last reason for getting a dark shrine is for archons which absolutely demolish a zerg corrupter force and alot of other zerg units.

This is something that I really like about this build actually. I had that happen to me today where I opened up with the Sentry expand and my opponent opted to go for Muta harass. By the time Mutas ended up in my base, I had plenty of Phoenix to take care of them.

One of the things is that I'm a huge upgrade freak as well. I often will sacrifice a lot of early units to buff up my stuff as quickly as possible.

On March 27 2011 14:32 DeepElemBlues wrote:


You have a point there, I wasn't really being as clear as I wanted. I think getting DTs is still good for archons, mixed into general army, and good for preventing expos by patrolling and killing drones, but I think substituting Zealot drops/warp-ins to harass the already existing naturals would be more economical. Hey maybe go with a mix, with a little micro those DTs will do massive damage while Zealots do what they're good for ZvP, eat roach acid and zergling claws and die haha.

My only real suggestion for improvement was the Zealots on the expansion harass I guess is what I'm saying =D

On March 27 2011 14:40 DeepElemBlues wrote:
all races are highly dependent on not having to replace supply buildings. it totally destroys the balance of spending on army, workers, and tech, since 2 of the 3 also use the supply "resource." zerg are just way more vulnerable to losing them because they arent buildings =)



i am too, protoss gets a bigger boost going from lvl 0 to lvl 1 and then again from lvl 1 to lvl 2 than terran and zerg i think. but we get a smaller boost hitting lvl 3 than they do and it evens out.

On March 28 2011 00:44 johanngrunt wrote:
How does the build deal with infestors?

Is the constant harassment enough to keep the zerg off infestors?

I think that hydra infestor would be pretty good against this.

On March 28 2011 01:03 TheWahbinator wrote:
I think the route to go when being protective against hydras is to get just a few stalkers/phoenix, lift the hydras and shoot it with both. But it is a big mineral sink to get stalkers with this build.