EPT[D] PvT-PvZ The Cress Carrier Build - Page 4
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SidewinderSC2
United States236 Posts
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Erik.TheRed
United States1655 Posts
That being said, it certainly isn't the most solid build available (phoenix or void rays are almost always a safer and better option) but there are some scenarios where having 3-4 carriers early works out really well. They do quite decently vs mutas and hydras (especially with void ray support and air ups) and can stay far away from corruptors so he can't just run in and kill them without taking damage from cannons and void rays. In a situation where zerg is likely to switch between ultras, infestors, and mutas (see leenock vs naniwa on akilon) they are potentially better for their supply than tempests, phoenix, or void rays (unless you have a LOT of voids and HT).There is also the potential for 2-3 carrier and MSC harass at a zerg 3rd which is tricky if the zerg only has queens and spores. | ||
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RaptorPete
6 Posts
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Erik.TheRed
United States1655 Posts
On June 10 2013 10:14 RaptorPete wrote: When a zerg scouts that your natural is not walled off, how do you defend a speedling bust? At, say, the 6-7 minute mark? Every time I've seen white-ra do this build he goes FFE. Don't really think the quicker stargate is necessary since you are gearing up to play a pretty long macro game no matter what. | ||
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Cress
United States212 Posts
On June 10 2013 05:36 SidewinderSC2 wrote: I am very non-standard. I have tried Carrier builds in PvT a LOT, and it always comes down to the fact that they do the job of a Colossus, except the Colossus does it a lot better. Believe me, if I had my way, the Colossus would be removed from the game and more interesting units would take their place. I never use Colossus in any matchup except PvT, only because it is a necessity against a high Marine count from 3 bases and beyond. 2 bases you can easily Storm your way around the map. Alright, I will try to get some Carrier games going again and see if the new meta somehow helps out. I do think that you need to open Storm and get Carriers on 3 bases though, as opposed to 2 or 1 base. I think game 4 of the WCS World finals between SoS and INnoVation was pretty interesting. Carriers are indeed a little like colossus but if you treat them like colossus they will die. I think making use of dead space is a pretty important part. SoS seemed to understand how to siege air units very well with gate way units. I wonder how the game would have gone if half of those tempests were carriers. I feel he lost at the end of the game because tempests just have far to low dps. Carriers don't have this problem. You could be right fast storms into carriers with a 3rd could be interesting. Sounds like a lot to manage making sure your carriers are in a good position and working well with your gate way units though. I imagine it would take a bit of time getting used too. That game between SoS and innovation might be a good template just trade the tempests for carriers. You could even go half and half, being the boss I am though I say they should all be carriers <3 Let's be honest how many people would be freaking out if SoS was building carriers in the finals against innovation. He would be the most loved protoss of all time. | ||
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Cress
United States212 Posts
On June 10 2013 10:14 RaptorPete wrote: When a zerg scouts that your natural is not walled off, how do you defend a speedling bust? At, say, the 6-7 minute mark? Its a good question to ask RaptorPete. I do talk about it a little in my OP. However let me go into further detail and the idea behind the building placements. The zealot in the Middle wall off opposed to the zealot on the side makes for a much more secure wall off if you move the zealot back into the wall just a bit. Makes lings have to come at the zealot one at a time and theres 0% chance the lings will run past the zealot. When I was doing the old style wall off with the zealot on the side, Lings more often then not slid by the zealot sometimes and its important to keep the lings locked into your natural at least in till most of them are dead. The only downside is that stalkers cannot fit through the zealot in the middle wall off. Bit of a trade off. There's the danger of the nexus being targeted when its overcharged. That's why you put pylons up against the nexus to reduce surface area. There's also the oracle which is out and about when these lings are coming at you and can clean up lings pretty nicely. All in all this type of defense will save you 300 early game minerals over the FFE type. I'm the only person I know of that uses this type of defense where you rely on pylons to reduce damage on the nexus, the nexus cannon its self, and the zealot in the middle type wall. So I imagine it looks a little strange. You have to consider 300 minerals is a big chunk of money to throw down on a forge and cannon so early. You also need to get out a fast momma core to scare out those pesky first few lings that will come at you. A 16 drone speedling all-in has a chance of a killing the nexus, but in my experience you can add on void rays and retake your expansion, they are very hard pressed to hold off the void rays even more so if you just build a lot off one base. Since they usually lose all the lings, they basicly have one base saturation and not many queens. That's usually how I respond to that sort of thing. Most non-all in speedling attacks you will hold off with ease they won't get into your main but you should pull the probes into your main if he attempts to target them. You kinda have to eye ball it based on how many lings he made if you should mineral drill to another mineral patch or pull them into the main. If theres any large amount of lings on the map you should attempt to be killing them with your oracle as lings die crazy fast to oracles. Sometimes they will just pull back the lings and attempt to wait for the nexus cannon to wear off, but you already have a second nexus cannon ready by the time it wears off to use another and you should have your nexus well sim city-ed at that point. | ||
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uh-oh
Hong Kong135 Posts
I was watching the sos vs inno game 4 and I felt like if he didnt have that many tempests, instead mixing in carriers he couldve had a chance. 4-5 tempests are great but more is kinda wasteful because tempests tend to overkill and 7 tempests can waste their shots on a single marine. carriers wouldve provided the necessary DPS to finish of inno's army after he weathered through the storms and tempests and vastly outupgraded zealots. In PvZs I usually do forge fast expands and mix in around 6-8 phoenixes so I can be active on the map and pull the zerg out of position while my carriers snipe bases. 7 range phoenixes help soften corruptors, kill overlords and limit zerg vision so it's harder for the zerg to catch your carriers out of position. Again upgrades are key and I use gateway walls to guard my expansions as well as for zealot DT warp ins to harass and defend bases from ling run bys. | ||
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uh-oh
Hong Kong135 Posts
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Kuzmorgo
Hungary1058 Posts
On June 10 2013 12:40 Cress wrote: I think game 4 of the WCS World finals between SoS and INnoVation was pretty interesting. Carriers are indeed a little like colossus but if you treat them like colossus they will die. I think making use of dead space is a pretty important part. SoS seemed to understand how to siege air units very well with gate way units. I wonder how the game would have gone if half of those tempests were carriers. I feel he lost at the end of the game because tempests just have far to low dps. Carriers don't have this problem. You could be right fast storms into carriers with a 3rd could be interesting. Sounds like a lot to manage making sure your carriers are in a good position and working well with your gate way units though. I imagine it would take a bit of time getting used too. That game between SoS and innovation might be a good template just trade the tempests for carriers. You could even go half and half, being the boss I am though I say they should all be carriers <3 Let's be honest how many people would be freaking out if SoS was building carriers in the finals against innovation. He would be the most loved protoss of all time. I wanted to mention that game too in this thread  . I remember thinking "Carriers would have done so much better against that bio" during that game. But it showed pretty well how you should abuse the terrain with these siege air units.One thing i feel uncomfortable with is you completely skipping warp gate research though. I mean its so cheap that I don't really understand the reason behind not getting it. And later trading a couple cannons for gateways could be worthwhile. Personally I just feel like having the versatility to warp in units where they are needed is a good trade-off for some static defenses, and gives you a safe feeling. And you will need it late game anyway. Is 50 gas really gonna delay you so much? Also you dont have to recall your carriers for a few units attacking your main. Other than that I will definitely try this build . | ||
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Foblos
United States426 Posts
On June 10 2013 19:03 Kuzmorgo wrote: I wanted to mention that game too in this thread . I remember thinking "Carriers would have done so much better against that bio" during that game. But it showed pretty well how you should abuse the terrain with these siege air units.One thing i feel uncomfortable with is you completely skipping warp gate research though. I mean its so cheap that I don't really understand the reason behind not getting it. And later trading a couple cannons for gateways could be worthwhile. Personally I just feel like having the versatility to warp in units where they are needed is a good trade-off for some static defenses, and gives you a safe feeling. And you will need it late game anyway. Is 50 gas really gonna delay you so much? Also you dont have to recall your carriers for a few units attacking your main. Other than that I will definitely try this build .For a while in WoL Gretorp was doing protoss builds without warpgate and was winning consistently. Especially with the mothership core the need for warping in is lessened, and the ability to play protoss like any of the other races is hightened. I do kind of agree with you that after you're done getting air upgrades there is no reason to not have it, but since the build completely ignores gateway units there is really no reason to get it. | ||
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Chaser808
24 Posts
I want to share an issue I ran across in a game I played tonight. Basically the Zerg who chose to use hydras wasn't trying to target fire my carriers, but instead just let them shoot down interceptors(I explain why this is a concern of mine below). I wasn't able to hit the critical mass as this was just as I was getting my 3rd up. It was 5 carriers vs about 20-25ish hydras. The issue was that he let his hydras just fire at my interceptors and what ended up happening was I was losing interceptors faster than my carriers could produce them. Then he basically just steamrolled me and my empty carriers. Have you come across this before? How do/would u deal with this? Thanks! | ||
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Erik.TheRed
United States1655 Posts
On June 10 2013 23:24 Chaser808 wrote: Cress I love the builds, just wanted to say thanks! I want to share an issue I ran across in a game I played tonight. Basically the Zerg who chose to use hydras wasn't trying to target fire my carriers, but instead just let them shoot down interceptors(I explain why this is a concern of mine below). I wasn't able to hit the critical mass as this was just as I was getting my 3rd up. It was 5 carriers vs about 20-25ish hydras. The issue was that he let his hydras just fire at my interceptors and what ended up happening was I was losing interceptors faster than my carriers could produce them. Then he basically just steamrolled me and my empty carriers. Have you come across this before? How do/would u deal with this? Thanks! http://drop.sc/341335 here's a replay where I played someone who went for hydra aggression as you described, and held it off. I think as long as you have some support for the carriers (guardian shield, a few void rays, cannons) then as long as you are microing your carriers back and forth it shouldn't be too hard to hold these hydra attacks. | ||
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Cress
United States212 Posts
On June 10 2013 23:24 Chaser808 wrote: Cress I love the builds, just wanted to say thanks! I want to share an issue I ran across in a game I played tonight. Basically the Zerg who chose to use hydras wasn't trying to target fire my carriers, but instead just let them shoot down interceptors(I explain why this is a concern of mine below). I wasn't able to hit the critical mass as this was just as I was getting my 3rd up. It was 5 carriers vs about 20-25ish hydras. The issue was that he let his hydras just fire at my interceptors and what ended up happening was I was losing interceptors faster than my carriers could produce them. Then he basically just steamrolled me and my empty carriers. Have you come across this before? How do/would u deal with this? Thanks! I've come across mass hydralisk builds before where they mass expand and just go straight up hydra and maybe add vipers later. Useally when I have about 3-4 carriers I immediately recognize it as a timing to kill one of the zergs bases. Then move around the sides of the map carefully making use of mass recall. If your harassment with 3-4 carriers loses their interceptors then just wait for them to rebuild over dead space. I usually never go looking for my opponents army its either defend my own bases or attack one of his bases Depleted interceptors is really only something that happens to me against Terran sometimes really. Honestly once your down to 3-4 interceptors you really should pull your carriers back. Usually when I do lose its about more about how I lost my patience I flew my carriers directly into marines or hydras makes me  /face palm when it happens.I'm usually just focused on killing bases making sure the zerg can't Remax if they are going hydra's, The zerg needs a bank to fight carriers over the long term. We wanna make sure they don't have a bank. It'd help if you had a replay or something, to take a look at | ||
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Cress
United States212 Posts
On June 10 2013 19:03 Kuzmorgo wrote: I wanted to mention that game too in this thread . I remember thinking "Carriers would have done so much better against that bio" during that game. But it showed pretty well how you should abuse the terrain with these siege air units.One thing i feel uncomfortable with is you completely skipping warp gate research though. I mean its so cheap that I don't really understand the reason behind not getting it. And later trading a couple cannons for gateways could be worthwhile. Personally I just feel like having the versatility to warp in units where they are needed is a good trade-off for some static defenses, and gives you a safe feeling. And you will need it late game anyway. Is 50 gas really gonna delay you so much? Also you dont have to recall your carriers for a few units attacking your main. Other than that I will definitely try this build .I go boss mode carriers. To tell you the truth when I'm trying out something new. I usually just restrict myself to that one unit, then add other units later on. For example when the void ray change happened in Hots I was just massing void rays. Then I added storm after I felt comfortable about how many void rays were needed. After doing mass carriers a bit I think storm should probably be considered once you get around 3-4 carriers. Maybe instead of adding on more star gates just stick to 2 for awhile. The reason I don't usually get warp gate is because of the delay to attack upgrading, carriers get a lot of help from the + attack upgrades. In fact they have some of the strongest attack upgrades in the game. By the time 50 gas does not matter the upgrades have started. I think SoS handled his tempests and gate way units together very well. I think thats probably how you should use gate way units and carriers together like that. He had an advantage that game that he only reason lost because tempests deal too little dps. I wanted so very bad to see how carriers would have worked in this game. Maybe if even just half of those tempests were carriers. Oh well though I figured out how carriers should be used over dead space by massing carriers alone and see how that works alone. Now it might be time to add some gate way units and storm. See how that works out. I think the trick is getting the carriers and storms out before your opponent has a good economy compared to yours. | ||
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Cress
United States212 Posts
On June 10 2013 13:52 uh-oh wrote: I've also been doing some carrier builds in both matchups at low masters level on the korean server and it's really fun. My style is very similar to the OP's, but in PvTs I get 2 oracles to keep tagging the terran army so my carriers will never get caught out of position while I snipe bases. I also dump my chronos into shield and attack upgrades instead of into carrier production because an upgrade lead with carriers means that the fleet is at least 20% more effective(each attack upgrade increases carrier DPS by 20% of the original so you want to get as many attack ups as you can before the terran gets armor). Later on I also mix in 3-5 tempests for long range firepower, breaking turrets and killing vikings(a tempest beat two vikings one on one) I was watching the sos vs inno game 4 and I felt like if he didnt have that many tempests, instead mixing in carriers he couldve had a chance. 4-5 tempests are great but more is kinda wasteful because tempests tend to overkill and 7 tempests can waste their shots on a single marine. carriers wouldve provided the necessary DPS to finish of inno's army after he weathered through the storms and tempests and vastly outupgraded zealots. In PvZs I usually do forge fast expands and mix in around 6-8 phoenixes so I can be active on the map and pull the zerg out of position while my carriers snipe bases. 7 range phoenixes help soften corruptors, kill overlords and limit zerg vision so it's harder for the zerg to catch your carriers out of position. Again upgrades are key and I use gateway walls to guard my expansions as well as for zealot DT warp ins to harass and defend bases from ling run bys. I feel that Carrier attack upgrades are useful, I usually delay the shield upgrades though as I don't feel its worth the 150-150 that early in the game. It sounds like you have your own style though so stick to it. You should post some replays of your games =D. Using the oracles to constantly tag the Terran army sounds like a good idea. As it can be easy to lose track of where it is, especially when your taking a risk moving over open field. I to feel SoS should've made a few carriers to finish off innovations army. Seems like he had a lot of money invested in tempests but their dps was just so low when it came die to kill marines. Tempests just don't seem to trade well with marines. If you can have good position on carriers though you'd just be trading minerals for marines. Sos Clearly has his own tempest style there, and if he had been making earlier carriers instead of tempests his economy might have been messed up. I would suggest that if only half of the money he'd put into tempests was carriers >.> we would have seen something amazing. One of the best terran players in the world would have died to tempest/carrier/gateway units. | ||
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Cress
United States212 Posts
On June 10 2013 20:02 Foblos wrote: For a while in WoL Gretorp was doing protoss builds without warpgate and was winning consistently. Especially with the mothership core the need for warping in is lessened, and the ability to play protoss like any of the other races is hightened. I do kind of agree with you that after you're done getting air upgrades there is no reason to not have it, but since the build completely ignores gateway units there is really no reason to get it. I think it would be great, to play around with Gate way unit / Carriers but make use of good positioning on the carriers. Game 4 of the WCS between SoS and Innovation sorta inspired me to this idea. | ||
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Cress
United States212 Posts
On June 11 2013 01:08 Erik.TheRed wrote: http://drop.sc/341335 here's a replay where I played someone who went for hydra aggression as you described, and held it off. I think as long as you have some support for the carriers (guardian shield, a few void rays, cannons) then as long as you are microing your carriers back and forth it shouldn't be too hard to hold these hydra attacks. Back in WOL I used to play around with carriers also and could beat masters players with it. However it did rely on maps favoring a quick 3rd and being able to get so many sentries. I had a harder time making sentry carrier work in Hots however because of the new maps having a more open 3rd and the speed upgrade on hydra's. I did find that if you have guardian shield on carriers they trade effectively with corruptors. My point being that theres a lot of different styles of making carriers work | ||
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Chaser808
24 Posts
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Cress
United States212 Posts
On June 10 2013 11:21 Erik.TheRed wrote: Every time I've seen white-ra do this build he goes FFE. Don't really think the quicker stargate is necessary since you are gearing up to play a pretty long macro game no matter what. Well you can save 300 early minerals by doing my version, even if it is slightly more risky. It threatens a gate way push just by doing it. The quicker star gate is needed to put on a bit of pressure and get accurate scouting of what the zergs doing. White ra does a gateway support type style, he treats the carriers as if they are colossus. I dunno, comes down to preference I suppose. Each does have its advantages though. I think at the highest level you need to be doing the gateway/stargate style is more solid. The mass carrier style more risky but more fun so, Its just for entertainment at a mid masters level don't take it too seriously. It does show how carriers should be handled over dead space and such. I think if you go for the gate way style you should be using the same tactics as mass carriers. | ||
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Demicore
France503 Posts
On June 09 2013 10:10 Cress wrote: Hmm, well if they are games against masters players who spend their money and are active on the map. Maybe you could share your experiences with them? I think too many people are missing the point of carriers and thats the love you feel when you build one. When I build this spider lagged thing that fires lasers I feel no attachment to it. When I build a carrier all my memories of Brood war flash before my eyes O.o. Oh no I'm a shit diamond, I wouldn't dare inflict my replays upon you. | ||
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