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Italy12246 Posts
On January 06 2013 03:12 convention wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2013 02:07 Everlong wrote:
I wish there was at least once this "when he gets to X/X/X, it is really, really, really hard to beat it" for Terran..
Especially, when you take into account, that Terran builds and remaxes the slowest. There is one in WoL; Ghost/BC against protoss. There is no way to stop it. For a good example, watch MVP v Squirtle GSL finals game 6. MVP is walking all over squirtle untill he makes a horrible mistake and gets his BCs archon toileted, which never should have happened with yamato/emp (MVP even says that after the game, that he played horribly to lose with that composition). I still suspect that ghost/BC will be almost impossible to beat in HotS as well. If you get this composition up, then you also have tens of spare OCs, which means you can spam scans picking off observers, so sniping HT will be pretty easy unless they retreat to a base. In which case, you can move in with BCs to yamato the army/nexus.
The difference is, it's more or less impossible for Terran to transition into it off either Bio or Mech consistently on a vast majority of maps.
On the other hand, WoL's Zerg and Hots' Protoss midgame (infestor/ling or double stargate) always lend themselves very well to the "deathball transition" (just add storm or a greater spire once you have the gas income available).
Again, the true concern isn't that there is one race with an endgame army that's too strong, but rather that that endgame army might be too easy to obtain (like infestor/broodlord was in WoL).
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On January 06 2013 01:52 SuperYo1000 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2013 01:32 Sissors wrote:
So I just ran into a similar combo as terran. Colossi + toss air (so carrier, pest, void and oracle). I just pumped out pure marines and vikings, and never came close to winning. How to counter it?
Pre-emptively some responses:
"You shouldnt let him get there"
1. That is not an answer how to counter it, and is not relevant.
2. HotS heavily boosted toss early game, so that is not an option. Then I think this will start to look like WoL PvZ: You got one small window in mid game to make a push, and before that you cant do anything, and after that window you lost.
"You are more mobile, attack where he isnt with your army"
1. Since I cant teleport over the map, and he can, I would say he is more mobile.
2. Actually he forgot to take his MsC with him, so this case he couldnt teleport. But the result? I sack his main + natural, he sacks my main + natural, his army is still superior.
Oh he had 1/1/0 while I had 3/1 and later 3/2 on bio. Considering how hard carriers need attack upgrades he would have had an even stronger army if he would have gotten them. do you have a replay?.....cuz he had carrier, tempest, oracles, voids AND colossi? what where you doing for the first 20 minutes of the game? Thats a ton of gas. Was the protoss on 5 bases while you where on 3? Sorry to say but from what your describing and without a replay best we can do is tell you that you where outplayed
Reread point 1.
(And no we were fairly even economy wise, did also do quite some drops on him, so he had to spend some energy on his MsC).
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Every race should have a 10K gas army that can roll over 75% of comps.
See BL/infestor into 6 base mass 3/3 ling remax.
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On January 05 2013 22:40 dust7 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 04 2013 23:45 Arco wrote:
Isn't Protoss supposed to have the "strongest" army? I don't think that's necessary for the identity of the race. In Broodwar, nothing but a superior economy could touch 3/3 200 supply terran mech. Protoss is not imperatively about the strongest army, but about the strongest (yet costly) individual units, which is a big difference.
Dragoon/Carrier/High Templar could deal with Mech quite handily, but it was difficult to get to that (much like the Terran lategame in SC2), or even make that composition work. Like you said, Protoss needed a superior economy to beat it. That's why it was standard to stay a base up in BW PvT to deal with it.
What was much more realistic in Brood War was Protoss having to use Arbiters to Recall and destroy Terran's economy if they wanted to use a standard ground army (considered weaker than mech) to win. Players who want to overcome the might of Skytoss in StarCraft 2 should learn from these lessons. Destroy the Protoss economy. Keep him at home. Hit them at multiple locations at once. Drops and multiprong harass is so important.
You can't just fight Skytoss with a weaker army on equal economies and expect to win the game. Skytoss will deal with your weaker army cost effectively, and easily rebuild the lost units. You must engineer a strategy to make the Protoss player crumble.
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Tempest+ht is the new broodlord-infestor. And for "new broodlord-infestor" i don't mean simply "op", I mean a slow-moving, high range-based composition: broodlord-infestor range = 9-10 (9-12 in hots, including +2 fungal radius) tempest-ht range = 15-10.5 (including +1.5 storm radius).
Range is an important factor, you can't beat this composition if as soon as you enter in its range you take a lot of damage by tempests and especially storms (before you can even shoot).
At the moment i see the tempest as a too much all-round unit (despite the huge vs. massive air bonus) . I haven't tried it out very well against terran yet but against zerg, I see that every composition he uses i am able to counter it with tempests+ht.
It's clear that facing this kind of armies is a bit boring because they lead the player who uses it to turtle for all the lategame, until he can force an engagement that he can't lose.
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On January 06 2013 05:20 Arco wrote:Show nested quote +On January 05 2013 22:40 dust7 wrote:On January 04 2013 23:45 Arco wrote:
Isn't Protoss supposed to have the "strongest" army? I don't think that's necessary for the identity of the race. In Broodwar, nothing but a superior economy could touch 3/3 200 supply terran mech. Protoss is not imperatively about the strongest army, but about the strongest (yet costly) individual units, which is a big difference. Destroy the Protoss economy. Keep him at home. Hit them at multiple locations at once. Drops and multiprong harass is so important. You can't just fight Skytoss with a weaker army on equal economies and expect to win the game. Skytoss will deal with your weaker army cost effectively, and easily rebuild the lost units. You must engineer a strategy to make the Protoss player crumble.
This is a fallacy you could use to accept every lategame imbalance. Lets triple thor hp and attack. Then I can also say you should drop me and do multiprong harass, so the new thor is fine. And you should engineer a strategy to make the thor user crumble.
The problem isnt that you cant fight the skytoss with a weaker army, the problem is you cant fight the skytoss with any army (unless you have ideas).
Why would the toss let me destroy his economy? The first drop he activates photon overcharge and that one is fine. Then one thing a skytoss doesnt lack is minerals,so he has no reason not to fill each expansion with quite some photon cannons. If he stays at home, how would that help me kill his army? More important, why would he stay at home? Drops he can now easily fend off with photon cannons. So only larger forces can deal damage. If you can split your army, so can he to defend. More important if he attacks you, what do you do? Walk around his army and attack his base? Then he teleports back to his base and kills your army. Or he kills your base, and now you both have no base, and his army is still superior.
Just to prevent misunderstandings: Do I think it is impossible to beat a skytoss army? Well it is kinda early to say that, I hope to be proven wrong, but atm I think so. And that is very bad, no army should be unbeatable. Nice he spend a ton of gas on it, then zerg and terran should also be able to spend a ton of gas on such an army that can trade evenly.
Do I think it is a strategy that cant be beaten? Hell no. It can be beaten, the question is do we want it like this? To me it seems like a new PvZ, which was most horrible matchup ever. Early game you cant beat them due to MsC + all their all-in options you need to watch for. MsC also gives them nice drop protection. Late game when they have their army you cant beat them. So what remains is mid-game timing pushes, ala immortal all-in in PvZ. And do we really wants such matchups?
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This composition is not really a problem I think.
Vikings still own protoss air, you need a obscene amount of tempests to protect your voidrays from being kited. For example if you just have 4 tempests you need 2 volleys to kill a viking so terran can easily kite your voidrays and geting out ahead. If you have a bigger amount of tempests though you won't have enough voids and they can just move in. Voids got slightly better straight up vs vikings but the charge can also be baited or run out. Carrier/tempest is scarier but the point is moot really as air is absolute crap against bio anyway and terran is not really doing mech for a bunch of reasons already...
Against zerg airtoss is fairly strong now but I feel hydra/viper/corruptor/infestor does fine. Voidray/colossus is FAR more dangerous than voidray/tempests really, tempests are a complete joke as long as you're not countering broodlords with them in this matchup. I still think hydra's need a small buff, for example +10 hp so they actually become a decent unit unlike the crap they still are now. It's also better for ZvZ if muta or hydra are both viable options.
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On January 06 2013 21:15 Markwerf wrote:
This composition is not really a problem I think.
Vikings still own protoss air, you need a obscene amount of tempests to protect your voidrays from being kited. For example if you just have 4 tempests you need 2 volleys to kill a viking so terran can easily kite your voidrays and geting out ahead. If you have a bigger amount of tempests though you won't have enough voids and they can just move in. Voids got slightly better straight up vs vikings but the charge can also be baited or run out. Carrier/tempest is scarier but the point is moot really as air is absolute crap against bio anyway and terran is not really doing mech for a bunch of reasons already...
Against zerg airtoss is fairly strong now but I feel hydra/viper/corruptor/infestor does fine. Voidray/colossus is FAR more dangerous than voidray/tempests really, tempests are a complete joke as long as you're not countering broodlords with them in this matchup. I still think hydra's need a small buff, for example +10 hp so they actually become a decent unit unlike the crap they still are now. It's also better for ZvZ if muta or hydra are both viable options.
do you even have the beta? sorry but you are so wrong in every point you say. bio gets killed by air + timewarp + storm, vikings trade very bad with storm involved, hydras...lol, corruptors get raped by voids and storm, infestor would need 20 or so fungals to kill tempest/carrier and IT are 100% useless now in lategame + viper is a really bad unit vs HT with feedback, tempest with range 15, carrier with range 12 and blinding cloud not affecting air even.
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Even if this was the strongest unit composition in HotS it's still really hard to get to and one of the most costly compositions.
It's extremely slow, basically has tons of weaknesses, but yes, this is pretty much impossible to engage I imagine.
You can however kinda engage and then easily disengage this, with current Broodlord/Infestor compositions this is not the case.
I think that Oracles need to be included in this by the way.
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On January 06 2013 21:28 ejozl wrote:
Even if this was the strongest unit composition in HotS it's still really hard to get to and one of the most costly compositions.
It's extremely slow, basically has tons of weaknesses, but yes, this is pretty much impossible to engage I imagine.
You can however kinda engage and then easily disengage this, with current Broodlord/Infestor compositions this is not the case.
I think that Oracles need to be included in this by the way.
So infestor BL was also fine since it is costly? And could you inform us what those tons of weaknesses are? Because no one has figured them out yet (except you).
Not to mention saying it is extremely slow is BS. It is way faster than for example mech. Aditionally since it is largely air it can go over terrain, making the effective speed much higher. And finally teleporting across the map in a few seconds is not what most people would call slow.
@Markwerf: Vikings own toss air? No. They get cost effectively killed by almost all toss air units. Bio cost effectively kills toss air, not population effective tough. Let alone the rate at which they die with colossi mixed in (or HT). In WoL it was virtually impossible to get such an air army, and it was weaker. In HotS toss early game got enormously boosted, making them virtually immune to every early attack. So only mid-game timing pushes remain, ala PvZ.
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On January 06 2013 21:21 Decendos wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2013 21:15 Markwerf wrote:
This composition is not really a problem I think.
Vikings still own protoss air, you need a obscene amount of tempests to protect your voidrays from being kited. For example if you just have 4 tempests you need 2 volleys to kill a viking so terran can easily kite your voidrays and geting out ahead. If you have a bigger amount of tempests though you won't have enough voids and they can just move in. Voids got slightly better straight up vs vikings but the charge can also be baited or run out. Carrier/tempest is scarier but the point is moot really as air is absolute crap against bio anyway and terran is not really doing mech for a bunch of reasons already...
Against zerg airtoss is fairly strong now but I feel hydra/viper/corruptor/infestor does fine. Voidray/colossus is FAR more dangerous than voidray/tempests really, tempests are a complete joke as long as you're not countering broodlords with them in this matchup. I still think hydra's need a small buff, for example +10 hp so they actually become a decent unit unlike the crap they still are now. It's also better for ZvZ if muta or hydra are both viable options. do you even have the beta? sorry but you are so wrong in every point you say. bio gets killed by air + timewarp + storm, vikings trade very bad with storm involved, hydras...lol, corruptors get raped by voids and storm, infestor would need 20 or so fungals to kill tempest/carrier and IT are 100% useless now in lategame + viper is a really bad unit vs HT with feedback, tempest with range 15, carrier with range 12 and blinding cloud not affecting air even.
don't be such an asshole.
Yes I have the beta for quite a while..
Against bio I still think an air composition is a joke, interceptors still die really quickly and tempest DPS against non-massive is a complete joke. Obviously templars are good but that's just the classic EMP vs storm battle which we've seen throughout WoL already.. Getting to carriers with equal upgrades as bio ground is really difficult since you will need those ground upgrades too, unless you're against mech it's just better to stick with the standard colossus/ht/zealot/stalker stuff.
It more seems you haven't been playing the beta because timewarp+storm is hardly being used at all since time warp sucks. Only 50% movement reduction in a very small area, by the time your storm hits the bio has almost moved out of the time warp area already... Not even mentioning EMP makes oracles 100% useless making it terrible to even include oracles against terran later on..
Yes against zerg I agree the lategame protoss composition is a bit too strong now probably and a small hydra buff would be good for the game. Not so much because of airtoss though but more because the classic lasertoss (colossus,stalker,sentry) is just really good again since broodlords are easily countered now and fungal was nerfed.
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Italy12246 Posts
Lasertoss is actually the old name for colossus void ray afaik 
Also i'd rather see a buff/change to corruptors than hydras. I think hydras are pretty ok, and i'm actually struggling quite a bit to have a solid midgame buidl that isn't double stargate because of how strong hydra pushes are, combined with the fact that vipers are scary as shit :O
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Actually this strat is indeed weak to timings, but if it ever gets to late game then it is still possible to beat it.
I've tried a number of things against this strat, but what works best for me, is infestor (20+) hydra ultra.
Any strat involving corruptors does not work. Void rays kill them too quickly.
The ultras (4-5 max) are just there to tank up the initial damage, giving you time to spam infested terrans. If toss is low on ground units, they will also kill those pesky templars allowing your infestors to get close for fungals.
The hydras are there to buffer the period when your infested terrans are not up yet as the carrier's interceptors will attack the hydras.
Once the infested terran ball is up, it will trade somewhat evenly vs this army even on 3/3 vs 0/0 infested terrans.
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On January 07 2013 04:19 Ulargg wrote:
The ultras (4-5 max) are just there to tank up the initial damage, giving you time to spam infested terrans. If toss is low on ground units, they will also kill those pesky templars allowing your infestors to get close for fungals.
Air units dont auto-attack ultras when there are units with anti-air attack also.
And honestly, I am very sceptical how good ITs do against 3 armor upgrade carriers. That means they have 5 armor, so ITs only do 3 damage on them. Not to mention what happens when he targets fire the infestors.
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The intention of the ultras is to draw fire from archons and templars. Without ultras your hydras and infestors will just get stormed/ feedbacked to death. The carriers will initially attack the ultras until the hydras get in range. Then they will swap targets to hydras. This gives the time you need.
The infested terrans are more about numbers than about their actual dmg. If you spam 60 of them and toss can't storm, cause the ultras killed his templars, they still kill really quick
You are absolutely right though that with infestor focus fire it becomes difficult. That's why I stated, it trades somewhat evenly. Much better at least than any other composition.
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ive found that if i can get mass corruptor out before he gets archon/ht out i can actually manage any air he throws at me. Which lets me contain him for a short time. However once he gets a couple ht/archon corruptors are useless. Even if i can keep the deathball at base i cant put any pressure on the protoss bases because he sits behind his cannons,
I play it like i use to play zvp in wol beta when strats werent solid yet. Just keep trading armies.I normally now just rely on mainly hydra(and a handful of roaches) and keep the pressure on. It can get dicey because if you over commit and dont get eco in there too you really get screwed. And you have to make sure you scout his base because if he get collo out before your vipers you get rolled unless you get a surround. However if they stabilize and get to the air dball,i still havent found a solid way to stop it.
If only blizzard wasn't afraid of bringing in old units or skills dark swarm would fix all this 
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hots is becoming a real joke. And this isnt something that can be fixxed with just a measily patch. This is a unit design flaw. The only fix is a complete revamp or removal of said problematic units.
With blizzard already cutting the warhound, and axing the widowmine to an almost useless function, and the battlehellion barely panning out to be used, i'd say terran isnt look taht good off. Zerg problems stem from the fact that swarmhost seems nigh useless when not massed. Making this a really iffy unit. i mean the only time you can use swarmhosts is if you really commit to atleast 8 of them. They arent like the lurkers where you only needed like 2 to hold down an area decently.
The viper has destroyed terran mech, and it seems it will be a core unit in upcoming strategys where zergs only seem to care about the vipers and everything else is expendable. As long as the vipers live they will rape. Something about the scorpion get over here just not seem like an ability that should be in a balanced RTS game.
And for protoss, their changes have been the most ludacris i have seen. If people are smart, everyone should switch to protoss if you are trying to become a progamer. The core stops all timings early game, allows greedy play... And now protoss are on the verge of an unbeatable lategame really boring stalemate promoting army. Turtling with tempests and teasing out the AA to get stormed.
Not looking good at all folks. I hope the entire beta is scrapped.
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High diamond / low master Z here.
Protoss air seems incredibly strong at the moment. It's not even this specific composition I've a gripe with; what bothers me is the catch-all tech structure the Stargate has become. Toss can blindly open Stargate versus Zerg every game and be safe from any and all early / cheesy Zerg aggression via the mothership core. The Stargate itself can either Voidrays to defend from any and all midgame Zerg aggression until some two minutes after Lair's done, and Oracles for insanely effective harrassment (which means gg if zerg isn't defended with 1.5 spores per oracle per base and/or Lair 50% done or almost done). Later in the game, tempests can be slowly added to the toss army, and once they reach a critical number (say 8?), it's surprisingly difficult for Zerg to do anything effective to them; their ungodly range, burst damage, HP (350? 450?), inexplicably low supply cost, and the terrible, terrible damage they deal to retreating units make them stupidly effective against Corruptors in long macro games. Additionally, Phoenixes in any numbers greater than four completely shut down X number of mutalisks. This leaves Hydras as the only counter to toss airplay, and everyone on this forum knows Colossi fry Hydras all day long (Additionally, Tempests vaporize Hydras in high numbers anyway)
If everything I'm saying is deluded and silly, I apologize.
tl;dr: Stargate is too much of a catch-all toolbox for toss, and tempests scale too well with numbers for what they're supposed to be.
Edit: burst damage
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I dont think this is about "the unresolved early game".
Sure, there will be difficulties for the protoss to get this composition, some early game timings will evolve - protoss will figure out how to hold it. Then some more strategies will emerge, and protoss figures out how to get past it.
The same thing happened with broodlord infestor.
The biggest problem I forsee with this composition, is storm and voidrays make it too cost effective.
Im totally fine if an army is hard to get to, and then its stronger.
However that army might be 30-50% stronger than everything, so a players would be able to trade large armies (because they have huge economies).
If you make an army that basically loses 20 supply in a relatively even endgame engage, you cant widdle it down slowly. And thats what your creating with the 15 range tempest.
Whats the counter to this going to be if it ends up rolling everything in a year?, 17 Range Siegeship for terran or zerg?
A much more stable soloution is to actually adress the issues a lot of people have with fungal, making this less nessasary. Maybe give broodlords a cooldown on the ability to spawn units (while keeping DPS).
Or just change the tempest to a ground unit, or a unit that deploys from the sky - onto the ground . Opening a ton of possibilities for strategies.
You cant have an air units counter be - swarm with light units - because there are no air units like that in the game that work.
(And dont tell me "muta" because then he will make 5 +2 Range phoenix and just laugh with storm)
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Since its so early, you can never say for sure, but as a zerg I've played against this composition numerous times and have never even come close to beating it. The new voidray ability that enables instant charge is sooo damn powerful that corrupters cannot make a dent in the army before vanishing, Hydras and mutas...forget about them. Add in tempest/carrier or collosus and it really does seem unbeatable (at least to me) at this point. I'm overly frustrated when it comes to playing against this that it makes me feel like it is 100% necessary to kill the toss before he can get his 2x stargate even starting production. Hope that a viable counter comes at some point.
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EPT
