EPTI would first like to address the role of the carrier which many people argue overlaps with the role of the colossus which is a long range siege unit. Though both these units are late game tier 3 units the carrier is more efficient at dealing with higher tier units from the other races such as the feared composition broodlord, corruptor, infestor. Or in the rare case of TvP BC, raven, Viking. Here is a replay in which I went carriers and was successful.
http://drop.sc/249269
![[image loading]](http://i1173.photobucket.com/albums/r598/jeribarela1/3517a543.png?t=1347330751)
Spine crawler walls are a nuisance to deal with late game PvZ but carriers make it easier to attack
![[image loading]](http://i1173.photobucket.com/albums/r598/jeribarela1/f19f488b.png?t=1347330776)
Carriers must be treated like colossus are in TvP. Don't let them get too far ahead of your army or they will get sniped. People complain that corruptors counter carriers too hard, but vikings counter colossus pretty hard but toss' have learned how to keep them alive.
Now I would like to explain my thought process and how the engagements went once I had my carrier tech. It took me a long time considering that I had to stay on even bases and continue harassing with warp prims all game to keep the Zerg from pushing me before I had my tech out. I put down double cybernetic core to get upgrades and 5 stargates. Now if I were to put more time into a general build order for a smooth transition to carriers I would say that around the time that a Protoss gets his fleet beacon he should throw down another cybernetics core. Once the toss gets a fourth base he has to start figuring out a way to sacrifice supply in a cost efficient manner so you can stay alive and get supply for carriers, while at the same time starting upgrades and putting down 5+ starports. Next is unit composition which I believe that 5 carriers is the magic number of carriers (including a mothership) along with Templar and stalkers for air support with a mothership if he does have a large number of corruptors, they can be vortexed and toileted which will leave the zerg with no AA for carriers. I do not believe that a maxed out carrier composition is the way to go which is where people go wrong. Now the way the current metagame is it is common for a zerg to make a lot of spines. Carriers have a much easier time dealing with them than colossus or any other unit do as can be seen by my engagement near the middle of daybreak. He does however have a large amount of corruptors halfway through the battle I lose many of my carriers but come out relatively even compared my opponent. I am not a pro but I believed I could have microed better had my Templar been in a more forward position they would have been able to storm them when they were coming to engage my carriers but I botched the engagement but came out even even when my opponents corruptors were 3/1 and my carriers where 1/1 had I microed better I could have pulled back the target fired carrier and used my stalkers and archons to pick off corruptors. People think that just because they a-move carriers and they die they are bad units. EVERY battle in starcraft takes micro. Take TvP for example Vikings shark ahead of a terrans main army for colossus if they overextend stalkers can kill them off or Templar can storm them leaving them very low on health. Thus Protoss players micro colossus and Terran players micro ghosts and Vikings. It is the same concept with carriers in PvZ.
Now the carrier and the colossus are both massive units that can be attacked by air, what makes carriers better at engaging opposing players tier 3 armies is they cannot be attacked by ground units such as roaches or marauders and they can attack from better angles than colossus can because they are not hindered by the ground. Take for example air space where broodlords have the superior position over other units where colossus or an archon toilet can’t reach them. However carriers can reach them when they are hovering over this space that is inaccessible to ground units. In a scenario where a Protoss player cannot blink forward under this area in fear of being fungaled, carriers can reach these threats. Here is a pro replay of STSquirtle vs MVPSniper in the tsl4 qualifier.
http://drop.sc/248962
![[image loading]](http://i1173.photobucket.com/albums/r598/jeribarela1/a716f6ea.png?t=1347330769)
![[image loading]](http://i1173.photobucket.com/albums/r598/jeribarela1/371fa5d1.png?t=1347331027)
+ Show Spoiler +
At the end of the game Squirtle fends off the zerg army quite well despite his lack of mining bases and ggs with a handful of carriers left as he cannot make anymore units. Had been able to keep the bases on the right side of the map secure he might have been able to win the game. His loss was rooted back to the picture above where he could not engage the broodlords over his fourth which resulted in him losing the right side of the map and losing all income.
The next point that I would like to point out and what I think is the major problem is the transition to carriers. This is a concern because carriers not only need the time to build (which is a ridiculous build time) but the infrastructure, the money, the supply but also the upgrades to be effective. Putting aside all of these requirements I think we can assume that if a Protoss can get to a maxed out on upgrades and a decent supply worth of carrier army that they will fight more cost efficiently against a Zerg. The problem is getting there while staying alive I cannot stress this point enough.
Because Zerg and Protoss play differently Zerg only needs one building to get hive tech (greater spire) where as a Protoss needs to put down 5+ stargate and double cybernetics core to transition to carriers tech. Air upgrades are imperative to get with carrier tech because most of the time when people go carriers it is not until further into the game where all ground units have 2+ attack upgrades. Carriers die very easily to 3/3 marines or corrupters. The Carriers upgrades must be researched beforehand to catch up to the upgrades of everything else as the are necessary in the late game . The Tempest slightly differs in the perspective of its role.
![[image loading]](http://i1173.photobucket.com/albums/r598/jeribarela1/13b5a469.jpg)
The Tempest fills and extremely specific role in the protoss army compared to the carrier which is to bait an engagement or to take out massive tier 3 units for the opposing players. However I believe that the tempest is exclusively “The broodlord killer” and nothing else. Though they may be good at taking out broodlords they are absolutely horrible when fighting in a direct engagement. They do have 22 range with their upgrade but to exploit that you need vision and every Zerg usually has overseers to snipe obs with their late game composition, which may hinder the tempest from using its 22 range at its maximum potential.
I would also like to bring to attention that there was a situation report recently released by blizzard saying that they were doing to make changes to the raven and creep tumor but decided to let the game evolve as the ever changing meta game changes from day to day.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=365039
On Aug 31, 2012 9:00 AM PDT David Kim wrote:
A few weeks ago, we asked you to join us in testing a few proposed balance tweaks for StarCraft II. At the time, we felt like terran performance versus zerg (at the pro level) needed some attention. You responded with a lot of testing and good feedback.
Since we began this testing, we’ve also been paying very close attention to the major tournaments around the world, and we’ve noticed that terran performance in the TvZ matchup has improved. In analyzing tournaments such as Global StarCraft II Team League, Intel Extreme Masters, and Major League Gaming, we’re no longer seeing the same balance shifts that caused us to propose changes in the first place. The most interesting tournament in this context was the IEM at gamescom 2012 in Cologne, Germany, where we saw players such as Kas and MVP make use of Ravens in ways that held a lot of potential.
We feel that at this time, we should give players more opportunities to fully explore the slowly-shifting meta-game before we change the balance of the game. We’re seeing a lot more players starting to explore Ravens, and we’d like to see exactly how that goes before making any decisions on balance. The TvZ win ratio has somewhat shifted toward terran, calling a nerf to creep tumor into question.
This is the first time that we’ve planned for an adjustment, and then observed a change in the meta-game that could impact our decision. That doesn’t lead us to the conclusion that there is nothing that needs to be adjusted, but rather, it’s a chance for us to carefully consider other things. When we see that balance is changing on its own, we prefer to continue monitoring the situation and see where the performance of the different matchups settles before we step in.
Overall, the balance we’re seeing at the tournament level looks pretty good right now, and we will continue to watch the meta-game closely, and read your suggestions.
A few weeks ago, we asked you to join us in testing a few proposed balance tweaks for StarCraft II. At the time, we felt like terran performance versus zerg (at the pro level) needed some attention. You responded with a lot of testing and good feedback.
Since we began this testing, we’ve also been paying very close attention to the major tournaments around the world, and we’ve noticed that terran performance in the TvZ matchup has improved. In analyzing tournaments such as Global StarCraft II Team League, Intel Extreme Masters, and Major League Gaming, we’re no longer seeing the same balance shifts that caused us to propose changes in the first place. The most interesting tournament in this context was the IEM at gamescom 2012 in Cologne, Germany, where we saw players such as Kas and MVP make use of Ravens in ways that held a lot of potential.
We feel that at this time, we should give players more opportunities to fully explore the slowly-shifting meta-game before we change the balance of the game. We’re seeing a lot more players starting to explore Ravens, and we’d like to see exactly how that goes before making any decisions on balance. The TvZ win ratio has somewhat shifted toward terran, calling a nerf to creep tumor into question.
This is the first time that we’ve planned for an adjustment, and then observed a change in the meta-game that could impact our decision. That doesn’t lead us to the conclusion that there is nothing that needs to be adjusted, but rather, it’s a chance for us to carefully consider other things. When we see that balance is changing on its own, we prefer to continue monitoring the situation and see where the performance of the different matchups settles before we step in.
Overall, the balance we’re seeing at the tournament level looks pretty good right now, and we will continue to watch the meta-game closely, and read your suggestions.
Why then take out the carrier preemptively? Why not take the same approach to the carrier as they did with the situation report? Work on the carrier and make it easier for Protoss player and let the carrier evolve as we are starting to see more carriers enter the meta game. Could this possibly be hypocritical of blizzard to not let the carrier evolve more in the meta game?
If many Protoss get killed while trying to tech switch to the 350/250 carrier (not to mention interceptors 25 each) what is going to stop Protoss from getting killed while trying to tech to the 300/300 tempest. However! The tempest has a build time of 75 seconds compared to the build time of the carrier which is 120! This is nearly a minute difference in build time. Tempests are supposed to be toss’s solution to broodlords but why do they have to be bad at direct engagements. The carrier is already good against broodlords as well as being better than the tempest at direct engagements. That being said what if the build time of carriers was reduced to something such as 90 to match the Battlecruiser which would lead to a cleaner more easy transition as well as giving toss a solution to broodlords. Zerg players may say that problems would arise if carrier build time was reduced, but with corruptors and Vikings being so abundant in Zerg and Terran armies carriers coming out sooner would not make a difference. Carriers as they are now take an extremely long time to build and what people complain about is once they are on the field they are instantly countered if they built faster this would not be a problem. Carriers are the only WoL units being removed in HotS when the reaper which is arguably used less than the carrier is getting revamped. Pros have been starting to use carriers more also. If nobody uses them why not just keep both the carrier and the tempest? I know STSquirtle has used them in the tsl4 qualifier vs MVPSniper on entombed valley where he tried going carriers but the transition was just so rough it killed him. He also used them vs Ret on metropolis where squirtle did get to a carrier composition but in my opinion mis microed his mothership and lost his army, had he microed correctly I believe he would have won the game. I found the game of Squirtle in the tsl4 qualifier but could not find his game vs Ret. I would like to ask you all what you think and if you can find some more replay or results of carriers being used please post them.
To close I believe that the TRANSITION and BUILD TIME of the carrier is what hinders its use.
http://tv.majorleaguegaming.com/events/18-summer-scii-arena#1752/1767/1
Go to losers ro6 Game 2 Oz vs Stephano (this is a good example of carriers being used against arguably the best foreign zerg). WATCH THIS.
Other replays
http://drop.sc/249307 -Void carrier combo
http://drop.sc/240895 -MC vs Kas carrier rush
Thank you.
