I am looking for some inputs from higher level players regarding a strategy that I've developed for late game ZvP. This isn't a help thread, my ZvP winrate is quite high using this. This is a suggestion for late game ZvP and I am wondering if any pros can point of its weaknesses.
Intro
The strategy of mass spinecrawlers/infestors was popularized by Stephano early this year, in particular, his match against Grubby during Shoutcraft Invitational as seen here
Basically, you control the map with speedlings early game, while you spine up and tech to infestors. You usually will keep adding spines and infestors, add banelings to stop mass zealots as you tech to broodlords.
This strategy is potent because it prevents the protoss from attacking the much weaker zerg army as the zerg techs up. There is absolutely no cost effective way for Protoss to break a spine wall.
How the hell does protoss break this in the midgame?
Immortals and Archons can be neuraled behind the spinewall. Collosi is the only ground unit that outranges the spines, but they do pretty shit damage to 300HP spine crawlers, all while zergs can chain fungal stuff to death. Going mass void rays won't help because how strong fungals are against low HP air units. Going carriers is just suicide. Warp-prisms can work but it's a gamble, if the zerg spine/spores up their bases, the strategy is nullified.
This mass spine/infestor/bling/brood strategy effectively forces protoss to get a mothership and hope their archon toilet works. Toileting the zerg army can be effective as shown by SlayersBrown vs Losira in GSL November 2011.
Anti-Mothership
So how do Zergs get around ZvP late game without fear of losing to an archon toilet. Let's consider the following.
-If enough banelings are thrown into a vortex, it can destroy the ground protoss army inside as they pop out. That only leaves stalkers left. -If Zerg turtles the infestor/bling/brood behind a giant spine wall. It effectively limits how much damage the stalkers can do. Just keep your infestors behind the spinewall and you can fungal stalkers to death.
So basically I am advocating that Zerg should not "attack" the protoss head on in a 200/200 army...just because Zerg has way better position at their spines( which you can uproot and slow spinepush the protoss). Broodlord armies are so slow that it also becomes easy to be out maneuvered by your opponent and get into a dangerous base race scenario.
What Zerg can do instead, is harass with drops, particularly baneling drops.
Harassment
The strength of the protoss late game is how deathball-y it is, but as the game progresses, protoss gets more spread out, leading them to become more and more vulnerable to drops. Since the protoss ball cannot be everywhere at once, unless they make a crap ton of cannons (which are insanely expensive and will cut into their late game production line), they will not be able to deal with drops.
Right as you get hive, you would want to research drops/overlord speed as well. As you are building broodlords, the protoss should be on his third or forth base, exactly when drops become invaluable.
As with all drop tactics, you want to hit at least two places at once.
Summary: -Keep infestor/brood/banes behind a slowly creeping spinewall, do not attack directly until you have a definite advantage. -Harass with drops.
-Map Dependent: Does not work well on maps that are too open or expansions that are out of the way
Good Maps: Shakuras, Ohana, Entombed, Metalopolis, Antiga (4th base at the gold, control the center). Ok Maps: Cloud Kingdom, Metropolis Bad Maps: Taldarim, Korhal
Please critique constructively. Every comment is much appreciated.
I am a casual player on the North American ladder. My ranking wildly shifts between platinum and silver because I have recently started quitting all my zvzs lol + Show Spoiler +
....in favor of developing better ZvT and ZvP matchups
It's not bad, but there are 2 holes in your theory: 1. You say warp prism play can be negated by spine/spore. Similarly, baneling drop harass can be negated by mass cannon. 2. You discount carriers too soon. Carriers are the solution to this.
On April 28 2012 11:33 NrGmonk wrote: It's not bad, but there are 2 holes in your theory: 1. You say warp prism play can be negated by spine/spore. Similarly, baneling drop harass can be negated by mass cannon. 2. You discount carriers too soon. Carriers are the solution to this.
When do you think the protoss should transition to carriers? It obviously has to be after mothership, archons and collosus. But, after it just seems to take too long and if zerg comes with a giant BL ball and splits properly there doesn't seem to be anyway to actually kill it cost efficiently to do a transition fast enough.
On April 28 2012 11:33 NrGmonk wrote: It's not bad, but there are 2 holes in your theory: 1. You say warp prism play can be negated by spine/spore. Similarly, baneling drop harass can be negated by mass cannon. 2. You discount carriers too soon. Carriers are the solution to this.
Thank you for your respectable input.
I would like to reply to your points as follows:
1. Spines/spores can move, if a particular base is prone to being attacked, the zerg can reallocate a portion of their spinewall to that area.
2. I think you may be right. But carriers are difficult to pull off right now because nobody knows the correct timing to hit zergs with carriers yet.
Consider that early carriers requires you to have - a third base -active anti scouting
If zerg sees that early third, he can harass with infested terran/lings. Or just build an earlier spire out of suspicion.
If you go later carriers, zerg can just keep a bunch of corruptors instead of morphing them into broodlords.
I have beaten carrier builds before using this strategy, the transition into a ton of corruptors isn't difficult ...but neither myself or my opponents are any good. I guess what I am saying is...carrier builds' are a tough feat to pull off.
On April 28 2012 11:33 NrGmonk wrote: It's not bad, but there are 2 holes in your theory: 1. You say warp prism play can be negated by spine/spore. Similarly, baneling drop harass can be negated by mass cannon. 2. You discount carriers too soon. Carriers are the solution to this.
Thanks for your respectable input.
I would like to reply to your points as follows:
1. Spines/spores can move, if a particular base is prone to being attacked, the zerg can reallocate a portion of their spinewall to that area.
2. I think you may be right. But carriers are difficult to pull off right now because nobody knows the correct timing to hit zergs with carriers yet.
Consider that early carriers requires you to have - a third base -active anti scouting
If zerg sees that early third, he can harass with infested terran/lings. Or just build an earlier spire out of suspicion.
If you go later carriers, zerg can just keep a bunch of corruptors instead of morphing them into broodlords.
I have beaten carrier builds before...but neither myself or my opponents are any good. I guess what I am saying is...it's a difficult task to pull off.
1. I'm not sure you understand my point here. I'm saying that spines/spores can defend bases perfectly, but toss can use cannons to defend baneling drops as well. Both can be stopped by appropriate defenses. It seems from your post that the reason your baneling drops worked was that your opponents didn't have appropriate defenses. 2. I'm not talking about carrier builds at all. Actually, I'm talking about carriers off of 4+ base. It's a very late game transition that occurs only after you've hit max with colossi/archon/mothership and have at least 4 bases. So basically standard play into carriers on 4 base. I can link you to some games if you would like.
1. I'm not sure you understand my point here. I'm saying that spines/spores can defend bases perfectly, but toss can use cannons to defend baneling drops as well. Both can be stopped by appropriate defenses. It seems from your post that the reason your baneling drops worked was that your opponents didn't have appropriate defenses. 2. I'm not talking about carrier builds at all. Actually, I'm talking about carriers off of 4+ base. It's a very late game transition that occurs only after you've hit max with colossi/archon/mothership and have at least 4 bases. So basically standard play into carriers on 4 base. I can link you to some games if you would like.
Would you please? I am interested on how protoss beats this as well. Even a carrier transition seems complicated.
Things I want to know are:
How many stargates does a protoss build? considering how slow carriers are..I imagine you need at least 4-6.
Pure carriers is still trash, so what ratio between blink stalkers/carriers/archons would a protoss need?
1. I'm not sure you understand my point here. I'm saying that spines/spores can defend bases perfectly, but toss can use cannons to defend baneling drops as well. Both can be stopped by appropriate defenses. It seems from your post that the reason your baneling drops worked was that your opponents didn't have appropriate defenses. 2. I'm not talking about carrier builds at all. Actually, I'm talking about carriers off of 4+ base. It's a very late game transition that occurs only after you've hit max with colossi/archon/mothership and have at least 4 bases. So basically standard play into carriers on 4 base. I can link you to some games if you would like.
Would you please? I am interested on how protoss beats this as well. Even a carrier transition seems complicated.
Things I want to know are:
How many stargates does a protoss build? considering how slow carriers are..I imagine you need at least 4-6.
Pure carriers is still trash, so what ratio between blink stalkers/carriers/archons would a protoss need?
Off the top of my head, 2 games in which carriers really mattered were Ret vs Naniwa on daybreak from the redbull lan and Hero vs Dimaga on Shattered from IEM Kiev. You're gonna have to find the vods yourself, but if you use this, it shouldn't be hard. Hasuobs is known for incorporating carriers in all his late game PvZs and Hero is consistently up with that too. There are also tons of games where carriers were made but didn't end up mattering in the game, including that lucky vs brown game you reference.
Carriers are better than you give them credit for. Their biggest strengths is outranging broodlord/spine, so you force corruptors into archon/storm/stalker/vortex range. They're also quite good for fighting straight up with upgrades, being the highest dpsing unit in the game. Carrier/mothership/archon/templar is actually the strongest composition you can have in PvZ, but it's impossible to get basically. Somewhat realistically, you want as many carrier/archon/templar as possible and as few stalkers as possible.
The weakness of carriers is, of course, transitioning to them, which takes at least 4+ bases.
Nice guide. I wrote off banelings into a vortex as kind of useless, so ill try it out. It'd be nice to use banerain on probes again (I used to play banerain inzvp for over a year) and have a way to kill off lategame toss being able to constantly refill on archons and ht
so I ran some tests on how well banelings deal with archons.
A friend and I did this for an hour where where made archons/banelings and broods
These broods survive unscratched, need to get a better pic later
I. vortex II. throw units in the vortex. III. watch what happens.
here are some results, probably need someone else to confirm.
1. Banelings will always attack immediately after out of vortex. Archons may or may not have delays in their attacks, completely random.
2. You need about 20 banelings for every 5 archons to wipe them out instantaneously before broodlords get hit. About 40 banelings can destroy 10 or less archons immediately.
3. More than 10 archons will cause too much spread for 40 banes to kill, more banelings will help, but with diminishing returns.
4. If protoss throws in zealots along with their archons, everything gets vaporized much faster!!
5. If zerg throws in more units other than banelings/broods, banelings will not work as well against archon
I did alot of messing around with the archon toilet as a masters zerg player. You need to surround vortex with Infested terran to reduce archon spread and have your 25 bane lings or so inside the toilet. Having your broods hot keyed and spam moving them back away from your army helps them keep from taking half health splash. This method is hard to pull off but results in ALL of your broodlords surviving. The IT's keep the archons from spreading out enough to negate baneling splash. try it in any unit tester if you don't believe me. This is the key to escaping the diminishing returns you speak of. .
Wow, thanks a lot you two. Really cool testing. I always felt banelings maybe took up too much suply or infestors were better. I guess as long as you kill 4 archons, you can justify 40 banes.
Reddragon, I always ghought IT sppam was so even if they got toilet off, you made sure their army got vaporizdd in the process.
On April 28 2012 16:25 Belial88 wrote: Wow, thanks a lot you two. Really cool testing. I always felt banelings maybe took up too much suply or infestors were better. I guess as long as you kill 4 archons, you can justify 40 banes.
Reddragon, I always ghought IT sppam was so even if they got toilet off, you made sure their army got vaporizdd in the process.
I think in a real game people usually have 5-10 archons around if they're good. You can fungal the archons and throw banelings into the vortex. 40 banelings costs 20 supplies. it's worth it late game, since zerglings's useless in a big engagement like that.
By that point in the game I would have pure bl infestor. I always thought NP on its own was enough for mothership, but toss are starting to smarten up to it, and certain maps like shakuras don't allow you to sneak around an infestor behind his army. I've actually been having trouble with toilet recently.
On April 28 2012 16:25 Belial88 wrote: Wow, thanks a lot you two. Really cool testing. I always felt banelings maybe took up too much suply or infestors were better. I guess as long as you kill 4 archons, you can justify 40 banes.
Reddragon, I always ghought IT sppam was so even if they got toilet off, you made sure their army got vaporizdd in the process.
Banelings are the most supply efficient unit.... ever, except for maybe marines. Especially when you add overlords with speed/drop to the equasion, then there's a chance they become cost effective too.
I usually start producing a few carriers whenever i'm on 3 bases, even before mothership. To discount them as suicide is premature imo. Most of my PvZ end up going to a split-map scenario where its my mothership/4+ carriers/2-3 colo/6+ ht/archons/stalkers vs their infestor/corruptor/brood lord/spine wall. From here, it just comes down to micro and who's traded more cost effectively throughout the game.
As for banelings in ZvP, they are incredibly good when you drop them on a standard sentry/stalker/colo ball if the protoss is out on the map. If the protoss turtles, it's not as effective but buys you a ticket into the late game. Baneling drops on workers can be really good, but they can also be useless depending on how good your opponent is. They're obviously best if the protoss never sees them before the first drop on workers, but once you show banelings, a good player wont lose any workers because there will be one cannon in a mineral line, and they'll have the fear in their mind to be looking for the bling drops.
I like the style, and i think more zergs should play around with bane-rain. I also think that hitting a 12-13 minute timing with roaches, then tech switching into mutas does effectively the same thing. I'm not saying one style is better than another, but that yours might be a bit more difficult to use.
I can post some replays of my games with carriers if you'd like.
Edit: I'm masters protoss and zerg, but main as protoss for what it's worth
On April 28 2012 12:37 NrGmonk wrote: 1. I'm not sure you understand my point here. I'm saying that spines/spores can defend bases perfectly, but toss can use cannons to defend baneling drops as well. Both can be stopped by appropriate defenses. It seems from your post that the reason your baneling drops worked was that your opponents didn't have appropriate defenses.
I think it's also a mistake to equate baneling drops to any other drops in the game. No other unit in the game deals damage as quickly or deals the same level of damage when it dies... The reaction time it takes to recognize a baneling drop is happening is significantly smaller than those needed for any other drops. Constant map awareness using observer, preemptively leaving a few stalkers at each mineral line is probably the best way to stop these harassment. At which point the zerg can drop lings or roaches along with banes.
Do not forget that zerg drops are better than terran drops against protoss. Overlords cannot be fedback by templars. And late game zerg will have more overlords than they can count. A handful of overlord filled with banelings can destroy even mass cannons.
Maybe I need to try the fabled ultralisk drop harassment next XD
On April 28 2012 12:37 NrGmonk wrote: 1. I'm not sure you understand my point here. I'm saying that spines/spores can defend bases perfectly, but toss can use cannons to defend baneling drops as well. Both can be stopped by appropriate defenses. It seems from your post that the reason your baneling drops worked was that your opponents didn't have appropriate defenses.
I think it's also a mistake to equate baneling drops to any other drops in the game. No other unit in the game deals damage as quickly or deals the same level of damage when it dies... The reaction time it takes to recognize a baneling drop is happening is significantly smaller than those needed for any other drops. Constant map awareness using observer, preemptively leaving a few stalkers at each mineral line is probably the best way to stop these harassment. At which point the zerg can drop lings or roaches along with banes.
Do not forget that zerg drops are better than terran drops against protoss. Overlords cannot be fedback by templars. And late game zerg will have more overlords than they can count. A handful of overlord filled with banelings can destroy even mass cannons.
Maybe I need to try the fabled ultralisk drop harassment next XD
Well the difference is that the banelings need to get into the mineral line to do damage, so having like 6 cannons per mining base seems like it would essentially nullify and baneling drops, unless zerg is willing to send in like 6 overlords per drop to tank damage. With a terran drop, you can always re position your units away from the static d and find weak spots. I'm not discounting the effectiveness of baneling drops, but it's true that if lategame zerg spams 8 spines around a base, then so can toss.
On April 28 2012 12:37 NrGmonk wrote: 1. I'm not sure you understand my point here. I'm saying that spines/spores can defend bases perfectly, but toss can use cannons to defend baneling drops as well. Both can be stopped by appropriate defenses. It seems from your post that the reason your baneling drops worked was that your opponents didn't have appropriate defenses.
I think it's also a mistake to equate baneling drops to any other drops in the game. No other unit in the game deals damage as quickly or deals the same level of damage when it dies... The reaction time it takes to recognize a baneling drop is happening is significantly smaller than those needed for any other drops. Constant map awareness using observer, preemptively leaving a few stalkers at each mineral line is probably the best way to stop these harassment. At which point the zerg can drop lings or roaches along with banes.
Do not forget that zerg drops are better than terran drops against protoss. Overlords cannot be fedback by templars. And late game zerg will have more overlords than they can count. A handful of overlord filled with banelings can destroy even mass cannons.
Maybe I need to try the fabled ultralisk drop harassment next XD
Well the difference is that the banelings need to get into the mineral line to do damage, so having like 6 cannons per mining base seems like it would essentially nullify and baneling drops, unless zerg is willing to send in like 6 overlords per drop to tank damage. With a terran drop, you can always re position your units away from the static d and find weak spots. I'm not discounting the effectiveness of baneling drops, but it's true that if lategame zerg spams 8 spines around a base, then so can toss.
I think the fact that the Damage is dealt all in one blow is kind of important to, While broodwar players might be used to drops decimating mineral lines in seconds with reavers or storm, in sc2, people are used to having 1-2 seconds mroe time to react then do you with a baneling drop, just two overlords with banelings in sent on a shift move to drop the main before you initiate a major engagement, and unless they have pre-emptively beuilt 4-5 cannons at each base, which is unlikely, you will either do massive damage, or force them to miss their forcefields/run away due to looking at their bases to pull probes.
And lategame, even if they have a ton of cannons around their mineral line, load up two overlords with cracklings and just shift-queue them to drop in the corner of the enemy main before you move in for an engagement, cracklings eat buildings alive.
A large advantage of zerg drop play is you can easily shift click it into their mineral line/main and then it will do damage if both players ignore it, whereas protoss drop play generally needs a bit more focus (for storm drops/warp prism warpins) so zergs can easily force a protoss to split his attention before going in for a micro intensive battle. (While this might not matter at grandmaster level, i'm pretty sure mid masters would have trouble dealing with two drops and microing a battle at the same time.)
Its also worth noting that the protoss army needs,very much so, to stick together in a death ball to be supply effective. This means that 16 cracklings in your main is going to be quite hard to deal with without assigning more supply then the 8 those cracklings will take up, to deal with the drop. This leaves the zerg with a larger supply of units in the middle of the field.
neo i dont really agree with your analysis of banerain. banerain costs a lot of gas, 100 gas to each mineral line that you can't re-use. When I went banerain, I would send 1 overlord to 3 bases all at once, while pushng forward (id get banerain to time with 200/200). It's actually best played against someone who is being defense, if he's in a choke he can't run anywhere. And toss can easily deal with it, you just pull your probes away quickly. but many toss may not expect it or just suck.
Its also worth noting that the protoss army needs,very much so, to stick together in a death ball to be supply effective. This means that 16 cracklings in your main is going to be quite hard to deal with without assigning more supply then the 8 those cracklings will take up, to deal with the drop. This leaves the zerg with a larger supply of units in the middle of the field.
p can warp in zealots, and will generally have cannons around. I don't really find crackling drops useful in zvp.
banerain is great and all, but the tech is so goddamn expensive. You are literally trading going for broodlords, with banerain, and it's a no brainer which one of those is better. The upside to banerain play is that it comes quicker than broodlords, but zergs have learned much better ways to buy time these days (maxing in 11 minutes and trading, mass spine + infestor, mutas) than spending the same amount of gas that could just get you broodlord tech. It's definitely not worth the gas of 300/300 + 300 gas in at least 9 banelings for 3 minerals lines.
If, say, you opened banerain just to drop 3 overlords, toss will just push out and kill you because you didnt spend your gas on tech. That was a huge problem I had with the style. The only way to justify it, is if you are actually going banerain as part of your army, and you get late.
1. I'm not sure you understand my point here. I'm saying that spines/spores can defend bases perfectly, but toss can use cannons to defend baneling drops as well. Both can be stopped by appropriate defenses. It seems from your post that the reason your baneling drops worked was that your opponents didn't have appropriate defenses. 2. I'm not talking about carrier builds at all. Actually, I'm talking about carriers off of 4+ base. It's a very late game transition that occurs only after you've hit max with colossi/archon/mothership and have at least 4 bases. So basically standard play into carriers on 4 base. I can link you to some games if you would like.
Would you please? I am interested on how protoss beats this as well. Even a carrier transition seems complicated.
Things I want to know are:
How many stargates does a protoss build? considering how slow carriers are..I imagine you need at least 4-6.
Pure carriers is still trash, so what ratio between blink stalkers/carriers/archons would a protoss need?
A good number is 5 stargates when you get maxed or close just throw them down and start chronoing upgrades for them. Then I like to make a round of 5 voids and 5 carriers as you lose supply. I can't insta remax on them so you wanna do harras or do really good trades then back off. As you do that just remax remax till you are mostly carrier void ray and if you have the money feel free to add in more stargates. And Storm on your templar to back this up is always a plus.
I've been playing sort of like this lategame once P has a mothership out. Never attack a protoss with a mothership up straight on, that's the best way to lose an advantage. I take my half of the map and slowly creep forward with army + spines/queens (for transfuse).
I really like small crackling drops, especially when P is maxed so that he can't warp in defensive zealots. They tear through buildings and cannons.
Btw, If you play this banelings style and manage to neural parasite his mothership, consider using Mass Recall on your banelings instead of vortex. This is so damn awesome to pull of.
On April 28 2012 22:49 Belial88 wrote: neo i dont really agree with your analysis of banerain. banerain costs a lot of gas, 100 gas to each mineral line that you can't re-use. When I went banerain, I would send 1 overlord to 3 bases all at once, while pushng forward (id get banerain to time with 200/200). It's actually best played against someone who is being defense, if he's in a choke he can't run anywhere. And toss can easily deal with it, you just pull your probes away quickly. but many toss may not expect it or just suck.
Its also worth noting that the protoss army needs,very much so, to stick together in a death ball to be supply effective. This means that 16 cracklings in your main is going to be quite hard to deal with without assigning more supply then the 8 those cracklings will take up, to deal with the drop. This leaves the zerg with a larger supply of units in the middle of the field.
p can warp in zealots, and will generally have cannons around. I don't really find crackling drops useful in zvp.
banerain is great and all, but the tech is so goddamn expensive. You are literally trading going for broodlords, with banerain, and it's a no brainer which one of those is better. The upside to banerain play is that it comes quicker than broodlords, but zergs have learned much better ways to buy time these days (maxing in 11 minutes and trading, mass spine + infestor, mutas) than spending the same amount of gas that could just get you broodlord tech. It's definitely not worth the gas of 300/300 + 300 gas in at least 9 banelings for 3 minerals lines.
If, say, you opened banerain just to drop 3 overlords, toss will just push out and kill you because you didnt spend your gas on tech. That was a huge problem I had with the style. The only way to justify it, is if you are actually going banerain as part of your army, and you get late.
I agree with you with these points and I think you misunderstood me.
I am advocating bane rain AFTER broodlords. I would research the drop while getting the hive, usually getting my 4th base, while massing spines. so while the broods are building, banerain become pretty safe to execute. Yes, it costs gas, but off of 6+ geysers, this isn't so bad.
I agree that banerain during the midgame is actually terrible. I did that build for the longest time and I've had trouble getting the banelings to consistently drop thanks to that stupid patch blizzard put in. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=288615.
Also there's that glitch that allows collosi to not take any damage from banelings while they're half way on a cliff. Both those factors have made bane-rain during the midgame turn into a coinclip. Either all the collosi die or you die.
Maybe I need to try the fabled ultralisk drop harassment next
Ultralisk drop harass is fantastic for sniping terran PFs, but it's pretty underwhelming against protoss.
I agree with the premise of your topic, in that BL/infestor should be used defensively and you need to harass to get ahead. Personally I just recommend lots of zergling drops and runbys for sniping tech and expansions, and forcing him to build a million cannons at every base or warp in zealots at the wrong locations. Killing probes rarely seems to keep a lategame protoss back (unless you manage to kill 50 probes simultaneously - which is possible but unlikely against a competent opponent who builds cannons). With 5 nexus and 5 sets of chronoboost, by killing probes you're basically just trading gas for minerals. If you're doing that, you may as well be killing pylons, gateways, and cannons with zerglings (no gas!), and taking down probes or a nexus if given an opportunity.
Banelings work in the vortex, but they are not cost effective at all. You need to make sure that he cannot storm you on the way into the vortex. It might save you for that one battle, but if you are on even bases (especially if you are behind) he can replace his army quickly enough, because of how much you spent on the banelings. There are also many ways it can go wrong, I've seen a lot of games where Leenock tries to use banelings in late game and the protoss almost always manages to snipe most of them with storm or a colossus volley before they can get to the vortex.
I think the most important part of fighting against the mothership with broodlord/infestor (besides spreading, which is already assumed) is mass infested terrans. You need to use them to control where the protoss can and can't move, because broodlords are slow, and your infestors need to stay behind your broodlords or they get killed by feedback and storm and colossus. Your goal should be pinning his army in one location while harassing everything else with zerglings (and maybe banelings).
You need to make sure that he cannot storm you on the way into the vortex. It might save you for that one battle, but if you are on even bases (especially if you are behind) he can replace his army quickly enough, because of how much you spent on the banelings. There are also many ways it can go wrong, I've seen a lot of games where Leenock tries to use banelings in late game and the protoss almost always manages to snipe most of them with storm or a colossus volley before they can get to the vortex.
This point is extremely important I think. A lot of protoss don't seem to include high templar in their late game composition (favouring archons instead) but their storms are very good against banelings and arguably good against broodlords and infestors. Grubby was streaming a few nights ago and he was sure to have at least 4-6 high templar ready to feedback/storm any type of offensive move that the zerg threw at him and it seems to work quite well.
I think a carrier transition would be the way to go since the broodlord/infestor army is so immobile; I think this build might also have some trouble dealing with warp prism drops that include HTs... but then again, what build doesn't have trouble against storm drops :S.
Overall, the build seems really solid and I understand that you were looking at the late game reliability of it but I'm curious... Is there a large window of vulnerability with this build? The build is dependent on the strength of baneling/zergling/infestor in the mid-game which is pretty powerful but when does the transition exactly happen? In the video with Grubby and Stephano, it seems to happen around the 15ish minute mark. How would this build fare against a strong 3 base timing push leading into the late-game?
Something like +3 push at around 15 minutes with colossus and the works + warp prism in the main to harass tech?
Just a thought... This build sounds more and more scary as I think about it...
Maybe I need to try the fabled ultralisk drop harassment next
Ultralisk drop harass is fantastic for sniping terran PFs, but it's pretty underwhelming against protoss.
I agree with the premise of your topic, in that BL/infestor should be used defensively and you need to harass to get ahead. Personally I just recommend lots of zergling drops and runbys for sniping tech and expansions, and forcing him to build a million cannons at every base or warp in zealots at the wrong locations. Killing probes rarely seems to keep a lategame protoss back (unless you manage to kill 50 probes simultaneously - which is possible but unlikely against a competent opponent who builds cannons). With 5 nexus and 5 sets of chronoboost, by killing probes you're basically just trading gas for minerals. If you're doing that, you may as well be killing pylons, gateways, and cannons with zerglings (no gas!), and taking down probes or a nexus if given an opportunity.
Banelings work in the vortex, but they are not cost effective at all. You need to make sure that he cannot storm you on the way into the vortex. It might save you for that one battle, but if you are on even bases (especially if you are behind) he can replace his army quickly enough, because of how much you spent on the banelings. There are also many ways it can go wrong, I've seen a lot of games where Leenock tries to use banelings in late game and the protoss almost always manages to snipe most of them with storm or a colossus volley before they can get to the vortex.
I think the most important part of fighting against the mothership with broodlord/infestor (besides spreading, which is already assumed) is mass infested terrans. You need to use them to control where the protoss can and can't move, because broodlords are slow, and your infestors need to stay behind your broodlords or they get killed by feedback and storm and colossus. Your goal should be pinning his army in one location while harassing everything else with zerglings (and maybe banelings).
never attacking a protoss is the best option if the protoss never decides to make air units. but if they make air units... then sitting back isn't really an option.. especially if you already have 10+ broods.
you give a protoss map control (because you're turtling over spines for fear of dying) then they can take bases and easily support a ton of stargates to start making void rays and carriers to completely roll your army for free.
that said, most protosses don't know what an air unit is (besides the mothership)
so getting up a sick turtle with advancing creep is the best way to play atm.
On April 29 2012 04:59 Let it Raine wrote: never attacking a protoss is the best option if the protoss never decides to make air units. but if they make air units... then sitting back isn't really an option.. especially if you already have 10+ broods.
you give a protoss map control (because you're turtling over spines for fear of dying) then they can take bases and easily support a ton of stargates to start making void rays and carriers to completely roll your army for free.
that said, most protosses don't know what an air unit is (besides the mothership)
so getting up a sick turtle with advancing creep is the best way to play atm.
yea I'm learning this the hard way. Seems like it is better to keep most of your corruptors as anti air, go scout then morph to broodlords the appropriate amount. If it's mostly airtoss, then you don't really need more than 7 or so broodlords behind the spines. You can go harass the protoss with your upgraded corruptors while droppinig lings/blings amongst others.
On April 29 2012 04:59 Let it Raine wrote: never attacking a protoss is the best option if the protoss never decides to make air units. but if they make air units... then sitting back isn't really an option.. especially if you already have 10+ broods.
you give a protoss map control (because you're turtling over spines for fear of dying) then they can take bases and easily support a ton of stargates to start making void rays and carriers to completely roll your army for free.
that said, most protosses don't know what an air unit is (besides the mothership)
so getting up a sick turtle with advancing creep is the best way to play atm.
In my experience playing passively works against protoss air too. Interceptors are expensive to replace. If you make a slow spine push, you should always have a bunch of queens with you. They have 7 range vs both colossus and air and can transfuse brood lords and spines. Fungals, infested terrans, corruption and queens can usually keep you alive long enough to get hydras/spores out if they went for an air switch.
I play this type of style in the late game and I found 1 counter (if you want to call it that) is recall. A few times, I have just had a protoss fly their mothership into my main, and just mass recall all of his units! You need to have a clear idea of what he is going to do and have corruptors/infestors ready to stop it. Having good overlord placement to actually see it coming is great to! But, it does work pretty well if they can do it!
If they can't just float directly into your main, your can go to areas close to inside your base and just barely move mothership over and recall, bypassing the spines! Not only does this make the spines not as effective, but also your broodlord/infestor army is VERY slow to reposition and can pressure you to badly micro your units in a rush to save your base!
It can also be used to start a base race if you move out, usually in the protoss favor!
Pros: Good surprise, specially if you are keeping tabs of where zerg has his army at!
The mass recall into the Zerg's main thing generally works a lot better if you have a fleet of phoenixes out, because they can essentially force the Zerg to bottle all his ovies in his bases and completely deny map awareness. This is one of the main reasons that I almost always go stargate first in PvZ, a few phoenixes can give you complete map control in the mid-game and it makes the transition to fleet beacon tech later in the game that much easier. My personal opinion is that skytoss PvZ in the late game is one of the best styles there is if you remember to start your air upgrades early. Hydras are stupid easy to kill with carriers as long as you are decently wise about where you pick your engagements (using cliffs and non-creeped areas as effectively as possible), and while corruptors are Zerg's best bet against a heavy carrier comp, with any kind of decent support (phoenixes, archons, hts, or conceivably mass stalker) the carriers will still absolutely roll a corruptor ball with their insane dps and slight range advantage, despite corruptor's bonus against massive.
Regarding the issue of when to transition to carriers in late game, if you have a fleet beacon (for mamaship) and you have enough bank for 4 or 5 stargates, a good rule of thumb I think is to have as many stargates as you do bases. Seriously, put up a lot of stargates. Carrier fleets, almost counter-intuitively, are actually incredibly cheap in terms of income. If mining income is the amount of minerals and gas mined in a given period of time, then a unit's income cost is it's mineral and gas cost divided by it's build time (ie. a unit costs x minerals/minute and y gas/minute for sustained and continuous production; if your mining income is lower than your sum unit income cost, some of your buildings are going to be idle). So think about it: a carrier takes 120 seconds to build, and costs 350min and 250gas; it's income cost is 175min/m and 125gas/m. Compared to void ray (250min/m 150gas/m) and phoenix (257min/m and 171gas/m) production, it's the cheapest unit you can produce out of a stargate by far. Even compared to colossus (240min/m and 160gas/m) and high templar (67min/m and 200 gas/m), the other two tech tree's respective t3 units, it really is quite cheap. The catch is you have to seriously invest in stargates to get that kind of production going. So yeah. If you get the air upgrades started early enough, particularly attack (since each of the interceptors get +1, the carrier effectively gets +8 per upgrade), and you've got the bank to throw down the requisite number of stargates, it doesn't require much of an economy (in late game terms) to sustain heavy carrier production.
This is, personally, why I think White-Ra's double stargate carrier rush is so effective. I mean sure, the surprise factor probably plays a decent role in that kind of win rate, but it's easily sustained by a 2 base FFE economy, allowing you to expand and continue to tech behind a relatively early carrier per minute production (with the fast +1 before warp tech, hugely effective against t1 and early t2 Zerg as well).
Air, especially carriers is definitely the scariest protoss response, because carriers can pick away at your broodlords from out of range and use your own spread against you.
I think the key things to think about when playing against air are: - upgrade air carapace. You must keep up with his cycore upgrades or corruptors become useless. Double spire is definitely preferrred. Corruptors are pretty boss with 3/3. - infested terrans. They are always vulnerable to colossus and storm, but they are still marines and they are great against air. I recommend getting +3 attack for them as quickly as you can. A carrier can't fly over a group of infested terrans to hit your broodlords. He needs to clear them out first, with storm or colossus. - zerglings. keep harassing expansions and dropping lings to try to snipe tech. Carriers are slow. Even if your army is slower, you should never let him get a free expansion. If he didn't have to move part of his army to be able to place the nexus, and make a million cannons to defend it, then you are letting him get away with murder. - queens and spores. Bring them along. Decent range anti-air that will kill interceptors from behind your broodlords, and can heal the broodlords. This stops small numbers of carriers from ruining your day, but don't help much at all when he has thirteen.
@OP: if toss sees bane-heavy unit comp, they just wait for 2 vortexes -- one for your BL's+their archons and one to catch the banelings that try to enter the one with the BL's...hero pulled this off perfectly (so clutch) vs someone on Shattered - i want to say it was Dimaga or Violet.
On April 29 2012 14:30 nath wrote: @OP: if toss sees bane-heavy unit comp, they just wait for 2 vortexes -- one for your BL's+their archons and one to catch the banelings that try to enter the one with the BL's...hero pulled this off perfectly (so clutch) vs someone on Shattered - i want to say it was Dimaga or Violet.
I think it was stephano vs kiwikaki ipl3 qualifiers 2011.
On April 29 2012 14:30 nath wrote: @OP: if toss sees bane-heavy unit comp, they just wait for 2 vortexes -- one for your BL's+their archons and one to catch the banelings that try to enter the one with the BL's...hero pulled this off perfectly (so clutch) vs someone on Shattered - i want to say it was Dimaga or Violet.
I think it was stephano vs kiwikaki ipl3 qualifiers 2011.
hm. i know that game, i am talking about another game it happened. that game was on metal, right? this one was on shattered.
I agree that banerain during the midgame is actually terrible. I did that build for the longest time and I've had trouble getting the banelings to consistently drop thanks to that stupid patch blizzard put in. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=288615.
*facepalm*
There was no stupid blizzard patch that changed baneling drop. All that happened, was someone on reddit posted a video saying "OMG YOU CANT DROP ON TIGHTLY PACKED GROUND UNITS" after that patch. Then, he did a test later trying to do it using pre-patch, and it wouldn't drop either.
What it is, is that if ground units are extremely tightly packed, like zealots balled up, or sentries ff'd together tightly, yes, you can't drop on them. In an actual game, you will never have 30 sentries balled together, or 50 zealots balled together. When you mix, say, stalkers and zealots, or tanks and marines, etc, you don't have such tight grouping anymore, and with units moving around, they can get dropped on too.
All the patch did, was make it so if you dropped, through the fog of war, on top of a tight ball of units that you shouldn't be able to, you couldn't. It didn't change anything about dropping onto armies.
You saying 'i couldnt drop anymore after the patch' just tells me you are just lying and saying you couldln't do it anymore, or don't have good control in the first place.
The guy who 'exposed' this issue in the first place, made a video and reddit post stating that he was an idiot (his actual words, not mine). Of course, no one saw it.
Blizzard never changed anything in regards to baneling drops. All they did was fix a glitch, a glitch that no one had exploited and would never occur in a real game where someone moves their units, and isn't making only a single type of unit, and hitting hold position on them for 10 minutes.
Also there's that glitch that allows collosi to not take any damage from banelings while they're half way on a cliff. Both those factors have made bane-rain during the midgame turn into a coinclip. Either all the collosi die or you die.
Again, facepalm. There's a known bug where if a colossi is half on a ledge, melee units will try to attack it, but won't be able to hit it. The fix would be if melee units simply didn't aggro against colossi that are really just on the cliff. For the time being, dont a-move banelings into colossi that are clearly on the high ground.
This doesn't make bane-rain useless. There is zero practical application to this bug - Toss will just run up the cliff against your banes or melee units, he isn't going to try to put it half way and hope he did it right and that his colossi doesn't die needlessly. That, and it's not like cliffs are just everywhere for toss to put their colossi hoping you aggro into them with banes...
It really shouldn't change your decision to go baneling rain.
Baneling rain kind of sucks because muta and turtle/infestor are arguably better, and the tech cost is the same as just going broodlords (the upside to banerain, is that it is quicker to get than broodlord though). Why go banerain when you can go broodlords. I think the only time I've seen it in recent memory is coca, and toss actually micro'd and made a joke out of it (to be fair, he engaged through a choke and didn't land the fungals, and i think he was already super far behind for losing his third in early game or something).
I think the most important part of fighting against the mothership with broodlord/infestor (besides spreading, which is already assumed) is mass infested terrans. You need to use them to control where the protoss can and can't move, because broodlords are slow, and your infestors need to stay behind your broodlords or they get killed by feedback and storm and colossus. Your goal should be pinning his army in one location while harassing everything else with zerglings (and maybe banelings).
Yea I kind of agree. I mean, I could just be wrong, I never went banelings before and avoided them because I thought they were bad. But I always understood it that more infestors as a 'counter' to mothership and archons for infested terran is cheaper, deadlier, more cost efficient, and much more successful, than banelings into toilet.
never attacking a protoss is the best option if the protoss never decides to make air units. but if they make air units... then sitting back isn't really an option.. especially if you already have 10+ broods.
you give a protoss map control (because you're turtling over spines for fear of dying) then they can take bases and easily support a ton of stargates to start making void rays and carriers to completely roll your army for free.
that said, most protosses don't know what an air unit is (besides the mothership)
so getting up a sick turtle with advancing creep is the best way to play atm.
Air units have nothing to do with it... infestors handle toss air very easily (with exception of carriers). You don't really need a single corruptor to deal with toss air. That's why so many toss insist that zergs are assholes for saying "JUST MAKE VOIDS TO COUNTER BL DUH". I mean, I think toss are just being babies (jk)... but not attacking toss because of his decision to make air units or not? that doesnt make any sense at all.
Yea, turtling has a problem of letting toss get a third/fourth and tech, but the idea is to either make less defenses and infestors if toss is going to be greedy, and more defense/infestors if toss is going to attack with stalker/colossi. Hopefully, you have such a huge econ lead because you are 6 bases or whatever, that you just win when broodlords pop out. Turtling can definitely diminish a lead you gained as it's stretched over time, but a lead is a lead, and if you can use it to get really fast broodlords against a toss who's behind, they die.
There's drawbacks and strengths to every style of play. I don't think that's a secret.
Maybe a few corruptors for against air play, but I don't think air play is particularly strong against bl/infestor, except carriers or motherships. You just make more infestors, maybe even queens and spores.
I agree that banerain during the midgame is actually terrible. I did that build for the longest time and I've had trouble getting the banelings to consistently drop thanks to that stupid patch blizzard put in. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=288615.
*facepalm*
There was no stupid blizzard patch that changed baneling drop. All that happened, was someone on reddit posted a video saying "OMG YOU CANT DROP ON TIGHTLY PACKED GROUND UNITS" after that patch. Then, he did a test later trying to do it using pre-patch, and it wouldn't drop either.
What it is, is that if ground units are extremely tightly packed, like zealots balled up, or sentries ff'd together tightly, yes, you can't drop on them. In an actual game, you will never have 30 sentries balled together, or 50 zealots balled together. When you mix, say, stalkers and zealots, or tanks and marines, etc, you don't have such tight grouping anymore, and with units moving around, they can get dropped on too.
All the patch did, was make it so if you dropped, through the fog of war, on top of a tight ball of units that you shouldn't be able to, you couldn't. It didn't change anything about dropping onto armies.
You saying 'i couldnt drop anymore after the patch' just tells me you are just lying and saying you couldln't do it anymore, or don't have good control in the first place.
The guy who 'exposed' this issue in the first place, made a video and reddit post stating that he was an idiot (his actual words, not mine). Of course, no one saw it.
Blizzard never changed anything in regards to baneling drops. All they did was fix a glitch, a glitch that no one had exploited and would never occur in a real game where someone moves their units, and isn't making only a single type of unit, and hitting hold position on them for 10 minutes.
Also there's that glitch that allows collosi to not take any damage from banelings while they're half way on a cliff. Both those factors have made bane-rain during the midgame turn into a coinclip. Either all the collosi die or you die.
Again, facepalm. There's a known bug where if a colossi is half on a ledge, melee units will try to attack it, but won't be able to hit it. The fix would be if melee units simply didn't aggro against colossi that are really just on the cliff. For the time being, dont a-move banelings into colossi that are clearly on the high ground.
This doesn't make bane-rain useless. There is zero practical application to this bug - Toss will just run up the cliff against your banes or melee units, he isn't going to try to put it half way and hope he did it right and that his colossi doesn't die needlessly. That, and it's not like cliffs are just everywhere for toss to put their colossi hoping you aggro into them with banes...
It really shouldn't change your decision to go baneling rain.
Baneling rain kind of sucks because muta and turtle/infestor are arguably better, and the tech cost is the same as just going broodlords (the upside to banerain, is that it is quicker to get than broodlord though). Why go banerain when you can go broodlords. I think the only time I've seen it in recent memory is coca, and toss actually micro'd and made a joke out of it (to be fair, he engaged through a choke and didn't land the fungals, and i think he was already super far behind for losing his third in early game or something).
I think the most important part of fighting against the mothership with broodlord/infestor (besides spreading, which is already assumed) is mass infested terrans. You need to use them to control where the protoss can and can't move, because broodlords are slow, and your infestors need to stay behind your broodlords or they get killed by feedback and storm and colossus. Your goal should be pinning his army in one location while harassing everything else with zerglings (and maybe banelings).
Yea I kind of agree. I mean, I could just be wrong, I never went banelings before and avoided them because I thought they were bad. But I always understood it that more infestors as a 'counter' to mothership and archons for infested terran is cheaper, deadlier, more cost efficient, and much more successful, than banelings into toilet.
never attacking a protoss is the best option if the protoss never decides to make air units. but if they make air units... then sitting back isn't really an option.. especially if you already have 10+ broods.
you give a protoss map control (because you're turtling over spines for fear of dying) then they can take bases and easily support a ton of stargates to start making void rays and carriers to completely roll your army for free.
that said, most protosses don't know what an air unit is (besides the mothership)
so getting up a sick turtle with advancing creep is the best way to play atm.
Air units have nothing to do with it... infestors handle toss air very easily (with exception of carriers). You don't really need a single corruptor to deal with toss air. That's why so many toss insist that zergs are assholes for saying "JUST MAKE VOIDS TO COUNTER BL DUH". I mean, I think toss are just being babies (jk)... but not attacking toss because of his decision to make air units or not? that doesnt make any sense at all.
Yea, turtling has a problem of letting toss get a third/fourth and tech, but the idea is to either make less defenses and infestors if toss is going to be greedy, and more defense/infestors if toss is going to attack with stalker/colossi. Hopefully, you have such a huge econ lead because you are 6 bases or whatever, that you just win when broodlords pop out. Turtling can definitely diminish a lead you gained as it's stretched over time, but a lead is a lead, and if you can use it to get really fast broodlords against a toss who's behind, they die.
There's drawbacks and strengths to every style of play. I don't think that's a secret.
Maybe a few corruptors for against air play, but I don't think air play is particularly strong against bl/infestor, except carriers or motherships. You just make more infestors, maybe even queens and spores.
You need to watch the replay on that link before making generic comments like this. I used to think that my terrible micro was causing banelings not to drop, but when watching various replays of myself losing, I began seeing the overlords being told to drop into a protoss ball, the drop icon lights up...the overlord passes through the protoss ball...the drop icon light turns off and nothing happens. It may or may not be due to the patch...but my point stands that banerain is completely unreliable.
Also the baneling/collosi on cliff has nothing to do with A-moving banes. You can drop the banes right on the collosi using overlords, the banes WILL connect, but the collosi will take no damage.
And don't start calling me a liar. You have a history of making aggressive presumptuous posts before, please refrain from doing so here.
I used to think that my terrible micro was causing banelings not to drop, but when watching various replays of myself losing, I began seeing the overlords being told to drop into a protoss ball, the drop icon lights up...the overlord passes through the protoss ball...the drop icon light turns off and nothing happens. It may or may not be due to the patch...but my point stands that banerain is completely unreliable.
I did watch the replay. It's completely your 30 APM and terrible micro. You selected only 2 overlords in the entire battle. Those 2 overlords, dropped just fine. The 8+ overlords you didn't select, didn't drop. Then, afterwards, you tell all your overlord to d-Move on top of his army. That's not how you are supposed to banerain, and your overlords dropped just fine anyways. You are either too slow to select multiple overlords to drop them on the move, or you really don't know how to make units drop from a moving dropship.
And with the 'bug', overlords won't just do nothing. They will pass over the forcefield-tight army or reapers boxed in by buildings, and then drop. The drop command will never cancel unless you actually tell it to cancel.
And don't start calling me a liar. You have a history of making aggressive presumptuous posts before, please refrain from doing so here
I didn't call you a liar, and this discussion is all irrelevant anyways to trying to figure out tactics against motherships and lategame ZvP.
Let's just drop it. I have a history of aggressively calling out people who are wrong, and you are wrong. Anyone else is free to watch the replay and see it's clearly your miscontrol, and everyone else already knows that the whole 'omg banerain doesn't work!' was just the worst case of reddit being out of control. As for colossi on cliffs.... I'd be perfectly happy if Toss thought it would be smarter to try to position his colossi halfway on a cliff, for my roaches and infestors and everything else to hit, than actually run up the cliff and abuse his range... or I'd just not engage colossi on the high ground.
can someone explain to me why people still believe that carriers have highest dps in game? It just isnt so, Carrier takes a little more then 3 seconds for each interceptor to fire. 3.33 per interceptor x 8 interceptors=26.64 Thor actually has the highest DPS (damage per second) with around 45
I didn't call you a liar, and this discussion is all irrelevant anyways to trying to figure out tactics against motherships and lategame ZvP.
Isn't it nice to tell people to drop it when you have the last pokes?
I didn't call you a liar
On April 29 2012 19:14 Belial88 wrote: You saying 'i couldnt drop anymore after the patch' just tells me you are just lying and saying you couldln't do it anymore
I have a history of aggressively calling out people who are wrong, and you are wrong
No, you have a history of aggressive posting is because you're known to insult other people while making your points. Also for your tendency of making generic claims without evidence. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=285914#2 Tone it down.
I noticed that Darkforce was caught by surprise by the carriers. By the time he saw them, he had less than 10 corruptors. I really don't like morphing all corruptors into broodlords before scouting the opponent's army because doing so puts you at risk of being killed by carriers.
On April 29 2012 19:14 Belial88 wrote: You saying 'i couldnt drop anymore after the patch' just tells me you are just lying and saying you couldln't do it anymore
I have a history of aggressively calling out people who are wrong, and you are wrong
No, you have a history of aggressive posting is because you're known to insult other people while making your points. Also for your tendency of making generic claims without evidence. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=285914#2 Tone it down.
It's convenient for you to take my comments out of context. You leave out where I said
You saying 'i couldnt drop anymore after the patch' just tells me you are just lying and saying you couldln't do it anymore or don't have good control in the first place.
As it turns out, you weren't lying, your control was just horrible.
There is no last pokes here... You were misinformed about baneling rain. Now, you know better. I looked at your rep, and you just didn't control it well at all. I find it takes about 150+ apm to control baneling rain, and you certaintly don't do it like you did it.
If you tell a dropship to move/attack somewhere, and then type "D", and then left click on the dropship, it will start dropping on that route.
You should also use hotkeys. it's impossible to use banerain without using hotkeys. 1. Army + Overlords 2. Infestors 3. Overlords
At the most basic, attack-move, fungal, then hit 3 and re-direct the overlords to rain up and down the toss army as you select "D" on each one. If you don't have your overlords on a separate hotkey, your overlords just run into a spot and bunch up... exactly which what hapepened to you. You also can't D-move the overlords and expect them to rain banerain either, they will just clump up to a certain point, and drop only after they've all come to a stop.
I'm trying to help you with bane drop, but you clearly insist on spreading misinformation. It's in these cases I've been known to be a bit aggressive - some people just refuse to listen. Which is fine, but there are other people here too, who can learn from it all.
On April 30 2012 10:40 SuperYo1000 wrote: can someone explain to me why people still believe that carriers have highest dps in game? It just isnt so, Carrier takes a little more then 3 seconds for each interceptor to fire. 3.33 per interceptor x 8 interceptors=26.64 Thor actually has the highest DPS (damage per second) with around 45
We are talking about ZvP here, so carriers are some of the best high dps protoss can get. And the way that thors attack and carriers attack are completely different. The thor is a high damage attack, and therefore is constantly overkilling units and losing dps because of it. The carrier is a low damage attack and rarely overkills units because of it. You shouldn't underestimate the sheer raw damage of carriers though, they even oustrip the mainstay that is the collosus that isn't splashing 4+ units. Technically zealots do more dps per supply, but that doesn't mean that they are better than collosi or carriers. It's just not that simple.
On April 30 2012 10:40 SuperYo1000 wrote: can someone explain to me why people still believe that carriers have highest dps in game? It just isnt so, Carrier takes a little more then 3 seconds for each interceptor to fire. 3.33 per interceptor x 8 interceptors=26.64 Thor actually has the highest DPS (damage per second) with around 45
We are talking about ZvP here, so carriers are some of the best high dps protoss can get. And the way that thors attack and carriers attack are completely different. The thor is a high damage attack, and therefore is constantly overkilling units and losing dps because of it. The carrier is a low damage attack and rarely overkills units because of it. You shouldn't underestimate the sheer raw damage of carriers though, they even oustrip the mainstay that is the collosus that isn't splashing 4+ units. Technically zealots do more dps per supply, but that doesn't mean that they are better than collosi or carriers. It's just not that simple.
Additionally, interceptor beam cool-down restores while inside the carrier, so the instantaneous dps of carrier as it's launching them all at once is much higher (assuming all cool-downs have reset). Carrier fleets are one of the most ridiculous death ball types because of the sheer amount of your army against them that insta-dies at the beginning of the fight.
On April 30 2012 10:40 SuperYo1000 wrote: can someone explain to me why people still believe that carriers have highest dps in game? It just isnt so, Carrier takes a little more then 3 seconds for each interceptor to fire. 3.33 per interceptor x 8 interceptors=26.64 Thor actually has the highest DPS (damage per second) with around 45
As previously stated, instantaneous carrier dps with graviton catapult (at "full charge", so to speak) is 53.33 over 1.5 seconds (80dps over .5s followed by 40dps over 1s). That's what makes carriers so gnarly. They make a decent mainstay of constant dps in a large fight if you can keep them alive, but with hit and run tactics they can wreak havoc in small bursts. Good targeting, good micro, carriers can wreck things.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c146/neoghaleon55/Screenshot2012-04-2717_56_57.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c146/neoghaleon55/Screenshot2012-04-2718_04_51.jpg)
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