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Before HOTS, carriers weren't much of an issue against infestor/corruptor composition as you can fungal the carriers, use corruption and focus fire one by one to take them out.
With the voidrays being so potent in HOTS, going corruptors is pretty much impossible now.
Previously, in a game I played, I tried to handle it by using vipers/hydras in a guerilla warfare like style, pulling and picking the carriers off one by one until my opponent only has a handful number of carriers left. This hasn't been working out so well as my vipers gets in range of the interceptors, so by the time I'm done pulling maybe 4 carriers, I would've lost all my 6 vipers. The situation gets worse if the opponent mixes in high templars to feedback my vipers.
So I'd like to get everyone's input about the practical strategies used to counter carrier/voidray late-late game composition. Some examples from professional players would be nice.
I understand that a better way of handling this would be: Don't let the opponent get that. For the sake of argument, let's just assume that the opponent was able to amass voidrays/carriers somehow because he/she was more awesome than JD/Flash/Life/Parting/MVP combined.
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You need splash. And for zerg that means infestors.
And then whatever the meatshield you can create to live long enough to chain fungal 
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Mass overseer to contaminate all the Stargates duh! Noob, L2Zerg. 
Seriously though... As a Protoss player, the best tactics I've seen against this mass Void/Carrier strategy is a combination of aggressive Corrupter use (rushing in and sniping carriers/voids as they spawn from SG's when they're most likely to be exposed), best time is obviously pre critical mass, as you can generally over commit to corrupters with a fast spire and hit them as they're turtling, especially since most Protoss players going for that 100% air rely on defense defense defense and don't harass much. And using Vipers to pull out units one by one pre-engagement to buy time and to whittle down forces, rather than relying on many pulls mid-engagement, but it seems you've not been having the best time with that tactic (perhaps trying to flank with corrupters to draw away interceptor fire? or some other such crafty tactic to get you Vipers in range?). Hydras do an ok job against Voids, but with upgrades and some micro the +2 base armor on the Carriers, plus their raw DPS is enough to make them trade pretty well with the Hydras in a head on fight (not to mention that by the time Protoss takes an engagement he probably has 2/3 Colossi and/or storm support which both WRECK Hydras). I've never faced it, and I've never seen it pulled off really well, but Queen's might just be the key to making the AA of Zerg work. Like I said though, I've never actually seen that done properly or to a great enough measure to counter the Protoss.
Tempests will really mess with all of this IMO because if the Protoss is able to get a money amount of them up they will zone out absolutely any hope of whittling away the fleet with Viper/Corrupter/Queen/Hydra. At that point in the game though maybe a complaint about balance, a QQ to Blizzard to reintroduce Scourge, and a gg are all you can do :/
Also trying to win without ever fighting them head on has worked in my experience. I.e. mass harass (lings, mutas, and sometimes Nydus) and mass expanding as you will need a mega-economy to trade multiple times with Protoss lategame as Void/Carrier and even better, later comps are insanely cost-effective against just about anything Zerg has even in a super Zerg favored engagement. However, Protoss' ability to turtle extremely hard with cannon walls is pretty strong in the hands of a smart player. Maybe some super smart Zergs (looking at you Leenock) will find a money number of Swarm Hosts/Broodlords to siege the Protoss with at different locations to try and weaken them without taking up too much supply from the all-important AA force and drone count. Theory crafting a bit here, but I think maybe a few (7-10?) banelings to bust cannons/walls with ling/Locust surprise attacks would be really effective, especially since on most maps these days past 3 bases you open up 2-3 more attack paths with every base you take and the Protoss can't have his cost efficient mega fleet everywhere at once.
IMO, it definitely feels like the Zerg has to straight up out-play the Protoss in this situation. :/ Which is unfortunate because it's definitely possible to get yourself into this situation while still outplaying them all game long in some cases, then still lose to the Protoss' megadeathball.
I don't know of any HotS pro-level games that are worth looking at, maybe some WhiteRa VODs on Husky's channel lol? Give it a month or two and I bet we'll start to see Voids/Carriers as often as we saw BLs in WoL at the end, so basically any PvZ longer than 12 minutes.
Skytoss right now just reminds me of Dragonball Z: Bad guy (Zerg) let's Goku rage and charge up for 5 episodes unharrassed while monologuing, then Goku goes Super Saiyan N+1 (where N is the level attained previous final battle) and/or charges a Spirit Bomb for 12 episodes and destroys the bad guy. Why didn't the bad guy just keep fighting while they had Goku doing nothing?!?!?!
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Against pure Carrier/Voidray? Pure Hydra. Make sure you micro your Hydra's so that they target the Carriers and not the interceptors (which they autotarget iirc). The Prismatic Alignement ability of Voidrays has no effect on Hydra's (does bonus damage on armored), so only the Carriers are scary. But without splash damage, the Hydra have free reign to shred down all the air. I'd vote against Corruptors, because they are so weak to Voidrays, or Vipers, because they are so fragile vs. Carriers.
It becomes more of a problem if the Protoss adds Colossus, as they kill Hydra so well. In that case, add Swarm Hosts and Vipers/Ultra.
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United Kingdom10443 Posts
My strategy at the moment is to try and kill the protoss before he reaches that composition, it is so powerful and very diffficult to fight
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On March 26 2013 22:58 theMarkovian wrote:
Against pure Carrier/Voidray? Pure Hydra. Make sure you micro your Hydra's so that they target the Carriers and not the interceptors (which they autotarget iirc). The Prismatic Alignement ability of Voidrays has no effect on Hydra's (does bonus damage on armored), so only the Carriers are scary. But without splash damage, the Hydra have free reign to shred down all the air. I'd vote against Corruptors, because they are so weak to Voidrays, or Vipers, because they are so fragile vs. Carriers.
It becomes more of a problem if the Protoss adds Colossus, as they kill Hydra so well. In that case, add Swarm Hosts and Vipers/Ultra.
hydras are very bad vs carrier and even with voidrays supply wise --> dont go hydras.
right now dealing with mass VR colo HT etc. deathball is doable but once P start adding some immos and carrier into the mix i think it is unbeatable. carrier are such an insanely strong unit if supported properly that Z cant win against a carrier HT immo voidray archon colossus army right now. so yeah, kill him before he gets there or type gg ^^
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I have found this out today, my mass Hydra doesn't really work all the time, must have been lucky before. So yeah, my previous post should be disregarded.
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On March 27 2013 02:15 Decendos wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2013 22:58 theMarkovian wrote:
Against pure Carrier/Voidray? Pure Hydra. Make sure you micro your Hydra's so that they target the Carriers and not the interceptors (which they autotarget iirc). The Prismatic Alignement ability of Voidrays has no effect on Hydra's (does bonus damage on armored), so only the Carriers are scary. But without splash damage, the Hydra have free reign to shred down all the air. I'd vote against Corruptors, because they are so weak to Voidrays, or Vipers, because they are so fragile vs. Carriers.
It becomes more of a problem if the Protoss adds Colossus, as they kill Hydra so well. In that case, add Swarm Hosts and Vipers/Ultra. hydras are very bad vs carrier and even with voidrays supply wise --> dont go hydras. right now dealing with mass VR colo HT etc. deathball is doable but once P start adding some immos and carrier into the mix i think it is unbeatable. carrier are such an insanely strong unit if supported properly that Z cant win against a carrier HT immo voidray archon colossus army right now. so yeah, kill him before he gets there or type gg ^^
Uh it's not. If you go swarmhost/hydra/viper/ultra you can deal with it easy peasy lemon squeezy.
If he is going pure air no HT no Colo this is going to be even easier because you can just go hydra/viper and win.
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On March 27 2013 03:26 blade55555 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2013 02:15 Decendos wrote:On March 26 2013 22:58 theMarkovian wrote:
Against pure Carrier/Voidray? Pure Hydra. Make sure you micro your Hydra's so that they target the Carriers and not the interceptors (which they autotarget iirc). The Prismatic Alignement ability of Voidrays has no effect on Hydra's (does bonus damage on armored), so only the Carriers are scary. But without splash damage, the Hydra have free reign to shred down all the air. I'd vote against Corruptors, because they are so weak to Voidrays, or Vipers, because they are so fragile vs. Carriers.
It becomes more of a problem if the Protoss adds Colossus, as they kill Hydra so well. In that case, add Swarm Hosts and Vipers/Ultra. hydras are very bad vs carrier and even with voidrays supply wise --> dont go hydras. right now dealing with mass VR colo HT etc. deathball is doable but once P start adding some immos and carrier into the mix i think it is unbeatable. carrier are such an insanely strong unit if supported properly that Z cant win against a carrier HT immo voidray archon colossus army right now. so yeah, kill him before he gets there or type gg ^^ Uh it's not. If you go swarmhost/hydra/viper/ultra you can deal with it easy peasy lemon squeezy. If he is going pure air no HT no Colo this is going to be even easier because you can just go hydra/viper and win.
agree if he doesnt have carrier. if he has carrier and immortals vs ultras it gets insanely hard and i have yet to see a pro game where Z wins vs that comp. i know you got a lot of replays vs mass voidray but do you have any vs comps with say 7 carriers or so? would really like to see that. 
just did a little test with 21 hydras vs 7 carrier. a-move carrier and focus fire with hydras on creep. 5 carriers survived ^^ like i said hydras are so terrible overall and especially vs carrier. i dont know why P player go VR only then VR + carrier is so incredibly much stronger.
gets a bit better but not much then viper abduct first. and this is without HT or viper focusfire from carrier ^^. i know its just a test but my point stands: with carrier involved hydras start to suck even more! ^^
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United Kingdom10443 Posts
On March 27 2013 04:27 Decendos wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2013 03:26 blade55555 wrote:On March 27 2013 02:15 Decendos wrote:On March 26 2013 22:58 theMarkovian wrote:
Against pure Carrier/Voidray? Pure Hydra. Make sure you micro your Hydra's so that they target the Carriers and not the interceptors (which they autotarget iirc). The Prismatic Alignement ability of Voidrays has no effect on Hydra's (does bonus damage on armored), so only the Carriers are scary. But without splash damage, the Hydra have free reign to shred down all the air. I'd vote against Corruptors, because they are so weak to Voidrays, or Vipers, because they are so fragile vs. Carriers.
It becomes more of a problem if the Protoss adds Colossus, as they kill Hydra so well. In that case, add Swarm Hosts and Vipers/Ultra. hydras are very bad vs carrier and even with voidrays supply wise --> dont go hydras. right now dealing with mass VR colo HT etc. deathball is doable but once P start adding some immos and carrier into the mix i think it is unbeatable. carrier are such an insanely strong unit if supported properly that Z cant win against a carrier HT immo voidray archon colossus army right now. so yeah, kill him before he gets there or type gg ^^ Uh it's not. If you go swarmhost/hydra/viper/ultra you can deal with it easy peasy lemon squeezy. If he is going pure air no HT no Colo this is going to be even easier because you can just go hydra/viper and win. agree if he doesnt have carrier. if he has carrier and immortals vs ultras it gets insanely hard and i have yet to see a pro game where Z wins vs that comp. i know you got a lot of replays vs mass voidray but do you have any vs comps with say 7 carriers or so? would really like to see that. just did a little test with 21 hydras vs 7 carrier. a-move carrier and focus fire with hydras on creep. 5 carriers survived ^^ like i said hydras are so terrible overall and especially vs carrier. i dont know why P player go VR only then VR + carrier is so incredibly much stronger.
These tests are kind of meaningless because that is not a real battle that would ever occur.
I think Blade is kind of right, the composition he stated is probably the best but it requires a lot of patience and micro so maybe not easy peesy =)
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Also, any kind of roach push around 10:00 will really delay a toss going skytoss. In some instances you can even snipe the nexus/cybercore/ kill 10+ workers which really sets the toss back. You can then expand to your 4th and trade with the toss to burn their gas on sentries.
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On March 27 2013 04:27 Decendos wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2013 03:26 blade55555 wrote:On March 27 2013 02:15 Decendos wrote:On March 26 2013 22:58 theMarkovian wrote:
Against pure Carrier/Voidray? Pure Hydra. Make sure you micro your Hydra's so that they target the Carriers and not the interceptors (which they autotarget iirc). The Prismatic Alignement ability of Voidrays has no effect on Hydra's (does bonus damage on armored), so only the Carriers are scary. But without splash damage, the Hydra have free reign to shred down all the air. I'd vote against Corruptors, because they are so weak to Voidrays, or Vipers, because they are so fragile vs. Carriers.
It becomes more of a problem if the Protoss adds Colossus, as they kill Hydra so well. In that case, add Swarm Hosts and Vipers/Ultra. hydras are very bad vs carrier and even with voidrays supply wise --> dont go hydras. right now dealing with mass VR colo HT etc. deathball is doable but once P start adding some immos and carrier into the mix i think it is unbeatable. carrier are such an insanely strong unit if supported properly that Z cant win against a carrier HT immo voidray archon colossus army right now. so yeah, kill him before he gets there or type gg ^^ Uh it's not. If you go swarmhost/hydra/viper/ultra you can deal with it easy peasy lemon squeezy. If he is going pure air no HT no Colo this is going to be even easier because you can just go hydra/viper and win. agree if he doesnt have carrier. if he has carrier and immortals vs ultras it gets insanely hard and i have yet to see a pro game where Z wins vs that comp. i know you got a lot of replays vs mass voidray but do you have any vs comps with say 7 carriers or so? would really like to see that. just did a little test with 21 hydras vs 7 carrier. a-move carrier and focus fire with hydras on creep. 5 carriers survived ^^ like i said hydras are so terrible overall and especially vs carrier. i dont know why P player go VR only then VR + carrier is so incredibly much stronger. gets a bit better but not much then viper abduct first. and this is without HT or viper focusfire from carrier ^^. i know its just a test but my point stands: with carrier involved hydras start to suck even more! ^^
So, you are comparing a Carrier worth 450/250 vs 3 Hydra's worth 300/150 and the Carriers win? That's just outragous! I do note that the carrier and the three hydra's have the same supply count of 6, so in a maxed out scenario, it should be kinda tough for the Zerg.
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On March 26 2013 22:58 theMarkovian wrote:
Against pure Carrier/Voidray? Pure Hydra.
please dont do this. hydras are terribad against a number of carriers, and especially carriers with other support units. hydra have too low hp.
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On March 27 2013 05:00 blackbrrd wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2013 04:27 Decendos wrote:On March 27 2013 03:26 blade55555 wrote:On March 27 2013 02:15 Decendos wrote:On March 26 2013 22:58 theMarkovian wrote:
Against pure Carrier/Voidray? Pure Hydra. Make sure you micro your Hydra's so that they target the Carriers and not the interceptors (which they autotarget iirc). The Prismatic Alignement ability of Voidrays has no effect on Hydra's (does bonus damage on armored), so only the Carriers are scary. But without splash damage, the Hydra have free reign to shred down all the air. I'd vote against Corruptors, because they are so weak to Voidrays, or Vipers, because they are so fragile vs. Carriers.
It becomes more of a problem if the Protoss adds Colossus, as they kill Hydra so well. In that case, add Swarm Hosts and Vipers/Ultra. hydras are very bad vs carrier and even with voidrays supply wise --> dont go hydras. right now dealing with mass VR colo HT etc. deathball is doable but once P start adding some immos and carrier into the mix i think it is unbeatable. carrier are such an insanely strong unit if supported properly that Z cant win against a carrier HT immo voidray archon colossus army right now. so yeah, kill him before he gets there or type gg ^^ Uh it's not. If you go swarmhost/hydra/viper/ultra you can deal with it easy peasy lemon squeezy. If he is going pure air no HT no Colo this is going to be even easier because you can just go hydra/viper and win. agree if he doesnt have carrier. if he has carrier and immortals vs ultras it gets insanely hard and i have yet to see a pro game where Z wins vs that comp. i know you got a lot of replays vs mass voidray but do you have any vs comps with say 7 carriers or so? would really like to see that. just did a little test with 21 hydras vs 7 carrier. a-move carrier and focus fire with hydras on creep. 5 carriers survived ^^ like i said hydras are so terrible overall and especially vs carrier. i dont know why P player go VR only then VR + carrier is so incredibly much stronger. gets a bit better but not much then viper abduct first. and this is without HT or viper focusfire from carrier ^^. i know its just a test but my point stands: with carrier involved hydras start to suck even more! ^^ So, you are comparing a Carrier worth 450/250 vs 3 Hydra's worth 300/150 and the Carriers win? That's just outragous! I do note that the carrier and the three hydra's have the same supply count of 6, so in a maxed out scenario, it should be kinda tough for the Zerg.
so its about supply in lategame yet you come with cost? i never cried about carriers winning, i just said hydras suck hardcore vs them and HT immo carrier voidray + some support like archons or colossus is close to unbeatable if not unbeatable.
blades unit comp is pretty good vs non-carrier builds though. but with 6-8 of them involved...well dont go hydras ^^
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I've been under the impression that you *want* to let the hydras kill the interceptors while stutter stepping to get beneath the carriers?
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5 gas bases + MASS infestor (spend literally all your gas on infestors) is the only real answer. Spam fungal everywhere to get rid of all the interceptors and prevent the void rays from ever getting in range to attack anything.
This doesn't really work once Protoss gets HT but even on 3 bases you don't have enough gas to get VR/Carrier/HT and upgrades. Against the most common 3 base turtle into VR/Carrier it works just fine.
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I know that this isn't the answer you want to hear and requested that no one answer this way, but you truly cannot let protoss get to that point. Its a fact. In general, Protoss has the strongest units but it takes them longer to obtain them. Obviously if you let them get to the point where they have an army consisting of their top 5 strongest units (void rays, carriers, colossus, archons, hts...maybe tempests), you're not going to stand much of a chance unless you can out-micro them by a gigannntic margin which in most cases won't be possible unless you're playing someone way below your skill level. A top tier, maxed out Protoss army is going to be stronger than all other compositions. Thats the nature of Protoss. To capitalize on their weakness, you must harass them while they try to obtain this master composition and punish them early before its out so that your macro advantage can outweigh their unit composition advantage when the time comes for the main battle. Maybe you don't win the initial engagement but your ability to reinforce your army should be what allows you to win the second or third time around (especially the way zerg works, being able to instantly remax vs a half maxed Protoss army after the initial battle) You definitely have to rely on having a stronger economy and not letting the Protoss player freely expand and build an economy superior to yours. I don't see many other feasible ways to take that Protoss composition on and expect to win the battle and be able to continue to push and win the game.
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There is a critical mass that you can't beat. Hydras don't live long enough, corruptors get owned by void rays, queens are clumsy and slow off creep, spores are nice but have to be on creep and by the time you finish chaining enough fungals together to do some damage your support is gone and everything escapes with 1 health left.
So yes there is a point where you just can't kill airtoss. But airtoss is slow moving and can't really risk moving around a lot before they reach that critical mass. It's also extremely expensive. What's stopping the zerg from taking 4 bases and researching drop? I think there is a pretty big timing window for the zerg to do terrible terrible damage.
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On March 27 2013 03:26 blade55555 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2013 02:15 Decendos wrote:On March 26 2013 22:58 theMarkovian wrote:
Against pure Carrier/Voidray? Pure Hydra. Make sure you micro your Hydra's so that they target the Carriers and not the interceptors (which they autotarget iirc). The Prismatic Alignement ability of Voidrays has no effect on Hydra's (does bonus damage on armored), so only the Carriers are scary. But without splash damage, the Hydra have free reign to shred down all the air. I'd vote against Corruptors, because they are so weak to Voidrays, or Vipers, because they are so fragile vs. Carriers.
It becomes more of a problem if the Protoss adds Colossus, as they kill Hydra so well. In that case, add Swarm Hosts and Vipers/Ultra. hydras are very bad vs carrier and even with voidrays supply wise --> dont go hydras. right now dealing with mass VR colo HT etc. deathball is doable but once P start adding some immos and carrier into the mix i think it is unbeatable. carrier are such an insanely strong unit if supported properly that Z cant win against a carrier HT immo voidray archon colossus army right now. so yeah, kill him before he gets there or type gg ^^ Uh it's not. If you go swarmhost/hydra/viper/ultra you can deal with it easy peasy lemon squeezy. If he is going pure air no HT no Colo this is going to be even easier because you can just go hydra/viper and win.
With all due respect Mr. Blade, I'm having a rather difficult time accepting that simply going hydra/viper will easily win you the game against Carrier/Voidray composition. As you correctly noted, mixing in high templars makes it harder to play for Zerg because vipers can be easily feedbacked but just to reduce the scope of the variables here, let's just assume that we're dealing with mass carriers/voidrays.
If you could, I'd like to ask you to provide some details on how you would personally deal against the forementioned composition. At least from my own games against GM level players this seemed very difficult to deal with because carriers simply have much higher dps than Hydras and trying to pull few carriers will get your vipers killed, which then the rest of the protoss air just marches in and kills your army.
I personally came with only one conclusion about this matter: you should exploit the mobility of the protoss air army. Indeed, I have tried to mix in nydus worms to hit toss's natural while he is marching towards my base but this strategy also comes with several deficiencies in my opinion: 1)Mothership core can recall the army to defend asap when needed and 2)At the end of the day, you still have the deathball to deal with.
I don't believe this is unbeatable, but I'm inclined to think that you should be severely ahead than protoss in terms of bases and resources banked in order to be able to deal with it properly.
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fungal vs interceptors seems like the only thing really works head on vs void ray carrier fleet right now as it dramatically decreases the DPS output of the skytoss fleet so hydras may have a chance. mutas and hydras suck cuz they dont have enough HP, vipers help a bit when the carrier count is low but the new carrier leash range thingy allows a good protoss with a big enough fleet to pick off vipers from a mile away(launch interceptors at hydras in 8 range and any viper within 14 range is vulnerable to focus fire). good concave is important as well, it gives more surface area to a hydra based zerg army so they can focus down carriers and not shoot at interceptors
The only solid thing i can think of for a late game zerg to win vs skytoss is mobility play, try and mix in ultra/ling to both harass(skytoss is slow and vulnerable to that) and take out templars in a fight. nydus worms can be useful(you can build multiple worms at once with multiple nydus networks and their costs shouldnt really be a problem in the late game) in catching skytoss fleets out of position. skytoss army is extremely gas intensive and expensive to replace so constant harassment followed by a 300 food push may work. force a fight somewhere far away from your own bases so as the skytoss fleet is slowly flying to counter attack you can replace with whatever unit you feel appropriate after damaging the fleet in the first fight
one more thing, good overlord spread/burrow ling placement for spotting is very important. I myself have great success vs zergs with stargate openings that scared away overlords with a mid game involving diversionary gateway forces running around the map while the fleet sneaks behind expansions and snipes it with charged void rays then recall out. the thing about skytoss is its a flying deathball that can attack from whatever angles they want. zerg needs be the one determining where and when to fight so my general advice will be aggressive mobility play
dont forget upgrades too, each armor reduces carrier attack damage substantially(each interceptor attack twice so armor is reduced two times). perhaps deny enemy upgrades with speed overseers contaminate will work?
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EPT
