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Active: 543 users

kill the carriers as a zerg

Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy
Post a Reply
BadBorz1
Profile Joined December 2015
5 Posts
December 27 2020 22:12 GMT
#1
how do you guys destroy a toss with mass carriers? thanks seem impossible.
ZigguratOfUr
Profile Blog Joined April 2012
Iraq16955 Posts
December 27 2020 23:46 GMT
#2
Depends entirely on the support units for the carriers (high templar, archons, tempests, void rays).

If there's no support lots of stuff works. You can dive in with corruptors after throwing parasitic bombs (if you sit the corruptors on the carriers the parasitic bombs will kill all the interceptors). Or you can pick away at the carriers with abducts and corruptors--without high templar/tempests Protoss can't beat the vipers. Or even hydralisks with microbial shroud can win a straight up fight. Neural parasite can also be effective.

If Protoss has storm, microbial shroud is no longer any good. If Protoss has storm, void rays and archons, diving in becomes much more difficult. Tempests and high templar for feedback (along with oracles for revelation) are strong against abduct and neural parasite. So if Protoss has the whole support unit package things become very difficult for Zerg.

Both the full Protoss late-game composition and the Zerg late-game composition (infestor, viper, corruptor, hydra, spore forest) are really really hard to control and both players will make mistakes. So there will be opportunities for abducts and ling runbys and so on.

You need to provide a replay if you want any specific advice though.
yubo56
Profile Joined May 2014
687 Posts
December 29 2020 15:52 GMT
#3
On December 28 2020 08:46 ZigguratOfUr wrote:
Depends entirely on the support units for the carriers (high templar, archons, tempests, void rays).

If there's no support lots of stuff works. You can dive in with corruptors after throwing parasitic bombs (if you sit the corruptors on the carriers the parasitic bombs will kill all the interceptors). Or you can pick away at the carriers with abducts and corruptors--without high templar/tempests Protoss can't beat the vipers. Or even hydralisks with microbial shroud can win a straight up fight. Neural parasite can also be effective.

If Protoss has storm, microbial shroud is no longer any good. If Protoss has storm, void rays and archons, diving in becomes much more difficult. Tempests and high templar for feedback (along with oracles for revelation) are strong against abduct and neural parasite. So if Protoss has the whole support unit package things become very difficult for Zerg.

Both the full Protoss late-game composition and the Zerg late-game composition (infestor, viper, corruptor, hydra, spore forest) are really really hard to control and both players will make mistakes. So there will be opportunities for abducts and ling runbys and so on.

You need to provide a replay if you want any specific advice though.

This is a very good answer, but I just wanted to add a comment about the difficulty of control. You, as the Zerg player, will always feel like the Protoss has an easier time controlling their army, and my hot take is that you usually will be right. However, the tradeoff is that the ideal Zerg comp trades better than the Protoss when controlled better, i.e. if you learn how to play the counters correctly, the Protoss can't do much about it. This holds up to the very highest levels of play:

- Pure carriers basically can't be controlled any better than amove by the Protoss, so if you use a single spellcaster type with your army (harder to control), you beat the Protoss regardless of how good they are.
- Carriers + templar give much more control potential to the Protoss, but if you add a zoning unit (lurkers/broods) and a spellcaster, you are basically guaranteed to kill the templar before too many storms come down, and the Protoss loses the fight without storms. Again, it's easier to play the Protoss comp, but the Zerg comp has a higher skill ceiling.
- Even at the pro level, where e.g. Stats/Trap/Zest/ShoWTimE has the full gamut of Protoss tech, Serral/Dark/Reynor/Rogue have shown that professional Zerg lategame control generally beats professional Protoss lategame control, at least in recent years. Since the feedback buff, things have been a bit more even, but Dark is showing that infestor/lurker/brood + viper/corruptor on top of spores can still win even against the most sophisticated skytoss armies.

tl;dr - If you learn the right counters to varying flavors of Protoss sky, you learn a secure way to win the game, basically a hard counter once you learn the correct technique.
Jung Yoon Jong fighting, even after retirement! Feel better soon.
virpi
Profile Blog Joined August 2009
Germany3598 Posts
December 29 2020 23:07 GMT
#4
Yeah, it's all about having the correct composition while controlling the army as precisely as possible. Needs lots of practice. What helped me was drawing out games on purpose vs. skytoss players. You have to be incredibly patient. Use corruptors to look for openings (barf on their nexus), protect your perimeter bases. Their army is slow and recall has a long cooldown. In big engagements, you need to be decisive. It's like a looong dance of death. Tempests make things complicated due to their range. Templars are VERY dangerous for your vipers. Normally, it's bad to go for a full on attack. It's better to pick off units one by one while losing as little as possible. In the long run, it's an economical game. If you trade better, they will eventually run out of steam.

Serral is really good at those games. Of course, we can't execute as well as he does, but watching games of his is a nice way to understand the general way of playing.
first we make expand, then we defense it.
Beelzebub1
Profile Joined May 2015
1004 Posts
January 07 2021 15:30 GMT
#5
Scout early, recognize the signs of turtle mode Carriers and react accordingly. If the Protoss is hunkering down with a mineral heavy army, expanding greedily, adding static defenses, break him before he get's the Golden Armada out. Go back to basics, out greed him, max out on Hydras quickly and overwhelm him.

If he is building carriers and you are building a ling/hydra/bane army and both of your macro is good, you will max out quicker. Rush your first maxed out army and trade, you might not break him with your first attack, the key is to thin that carrier count while you continue to expand.

Late game is where it tilts in the Protoss favor, their maxed out army simply does a ton of damage and is beefy and durable, especially with upgrades. Don't let it get there, end the game.
Dedraterllaerau
Profile Joined May 2019
113 Posts
January 09 2021 18:06 GMT
#6
Just get vipers, templars are slow you can outmaneuver them easily and grab free kills on all their expensive units, sack a base if you have to just keep stealing expensive units and dont full engage the army you will force protoss back in notime or he will commit and you will kill his entire army.
BronzeKnee
Profile Joined March 2011
United States5217 Posts
Last Edited: 2021-01-11 00:37:17
January 11 2021 00:34 GMT
#7
On December 28 2020 08:46 ZigguratOfUr wrote:
Both the full Protoss late-game composition and the Zerg late-game composition (infestor, viper, corruptor, hydra, spore forest) are really really hard to control and both players will make mistakes.


TheDwf was right.
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