I don't see what at all the BC vs Tempest argument? I mean in PvT in very late game death ball scenarios, terran needs to do 2 things, take out collosi with vikings and take out templars with ghosts. If that is done then mass marines with medivac support will kill absolutelly anything else.
Tempests are just for zoning out the vikings so you have the time to reposition other units better, sentries are just for zoning out marines, so that collosi and stalkers have time to fire at them from greater range.
Without the deathball protoss armies fail vs terran miserrably. Thats why it is so hard to defend vs drops in early-midgame stages. You split off 6-8 stalkers from your deathball to defend vs drop in main and in meantime he trades 6-7 of his vikings for your 3 collosi and on some maps there is literraly nothing you can do about this. After collosi are reset, MMM will just kill you.
On October 28 2014 19:01 Svizcy wrote: I don't see what at all the BC vs Tempest argument? I mean in PvT in very late game death ball scenarios, terran needs to do 2 things, take out collosi with vikings and take out templars with ghosts. If that is done then mass marines with medivac support will kill absolutelly anything else.
Tempests are just for zoning out the vikings so you have the time to reposition other units better, sentries are just for zoning out marines, so that collosi and stalkers have time to fire at them from greater range.
Without the deathball protoss armies fail vs terran miserrably. Thats why it is so hard to defend vs drops in early-midgame stages. You split off 6-8 stalkers from your deathball to defend vs drop in main and in meantime he trades 6-7 of his vikings for your 3 collosi and on some maps there is literraly nothing you can do about this. After collosi are reset, MMM will just kill you.
'Just' take out all collosi and take out the Templar is really, really fucking hard, I hope you know that?
On October 28 2014 08:38 JCoto wrote: Who was talking about tempest efficiency vs vikings? Vikings are the only air unit wchich struggles agaisnt them because they have low HP and cant be heavily affected by archons and storms. Mass Corruptors + Viper doesn't even bother about tempest damage in lategame, given the map advantage that usually the zerg player has. Voids destroy them.
I was not saying that they are easy. They are very strong hardcounters.I was talking about how they have big damage output vs massive air, which makes them kill some strategies. Some tempest micro can destroy a little group of massive air who is retiring from the battle without a problem. BC lack of mobility, and even if there are som PDDs to cover, BC can almost never reach Tempests to yamato them without important loses. At least zerg has some abducts to zone.
Tempests can do very well in mixed lategame armies vs static armies , specially mech. Even in lategame, PDD is not that a big issue as feedbacks destroy them easily. Their problem is at the easiness they take high tier air out.
Here is what you actually said:
On October 28 2014 05:21 JCoto wrote: Having a flyer Siege Tank with 450 total HP that has 15 range and big damage projectile (which means very low part of the damage is mitigated) that kills massive air without almost effort its not the best desing, as states Decendos. You won't see many BL or Heavy mech (Tanks, Thors, BC) against protoss with that range/damage values. It's pretty basic logic. A little ball of units (6-8) is enough to two shot really important units while zoning them. Even if DPS is not on the top, what it is important to see there is one-shoting and focus firing. Then zoning gets really important.
I actually took the time to explain why having 6-8 Tempests in your army is a total PITA and how hard they are to use effectively while still doing everything else correctly and protecting them.
The games don't just go "oh, he made Brood Lords, let me make 6-8 Tempests and win." The other player has supporting units the same way that you do.
Re: BattleCruisers... Tempests were created as a counter to Colossi and Brood Lords. It's unfortunate that the unit also hard counters the BC, but you can just NOT make BCs if your opponent is going Tempests. How about that?
I make BC's as counter response to tempest, Yamato just annihilates everything, add in a few PDD's and tempest don't do anything to your BC's anymore.
I hope to meet you on the ladder one day, good sir. That sounds like it would be a pretty epic battle.
On October 28 2014 08:38 JCoto wrote: Who was talking about tempest efficiency vs vikings? Vikings are the only air unit wchich struggles agaisnt them because they have low HP and cant be heavily affected by archons and storms. Mass Corruptors + Viper doesn't even bother about tempest damage in lategame, given the map advantage that usually the zerg player has. Voids destroy them.
I was not saying that they are easy. They are very strong hardcounters.I was talking about how they have big damage output vs massive air, which makes them kill some strategies. Some tempest micro can destroy a little group of massive air who is retiring from the battle without a problem. BC lack of mobility, and even if there are som PDDs to cover, BC can almost never reach Tempests to yamato them without important loses. At least zerg has some abducts to zone.
Tempests can do very well in mixed lategame armies vs static armies , specially mech. Even in lategame, PDD is not that a big issue as feedbacks destroy them easily. Their problem is at the easiness they take high tier air out.
Here is what you actually said:
On October 28 2014 05:21 JCoto wrote: Having a flyer Siege Tank with 450 total HP that has 15 range and big damage projectile (which means very low part of the damage is mitigated) that kills massive air without almost effort its not the best desing, as states Decendos. You won't see many BL or Heavy mech (Tanks, Thors, BC) against protoss with that range/damage values. It's pretty basic logic. A little ball of units (6-8) is enough to two shot really important units while zoning them. Even if DPS is not on the top, what it is important to see there is one-shoting and focus firing. Then zoning gets really important.
I actually took the time to explain why having 6-8 Tempests in your army is a total PITA and how hard they are to use effectively while still doing everything else correctly and protecting them.
The games don't just go "oh, he made Brood Lords, let me make 6-8 Tempests and win." The other player has supporting units the same way that you do.
Re: BattleCruisers... Tempests were created as a counter to Colossi and Brood Lords. It's unfortunate that the unit also hard counters the BC, but you can just NOT make BCs if your opponent is going Tempests. How about that?
I make BC's as counter response to tempest, Yamato just annihilates everything, add in a few PDD's and tempest don't do anything to your BC's anymore.
I hope to meet you on the ladder one day, good sir. That sounds like it would be a pretty epic battle.
On October 28 2014 08:38 JCoto wrote: Who was talking about tempest efficiency vs vikings? Vikings are the only air unit wchich struggles agaisnt them because they have low HP and cant be heavily affected by archons and storms. Mass Corruptors + Viper doesn't even bother about tempest damage in lategame, given the map advantage that usually the zerg player has. Voids destroy them.
I was not saying that they are easy. They are very strong hardcounters.I was talking about how they have big damage output vs massive air, which makes them kill some strategies. Some tempest micro can destroy a little group of massive air who is retiring from the battle without a problem. BC lack of mobility, and even if there are som PDDs to cover, BC can almost never reach Tempests to yamato them without important loses. At least zerg has some abducts to zone.
Tempests can do very well in mixed lategame armies vs static armies , specially mech. Even in lategame, PDD is not that a big issue as feedbacks destroy them easily. Their problem is at the easiness they take high tier air out.
Here is what you actually said:
On October 28 2014 05:21 JCoto wrote: Having a flyer Siege Tank with 450 total HP that has 15 range and big damage projectile (which means very low part of the damage is mitigated) that kills massive air without almost effort its not the best desing, as states Decendos. You won't see many BL or Heavy mech (Tanks, Thors, BC) against protoss with that range/damage values. It's pretty basic logic. A little ball of units (6-8) is enough to two shot really important units while zoning them. Even if DPS is not on the top, what it is important to see there is one-shoting and focus firing. Then zoning gets really important.
I actually took the time to explain why having 6-8 Tempests in your army is a total PITA and how hard they are to use effectively while still doing everything else correctly and protecting them.
The games don't just go "oh, he made Brood Lords, let me make 6-8 Tempests and win." The other player has supporting units the same way that you do.
Re: BattleCruisers... Tempests were created as a counter to Colossi and Brood Lords. It's unfortunate that the unit also hard counters the BC, but you can just NOT make BCs if your opponent is going Tempests. How about that?
I make BC's as counter response to tempest, Yamato just annihilates everything, add in a few PDD's and tempest don't do anything to your BC's anymore.
I hope to meet you on the ladder one day, good sir. That sounds like it would be a pretty epic battle.
Bo9 showmatch?
I'm down as long as he's not like crazy high Masters or GM :p
somewhere master, no idea where I'd place nowadays, I'm up for that bo9, prepare to get mekt. finding time for it might be a little more difficult, PM me if you want to set it up.
On October 28 2014 23:14 Meavis wrote: somewhere master, no idea where I'd place nowadays, I'm up for that bo9, prepare to get mekt. finding time for it might be a little more difficult, PM me if you want to set it up.
Yeah I'm probably gonna get #rekt.
I remember when I was in Masters..... sigh.....
This weekend would work I guess since you're in the Netherlands and all.
On October 28 2014 06:04 Decendos wrote: So you say that they are hard to use because you have to focus fire and have to micro your other units like observers which is basically what i said. tempests for themselves are pretty easy to use and no their range still doesnt makes them harder to use since its super easy to hide behind colossus and HT with your 13 range tempests. its much harder to control your HT to protect your tempest and colossus vs viper for example but tempests themselves...not really.
Nobody is arguing with you that it's hard to focus fire some Tempests. What I'm telling you is that it's hard to focus fire some Tempests AND make sure they stay in the same place, AND make sure they have vision, AND protect them from AA with High Templar AND also macro at the same time. These are all things that are required when you decide to go Tempests. So when I say Tempests are hard to use, all of those things are implied. No individual unit in this game is hard to use, per se.
On October 28 2014 06:04 Decendos wrote: also you said they are fragile...which they arent..they are the exact opposite. its flying 4 supply ultralisks with 13 range.
You said this, then I responded with a counter argument, then you just posted the same thing again. So I will respond to it again. HP is not the issue. The issue is that they do very little DPS and therefore other things kill them much faster than they kill other things (other things here being Vikings, Marines, Hydras, Thors, Corruptors, even Widow Mines). This is why you never see pure mass tempest... they RELY on other units to keep them safe because alone, they are quite fragile. And because you need a big number of them to actually start hurting your opponent, your army that protects them is quite small.
On October 28 2014 06:04 Decendos wrote: they are also 1 hit lategame vs colossus + storm. no one said go tempest only and win...its just once you have colossus HT tempest archon + some voids or carriers and a MS you basically cant lose (and yes thats really hard to get to like my mentioned raven BC ghost + support).
Yes you can lose. You can absolutely lose:
EDIT - I'm at work so I don't have time to look around for PvT vods. But I can assure you that this composition is 100% beatable. It has been done before, in tournaments and on the ladder.
EDIT2 - This feels like a very TheDwF post hahaha except he would have gotten you the other vods as well
i wont even respond to this in a detailled way since it was you talking about tempests being fragile in the first place and you even deny it for the 2nd time now....your other stuff is either what i already said or not true/bad comparison like marine DPS vs tempest DPS lol...
On October 28 2014 23:14 Meavis wrote: somewhere master, no idea where I'd place nowadays, I'm up for that bo9, prepare to get mekt. finding time for it might be a little more difficult, PM me if you want to set it up.
Yeah I'm probably gonna get #rekt.
I remember when I was in Masters..... sigh.....
This weekend would work I guess since you're in the Netherlands and all.
EDIT - #OFFTOPIC
Well at least some good came out of all these last few pages. X-D
On the subject of army control...pretty much what I've been saying for years so I agree. Its incredibly composition dependent. Just "clicking fast" doesn't make it hard contrary to what a number believe; its the levels of complexity caused by adding tech units with special requirements or that need protecting (e.g. Ghosts or Tempests or Infestors). MMM is fairly easy, Bane/Ling is fairly easy, Zealot/Stalker is fairly easy. Add something which has a different speed or vulnerabilities or abilities you have to aim and hit and then keeping your army in the right order and doing the right things whilst managing everything else becomes significantly more complicated.
On October 28 2014 19:01 Svizcy wrote: I don't see what at all the BC vs Tempest argument? I mean in PvT in very late game death ball scenarios, terran needs to do 2 things, take out collosi with vikings and take out templars with ghosts. If that is done then mass marines with medivac support will kill absolutelly anything else.
Tempests are just for zoning out the vikings so you have the time to reposition other units better, sentries are just for zoning out marines, so that collosi and stalkers have time to fire at them from greater range.
Without the deathball protoss armies fail vs terran miserrably. Thats why it is so hard to defend vs drops in early-midgame stages. You split off 6-8 stalkers from your deathball to defend vs drop in main and in meantime he trades 6-7 of his vikings for your 3 collosi and on some maps there is literraly nothing you can do about this. After collosi are reset, MMM will just kill you.
You are not wrong in somethings but tempest in a deathball are strong vs you need a lot of vikings more tan marines, you have to be really bad at the game to make marines vs protoss, a late game terran army has as few marines as possible, they are really shitty vs everything protoss, instead your army will be made of as many marauders and ghosts as you can as marauders are better vs stalkers and collossi and resist storm better and ghosts are better vs zealots.
On October 29 2014 00:56 Decendos wrote: i wont even respond to this in a detailled way
Well then I don't really care what you have to say, but go on...
On October 29 2014 00:56 Decendos wrote: talking about tempests being fragile in the first place and you even deny it for the 2nd time now
Yes. For the second time I've given you a well reasoned argument as to why Tempests are "fragile" and several people agree. I already discussed how HP is not the focus but rather relative DPS, but that doesn't seem to matter to you so fine.. agree to disagree then. Though I would add that by your logic, a Hatchery would win a fight vs a bunch of MMM because it has higher HP.
On October 29 2014 00:56 Decendos wrote: your other stuff is either what i already said or not true/bad comparison like marine DPS vs tempest DPS lol...
I gave you the DPS of Marines, Hydras, Vikings (things that would typically shoot at Tempests that wander too far away from their escorting army) to make the point that Tempests cannot wander away from the army that protects them or they die very quickly. This seems very reasonable to me... much more so than your counter argument:
On October 28 2014 06:04 Decendos wrote:also lol @marines and hydras have higher DPS
With debating skills like that I'm not sure why you're not in law school already.
Yeah if you're just going to reply "LOL DINOMIGHT IS WRONG HE IS SO WRONG" then you're not really adding anything here.
On October 28 2014 19:01 Svizcy wrote: I don't see what at all the BC vs Tempest argument? I mean in PvT in very late game death ball scenarios, terran needs to do 2 things, take out collosi with vikings and take out templars with ghosts. If that is done then mass marines with medivac support will kill absolutelly anything else.
Tempests are just for zoning out the vikings so you have the time to reposition other units better, sentries are just for zoning out marines, so that collosi and stalkers have time to fire at them from greater range.
Without the deathball protoss armies fail vs terran miserrably. Thats why it is so hard to defend vs drops in early-midgame stages. You split off 6-8 stalkers from your deathball to defend vs drop in main and in meantime he trades 6-7 of his vikings for your 3 collosi and on some maps there is literraly nothing you can do about this. After collosi are reset, MMM will just kill you.
You are not wrong in somethings but tempest in a deathball are strong vs you need a lot of vikings more tan marines, you have to be really bad at the game to make marines vs protoss, a late game terran army has as few marines as possible, they are really shitty vs everything protoss, instead your army will be made of as many marauders and ghosts as you can as marauders are better vs stalkers and collossi and resist storm better and ghosts are better vs zealots.
The important part is "as you can". Saying it is bad in the lategame to make marines vs Protoss is like saying a Protoss must be crazy to make zealots in lategame vs Terran because you could 100% replace them by just making more Colossi instead of tanking for Colossi. In both scenarios the players would have to be crazy rich to afford the production and units to surpass marines/zealots. After all, the ghost is on top of the list of most costly units/supply and the Colossus still close to the top. You are going to see a good amount of marines in lategame Terran armies, minus that 0.1% of games that actually go crazy stale.
On October 28 2014 19:01 Svizcy wrote: I don't see what at all the BC vs Tempest argument? I mean in PvT in very late game death ball scenarios, terran needs to do 2 things, take out collosi with vikings and take out templars with ghosts. If that is done then mass marines with medivac support will kill absolutelly anything else.
Tempests are just for zoning out the vikings so you have the time to reposition other units better, sentries are just for zoning out marines, so that collosi and stalkers have time to fire at them from greater range.
Without the deathball protoss armies fail vs terran miserrably. Thats why it is so hard to defend vs drops in early-midgame stages. You split off 6-8 stalkers from your deathball to defend vs drop in main and in meantime he trades 6-7 of his vikings for your 3 collosi and on some maps there is literraly nothing you can do about this. After collosi are reset, MMM will just kill you.
You are not wrong in somethings but tempest in a deathball are strong vs you need a lot of vikings more tan marines, you have to be really bad at the game to make marines vs protoss, a late game terran army has as few marines as possible, they are really shitty vs everything protoss, instead your army will be made of as many marauders and ghosts as you can as marauders are better vs stalkers and collossi and resist storm better and ghosts are better vs zealots.
The important part is "as you can". Saying it is bad in the lategame to make marines vs Protoss is like saying a Protoss must be crazy to make zealots in lategame vs Terran because you could 100% replace them by just making more Colossi instead of tanking for Colossi. In both scenarios the players would have to be crazy rich to afford the production and units to surpass marines/zealots. After all, the ghost is on top of the list of most costly units/supply and the Colossus still close to the top. You are going to see a good amount of marines in lategame Terran armies, minus that 0.1% of games that actually go crazy stale.
Right. There is a very clear difference between the units that are ideal to have in a composition and those that you're forced to have because of how the game works (fighting for control of bases, trading armies, etc.).
If you had to assemble two perfect deathballs and fight in the middle of the map with infinite resources, I'd be willing to bet it'd be something like Mech + Ghosts vs. Carriers / HT etc...
But you can't realistically get to that, much like you usually can't get to ALL Marauder/Ghost/Viking. That's why people make Marines (because they're cheap, make 2 at a time, cost no gas, and are an all around very good unit).
On October 28 2014 19:01 Svizcy wrote: I don't see what at all the BC vs Tempest argument? I mean in PvT in very late game death ball scenarios, terran needs to do 2 things, take out collosi with vikings and take out templars with ghosts. If that is done then mass marines with medivac support will kill absolutelly anything else.
Tempests are just for zoning out the vikings so you have the time to reposition other units better, sentries are just for zoning out marines, so that collosi and stalkers have time to fire at them from greater range.
Without the deathball protoss armies fail vs terran miserrably. Thats why it is so hard to defend vs drops in early-midgame stages. You split off 6-8 stalkers from your deathball to defend vs drop in main and in meantime he trades 6-7 of his vikings for your 3 collosi and on some maps there is literraly nothing you can do about this. After collosi are reset, MMM will just kill you.
You are not wrong in somethings but tempest in a deathball are strong vs you need a lot of vikings more tan marines, you have to be really bad at the game to make marines vs protoss, a late game terran army has as few marines as possible, they are really shitty vs everything protoss, instead your army will be made of as many marauders and ghosts as you can as marauders are better vs stalkers and collossi and resist storm better and ghosts are better vs zealots.
The important part is "as you can". Saying it is bad in the lategame to make marines vs Protoss is like saying a Protoss must be crazy to make zealots in lategame vs Terran because you could 100% replace them by just making more Colossi instead of tanking for Colossi. In both scenarios the players would have to be crazy rich to afford the production and units to surpass marines/zealots. After all, the ghost is on top of the list of most costly units/supply and the Colossus still close to the top. You are going to see a good amount of marines in lategame Terran armies, minus that 0.1% of games that actually go crazy stale.
Right. There is a very clear difference between the units that are ideal to have in a composition and those that you're forced to have because of how the game works (fighting for control of bases, trading armies, etc.).
If you had to assemble two perfect deathballs and fight in the middle of the map with infinite resources, I'd be willing to bet it'd be something like Mech + Ghosts vs. Carriers / HT etc...
But you can't realistically get to that, much like you usually can't get to ALL Marauder/Ghost/Viking. That's why people make Marines (because they're cheap, make 2 at a time, cost no gas, and are an all around very good unit).
Terran can very realistically get to pure Maurader / Ghost / Viking / Medivac imo, it's actually directly on Terran's infrastructure path. Marines are still added in pretty much because they add decent DPS vs Zealots and in late game TvP if your bio is getting hit by storms / collosi you're probably losing anyway.
And marines are pretty horrible vs Tempest both in terms of supply and the way the game actually plays out, you definitely need overwhemling Viking numbers to deal with them.
If you add more unit types to your composition then obviously it's going to be more complicated in most scenarios. That doesn't mean it's fundamentally harder. In terms of design, micro shouldn't be hard, it should be easy, but with infinite potential. Something with a dozen moving parts might be tricky to control, but largely because it's cumbersome.
Hey guys. Do you want to bring back up the PvT Carrier discussion?
I tried it in quite a few TvP's, and I learned quite a bit I think.
The basic gist of my build was an oracle opening with Forge, into Fleet Beacon into TC into Storm.
Issues:
Widow Mines: This is twofold. Widow Mines absolutely wreck interceptors. Widow Mine shots can also follow interceptors back to the Carrier. I learned this the hard way when it came back and killed like 6 HT in one or two shots.
This can be mitigated by properly splitting forces and not stacking, but it definitely increases the difficulty of playing the composition a lot.
Upgrades: You need really many upgrades. I primarily tried to work on Shields and Air Weapons. In addition I needed Charge, interceptor speed, and eventually storm and blink. There is very little scope for changing to Colossus after you have started to go Carriers. Your ground upgrades are also quite neglected.
Chronoboost: You want all your chrono to go on Stargates. Otherwise it'll take ages to get a meaningful amount of Carriers. This makes your build a lot less complicated, but it also slows everything down.
Silver Lining: I was able to win games with this at a low level (Mid-Diamond EU). However, I think this was usually attributed to confusion. E.g. people tried to passively go Bio-Viking, without Widow Mines and ended up running into Chargelot Templar. Solid macro players tended to win regardless. I encourage people to try, if they are interested. It's refreshing to not play colossus, although I've gone back to colossus now.
Opinion on Viability: At the moment, Carriers take too long to build. This is obvious. However, I'm not sure if faster build speed would even help, given the combat dynamics they have with Widow Mines. They could possibly be an alternative to Colossus, but at the moment, they are a lot more difficult to play I think.
On October 29 2014 02:50 TokO wrote: Hey guys. Do you want to bring back up the PvT Carrier discussion?
I tried it in quite a few TvP's, and I learned quite a bit I think.
The basic gist of my build was an oracle opening with Forge, into Fleet Beacon into TC into Storm.
Issues:
Widow Mines: This is twofold. Widow Mines absolutely wreck interceptors. Widow Mine shots can also follow interceptors back to the Carrier. I learned this the hard way when it came back and killed like 6 HT in one or two shots.
This can be mitigated by properly splitting forces and not stacking, but it definitely increases the difficulty of playing the composition a lot.
Upgrades: You need really many upgrades. I primarily tried to work on Shields and Air Weapons. In addition I needed Charge, interceptor speed, and eventually storm and blink. There is very little scope for changing to Colossus after you have started to go Carriers. Your ground upgrades are also quite neglected.
Chronoboost: You want all your chrono to go on Stargates. Otherwise it'll take ages to get a meaningful amount of Carriers. This makes your build a lot less complicated, but it also slows everything down.
Silver Lining: I was able to win games with this at a low level (Mid-Diamond EU). However, I think this was usually attributed to confusion. E.g. people tried to passively go Bio-Viking, without Widow Mines and ended up running into Chargelot Templar. Solid macro players tended to win regardless. I encourage people to try, if they are interested. It's refreshing to not play colossus, although I've gone back to colossus now.
Opinion on Viability: At the moment, Carriers take too long to build. This is obvious. However, I'm not sure if faster build speed would even help, given the combat dynamics they have with Widow Mines. They could possibly be an alternative to Colossus, but at the moment, they are a lot more difficult to play I think.
It's stupid how fast interceptors die to mines. Also build time on Carriers is way too high. If you're winning with Carriers you could have already won with something else, IMO...
On October 29 2014 02:50 TokO wrote: Hey guys. Do you want to bring back up the PvT Carrier discussion?
I tried it in quite a few TvP's, and I learned quite a bit I think.
The basic gist of my build was an oracle opening with Forge, into Fleet Beacon into TC into Storm.
Issues:
Widow Mines: This is twofold. Widow Mines absolutely wreck interceptors. Widow Mine shots can also follow interceptors back to the Carrier. I learned this the hard way when it came back and killed like 6 HT in one or two shots.
This can be mitigated by properly splitting forces and not stacking, but it definitely increases the difficulty of playing the composition a lot.
Upgrades: You need really many upgrades. I primarily tried to work on Shields and Air Weapons. In addition I needed Charge, interceptor speed, and eventually storm and blink. There is very little scope for changing to Colossus after you have started to go Carriers. Your ground upgrades are also quite neglected.
Chronoboost: You want all your chrono to go on Stargates. Otherwise it'll take ages to get a meaningful amount of Carriers. This makes your build a lot less complicated, but it also slows everything down.
Silver Lining: I was able to win games with this at a low level (Mid-Diamond EU). However, I think this was usually attributed to confusion. E.g. people tried to passively go Bio-Viking, without Widow Mines and ended up running into Chargelot Templar. Solid macro players tended to win regardless. I encourage people to try, if they are interested. It's refreshing to not play colossus, although I've gone back to colossus now.
Opinion on Viability: At the moment, Carriers take too long to build. This is obvious. However, I'm not sure if faster build speed would even help, given the combat dynamics they have with Widow Mines. They could possibly be an alternative to Colossus, but at the moment, they are a lot more difficult to play I think.
It's stupid how fast interceptors die to mines. Also build time on Carriers is way too high. If you're winning with Carriers you could have already won with something else, IMO...
This is one of my favorite posts about carriers from a while ago.
On February 14 2011 05:55 lorkac wrote: I posted this in a previous thread about a way to go Carriers. I'll just re-post it again here.
"The silver player says "I mass zealots and carriers and it wins!"
The people above silver should respond "correct! When you mass high gas cost units, its best to use zero gas units as mineral sinks"
silver player then says "what can I do to make this better?"
above silver players say "execution needs to be crisper and the build order needs to be leaner?"
silver player says "how do I do that? This is the fastest I can get my carriers out?!?!"
above silver player responds "if carriers take too long, maybe you can mass voidrays first and build carriers after your voidrays have given you some map control"
silver player tries new strategy, gets better, is now in gold and starts losing. He comes back to the forums and asks.
"gold players do nothing but rush!"
above gold players ask for a replay, gold player obliges. Above gold player says "your early game is clunky. The 2 cannons are too immobile and your zealot gets kited too often. Build more stalkers and gateways, delay the forge until you've stabilized the early game."
was silver now gold player accepts the advice, starts winning games, gets promoted to platinum and starts losing again. Comes back to the forums and says "my opponets always have more than I do! I survive the rush but then a million stalkers and collosus are at my front door!"
above platinum players ask for a replay, platinum player obliges. They watch his replay and tell him "your midgame is insufficient at transitioning to the lategame. You need to expand sooner than you do. Also, you're macro is off because you're teching to stargate before you have the economy for it. Expand sooner and delay tech."
platinum player does this and starts winning again. He gets promoted to diamond and finds that his games end way before he gets enough resources to build carriers. He stops the rush, expands, macroes up an army, siezes map control, and then he wins the game with a zealot/stalker/sentry army supported by either voidrays or collosus. He thinks to himself "I wonder how I can tweak my build order to allow carriers? They're so expensive and build so slowly it seems impossible to get to them in a timely manner." the diamond player then stops by the forums to look for a thread talking about carriers. He finds one. In that thread some silver player is winning games playing one-base carrier and starts spouting off about how it is unstoppable. The diamond player then says to the silver player "WTF man! You can't afford to go carriers in one base! At the least go voidrays; that early in the game they're cheaper and are as effective!"