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Hi guys
This is my first post so go easy on me 
So recently with the uses of Carriers on the GSL by HongUnPrime, it got me thinking; where and how does the carriers fit in the meta game?
Couple days ago, when my internet out and i got stuck with playing single player games, i decided to revisit the challenge missions. Being a masters Protoss player i decided to play Path of Ascension (The one which you divide Protoss armies to counter a specific Terran units) in hope to hone my micro skills.
On round two, i was given Void Rays, Immortals and Carriers to fend off a group of Battlecruisers, Siege Tanks or Thors. I sent the group of Immortals to the Siege Tanks as we all know, because of Hardened shield and +dmg vs armored units, Immortals are the designated counter to tanks. Then i sent the VR towards the BCs because of +dmg vs massive and the fact that VRs do more dmg to units with higher health. Then i was left with Carriers that i sent towards the the group of Thors.
This got my thinking, a Blizzard employee must have made this map in hopes to show/teach the Starcraft 2 players the specific counters of each unit.
When i sent the Carriers to attack, i noticed how well they countered the Thors. Carriers, due to their size and slow movement speed tend not to clump up as easily as Mutalisks would. Furthermore, there was no question Carriers have better range and damage than a Thor.
Woot! Case solved! Carrier's role is to counter Thors!
Hmn well, may be that isn't enough to convince you guys. Some of you guys may now be thinking, "Nobody would just mass Thors, let alone Thors without any Vikings and marines". I don't disagree; since the beginning of Sc2 pro gaming scenes, Terrans have stuck with using MMM Bioball as the core (standard) strategy vs Protoss. Thors have never been part of the TvP Meta game except in couple cases of Thor Rushes by MarineKingPrime.
But then wait, there are cases in which a large number (3+) of Thors are needed; Mech play in TvZ and TvT. That led me into thinking, "Why hasn't any Pro Terrans implemented Mech* play in TvP?" Perhaps PvT hasn't developed very far along the meta-game.
Most Developed Match-Up Poll
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=287770
*When i speak of Mech play, i mean Heavy Mech play in which one uses Helion/Tank/Thor combination as the core army; I don't mean other strategies like e.g. mass Thor + mass Banshee
![[image loading]](http://www.sc2blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/ss54-hires.jpg)
- Carrier at its finest -
But in the case of this theory-crafting let's say that Mech play in TvP has become a major part of the meta-game. Carriers would be a hard counter in the late late game (4+ bases) to the Mech Play. If Carriers could pick off Thors, it would have no problem having free reign over a Siege Tank line; Carriers would be no different to Brood Lord's role in pushing back enemy (siege) lines.
Here, you might say, "What about Vikings?! Vikings dominates Carriers!" They do, but remember, Mech costs heavy in gas and one more Viking could mean one less tank. Being the core dps of a Mech army, one may not have the resources and supply to fund both mass Mech units and mass vikings. I've noticed some Protoss players get Robotics Bay and get a lower number of Colossus purely for the purpose of forcing his opponent to spend unnecessary funds on Viking productions; imagine how much seeing even one Carrier would effect the Terran's Mech-play. Not only would it halt tank production for Vikings, having produced even one (I don't believe Carriers were meant to be massed) could pick off several tanks (lets not forget Carrier has at max 14 range; tank has 13), push back enemy lines, break contains, and be part of your almighty deathball. Carriers would have many uses both throughout the late game and the late late game.
Digressing for a moment, look back several months, there was no doubt in the clash between P-deathball and T-bio-deathball, Terrans seemed to keep dominance with the once-seemingly overpowered EMP. However, with the addition of the new 1.4.2 patch and the recent meta-shift of Protoss (macro style 3+ bases), in events like GSL and MLG, Protoss deathball seems to dominate over the classic T-bioball style by land-slides. (e.g. Huk vs Clide, Oz vs MMA)
- If domination of Protoss over Bioball continue could we see a shift in the Terran meta-game; Specifically, a shift from Bio-play to Mech-play?
- If so, in the same way the Battlecruisers, Ravens and seeker missiles (TvT) have found their roles after almost a year of meta-morphing, will the Carriers be able to as well?
Just give it a thought.
I never liked writing conclusions so i'll end by saying, stay positive As there still is another year before Heart of the Swarm comes out, there may be a future for Carriers, we might just not be there yet.
Thanks for reading, i'd like to hear everyone's opinions
-Bryan
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Seeing as the carrier is supposed to be removed in Heart of the Swarm, I don't think that it will have much of a future
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very well thought out and well written thread.
I used to play toss (masters) as well, before i switched to zerg, and found that carriers can be some of the most useful units in the game. against MMMG, if you focus on templar play, you can really hit them hard with a lategame carrier switch, and i was even able to implement them into my favorite TvP build: the 2 base carrier bust. if you didnt have vikings, you flat out lost, and if you did, GL dealing with my ground army.
everything else aside, carriers are definitely a unit with a unique design around it, and i'm SURE that at some point there will be a metagame shift (maybe in PvT, maybe PvZ, hell, even lategame PvP) where carriers will become useful.
I definitely think that blizzard shouldn't be too quick to pull out the carrier. ofc, there are better units to counter the carrier now, but all the ones that do require much more commitment than other units (e.g. corruptors, once you kill the carriers, whats left?)
Carriers are underused, but that doesn't mean they're not useful 
I encourage every toss to go out there and figure out the place for Carriers in today's metagame!
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I get what you're saying OP, but I think there's a lack of understanding of gameflow in your post, to be honest. The very basic situation for carriers is this: Carriers are good, a little weak in attack because of how their upgrades scale, but the problem with them is they are up against several other more favorable units. No amount of game trends will ever change the fact that a void ray is better at it's job than a carrier, or that a carrier can't out-"dps" a colossus. Add on the fact that their build time is so high that in a realistic scenario making a carrier is always a poorer decision than making a void ray, and you have absolutely no good reason to ever tech to carriers in a serious match at a high level.
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On November 24 2011 03:24 astroorion wrote:
Seeing as the carrier is supposed to be removed in Heart of the Swarm, I don't think that it will have much of a future
I disagree. Carriers might start seeing a future at the end of WoL's life, just because I doubt that all tourneys are going to instantly switch over to HotS, and some of the pros might try out some quirky builds and playstyles, including carriers.
Carriers have always been a really effective combat unit on their own, but because Blizzard nerfed their cost and build time so hard, nobody has ever really used them. Until now, it seems.
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Just a question, because I am too lazy to check it myself, during the ascension challenge, did the AI make the thors target the carriers themselves?
This is because, in the thor v carrier battle, it is better for thors to be attacking interceptors, as I have once fallen victim to having a single thor volley kill half my interceptors...
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it is not mandatory to substitute every instance of "game" with "metagame"
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4713 Posts
Mech terran hasn't worked in WoL and will never work again vs P for a number of reasons.
1st Tank damage in siege mode was nerfed. At the beginning of the expansion they did 60 damage to anything, now they do 30 and 50 to armored. This change was monumental, it allowed zealots to tank the hits from ST and they became the counter, much like they where the counter to tanks in BW. Also with the change, Archons became a even more viable unit to tank the hits because they are not considered armored, it takes a monumental 12 tank shots now to kill an archon.
2nd The helion is not a viable support for tanks vs protoss. Ignoring here how bad tanks actually are vs zealots and archons, helions are even worst because zealots don't tend to clump up the same as zerglings, zealots with charge are also a lot more dangerous. Lastly helions will take lots of friendly fire damage because zealots are charging into their line and tanks are hitting the zealots. Helions are not in their element here, they are currently a kiting unit, and they suffer badly when they either can't kite (forcefields and zealots), or they just need to stand in the line and soak damage so the tanks can deal damage.
3rd Thor is the only counter to air that mech has, however mech will not even survive long enough for the thor to come into play, so the argument is moot. Also Thor is going to be removed in HoTS, so the thing that carrier counters is going to be nullified.
Carrier will not work in the current meta-game. However it could work brilliantly in a new HoTS. The thing is in HoTS mech becomes much more viable because helions can transform into their battle ready variant where they go from 90 HP to 135, a wooping 50% increase, and also change their attack from a line to a cone, much better suited to countering zealots up front.
The warhound also joins the ranks of the terran army as the new mech anti-air. Warhound also has a interesting + damage to mechanical ground targets, Immortals and Stalkers are mechanical.
Suddenly mech terran is much more viable. However, the big down side, just like terran bio is weak to a particular late game unit the protoss has (Colossus), so is mech terran weak to Carrier. And unlike bio where gas is a much lighter component of the bio force and can be used to make medivacs and vikings, in mech terran the gas will be much, much harder to come by. Carriers will be harder to counter which opens up this possibility vs terran.
I actually wrote a long article about this which I should be posting in a couple of days.
Edit: Also, I doubt any tournament will continue with WoL after HotS will be released. Everyone will be enthusiastic and want to switch to HoTS, and if they don't they risk falling behind as the meta-game evolves, and having to struggle more as the game progresses.
But critically, Blizzard will probably NOT license any more SC2 tournaments without HoTS, they most certainly want to sell it and promote it, and the top players can do this best.
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where they go from 90 HP to 135, a wooping 50% increase
uh oh?
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4713 Posts
When the helions transforms into a battle helion its HP goes from 90 to 135, some people tested it at Blizzcon. The difference of 90 and 135 is 45, or 50%, I hope I cleared this up.
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i think hes trying to say that you should say whopping
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I think considering the lukewarm reception the tempest has gotten, plus the nostalgia for the old carriers and the fact that blizz said their plans for HotS are still in the early stages, we might see the carriers stick around. Keep in mind that when HotS does come around a totally new metagame will be formed regardless of what happens, and if blizz does decide to keep carriers they might be given some kind of buff or upgrade to make the viable. However, I do think you make an interesting point about carriers vs. Thors/mech in the TvP matchup. I think tha's a really neat point, and it will require some exploration as we move towards mech in TvP (assuming we do)
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at the moment, P can't force a Terran to make tanks, and as long T plays Bio, he can easily support atleast 2x reactor starport (talking about atleast 3base play) IF P commits to carriers. which makes it not only risky to go for carriers (high cost/supply/buildtime) but also almost demands to be unveiled at the last second. besides it only being an option when you went for a gateway heavy HT/archon midgame.
for the meta game to change to a state where TvP would look like BW, again, P would have to force T to go mech, which in turn means stomping bio play to the point it's hardly viable anymore. and with the introduction of marauders and medivacs in sc2 it's an almost unimaginable task, maybe not impossible, but unlikely.
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The main issue with the carrier is how it was designed in SC2, dsigned by total noobs bw-wise.
In Bw the carrier is a useless unit if not microed correctly, but can be deadly in the hands of a skilled player.
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Carriers counter Thors, eh? That's one helluva soft counter....
Think of it this way... Let's say this is Thor + ANY other Terran Anti-Air.... The Protoss will want to micro his carriers back over a main army/cliff to prevent damage from mobile anti-air while also dodging out of Thor range (The Thor is one of the few units that the Carrier can feasibly use it's 14 range against) .... but in doing so the Terran can hold position his thors and almost instantly kill the Protoss's interceptors.
Try it out in the Unit tester... 8 carriers vs like 6 Thors and have the Thors purposefully kill interceptors... the interceptors get wiped out in a flash... While carriers don't clump interceptors do and the Thor's rockets make for at least slight anti-light splash damage being done each volley... T.T
I want the Carrier to have a place... but it just doesn't... PLUS, saying the Carrier counters the Thor is like saying the Carrier counters the Ultralisk... the superhigh health + armor of the two units makes them able to ignore carriers to a degree that makes the carriers attacking them almost... well... a waste of DPS that could be instantly killing lower HP units and removing them from battle.
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On November 24 2011 03:14 eyepodimo wrote:
P-deathball and T-bio-deathball
I wish Zerg had a deathball :/
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Yea carriers counter thors but terran don't go mech against protoss except for weird timings
Changelots rip everything to pieces if they get near tanks
Immortals are cost amazingly cost effective against tanks and thors, as well as actually just being invincible without EMPs
Colossi obliterate hellions and do reasonably against thors and tanks, assuming there are some meat shields for the colossi.
Archons do great against hellions, as well as actually just being invincible without EMPs
Stalkers can just blink past the mech and abuse its lack of mobility to ensure the terran is all in everytime he commits to aggression
Carriers ultimatly hard counter the entire mech composition.
Only counter to carriers from mech would be thors, which carriers are still great against, and vikings, and phoenix obliterate vikings easily
Added to all this the protoss can go zerg style and take 1 or 2 bases over the terran, preferably far away as a zerg would do when playing against a mech terran. The terran can only harass the expo with hellions, easily denied with cannons and warp in. If they take their entire army over to kill your base you can easily blink in and kill one of theirs in return and still be back in time to defend.
On November 24 2011 09:52 ShatterZer0 wrote:
Carriers counter Thors, eh? That's one helluva soft counter....
Carriers don't counter thors directly, but mass thors can be beaten by chargelots and immortals, thor hellion cant really touch your standard stalker colossi immortal'y mix. Tank hellion can feasibly be very strong against the ground units of protoss, especially with some EMP, but they need antiair from voidrays and carriers, thor being the only unit available for them.
Thors may do fine against voidrays, but the carriers are pretty effective against them, and when the thors are dead the carriers can clean up the rest of the army easily.
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+ Show Spoiler +On November 24 2011 10:27 Iksf wrote:Yea carriers counter thors but terran don't go mech against protoss except for weird timings Changelots rip everything to pieces if they get near tanks Immortals are cost amazingly cost effective against tanks and thors, as well as actually just being invincible without EMPs Colossi obliterate hellions and do reasonably against thors and tanks, assuming there are some meat shields for the colossi. Archons do great against hellions, as well as actually just being invincible without EMPs Stalkers can just blink past the mech and abuse its lack of mobility to ensure the terran is all in everytime he commits to aggression Carriers ultimatly hard counter the entire mech composition. Only counter to carriers from mech would be thors, which carriers are still great against, and vikings, and phoenix obliterate vikings easily Added to all this the protoss can go zerg style and take 1 or 2 bases over the terran, preferably far away as a zerg would do when playing against a mech terran. The terran can only harass the expo with hellions, easily denied with cannons and warp in. If they take their entire army over to kill your base you can easily blink in and kill one of theirs in return and still be back in time to defend. Show nested quote +On November 24 2011 09:52 ShatterZer0 wrote:
Carriers counter Thors, eh? That's one helluva soft counter.... Carriers don't counter thors directly, but mass thors can be beaten by chargelots and immortals, thor hellion cant really touch your standard stalker colossi immortal'y mix. Tank hellion can feasibly be very strong against the ground units of protoss, especially with some EMP, but they need antiair from voidrays and carriers, thor being the only unit available for them. Thors may do fine against voidrays, but the carriers are pretty effective against them, and when the thors are dead the carriers can clean up the rest of the army easily.
And thus... soft counter.
Carriers are, as you describe, a one shot attempt to crack Tank lines with Thor support. The weakness of Terran Mech isn't so much its lack of anti-air... as the fact that that playing mech vs Protoss is REALLY weird.
Protoss scouts mech and then instantly knows the only semblance of a possible attack is harass with medillions or vikings... which lets the Protoss get a fast 3 base and maybe even a fourth depending on how well the Terran's first "push" goes. One, the Terran pulls back with generally minimal tank loses and secures further bases or the fight ensues and the game ends there. More often than not the Terran will lose or come out with nearly nothing when the dust settles... Then the Terran is basically naked as the Protoss reloads with units faster, or realize the Terran is on a serious back foot.... and either begins to harass/kill the Terran or expand as much as the Protoss would like.
Simply put, Terran cannot slow push in SC2. Why so? because warpgates allow for a HUGE portion of the Protoss's army to suddenly appear elsewhere... which is the epitome of taking advantage of Mech's immobility. Imagine a Zerg spending 400 minerals to drop your main and 4th simultaneously with just 5 seconds to kill the overlord... Even worse, Mech can't punish the Protoss immediately after seeing that 20-30 supply of enemy army is in the Mech Terran's base... because tanks have to unsiege and suddenly become unmicroable 3 supply marauders.... against a likely heavy zealot comp. Obviously the Terran can't adequately defend because mech gets exponentially weaker the fewer tanks/thors you have... so you can't keep them home to defend... and Terran has no Zero supply base defense (other than the, in this case, irrelevant autoturret)...
If Mech were actually possible somehow vs Protoss, as of now, then Carriers would have a strong usage... but as for now they're nothing but a SC2 Scout.... except maybe in PvZ where they're MEGA late game infestor snipers.
I WISH MECH WORKED AND I'VE TRIED SO HARD BUT IT DOESN'T WORK FOR ME (Or any real Pro as of now) T.T
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Very well written thread! I was just browsing but your writing drew me in
Furthermore you have convinced me of carriers and, considering that we have a year up our sleeves, we may as well take advantage of them. Thanks for the great post!
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I believe we will see an increase in Carrier use if the supposed carrier buff ever comes Blizzard hinted at it when the patch that increased Mothership acceleration came they said they were also going to address Carriers but chose to deal with the Mothership first. Then Blizzcon came around and Blizzard said they were looking at a general Protoss buff, which came in the form of cheaper upgrades. I still haven't forgotten about the Carrier patch and would really like to see it happen.
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Id like to state that the carrier is by no means a BAD unit. It deals Great DPS with upgrades, and bolsters an army quite a bit.
While the carrier "counters" Mech units, i have to agree with an above poster that : as long as mech is terribly easy to exploit (mass zealot, expand, Warp prism play, mass immortal, its like a hard counter) we wont be seeing it too much in this expansion (or HoTs, i doubt mech will be much stronger then, protoss gaining mass recall)
Bio-Play has the tools to deal with protoss anti Infantry, vikings > colossi. Ghost > templar. I doubt well see a metagame shift away from this in WoL.
Carrier tech switches are kindof OK, but its not like you can surprise Terrans as much as Zerg with air, since their main unit : Marines are insanely cheap, shoot down interceptors, and the terran is very likely ahead in upgrades with them.
Carriers, Voidrays, Phoenix and the Mothership all share a common enemy in PvT : The Marine
I do however feel, Carriers are underused in PvZ
Tempests arent supposed to be only anti mutalisk units. As the new Capital ship they will deal good damage against ground and, possibly even be worth making even if your opponent has many marines.
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On November 24 2011 07:59 CortoMontez wrote:
Just a question, because I am too lazy to check it myself, during the ascension challenge, did the AI make the thors target the carriers themselves?
This is because, in the thor v carrier battle, it is better for thors to be attacking interceptors, as I have once fallen victim to having a single thor volley kill half my interceptors...
hehe its a problem with the range upgrade (or the speed upgrade). The interceptors get fired really close together, so they can actually be caught by a single fungal, or well a thors shot (thors shot has to be really unlucky for you though as they generally should see the carrier and target it before they see the interceptors).
As for the carrier, the replies alone show the problem. Building vikings and you are save, colossi/voids are better.
Vikings are actually horribad against carrier. There is a reason a toss builds 3 colossi and then transitions, because you need alot of vikings to actually kill them off quick enough. Against carriers building enough vikings actually is alot worse. And the vikings lose to carriers pretty hard in a no support scenario, that generally happens close to cliffs.
Colossi are better, sure if the terran doesn't have micro colossi will do tons of damage because their ao abuses the pathing ai. But carriers fly and terran has no anti air on the ground that is able to deal with a carrier that has a templar behind him. (and ghosts can't pass a carrier) And vikings are actually pretty weak to storm as well if they fight against carriers (you know the kiting problem)
Voids do better the carriers, well they fly, but they can't attack in the front, means if they have to pull back they are useless. And well they have half the range of carriers.
Carriers are a mineral dump unit, means you can use other high tech gas units, while still having your big guns. The build time is no issue, because they get 4 interceptors for free that you can even chronoboost. (kinda like the complaints about spinecrawlers, because they had such a long build time compared to sunkens, but those people forgot the creep colo).
So Carriers are generally better for better players against better players (because they take alot of micro to handle, you control the interceptors with your carrier which makes it really hard) And here we have the problem, the interceptor. They die really fast if the carriers do their job and stay out of range. They also get hit by storms if the opponent does something foolish and suicides marines. And its not even an issue that they don't get that bw instant repair (if the interceptors wouldn't die the carrier would just be imbalanced right now). But they just rebuild to slow and could maybe be a bit cheaper as well. Otherwise carriers are mostly out of order after a fight even if the toss won, so they are perfect for trading cost effective, but you normally set yourself behind on the path to get them, which means your even with the opponent just for using a micro intensive unit.
Another issue is that they are a lategame unit that needs their upgrades, like the ultralisk (haha even today there are people building ultralisks without 3/5)
Aside from that carriers own ghost heavy builds really hard. Having ghosts and vikings always ends up in the carriers sniping the ghosts, and the ground army just running over the terran. And the vikings won't even get all carriers. Battlecruiser are good at killing of interceptors though and without energy they do really well against carrier ht compositions hehe. Its a really interesting situation since ghosts can prevent the stalkers from blinking under a bc from save distance, but it will probably never come to this. because its deep lategame, something that almost never happens at the moment (or with people having no idea what to do and not even trying something to break the stalemate into their favor).
Still its fun to play around with carriers and fairly easy to tech to them on some maps. Meta and Shakuras are my carrier maps x3. You basically only need 8 supply to prevent the opponent from entering your half of the map. So can take all the time you want.
So atleast i will miss the carrier. But just like in bw its a unit you build to break a stalemate, if they scout it fine, they will trade evenly and the opponent have to overcommit, if they don't you will get a huge gain from it.
And since when do pro games even reach those stalemate situations, it just started recently again and then a patch hit us. So if hots stays away for a bit longer we might even see some lategame strategies. And if they have some time left in the unit design team, carrier is probably their first thing to work on.
And hey even the scout had its place in bw. (people got them instead of the corsair, because they could hit ground and sniped overlords way better). So just don't remove units Blizzards, it just makes an expansion become a mod only.
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Actually I don't think carriers in SC2 are all that bad. They and their interceptors seem to be less resilient than in BW, but do more dps. Like many have said earlier, they would do well against mech.
The reason that Terran is going bio instead of mech is, to a significant extent, the maps. Maps in SC2 strike me as being not too big and having large open spaces in the middle, both of which favor bio in TvP as bio can strike fast and spread out to minimize splash damage from Toss. On the other hand if maps were larger, but had more cliffs and narrow passageways, then mech would be stronger against Toss; even chargelots and immortals wouldn't be able to take mech head-on in a narrow pass. Carriers would shine then.
If we look back at BW, carriers were mainly used on maps like Katrina or that map last OSL on which Jangbi went carriers twice against Fantasy. Cliffs and narrow passageways. I don't remember seeing carriers on maps like Fighting Spirit.
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If it was Blizzard's intention to give it a specific role in the first place, I would say they probably kinda screwed up there, seeing that it's going to be removed in HotS.
There's no question about a carrier's power and what it forces your opponent to make to counter it, I too agree it is not a totally "worthless and broken" unit that is unusable. Unfortunately, you will have to get more than just a few carriers to make it actually work with air upgrades and also make full use of your fleet beacon + graviton beam.
Therefore, the main problem lies with getting there.
How do you get up mass carriers in your everyday game without letting your opponent get ahead of you either economically, killing you with a timing attack, or just get up too many carrier-counters quicker than you? If you could do that and make it work, you probably would already have had the ability to kill him off regardless of whether you gotten carriers or not.
There simply isn't enough reason to justify the risk taken for going carriers instead of playing "standard" if you are already ahead. If you are not ahead, it would be suicidal to even attempt it. Do not forget, with the build time of carriers, it's pretty much all-in as you can't remake them as fast as any other unit even if you have 4 stargates pumping them out at once. It would be very uneconomical to go for both ground and air upgrades.
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EPT
