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I'm not a protoss play, but just looking at the numbers, I have to wonder why protoss players go Colossi instead of Carriers.
The facts:
After the cybernetics core a protoss player could go 2 ways:
1. Colossi
Robotics Facility
200 minerals
100 minerals
65 seconds
Robotics Bay
200 minerals
200 gas
65 seconds
Tech total:
400 minerals
300 gas
190 seconds
1 Colossus
300 minerals
200 gas
75 seconds
6 supply
2. Carriers
Stargate
150 minerals
150 gas
60 seconds
Fleet Beacon
300 minerals
200 gas
60 seconds
Tech total:
450 minerals
350 gas
180 seconds
1 Carrier
350+100 (4 interceptors) minerals
250 gas
120 seconds
6 supply
The Carriers tech is 10 seconds faster and remember that tech cannot be chrono boosted.
While the carriers themself take more amount to build, chronoboost should help a lot and I think that 1 Carrier is better then 1 Colossus in most circumstances, unless you are going against a lot of marines. So, am I wrong that in theory we should see more Carriers?
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Most of the time a player is using colossus is because they are fighting against MMM or a Hydra composition. Either would destroy all the interceptors in the carrier before it can do anything.
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On August 17 2010 19:24 NoNoNoNoNyoron wrote:
Most of the time a player is using colossus is because they are fighting against MMM or a Hydra composition. Either would destroy all the interceptors in the carrier before it can do anything.
At the same time, lots of people go voidrays but they don't transition into Carriers. Fells like a waste of tech.
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The obvious answer is that colossi are made to fight bio balls and hydras, both of which carriers aren't excellent against. Still though, I think this is a pretty valuable post, because I didn't realize that the investment is nearly equal, and I think the perception is that colossi are easier to reach tech-wise.
Although you kind of need a robo against T so you don't get destroyed by cloaked banshees, so that cost can be considered necessary.
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On August 17 2010 19:26 Lighioana wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 19:24 NoNoNoNoNyoron wrote:
Most of the time a player is using colossus is because they are fighting against MMM or a Hydra composition. Either would destroy all the interceptors in the carrier before it can do anything. At the same time, lots of people go voidrays but they don't transition into Carriers. Fells like a waste of tech.
Well if you went to void rays, your opponent would opt for more anti-air. Going for Carriers after they have bolstered their anti-air doesn't exactly seem like useful tech either.
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but, if VR fails, then generally there is anti-air, usually consisting of marines or hydras + static defense, which makes the collo a better call. However, their use in pvp i think is underestimated. But let's be honest, a pvp rarely goes past the 12 minute mark and ends in 4 gate v 4 gate, you expand first you lose (generally). And if it does go longer, most people aren't on the starport tech tree, but rather the robo tech b/c immortal > VR when facing stalkers, sentries, and zealots.
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2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
Because you want observers...
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1 carrier costs 450-250 and in the majority of cases is much, much worse than 1 colossus which is 300-200. The tech is also 50/50 cheaper.
Carriers only really get good when you have like 4-5 of them and even then they aren't great. Plus their abysmally slow speed makes it incredibly difficult to use them effectively, especially against zerg.
I think carriers need a little bit of a buff, it's almost always more worth it to just spam void rays instead, maybe carriers could also benefit a little bit from flux veins?
edit: plus lack of observers is a huge setback, especially against Terran
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On August 17 2010 19:34 shawabawa wrote:
1 carrier costs 450-250 and in the majority of cases is much, much worse than 1 colossus which is 300-200. The tech is also 50/50 cheaper.
Carriers only really get good when you have like 4-5 of them and even then they aren't great. Plus their abysmally slow speed makes it incredibly difficult to use them effectively, especially against zerg.
I think carriers need a little bit of a buff, it's almost always more worth it to just spam void rays instead, maybe carriers could also benefit a little bit from flux veins?
edit: plus lack of observers is a huge setback, especially against Terran
350-250*
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I dunno what it is about Carriers. I don't see them as much of threat like I did in Brood War. Then again, as the weeks go by, I don't really see much of a threat in Colossi either. I think HT's are the way to go.
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I agree with posts above: colossi are to fight hydra and mmm (good antiair), so can't really compare the two units...
Still, 45s building time difference is HUGE. Ok for chronoboost but no way you can support to CB 2 stargates carriers during all the building time, assuming it's the first time of the game you get t3 (max 2 bases ?). And one stargate carrier is bad imho... you get carriers too slowly to have a real effect.
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This isn't really an accurate picture of the two techs. It stops at the point where you are able to start producing the unit, but doesn't take into account the cost and build time of the actual units and their required research (unranged colossi are largely useless apart from holding a ramp), as well as the critical mass for effectiveness.
Carriers are 350/250 (+100) and take 120 seconds to build. They're fairless useless alone, but good after about 4-5. Graivtron catapult is 150/150 and takes 80 seconds to research.
Colossi are 300/200 and take 75 seconds to build. They are decent alone, but best after about 3-4+. Thermal lance is 200/200 and takes 140 seconds to research.
4 Carriers would require 1800 minerals and 1000 gas, plus 150/150 research, and take 560 seconds to build.
4 Colossi would require 1200 minerals and 800 gas, plus 200/200 research, and take 300 seconds to build.
You can get just shy of four colossi in the time it takes to build 2 carriers.
You can clearly see, now, that carriers require a significantly larger investment, both in resources and in time.
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the problem with carriers is, that they don´t do this cute "splash" attack like a collossus would do. With unit clumping nowadays it´s so powerful. Also the "air counter" units like viking and corrupter can be built so super fast that they would fall so fast. A Collussus would do way more dmg in this time because of splash and you can swith to immortals from the robo if the enemy builds like 10 corrupter. + observer!
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Carriers are just harder to use effectively. They're slow and harder to synergize with a gateway army. Colossi also help out vs stuff that gateway-stuff suffers against (-HTs). Plus carriers really, really need upgrades to keep up with the enemy army's strength - a carrier hitting a unit with 2 armor loses *40%* of its damage output. But Colossi share upgrades with all ground. Carriers have their own upgrade-path, which they only share with Phoenixes (that dont benefit a lot from them) and Void Rays (that dont need them that badly to be effective). It's not easy to squeeze in air-upgrades unless you're in some sort of all-air build. Robo also grants observers - a big plus in today's world where the Terrans are starting to utilize Banshees a lot again. It feels more... solid to have a robo fac.
I don't feel like I get my money's worth with Carriers, and they have 1 massive, massive problem that really hampers them badly - they take *120* seconds to build, and you need a good while afterwards to let them build up to 8 interceptors on top of that. That is a *long* time to wait for your unit and it leaves you quite vulnerable in this period. Yeah, you can chronoboost Carriers, but you can also chronoboost Colossi. Maybe they are just underutilized, but its not easy to spot where they fit in as easily as with Colossi or High Templar.
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Keep in mind that upgrades synergize better with colossi. Ground +1 will give your colossi as well as your whole gateway army +1, while ship weapons will only help your carriers.
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Carriers get the most out of the upgrades deal, more than any unit in the game.
This means they are pretty late game orientated unless you have some kind of well planned carrier rush cheese or something.
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People are getting Immortals, Observers, etc. from the Colossus build.
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On August 17 2010 19:34 shawabawa wrote:
I think carriers need a little bit of a buff, it's almost always more worth it to just spam void rays instead, maybe carriers could also benefit a little bit from flux veins?
Well I agree about the carrier buff, if you watched the "first encounter" cinematic in SC1, they had this super powerful beam (like the void rays) I wish they had that kind of skill.
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I'm a Zerg player and i personally fear colossus (or even Void Rays) more than a Carrier... I'm going to make Corruptors for any of those units and they are great either way... but colossus would kill my army faster than carriers.. so i'm prolly going to over-react and make more corrupters than i actually need. If you switch to Immortals after a few colossus i'll have 5/7 corruptors doing nothing. You can't make a fast ground switch from a stargate.
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On August 17 2010 20:47 sk` wrote:
People are getting Immortals, Observers, etc. from the Colossus build.
This needs to be emphasized. If you're trying to hard-tech to Carriers, you're setting yourself up for some huge timing pushes and will probably need to invest a lot of money in things that won't actually help you win the game if you want to not die.
Generally speaking, the Robo bay gives you more useful units unless you want fast Void Rays, the window for which will likely have passed by the time you can get Carriers out. There's also the simple fact that a few quick Void will probably win you the game if you can get them charged before the enemy engages. One or two Carriers won't have a similar effect.
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On August 17 2010 19:59 vyyye wrote:
Keep in mind that upgrades synergize better with colossi. Ground +1 will give your colossi as well as your whole gateway army +1, while ship weapons will only help your carriers.
Good point.
What I also forgot and was mentioned in this thread is that the Colossi are useless without the Thermo lance upgrade. But so are Carriers in a number lower then 2-3.
Fells like if carriers are to be rushed too, they will have to be used defensively until you have more then 3.
Still, I encourage protoss players to experiment a bit with the Carriers.
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Carriers need to hit a critical mass to be effective, 1-2 just get their interceptors destroyed. They also move really slow and take forever to build even if you crono boost them the entire build time. Crono boost speeds up collosus production the same as it does for carriers so that's a totally moot point. Even if you didn't crono boost the collosus it would come out 5 secs faster than a fully crono boosted carrier.
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Carriers are in insane investment and rarely yields any reward. You have to keep in my mind how important weapon damage upgrades are for carriers. If your opponent has +3 armor when your carriers pop they are only doing 40% of the their normal efficiency. So not only do you have to get the tech/unit you have to get air damage upgrades as well.
I see no real useful way to add this into your games. The risk vs reward really isn't there.
Vs. Terran vikings are easily spam able and will destroy these
Vs. Zerg corruptors get a bonus damage from massive and shield easily destroy these
Vs. Protoss Blink stalkers or speed rays will take advantage of the carriers slow speed.
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Collosi build almost twice as fast, if I'm not mistaken. 60 seconds versus 120 seconds. When I've tried to go Carriers I've literally lost the game while they're building. Or I just get my second and my opponent pushes, and its still getting interceptors and not doing much damage.
If interceptors counted as ground weapons like broodlings they'd be amazing.
Going carriers kinda forces you to make a ton of zealots, and the fact that they will be quite unupgraded makes them sadlots.
Unlike Collosi, when your opponent whipes out your army with mass producable corrupters or vikings, you have completely lost your investment. You will have upgraded air weapons, air research, etc, and you wont be able to retake aerial dominance, especially since rebuilding a Protoss air army takes a lifetime.
The ground weapons upgrades on your Collosi wont cease to be useful if they all get pwnt.
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On August 18 2010 00:25 Ndugu wrote:
Collosi build almost twice as fast, if I'm not mistaken. 60 seconds versus 120 seconds. When I've tried to go Carriers I've literally lost the game while they're building. Or I just get my second and my opponent pushes, and its still getting interceptors and not doing much damage.
If interceptors counted as ground weapons like broodlings they'd be amazing.
Going carriers kinda forces you to make a ton of zealots, and the fact that they will be quite unupgraded makes them sadlots.
Unlike Collosi, when your opponent whipes out your army with mass producable corrupters or vikings, you have completely lost your investment. You will have upgraded air weapons, air research, etc, and you wont be able to retake aerial dominance, especially since rebuilding a Protoss air army takes a lifetime.
The ground weapons upgrades on your Collosi wont cease to be useful if they all get pwnt.
LOL "SADLOTS", nice name.
On topic, if you look at damage output. Carrier would be stronger against small quantities of high hp units, while colossi are much better at dealing with mass quantities of low-hp units.
Now, think MM, Hydra roach Zling. those are all massed low- hp units. Which colossi is better at dealing with.
Also, I feel that there's the niches of Carriers and Voidrays are overlaped,and in many cases voidrays are much better.
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On August 18 2010 00:36 Logican wrote:Show nested quote +On August 18 2010 00:25 Ndugu wrote:
Collosi build almost twice as fast, if I'm not mistaken. 60 seconds versus 120 seconds. When I've tried to go Carriers I've literally lost the game while they're building. Or I just get my second and my opponent pushes, and its still getting interceptors and not doing much damage.
If interceptors counted as ground weapons like broodlings they'd be amazing.
Going carriers kinda forces you to make a ton of zealots, and the fact that they will be quite unupgraded makes them sadlots.
Unlike Collosi, when your opponent whipes out your army with mass producable corrupters or vikings, you have completely lost your investment. You will have upgraded air weapons, air research, etc, and you wont be able to retake aerial dominance, especially since rebuilding a Protoss air army takes a lifetime.
The ground weapons upgrades on your Collosi wont cease to be useful if they all get pwnt. LOL "SADLOTS", nice name. On topic, if you look at damage output. Carrier would be stronger against small quantities of high hp units, while colossi are much better at dealing with mass quantities of low-hp units. Now, think MM, Hydra roach Zling. those are all massed low- hp units. Which colossi is better at dealing with. Also, I feel that there's the niches of Carriers and Voidrays are overlaped,and in many cases voidrays are much better.
Worth mentioning is that high HP units tend to have armor. 1 armor takes 16 damage away from Carriers so... there is not really a niche where they excel.
Maybe in the next expac someone will get a unit that is air to ground only and favored as a normal army composition... or something like that that will make capital ships more worthwhile.
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vr comes much faster than carriers. a charged VR can kill 4 stimmed marines with combat shields but loses to 5.
carriers are actually stronger than VR's but carriers come so much slower that VR's do better ingame
i get carriers a lot. carriers are beefy units and they dont suck.
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On August 17 2010 19:24 NoNoNoNoNyoron wrote:
Most of the time a player is using colossus is because they are fighting against MMM or a Hydra composition. Either would destroy all the interceptors in the carrier before it can do anything.
This is correct. Marines, at least, kill Interceptors soooo fast.
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Carriers are like an awesome version of BC. They are way faster and deal massive damage to air as well as ground. Teching to Carriers in the late game is always a good idea against Terran.
The days of TLO's BC play are long over.
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As said before,
You already have a robobay for observers/immortals
they benefit from your other ground UPs
They are faster
They aoe from far range
have greater harass capabilities
They basically bolster your ground army better than a carrier would.
Carries would be a natural transition from VRs or somthing. You wouldnt go voidrays then make a Collosus.
But really, who sees an army of lots/stalkers/immortals, and 1 carrier. Not only are you showing your hand, they can pop that sucker down in 2 seconds.
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colossi has a gas heavy price ratio which give you extra minerals to get zealots(which create a wall to block units trying to focus colossi) and pylons while for carrier, you need to SAVE minerals for interceptor production if any die. If you have played BW, you would know that interceptor isnt that great anymore in sc2 which will die quite easy. one more thing is that 5 colossi can swipe out ground units almost 1 volley but carriers cant, they dont have splash.
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I would say because Carriers are not that great and super expensive, void ray can replace those in most situation and are cheaper.
Robo will give you access to observers and those are always usefull, and sometime having a warp prism is nice too.
The fleet becon is also horribly expensive building, and you kinda need graviton catapult to make carrier better, this add even more to the cost. and you need to build some more interceptor and replace those who die.. thats ALOT of mineral and gas for a unit that is not very good.
I dont know, carrier need some sort of neat ability to make em worth this huge investment. Maybe the interceptors could go kamikaze and crash into vikings and explode a few! Or a gravity inverter beam to make light/med flyer crash!
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Collosi tech also gives you viable units such as observers and immortals to bolster your army composition with
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because colossi have massive splash damage that wipes out entire zerg armies, why bother going stargate tech with such a potent unit in the robo tech route. Carriers are VASTLY inferior except taht they can hit air, colossi/sentries make a protoss army completely immune to melee until ultras are out, and then they can just have immortals taking the ultra damage. I still don't know why a protoss would get HT over colossi, it just feels like colossi have an auto (albeit smaller) storm as an auto attack).
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Colossus tech, as you call it is mostly necessary anyway (Robo) for observers, which are crucial. Observatory is also useful. Colossus transition in the midgame to back your ground armies makes a huge difference, where as 1-2 carriers are pretty worthless. Should you decide to rush to a carrier transition, skipping Robo tech, you will usually get swarmed.
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Maybe if your long term plan is to go for Mothership, but otherwise, as others have pointed out, Robo bay just have more options to fall back on.
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Corruptors kill carriers a lot more effectively than they do colossus, since colossus do enough damage that by the time they die all your ground ia dead.
Things like mass marines can also beat a carrier build. Carriers aren't safe for that early game.
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simple answer: carriers suck.
they can EASILY be countered by vikings or corruptors without doing much of any dmg at all. even at critical mass i doubt carriers will do much of anything if the player has enought corruptors and vikings.
colossus is much more viable to work with ur ground army.
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I like the investment resource/time comparison OP gave us. Wish more discussions were started like this. It's certainly something to try out. I think a lot of people just hear "man, carriers suck in sc2" and don't even give them a chance.
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does anyone even attempt to use colossus without the range upgrade? i feel like that should be factored in
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carriers might not be mass only in sc2 as they (usually) were in bw. check out socke vs tarson on metalopolis as an example.
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you cant build carriers vs terran because they will have a starport and its too easy to get vikings, which own every air unit. especially carriers because they are so slow.
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On August 17 2010 19:26 Lighioana wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 19:24 NoNoNoNoNyoron wrote:
Most of the time a player is using colossus is because they are fighting against MMM or a Hydra composition. Either would destroy all the interceptors in the carrier before it can do anything. At the same time, lots of people go voidrays but they don't transition into Carriers. Fells like a waste of tech.
I love when protoss players tech from voidray to carriers, all the vikings I built to kill the voids can now be used destroying carriers.
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On August 18 2010 08:47 tetrash0t wrote:
does anyone even attempt to use colossus without the range upgrade? i feel like that should be factored in
I often do if the terran is pushing me hard with MMM I often opt to get a second colossus before getting range. If you micro it ok its perfectly fine to not have range. People say they are useless without range but I can assure they are not. Stimmed marauders are obviously the most dangerous threat to them but as long as you have enough zealots to clog the ground you should be fine.
TO OP: Carriers are definitely an option, however robo play is just so strong against terran that I would rather go that route instead. If I was partial to VR(i'm not) I would experiment with more air play but I've found that a terran going 1/1/1 can pump a ridiculous amount of vikings without too much trouble if he scouts well enough.
I will say however that I love getting carriers when I mothership rush.(which I do on ladder occasionally)
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personally i just feel like i need at least one observer on the map to scout as well as detect banshees, dt's, and to a lesser degree burrowed units. once i have my robo up it is easier/cheaper/quicker to get collossi over carriers.
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Overall a carrier is a better unit than a Collosus but Collosi gel so much better into regular Protoss army compositions, Carriers dont really have a Niche like they did in PvT in BW
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I think carriers can be viable as T3 stargate tech against zerg. White-ra/Duckload ra's match against Madfrog recently was really fun to watch. He 2stargated off of 2-base, harassed with phoenixes and void rays and then followed it up with carriers after they both did significant econ damage to each other.
PvP seems almost moot to talk about anything past 10 minutes right now. I don't fancy late-game stargate play in PvT but I don't think it would be as effective as robo or twilight tech trees.
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because if you can get 6-8 collosi, with proper micro and backing units its unstoppable, when have you seen someone get 6-8 carriers and it be GG? What about immortals and observers? The problem is we have trouble reaching that tech because gateway units and void rays are much worse than gateway units and immortals/observers
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I think that the reason why colossi are more viable than carriers is because collossi have an area with their attack, so they can kill more ground units and faster.
Even if you say that carriers + chrono boost makes them come out faster, you can also get colossi out faster with chrono boost, and its much cheaper overall.
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On August 18 2010 09:23 Stargazer wrote:
I think carriers can be viable as T3 stargate tech against zerg. White-ra/Duckload ra's match against Madfrog recently was really fun to watch. He 2stargated off of 2-base, harassed with phoenixes and void rays and then followed it up with carriers after they both did significant econ damage to each other.
PvP seems almost moot to talk about anything past 10 minutes right now. I don't fancy late-game stargate play in PvT but I don't think it would be as effective as robo or twilight tech trees.
uhhhhh...White-Ra/Duckload-Ra did not win simply because of his tech path/decision of stargates. Rewatch the cast and notice how much Day9 emphasizes the consequences of the far gold expansion and spreading too thin. He had hydra tech to counter air, but with no creep linking the gold expansion, he couldn't defend the higher mobility of air units.
In a much normal situation, I haven't seen many successful stargate play PvZ. Hydra's just deal too much dps in numbers. Not to mention Corrupters absolutely destroy carriers, even when you have a good number of them
There's much more strategy to SC than what tech to pick
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With antimage's voidray fast expand.. I use colossus without ranged upgrade a lot its not useless. It takes a lot of microing though.. but still useful to use till ranged upgrade finishes..
Anyway.. observers > everything.. so even if I was going carriers instead of colossus I would still definitely make a robotics bay..
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Carriers are actually incredibly effective against hydras... I think if the maps were different we'd be seeing them.
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On August 18 2010 09:37 Exyia wrote:Show nested quote +On August 18 2010 09:23 Stargazer wrote:
I think carriers can be viable as T3 stargate tech against zerg. White-ra/Duckload ra's match against Madfrog recently was really fun to watch. He 2stargated off of 2-base, harassed with phoenixes and void rays and then followed it up with carriers after they both did significant econ damage to each other.
PvP seems almost moot to talk about anything past 10 minutes right now. I don't fancy late-game stargate play in PvT but I don't think it would be as effective as robo or twilight tech trees. uhhhhh...White-Ra/Duckload-Ra did not win simply because of his tech path/decision of stargates. Rewatch the cast and notice how much Day9 emphasizes the consequences of the far gold expansion and spreading too thin. He had hydra tech to counter air, but with no creep linking the gold expansion, he couldn't defend the higher mobility of air units. In a much normal situation, I haven't seen many successful stargate play PvZ. Hydra's just deal too much dps in numbers. Not to mention Corrupters absolutely destroy carriers, even when you have a good number of them There's much more strategy to SC than what tech to pick
Actually, White Ra did win in this very specific instance bc of carriers following-up the stargate tech. They base traded and he ended up having the only army left on the map save madfrog's probes. White ra's phoenixes and vr's were able to abuse madfrog's hydra army bc of mobility, yes. But I emphasized carriers as a follow-up tech, and so does day9. And the carriers were super-important since white-ra lost his expo halfway through and was short on resources.
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carriers need energy and a spell like BCs...
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ive been going stargate / carrier against zerg alot and its pretty effective against hydralisks. a carrier beats 3 hydras and loses to 4.
3 hydras costs 300min/150gas
4 hydras cost 400min/200gas
1 carrier costs 450min / 250gas (to fill up to 8 interceptors)
what makes carriers so strong against hydras is their range against hydras plus the interceptor launch speed that lets the carriers launch all the interceptors and deal lots of damage then run away and the interceptors return to the carrier then you can attack again and launch all the interceptors again
my carrier strategy seems to beat hydras but lose to curruptors if the zerg is smart and gets air armor upgrades. curruptors with 5 armor will heavily reduce my fully upgraded carriers 8 damage down to 3.
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On August 18 2010 08:56 stormtemplar wrote:Show nested quote +On August 18 2010 07:26 link0 wrote:
Carriers are like an awesome version of BC. They are way faster and deal massive damage to air as well as ground. Teching to Carriers in the late game is always a good idea against Terran.
The days of TLO's BC play are long over. Two words: Yamato cannon. Where are your carriers now?
one word: feedback
counters to counters! isnt sc nice?
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On August 18 2010 08:47 tetrash0t wrote:
does anyone even attempt to use colossus without the range upgrade? i feel like that should be factored in
Attempt to? of course. If you transition Collossi into your army relatively early vZ, you'll still be up against mainly roach/ling, so range 6 still works. You should always try to get the range asap (in time for hydras) but the Colossus is far from useless without it.
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a) Colossus are very cost-effective
b) You want observers, so you're gonna get a Robo anyways
c) Stargate units aren't as popular/effective in most scenarios
d) Carriers much more easily countered, and not as menacing (in comparison to BW)
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On August 17 2010 19:40 escruting wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 19:34 shawabawa wrote:
1 carrier costs 450-250 and in the majority of cases is much, much worse than 1 colossus which is 300-200. The tech is also 50/50 cheaper.
Carriers only really get good when you have like 4-5 of them and even then they aren't great. Plus their abysmally slow speed makes it incredibly difficult to use them effectively, especially against zerg.
I think carriers need a little bit of a buff, it's almost always more worth it to just spam void rays instead, maybe carriers could also benefit a little bit from flux veins?
edit: plus lack of observers is a huge setback, especially against Terran 350-250*
Not really. Sure, 350/250 is the price for them to come out, but that is with 4 interceptors only.
Its 450/250 for a fully stocked one, and it makes no sense at all wanting to save 100 mins to use a carrier at half power.
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The difference I'd say is that Collosi rip apart infantry while carriers are exceptional at focusing down large, threatening units quickly. (The catapult upgrade is pretty much a must.)
They have different uses.
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Why don't we see more carriers?
Because mothership rushing is more funny to watch.
Ask Huk
On August 18 2010 16:48 TedJustice wrote:
The difference I'd say is that Collosi rip apart infantry while carriers are exceptional at focusing down large, threatening units quickly. (The catapult upgrade is pretty much a must.)
They have different uses.
Well the catapult upgrade is a must but so is the extended lance to a degree.
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counter to hydras are colossi, not carriers
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On August 18 2010 07:26 link0 wrote:
Carriers are like an awesome version of BC. They are way faster and deal massive damage to air as well as ground. Teching to Carriers in the late game is always a good idea against Terran.
The days of TLO's BC play are long over.
That's funny, cuz I see BCs all the time, but never Carriers. I've seen them 4 games so far, and only once were they actually contributing to a victory.
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Carriers suck. There's nothing they can do that another unit can't do better.
Sure they have insane DPS with catapult upgrade, but their interceptors die so fast it's retarded. Add to the fact that you can no longer micro carriers and you have naught but a shadow of the original behemoth.
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Are you serious... You need a few carriers to make them useful. 1 colossus is still very useful because of splash and so supports gateway units very well.
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As a zerg I would say one reason to go for colossus before carriers is that you need at least 4 carriers for them to be really effective, where one or two colossus can come out so early and cause lots of mayhem.
You are simply too exposed while teching and building carriers, you are going to need some kind of robo tech to get there.
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On August 17 2010 19:23 Lighioana wrote:
I'm not a protoss play, but just looking at the numbers, I have to wonder why protoss players go Colossi instead of Carriers.
The facts:
After the cybernetics core a protoss player could go 2 ways:
1. Colossi
Robotics Facility
200 minerals
100 minerals
65 seconds
Robotics Bay
200 minerals
200 gas
65 seconds
Tech total:
400 minerals
300 gas
190 seconds
1 Colossus
300 minerals
200 gas
75 seconds
6 supply
2. Carriers
Stargate
150 minerals
150 gas
60 seconds
Fleet Beacon
300 minerals
200 gas
60 seconds
Tech total:
450 minerals
350 gas
180 seconds
1 Carrier
350+100 (4 interceptors) minerals
250 gas
120 seconds
6 supply
The Carriers tech is 10 seconds faster and remember that tech cannot be chrono boosted.
While the carriers themself take more amount to build, chronoboost should help a lot and I think that 1 Carrier is better then 1 Colossus in most circumstances, unless you are going against a lot of marines. So, am I wrong that in theory we should see more Carriers?
Well this is for one colossus and one carrier. If you want to have a nice carrier fleet you'd need at least another stargate, and the other unit options from the stargate aren't as easily viable as the ones from the robo. Observers immortals and warp prisms are all useful for many different purposes, and voids are used for pretty much the same thing as carriers.
Also you can pump out a good number of colossi from one robo (they take almost half as long and can also be chronoboosted) and you can't really get a good carrier fleet from one stargate. And even then, one colossi is more useful than one carrier.
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If Carriers were actually as good as BCs, you'd see more of them.
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Carriers are terrible in this game. I'm not even kidding, try using them one day. Unless you're like 2 expos ahead or your opponent is a complete scrub, your carriers will get gunned down in two seconds before doing any damage, even with the interceptor launch upgrade.
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EPT
