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One of the more controversial changes of patch 1.1.2 is the Void Ray nerf. Many people in the patch notes thread say that the VR was originally meant to counter Battlecruisers, which it supposedly won't be able to do any longer because of the drastically decreased bonus damage especially to armored. So I loaded up the Unit Tester and tried to find out what the VR might be good for now and what Protosses can do against BCs. Here are some of the results. All tests were done without any upgrades. Both opposing groups of units were target fired to kill enemy units as efficiently as possible, i.e. one after the other.
(Disclaimer: Yes, I know, the unit tester creates a highly artificial situation and the results have to be taken with a big grain of salt because in a real game lots of other factors come into play; factors which are also the reason why some say there are no "hard counters" at all. Still, the unit tester and also the concept of hard counters can give you a general idea of a unit's damage output and performance against another unit.)
Battlecruiser versus Void Ray
1 Battlecruiser vs. 1 Void Ray:
-> BC wins with ~380 health left
3 BCs (cost: 1200/900) vs. 3 VR (cost: 750/450)
-> VRs dead, 2 BCs on pretty much full health left
3 BCs (1200/900) vs. 5 VRs (1250/750)
-> 1 damaged VR survives
5 BCs (2000/1500) vs. 10 VRs (2500/1500):
-> BCs dead, 5 VRs left
10 BCs (4000/3000) vs 10 VRs (2500/1500):
-> 6 BCs left
So, I would conclude that while VRs are no eat-em-alive hard counter to BCs, they do fairly well against a BC fleet of equal cost. Also, they still outrun BCs even without the speed upgrade.
Edit: Crosswind and NukeTheBunnys point out that the comparison needs to take the Yamato Cannon into account. Thats's true. Since Void Rays have 150 life and 100 shields and Yamato does 300 damage, BCs can 1-shot VRs without taking any serious damage at all. So in the above scenario of 10 VRs vs 5 BCs, the Terran player could quickly kill 5 VRs with Yamato. Then it would be 5 to 5, which the BCs win with their normal weapons easily (4 BCs remaining).
This gives quite an edge to BCs. One more reason to use consider using Stalkers instead.
Another Edit: Why didn't I mention Feedback? Simply because it's arguably not effective enough to be considered a counter. One Feedback can deal 200 damage max, when the BC's energy is maxed. In most cases it will be much less, and even in this best case the BC has 350 health left and Protoss still has to worry about how to kill it.
Maybe Feedback shouldn't be considered a damage dealer so much as a counter to (read: prevention of) Yamato. Either way, in countering BCs, HTs are support units, comparable maybe to Sentries with some well-placed guardian shields to make Stalkers even more effective.
Stalkers vs. Battlecruisers
Some people suggest Stalkers as P counters agains BCs. So let's see.
5 Stalkers (625/250) vs. 1 BC (400/300):
-> 3 Stalkers survive, one of them damaged
10 Stalkers (1250/500) vs. 1 BC:
-> 9 Stalkers survive
20 Stalkers (2500/1000) vs. 6 BCs (2400/1800):
-> assuming that the terrain allows for the whole Stalker group to fire, I have about 6 Stalkers left when the BCs are dead. When you just a-move and there are obstacles, Stalkers easily get stuck behind each other, allowing BCs to win the battle.
I found that 10 Stalkers (1250/500) are about equal in strength to 3 BCs (1200/900). Depending on the accuracy of my micro and target firing, I sometimes had one severely damaged BC left and sometimes one Stalker.
Again, considering the cost, Stalkers do quite well, and I'd say Blink Stalkers is the way to go vs. BCs.
Clarification edit: I did not use Yamato in the BC/Stalker tests (or anywhere else for that matter). So I guess you could discount one Stalker for each BC, assuming all BCs would one-shot one of them before the actual battle - although in real game situations the BCs will not always have enough energy. If they do, Stalkers still give you a better deal than Void Rays against Yamato because they're cheaper and faster to produce. Vs. Stalkers a BC commander would also have to consider that the Yamato stops the BC from firing for a moment, making it more vulnerable to blinking Stalkers.
Archons: Power overwhelming?
If Protoss went HT, he can use Archons against BCs as well:
1 BC kills 2 Archons, but has only about 70 HP left.
3 Archons kill 1 BC with 2 Archons surviving, making the deal cost efficient. But obviously due to their little range and relative immobility (they're much faster than BCs, but a good Terran will use cliffs to his advantage), Archons can only be of limited use against BCs.
Phoenix into the ashes
As expected, Phoenixes can't do much for poor P. Just for fun, I put 8 Phoenixes, which cost 1200/800, against 3 BCs (1200/900). The Phoenixes do not manage to take a BC down before they're all gone.
Carriers vs. Battlecruisers
Some people are predicting Carriers to become more important, and my testing showed that they might also be useful against BCs in some situations. Some data:
- 1 Battlecruiser vs. 1 Carrier: BC wins and has 200 HP left.
- 3 BCs vs. 3 Carriers: 2 BCs survive, one of them down to ~340 HP.
- 8 BCs (cost: 3200/2400) vs. 9 Carriers (3150/2250): About 2 BCs survive. Toss can turn this around with a +1 air weapon upgrade: 5 Carriers survive! So, if you can sneak an upgrade advantage, your Carriers can deal with the BCs nicely.
But it remains quite a gamble. Terran might switch to Vikings. There's also Yamato, although Yamato isn't as bad as it is with Void Rays because it doesn't one-shot Carriers (it depletes all their shields and leaves them with 150 HP). Another downside is the hidden cost of Carriers, the 4 interceptors you have to build for 100 minerals, making Carriers cost more minerals than BCs (so the 9 Carriers of the above comparison would actually be 4050/2250).
So you can use them, but use them wisely.
Does the Void Ray uncharged buff help vs. Marines?
Since the Void Ray's uncharged beam got a buff, one could assume that early game rushes agains T became more viable because T is likely to have marines and the VR will kill them quicker when it arrives uncharged (and to pre-charge it and keep it charged is not easy when you have other units to micro at the same time). However, I found that one VR still dies to 4 marines in a head-on battle. It can take on 3, having its shields depleted and taking some damage.
Void Ray vs. Zerg
What about Corruptors?
- 1 VR kills one Corruptor and takes only shield damage
- 1 VR gets killed by 2 Corruptors, with one of the Corruptors surviving on low health.
- 6 VRs (1500/900) vs 10 Corruptors (1500/1000) is about an equal match; either 1 VR or 1 Corr. might survive.
Against Mutas, VRs still pretty much suck:
- 3 Mutas kill a VR with 2 Mutas surviving
- 1 VR kills 2 Mutas but is on low health.
Vs. Zerg base defenses:
- 1 VR dies to 1 Spore Crawler which has 110 HP left
- 2 VRs kill 1 Spore Crawler, one of them will be on low health if not microed
- 1 VR still kills 1 Queen but takes considerable damage.
I didn't test VRs against Hydras because they were always weak against them exept when charged, speed-upgraded and in large numbers.
Thanks for reading, hope you find it useful.
On October 21 2010 05:35 TanukTanukTuk wrote:
Another figure to note for zerg is that now
3 queens > 2 void rays
1 queen survives. This assumes no micro and no transfusion and that both void rays start the fight fully charged.
I do not believe that was the case before
Thanks! I tested it and it didn't matter if the VRs were charged or not.
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It should probably be noted that if the BC's had Yamato, they would beat the Void Rays pretty handily.
-Cross
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1.1.2 isn't it?
Why aren't you comparing supply used instead? I thought that was the best way to compare. At least ONLY comparing equal resources used isn't any good.
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You mean, spore crawlers?
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Thank you OP for your efforts! I haven't gotten around to messing with this stuff yet so I appreciate it.
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And there are always 20 scvs repairing bcs. Late game bcs are beatable but when people rush bc with ground army, you got only vr counter but right now it is nonexistant
ps: protoss has no goddamn aa at all
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interesting. seem like Toss don't have a true "hard counter" to BCs, but they def. have some cost effective options, and Void Rays are still among them
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On October 15 2010 23:37 Darksoldierr wrote:
You mean, spore crawlers?
Lol, yeah, Spines don't help much :D
Changed it, thanks.
On October 15 2010 23:36 quasit wrote:
1.1.2 isn't it?
Damnit, of course. Can't edit the title unfortunately.
Why aren't you comparing supply used instead? I thought that was the best way to compare.
No specific reason, it's just a different issue, and I think the mineral/gas cost is in most situations the more important one.
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You forgot about one thing when comparing the BC to VR, Yamato cannon. It lets the BC instantly take out as many void rays as there are BC, which was always the case, which is why I have always thought expensive things are a bad counter to BC and that its much better to use a bunch of blink stalkers because taking out 6 of 20 stalkers is a lot less damaging then taking out 6/10 void rays
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I think since WG is so versatile it shouldn't be ignored how powerful 1 sentry with GS can be against BCs(even while it will be shot down fast, it will have negated tons of dmg).
That being said, while VR is AtA and AtG, it limits the AtA capability of toss a lot, which is imo the main problem.
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Stalkers with guardian shield take 5 damage from BC's, void rays take 3 damage with guardian shield.
Battlecruiser damage for cost is so pitiful after the nerf it takes an eternity for them to kill anything.
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Can't Carriers kite BCs pretty much indefinitely? They're faster, and as someone on this forum showed, their effective attacking "range" when Interceptors are out is ludicrous, the longest attack range in the game outside of HSM. Especially with Graviton Catapult, I'd think Carriers could take down BCs. Or does Yamato Cannon tip things far enough in the BCs favor to give them the win in a matchup of Capital ships?
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Carriers take 1 damage from BC's when they have guardian shield up.
Since bc's move so slow you can probably just micro the carrier + sentries in a way that BC's can only hit you for 1's, or if he moves you can just move back and he still takes damage from interceptors.
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You took a look at voidray vs other anti air-
I think the whole point of the patch was to make them viable elsewhere!!
PvP has always been a giant colo monster mash-
EVERY single game was 2 gate robo, then doing fun stuff there.
Phoenix's weren't that effective vs protoss as they are against zerg
but now, VR's will actually do really well against robo tech- namely the colossus. Maybe not as powerful as vikings or corrupters vs colos- but just the level 1 damage alone of VR means they can harm the colo if it doesn't have stalker support. (and with your main army engaging as well the stalkers won't be protecting the colo 100% of the time)
could you perhaps do the match calculations of VR vs some non AA units?- I think that will prove that VR's can now get implemented into your main army comp, instead of being some sort of gimmicky harassing unit.
Specifically, I want to see how well the VR does against an immortal-always a big pain in PvP.
If you examine it closely- you'll see that the VR does 10 damage vs armored units in level 1-this is JUST under the threshold of immorts hardened shield.
The thing I want to know is that will the VR level 1 attack drain the shields of an immort fast enough that when the level 2 attack hits, will there still be hardened shields to prevent the excess damage? This would also allow the VR to charge up on the immort, and once that is dead it now has the still powerful level 2 attack to be used against any stalkers/zealots
2 gate robo vs fast stargate is the MU to look for.
Edit: Oh and maybe if protoss players opt for early VR's that itself lends to an easier transition into carriers. I think we might finally see some dynamic mirror matches where VR carrier fleets will take on stalker colos!!
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I think the OP fails to recognize that bc armies generall have a marauder or marine accompenment, with the purpose of putting a sizable dent in the stalker army, while deterring blinks under the bcs. Think 5 battle cruisers with 15 marauaders, or 30 marines, and things start to get ugly. It's like banshee marine, while the stalkers may be cost effecient against banshees, and AoE options are avaiblible for marines, when combined they mow over stalkers and are a bit more durable against storm.
EDIT: People say carriers will get popular, i think this is true only in pvp, where the main air to air counter has been nerfed. I think the pvp match up will have a lot of fient fast gas 4 gates into carriers, while the other player must call this bluff, and mass expo gateway units. Carrier Gateway against Gateway seems pretty cool to me. I want to see the opponent abuse the lack of mobility.
In PvT, you don't really go for carriers, just cause if you do, you invested a major amount of money away from something that can kill bc's (In an even game, the threat of a transition is always out there in the lategame). Vikings battlecruiser loses the corrupter effect (that is, you make too many a-a units and get rolled by the 20 warpgate ground army), and the BC's are pretty good at tanking and taking out interceptors.
PvZ, corrupters are just too fast, I doubt there is a carrier transition that does not leave a moderate sized hole for the zerg to drone up. Carrier templar stalker is probably the way to go, storming hydras and corrupters.
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I will say, one thing I do really like about the Void nerf is that it might mean we see more Carrier play. Carriers have been a favorite of mine in BW, and I've long thought they're underestimated in SC2--a few Carriers with attack upgrades can chew through an entire army in seconds.
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What if every BC has a yamato readY?
But yeah, cool and all, but no one ever sends 1->10 BCs into anything on their own
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I think people were referring to actual armies where the Terran had added BC's. I expect Protoss will struggle pretty badly there due to Vikings, Marines and Medivacs. If you can find a combo that works well I'd certainly like to know what it is.
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stalkers are good vs bcs hmm i didnt think they did that well
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The end all be all answer to all toss air vs BC is Yamamoto cannon, it totaly flips all cost questions greatly into the BC's favor with the exception of the phoenix.. but that thing might as well be throwing peanuts at the BC with it's mighty 2x2 dmg 
what toss needs is for blizz to release the Scout for multiplayer as it would be that instant "high" dmg anti armoured flyer that toss needs to change PvP away from colossi power strugle along with providing an actual counter to viking, BC and coruptors
my 2 cents anyhow
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EPT
