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This game is from the previous IEM tournament in Cologne between MC and Kas in the playoffs Ro16. I think its a Bo4, with MC being 2-1 and this is the last game.
Replay of Mc vrs Kas here
Adonminus replay this replay is from a EU high master protoss playing a ladder game, doing the same build MC did with some variations getting more carriers and +1 air attack.
![[image loading]](http://s9.postimage.org/iewy6rs33/bosstoss2.jpg)
I hope to describe the Strategy as best I can using the replays of MC and Adonminus, and follow it up with a discussion
The Strategy:
Kill the opponent with a 2 base allin that will comprise of 4 carriers ( with graviton catapult researched) and a lot of gateway units for reinforcements. (Adonminus goes for a 6 carrier +1 air weapons)
General Notes - short description of what mc does:
This involves getting a somewhat late expansion behind 1 gate, 2 gases and 3 gateway units(zealot-stalker-sentrie).
- After the nexus, a relatively standard followup with 2 more gates becomes nonstandard when a stargate is added and followed by a 3erd gas, and later also a fleetbeacon, a 2ed Stargate and a 4th gas. The final touch of this build is another 3 gates to make 6 gates total.
- Probe production is never stopped untill the 2 base saturation is achieved (44-46 probes).
Up untill the 4 carriers are finished, all play is reactionary and passive and all chrono boost is used on probes if possible. 2 base probe saturation is achieved before the stargates finish, which leaves enough to get energy for chronoboosting the stargates
-When 4 carriers are done, go to kill your opponent and continue to warp in units from 6 gateways, this is around 12:15.
-Assuming terran will scan at most 1 time, this scan will idealy be between the natural and main and will miss the edge of the main base in an opposite direction from the natural, so we place our stargates there (image below).
Map:
The map we observe this strategy on is Cloud Kindom(the Adonminus game is on Daybreak - similar considerations) , which has a narrow ramp between the natural and xelnaga tower.
+ Show Spoiler +This means that a sentrie can delay any push by placing a forcefield on the ramp, so that the push may never pass as long as there is energy for forcefields or it may have to go around from the side, which takes a considerable amount of time alowing for another warp in. Holding both xelnaga towers means being able to spot any incoming ground attack. Therefore this map is more suitable for getting the carrier tech than Antiga shipyard or Entombed Valley for example.
Build order(with discussion):
1 gate 2 gas FE:
+ Show Spoiler +
9pylon
13 gateway(probe continues to go to scout)
15 gas
16 pylon
18 cyber
19 gas
20 zealot -> rally to natural
100% cyber -> begin warp gate
100% zealot -> begin stalker -> 100% stalker -> begin sentrie
33 5:08 - Nexus.
After the 3erd chrono on workers there is a short while when mc doesnt chrono boost, the 4th chronoboost happens while the first stalker ( and only stalker for a long time) is in production followed by another (fifth) chronoboost, then chronoboost is delayed again to allow buildup of minerals(so it seems) for the nexus and additional gates.
Notes:
+ Show Spoiler +At this point we should note what MC knows: his probe scout reveals that kas has gone for a 1 rax gaseless expand with CC timing that implies a CC before 2ed depot. Now the combination of the first stalker holding the opponent's xelnaga tower and sentrie back at natural is what should notice and delay a barracks push that may follow the 1 rax FE(early pressure, for example marines from 4-6rax or different kinds of MM pushes).
34/34 - supply blocked, mc makes a pylon and queues another sentrie(4th gateway unit, 2ed sentrie) in the gateway. Looks like the supply block is an error, could be avoided by getting the pylon while the previous sentrie is in production.
This 4th pylon is in the innermost corner of the main base, where the stargates and fleetbeacon will later be.
![[image loading]](http://s17.postimage.org/hfryu9fun/bosstoss.jpg)
36 - 5:45 - +2 gateways. Now that the minerals needed to make the nexus and gates have been achieved, MC continues to chrono boost the Nexus but doesnt use up all the energy
+ Show Spoiler +These 2 additional gates, as in most standard pvt builds, will allow MC to hold any early MM pushes without medivacs with our 3 gates and good forcefields.
38 - 6:09 - 5th pylon at the natural
39 - 6:20 - 1 Stargate inside main.
6:45 - 100% nexus - take 1 of the 2 assimiltors at the natural, transfer probes(about 10).
Note:
+ Show Spoiler +MC has at this moment 60 energy on his main nexus, he has used all chrono on probes so far, rushing for that 2 base saturation while leaving this energy to be used on the 3 gates should any push come. As he does not see any push, he chronoes both Nexii to make a lot of probes.
49 - 7:30 - Shortly after 1st Stargate finished, add fleetbeacon and then 2ed Stargate.
Shortly after(about 10 s) take the 4th gas at the natural and warp in a 4th sentrie.
53 - 7:50 - pylon at natural behind mineral line.
Important notes:
+ Show Spoiler +At this time exactly Mc takes notice of a small MM force about 12 marines 3 marauders moving out from Kas base and gives up control of both towers, seems very confident in his high energy sentries to delay any attack attempt untill the carriers are out. He does warp in 3 zealots after starting first 2 carriers.
56 - 8:09 - add 2 pylons near the 3 gateways(expecting to begin double carrier soon)
Mc sends the first 2 carriers to the Corner of his main where drops might enter ) builds interceptors).
57 - 8:45 - reaching 45 workers 2 base saturation we halt probe production and begin double carrier production- chrono boosting it(after finishing 45 probes we should have enough time to accumulate energy for chrono boosting the stargates).
70- 9:00 - after seeing the MM force, and starting 2 carriers first, MC warps in 3 zealots at his natural with his sentrie force.
At about 10:15 the first 2 carriers are ready, these can actually defend the main base from a drop while the gateway units defend the entrance, make sure to train interceptors.
96 - 10:45 - add 3 more gateways (this is while carriers 3 and 4 are in production). This completes the production facilities. Immediately after warp 2 more sentries and a stalker at the natural.
11:48 - Carriers 4 and 5 complete, train interceptors!. Now the push is ready to move out, the carriers move out from the main, in a direction still covering the main from drops, while the gateway force moves out the other direction to capture the xelnaga tower (Kas has denied a probe and a zealot attemp to regain those before). MC makes sure to move his carriers such that they can retreat or meet up with the army, you definately dont want the carriers to get caught alone!.
They then meet to fight Kas army and obliterate it inspite of kas having +1 attack, similar army supply and a lot of marines!. Guardian shield and forcefields make this attack very powerful. From there to the GG the way is easy.
Points for discussion:
1) Do you think this strategy will work on most maps? i noted that defending the 2 bases is easier on cloud kindom/daybreak because of the ramp, but this is harder on Antiga shipyard and entombed obviously because of the biger ramp. Ohana is somewhat in between. Which maps are suitable for this strategy besides Cloud kindom and Daybreak?
2) Cloacked banshee, obviously if terran didnt go for a gaseless expand and didnt go for a build like 2 rax MM / marauder helion, then detection vrs cloacked banshee is a must , so a robo will probably have to be built and the stargate delayed or maybe MC intended to go for a totally different build in this case?. Furthermore, cloacked banshee can still come after a gaseless FE. MC doesnt get any defection all game because he spots a group of marine marauder moving to capture the xelnaga tower around 8min, therefore Kas went for additional barracks after his expantion and not for really quick double gas and then rush for the cloacked banshee which delays the additional barracks and therefore also the barracks units. But what if terran doesnt move out at all untill a later timing like 10 min?
3) How to best counter this as terran? Firstly, only luck will reveal the stargate tech with a scan. If we assume that terran doesnt immediately see the stargate and fleetbeacon tech, but instead goes for a fast medivac timing(10min), then he will meet the first 2 carriers as they will be used for defense. What does terran do now? the carrier defense is good so killing the protoss is not an option. Do you make vikings and get a second/third starport? There is also the mass of gateway units that will accumulate from 6 gates, so need a lot of bunkers too. Prehaps marine ghost medivac is a good composition? ghosts emp and also shoot interceptors. Its important to note that :as, with a +1 upgrade lead belived that he could take on the army of MC and gets totally crushed even though the engagement didnt go badly for him, it was just the carrier + gateway pure dps that won.
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Assuming this had to be unscouted to be successful: how is it any better than having the exact same amount of gateway units but instead of the carriers you get colossus with range upgrade?
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Colosus cant hit air units like vikings and the carriers can do well against vikings. Carriers also have great dps as well(im not sure how to compare their dps to colosus dps because although carriers have more dps than colossus, they dont deal splash damage). Carriers are able to abuse high grounds(unaccesable high grounds). The interceptors also have great range as well. It all comes down to how you use them, they can be more efficient than colosus. Your question is good, which army is stronger, the carrier-gateway or the colossus-gateway army? i guess it comes down to how you control it.
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On August 27 2012 23:11 craaaaack wrote:
Assuming this had to be unscouted to be successful: how is it any better than having the exact same amount of gateway units but instead of the carriers you get colossus with range upgrade?
I guess:
Pros:
- Surprise effect
- Swarming effect, the interceptors can create more confusion in the battle
- Carriers are cost effective against almost everything if upgrades are not too much behind
- Unlike Colossi, Carriers are actually able to hit vikings
- Carriers can't be hit by marauders
- Carriers are also tankier and can take more hits before falling down
- Unusual play means terran may overreact and focus too much on anti-air and be slaughtered by the gates units
- Faster transition to Mothership, that great unit
Cons:
- Slow production... it's a big one.
- More expensive.
- Carriers don't share upgrades with gateway units, unlike Colossi
There are probably more cons but can't think of them yet..
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On August 27 2012 23:11 craaaaack wrote:
Assuming this had to be unscouted to be successful: how is it any better than having the exact same amount of gateway units but instead of the carriers you get colossus with range upgrade?
The carriers can come from behind the nat or from the 3rd into the main on CK and harass - forcing the Terran to move forces from the front - allowing the break of the bunkers more easily, and even if the Terran does not take the bait and somehow defends both sides perfectly, the carriers are better at breaking bunkers faster, since their single target damage is so much higher.
Just an idea, how about starting out with a couple phoenixes? This would allow scouting the Terran's base and would actually make the Terran not make too many marines, since the normal transition after opening phoenix is the colossus, and so the Terran normally wants to get more marauders in the mix. Also, the phoenixes would help fight the vikings, if the Terran was successful with his scouting, and since carriers are still decent vs vikings, with the help of the phoenixes they would crush the Terran air ships!
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This build seems so fun to do ;D
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I think the correct response for Terran is to go home, saturate the third base you have building behind this, put down a second Starport, and deal with it almost exactly the same way you would scouting a Colossus 2-base all-in: lots of Vikings, some additional Bunkers, keep producing Marines. The Carriers are fairly slow, so by the time they get to your base, you should have an adequate defense plus an economy lead. In addition, you can even sacrifice your third base because the Protoss will be WAY behind and mining out after his all-in fails.
The point is that the Terran WILL see this, because he will either be doing a Banshee/1-1-1 attack or the fast Medivac timing 99x out of 100, and both of those arrive before all of the Carriers are out. Just like if your opponent went for five gates and robo in defense, if you see that much stuff, you back off and take the third. I believe with correct defense and sufficient Vikings, this might actually be easier to hold than a 2-base Colossus play, simply because Colossi deal so much damage to mass bio, whereas the Carriers are single target units. Bunker up, target with Vikings, and I think this can be held.
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Remember that these can also deal with drops although I don't know how well a carrier fares against 8 marines + a medivac.
If this becomes a really popular build they might not scrap the carrier. Haha
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On August 27 2012 23:22 isrtor2 wrote:
Carriers also have great dps as well(im not sure how to compare their dps to colosus dps because although carriers have more dps than colossus, they dont deal splash damage).
Why does everyone think that carriers have an insane amount of dps? Their initial burst dmg upon unleashing all the interceptors (with graviton catapult is about 3 times as high as their normal dps, this basically lasts a little bit more than 1sec ingame time according to liquipedia ...). However, after that their dps is around 26.66 vs the 18.18 from the colossus (no upgrades each). However, colossi come way faster, don't lose dps due to not losing interceptors, provide detection etc we all know that. The amount of hp for a single carrier is also lower than of a colossus compared to the cost.
But, and having watched WhiteRa doing this exact build (not exactly the same bo, but exactly the same layout, 1gate-fe into 3 gates into 3rd gas with stargate etc) and he used to push out with about 4 carriers with 2 more in production. He killed some terrans with it as no terran will have a decent viking count at the time when the protoss pushes unless he scouts it early enough. There is no reason at all for a terran do blindly get a good number of vikings that early instead of the important medivacs or even a 2nd starport on 2 base.
Basically you can compare it with going quick double robotics colossus of 2 base with like 6 range colossi instead of 4 carriers. If the terran doesn't scout it and goes for a standard 10:30-11:00min 2 base medivac timing he will likely get crushed as long as you have some kind of meatshield in front of those colossi. Now that I think about it this could be some really nasty colossus allin. :-)
The only advantages I can see for the carriers here is that if the marines kill the interceptors they will tank quite some dmg for their cost and since the protoss stopped probes, is not getting any more upgrades behind it, is not preparing a 3rd base or any transition at all this means that all the money went into that army and together with nice tanking units (zealots + interceptors) allows the protoss to kill the terran. The other big advantage I've seen from WhiteRa doing this is that once terrans scout no 3rd base around 10-11min from the protoss and see that the protoss has units at his natural they usually won't just rush in. Instead they will drop (maybe with some front aggression combined). And those 2 medivacs that are coming into the protoss base just die instantly (intial high burst dmg and the range). And from this point on the protoss keeps pushing and having the bigger army at all times. In frontal engagements I've seen WhiteRA focus fire the medivacs first always so that the terran player loses his big advantage of endurance.
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What about doing the proxy stargates on the harder to hide maps?
edit: I just tried this on the ladder after i practice it, and it was an easy win, he scanned my base twice, and only saw the gates, and the units at my natural. Had no idea what happened to him, when i pylon'd at his main cliff, and use the carriers to warp in the main as the 3 other carrier and gateway units attacked the natural.
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Reminds me of this build. In a really good way
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United States4883 Posts
I just think this is really based off of "omg, I hope he doesn't see me". MC was allowed to do this because he was up 1 game and playing in a Bo5. This is essentially the same as a DT rush, where, if you fail to do damage, suddenly there's no good transition and you have no observers on the map and it just feels really shaky.
I don't recommend this build for normal ladder play, that's all.
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There are some more fine details to this attack.
The first thing to realize is that you're running 2 fully saturated bases and you have all 4 gases by the time you push out, so you should be able to use more than just 6 gateways with that level of income. Usually one fully saturated base can handle 4 gateways with cut probe production and no other units being produced. The reason why 6 gates work here is that your interceptors are being rebuilt, which is a mineral sink. Notice that MC doesn't remake Zealots; he makes stalkers and interceptors and keeps everything ranged for the attack. This means you can forcefield as you would with Stalker/Sentry/Colossus, splitting armies in half and not allowing the bio behind your FFs to have range onto anything (as opposed to Zealots, which they would shoot at right over the FFs).
Having more stalkers also means that you have a lot of anti-viking units. If you were to go for this same push with 4 Colossi instead of Carriers, obviously the Colossi are going to be good, but the difference with Carriers is that the Carriers can fight back, and at similar range to Vikings. If you hit and run with Carriers and the Vikings fly over your ground army, you can focus them with stalkers. In a late game situation and your opponent already had 2 Starports and a full count of Medivacs already, Carriers are a lot easier to focus down with Vikings. However, in a 2base all-in at this timing, you're looking at the opponent being forced to cut Medivac production a bit early and not having enough Vikings up to trump the Carriers straight-out. Normally, they can have enough Vikings to deal with Colossi at this timing (well, it's a slightly earlier timing due to Colossi build time and move speed both being faster, but it's still pretty similar for the stage of the midgame), but that's also because Colossi don't shoot back at the Vikings to punish small numbers of them kiting as you move towards the Terran's base. Also, often there are Marauders helping to do damage to the Colossi, and since Carriers don't give a shit about Marauders, they're going to last longer. Between that, their higher HP and base armor, and the support from Stalkers, the Vikings at that stage of the game are not the biggest issue for your Carriers; it's keeping the Marines from shooting directly at the Carriers because you want to be trading Interceptors for Marines, not Carriers for Marines.
Something else to think about is that you can shoot down Medivacs with Carriers in engagements, making stim actually cost something. This is a pretty big deal. The more Medivacs you kill while you force more Viking production, the weaker the Bio army is and consequently the stronger all of your ground units are.
My next point is that people don't think a lot about the Inteceptors themselves. They actually have 80 total HP because they're 40 HP+40 Shields, so they have more HP than Marines and they each do fairly similar DPS 1-0 marines (their main nemesis during the timing window in which engagements should start). According to Liquipedia, Marines do 10.5+1.7 DPS while stimmed (1.7 accounting for +1 weapons)=12.2 DPS. Interceptors do 5 DPSx2 shots=10 DPS. Considering that Marines have lower HP (45 when stimmed plus Medivac healing shouldn't equal an average of 80 HP for 1 minute engagements with only 4-6 medivacs), you're going to trade minerals pretty well with the Terran. Marines cost double what interceptors cost, so if your carriers stay alive and keep producing (think of them like a mobile Barracks), you're going to replenish your units at a favorable rate to the Terran's production. Interceptors produce in 8 seconds. You can figure 2 of them are the same cost as a marine and produce in 16 seconds from a carrier. A reactored barracks produces 2 marines in 25 seconds, which adjusts to 1 marine per 12.5 seconds. The marines produce slightly faster than pairs of interceptors, however the interceptors also show up right at the battlefield inside carriers, just like warp gate units.
And this brings me to my next point: that Carriers and warp gates work very well together. Why? Because they both allow reinforcements to show up right there on the battlefield. If you think of your army as Interceptors, Stalkers, and Sentries, it's a lot more synergistic than thinking about Carriers with gateway units. We know carriers are slow and take a long time to rebuild, but if you think of them more like flying production buildings, that completely changes the equation. And this is what's so exciting about this build, to me. There is reason behind the function of carriers in this composition: they produce mineral units right there on the battlefield. No, they don't shoot AoE, but that's not the point of them. You wouldn't expect a Barracks to shoot AoE, either, right? How about a flying barracks that follows your army around while remaking units to a specific cap? That's the carrier.
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I'd love to see this style done more, although in the game vs Kas, Kas pushed at 8:30 when MC had 6 units on the map, if Kas commits to that push, MC is dead.
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I just faced against this in UMS against a GM smurf who executed the push and it hit at exactly 12:10. I scanned after my medivac push at around 11:30 and saw a ton of gateways and some gateways units, so I naturally thought it was going to be a 2-base heavily upgraded 6 or 7 gate into expansion. Then when the carriers came... even though I made mostly marines for the gateway units and my 3rd was up, I had NO chance. The DPS of the carriers backed up by FFs and zealot meat shields just tore through my bio like a joke.
We rematched, and this time I went for a 2-rax marauder opening with 3 marauders and 1 marine at his ramp @ 5:30, with 2 reinforcing marauders. He FF'ed 1 marauder but I picked off the stalker, and with 4 marauders + 1 marine I did way too much economic damage scoring the free zealot/sentry kill, a second sentry kill, and 4-5 probes while getting my expansion up.
Overall, good build, but against marauder heavy (2 tech-labs) 2 rax the terran should come out ahead, especially when the 2nd rax is hidden or proxied somewhere so not enough chrono was spent on WG research.
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On August 28 2012 15:49 EngrishTeacher wrote:
I just faced against this in UMS against a GM smurf who executed the push and it hit at exactly 12:10. I scanned after my medivac push at around 11:30 and saw a ton of gateways and some gateways units, so I naturally thought it was going to be a 2-base heavily upgraded 6 or 7 gate into expansion. Then when the carriers came... even though I made mostly marines for the gateway units and my 3rd was up, I had NO chance. The DPS of the carriers backed up by FFs and zealot meat shields just tore through my bio like a joke.
We rematched, and this time I went for a 2-rax marauder opening with 3 marauders and 1 marine at his ramp @ 5:30, with 2 reinforcing marauders. He FF'ed 1 marauder but I picked off the stalker, and with 4 marauders + 1 marine I did way too much economic damage scoring the free zealot/sentry kill, a second sentry kill, and 4-5 probes while getting my expansion up.
Overall, good build, but against marauder heavy (2 tech-labs) 2 rax the terran should come out ahead, especially when the 2nd rax is hidden or proxied somewhere so not enough chrono was spent on WG research.
Right, but the point of the build isn't executing a 1-gate Expand, the point is after you execute that you go on to a 2-base all-in. If you see gas, you don't play the same way. That would be like FFE against a 6pool and going on to 2-base immortal all-in exactly the same way, which sometimes happens but not if the game doesn't normalize with simply delayed timings.
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On August 28 2012 13:46 ineversmile wrote:
There are some more fine details to this attack.
The first thing to realize is that you're running 2 fully saturated bases and you have all 4 gases by the time you push out, so you should be able to use more than just 6 gateways with that level of income. Usually one fully saturated base can handle 4 gateways with cut probe production and no other units being produced. The reason why 6 gates work here is that your interceptors are being rebuilt, which is a mineral sink. Notice that MC doesn't remake Zealots; he makes stalkers and interceptors and keeps everything ranged for the attack. This means you can forcefield as you would with Stalker/Sentry/Colossus, splitting armies in half and not allowing the bio behind your FFs to have range onto anything (as opposed to Zealots, which they would shoot at right over the FFs).
Having more stalkers also means that you have a lot of anti-viking units. If you were to go for this same push with 4 Colossi instead of Carriers, obviously the Colossi are going to be good, but the difference with Carriers is that the Carriers can fight back, and at similar range to Vikings. If you hit and run with Carriers and the Vikings fly over your ground army, you can focus them with stalkers. In a late game situation and your opponent already had 2 Starports and a full count of Medivacs already, Carriers are a lot easier to focus down with Vikings. However, in a 2base all-in at this timing, you're looking at the opponent being forced to cut Medivac production a bit early and not having enough Vikings up to trump the Carriers straight-out. Normally, they can have enough Vikings to deal with Colossi at this timing (well, it's a slightly earlier timing due to Colossi build time and move speed both being faster, but it's still pretty similar for the stage of the midgame), but that's also because Colossi don't shoot back at the Vikings to punish small numbers of them kiting as you move towards the Terran's base. Also, often there are Marauders helping to do damage to the Colossi, and since Carriers don't give a shit about Marauders, they're going to last longer. Between that, their higher HP and base armor, and the support from Stalkers, the Vikings at that stage of the game are not the biggest issue for your Carriers; it's keeping the Marines from shooting directly at the Carriers because you want to be trading Interceptors for Marines, not Carriers for Marines.
Something else to think about is that you can shoot down Medivacs with Carriers in engagements, making stim actually cost something. This is a pretty big deal. The more Medivacs you kill while you force more Viking production, the weaker the Bio army is and consequently the stronger all of your ground units are.
My next point is that people don't think a lot about the Inteceptors themselves. They actually have 80 total HP because they're 40 HP+40 Shields, so they have more HP than Marines and they each do fairly similar DPS 1-0 marines (their main nemesis during the timing window in which engagements should start). According to Liquipedia, Marines do 10.5+1.7 DPS while stimmed (1.7 accounting for +1 weapons)=12.2 DPS. Interceptors do 5 DPSx2 shots=10 DPS. Considering that Marines have lower HP (45 when stimmed plus Medivac healing shouldn't equal an average of 80 HP for 1 minute engagements with only 4-6 medivacs), you're going to trade minerals pretty well with the Terran. Marines cost double what interceptors cost, so if your carriers stay alive and keep producing (think of them like a mobile Barracks), you're going to replenish your units at a favorable rate to the Terran's production. Interceptors produce in 8 seconds. You can figure 2 of them are the same cost as a marine and produce in 16 seconds from a carrier. A reactored barracks produces 2 marines in 25 seconds, which adjusts to 1 marine per 12.5 seconds. The marines produce slightly faster than pairs of interceptors, however the interceptors also show up right at the battlefield inside carriers, just like warp gate units.
And this brings me to my next point: that Carriers and warp gates work very well together. Why? Because they both allow reinforcements to show up right there on the battlefield. If you think of your army as Interceptors, Stalkers, and Sentries, it's a lot more synergistic than thinking about Carriers with gateway units. We know carriers are slow and take a long time to rebuild, but if you think of them more like flying production buildings, that completely changes the equation. And this is what's so exciting about this build, to me. There is reason behind the function of carriers in this composition: they produce mineral units right there on the battlefield. No, they don't shoot AoE, but that's not the point of them. You wouldn't expect a Barracks to shoot AoE, either, right? How about a flying barracks that follows your army around while remaking units to a specific cap? That's the carrier.
Very well reasoned, and a very nice post. However I'd still like to know your opinion on the viability of the strategy should you get scouted early. With all of these nice benefits, is it just a really good cheese? Or is it a viable timing push?
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On August 28 2012 13:46 ineversmile wrote:
My next point is that people don't think a lot about the Inteceptors themselves. They actually have 80 total HP because they're 40 HP+40 Shields, so they have more HP than Marines and they each do fairly similar DPS 1-0 marines (their main nemesis during the timing window in which engagements should start). According to Liquipedia, Marines do 10.5+1.7 DPS while stimmed (1.7 accounting for +1 weapons)=12.2 DPS. Interceptors do 5 DPSx2 shots=10 DPS. Considering that Marines have lower HP (45 when stimmed plus Medivac healing shouldn't equal an average of 80 HP for 1 minute engagements with only 4-6 medivacs), you're going to trade minerals pretty well with the Terran. Marines cost double what interceptors cost, so if your carriers stay alive and keep producing (think of them like a mobile Barracks), you're going to replenish your units at a favorable rate to the Terran's production. Interceptors produce in 8 seconds. You can figure 2 of them are the same cost as a marine and produce in 16 seconds from a carrier. A reactored barracks produces 2 marines in 25 seconds, which adjusts to 1 marine per 12.5 seconds. The marines produce slightly faster than pairs of interceptors, however the interceptors also show up right at the battlefield inside carriers, just like warp gate units.
You are bringing up very good points. However, you missed something very important in the quoted paragraph above. Each interceptor does 5x2 dmg each attack every 3.0sec ingame time. So the dps of each interceptor is 10 : 3 = 3.33dps not 10dps. This is a huge difference. However, the initial dmg (burst dmg, little bit over 1sec) this dps is about 3 times as high (a bit less but nearly). The reason is that the interceptors are release in much shorter time intervals when the carrier starts to attack a target instead of having a single interceptor attacking once each 3.0sec meaning that on average every 3 (attack rate) : 8 (number of interceptors) = 0.375sec 2x5dmg is dealt. However, until every interceptor is released they release way faster than that. This is why I have stated in my post that the intial burst dmg is about 3 times as high and crazy good (like to snipe an incoming drop etc) but the overal dps of carriers is not that great compared to their cost. The tanking ability of the interceptors remain though.
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United States4883 Posts
On August 28 2012 15:49 EngrishTeacher wrote:
I just faced against this in UMS against a GM smurf who executed the push and it hit at exactly 12:10. I scanned after my medivac push at around 11:30 and saw a ton of gateways and some gateways units, so I naturally thought it was going to be a 2-base heavily upgraded 6 or 7 gate into expansion. Then when the carriers came... even though I made mostly marines for the gateway units and my 3rd was up, I had NO chance. The DPS of the carriers backed up by FFs and zealot meat shields just tore through my bio like a joke.
Again, I think this strategy is not a "solid strategy" as you sink all of your early gas into stargates and the fleet beacon, all of your minerals into probes, and try to deflect early pressure with a limited number of gateway units until all 6 gateways get up (10:00). If ANY early pressure comes, protoss is dead. Protoss CANNOT scout (hallucination or pheonix delays the carrier push), protoss CANNOT deflect banshees if they do come out, protoss CANNOT stop a heavy 3 rax push after expand, etc. The timing between 7:30 and 12:00 is a HUGE window to do damage.
That being said, when MC did it, it was a GREAT strategy because he knew Kas wouldn't commit to an early attack or do banshee shenanigans. But in any other situation, it would have been a colossal error. Against Mvp or SuperNova, MC would have likely just outright died.
That being said, I know we want to make carriers viable, but the problem is that they're just too impossible to get safely in this matchup at that time. This is a silly thread, it's like analyzing Huk's Mothership Rush. It doesn't work in the real world, it only works if MC is playing mindgames and being a total baller.
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Thanks for the guide Tor, I've always been liking carriers in any match. MC is a true president of protoss that showed us how imba carriers are. You didn't have to put my name near MC's, I'm too modest for that. I just gave you a replay and some tips for the guide.
Since this is a discussion, here's some of my thoughts:
-Discussion of getting air weapons
MC doesn't get +1 weapon, the advantages of this is being able to get some additional gateway units like a zealot and a sentry, or get faster the 3 additional gates. This also allows you to delay the 3th and 4th gas for 10-20 seconds. On the other hand getting +1 weapon or even eventually +2 allows carriers to really serve their purpose of DPS dealers in the fight if the terran has gone for fast upgrades. Usually he'll have +1 armor done, or he went for fast double upgrades then even +2 armor. +2 armor on marines is really deadly if you have +0 carriers and I think just spending the extra 100/100 on air weapons doesn't really hurt you and is a cost effective investment.
-Discussion of build weaknesses
The scout after gateway, the late nexus at 30 supply, and getting zealot-stalker-sentry early game make this build really secure. You can always transition into something more safe if you scout a gas opening, (if you don't like standard, you can do those phoenix openers that counter stuff like 111). Then it's safe from any early push the terran can execute from a 1 rax FE since you get 3 gateways and lots of sentries. It is important to have a unit at his watchtower to see if he pushes and be ready to forcefield. The only danger are those 10-11 min medievac pushes, not because you can't stop them but because they are so strong that it forces you to reveal the carriers in order to defend. However that doesn't hard counter it, even if you reveal your carriers, if you push fast enough you can still go and kill him, especially after killing his push.
The other major weakness of the build is scan. If he scans you at 8 min, and sees double stargate carrier. He has at least 4 minutes to prepare marines and vikings. Marines and vikings together really hard hard hard counter this (remember in standard you don't go pure marines with vikings, since you go marauder heavy vs colossi so they can't instantly burn them and marauders can also snipe colossi). This means pure marine viking is non standard and will never happen unless he does a lucky scan to see it. This means the core key to winning with this build is not getting your stargate scanned. This explains why you build it in the corner of your base.
-Discussion of how many carriers you need
The power of carriers increase as their number grows. However if you want a large number of carriers, you'll also have to delay your extra 3 gates (4th, 5th and 6th gate). The advantages of more carriers are obvious however it can get worst if you get scouted meaning more time for him to prepare. The solution to this is to attack with 4 carriers if you get scouted, or wait for like 6 carriers if you go unscouted and terran is unprepared.
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EPT
