On October 15 2010 23:58 Chronopolis wrote: 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.
I completely agree with what you are saying here and have started working on my early stargate/4gate feint into stargate strats already. I've found that if the opponent doesn't see it coming and if the first push is successful it is completely dominant and can end the game <15mins. If the first push breaks even, you can keep their natural expo blocked off (PvT/P) and lay your own down giving you the opportunity for a macro win. I typically build a small mixed ground force then move out when I have 2 or 3 voids, with my first void being produced around the 6:15min mark and attacking around 7:00min. With air support, you can build a pylon near an edge of their base and warp in units behind their defences, head straight to the mins and GGKTHNXBYE. The early Stargate also transitions well into Pheonix harass (better with the bug fix), Carriers, or Mothership.
The VR stage 1 bonus damage to armour makes them an effective early game counter to Marine Marauder, Roaches and Zealots. Especially effective if the units have no AA capability.
Counters that I find are really effective against my strats are: Zerg: Mass Hydras Terran: Marine Medivac Protoss: Cannon early expand (not tested yet), 4Gate (unless you can sentry the army outside your choke) & Mass Stalker (not tested yet).
My mix of stalkers and voids can easily deal with Corruptors, Mutas and Vikings if you put the pressure on early.
I believe that the strategy only works well on maps with small chokes, like Xel Naga Caverns etc, so that you can block enemy scouts from seeing your early Stargate.
Although VRs have been seriously nerf'd for late game play, I think that they were OP in midgame anyway. It didn't really make any sense to have a midgame unit become the most powerful air unit through the late game. The best part about the entire VR "nerf" is the introduction of more dynamic early game strats from P (now 3 gate robo colossus isn't the only good early tech option). It also forces other races to use unit builds that aren't leading tournaments currently. I mean, when do you see Hydras these days? I think this patch has forced Protoss to become much more resourceful, aggressive and rely less on mid-late game 12 gate macro warp-ins.
We will definitely be seeing more carriers now. CARRIER HAS ARRIVED! Maybe even mothership as well. If you know that your enemy has no early detection because they are busy building units to hold off your push and expand, how exactly would they be able to deal with cloaked VRs, stalkers and Vortex?
I'm actually really excited about this patch will play out, if you can't tell already.
On October 16 2010 06:15 Bear4188 wrote: All of this only seems meaningful in silver level 4v4s. Nobody in a high level 1v1 is going to allow a T to build more than a couple of BCs, and nobody is going to allow a P to amass a large number of void rays.
Watch carefully. A VR example could be found as easily but I won't bother.
You're making it appear as if in 1on1 both players were always in a position to determine what their opponent is "allowed" to do.
It should be mentioned that BCs are incredibly slow. You're looking at the situation wrong if you're just thinking about how units do head to head against BCs. The Void Rays can pre charge then run into battle, then the BCs are dead. If things look bad the VRs can run away, but the BCs can't.
On October 16 2010 07:35 TurtlePerson2 wrote: It should be mentioned that BCs are incredibly slow. You're looking at the situation wrong if you're just thinking about how units do head to head against BCs. The Void Rays can pre charge then run into battle, then the BCs are dead. If things look bad the VRs can run away, but the BCs can't.
Also, Yamato ready BCs are asking for feedback.
In therory it would always be great to have a HT ready when a banshee shows up for they could feedback them but in actual gameplay this is hardly anytime the case except you did manage to scout for it somehow and have the tech and the ht has the energy and ... in most cases the banshee will be microed into your base to have full effect of surprise and you are far from hts ...
please do not argue like everything would be fine and lining up options which are all situational depending on factors and stuff.
the fact stands protoss is actually behind when it comes to the ability of securing airspace against the other races, period. so either toss manged to kill the opponent on the ground in the mid game or chances are the game will end in a loss for the toss the moment the opponent manages to go heavy air.
possible counter measures: Stalker - well there is a supply cap and you need way more ressources than the other guy, so no good idea. don't argue with blink and micro for the terran is also able to micro the BC fire killing your stalkers faster than you might realize.. Phoenix - Nope scratches don't kill. Carrier - hardly, requires micro and micro also is the carriers biggest enemy - stimmed marines... Voidray - is kinda not cost efficient anymore so no "counter", means there are no countering units left. oh sorry sentries anyone ? stalker + sentry right, again micro and the GS is gone and the sentry is not able to blink in with the stalkers... -> not viable because of to many influencing factors!
so we are back to unit x needs some sort of counter and there is no viable unit y left, that is the actual case. voidrays still could do the job in theory but the imbalance is given when one race has "hard counters" and the other has not.
so either make all of SC2 throwing plush giraffes at each other or blizzard should maybe come up with a new air concept for toss one that perhaps is less gimmicky less micro intense for toss already is forced to warpin units away from battles.
my 2 cent ... TY op for the testing results..
edit ----- carriers carriers with an upgrade are an option they are able to outrun the BC's and stilldeal damage to them. but again why does toss always need to get upgrade to get viable units i mean that legspeed thing transfering the victim into the killer of these pesty marauders... why can't toss just have good units like anyone else?
Did some tests myself with Unit Tester and found out that 0-0-0 32Void Rays vs 0-0 20Cruiser is quite balanced and most of the time 4 voidrays survive damaged....
BUT fighting with 1-0-0 Void Rays against 1-0-0 Cruiser, the Cruiser win the battle pretty good, 6 or more survive...
By looking up the damage of the VoidRay Upgrade a 0-0-0 Void Ray does 8/8 and a 1-0-0 Void Ray does 9/9 dmg. Pre Patch 1.1.2 An attack upgrad added 4 dmg for the Void ray, now it's only 2 dmg..
Another interesting thing is when i fought with 0-1-0 Voidrays against 1-0-0 Cruiser only 4 survived, overall armor seemed to be the better option, bad thing is that in endgame toss will also need Shield what looks for me like a problem for the costeffectiveness.
Wouldn't the T player get atleast one raven? drop two drones +scan +Y+mouseclick 6 times on different targets? that'd turn it into 14 vs 6 in 2 seconds
void rays are kind of a dumb, poorly executed unit right now. They are supposed to be good at taking down high HP units, but poor against a large number of low HP units. But with their range and now damage nerfs, they are shitty against even the things they are supposed to be best against--carriers and BCs. Meanwhile, with their ability to pre-charge on a proxy pylon and switch targets instantly at no penalty, they can actually be devastatingly powerful against large numbers of low-hp units provided they reach a critical mass. This is completely counter-intuitive and at cross-purposes with their original intention.
The best idea I've heard so far is buff void rays in every way BUT make them lose charge when switching targets. Hell, you could even have like a 1 second cooldown where they can't do anything after switching targets. Make them cost effective at taking down BCs and carriers and buildings and so on, but with the penalty for switching targets they should be shit against marines and stalkers and hydras and vikings and phoenixes and so on.
On October 16 2010 06:18 Rejuvenation wrote: After the ground damage nerf on BC i always been using stalkers to counter BC's. They're beasts!
Yeah, stalker/sentry/colossus takes down BC/MMM easily enough. A few colossi wipe out the mmm lickity split, guardian shield wipes out 1/3rd of the BC and marine damage, and stalkers easily mop up. Also having both colossus and sentries presents terran with a real catch-22 about which to focus down first because the colossus will wipe out his infantry instantly if he doesn't take them out with yamato, but at the same time he's doing practically no damage for as long as those sentries are alive.
Seems to me that BCs are unbeatable based on all the whining in this thread about their OPness. If you targetfire BCs with fully charged void rays + some stalkers, they go down pretty easily. Mix in some feedbacks and your fine.
I think the main problem of Void Rays is the charge mechanic itself. It adds a certain "random" effect to the game Blizzard tried to eliminate. Why random? Because the outcome of battles can vary, depending on certain factors like rocks near the bases or being able to keep the charge up.
The question is: What role should the Void Ray have? Flying siege unit of doom, overlapping with Carriers, or a counter to big units like BCs?
If it's the latter one, why not giving them low basic damage, abandon the charge mechanic and give them an attack bonus against units, based on their HP? That would change their role to what is was to supposed to: Countering big units while sucking against small units.
Basic example with random numbers to showcase the idea (not saying these numbers would be balanced):
0,6 attack speed, 3 damage, 4% attack bonus based on unit HP:
Against a BC: (3 + (550*0,04)) /0,6 = 41,7 DPS
Against a Marine with health upgrade: (3 + (55*0,04)) /0,6 = 8,7 DPS
Good against big units, bad against small units. No random involved.
storm + feedback + blink stalker rapes a bc army more than anything else :p also u can mix in some voidrays in that, but ofcourse they must be charged before the battle and u have to feedback the bcs before the voidrays come in else yamato gg them
On October 17 2010 22:49 devolore wrote: Out of curiousity, how do Carriers or even Phoenixes fare against BC's?
carriers is really good vs bc if fthey dont have yamato, then u can outrange the bcs and back while attacking. if they got yamato and a splash of rines or vikings in the mix its not same story tho
i think when u make these tests u should try unit combos more rather than 1 unit vs 1 unit. its like trying to find a cost efficient unit vs marauder with only 1 unit type, its pretty damn hard. doesnt mean the marauders r imba, just means u need to mix it up to counter them well. sc2 is not the only game like this. if u pare up pure dragoons vs tanks or pure zealots vs tanks, then the tanks lose cause they have no meatshield, but as soon as u get in the vultures its much better
EPT
