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You just completely ignore the fact that zerg has mutalisks. Also, while it is common for zerg to neglect air upgrades, it is also highly important that they don't. As zerg, you should be getting flyer carapace upgrades. It is so much more important than air damage.
I can see a player going muta corruptor queen and hydra. The hydra will be the initial defense for the air, along with queens, but as you scout the + air upgrades and more air coming out, pumping out mutalisks and corruptors and getting armor upgrades, you can defend and have some actual map control, unlike if you made just queens and hydra, which are terrible for map control. Defensive mutas seem counter-intuitive but that is what I'm getting at.
Also, against carriers, mutalisks and corruptors do so much better when they have upgraded armor. One of the best targets when protoss is going air is to take out their cyber core so you can stay ahead in upgrades. With enough queens you can keep more of your units alive with transfuse as well, so it all works well together. Hydra just don't feel good enough, although you will want a handful of them as they help the composition and early defense, but massing them might be a bad idea.
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I can see this strategy working if you are doing a buttload of damage because the Zerg is completely unprepared for your air timing.
Lets say your Zerg player is very bad at scouting, he will have a dozen roaches with speed/burrow almost finished upgrading and maybe a Hydralisk Den on the way. You'd have to heavily cannon up to fend off my burrow roach attack. During this time, your lack of a ground force you to your front door. Definitely not harassing the Zerg, leaving me time to prepare for your harass after you've held off my attack.
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Like this style, I used to do this PvP a lot but stick with mass Phoenix (before patch 1.2) and/or Void and sometimes Carriers for fun 
Man, thought this was a carrier rush build at first though... oh well xD
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On March 18 2011 14:45 P00RKID wrote:
You just completely ignore the fact that zerg has mutalisks. Also, while it is common for zerg to neglect air upgrades, it is also highly important that they don't. As zerg, you should be getting flyer carapace upgrades. It is so much more important than air damage.
I can see a player going muta corruptor queen and hydra. The hydra will be the initial defense for the air, along with queens, but as you scout the + air upgrades and more air coming out, pumping out mutalisks and corruptors and getting armor upgrades, you can defend and have some actual map control, unlike if you made just queens and hydra, which are terrible for map control. Defensive mutas seem counter-intuitive but that is what I'm getting at.
Also, against carriers, mutalisks and corruptors do so much better when they have upgraded armor. One of the best targets when protoss is going air is to take out their cyber core so you can stay ahead in upgrades. With enough queens you can keep more of your units alive with transfuse as well, so it all works well together. Hydra just don't feel good enough, although you will want a handful of them as they help the composition and early defense, but massing them might be a bad idea.
At least the way I'm doing it. If you go Hydra, you need a LOT of Hydra. Small groups of Hydra get picked off too easily with a constantly growing Phoenix ball, if you commit too much then you wont really have the money to make a Corruptor Muta/Ball that will scare the Protoss, and most likely he will have already switched to Voidray production then. I power upgrades off two cybers and I start early so I always have the lead. When Carriers come out, Muta/Corruptor goes from ok to awful so fast.
I don't think it is possible to beat a maxed out army of Voidray/Carrier, Zerg might just have to be very aggressive in either keeping the Phoenix count low enough to stop them going Voidrays and Carriers or just hammer him with early Hydra/RoachLing/Hydraling attacks
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On March 18 2011 14:45 P00RKID wrote:
You just completely ignore the fact that zerg has mutalisks. Also, while it is common for zerg to neglect air upgrades, it is also highly important that they don't. As zerg, you should be getting flyer carapace upgrades. It is so much more important than air damage.
I can see a player going muta corruptor queen and hydra. The hydra will be the initial defense for the air, along with queens, but as you scout the + air upgrades and more air coming out, pumping out mutalisks and corruptors and getting armor upgrades, you can defend and have some actual map control, unlike if you made just queens and hydra, which are terrible for map control. Defensive mutas seem counter-intuitive but that is what I'm getting at.
Also, against carriers, mutalisks and corruptors do so much better when they have upgraded armor. One of the best targets when protoss is going air is to take out their cyber core so you can stay ahead in upgrades. With enough queens you can keep more of your units alive with transfuse as well, so it all works well together. Hydra just don't feel good enough, although you will want a handful of them as they help the composition and early defense, but massing them might be a bad idea.
If I see mutalisks, Ijust continuously make phoenix and crush his mutalisk force, my Phoenix will be 1/1 and I can outproduce zerg in the air battle because of chronoboost and how fast phoenix build. Even if you were to get an amount of mutalisks that could beat phoenix in a straight on fight, it would mean your overall army would lose to the gateway ball + phoenix.
Also very few zergs upgrade carapace and most only get +1 or +2 flyer attack. Although the defensive muta/corrupter play might work, although idk how it would fare vs a good amount of stalkers + a guardian shield or 2. I do think that Defensive muta/corrupter could work, although if I saw that I would prolly tech to HT.
On March 18 2011 14:48 zJayy962 wrote:
I can see this strategy working if you are doing a buttload of damage because the Zerg is completely unprepared for your air timing.
Lets say your Zerg player is very bad at scouting, he will have a dozen roaches with speed/burrow almost finished upgrading and maybe a Hydralisk Den on the way. You'd have to heavily cannon up to fend off my burrow roach attack. During this time, your lack of a ground force you to your front door. Definitely not harassing the Zerg, leaving me time to prepare for your harass after you've held off my attack.
2 canons, + ff's along with a voidray or 2 will hold against roaches always and I'll take no damage, since you won't have burrow movement you can't push against my canons, and when you go to retreat the phoenix can just come and pick up the trailing 5-6 roaches and it's free kills. Or when you go to bust I can pick up half your roaches and clean up easily.
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I play zerg and I found protoss using this strategy on Shakuras Plateau a lot. I learned a few things.
A) If they don't have any phoenix with their carriers, A good ball of muta-corruptor rapes them. Corruptors focus fire/corruption the carriers, mutalisks a-move and fight the interceptors (mutalisks destroy interceptors).
B) Neural Parasite. If I have more infestors than you have carriers and void rays, I win, especially if you make a mothership because I will make that baby mine. Fungal growth also does funny things to phoenix and to interceptors.
C) Phoenix Harass isn't really that annoying in the early game, I skip hydras and go straight to corruptors usually. So by making Phoenix you already made me build the counter to your endgame.
D) Also, by the sounds of things you skip robo bay and don't get any detection, so I would likely use burrowed units to harass you as much as I could. In fact if I scout a fleet beacon, I might just max with roaches and do a 300-food push on you.
That's how I've reacted to carrier builds the times i've encountered them. This might be really strong on a map which ends up being close by air but even then, Carriers really need a "critical mass" before they are scary.
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STOP THEORYCRAFTING AGAINST GOOD STRATEGIES YOU FOOLS. most of you are the reason every protoss stays with the super safe super lame super powerful colossus gateway comp. doesn't anyone want starcraft 2 to evolve into more than just lame a move colossus push?
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On March 18 2011 15:30 darkscream wrote:
I play zerg and I found protoss using this strategy on Shakuras Plateau a lot. I learned a few things.
A) If they don't have any phoenix with their carriers, A good ball of muta-corruptor rapes them. Corruptors focus fire/corruption the carriers, mutalisks a-move and fight the interceptors (mutalisks destroy interceptors).
B) Neural Parasite. If I have more infestors than you have carriers and void rays, I win, especially if you make a mothership because I will make that baby mine. Fungal growth also does funny things to phoenix and to interceptors.
C) Phoenix Harass isn't really that annoying in the early game, I skip hydras and go straight to corruptors usually. So by making Phoenix you already made me build the counter to your endgame.
D) Also, by the sounds of things you skip robo bay and don't get any detection, so I would likely use burrowed units to harass you as much as I could. In fact if I scout a fleet beacon, I might just max with roaches and do a 300-food push on you.
That's how I've reacted to carrier builds the times i've encountered them. This might be really strong on a map which ends up being close by air but even then, Carriers really need a "critical mass" before they are scary.
I don't necessarily "skip" my robo, I just get it late while relying on canons to detect since I'm not really "attacking" XD and i've been trying to figure out how to fit it in earlier, also I wouldn't even tech to fleet beacon vs muta, I'd go for storm while massing phoenix, Phoenix/gateway push seems hard for a zerg going mutas to stop, and if you counter my base with mutas I'll be able to use phoenix + canons to win that fight.
Infesters however would be interesting, haven't had them used vs me yet effectively so not sure on that :D
On March 18 2011 15:38 mvpAKAenvyME wrote:
STOP THEORYCRAFTING AGAINST GOOD STRATEGIES YOU FOOLS. most of you are the reason every protoss stays with the super safe super lame super powerful colossus gateway comp. doesn't anyone want starcraft 2 to evolve into more than just lame a move colossus push?
I enjoy this type of discussion as it helps me think of ways to improve my build. That's the reason I made this thread.
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On March 18 2011 15:38 mvpAKAenvyME wrote:
STOP THEORYCRAFTING AGAINST GOOD STRATEGIES YOU FOOLS. most of you are the reason every protoss stays with the super safe super lame super powerful colossus gateway comp. doesn't anyone want starcraft 2 to evolve into more than just lame a move colossus push?
I was just thinking about how "macro" SC2 games feel a lot like what me and my brother did with Lego as kids. We'd spend 15 minutes making the toughest Lego Cars we could possibly manage with "strategic elements" like "It's a fucking brick because bricks don't break" or "I put a big spear thing on the front to smash his car more" and then we'd smash those cars together as hard as we could, rebuild, and repeat.
This in mind, I recently started cutting holes in the metaphorical kitchen floor so his car ends up in the basement. Making lego brick cars every game, though effective, got boring. Flying lego cars, on the other hand, are fucking sweet.
Props to OP for making flying lego cars. You're a gentleman and a scientist.
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On March 18 2011 15:30 darkscream wrote:
I play zerg and I found protoss using this strategy on Shakuras Plateau a lot. I learned a few things.
A) If they don't have any phoenix with their carriers, A good ball of muta-corruptor rapes them. Corruptors focus fire/corruption the carriers, mutalisks a-move and fight the interceptors (mutalisks destroy interceptors).
B) Neural Parasite. If I have more infestors than you have carriers and void rays, I win, especially if you make a mothership because I will make that baby mine. Fungal growth also does funny things to phoenix and to interceptors.
C) Phoenix Harass isn't really that annoying in the early game, I skip hydras and go straight to corruptors usually. So by making Phoenix you already made me build the counter to your endgame.
D) Also, by the sounds of things you skip robo bay and don't get any detection, so I would likely use burrowed units to harass you as much as I could. In fact if I scout a fleet beacon, I might just max with roaches and do a 300-food push on you.
That's how I've reacted to carrier builds the times i've encountered them. This might be really strong on a map which ends up being close by air but even then, Carriers really need a "critical mass" before they are scary.
A) Voidray/Carrier beats muta/Corruptor. Carriers and Voidrays have realtively high hitpoints with crazy damage output, they just start killing off Muta/Corruptors at an amazing rate and the battle starts to tip in their favor exponentially.
Corruptors/Muta have a tendency to attack interceptors too, which also abosrd a lot of the bounce damage.
B) Don't think this is a very good stratergy at all. When you get Carriers out you can snipe infestors. You don't want to to neural Carriers, because of interceptors dieing and how interceptors work, their damage is going to be split up, it is much wiser to target Charged Voidrays and then use them to kill Carriers
C) You would think that, but if you didn't go blind spire then you will be waiting a while on the Corruptors, and the Phoenix count can easily get into the 10+ range at that point, spore crawlers aren't going to stop them decimating your drone line, after that, even if you do kill the Phoenixes the Protoss is probably so far a head
D) Robo goes down well before the fleet beacon, at least for me it does. I get a fairly early obs to try and deny Tumors.
"300 Food" Roach pushes IMO don't work too well. A) You will lose every drone doing so B) Voidrays + a TON of Cannons + Force fields will make quick work of it :S
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On March 18 2011 15:51 Staboteur wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2011 15:38 mvpAKAenvyME wrote:
STOP THEORYCRAFTING AGAINST GOOD STRATEGIES YOU FOOLS. most of you are the reason every protoss stays with the super safe super lame super powerful colossus gateway comp. doesn't anyone want starcraft 2 to evolve into more than just lame a move colossus push? I was just thinking about how "macro" SC2 games feel a lot like what me and my brother did with Lego as kids. We'd spend 15 minutes making the toughest Lego Cars we could possibly manage with "strategic elements" like "It's a fucking brick because bricks don't break" or "I put a big spear thing on the front to smash his car more" and then we'd smash those cars together as hard as we could, rebuild, and repeat. This in mind, I recently started cutting holes in the metaphorical kitchen floor so his car ends up in the basement. Making lego brick cars every game, though effective, got boring. Flying lego cars, on the other hand, are fucking sweet. Props to OP for making flying lego cars. You're a gentleman and a scientist.
exactly. i dont want this to turn into BW where there was like only a few unit comps that worked against each race, so boring, so un original and no one has any chance to make up their own strategy because certain compositions crush everything you put in their path. might as well make 15 cannons and mass void rays off 1 base (exageration, but seriously)
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I'm not pro or anything, but this kind of air play totally messes me up. For one thing, it is hard to know if they're really going to keep up air production all game long or switch to collosi because its so hard to scout someone's main when phoenix and other air are on the map. People in this thread say mutas are better, but that's only if the toss stops making phoenix at some point. I've beaten stargate before by outmacroing somebody with mutas, but I've also been outproduced with phoenixes and lost. It's a really smart strategy that forces zerg to do things they don't really want to do, like make the terrible hydralisks and stop using lings. I personally try to mass ling and mutas when I play, but I can't do that AT ALL against this style. The roach/hydra push people have mentioned sounds like the best answer, but i'd like to hear from some toss players what they think my best option, as zerg, would be against this.
I hate when people come into a thread like this and say "*insert strategy here* would totally own this." Every strategy can be countered by something. Good ones like this throw a standard zerg way off his game and force him to react perfectly to win. That statement can be said about ANY standard strategy.
I don't necessarily "skip" my robo, I just get it late while relying on canons to detect since I'm not really "attacking" XD and i've been trying to figure out how to fit it in earlier, also I wouldn't even tech to fleet beacon vs muta, I'd go for storm while massing phoenix, Phoenix/gateway push seems hard for a zerg going mutas to stop, and if you counter my base with mutas I'll be able to use phoenix + canons to win that fight
I can say from many terrible firsthand experiences that it isn't just hard to stop, it is impossible to stop if you go mutas.
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Last 2 protoss that tried to mass air against me found out that they cant hold air dominance vs corruptors. Corruptors are hands down the counter to this type of play. Mutas are only slightly better vs void rays then corrruptors are, and if they just start pumping Phoenix there really not the answer. Any good zerg can tell you that you need corrutpros vs protoss, even if there going double stargate void rays. Corruptors are barely not cost efficient vs void rays, you need a 2:1 ratio to kill a void ray, which is 300/200/4 vs 250/150/3. And there more massable, and the zerg should have a better econ then you. As long as zerg keeps 1 base up vs you, which he should with such a tech heavy air strat, he will be able to outmass you and trade resources with corruptors such that you will never reach the critical mass of air units you need to win.
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I really like the idea of this strategy. I think it is somewhat difficult to accomplish due to the amount of micro required and unfortunately I don't think I could use it effectively at my own skill level effectively (low to mid diamond). Something I am curious about is your response to a ling baneling composition and if you have played against that yet. While he is obviously not going to have much to deal with your phoenix, and void rays, I am wondering if you are able to hold off an attack against your natural even with cannons and sim city somewhere between around 10-12 min. Or perhaps they just don't attack because they are too worried about losing drones?
Please keep us updated
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On March 18 2011 16:13 Amandil wrote:
And [corruptors are] more massable, and the zerg should have a better econ then you. As long as zerg keeps 1 base up vs you, which he should with such a tech heavy air strat, he will be able to outmass you and trade resources with corruptors such that you will never reach the critical mass of air units you need to win.
I think you bring up a good point, but I think that his strategy relies on economic damage and preventing expansions. One of his key objectives is to kill probes with phoenix and prevent a third expansion from zerg, giving him more time to mass voidrays and carriers. I agree corruptors is the correct response, but I think if this strategy is performed correctly its still going to be hard for zerg to win.
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I appreciate this strategy as well, particularly since it creates a new midgame transition out of an old, familiar build. Anything that makes it harder for Zerg to blind-counter a 3-gate-sentry expand is good by me-- I recently played a Zerg that spotted my sentries dropped double evo chambers and started researching all the roach upgrades while having 6 lings (total attack units) on the map, just because he was so confident I wasn't going to attack before I had at least 3 Colossi up, a la iNControl. Similarly, I've had Zergs insta-expand to a 3rd after spotting my high sentry count and Nexus going up. Builds like this will make decisions like that much tougher for a Zerg to make without perfect scouting information-- because hey, I cold always be going for carriers.
Props to the OP; I remember a lot of people scoffing at iEchoic's Hellion/Banshee build at first, but it came to carve out its own niche in the metagame. I hope this build will do the same, even if it doesn't become a PvZ standard.
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On March 18 2011 16:19 Basileus wrote:I really like the idea of this strategy. I think it is somewhat difficult to accomplish due to the amount of micro required and unfortunately I don't think I could use it effectively at my own skill level effectively (low to mid diamond). Something I am curious about is your response to a ling baneling composition and if you have played against that yet. While he is obviously not going to have much to deal with your phoenix, and void rays, I am wondering if you are able to hold off an attack against your natural even with cannons and sim city somewhere between around 10-12 min. Or perhaps they just don't attack because they are too worried about losing drones? Please keep us updated
I'm a 3000 point diamond player if that helps put my skill in perspective, you should give it a try, you shouldn't not try a strategy because you feel you can't execute it, practice practice practice
I haven't faced mass ling baneling, but in theory when i scout it with my 4-5 phoenix i immediately pull my voidray back and start pumping voidrays from my 2 stargates, then with proper ff's + canons + voids I should be able to hold and then just win on the counter attack, plus i'll be able to kill a ton of drones with my 4-5 phoenix.
On March 18 2011 15:51 Staboteur wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2011 15:38 mvpAKAenvyME wrote:
STOP THEORYCRAFTING AGAINST GOOD STRATEGIES YOU FOOLS. most of you are the reason every protoss stays with the super safe super lame super powerful colossus gateway comp. doesn't anyone want starcraft 2 to evolve into more than just lame a move colossus push? I was just thinking about how "macro" SC2 games feel a lot like what me and my brother did with Lego as kids. We'd spend 15 minutes making the toughest Lego Cars we could possibly manage with "strategic elements" like "It's a fucking brick because bricks don't break" or "I put a big spear thing on the front to smash his car more" and then we'd smash those cars together as hard as we could, rebuild, and repeat. This in mind, I recently started cutting holes in the metaphorical kitchen floor so his car ends up in the basement. Making lego brick cars every game, though effective, got boring. Flying lego cars, on the other hand, are fucking sweet. Props to OP for making flying lego cars. You're a gentleman and a scientist.
Thanks! <3
On March 18 2011 16:13 Amandil wrote:
Last 2 protoss that tried to mass air against me found out that they cant hold air dominance vs corruptors. Corruptors are hands down the counter to this type of play. Mutas are only slightly better vs void rays then corrruptors are, and if they just start pumping Phoenix there really not the answer. Any good zerg can tell you that you need corrutpros vs protoss, even if there going double stargate void rays. Corruptors are barely not cost efficient vs void rays, you need a 2:1 ratio to kill a void ray, which is 300/200/4 vs 250/150/3. And there more massable, and the zerg should have a better econ then you. As long as zerg keeps 1 base up vs you, which he should with such a tech heavy air strat, he will be able to outmass you and trade resources with corruptors such that you will never reach the critical mass of air units you need to win.
Unless you overly drone you won't have a better economy, phoenix picking up your queens and drones while just ignoring your slow corrupters will make sure of that, plus I will be denying a 3rd base with my void ray and denying 4th and 5th bases with DT's. Also, every spore/spine that goes up because of DT's and phoenix kind of add up as economic damage.
Also here's a catch, when you just mass corrupters like that I can just stop making stargate units and just add gateways and just walk under your useless corrupters.
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it was fun to try to do carrier builds in bw. carriers in sc2 are wierd....they are mad strong but its almost impossible to get to them.
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On March 18 2011 16:23 Basileus wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2011 16:13 Amandil wrote:
And [corruptors are] more massable, and the zerg should have a better econ then you. As long as zerg keeps 1 base up vs you, which he should with such a tech heavy air strat, he will be able to outmass you and trade resources with corruptors such that you will never reach the critical mass of air units you need to win. I think you bring up a good point, but I think that his strategy relies on economic damage and preventing expansions. One of his key objectives is to kill probes with phoenix and prevent a third expansion from zerg, giving him more time to mass voidrays and carriers. I agree corruptors is the correct response, but I think if this strategy is performed correctly its still going to be hard for zerg to win.
You are correct, ideally you deny the 3rd from the zerg and then you'd take your 3rd before or at the same time as zerg is retaking their 3rd. From there you have DT's patroling would be 4th base spots from zerg and going to kill drones, while phoenix also can go and pickup queens, drones and kill overlords.
On March 18 2011 16:41 Phanekim wrote:
it was fun to try to do carrier builds in bw. carriers in sc2 are wierd....they are mad strong but its almost impossible to get to them.
Well this build is meant to keep zerg in their base and on even bases, if you accomplish that, or if you keep an even economy with the zerg then carriers aren't a problem to get.
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On March 18 2011 16:28 Snaphoo wrote:
I appreciate this strategy as well, particularly since it creates a new midgame transition out of an old, familiar build. Anything that makes it harder for Zerg to blind-counter a 3-gate-sentry expand is good by me-- I recently played a Zerg that spotted my sentries dropped double evo chambers and started researching all the roach upgrades while having 6 lings (total attack units) on the map, just because he was so confident I wasn't going to attack before I had at least 3 Colossi up, a la iNControl. Similarly, I've had Zergs insta-expand to a 3rd after spotting my high sentry count and Nexus going up. Builds like this will make decisions like that much tougher for a Zerg to make without perfect scouting information-- because hey, I cold always be going for carriers.
Props to the OP; I remember a lot of people scoffing at iEchoic's Hellion/Banshee build at first, but it came to carve out its own niche in the metagame. I hope this build will do the same, even if it doesn't become a PvZ standard.
That thinking is exactly what inspired this build, it takes a super safe and standard strategy and creates another path to go down. Echo is actually one of my good friends from a different game, we were on the same team :D
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EPT
