The purpose of this thread is to find the best way to stack air units and use them stacked. The way that can be used in high level games by high level players. I'm going to expand the OP over time. For now I want write about what I have discovered. I think I've found the way to stack air units in SC2 and it's not that different from the way it's done in BW.
Why stacking air units is always good? Putting aside Thors, Storm, Seeker Missiles and Fungal. Scout people!
People who know it from BW can skip this.
It allows to make them more efficient in what they are doing. They can deal better damage and bypass defenses better, and because of that pose a grater threat. Posing a threat is sometimes main or the only way they can deal damage - by forcing defender to spend resources on defenses. Or for example forcing Terran to stim his Marines only to see the harassing air units flee instead of engaging. If holes in the opponents vision can be created then it can also be used to launch surprise drops. However large numbers of clumped transports may not unload all of the ground units so once that happens, ordering them to drop again not far away is advised. It can also be used to outmicro a player with a bigger number of the same air units (for example Mutalisks or Vikings).
They can take less damage themselves and spread it out over more units. Less of them may die and each unit that doesn't die deals damage. Which means it's always better to have a damaged unit instead of a dead one. What's more, all of the 3 races can use something to save their damaged units: Protoss have the shield regeneration which means, over time, damage not dealt to the armor hit points can be the same as damage not dealt at all. Zerg have Queens with the Transfusion spell and recently Day[9] has shown how much underused they are Terran can repair their units that many times faster than making new ones, as many SCVs and Mules are repairing. And only for 1/4 of the cost of making the new unit, Medivacs being the only exception?
If less of them can do what more, non stacked of them can do, then more resources can be spent on something else.
It adds another layer of skill required to win in this game, while it doesn't break the game at lower levels because
it's not easy
all of the air units can overkill (not sure about BCs and Interceptors) so clumping them too much makes them less efficient. This can also be an answer to calling this "not natural" and after so many "Viking flowers" it's too late anyway.
I believe that concern about Thors shown in this thread means there is a lot of people who will avoid stacking their air units at all costs, whether opponent has Thors (or other means necessary to deal with stacked air units) or not
The mechanic - THE 2 WAYS TO STACK AIR UNITS IN SC2
On February 17 2011 10:57 Keitzer wrote: and the number of units doesn't (or doesn't seem to) affect the way the magic box is formed...
i've stacked everything from 2 to 200 mutas / voids / vikings with ease... all you do is click inside the "box"
What I'm writing about requires less clicking.
It's not that different from the rules of BW http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Magic_box. Air units, to quote BW Liquipedia: "must be grouped with a unit a sufficient distance away, which triggers the magic box to activate".
What is different is:
the unit must be in a state that allows it to move. It can't be a building, a larva or a Siege Tank in Siege Mode. If burrowed, it can only be an Infestor or Roach with Tunneling Claws upgrade researched.
Air units will always attempt to spread after about a second they were given an order. This means about one additional right click per second to keep them stacked but doesn't mean spamming right clicks "at their feet" to keep them stacked. Really, it's much easier than most people probably think. Additionally, when on the move units attempt to spread only in directions perpendicular to the one they are moving.
Another easy way to stack air units I would call non combat and "initial" to the one above is having one of them on a separate hotkey, ordering only it to move and ordering the rest to follow it. It can allow to have them close to each other with less clicks needed when moving them on longer distances. It also causes them to de-stack slower when they aren't moving. In case of Banshees, it causes them to de-stack very, very slowly. This is "on the move" equivalent to keeping them stacked with Patrol.
A thing that allows them to "dance" better is when turning them back in about ~165 degrees, they change direction nearly instantly and don't make a turns that in BW required http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Mutalisk_vs_Scourge_Control#Method_2_:_The_Chinese_Triangle_Method to be used. This is extremely helpful because all of the air units need to stop before attacking, which means they take additional fire from units that outrange them.
Speed of de-stacking depends on the speed of a unit. Phoenixes and Mutas require the most clicks.
What also needs to be pointed out is keeping air units stacked becomes easier the more of them you have because...
The problem - HOW TO SOLVE THE OVERKILL?
This is where your brainstorming comes in. Units stacked too much terribly overkill. When engaging with larger numbers of units it's actually better to do it without the additional unit that triggers the magic box. My initial idea is to have the units in two control groups - one with the additional unit that causes the magic box to trigger and one without it. And to switch between them right before engaging, to allow them to de-stack more. Doing this requires a lot of trial and error play in unit testers to know when to switch between the groups (or Shift deselect that additional unit).
It's 2:30 AM so with work tomorrow I am going to sleep but I will update this with screenshots, numbers of air units that cause the magic box to trigger because there are too many to stay within it's boundaries and ways to deal with the clumped units. Did you know it takes 5 storms to kill a moving Muta, 4 to kill Medivacs, Banshees and Vikings and 7 to kill a moving Corruptor?
In case you don't know, stacking air units don't actually fire at the exact same time. Blizzard confirmed that there is a slight delay (like 1/10th of a second) if you are firing a bunch of air units. This makes sc2 stacked air units slightly less powerful than bw stacked units. I'll try to find the source.
On February 17 2011 10:55 TehForce wrote: Thors vaporize any stacked air unit
mass thors own mass voidray because it is sooo hard to NOT stack the voidrays while attacking
I so found this out the hard way. I got a stargate I scouted the armory, , made void rays, did some probe harass with phoenices, the guy didn't attack, I thought he was going to thor rush, made more void rays because I scouted his sick amount of thors with an observer. I had a looot of void rays and was on 4 base versus his 2 base, he was so passive, I was like 'No need to attack, I'm on more bases and my army counters his, just play it out passively and I'll win.'
not, he walked over me, I had no idea how it could happen, I he had mass thors and some marines and marauders, I thought my army comp would beat his and I had more bases, but not really (We were both maxed I'd reckon).
Watching the reply I realized just how much my void rays stacked against the splash. Should have just kited him with colossi really...
Are you sure that the BW magic box applies to stacking in SC2? From what I've seen and played, grouping another unit with flyers does not affect stacking in any way in SC2. The SC2 "magic box" is mostly used to allow for muta spread against Thors, unlike in BW where it was used to stack mutas.
Otherwise, I think flyer stacking really depends on the situation and the opponent's unit composition. If the opponent doesn't have Thors, archons, Templar, or infestors, then I think it may be very favorable to stack flyers as a method of making micro much less clumsy. It's much easier to dart in and out to pick off units and buildings with stacked flyers compared to a spread out cloud.
Also, I do recall that the Viking flower was mainly devised as a way of hiding true Viking numbers so that the opponent becomes more likely to engage unfavorably with an inferior Viking count. Also, Viking flowers are usually guaranteed to pick off at least one opposing Viking.
edit: lol I was so sleepy I slightly misread your post. Time to edit.
On February 17 2011 11:06 eviltomahawk wrote: Are you sure that the BW magic box applies to stacking in SC2?
Yes
From what I've seen and played, grouping another unit with flyers does not affect stacking in any way in SC2. The SC2 "magic box" is mostly used to allow for muta spread against Thors, unlike in BW where it was used to stack mutas.
so far it was only that way because no one knew how to micro them properly
Otherwise, I think flyer stacking really depends on the situation and the opponent's unit composition. If the opponent doesn't have Thors, archons, Templar, or infestors, then I think it may be very favorable to stack flyers as a method of making micro much less clumsy. It's much easier to dart in and out to pick off units and buildings with stacked flyers compared to a spread out cloud. Exactly but even if he does all that is needed is to avoid them and / or move the flyers spread out. Even though all fighter units automaticly switch to higher threat targets, some of them shoot slowly enough to, for example in ZvT, send in first an Overlord with speed or a Corruptor to tank the first volley of shots while Mutas stay behind and out of Thor's range.
Storm isn't as scary as it was in BW and even there, at some point Protoss had a huge trouble when dealing with Mutas. In SC2 it deals less damage and because it's a 3D game, the Storm needs to be properly placed to deal damage. In tests It took me 5 full Storms to kill a moving Mutalisks. By full I mean I was placing them in a way that the moving Muta would stay in it for as long as possible. Imagine people dodging Storms and keeping their flyers on a few hotkeys to spread them ASAP once they (feel they will) get hit by one. Something similar can be used against Infestors I think.
Also, I do recall that the Viking flower was mainly devised as a way of hiding true Viking numbers so that the opponent becomes more likely to engage unfavorably with an inferior Viking count. Also, Viking flowers are usually guaranteed to pick off at least one opposing Viking.
There are at least 2 ways to nullify a Viking stack - Point Defense Drone and cloaking a Banshee as Vikings fire and a Banshee would be a great bait to make those Vikings move. I think Thors too are sometimes used to hit the stacked Vikings and to tank. But before all of that, it takes only 5 Vikings to one shot a Viking, 6 to one shot a Medivac. Poking someone's base may occur before Viking flowers start to matter.
On February 17 2011 10:54 darmousseh wrote: In case you don't know, stacking air units don't actually fire at the exact same time. Blizzard confirmed that there is a slight delay (like 1/10th of a second) if you are firing a bunch of air units. This makes sc2 stacked air units slightly less powerful than bw stacked units. I'll try to find the source.
The much worse thing is they need to stop to fire. This coupled with lag can be difficult to overcome - player needs to order them to move back in advance but not too soon or they will move back without shooting while getting in range of something that can shoot them. Another thing is when spread a bit they need to take a turn after stopping, they need to face their target before they fire. It takes a very small split of second but may mean some of them won't fire at all when microed in haste.
But still, I think stacking air units can be a world of difference when dealing with for example Colossi, Phoenixes, Vikings and trying to snipe Turrets, Photon Cannons and Spores.
On February 17 2011 10:54 darmousseh wrote: In case you don't know, stacking air units don't actually fire at the exact same time. Blizzard confirmed that there is a slight delay (like 1/10th of a second) if you are firing a bunch of air units. This makes sc2 stacked air units slightly less powerful than bw stacked units. I'll try to find the source.
It was from that thread talking about siege tanks in siege mode with smart fire.
yeah thors would get insane damage on mutas. usually they hit 4-6 but stacked they would hit 30 at once. And muta micro would make zvt totally one sided.
On February 19 2011 11:36 iPood wrote: yeah thors would get insane damage on mutas. usually they hit 4-6 but stacked they would hit 30 at once. And muta micro would make zvt totally one sided.
and the number of units doesn't (or doesn't seem to) affect the way the magic box is formed...
i've stacked everything from 2 to 200 mutas / voids / vikings with ease... all you do is click inside the "box"
Well you dont actually need to click inside the box. As long as the other unit is far enough away, that means that your group is constantly in a box bigger than the magic box. Thus, clicking anywhere at all will cause them to stack. It is only when your units actually fit within the magic box that clicking inside applies. If your group of units is small enough to fit within a magic box (6x6 for ground, 7x7 for air), then clicking outside will cause them to retain formation, clicking inside will cause them to stack. If your group is bigger than the magic box, any move command will cause stacking.
The thing is though, they unstack rather fast. Anywhere you order them to move, they will unstack in a perpendicular motion, and only stack again once they reach the point where you ordered them to go, so once they decelerate. So you cant really keep them stacked up while keeping them moving at high speeds, you can only really stack them up wile moving at slow speeds, having them decelerate every now and then. This kinda makes it a bit useless. And the other part, even if stacked up to a maximum, they wont all fire at once. So in the end, what do you really gain by stacking them? You can kinda hide the damaged mutas a little, making them harder to focus fire down, but you lose some mobility doing that, thus overall, your mutas will get shot at more, or have less time to dps. You cant really one-shot stuff better, or more effectively, and when firing multiple times at something, you either lose dps to keep them moving to stack them up, or they spread out.
It doesnt really seem to have all that much of an advantage. I mean, the main reason it was good in BW, was that they would all behave as a single muta, and fire at once, and you would be able to keep them constantly moving without ever decelerating, so they were extremely mobile. Now though, well they dont behave as a single muta, at all. They just behave like clumped up mutas, which isnt really all that amazing. And you need to keep decelerating them to keep them stacked up, so you lose out on mobility. And thors exist now. Before, you could see archons, and still avoid them with your clumped up mutas. but thors, since your mutas have 11 vision, and thors have 10 range, and mutas move so fast... Its nearly impossible to harass a terran base that has a thor, and avoid getting shot by the thor.
So really, while it indeed is possible to keep them clumped up to a certain extent, I dont really see the advantage at all at least for mutas.
I recall one of the ladder games between Slayersboxer and jinro, the really recent one; boxer stacks his vikings with his banshee so it's impossible for marines to target the banshees. I thought it was pure genius!
Edit: I can't find it in english, how sad Although the frenchies are kinda funny sounding Sorry I can't find the time where he does it, but watch the game and see for yourself, it's totally worth it.
I don't understand why some people are saying this is irrelevant since it's the same concept as in SC2, with similar advantages/disadvantages. Obviously, you don't want to stack in some situations, but you do in others. That's why you micro. Even if stacked units don't fire exactly at the same time, it's better 90% of the time than if they were not stacked -- take less damage, less exposure, increased damage, etc.
But the point I really want to get into is that while Thors do own Void Rays by themselves, a good Chargelot, Templar, Voidray army can tear through this pretty well. Feedbacking any Medivacs and storming any infantry leaves the Thors vulnerable vs the Void Rays and Zealots.
On February 19 2011 17:17 morimacil wrote:So really, while it indeed is possible to keep them clumped up to a certain extent, I dont really see the advantage at all at least for mutas.
OP explained the advantage, or?
I think it's always good to keep them stacked where there are no thors around - you take much less damage overall.
Also I think that thor's very huge range with splash is a bad thing for such game because it deters the unit micro.
I think Mutas already clump up automatically when you order them to attack a target, instead of A-Moving. And after that point I think you can use them similar to the Mutas in BW but not for long I suppose. I guess they start spreading when you stop attacking or something. Can anyone clarify this?
I think it's always good to keep them stacked where there are no thors around - you take much less damage overall.
Even if stacked units don't fire exactly at the same time, it's better 90% of the time than if they were not stacked -- take less damage, less exposure, increased damage, etc.
They take less damage? Not really. The OP's point is that the damage will be more spread out amongst units, which is a valid point, and thats a nice bonus. But my point, if you actually read my post, is that in SC2 unlike in SC1, you cant keep mutas stacked together without slowing down. In SC1, stacked mutas could stay at full speed, never decelerating, and stay stacked. Thus, the stacking didnt really have any negative effects outside of splash. But in SC2, your mutas will unstack if you keep moving around at full speed, and only stay stacked if you keep decelerating every few seconds. Thus the stacking, and hiding of the damaged units comes at a price in SC2, reduced mobility. And since your mutas will be less mobile, they will end up taking more damage overall, even if the damage is more spread out amongst the mutas. Mobility is the only thing that allows mutas to avoid damage. Slower mutas constantly decelerating, means more damage taken, or having to pull back faster, thus less damage done.
increased damage
Stacked mutas dont do more dps than unstacked mutas. They never did. The advantage, in SC1, was that since they would behave as a single muta, and all shoot at the same time, having them stacked allowed you to get more kills, instead of spread out damage. But in SC2, well they dont behave as a single muta, and dont shoot as one. Thus it doesnt really matter if they are stacked or not. They dont do greater damage when stacked, never did, and now they also dont kill specific units better when stacked, since they dont behave as a single muta, but still behave as a group of mutas.
In BW, stacking mutas: Allowed you to hide damaged mutas, thus spreading out damage better Allowed them to behave as a single muta Was more vulnerable to splash
In SC2: Allows you to hide damaged mutas, thus spreading out damage better Requires the mutas to constantly decelerate Is more vulnerable to splash.
Its not the same now as it was before, so while before, stacking against non splash was strictly better, I dont believe thats the case anymore. Unless someone can find a way to make SC2 mutas behave as one, and/or stay stacked without decelerating. In which case, it will indeed always be better to stack them than to have them spread as long as no splash is involved.
I guess they start spreading when you stop attacking or something. Can anyone clarify this?
For mutas grouped with a far away unit, outside the range of the magic box: Whenever they decelerate, they clump up. Whenever they are not decelerating, they spread out.
So if they stop, because they are attacking a target, once they stop, they will start to spread out. If you tell them to go somewhere, they will start spreading out, and then clump back up when they near the destination and start decelerating, and then spread out again once they stopped. If you keep them at full speed, they keep on spreading out.
For mutas in a group small enough to fit inside the magic box: They will clump up if ordered to move somewhere inside the box. And spread out again once deceleration stopped If ordered to attack a specific target, or to attack move, they will stay in formation, then once the target is near, they will decelerate, and clump up during the deceleration. And then start to spread out once again as soon as the deceleration stopped.
Its worth noting that the only time ever that clumping up occurs outside of deceleration, is when a group of mutas small enough to fit inside the magic box, is told to move to a location inside the box created by those mutas. Otherwise, all clumping up requires deceleration, and thus clumping up mutas means losing a lot of mobility.
On February 19 2011 17:25 MrRicewife wrote: I recall one of the ladder games between Slayersboxer and jinro, the really recent one; boxer stacks his vikings with his banshee so it's impossible for marines to target the banshees. I thought it was pure genius!
Edit: I can't find it in english, how sad Although the frenchies are kinda funny sounding Sorry I can't find the time where he does it, but watch the game and see for yourself, it's totally worth it.
That's cool, but wouldn't the marines automatically target the banshees anyway, since they would prioritize them over the vikings? I didn't watch the game yet.
Anyway, still could probably find some cool uses of the "flower trick" using that idea of "hiding" units, though.
Even if stacked units don't fire exactly at the same time, it's better 90% of the time than if they were not stacked -- take less damage, less exposure, increased damage, etc.
They take less damage? Not really. The OP's point is that the damage will be more spread out amongst units, which is a valid point, and thats a nice bonus. But my point, if you actually read my post, is that in SC2 unlike in SC1, you cant keep mutas stacked together without slowing down. In SC1, stacked mutas could stay at full speed, never decelerating, and stay stacked. Thus, the stacking didnt really have any negative effects outside of splash. But in SC2, your mutas will unstack if you keep moving around at full speed, and only stay stacked if you keep decelerating every few seconds. Thus the stacking, and hiding of the damaged units comes at a price in SC2, reduced mobility. And since your mutas will be less mobile, they will end up taking more damage overall, even if the damage is more spread out amongst the mutas. Mobility is the only thing that allows mutas to avoid damage. Slower mutas constantly decelerating, means more damage taken, or having to pull back faster, thus less damage done.
Stacked mutas dont do more dps than unstacked mutas. They never did. The advantage, in SC1, was that since they would behave as a single muta, and all shoot at the same time, having them stacked allowed you to get more kills, instead of spread out damage. But in SC2, well they dont behave as a single muta, and dont shoot as one. Thus it doesnt really matter if they are stacked or not. They dont do greater damage when stacked, never did, and now they also dont kill specific units better when stacked, since they dont behave as a single muta, but still behave as a group of mutas.
In BW, stacking mutas: Allowed you to hide damaged mutas, thus spreading out damage better Allowed them to behave as a single muta Was more vulnerable to splash
In SC2: Allows you to hide damaged mutas, thus spreading out damage better Requires the mutas to constantly decelerate Is more vulnerable to splash.
Its not the same now as it was before, so while before, stacking against non splash was strictly better, I dont believe thats the case anymore. Unless someone can find a way to make SC2 mutas behave as one, and/or stay stacked without decelerating. In which case, it will indeed always be better to stack them than to have them spread as long as no splash is involved.
Noone said it's the same as in BW.
They take less damage? Not really.
Of course they will take less damage. Imagine situation where you have mutas and want to snipe expansion's extractor on LT. You can stack mutas and snipe that flying near the cliff with much less casualities than you would be killing that extractor with just a-click.
Or another example, you are somewhere in the middle to terran base and around you there are turrets. You stack mutas and snipe something so maybe only 1 turret is shooting at you at the same time, if you don't stack it will be like 3 turrets shooting at your mutas. Same with tanks/marines - if you want to snipe sieged tanks near the marines you will have much more casualities if you don't stack.
This is where your brainstorming comes in. Units stacked too much terribly overkill. When engaging with larger numbers of units it's actually better to do it without the additional unit that triggers the magic box.
Void rays don't overkill, if I'm correct on the prismatic beam mechanic. Which makes stacked voids the sexiest air force out there! XD
On February 19 2011 17:25 MrRicewife wrote: I recall one of the ladder games between Slayersboxer and jinro, the really recent one; boxer stacks his vikings with his banshee so it's impossible for marines to target the banshees. I thought it was pure genius!
Edit: I can't find it in english, how sad Although the frenchies are kinda funny sounding Sorry I can't find the time where he does it, but watch the game and see for yourself, it's totally worth it. + Show Spoiler +
Banshees have a higher thread priority, so marines auto target them. That's the reason that for instance overlord drops work. The ground army engaging will take all the priority for the terran, so the ovies can fly in unharmed unless the marines in the back arn't fighting.
about mass voidrays vs mass thors. Voidrays attack while moving you don't loose alot damage output with magic box. (but yeah you need to do somthing against those marines). (but the best thing to go for against the 2 bass mass thor push is an early voidray attack with guardian shield to negate the marines)
About stacked voidrays, if their damage output is to high they don't charge, so i think stacking them would make the focus on single targets to much.
On February 19 2011 19:35 FeyFey wrote: about mass voidrays vs mass thors. Voidrays attack while moving you don't loose alot damage output with magic box. (but yeah you need to do somthing against those marines). (but the best thing to go for against the 2 bass mass thor push is an early voidray attack with guardian shield to negate the marines)
About stacked voidrays, if their damage output is to high they don't charge, so i think stacking them would make the focus on single targets to much.
Indeed. I'd say having the voids spread out is alot better, as targets tend to die too fast for the charge up to occur. You can start target fireing (read stacking) once they're charged up though.
Well I have to admit, that this is this first OP since some time I cant figure out. Clearly there is a conclusion and a question inside but I just cant see it ._.
So sry if my response does not match it:
During a shower ( :> ) I had the idea to benefit from Phoenix' Abliity to shoot while moving by simply sticking them to a leader-phoenix and only micro that one in order to create a compact stack. Unfortunatly due to the slow acceleration of phoenixes in comparison to their maximum speed, they tend to catch up to the leader eventually and then falling far behind, resulting in in a semi-Limboline with a single or couple phoenixes at the end. Therefore I tried the same with all kind of other air units. Best results came by the use of speed observer as Leader. Actually the Speed Prism showed better results but i tends to get sniped rendering the whole concept useless, while an obs is obviously invisible ^^ and still nearly as fast.
Advantages are that the last phoenixes of that moving stack constantly rotate with the ones in front (due to their greater speed compared to the leader), maintaining an more even distribution of incoming damage while they are still enough spread out to fire on different targets and therefore preventing overkill.
Note that this kind of micro (against mutas) is less (cost-)effective than microing your Phoenixes "manually" just outside of muta range, but by far less intensive so you free up APM to do something else while microing your phoenixes to greater effect than just a move or just flying away.
On February 19 2011 21:56 Xanatoss wrote: Well I have to admit, that this is this first OP since some time I cant figure out. Clearly there is a conclusion and a question inside but I just cant see it ._.
So sry if my response does not match it:
During a shower ( :> ) I had the idea to benefit from Phoenix' Abliity to shoot while moving by simply sticking them to a leader-phoenix and only micro that one in order to create a compact stack. Unfortunatly due to the slow acceleration of phoenixes in comparison to their maximum speed, they tend to catch up to the leader eventually and then falling far behind, resulting in in a semi-Limboline with a single or couple phoenixes at the end. Therefore I tried the same with all kind of other air units. Best results came by the use of speed observer as Leader. Actually the Speed Prism showed better results but i tends to get sniped rendering the whole concept useless, while an obs is obviously invisible ^^ and still nearly as fast.
Advantages are that the last phoenixes of that moving stack constantly rotate with the ones in front (due to their greater speed compared to the leader), maintaining an more even distribution of incoming damage while they are still enough spread out to fire on different targets and therefore preventing overkill.
Note that this kind of micro (against mutas) is less (cost-)effective than microing your Phoenixes "manually" just outside of muta range, but by far less intensive so you free up APM to do something else while microing your phoenixes to greater effect than just a move or just flying away.
If I learn how to make videos I'll make a tutorial on Monday. Yeah, choosing a leader unit is the best way in terms of clicks needed but indeed, when stacked too much they overkill way too much. That's why I called this way of stacking "initial" - a way that allows to keep air units constantly stacked on the move but terrible in terms of combat because of the threat of losing the leader unit, terrible overkill and hard control over the following units.
It's not that different from the rules of BW http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Magic_box. Air units, to quote BW Liquipedia: "must be grouped with a unit a sufficient distance away, which triggers the magic box to activate".
What is different is:
the unit must be in a state that allows it to move. It can't be a building, a larva or a Siege Tank in Siege Mode. If burrowed, it can only be an Infestor or Roach with Tunneling Claws upgrade researched.
Air units will always attempt to spread after about a second they were given an order. This means about one additional right click per second to keep them stacked but doesn't mean spamming right clicks "at their feet" to keep them stacked. Really, it's much easier than most people probably think. Additionally, when on the move units attempt to spread only in directions perpendicular to the one they are moving.
eliminates the threat of losing the leader unit and allows for a much better control but it still suffers from the problem of overkill.
That's why in OP I mention how can the problem of overkill can be solved:
When engaging with larger numbers of units it's actually better to do it without the additional unit that triggers the magic box. My initial idea is to have the units in two control groups - one with the additional unit that causes the magic box to trigger and one without it. And to switch between them right before engaging, to allow them to de-stack more. Doing this requires a lot of trial and error play in unit testers to know when to switch between the groups (or Shift deselect that additional unit).
This is where your brainstorming comes in. Units stacked too much terribly overkill. When engaging with larger numbers of units it's actually better to do it without the additional unit that triggers the magic box.
Void rays don't overkill, if I'm correct on the prismatic beam mechanic. Which makes stacked voids the sexiest air force out there! XD
Yeah but like FeyFey said they have big problem when trying to charge and I need to check this again in an online unit tester but when I tried doing hit and runs with stacked Void Rays... it was really hard to keep them stacked. They are pretty fast but also pretty large so once they start to de-stack some of them (1 to 3 of them) become too exposed and focused by anti air units (like Marines) and some of them fly out of their range. Fazing targets is impossible because of deceleration needed to attack.
For now I would say Void Rays (because of reasons above) and Banshees (because of the worst imaginable overkill) are the two units that is better not to stack. At least bigger numbers of them and when dealing with units with small HP like Marines.
Even if stacked units don't fire exactly at the same time, it's better 90% of the time than if they were not stacked -- take less damage, less exposure, increased damage, etc.
They take less damage? Not really. The OP's point is that the damage will be more spread out amongst units, which is a valid point, and thats a nice bonus. But my point, if you actually read my post, is that in SC2 unlike in SC1, you cant keep mutas stacked together without slowing down.
Read The mechanic and The problem sections in my OP. They don't need to slow down, once the correct unit is chosen to trigger the magic box, they behave exactly like air units in BW. Except they need to slow down before they can shoot but it takes about half of a second and can be ordered before they get in range to shoot.
Stacked mutas dont do more dps than unstacked mutas. They never did. The advantage, in SC1, was that since they would behave as a single muta, and all shoot at the same time, having them stacked allowed you to get more kills, instead of spread out damage. But in SC2, well they dont behave as a single muta, and dont shoot as one. Thus it doesnt really matter if they are stacked or not. They dont do greater damage when stacked, never did, and now they also dont kill specific units better when stacked, since they dont behave as a single muta, but still behave as a group of mutas.
The point is to have as many of them to fire at the same (or very similar) time. Spread Mutas don't all attack at the same time, moreover those that start to fire can get killed before the rest arrives and starts to shoot.
In BW, stacking mutas: Allowed you to hide damaged mutas, thus spreading out damage better Allowed them to behave as a single muta Was more vulnerable to splash
In SC2: Allows you to hide damaged mutas, thus spreading out damage better Requires the mutas to constantly decelerate Is more vulnerable to splash.
Its not the same now as it was before, so while before, stacking against non splash was strictly better, I dont believe thats the case anymore. Unless someone can find a way to make SC2 mutas behave as one, and/or stay stacked without decelerating. In which case, it will indeed always be better to stack them than to have them spread as long as no splash is involved.
I included 2 ways to do that in my OP. I made this thread exactly because I've found out how to do it. It seems you just didn't read it. I apologize for lack of screenshots and other means to show this, I will work on this in the near future. However I feel my description of how to do it is good enough. Negating Thor's splash is as simple as making 1 Corruptor or researching Overlord speed and flying with either of those first before trying to engage with Mutas.
EPT
Sorry I can't find the time where he does it, but watch the game and see for yourself, it's totally worth it.
