Let me explain. The Carrier and the Battlecruiser are both low damage, high rate of fire units. To keep them reasonably balanced with upgrades, their damage upgrades are only +1.
If you don't know, a Carrier has 8 interceptors that, when they attack, attack twice, dealing 5 damage a shot, effectively dealing 80 damage per round of assault. The issue with that is when you start facing armored units, or even units with armor upgrades, your damage capabilities fall off the cliff significantly. With a whole round of interceptors, one unupgraded carrier cannot 1shot a +2 armor Combat Shield Marine. Do you know how damn long it takes for a full round of Interceptors to attack? It's a little bit loaded of a scenario, yes, but if you're transitioning into Carriers and your opponent has been going Bio, you're not going to have any upgrades yet!
In a similar note, there is no difference between a 3/3 Marine vs. a 3/3/3 Carrier and a 0/0 Marine vs. a 0/0/0 Carrier. Or Battlecruiser for this instance. Isn't the purpose of Tier 3 units to step away from the low damage, low cost units into the high damage, high cost units? What incentive do you have when there's no difference, and the marines are a helluva lot cheaper!
The answer for balance is not to just increase the damage upgrade of the units. To effectively keep the same theoretical "DPS," the rate of fire also has to be decreased. Back in Brood War, Battlecruisers were pretty awful because they attacked about once every minute (it seemed), but that attack was powerful. I say that Blizzard effectively half the rate of fire, double the damage they do per shot, and make the upgrade +2. Similar vein for the Carrier. Make it so the Interceptors only take one shot, make it so they do 10 damage a shot, and increase the upgrade to +2. On paper, their DPS will be exactly the same, but when carried into the late game they'll be able to hold their ground better.
Note: For those of you who will judge me based on my ranking, I'm a mid-level Plat player who's just switched from Terran to Zerg. I hate MMM and Tanks, always opting for something more interesting, even if I lose. I recently switched because of all the bad mouthing I get just for playing Terran. Quit hatin', bros.
Zerg is the only race that utilizes ALL of their units in battle. It's refreshing to see zergs do this as well. Too many useless units for protoss and terran.
On November 20 2011 02:51 Al Bundy wrote: Thanks for the effort, but Blizzard is going to remove the Carrier and buff the Battlecruiser.
They explicitly stated "For now" in the developement of HOTS, It still can return. If they for example buff the carrier in a patch and they see it works out beautifully there's a good shot they'll keep the Carrier.
Guys. I think I know this, I happen to follow all the Heart of the Swarm changes. But before they ultimately change the game, I'd like to see them actually try to fix the problem, not just cover it up.
And as for the Battlecruiser charge thingy. That doesn't change its damage issues.
Carrier needs to be used more. It makes games MUCH more interesting to watch because of how many interceptors there are and everything goes crazy. Makes Starcraft a spectator sport even more.
The reason Carrier is not viable is just because the Colossus is a lot better and serves nearly the same purpose, and the same units used to kill Colossus are used to kill Carrier, as well as some other units too.
To make the Carrier viable, you'd have to make it better than the Colossus, which would in turn kill the Colossus, or else change it's role somehow - in which case, why call it the Carrier? Blizzard went down the second route and replaced it with the Tempest.
On November 20 2011 02:51 Al Bundy wrote: Thanks for the effort, but Blizzard is going to remove the Carrier and buff the Battlecruiser.
They explicitly stated "For now" in the developement of HOTS, It still can return. If they for example buff the carrier in a patch and they see it works out beautifully there's a good shot they'll keep the Carrier.
Ok how about this:
As far as we know, Blizzard is going to remove the Carrier and buff the Battlecruiser.
Mass carriers is actually probably unbeatable, it's just near impossible to get there as they take so long to make, and any competent player won't let you get there
Isn't the purpose of Tier 3 units to step away from the low damage, low cost units into the high damage, high cost units? What incentive do you have when there's no difference, and the marines are a helluva lot cheaper!
No, the purpose is to have way more supply efficiency. A carrier obviously has way more damage than 8 marines, or 4 stalkers.
The carrier is not 'low damage' unit, it simply fires a lot of little shots. It makes it better at killing smaller units instead of larger units. Like the mutalisk.
And by the way, don't just switch race because of a complaining player. Most of them are just frustrated..
I played a TvP this week and he engaged at the bottom of my ramp on Antiga shipyard with non upgraded units but i had upgrades! we were equal in army size , and with micro i beat him, meanwhile dropping in is main to shut down pylons and gateways. So, he had non upgraded units, engaged in a bad position. He started whinning about T being OP blahblah...
On November 20 2011 03:00 SeaSwift wrote: The reason Carrier is not viable is just because the Colossus is a lot better and serves nearly the same purpose, and the same units used to kill Colossus are used to kill Carrier, as well as some other units too.
To make the Carrier viable, you'd have to make it better than the Colossus, which would in turn kill the Colossus, or else change it's role somehow - in which case, why call it the Carrier? Blizzard went down the second route and replaced it with the Tempest.
Carrier was only good against mech. Even in broodwar, carrier was good against mech. In BW if protoss went carrier against a bio terran (which is rare to begin with) the resultant would be similar to SC2. Thus if mech became viable in SC2, then carriers would become viable and we wouldnt be seeing these kind of thread.
On a side note, yes 3-3 marine vs 3-3-3 carriers basically negate each other because all their upgrade goes up by 1. BUT there are benefit to this too. Consider a marine, he start off with 7 damage. If you upgrade +1 damage then he goes to 8 damage. This is around a 15% increase in DPS! That mean if your opponent doesnt get armor upgrade, then they will suffer from alot of damage.
Basically, unit that only small increment per upgrade will get a substantial increase in DPS per upgrade. If their opponent fall behind on upgrade then it can be game changing compare to upgrade that g ive alot like tanks. Which goes from 50 damage to 55 which is only like a 4-5% increase in DPS.
NOTE: the Percentage I am using are just estimated to prove a point. If you actually did some math you will see similar deviation between upgrades DPS increase.
How about just give the carrier the same speed boost ability they're giving the BC? It seems completely logical, given that the carrier needs this kind of ability to do its burst damage, run away, burst damage run away like in BW.
Isn't the purpose of Tier 3 units to step away from the low damage, low cost units into the high damage, high cost units? What incentive do you have when there's no difference, and the marines are a helluva lot cheaper!
No, the purpose is to have way more supply efficiency. A carrier obviously has way more damage than 8 marines, or 4 stalkers.
(DPS of Marine) * SIX Marines = 7 * 6 = 42 DPS (DPS of Stalker) * Four Stalkers = 4 * 6.9 = 27.6 DPS DPS of Carrier = 26.7 DPS
Pardon?
On November 20 2011 03:06 DoubleReed wrote: The carrier is not 'low damage' unit, it simply fires a lot of little shots. It makes it better at killing smaller units instead of larger units. Like the mutalisk.
And exactly. I never said it was a low damage unit, but a unit similar to a bunch of Marines. Not very high damage attacks, but a lot of them.
battle cruiser ground damage got nerfed by the way, since it was overpowered, so thats no point to say they are bad. Especially air is something they rip apart still.
The only issue these two units have, that you need to have 3/3, if the opponent went for upgrades. Since on even numbers they are deadly. Or if you rush for carriers, having 1 upgrade advantage is mostly to much for the opponent.
People that say carriers and bcs suck, mostly used them in a 3/3 vs 0/0 environment. I personally don't understand the hate for carriers, i sometimes even rush for them if the opposing terran expands, holds their aggression and well +1 carriers do nasty things with every terran anti air. And the kiting attempts with vikings versus carriers is always something funny to see, well not funny for the terran.
I wish you couldn't rush for these units (upgrades can delay that enough), since they have the same problem as the thors, to good early game. And lategame they need 3/3 and thats a huge investment, since most of the time you don't use air units enough throughout the game. That way blizzard could make the upgrades more effective.
But i have no problem with those units and use them in most macro games. If you don't like em don't use them, not everyone can use micro intensive units. (well the bc is more the defense line breaker unit and doesn't require alot of micro)
On November 20 2011 03:04 ProxyKnoxy wrote: Mass carriers is actually probably unbeatable, it's just near impossible to get there as they take so long to make, and any competent player won't let you get there
Mass Carriers will die hilariously to mass Marines, doing virtually no damage. The problem is the interceptors, they die far too quickly.
i don't think carriers would become viable if terran started *having success meching vs P. vikings are a reactor unit and if 1 or 2 factories already have reactors for hellions then it's as simple as building starports for a switch *going up to 4 vikings building at a time and can switch addons back around if vikings aren't needed anymore. granted that isn't nearly free (time, cost) but you don't need that many vikings to counter a realistic # of carriers in a standard game.
A half speed double damage for BC would be nice. As for the carrier +2 dmg on 2x5 inecreptors would be OP lol. +32 dmg. I would suggest making interceptors have 10 dmg instead of 2x5. This would give Mr carrier +16 with upgrades that give +2.
On November 20 2011 03:31 Fealthas wrote: A half speed double damage for BC would be nice. As for the carrier +2 dmg on 2x5 inecreptors would be OP lol. +32 dmg. I would suggest making interceptors have 10 dmg instead of 2x5. This would give Mr carrier +16 with upgrades that give +2.
I kind of like how they don't play a major role. Carriers can't be micro'd and battle cruisers play cameo roles in TvT. If they were stronger, games would get boring in my opinion. They're slow and need protection, if they were viable it would just slow down games and make them less interesting.
Carriers don't suck (vs. Zerg) the reason the two aren't seen often is because they're both expensive, slow, require completely different upgrades than what you use for your "main" army, and they can be kited by Vikings.
On November 20 2011 02:52 Catchafire2000 wrote: Zerg is the only race that utilizes ALL of their units in battle. It's refreshing to see zergs do this as well. Too many useless units for protoss and terran.
Terran uses all their stuff aswell... Battlecruisers are lategame turtle/containment breakers and counters to thors in tvt. The only thing that i can see a bit underused is the raven, however it can be needed (mostly in tvt aswell) but its abilities are very underused. And what useless units do protoss have ? i guess that many units are not used in every matchup, but that does not make them useless.
Im confused - The carrier is unused right now because the only style it works well against is mech, right? Assuming vikings are not too powerful for it.
They are making mech viable AND removing the carrier at the time we would need it most in HoTS?
On November 20 2011 03:37 Skwid1g wrote: Carriers don't suck (vs. Zerg) the reason the two aren't seen often is because they're both expensive, slow, require completely different upgrades than what you use for your "main" army, and they can be kited by Vikings.
same as the reason with battlecruisers, they are hardcountered by corrupters and vikings way too costeffeciently. However carriers are not used in any matchup while bc's do have a specific role in lategame tvt.
Are they really going to remove carriers? I still feel there's a place for the carrier in sc2, only blizzard fucked em up. I want mid game hidden stargate tech switch pvt ffs.
On November 20 2011 03:37 Skwid1g wrote: Carriers don't suck (vs. Zerg) the reason the two aren't seen often is because they're both expensive, slow, require completely different upgrades than what you use for your "main" army, and they can be kited by Vikings.
Uh you just precisely explained why they do indeed suck.
Damn corrupters and viking do hard counter both battlecruisers and carriers. The units themselves are pretty good overall, but vikings and corupters pretty much make them useless.
Isn't the purpose of Tier 3 units to step away from the low damage, low cost units into the high damage, high cost units? What incentive do you have when there's no difference, and the marines are a helluva lot cheaper!
No, the purpose is to have way more supply efficiency. A carrier obviously has way more damage than 8 marines, or 4 stalkers.
(DPS of Marine) * SIX Marines = 7 * 6 = 42 DPS (DPS of Stalker) * Four Stalkers = 4 * 6.9 = 27.6 DPS DPS of Carrier = 26.7 DPS
On November 20 2011 03:06 DoubleReed wrote: The carrier is not 'low damage' unit, it simply fires a lot of little shots. It makes it better at killing smaller units instead of larger units. Like the mutalisk.
And exactly. I never said it was a low damage unit, but a unit similar to a bunch of Marines. Not very high damage attacks, but a lot of them.
If you think 6 marines beats a carrier you're just playing a different game. Seriously, I know you think carriers are bad, but don't just say "I"D RATHER HAVE 6 MARINES THAN A CARRIER LOL."
On November 20 2011 04:22 DoubleReed wrote: If you think 6 marines beats a carrier you're just playing a different game. Seriously, I know you think carriers are bad, but don't just say "I"D RATHER HAVE 6 MARINES THAN A CARRIER LOL."
You just said a Carrier has more damage than 8 Marines. It doesn't. He didn't say anything about preferring Marines over Carriers.
On November 20 2011 03:04 ProxyKnoxy wrote: Mass carriers is actually probably unbeatable, it's just near impossible to get there as they take so long to make, and any competent player won't let you get there
Mass Carriers will die hilariously to mass Marines, doing virtually no damage. The problem is the interceptors, they die far too quickly.
Ah for some reason I was forgetting about marines xD But vs Zerg it is at any rate, and PvP
On November 20 2011 03:57 NeThZOR wrote: Let's face it guys, even though we all love SC2 and it definitely has its place, Broodwar still is and will always be better.
If I had a downvote button I would for sure hit it.
Carrier can't be fixed as it is now by not completely changing the colossus. Carriers are not used now because there is a easily mass produced counter available (viking, corruptor, stalker) that simply makes them useless. If they are buffed to beat these units they would become too strong and if those counters were nerfed the colossus would become too strong. Theoretically there is still some use for carriers in pvp and perhaps with air play getting more dominant in that matchup they might see some use once, but it's very unlikely.
Blizzard stated correctly, their role overlaps too much with the colossus and they need to be overhauled completely, thus the tempest.
The battlecruiser can be fixed by simply adding a minor buff to it but I don't think they really want it to be a good unit as it's a boring unit.
On November 20 2011 03:00 SeaSwift wrote: The reason Carrier is not viable is just because the Colossus is a lot better and serves nearly the same purpose, and the same units used to kill Colossus are used to kill Carrier, as well as some other units too.
To make the Carrier viable, you'd have to make it better than the Colossus, which would in turn kill the Colossus, or else change it's role somehow - in which case, why call it the Carrier? Blizzard went down the second route and replaced it with the Tempest.
Carrier was only good against mech. Even in broodwar, carrier was good against mech. In BW if protoss went carrier against a bio terran (which is rare to begin with) the resultant would be similar to SC2. Thus if mech became viable in SC2, then carriers would become viable and we wouldnt be seeing these kind of thread.
On a side note, yes 3-3 marine vs 3-3-3 carriers basically negate each other because all their upgrade goes up by 1. BUT there are benefit to this too. Consider a marine, he start off with 7 damage. If you upgrade +1 damage then he goes to 8 damage. This is around a 15% increase in DPS! That mean if your opponent doesnt get armor upgrade, then they will suffer from alot of damage.
Basically, unit that only small increment per upgrade will get a substantial increase in DPS per upgrade. If their opponent fall behind on upgrade then it can be game changing compare to upgrade that g ive alot like tanks. Which goes from 50 damage to 55 which is only like a 4-5% increase in DPS.
NOTE: the Percentage I am using are just estimated to prove a point. If you actually did some math you will see similar deviation between upgrades DPS increase.
not sure which version of the game you have but marines does not have 7 base damage
On November 20 2011 04:45 Markwerf wrote: Carrier can't be fixed as it is now by not completely changing the colossus. Carriers are not used now because there is a easily mass produced counter available (viking, corruptor, stalker) that simply makes them useless. If they are buffed to beat these units they would become too strong and if those counters were nerfed the colossus would become too strong. Theoretically there is still some use for carriers in pvp and perhaps with air play getting more dominant in that matchup they might see some use once, but it's very unlikely.
Blizzard stated correctly, their role overlaps too much with the colossus and they need to be overhauled completely, thus the tempest.
The battlecruiser can be fixed by simply adding a minor buff to it but I don't think they really want it to be a good unit as it's a boring unit.
Carrier can be fixed without changing the colossus. You can't do both pre 4 base. They don't serve the same role at all. One is a unique air siege unit, the other is the go-to AoE unit which is basically required to play this game when they're so effective vs balls.
Blizzard is full of BS. There are obvious fixes they've refused to implement since the nerfs from broodwar.
carriers suck because they have only 8 range. cattlebruisers suck because they deal only 6 damage to air units. make carriers have 10 range and battlecruisers deal 8 damage to air targets and they'll be fine.
just because a unit is getting replaced doesn't mean we don't have to live with those units for another year. Seriously, it's going to be awhile before we get HotS beta, so blizzard should make efforts to buff these units and other units that are more or less, useless.
Carrier can't be fixed, because the only way to "fix" them was to redesign them (which is being done --> tempest) Their stats are fine, some little improvements (BW like micro stuff) would be nice, but the main issue remains: the compositions which they are good against (slow ground compositions) are either not being played vs Protoss or are countered better/easier/earlier with different units
For the battlecruiser: Mech is being played in TvT, that's why we see it. Again, it's stats are fine, it just doesn't have a ton of use in most situations.
They didnt bother changing Carrier, not a single change in whole WoL history. Obviously they didnt want to change it. And give Battlecruisers a speed thing in HotS, what is that good for?
If I had to guess, I'd say the reason BC's and Carriers attack the way they do is so Corruptors can hard counter them. They were given a bunch of small attacks so they wouldn't do much damage against the corruptors natural 2 armor. Stupid, yeah, and yet another reason to dislike the corrupter, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's true. Interestingly, the Tempest doesn't attack like this, which means it'll be much better against corruptors.
The advantage in capital ships in SC2 isn't in dps, but in health pool. BC's have way more health per supply than other terran units, and having your health in fewer units helps in fights too, especially as BC's can be repaired afterwards. Capital ships do get a pretty good DPS boost when they have an upgrade advantage, but it's not that amazing, and it's pretty hard to consistently take advantage of.
Carriers are in a similar boat, but are just UP. It baffles me that they're worse than BC's in nearly every stat (worse buildtime, unless you constantly chronoboost; worse dps; worse health; worse armor; equal movespeed; better range, at the cost of being able to lose interceptors, plus BC's get yamato) yet Blizz just ignores them. The stats weren't quite so lopsided when BC's had 110 build time and less movement speed, but Carriers haven't gotten any stat changes, ever, despite sorely needing them. Just dropping the build time by 20-30 seconds would make such a big difference.
It's just way harder to get out the capital ship than it is to either get out the counter or deal massive damage with an attack, and they aren't good enough to make it worth the effort.
By the way, what ever happened to the Interceptors being healed once they got back into the Carrier? I'm pretty sure that doesn't happen any more.
On November 20 2011 05:10 eYeball wrote: They didnt bother changing Carrier, not a single change in whole WoL history. Obviously they didnt want to change it. And give Battlecruisers a speed thing in HotS, what is that good for?
Once again, exactly.
People. I don't mean to say that the Tempest is a particularly bad idea. What I'm saying is that they're giving up on the Carrier waaaay too easily, not even trying to fix it.
As for the whole Colossus vs. Carrier debate, they're completely different units. Colossi have a niche, like was said earlier, of killing balls of enemies. It's fragile and must stay behind your main army. Carriers have a similar role (Attack from a distance), but are arguably more vulnerable with their lack of decent damage dealing capabilities. If a Colossi is able to hit just one more unit, its DPS increases to well over that of the Carrier.
What's so wrong with having a unit that can defend itself? As long as Bio still remains effective, Colossi will have their place in the Metagame, but when other compositions are brought forward, having a useful Carrier would be nice.
NOTE: If you have nothing worthwhile to contribute to the thread (Here's to you, TigerKarl), get off. I'm not trying to rile up the community to arms, just proposing a possibly valid solution to a long time problem.
Although i would make other changes for arcade purposes, there are TWO fundamental changes for each unit that would encourage its use, will maintaining the uniqueness of units in the game:
For the BATTLECRUISER, i wanted to make it unique... its normal damage against ground is roughly equal to 4 marines (2 stimmed, 2 unstimmed) this makes the BC inefficient in supply and resources.. not to mention immobile and easy to focus fire... I thought about the various attack mechanics and the game, and settled on the fact the BCs have 2 separate weapons... an air to ground and air to air attack.
My change was to let the Battlecruiser use both weapons simultaneously... this keeps the battle cruiser evenly strong against specific units, but allows the battlecruiser to be "stronger" against an opponent building a diverse force.
I made this mechanic more practical by allowing battlecruisers to attack while moving (encouraging micromanagment and positioning)
lastly, for my fun i let hi-sec autotracking increase the battery range by +1... and i increased the air damage to 8 matching the ground...
even so, vikings/void rays/corruptors are still dominant in the air... and BCs are still vulnerable to high templar /ghosts/ infestors. In this way, the BC doesn't "counter" anything, its strenght is "loosly" perportional to the opponents diversity, since its damage output doubles when fighting both ground and air units...
On paper, the damage is amazing, making the BC a pair of flying bunkers (1 vs ground, 1 vs air)... however, because hte damage is split between 2 targets (and there wont always be both unit types) it prevents the BC from being to strong....
now for the CARRIER:
Carrier's have a unique mechanic on their own: interceptors, so i didn't need to make carriers more unique, however it gave me the opportunity to work directly with interceptors to solve the carrier's problems.
my fundamental change for the carrier, was to make interceptors free (and set them autocast) this allows protoss players to be more aggressive with carriers, since protecting the carrier itself is the primary goal.
In addition, i increased interceptor shields to 60 (from 40) to reinforce the need to attack the carrier directly, and i increased interceptor damage by (+2 vs armored) to allow carriers to compete with voidrays...
Lastly, i made the Graviton Catapult increase the launch range by +1 (to total of 9) allowing carriers to fight vikings and voidrays more effectively.
I AM DISAPPOINTED IN BLIZZARD who removed the carrier, and made the wrong choice for the battle cruiser.
By giving the BC a "sprint like" ability, all blizzard does is reinforce the BC use in TvT... since that is the only matchup where BCs getting "kyted" is an issue...
seeing as blizzard was hoping to cover the "weaknesses" of units, i am sad that the weakness of the BC according to them, is that BCs can be kyted by vikings... its so depressing that their narrow vision doesnt even deal with the other matchups.. because BCs are used SOO OFTEN in the other matchups... /sarcasm
DAVID KIM SAID, after buffing BC speed from 1.41 to 1.875,
WE DON"T WANT TO SEE BCs IN EVERY GAME <paraphrased>
at the time i found this laughable that they would be concerned about seeing battle cruisers in every game, when Colossus (yet another late game unit like the BC) were the go to unit in EVERY SINGLE PROTOSS MATCHUP during that period of balance.
This is horribly depressing to know that blizzard sees the BCs role as supporting viking battles only, so i don't expect any changes to encourage BC use in the other matchups.
On November 20 2011 05:22 Muffinmanifestation wrote: What's so wrong with having a unit that can defend itself? As long as Bio still remains effective, Colossi will have their place in the Metagame, but when other compositions are brought forward, having a useful Carrier would be nice.
Nothing. The Carrier is such a unit. It is extremly good at defending itself and being costefficient against every unit but 1-2 from each race. (viking and in low-mid numbers marines; blink stalkers and void rays; corruptors) Therefore it is lacking specialized abilities. Therefore other units are chosen over it.
The carrier needs LESS variety, so it can be better at dealing with ONE or two specific things. That means it has to be redesigned. --> make it good vs air, not so good vs ground. Rename it Tempest, because it has nothing in common with a carrier anymore.
On November 20 2011 05:22 Muffinmanifestation wrote: What's so wrong with having a unit that can defend itself? As long as Bio still remains effective, Colossi will have their place in the Metagame, but when other compositions are brought forward, having a useful Carrier would be nice.
Nothing. The Carrier is such a unit. It is extremly good at defending itself and being costefficient against every unit but 1-2 from each race. (viking and in low-mid numbers marines; blink stalkers and void rays; corruptors) Therefore it is lacking specialized abilities. Therefore other units are chosen over it.
The carrier needs LESS variety, so it can be better at dealing with ONE or two specific things. That means it has to be redesigned. --> make it good vs air, not so good vs ground. Rename it Tempest, because it has nothing in common with a carrier anymore.
Let's name all of the anti-air units in the game, mkay?
Terran: Marine Ghost Thor Viking Battlecruiser
Protoss: Stalker Sentry Archon Phoenix Void Ray Carrier Mothership
Now let's name all of the units Carriers are good against.
Terran: Ghost Thor
Protoss: Sentry Phoenix
Zerg:
Currently, the Carrier does shit vs. everything. The only thing you might want to make Carriers for is against Thors, and even then, HTs and Zealots are better. If Blizzard really doesn't want to buff the Carrier, fine, but at least make it viable in end game compositions by giving it a change to be more effective against other upgraded units.
On November 20 2011 05:22 Muffinmanifestation wrote: What's so wrong with having a unit that can defend itself? As long as Bio still remains effective, Colossi will have their place in the Metagame, but when other compositions are brought forward, having a useful Carrier would be nice.
Nothing. The Carrier is such a unit. It is extremly good at defending itself and being costefficient against every unit but 1-2 from each race. (viking and in low-mid numbers marines; blink stalkers and void rays; corruptors) Therefore it is lacking specialized abilities. Therefore other units are chosen over it.
The carrier needs LESS variety, so it can be better at dealing with ONE or two specific things. That means it has to be redesigned. --> make it good vs air, not so good vs ground. Rename it Tempest, because it has nothing in common with a carrier anymore.
Let's name all of the anti-air units in the game, mkay?
Terran: Marine Ghost Thor Viking Battlecruiser
Protoss: Stalker Sentry Archon Phoenix Void Ray Carrier Mothership
Now let's name all of the units Carriers are good against.
Terran: Ghost Thor
Protoss: Sentry Phoenix
Zerg:
Currently, the Carrier does shit vs. everything. The only thing you might want to make Carriers for is against Thors, and even then, HTs and Zealots are better. If Blizzard really doesn't want to buff the Carrier, fine, but at least make it viable in end game compositions by giving it a change to be more effective against other upgraded units.
LOL... You're not even thinking before posting... Have you ever seen mass carrier vs mass marines? Carrier's roflstomp them. The same goes for every unit you named but Corruptor, Viking, Void Ray and Battlecruiser.
Marines and blink stalkers somewhat stand a chance against them until carrier numbers get around 8 and are completly unprotected. After that it is just lights out...
What do you want? A unit that is costefficient against every non pure AA-unit when you only get 1-2 of them? "Hey I built a carrier, and whatever you have built until now is useless if it isn't a viking..."
Stop stating "facts" that are not true. Carriers are good units. But if you want to kill marines or hydralisks, you simply won't tech to carriers and wait until you have 8 of them when 2colossi do the same job 4mins earlier. (colossi just being an example; if you face mech the same statement would be true for immortals; if you face mutalisks the same statement would be true for phoenix etc...) High tech units in starcraft2 have to be more specialized as the low tech units are the universal ones.
On November 20 2011 05:39 Muffinmanifestation wrote:
On November 20 2011 05:30 Big J wrote:
On November 20 2011 05:22 Muffinmanifestation wrote: What's so wrong with having a unit that can defend itself? As long as Bio still remains effective, Colossi will have their place in the Metagame, but when other compositions are brought forward, having a useful Carrier would be nice.
Nothing. The Carrier is such a unit. It is extremly good at defending itself and being costefficient against every unit but 1-2 from each race. (viking and in low-mid numbers marines; blink stalkers and void rays; corruptors) Therefore it is lacking specialized abilities. Therefore other units are chosen over it.
The carrier needs LESS variety, so it can be better at dealing with ONE or two specific things. That means it has to be redesigned. --> make it good vs air, not so good vs ground. Rename it Tempest, because it has nothing in common with a carrier anymore.
Let's name all of the anti-air units in the game, mkay?
Terran: Marine Ghost Thor Viking Battlecruiser
Protoss: Stalker Sentry Archon Phoenix Void Ray Carrier Mothership
Now let's name all of the units Carriers are good against.
Terran: Ghost Thor
Protoss: Sentry Phoenix
Zerg:
Currently, the Carrier does shit vs. everything. The only thing you might want to make Carriers for is against Thors, and even then, HTs and Zealots are better. If Blizzard really doesn't want to buff the Carrier, fine, but at least make it viable in end game compositions by giving it a change to be more effective against other upgraded units.
LOL... You're not even thinking before posting... Have you ever seen mass carrier vs mass marines? Carrier's roflstomp them. The same goes for every unit you named but Corruptor, Viking, Void Ray and Battlecruiser.
Marines and blink stalkers somewhat stand a chance against them until carrier numbers get around 8 and are completly unprotected. After that it is just lights out...
What do you want? A unit that is costefficient against every non pure AA-unit when you only get 1-2 of them? "Hey I built a carrier, and whatever you have built until now is useless if it isn't a viking..."
Stop stating "facts" that are not true. Carriers are good units. But if you want to kill marines or hydralisks, you simply won't tech to carriers and wait until you have 8 of them when 2colossi do the same job 4mins earlier. (colossi just being an example; if you face mech the same statement would be true for immortals; if you face mutalisks the same statement would be true for phoenix etc...) High tech units in starcraft2 have to be more specialized as the low tech units are the universal ones.
I expect to be able to have a unit I can actually use. I don't want Carriers to "counter" everything, but I want to be able to use them without getting the shit kicked out of me.
i dont know why they are removing carriers in favor of a god tier pvz air to air unit
but whatever
if more people dont start doing mass air before hots, i expect to see it after
well it's only if zerg is unexperienced against it and tries to go hydralisks, which get countered pretty brutal by carriers. If zerg realizes that the Protoss goes only air, he can just spam pure corruptor (+ling for groundcontrol) and beat the Protoss air armada in every category (costefficient, supplyefficient, maxed battle). That is what could be so cool about the tempest. If tempest adds enough splash to protoss air, that protoss wins the high supply air battle, then PvZ could turn into an awesome Protoss airarmy vs Zerg hydrabased army battle (tempest unlike carrier won't do so well against hydras; but air is more mobile and can easily attack in advantegous positions, so it might still win direct engagements in a lot of curcumstances)
200/200 3/3/3 carriers beat everything else in the entire game (even vikings since no map is big enough to micro against so many carriers almost the same thing with battlecruisers - they win vs everything except mass carriers (and maybe mass voidray+templar or something)
On November 20 2011 06:09 sVnteen wrote: this thread makes no sense at all imo
200/200 3/3/3 carriers beat everything else in the entire game (even vikings since no map is big enough to micro against so many carriers almost the same thing with battlecruisers - they win vs everything except mass carriers (and maybe mass voidray+templar or something)
if you look a couple posts above youll see a video showing that marines beat carriers, and if you wanna try it yourself youll see many units beat carriers, like corrupters
On November 20 2011 03:04 zeru wrote: Actually carriers suck because of the whole bonus damage system sc2 has. Vikings and corruptors kind of make carriers silly.
Counter units makes the units look bad because it destroys them, who knew? Honestly, I think the real problem with carriers is a combination of build time and void rays exsisting.
On November 20 2011 06:09 sVnteen wrote: this thread makes no sense at all imo
200/200 3/3/3 carriers beat everything else in the entire game (even vikings since no map is big enough to micro against so many carriers almost the same thing with battlecruisers - they win vs everything except mass carriers (and maybe mass voidray+templar or something)
Seriously? and thats why we see mass carrier/ battle cruiser in every pro game right? thats why we see at least 1 carrier and battle cruiser in every single season right? oh wait, that was all sarcasm... because the truth:
Carriers and BCs aren't good enough... some mr whiny a few posts back said something about people not making BCs because they're "too expensive" but regardless they're good... look at that logic...
if cost >> benefit... clearly the benefit is NOT GOOD ENOUGH!!!
My suggestions stand:
NECCESARIES: BC: - attack air and ground separatly/ simultaneously - attack while moving Carrier: - interceptors should be free (8 second build time only) - interceptors need (+2 vs armored damage)
OPTIONALS: BC: - air damage should match ground damage - possible +1 range upgrade (hi sec auto tracking) Carrier: - interceptor shield buff (+20) - interceptor launch range +1 or 2 (graviton catapult)
on paper both units seem okay, but the truth is the benefit is CURRENTLY not equavalent to the cost... I would like a world where a Carrier rush or BC rush is actually viable... where the element of surprise for such a unit is not simply "a minor setback for the opponent"
I want players to FEAR Battle cruisers and Carriers in the same way people fear Ghosts and Colossus.
i dont know why they are removing carriers in favor of a god tier pvz air to air unit
but whatever
if more people dont start doing mass air before hots, i expect to see it after
well it's only if zerg is unexperienced against it and tries to go hydralisks, which get countered pretty brutal by carriers. If zerg realizes that the Protoss goes only air, he can just spam pure corruptor (+ling for groundcontrol) and beat the Protoss air armada in every category (costefficient, supplyefficient, maxed battle). That is what could be so cool about the tempest. If tempest adds enough splash to protoss air, that protoss wins the high supply air battle, then PvZ could turn into an awesome Protoss airarmy vs Zerg hydrabased army battle (tempest unlike carrier won't do so well against hydras; but air is more mobile and can easily attack in advantegous positions, so it might still win direct engagements in a lot of curcumstances)
Or zerg can make infestors and laugh his ass off....
On November 20 2011 03:00 SeaSwift wrote: The reason Carrier is not viable is just because the Colossus is a lot better and serves nearly the same purpose, and the same units used to kill Colossus are used to kill Carrier, as well as some other units too.
I know this is "the reasoning". But I think its bad reasoning. Protoss should get carriers late game because they force marines which are bad lategame.
On November 20 2011 03:00 SeaSwift wrote: The reason Carrier is not viable is just because the Colossus is a lot better and serves nearly the same purpose, and the same units used to kill Colossus are used to kill Carrier, as well as some other units too.
I know this is "the reasoning". But I think its bad reasoning. Protoss should get carriers late game because they force marines which are bad lategame.
Heavy +3 chargelot play forces marines too, and is also better than carriers.
There's so many problems with getting the Carrier to work. -The very existence of collosi requires things like vikings and corrupters that also happen to counter carriers. That ridiculous range makes going carrier very unsafe as it is way too easy to focus fire. -Because medivacs are required to go bio, Terran is already building starports that easily allows them to switch to making vikings -Carriers cannot be micro'ed like their BW counterpart (as explained by Tyler) -Smart casting means storm has been nerfed (compared to BW), which means Terran has no reason to tech switch away from marines. And marines kill interceptors or focus fire carriers SO fast.
Just by Blizzard wanting a greater focus on air battles means Carriers will be used less because BW Carrier's greatest strength was attacking along cliff walls to abuse the mobility of goliaths.
But simply because Z and T are already going the tech paths needed to stop carriers means carriers will rarely be used. Carriers gain greater strength as they add to their numbers. So it's always the tricky timing of switch tech to carrier to build up 4-6 before Terran researches range for goliaths and mass enough goliaths. But then goliaths weren't very good against ground and especially storm. There's very little timing window in SC2 to switch as typically Terran already has a ton of barracks and Stargates with no need to wait for a range upgrade.
On November 20 2011 06:09 sVnteen wrote: this thread makes no sense at all imo
200/200 3/3/3 carriers beat everything else in the entire game (even vikings since no map is big enough to micro against so many carriers almost the same thing with battlecruisers - they win vs everything except mass carriers (and maybe mass voidray+templar or something)
um.... mass bc with yamato with repair is insanely overpowered
in fact they do high damage with high fire rate, but is less tanky than battlecruisers.
if you have seen genius/hongun carrier build, they have also defend their carriers really well, why in TvT, for example, BCs are used very well for tanking damage.
On November 20 2011 06:09 sVnteen wrote: this thread makes no sense at all imo
200/200 3/3/3 carriers beat everything else in the entire game (even vikings since no map is big enough to micro against so many carriers almost the same thing with battlecruisers - they win vs everything except mass carriers (and maybe mass voidray+templar or something)
This is not true.
On November 20 2011 06:44 ThePlayer33 wrote: carrier do not do low damage with high fire rate.
in fact they do high damage with high fire rate, but is less tanky than battlecruisers.
if you have seen genius/hongun carrier build, they have also defend their carriers really well, why in TvT, for example, BCs are used very well for tanking damage.
Please stop informing the community.
Carriers have less dps than battlecruisers. What the OP meant is that carriers do damage in many small attacks, which means that they are no stronger on equal upgrades 3v3 than 0v0. Do you have stats on how well genius and hogun have done with that build? (win/loss and opponent for each use). I'd be interested in seeing it. I know the one time I saw a pro going carrier he got crushed.
I find BCs pretty good. :s They ain't something you build everyday but it's not because they're bad, just because it's a very very lategame choice. Very hard to transition into them.
Removing the carrier is premature. Carriers would probably be a lot stronger if terrans go mech (which will be stronger in HoTS). Also with a unit like the Tempest, air superiority can be more easily obtained.
I expect to be able to have a unit I can actually use. I don't want Carriers to "counter" everything, but I want to be able to use them without getting the shit kicked out of me.
Hey, let's show everybody how much carriers suck versus marines with no auto-building interceptors, with no micro and no terrain abusing at all(!), because that's what it is like in the game!
Seriously though, I don't see why anyone would build only carriers with no other units to mix in it like say zealots to draw fire from the interceptors or HT for storms or possibly something else too. It is good for the game if you can't win the game with just a-moving one type of units.
Carriers have less dps than battlecruisers. What the OP meant is that carriers do damage in many small attacks, which means that they are no stronger on equal upgrades 3v3 than 0v0. Do you have stats on how well genius and hogun have done with that build? (win/loss and opponent for each use). I'd be interested in seeing it. I know the one time I saw a pro going carrier he got crushed.
maybe watch some GSL?
october/november up and down matches featured hongun vs keen carrier build. (PvT)
genius did it during code A during this season. (PvZ) (cant remember game 1 or 2, genius vs symbol)
Or they have too many hard counters. Mutalisks (en masse), Corruptors, Vikings, Hydras, Void Ray, Blink Stalkers, Marines all counter Battlecruisers and Carriers. What else are you going to do, try and counter those units? None of those units can get hard countered without the protoss/terran having 4+ bases (an unlikely scenario in PvZ and in PvT due to marine drops)
On November 20 2011 05:39 Muffinmanifestation wrote:
On November 20 2011 05:30 Big J wrote:
On November 20 2011 05:22 Muffinmanifestation wrote: What's so wrong with having a unit that can defend itself? As long as Bio still remains effective, Colossi will have their place in the Metagame, but when other compositions are brought forward, having a useful Carrier would be nice.
Nothing. The Carrier is such a unit. It is extremly good at defending itself and being costefficient against every unit but 1-2 from each race. (viking and in low-mid numbers marines; blink stalkers and void rays; corruptors) Therefore it is lacking specialized abilities. Therefore other units are chosen over it.
The carrier needs LESS variety, so it can be better at dealing with ONE or two specific things. That means it has to be redesigned. --> make it good vs air, not so good vs ground. Rename it Tempest, because it has nothing in common with a carrier anymore.
Let's name all of the anti-air units in the game, mkay?
Terran: Marine Ghost Thor Viking Battlecruiser
Protoss: Stalker Sentry Archon Phoenix Void Ray Carrier Mothership
Now let's name all of the units Carriers are good against.
Terran: Ghost Thor
Protoss: Sentry Phoenix
Zerg:
Currently, the Carrier does shit vs. everything. The only thing you might want to make Carriers for is against Thors, and even then, HTs and Zealots are better. If Blizzard really doesn't want to buff the Carrier, fine, but at least make it viable in end game compositions by giving it a change to be more effective against other upgraded units.
LOL... You're not even thinking before posting... Have you ever seen mass carrier vs mass marines? Carrier's roflstomp them. The same goes for every unit you named but Corruptor, Viking, Void Ray and Battlecruiser.
Marines and blink stalkers somewhat stand a chance against them until carrier numbers get around 8 and are completly unprotected. After that it is just lights out...
What do you want? A unit that is costefficient against every non pure AA-unit when you only get 1-2 of them? "Hey I built a carrier, and whatever you have built until now is useless if it isn't a viking..."
Stop stating "facts" that are not true. Carriers are good units. But if you want to kill marines or hydralisks, you simply won't tech to carriers and wait until you have 8 of them when 2colossi do the same job 4mins earlier. (colossi just being an example; if you face mech the same statement would be true for immortals; if you face mutalisks the same statement would be true for phoenix etc...) High tech units in starcraft2 have to be more specialized as the low tech units are the universal ones.
I expect to be able to have a unit I can actually use. I don't want Carriers to "counter" everything, but I want to be able to use them without getting the shit kicked out of me.
yeah and it turns out that this can't be achieved with the current protoss capital ship design. So they change it. Of course they could have fooled around more with them, but there is actually no reason why they should. There is absolutly no scenario in the game right now, where the carrier seems to be necessary (unlike the battlecruiser which seems to be necessary in lategame TvT, at least on most maps)
Both Carrier and Battle-Cruisers are a helluva lot more Useful than Ultralisks...
I guess OP's never seen Hong-un Use Mass Carrier/Voids with Mothership Storm Toilet its basically Unbeatable.
Voids> Corruptors Carriers> Everything Zerg has(Except Corruptors that's where the Voids come in) Then Mothership makes it impossible For Zerg to Engage the Death ball.
If the Protoss gets a Vortex off which they will when a Zerg is forced to Engage the Protoss can Storm everything coming out of the Vortex... GG
You really switched races because people were "bad mouthing" you for playing terran? Seriously? That's really ridiculous. I mean, you know you can play whatever race you want, right? You know that people who hate on people for playing a certain race are idiots, right?
On November 20 2011 06:44 ThePlayer33 wrote: carrier do not do low damage with high fire rate.
in fact they do high damage with high fire rate, but is less tanky than battlecruisers.
if you have seen genius/hongun carrier build, they have also defend their carriers really well, why in TvT, for example, BCs are used very well for tanking damage.
Please stop informing the community.
You may have never looked at a Carrier closely, but you'll notice that they have 8 Interceptors that each do two attacks, and each of those attacks are 5 damage. I would say that each of those attacks are pretty low damage (Less than a Marine? omgnolololol).
I expect to be able to have a unit I can actually use. I don't want Carriers to "counter" everything, but I want to be able to use them without getting the shit kicked out of me.
Hey, let's show everybody how much carriers suck versus marines with no auto-building interceptors, with no micro and no terrain abusing at all(!), because that's what it is like in the game!
Seriously though, I don't see why anyone would build only carriers with no other units to mix in it like say zealots to draw fire from the interceptors or HT for storms or possibly something else too. It is good for the game if you can't win the game with just a-moving one type of units.
It is true that they weren't on auto build. I still find it difficult to think that the Marines still wouldn't win. Also, the only reason the Marines won was because they killed every single Interceptor. Cliffs will not (!) save Interceptors. Finally, someone brought up that mass Carriers beats mass Marines. There was no talk of additional units, so please realize that this video was of a very narrow scope.
And please, people, if you're gonna bring up these games, please post some damn videos.
On November 20 2011 08:30 MShaw006 wrote: You really switched races because people were "bad mouthing" you for playing terran? Seriously? That's really ridiculous. I mean, you know you can play whatever race you want, right? You know that people who hate on people for playing a certain race are idiots, right?
Yes, I know it was silly. There were other factors, namely that I was getting pissed at TvT, but if people are hating, I like to prove them wrong.
Cruisers are kinda good TvT and yes Carriers are bad because its been said many times Blizzard made an AI change to their inceptors so they can't be microed also not much maps in our map pool have ridges and hills where carriers can hide and dodge attacks.
On November 20 2011 08:03 XRaDiiX wrote: Both Carrier and Battle-Cruisers are a helluva lot more Useful than Ultralisks...
I guess OP's never seen Hong-un Use Mass Carrier/Voids with Mothership Storm Toilet its basically Unbeatable.
Voids> Corruptors Carriers> Everything Zerg has(Except Corruptors that's where the Voids come in) Then Mothership makes it impossible For Zerg to Engage the Death ball.
If the Protoss gets a Vortex off which they will when a Zerg is forced to Engage the Protoss can Storm everything coming out of the Vortex... GG
No... Ultralisks are more valuable to zerg, than Carriers are to protoss, or Battlecruisers are to terran.
also, if the protoss has a mothership and templar and voidrays, why would he even waste resources on carriers? for every application of a carrier, there is an alternative protoss unit that is more efficient... Carriers would be the least of the zergs problems at that point.
It is true that they weren't on auto build. I still find it difficult to think that the Marines still wouldn't win. Also, the only reason the Marines won was because they killed every single Interceptor. Cliffs will not (!) save Interceptors. Finally, someone brought up that mass Carriers beats mass Marines. There was no talk of additional units, so please realize that this video was of a very narrow scope.
And please, people, if you're gonna bring up these games, please post some damn videos.
yeah, one of the main problems is that vikings/corruptors counter Carriers WHILE marines/hydras counter interceptors. So even if you take off guard your opponent in some way (which is almost impossible), he has already the infrastructure (Terran) or the fast tech switch (Zerg) to counter carriers one way or another.
On November 20 2011 03:02 Microsloth wrote: why does this thread even exist?
Why do posts like these exists?
Read the thread title, hes trying to discuss why Carriers, BC's are bad units and why they are underused. As we're moving through the HOTS there are a huge impact on both these units thus the discussion.
Battlecruisers are awesome in TvT, they own marines and pretty much any unit that isn't vikings. So if you have more vikings and battlecruisers, you just win.
On November 20 2011 03:02 Microsloth wrote: why does this thread even exist?
Why do posts like these exists?
Read the thread title, hes trying to discuss why Carriers, BC's are bad units and why they are underused. As we're moving through the HOTS there are a huge impact on both these units thus the discussion.
No, his question is valid; This thread doesn't have a point.
Well, that isn't entirely true. This thread's point seems to be "Carriers and battlecruisers suck because armour upgrades exist. Discuss" which, though it is a point, is a reasonably empty one. There is no follow up into a suggestion on how to circumvent this problem (I.E. a build that allows a +1 air attack carrier build that is likely to hit before their targets get +1 armour, or a build that forces non-armour units and then transitions into a task force of supported battlecruisers). Ultimately, the point seems to lead to a sort of "If this fact wasn't true then carriers/bc wouldn't suck"... which is about as useful as saying "If siege tanks had infinity range they'd be better".
I don't mean any offense to everyone. Just pointing out that it is a fairly empty thread :D
BCs are very strong vs zerg. The only units which counter mass BC's are hydras - hydras can be easly countered by siege tanks/helions. In mid late game BCs /siegetanks/2-3 ravens with seeker missile + some marine/helion mix to spend extra $$ are almost impossible to counter when u r zerg. U can even exchange ravens with ghots (snipe coruptors) -> even better mix. I saw Kas doing this on ladder vs Zazu or Paranoid. Zerg got destroyed.
The video in the thread also showed marines with 0/0 upgrades. By the time units like carriers are out they will most likely be 2/2 or 3/3 in ups making carriers look even more silly.
I agree with many of the suggestions people are saying; +2 vs armor, free interceptors, longer range to deal with units like vikings and to allow the carrier to be a more micro-able unit. Greater health to the interceptor was also a good suggestion so that they don't melt as easily to marines and hydras.
What about an upgrade to give carriers more interceptors, or just allowing the carriers to hold 10 or 12 interceptors at a time from the get go. They will still be doing less damage to highly armored corruptors, but will also be better at taking down smaller units solely on the fact they will have more dps. By having more interceptors, their upgrades will stack even that much more and it(The carrier) may actually be worthy of their extremely long build time.
I expect to be able to have a unit I can actually use. I don't want Carriers to "counter" everything, but I want to be able to use them without getting the shit kicked out of me.
Hey, let's show everybody how much carriers suck versus marines with no auto-building interceptors, with no micro and no terrain abusing at all(!), because that's what it is like in the game!
Seriously though, I don't see why anyone would build only carriers with no other units to mix in it like say zealots to draw fire from the interceptors or HT for storms or possibly something else too. It is good for the game if you can't win the game with just a-moving one type of units.
It is true that they weren't on auto build. I still find it difficult to think that the Marines still wouldn't win. Also, the only reason the Marines won was because they killed every single Interceptor. Cliffs will not (!) save Interceptors. Finally, someone brought up that mass Carriers beats mass Marines. There was no talk of additional units, so please realize that this video was of a very narrow scope.
And please, people, if you're gonna bring up these games, please post some damn videos.
If you actually read the comments the video had, there is some guy that claims that he did the same test with auto-build on and apparently carriers won easily. Also cliffs help so he can't get to your carriers and kill them, so they can go on and make more interceptors safely. There should be talk about additional units, because not even in late game tvt terrans make just battlecruiser instead it is viking/raven/battlecruiser unit composition. It's basically like saying battlecruisers suck late game tvt because of vikings. I don't even know how anyone can even start theorycrafting with one unit compositions.
On November 20 2011 03:02 Microsloth wrote: why does this thread even exist?
Why do posts like these exists?
Read the thread title, hes trying to discuss why Carriers, BC's are bad units and why they are underused. As we're moving through the HOTS there are a huge impact on both these units thus the discussion.
No, his question is valid; This thread doesn't have a point.
Well, that isn't entirely true. This thread's point seems to be "Carriers and battlecruisers suck because armour upgrades exist. Discuss" which, though it is a point, is a reasonably empty one. There is no follow up into a suggestion on how to circumvent this problem (I.E. a build that allows a +1 air attack carrier build that is likely to hit before their targets get +1 armour, or a build that forces non-armour units and then transitions into a task force of supported battlecruisers). Ultimately, the point seems to lead to a sort of "If this fact wasn't true then carriers/bc wouldn't suck"... which is about as useful as saying "If siege tanks had infinity range they'd be better".
I don't mean any offense to everyone. Just pointing out that it is a fairly empty thread :D
Might I suggest you read the original post again? I pretty much explain everything you say I lack. BCs and Carriers are so far on the tech tree that there isn't necessarily a build that will force non-armored units into production a reasonable amount of the time. Battlecruisers and Carriers suck because they don't surpass armor upgrades. The (Maybe not main, but a big one) reason why armor upgrades exist is to punish people who use low tier units. Unupgraded Zealots vs. +5 Ultralisks are pitiful. And so require attack upgrades to keep up the same level of efficiency with damage that they had at the beginning of the game. Higher tier units get better damage upgrade scaling because they need to outgun the lower tier units. Battlecruisers and Carriers only getting +1 is not giving them any edge in the late game. So I propose they turn into units that attack half as much but deal twice the damage, which gives them +2 damage buffs. It's not extravagant, and it probably won't change the metagame such that everybody build nothing but BCs and Carriers, but it'll make them a little more viable as units.
I expect to be able to have a unit I can actually use. I don't want Carriers to "counter" everything, but I want to be able to use them without getting the shit kicked out of me.
Hey, let's show everybody how much carriers suck versus marines with no auto-building interceptors, with no micro and no terrain abusing at all(!), because that's what it is like in the game!
Seriously though, I don't see why anyone would build only carriers with no other units to mix in it like say zealots to draw fire from the interceptors or HT for storms or possibly something else too. It is good for the game if you can't win the game with just a-moving one type of units.
It is true that they weren't on auto build. I still find it difficult to think that the Marines still wouldn't win. Also, the only reason the Marines won was because they killed every single Interceptor. Cliffs will not (!) save Interceptors. Finally, someone brought up that mass Carriers beats mass Marines. There was no talk of additional units, so please realize that this video was of a very narrow scope.
And please, people, if you're gonna bring up these games, please post some damn videos.
If you actually read the comments the video had, there is some guy that claims that he did the same test with auto-build on and apparently carriers won easily. Also cliffs help so he can't get to your carriers and kill them, so they can go on and make more interceptors safely. There should be talk about additional units, because not even in late game tvt terrans make just battlecruiser instead it is viking/raven/battlecruiser unit composition. It's basically like saying battlecruisers suck late game tvt because of vikings. I don't even know how anyone can even start theorycrafting with one unit compositions.
I just tried it out in Unit Tester Online, 200 Marines vs. 33 Carriers, auto-build on, and the Carriers once again were butt stomped. Maybe he tried it where the Carriers were 3/3/3 and the Marines were unupgraded?
EDIT: Tried it without Stimpacks, Marines lose handily. Try and come up with a late game situation of Marines Vs. Carriers without Stim.
I expect to be able to have a unit I can actually use. I don't want Carriers to "counter" everything, but I want to be able to use them without getting the shit kicked out of me.
Hey, let's show everybody how much carriers suck versus marines with no auto-building interceptors, with no micro and no terrain abusing at all(!), because that's what it is like in the game!
Seriously though, I don't see why anyone would build only carriers with no other units to mix in it like say zealots to draw fire from the interceptors or HT for storms or possibly something else too. It is good for the game if you can't win the game with just a-moving one type of units.
It is true that they weren't on auto build. I still find it difficult to think that the Marines still wouldn't win. Also, the only reason the Marines won was because they killed every single Interceptor. Cliffs will not (!) save Interceptors. Finally, someone brought up that mass Carriers beats mass Marines. There was no talk of additional units, so please realize that this video was of a very narrow scope.
And please, people, if you're gonna bring up these games, please post some damn videos.
If you actually read the comments the video had, there is some guy that claims that he did the same test with auto-build on and apparently carriers won easily. Also cliffs help so he can't get to your carriers and kill them, so they can go on and make more interceptors safely. There should be talk about additional units, because not even in late game tvt terrans make just battlecruiser instead it is viking/raven/battlecruiser unit composition. It's basically like saying battlecruisers suck late game tvt because of vikings. I don't even know how anyone can even start theorycrafting with one unit compositions.
While I'm not taking sides on the issue of what should/could be done to make Carriers more viable, I'd like to point out that when I load up the unit tester and do exactly what is shown in that video, even with auto-build enabled, I get pretty much the same result.
In my test, I had 198 supply (33) of carriers, and 198 marines, both with no attack or armor upgrades (or shield). I give the carriers Graviton Catapults, I give the marines Stim Pack and Combat Shield. Attack-moving into each other results in the interceptors being slaughtered much faster than they are rebuilt.
However, when I did the exact same thing but with less supply it didn't hold. With 8 carriers, or 48 supply, versus 48 marines, performing the same test yields the opposite result: the carriers annihilate the marines with no losses if simply attack-moved, if instead I shift-click the carriers the marines are consistently able to focus down 5 of them before they all die. This result seems to hold up at least until 18 (108 supply) carriers versus 108 marines, I didn't test beyond that. So under more realistic numbers of mass carrier versus mass marines, carriers do seem to win.
Ultimately though, as other people have mentioned, neither test is realistic since they both involved two armies each comprised of a single unit, neither army was being micro'd, the relative upgrades aren't likely to be even in real game situation, the costs and build times of the respective armies are nothing alike.
I expect to be able to have a unit I can actually use. I don't want Carriers to "counter" everything, but I want to be able to use them without getting the shit kicked out of me.
Hey, let's show everybody how much carriers suck versus marines with no auto-building interceptors, with no micro and no terrain abusing at all(!), because that's what it is like in the game!
Seriously though, I don't see why anyone would build only carriers with no other units to mix in it like say zealots to draw fire from the interceptors or HT for storms or possibly something else too. It is good for the game if you can't win the game with just a-moving one type of units.
It is true that they weren't on auto build. I still find it difficult to think that the Marines still wouldn't win. Also, the only reason the Marines won was because they killed every single Interceptor. Cliffs will not (!) save Interceptors. Finally, someone brought up that mass Carriers beats mass Marines. There was no talk of additional units, so please realize that this video was of a very narrow scope.
And please, people, if you're gonna bring up these games, please post some damn videos.
If you actually read the comments the video had, there is some guy that claims that he did the same test with auto-build on and apparently carriers won easily. Also cliffs help so he can't get to your carriers and kill them, so they can go on and make more interceptors safely. There should be talk about additional units, because not even in late game tvt terrans make just battlecruiser instead it is viking/raven/battlecruiser unit composition. It's basically like saying battlecruisers suck late game tvt because of vikings. I don't even know how anyone can even start theorycrafting with one unit compositions.
I just tried it out in Unit Tester Online, 200 Marines vs. 33 Carriers, auto-build on, and the Carriers once again were butt stomped. Maybe he tried it where the Carriers were 3/3/3 and the Marines were unupgraded?
EDIT: Tried it without Stimpacks, Marines lose handily. Try and come up with a late game situation of Marines Vs. Carriers without Stim.
Well, I did say someone claimed that it was the other way around. I don't know he did it, but I guess you should go on and post that replay to youtube so it can be used for future reference, unlike that one video you posted which has caused more than enough bias around the community it seems.
And you try come up a late game situation where terran lets protoss mass carriers instead of killing him right off. I have to say the only problem carrier has is the god awfully long build time and to add to that protoss doesn't even have unit that could hold ground very well like the siege tanks in tvt.
EDIT:
On November 20 2011 09:56 extropy wrote: While I'm not taking sides on the issue of what should/could be done to make Carriers more viable, I'd like to point out that when I load up the unit tester and do exactly what is shown in that video, even with auto-build enabled, I get pretty much the same result.
In my test, I had 198 supply (33) of carriers, and 198 marines, both with no attack or armor upgrades (or shield). I give the carriers Graviton Catapults, I give the marines Stim Pack and Combat Shield. Attack-moving into each other results in the interceptors being slaughtered much faster than they are rebuilt.
However, when I did the exact same thing but with less supply it didn't hold. With 8 carriers, or 48 supply, versus 48 marines, performing the same test yields the opposite result: the carriers annihilate the marines with no losses if simply attack-moved, if instead I shift-click the carriers the marines are consistently able to focus down 5 of them before they all die. This result seems to hold up at least until 18 (108 supply) carriers versus 108 marines, I didn't test beyond that. So under more realistic numbers of mass carrier versus mass marines, carriers do seem to win.
Ultimately though, as other people have mentioned, neither test is realistic since they both involved two armies each comprised of a single unit, neither army was being micro'd, the relative upgrades aren't likely to be even in real game situation, the costs and build times of the respective armies are nothing alike.
Well, that is certainly interesting, although I doubt protoss could keep up with even carrier production compared to terrans marine production in a real game anyway. But like you said, stuff like these most likely won't happen in a real game.
I expect to be able to have a unit I can actually use. I don't want Carriers to "counter" everything, but I want to be able to use them without getting the shit kicked out of me.
Hey, let's show everybody how much carriers suck versus marines with no auto-building interceptors, with no micro and no terrain abusing at all(!), because that's what it is like in the game!
Seriously though, I don't see why anyone would build only carriers with no other units to mix in it like say zealots to draw fire from the interceptors or HT for storms or possibly something else too. It is good for the game if you can't win the game with just a-moving one type of units.
It is true that they weren't on auto build. I still find it difficult to think that the Marines still wouldn't win. Also, the only reason the Marines won was because they killed every single Interceptor. Cliffs will not (!) save Interceptors. Finally, someone brought up that mass Carriers beats mass Marines. There was no talk of additional units, so please realize that this video was of a very narrow scope.
And please, people, if you're gonna bring up these games, please post some damn videos.
If you actually read the comments the video had, there is some guy that claims that he did the same test with auto-build on and apparently carriers won easily. Also cliffs help so he can't get to your carriers and kill them, so they can go on and make more interceptors safely. There should be talk about additional units, because not even in late game tvt terrans make just battlecruiser instead it is viking/raven/battlecruiser unit composition. It's basically like saying battlecruisers suck late game tvt because of vikings. I don't even know how anyone can even start theorycrafting with one unit compositions.
I just tried it out in Unit Tester Online, 200 Marines vs. 33 Carriers, auto-build on, and the Carriers once again were butt stomped. Maybe he tried it where the Carriers were 3/3/3 and the Marines were unupgraded?
EDIT: Tried it without Stimpacks, Marines lose handily. Try and come up with a late game situation of Marines Vs. Carriers without Stim.
Well, I did say someone claimed that it was the other way around. I don't know he did it, but I guess you should go on and post that replay to youtube so it can be used for future reference, unlike that one video you posted which has caused more than enough bias around the community it seems.
And you try come up a late game situation where terran lets protoss mass carriers instead of killing him right off. I have to say the only problem carrier has is the god awfully long build time and to add to that protoss doesn't even have unit that could hold ground very well like the siege tanks in tvt.
You can test it out for yourself, I really don't feel like goin through all that trouble only to be yelled at because I have my graphics setting set to low.
And yes, we really ought to be considering how we include Zealots/Stalkers/Other Units into the mix when trading armies, but that's not what this thread's about. If someone could do some modding to Carriers or BCs such that they meet my specifications, then test them out in compositions, I'd be overjoyed to see how they fared amongst the war.
Carriers are bad because there is no point in time where a less expensive or equal cost unit (that doesnt take a million years to build) cant do as good or better then them. BCs are actually ridiculously good when you actually use Yomato and upgrade their armor.
They should just replace BC with some new crap like destroyers or something, Terran units are pretty shit after constant nerf from Blizzard. Yes, Marines are a little OP, that's the exchange for having shitty late game units.
I made a topic about Carrier differences between BW and SC2 before and here it is Click.
tl;dr version is that Carrier in BW is better than Carrier in SC2.
Slightly lengthier version is that Carriers in BW could attack move move and regenerate their interceptors while Carriers in SC2 can't. Plus Carriers in BW had +2 armor than they currently have.
I wonder why Blizzard has never really touched or buff the Carrier ever since SC2 release ?
On November 20 2011 15:36 Goldfish wrote: I made a topic about Carrier differences between BW and SC2 before and here it is Click.
tl;dr version is that Carrier in BW is better than Carrier in SC2.
Slightly lengthier version is that Carriers in BW could attack move move and regenerate their interceptors while Carriers in SC2 can't. Plus Carriers in BW had +2 armor than they currently have.
I wonder why Blizzard has never really touched or buff the Carrier ever since SC2 release ?
i hope they toyed with the unit and did internal testing up until the point when they decided to cut it, as opposed to just sitting back and seeing if pros would make them viable.
That has nothing to do with why they suck. Carriers were completely viable in BW in PvT and you see that tech switch pretty common. FBH used BC's against Zerg quite a bit as well (I know the BC shoots differently in BW, but it's not the reason why they're not as good). Besides the somewhat common knowledge now that Carriers are just much worse units to micro around with, the simple answer to why they're not used a lot is quite simply this unit that is low cost, easily mass produced, and has insane AA range, aka Viking. Not to mention they are produced to counter similar units (Colossus) and are produced out of the same common building that every Terran gets (Reactored Starport).
Corruptors serve a not as effective, but similar function to what the vikings do. In conjunction with NP, it's just generally not smart to use them with such a high risk to them. Everything just does way too much damage in this game, making these slow and huge targets way too easy to bring down.
On November 20 2011 03:02 Microsloth wrote: why does this thread even exist?
Why do posts like these exists?
Read the thread title, hes trying to discuss why Carriers, BC's are bad units and why they are underused. As we're moving through the HOTS there are a huge impact on both these units thus the discussion.
No, his question is valid; This thread doesn't have a point.
Well, that isn't entirely true. This thread's point seems to be "Carriers and battlecruisers suck because armour upgrades exist. Discuss" which, though it is a point, is a reasonably empty one. There is no follow up into a suggestion on how to circumvent this problem (I.E. a build that allows a +1 air attack carrier build that is likely to hit before their targets get +1 armour, or a build that forces non-armour units and then transitions into a task force of supported battlecruisers). Ultimately, the point seems to lead to a sort of "If this fact wasn't true then carriers/bc wouldn't suck"... which is about as useful as saying "If siege tanks had infinity range they'd be better".
I don't mean any offense to everyone. Just pointing out that it is a fairly empty thread :D
Might I suggest you read the original post again? I pretty much explain everything you say I lack. BCs and Carriers are so far on the tech tree that there isn't necessarily a build that will force non-armored units into production a reasonable amount of the time. Battlecruisers and Carriers suck because they don't surpass armor upgrades. The (Maybe not main, but a big one) reason why armor upgrades exist is to punish people who use low tier units. Unupgraded Zealots vs. +5 Ultralisks are pitiful. And so require attack upgrades to keep up the same level of efficiency with damage that they had at the beginning of the game. Higher tier units get better damage upgrade scaling because they need to outgun the lower tier units. Battlecruisers and Carriers only getting +1 is not giving them any edge in the late game. So I propose they turn into units that attack half as much but deal twice the damage, which gives them +2 damage buffs. It's not extravagant, and it probably won't change the metagame such that everybody build nothing but BCs and Carriers, but it'll make them a little more viable as units.
I re-read the OP, and I stand by my argument.
Though I won't argue that Battlecruisers and Carriers would benefit in terms of overall combat value if given a 1/2 fire rate, 2x damage "buff", I will continue to argue that such a change would offer no functional difference in play, but only increase the potency of these units in the rare situations that they are used. It'd be like if they gave the mothership a +10 damage vs light bonus. It'd be a clear buff and noone would argue otherwise, but still anyone who was getting motherships before will continue to get them anyways, and anyone who wasn't going to get them before still won't get them now.
It should be less a question of what can be done to BC/Carriers to make them kill more stuff, and more a question of what role they fill in the game, and how they could better fill that role. Your proposed change does make them more functional as a T3 a-move unit, but that's not the point of the unit, and shouldn't be the point of the game.
Hence I say empty thread, as most "WHAT IF WE JUST CHANGE THIS STAT OF THIS UNIT*" threads are.
But that's precisely my point! If you give Carriers this buff, it'll make their hard counters, namely the Corruptor and Viking, a run for their money. A Corruptor's natural +2 Armor lowers the damage that a Carrier does to it with a volley of Interceptors by 32. 32!!! There's no reason you'd ever want to make Carriers in a situation like that. It's suicide.
And in case you haven't noticed, SCII is a bit of an "a-move" game, with much much much less micro involved than was in Brood War. And unfortunately, there's not a lot that can be done with it since the game's mechanics (Namely pathing and >12 unit selection) make it incredibly easy and efficient to do so. And you can't take that out of the game.
If the Carrier need to be able to "kill more stuff," then you have to propose what that stuff is and propose a way for that to happen. This is not a "CHANGE THIS STAT" thread. My original topic may have been, but I've learned a lot about how people feel that the Carrier needs its micro capabilities back among other things, game mechanics need to change for the Carrier for the Carrier to be better.
I wish they would just trash the Tempest and make the Carrier actually good. If it didn't take two minutes to build it would actually be really cool (and if they made them good against mutas it would be a bonus). Heck, there was a game in GSL with them recently that was really good too. I just wish Blizzard would do something other than garbage them. Same with the Mothership. They get rid of it just when we are figuring it out.
The reason carriers were viable in BW are 1) Carriers had a moving shot that would allow them to attack units at a range of 13 or 14 if micoed properly 2) Interceptors auto healed when they returned to the carrier.
There is also another reason that is a little more complicated but I'll try to go over it. PvT in BW was played completely different than in sc2. Sure you had early pressure builds like 2 fact, but most of the time terrans turtled for a bit before moving out. The timing worked out because when toss got an obs into the terrans base, they would see if a 2 base 6 fact push was coming their way or if the terran was going for 3 base macro play.
These turtle tactics not only gave protoss time to pump carriers off of 2 or 3 stargates while delaying with ground troops, in some situations (especially on certain maps), it was really hard to beat a 200/200 terran army any other way.
In sc2, terran has a lot of early pressure builds that would never allow protoss time to produce carriers.
Let me explain. The Carrier and the Battlecruiser are both low damage, high rate of fire units. To keep them reasonably balanced with upgrades, their damage upgrades are only +1.
If you don't know, a Carrier has 8 interceptors that, when they attack, attack twice, dealing 5 damage a shot, effectively dealing 80 damage per round of assault. The issue with that is when you start facing armored units, or even units with armor upgrades, your damage capabilities fall off the cliff significantly. With a whole round of interceptors, one unupgraded carrier cannot 1shot a +2 armor Combat Shield Marine. Do you know how damn long it takes for a full round of Interceptors to attack? It's a little bit loaded of a scenario, yes, but if you're transitioning into Carriers and your opponent has been going Bio, you're not going to have any upgrades yet!
In a similar note, there is no difference between a 3/3 Marine vs. a 3/3/3 Carrier and a 0/0 Marine vs. a 0/0/0 Carrier. Or Battlecruiser for this instance. Isn't the purpose of Tier 3 units to step away from the low damage, low cost units into the high damage, high cost units? What incentive do you have when there's no difference, and the marines are a helluva lot cheaper!
The answer for balance is not to just increase the damage upgrade of the units. To effectively keep the same theoretical "DPS," the rate of fire also has to be decreased. Back in Brood War, Battlecruisers were pretty awful because they attacked about once every minute (it seemed), but that attack was powerful. I say that Blizzard effectively half the rate of fire, double the damage they do per shot, and make the upgrade +2. Similar vein for the Carrier. Make it so the Interceptors only take one shot, make it so they do 10 damage a shot, and increase the upgrade to +2. On paper, their DPS will be exactly the same, but when carried into the late game they'll be able to hold their ground better.
Note: For those of you who will judge me based on my ranking, I'm a mid-level Plat player who's just switched from Terran to Zerg. I hate MMM and Tanks, always opting for something more interesting, even if I lose. I recently switched because of all the bad mouthing I get just for playing Terran. Quit hatin', bros.
no offense but someone of your skill level (or lack thereof) cannot be taken seriously regarding balance suggestions and changes. If a GM player posted a similar thread I might give it more credibility
Let me explain. The Carrier and the Battlecruiser are both low damage, high rate of fire units. To keep them reasonably balanced with upgrades, their damage upgrades are only +1.
If you don't know, a Carrier has 8 interceptors that, when they attack, attack twice, dealing 5 damage a shot, effectively dealing 80 damage per round of assault. The issue with that is when you start facing armored units, or even units with armor upgrades, your damage capabilities fall off the cliff significantly. With a whole round of interceptors, one unupgraded carrier cannot 1shot a +2 armor Combat Shield Marine. Do you know how damn long it takes for a full round of Interceptors to attack? It's a little bit loaded of a scenario, yes, but if you're transitioning into Carriers and your opponent has been going Bio, you're not going to have any upgrades yet!
In a similar note, there is no difference between a 3/3 Marine vs. a 3/3/3 Carrier and a 0/0 Marine vs. a 0/0/0 Carrier. Or Battlecruiser for this instance. Isn't the purpose of Tier 3 units to step away from the low damage, low cost units into the high damage, high cost units? What incentive do you have when there's no difference, and the marines are a helluva lot cheaper!
The answer for balance is not to just increase the damage upgrade of the units. To effectively keep the same theoretical "DPS," the rate of fire also has to be decreased. Back in Brood War, Battlecruisers were pretty awful because they attacked about once every minute (it seemed), but that attack was powerful. I say that Blizzard effectively half the rate of fire, double the damage they do per shot, and make the upgrade +2. Similar vein for the Carrier. Make it so the Interceptors only take one shot, make it so they do 10 damage a shot, and increase the upgrade to +2. On paper, their DPS will be exactly the same, but when carried into the late game they'll be able to hold their ground better.
Note: For those of you who will judge me based on my ranking, I'm a mid-level Plat player who's just switched from Terran to Zerg. I hate MMM and Tanks, always opting for something more interesting, even if I lose. I recently switched because of all the bad mouthing I get just for playing Terran. Quit hatin', bros.
no offense but someone of your skill level (or lack thereof) cannot be taken seriously regarding balance suggestions and changes. If a GM player posted a similar thread I might give it more credibility
So if I had lied and said I was Masters, you would agree with this? Isn't there something a little bit wrong with that?
On November 20 2011 02:52 Catchafire2000 wrote: Zerg is the only race that utilizes ALL of their units in battle. It's refreshing to see zergs do this as well. Too many useless units for protoss and terran.
Wrong on the second part. All of terran's and protoss's units are actually effective in their role. Zerg, well we have no units, so we have to use all of them... except hydras, those are useless.
no offense but someone of your skill level (or lack thereof) cannot be taken seriously regarding balance suggestions and changes. If a GM player posted a similar thread I might give it more credibility
Nice ad potentiam, buddy. Too bad you're probably not in GM and your opinion on his opinion is shit.
Protip: No need to be a chef to tell a truffle from a turd. And obviously, Blizzard and top players share OP's opinion, since the firsts intends to remove one and buff the other, and the seconds just avoid both in 99% of their games.
my 2 cents: terrans got too much long range AA to make any of them good, and will be able to decide whether to engage or to kite. Protoss got too fast AA (stalkers and VR), so they'll force an engage by breaking the range, especially against carriers. And zergs wont give a fuck, walk past to the slow flying turds and rape your base.
Also, they're likely to be mediocre stat-wise. Mostly that.
Now I know it's a bit crazy, but will most people agree with me that the Viking is just a flying Goliath from Brood War? It's shoots two AA missiles at long range (When upgraded in BW) and deals low damage, high RoF ground shots. What would happen if Vikings required an upgrade to get their 9 range similar to Goliaths? Just theorycrafting, here. It'll delay the concept of "Air superiority" when facing Terran at least for a while.
And as for th2pun1sh3r, you may not have noticed, but I'm pretty sure I put forth a very articulate, well thought out idea. You can disregard dumbasses who write reactionary posts, not having given much actual thought into the balance of the game, the state of how people play and how the game is meant to be played, but you cannot throw someone's idea out because of their ranking. If you judge someone by only one detail, then you're being closed minded. Think of the idea, not the person suggesting it.
On November 20 2011 03:04 ProxyKnoxy wrote: Mass carriers is actually probably unbeatable, it's just near impossible to get there as they take so long to make, and any competent player won't let you get there
On November 21 2011 13:19 TheWickedDuck wrote: Cuz Carriers are fucking awful
What exactly are you adding to the discussion by saying what the OP already said?
On topic, if interceptors didn't cost money then I think there would be a lot more use for them. Brood Lords and Infestors get to spawn FREE attacking units (and soon the swarm host as well) that have stackable upgrades as well...I don't know why they can't do that with the Carrier.
IMO they should return Carrier to BW style (being able to attack "and" move at the same time with ease), armor +2, and interceptors regaining HP while returning to the carrier.
Not only that but make Fleet Beacon cheaper (maybe 200/200) and build faster.
Mass Carriers isn't good because it's easy to counter but mixing Carriers with your regular army can work well (or doing hidden Carriers, either way). If there was an easier way to mix Carriers with your army then I could see Carrier getting more use.
If they remove the mothership, they can afford to make the fleet beacon cheaper without too much risk of crazy things happening.
In BW Carriers were decent against Terran (no Vikings like in SC2) but bad against Zerg (Scourges). In SC2 it's the other way around (Vikings are too easy to obtain/transition to as Terran while Zerg lacks Scourge).
Additionally if there is less of a risk of overproducing Vikings as Corruptors.
If you overproduce, just land vikings. Corruptors are more at risk of being overproduced (see game with San vs Dimaga for example) because you can't "as easily" transition Corruptors to BL as Vikings (Air) to Vikings (Ground).
I think they should keep the Carrier. Maybe remove the Mothership because it's still kind of broken (archon toilet still works well >.>) but even then if they have a way to fix the Mothership too they should also keep it.
Terran gets to keep most of their units (only unit being gone is the old "Thor" but it's staying as a super unit with a different role). (They should also make another Collector's Edition model for the Warhound or so. Since Thors will be less common, I'm sure many with CE may be disappointed that they don't get to show off their super thors.)
On November 20 2011 03:04 ProxyKnoxy wrote: Mass carriers is actually probably unbeatable, it's just near impossible to get there as they take so long to make, and any competent player won't let you get there
This. I've 3vs1'ed players multiple times with mass carriers. They have some usage in 1v1. While I understand that I'm merely in diamond league (back in the day I was in high diamond league 2k+ pre-masters when I could play more than once every 2 months) they have a ridiculous output of damage in high numbers. They also do very well with chargelots vs most things that counter them from the ground. You can afford a lot of zealots/warp prisms with carriers, which can help you counter attack and multi-prone attack a fair amount too in the late game. Money dumping on cannons make counter attacks from the other players almost non-existent as well.
The problem is reaching critical mass of carriers is next to impossible. The only time I've been able to do so is when I've gone early air vs Zerg and maintained map control while I pick a third and cannon the crap out of those 3 bases, or when I put my opponent behind significantly with an opening followed by an expo or two. At a pro level where the people are much better about maintaining constant pressure, it'd be *very* difficult to get out enough carriers to make them worth it. They are a waste of resources in small numbers because the interceptors are easy to kill in smaller numbers by lower tier units.
Also Battlecruisers aren't entirely useless - they are very good in TvT end game. They just don't really serve much purpose in the other match-ups.
Make Battlecruisers as fast as Mutalisks and see what happens :D
Make Carriers and Mothership as fast as pheonix and see what happens.
I think as a unit itself they don't suck that bad, the suck part is mainly the cost and the build time. You can't be turtling for a couple of decades hoping to get out just a few of them while your opponent doesn't take the rest of the map for himself.
Blizzard kept carriers in against their will because the fans were in uproar. Now they can just have a cop-out argument by saying 'we tried, they didn't work.' I don't like that approach. How does replacing carriers with a unit that requires even less micro improve SC2 for spectating? They invited Jangbi to Blizzcon, but did they watch his exciting carrier game that won him an OSL title? I doubt it, because if they did, they would consider buffing carriers or fixing their micro before axing them.
Another issue is that the SC2 map pool is pretty unfriendly for carriers, so the results are skewed. BW had 'carrier maps,' or maps where you could actually safely exploit carriers.
On a positive note, I like the battlecruiser ability in terms of spectating and TvT dynamics.
It's not the attacks that make them weak and seldom used. It's the pricy costs associated with building them, the pricy tech needed to construct them, and the slow speed at which they can respond to threats and chase down retreating armies.
The damage itself is justified by their high health/armor and flying (duh) advantage. Tanky, low-medium dps units. See these in every RTS in the planet. Your judgement is off.
On November 20 2011 03:04 ProxyKnoxy wrote: Mass carriers is actually probably unbeatable, it's just near impossible to get there as they take so long to make, and any competent player won't let you get there
This. I've 3vs1'ed players multiple times with mass carriers. They have some usage in 1v1. While I understand that I'm merely in diamond league (back in the day I was in high diamond league 2k+ pre-masters when I could play more than once every 2 months) they have a ridiculous output of damage in high numbers. They also do very well with chargelots vs most things that counter them from the ground. You can afford a lot of zealots/warp prisms with carriers, which can help you counter attack and multi-prone attack a fair amount too in the late game. Money dumping on cannons make counter attacks from the other players almost non-existent as well.
The problem is reaching critical mass of carriers is next to impossible. The only time I've been able to do so is when I've gone early air vs Zerg and maintained map control while I pick a third and cannon the crap out of those 3 bases, or when I put my opponent behind significantly with an opening followed by an expo or two. At a pro level where the people are much better about maintaining constant pressure, it'd be *very* difficult to get out enough carriers to make them worth it. They are a waste of resources in small numbers because the interceptors are easy to kill in smaller numbers by lower tier units.
Also Battlecruisers aren't entirely useless - they are very good in TvT end game. They just don't really serve much purpose in the other match-ups.
They aren't good in other matchups because its so easy especially on most given tournament maps to just run around the BC's but since tanks are so damn immobile its nearly impossible for a Terran to do that, the speed boost should help at least somewhat in that regard.
To be honest even as a Brood War fan I don't miss the Carrier and BC. Watching them move about the map at a turtle's pace was so tedious. The Carrier-Goliath dynamic made for good gameplay but not for good spectating. BW BC vs BC are just as terribly boring to watch as SC2 TvT viking/raven wars. 15 minutes of massing up a giant clump of air units and 'microing' them back and forth and back and forth all for a 10 second battle.
Carriers were simply inapplicable in any of the matchups, no matter how long the game is. We'll have to see how well the replacement fits in. Regardless of whether or not the BC is good or bad, it's still used in late-late game TvT--only reason it wasn't removed.
P/T v Z: The way Zerg airforce is designed (best AtA unit in the game; strong AtA unit needed to cover Broodlords), Carriers and Battlecruisers simply have to be unplayable as a stable composition unit. If they were playable, that would include that zerg AtA can't counter them costefficiently --> Terrans and Protoss could build an army that is only beatable by GtA. But Zerg doesn't have a good GtA-Unit. We can clearly see that neither of those units was intented to be playable vZ, if not used in a rush (abusing zergs early antiair weakness)
PvT: Carriers and Battlecruisers main roles (defined by their huge HP, good dps, slow speed) are to counter compositions without costefficient antiair. (heavy Mechplay, heavy roboplay) all Terran compositions use vikings and marines --> Carriers are just terrible in this MU Protoss compositions don't use a ton of good antiair (blink stalkers are decent, but usually not the standard composition), but the battlecruiser doesn't work very well with the highly mobile terran bioball. Experiments with BCs in the lategame might even be interesting (air upgrades are already a component of bio builds, starports no component of PvT builds, void rays, phoenix are worse BC counters than vikings and corrupotors), but until now there has been no need at all to switch up MMMVG. Especially with the HotS speedupgrade, BCs could become more useful in combination with bio. (interesting "TvP Pure Air Guide" to back up "BCs might be a good lategame unit in TvP if the matchup ever developed past the mass bio vs deathball until end of times" - phase http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=283935 )
PvP: The games are too short for any use of universal lategame units like carriers. Also stargate builds are said to be powerful, but rather rare and usually end the game before carriers come into play (though there would be potential; yet I think that tempests are more interesting in SG vs SG scenarios, because the main SG unit in these scenarios are phoenixes and tempests are more powerful in this scenario)
TvT: We see Battlecruisers in nearly every stalemate situation. Not in huge amounts, but in a role that simply can't be filled by any other units (banshees are too fragile against lategame viking+scan, so they can't break tanklines)
So in conclusion: The battlecruiser has still some room to improve and is at least in 1 MU really important and useful. I really like that blizzard tries to strengthen it a little more, but the unit and the concept is fine. The carrier is unplayable in the current metagame. The only way to make it playable would be to make it more powerful than the standard antiair counters (marine/viking, corruptor), which ultimatly has to lead into a metagame in which mass carrier would become unbeatable. ("OP" unit) Little microbuffs and statsbuffs might make it more useful, but won't change that "going carrier" is just a terrible decision. --> redesign with a complete rolechange (tempest!) seems to be a good idea, though the carrier might become interesting if PvP became a longer MU and if terrans started to Mech vP. Still I don't see why the carrier would be that much better in those circumstances than other units.
I thought that there was some kind of change to make late game zealots weaker? Wouldn't that contribute to making mech more viable in PvT? I don't remember the change, though. It might have just been mentioned.
Incidentally, regarding use of the Tempest, have I missed the point or does it fit basically only the role of countering mass muta?
On November 21 2011 22:38 Tonybarbosa wrote: I thought that there was some kind of change to make late game zealots weaker? Wouldn't that contribute to making mech more viable in PvT? I don't remember the change, though. It might have just been mentioned.
Incidentally, regarding use of the Tempest, have I missed the point or does it fit basically only the role of countering mass muta?
EDERPT: That is, a zealot change in HotS
the tempest doesn't counter just mutas, but mass air. Which before only the vortex did quiet nicely. Well and stalkers But they had to blink under the air units and since they are pretty fragile its more of a suicidal move. Basically the tempest is a flying thors, with more aoe and less damage. Mainly to use against lots of casters as they won't do lots of damage against zerg. Remember the viper, they could disable stalker damage after blinking below the zerg air army for example, while broodlords are unaffected. And Vikings will probably be able to kite them, but while kiting stack up, so if they get to slow they will take alot of damage. (you can't kite carriers, making vikings pretty bad against carriers, means you have to overproduce vikings even more as against colossi)
in bw TvP carriers exploited a weakness in terran mech anti-air. the reality of the situation is that 3/3 marines melt interceptors just as badly in bw as they do in sc2, but the counters to marines (reavers/ht) are so much harder that marines aren't viable in a normal engagement...so you don't see marine upgrades researched, instead terrans use goliaths which are overall pretty bad but still better than throwing thousands of gas and time into 3/3 with range and stim for a unit you might not need and will be easily negated by protoss switching out of carriers back into like 4 reavers
carriers would be useful if some major balance or metagame shift were to force terran into going tank/hellion, but i don't see that ever happening
on top of all this, there are two other minor points 1) the changes to high ground mechanics, while not inherently bad, just different, do not favor carriers at all 2) vikings are pretty good, while wraiths weren't. however, a critical mass of carriers will beat vikings, from what i've seen
I'm gonna quote from a thread that was made at the beginning of SC2. I think it still holds true. And Ideally, I wouldve liked to see this
The Tempest (earlier idea for Carrier replacement) "In comparison to the carrier, the tempest was slightly weaker, but cost fewer resources to build." (^ already a huge reason not to doubt the viability of the Tempest)
The tempest had powerful shields and, while having no armaments of its own, carried a number of small fighter-type drones called shuriken that launched, surrounded and swarmed a target, doing little damage individually but significant damage when combined whilst maneuvering rapidly, making it difficult to destroy. The drones could be auto-built with a right click, a behavior which was carried over to the carrier.
The shuriken made melee attacks.
Special Shields The tempest was strong against ground targets, but was ill-equipped to handle air-to-air encounters; it had poor air defense as its shields did not activate against air attacks, but the shields took little damage from ground attacks.
First thoughts are: This is a really cool replacement for the Carrier, and although it may not have “worked” in their eyes, the current Carrier is far less “working” than I think this idea would have been. During the beta especially, players will most definitely experiment with new units, coming to find a use for a unit that is far in the tech tree is vital for feedback purposes. The SC2 community was not even given the chance to experiment with this unit. For one, this unit is so similar in design that the only difference is the name, its interceptors were melee and the Tempest had way better maneuverability. Having this unit be almost the same as a carrier, but weaker and cheaper would support Protoss making phoenix and voidray for air support along with the Tempest to have something to combat A-A, and would also open up the possibility to get a Mothership because you now have air support. I cannot say if I want a Carrier or Tempest, because it should have been for the community to decide seeing as Carriers in SC2 are not nearly as formidable as in BW.
The major problem is not the unit themselves but the fact that nothing has been done to create a use for what seems like wasted pixels. Ultimately, this is almost the exact idea that should replace the current carrier, a weaker but more resource viable unit, also increasing the range slightly (If still too weak)of the Tempest would assist with many problems the Carriers currently face; being killed by ground units way too quickly. This being said there is hardly any risk anymore to micro and kill these larger, high tier air units whilst there is an opposing ground army aside from having some units force fielded or stormed
According to Dustin Bowder, "the Tempest didn't feel right and that there was too much of an emotional connection with the original unit(Carrier)."
The “Carrier” and the “Tempest” are the idealistically, the same unit, deciding to keep its name should not warrant it’s own death because of its previous success and (more so) viability. Also, I think the emotional connection was to the design and look of the SC1 Carrier, the latter not being at all the same anyway.
I expect to be able to have a unit I can actually use. I don't want Carriers to "counter" everything, but I want to be able to use them without getting the shit kicked out of me.
Hey, let's show everybody how much carriers suck versus marines with no auto-building interceptors, with no micro and no terrain abusing at all(!), because that's what it is like in the game!
Seriously though, I don't see why anyone would build only carriers with no other units to mix in it like say zealots to draw fire from the interceptors or HT for storms or possibly something else too. It is good for the game if you can't win the game with just a-moving one type of units.
It is true that they weren't on auto build. I still find it difficult to think that the Marines still wouldn't win. Also, the only reason the Marines won was because they killed every single Interceptor. Cliffs will not (!) save Interceptors. Finally, someone brought up that mass Carriers beats mass Marines. There was no talk of additional units, so please realize that this video was of a very narrow scope.
And please, people, if you're gonna bring up these games, please post some damn videos.
If you actually read the comments the video had, there is some guy that claims that he did the same test with auto-build on and apparently carriers won easily. Also cliffs help so he can't get to your carriers and kill them, so they can go on and make more interceptors safely. There should be talk about additional units, because not even in late game tvt terrans make just battlecruiser instead it is viking/raven/battlecruiser unit composition. It's basically like saying battlecruisers suck late game tvt because of vikings. I don't even know how anyone can even start theorycrafting with one unit compositions.
I just tried it out in Unit Tester Online, 200 Marines vs. 33 Carriers, auto-build on, and the Carriers once again were butt stomped. Maybe he tried it where the Carriers were 3/3/3 and the Marines were unupgraded?
EDIT: Tried it without Stimpacks, Marines lose handily. Try and come up with a late game situation of Marines Vs. Carriers without Stim.
Just wanted to add some numbers as a quick additional note to this: 200 marines - 10,000 minerals, cumulative 5,000 seconds build time; assuming reactors thats 2,500 seconds of barracks time 33 carriers (full of interceptors) - 14,850 minerals, 9,250 gas, cumulative 3,960 seconds stargate build time; no reactor but with constant chronoboost it reduces to 2,640 seconds plus a further 32 seconds per carrier to max out interceptors
And this doesn't take into consideration extra interceptors made by auto-build, which adds to the cost.
Also worth noting that killing a single carrier (if you assume all resource costs equal, despite gas being generally viewed as "worth" more) is the equivilant of 14 marines of resources but only 6 marines supply.
Based on the above tests if you went into these tests with equal resource rather than equal supply the carriers would get even more heavily stomped, perhaps even without stim? Might check that myself later (at work atm).
Edit: Anyone else think it'd be really quite fun to play with what Kindred just posted? I remember when I first heard about that unit and thought "that looks awesome, why isn't it in the game?"
Also theres still some life in carriers despite this. Saw an epic game on a stream the other day, think it was HongUn's, where it was mass carrier/mothership/void ray and just MELTED two entire zerg armies. Its just they're so hard to get to and so horribly inefficient for their cost and time taken to build.
I expect to be able to have a unit I can actually use. I don't want Carriers to "counter" everything, but I want to be able to use them without getting the shit kicked out of me.
Hey, let's show everybody how much carriers suck versus marines with no auto-building interceptors, with no micro and no terrain abusing at all(!), because that's what it is like in the game!
Seriously though, I don't see why anyone would build only carriers with no other units to mix in it like say zealots to draw fire from the interceptors or HT for storms or possibly something else too. It is good for the game if you can't win the game with just a-moving one type of units.
It is true that they weren't on auto build. I still find it difficult to think that the Marines still wouldn't win. Also, the only reason the Marines won was because they killed every single Interceptor. Cliffs will not (!) save Interceptors. Finally, someone brought up that mass Carriers beats mass Marines. There was no talk of additional units, so please realize that this video was of a very narrow scope.
And please, people, if you're gonna bring up these games, please post some damn videos.
If you actually read the comments the video had, there is some guy that claims that he did the same test with auto-build on and apparently carriers won easily. Also cliffs help so he can't get to your carriers and kill them, so they can go on and make more interceptors safely. There should be talk about additional units, because not even in late game tvt terrans make just battlecruiser instead it is viking/raven/battlecruiser unit composition. It's basically like saying battlecruisers suck late game tvt because of vikings. I don't even know how anyone can even start theorycrafting with one unit compositions.
I just tried it out in Unit Tester Online, 200 Marines vs. 33 Carriers, auto-build on, and the Carriers once again were butt stomped. Maybe he tried it where the Carriers were 3/3/3 and the Marines were unupgraded?
EDIT: Tried it without Stimpacks, Marines lose handily. Try and come up with a late game situation of Marines Vs. Carriers without Stim.
Edit: Anyone else think it'd be really quite fun to play with what Kindred just posted? I remember when I first heard about that unit and thought "that looks awesome, why isn't it in the game?"
Also theres still some life in carriers despite this. Saw an epic game on a stream the other day, think it was HongUn's, where it was mass carrier/mothership/void ray and just MELTED two entire zerg armies. Its just they're so hard to get to and so horribly inefficient for their cost and time taken to build.
not really... Just seems like a unit that basically is the same as a colossus, but weaker. In a Gateway+X composition colossi just seems stronger. Pure air compositions are unplayable because Protoss has no really strong AtA unit. Looks like a carrier, but maybe stronger vs ground, which really isn't the carriers problem in the first place...
I think this is a really good discussion and I don't know if any other else touched upon it or not but I just feel like they don't do enough DPS for the cost efficiency of something like just getting more Marines.
I've tried going BC's in a top masters league position for a while and it didn't work. Vs Standard Zergs they would just neutral the 2-3 BC's that I had. I really like the change to not be able to NP massive units but that was quickly taken off the PTR. The Metagame changed slighty in TVZ so it might work better now. Vs standard protoss the more BC you get the more mass stalker they just make, and stalkers do like +2 extra vs BC's. I don't know why but with blink stalkers its hard to win until you get like 8 BCs.
I think the problem with BC's is that they're what 400 mins? Its more cost effective to just make another CC for mules and keep massing your 3-3 bio and control them with drops.
And my god I just realized why I stopped going BCs vs toss its because feedback automatically started them down 100hp+ every fight.
On November 22 2011 01:41 Nizzy wrote: And my god I just realized why I stopped going BCs vs toss its because feedback automatically started them down 100hp+ every fight.
A bit off topic, but yeah, High Templar were my go to unit vs. Terran when I played Random a while back. I think they can Feedback, like, 8 units Terran makes? If you just Feedback the Medivacs in a big Bio ball, Feedback Thors, Feedback Ravens, Feedback BCs, the Terran's now just sitting on a bunch of units with little support. Then you throw Storms, bring in the Zealots, and mop up.
Back on topic.
To Lightspeaker, I'll try it when I get home. Minerals and Gas have equal value or is Gas x2?
To Big J, yes, Phoenixes are too fragile to really be used in a big fight, and they don't hold air superiority very well because they are so easily outclassed by the other races' "air superiority units." (Viking and Corruptor) Another mechanic that has also led to the decline of Tier 3 units is the removal of the 12 unit hotkey. In Brood War, let's face it, if you wanted to get 60 Marines and Medics to the other side of the battlefield, it'd take you a week. You could make 5 control groups, but that severely limited your production capabilities unless you were a pro. And what happens if you run into a Carrier fleet? Good luck focusing down that bad boy. But in SC2, you can just ball up 60 Marines, Stim under the Carrier, two shot it, and run away, suffering minimal losses. No, I'm not saying Terran's imbalanced, but I am saying the new game has made micro a lot easier. In BW, if you had twelve Carriers on a hotkey, there wasn't much that could get in your way that you couldn't micro out of only because it was nearly impossible for an opponent to keep up with you with more, less expensive units.
On November 22 2011 01:41 Nizzy wrote: And my god I just realized why I stopped going BCs vs toss its because feedback automatically started them down 100hp+ every fight.
A bit off topic, but yeah, High Templar were my go to unit vs. Terran when I played Random a while back. I think they can Feedback, like, 8 units Terran makes? If you just Feedback the Medivacs in a big Bio ball, Feedback Thors, Feedback Ravens, Feedback BCs, the Terran's now just sitting on a bunch of units with little support. Then you throw Storms, bring in the Zealots, and mop up.
Back on topic.
To Lightspeaker, I'll try it when I get home. Minerals and Gas have equal value or is Gas x2?
To Big J, yes, Phoenixes are too fragile to really be used in a big fight, and they don't hold air superiority very well because they are so easily outclassed by the other races' "air superiority units." (Viking and Corruptor) Another mechanic that has also led to the decline of Tier 3 units is the removal of the 12 unit hotkey. In Brood War, let's face it, if you wanted to get 60 Marines and Medics to the other side of the battlefield, it'd take you a week. You could make 5 control groups, but that severely limited your production capabilities unless you were a pro. And what happens if you run into a Carrier fleet? Good luck focusing down that bad boy. But in SC2, you can just ball up 60 Marines, Stim under the Carrier, two shot it, and run away, suffering minimal losses. No, I'm not saying Terran's imbalanced, but I am saying the new game has made micro a lot easier. In BW, if you had twelve Carriers on a hotkey, there wasn't much that could get in your way that you couldn't micro out of only because it was nearly impossible for an opponent to keep up with you with more, less expensive units.
yeah I know, isn't it aweful that blizzard made the game more fun to play? God how I hate those "12 unit control group with fucked up pathing and dumb targeting/casting is the best way to balance a strategy game" - arguments. Of course the balancing changes because of that, and no... I'm not suggesting autokiting/blinking or whatever, but I think that there are certain control/AI standards that a game has to fullfill these days which SC:BW doesn't fullfill anymore.
Also it is just straight up wrong to say T3 units are being declined... Dt's, colossi, HT's, Thor's, BC's, Broodlords and Ultralisks are all being played frequently. It really comes down to the mothership and the carrier not having a lot of use and even the mothership is rather common in the PvZ lategame (but usually PvZ doesn't reach that stage)
Give it a rest, the carrier is (at least close to) fine, but its basic design just doesn't make sense in the protoss arsenal with the current metagame.
On November 21 2011 21:37 Big J wrote: P/T v Z: The way Zerg airforce is designed (best AtA unit in the game; strong AtA unit needed to cover Broodlords), Carriers and Battlecruisers simply have to be unplayable as a stable composition unit. If they were playable, that would include that zerg AtA can't counter them costefficiently --> Terrans and Protoss could build an army that is only beatable by GtA. But Zerg doesn't have a good GtA-Unit. We can clearly see that neither of those units was intented to be playable vZ, if not used in a rush (abusing zergs early antiair weakness)
HAHAHA did you just call corruptors the best air to air unit in the game? O_O It's the only air to air unit in the game and I would gladly trade them for viking/voidray
I'm assuming you're zerg, so have you ever played against mothership/carrier/HT/archon/collosus? Late game compositions with carriers are strong as hell...
Also you say protoss has no good air to air unit. lol
I think the reason you think they suck is because you believe they should be an A-move and win unit. You spend sooooo much money and tech time to get them that it's "Oh hey shouldn't I just win now?"
Fortunately, that is not how this game works. If I scout you doing a carrier/bc heavy build and I make the units to be rewarded. If you micro your bcs/carriers over marines and lose them, that's your fault and not the units. Carriers and BCs are units that need support, either from a strong ground army or units like vikings or ravens. These units are actually pretty good if you use them well (see- any tvt game, hongunprime). I feel like you really don't understand the unit and are just trying to slip something in about lol marines op.
On November 21 2011 21:37 Big J wrote: P/T v Z: The way Zerg airforce is designed (best AtA unit in the game; strong AtA unit needed to cover Broodlords), Carriers and Battlecruisers simply have to be unplayable as a stable composition unit. If they were playable, that would include that zerg AtA can't counter them costefficiently --> Terrans and Protoss could build an army that is only beatable by GtA. But Zerg doesn't have a good GtA-Unit. We can clearly see that neither of those units was intented to be playable vZ, if not used in a rush (abusing zergs early antiair weakness)
HAHAHA did you just call corruptors the best air to air unit in the game? O_O It's the only air to air unit in the game and I would gladly trade them for viking/voidray
I'm assuming you're zerg, so have you ever played against mothership/carrier/HT/archon/collosus? Late game compositions with carriers are strong as hell...
Also you say protoss has no good air to air unit. lol
yeah I've played against a ton of stupid builds since I started playing in the beta and mothership/carrier stuff is one of them. If you get to this stage of the game, you really should be able to play pure Broodlord/corruptor (I guess + infestor would still be nice, but absolutly not necessary 20+ broodlords wipe the floor with every ground unit in the game, everything else goes into corruptors to protect your broodlords and replenish them when your opponent plays a "slow" style)
And though one can argue that vikings might be as potent as corruptors in some scenarios (due to their range) and void rays are just extremly powerful when massed, in terms of pure a-click (+corruption) strength I think there is nothing that beats corruptors AtA. And yes, ofc I would love to trade any zerg unit with it's terran/protoss counterpart... There is simply a reason why every zerg unit has major drawbacks compared to terran/protoss counterparts and it is called larva mechanism... I guess if I could spawn 10carriers or BCs lategame instead of Broodlords... which zerg wouldn't want that? When your mutaharass would be mass cloaked banshee... Or your 6pool would spawn zealots... My roach warren now builds marauders... It's just a lol balancing. Note, I'm by no means saying that zerg units are worse than their "counterparts" (if you can talk about such a thing in such a diverse enivroment like starcraft), but they have drawbacks which make them less potent when used on their own. (broodlords not shooting air, zerglings being rather weak in bigger combats and extremly vulnurable to splash, roaches being extremly supplyheavy, hydralisks just sucking statswise...)
And yes, Protoss has no good AtA unit... VoidRays are kind of supplyefficent, but extremly costinefficient as AtA unit, and therefore only viable in the extreme lategame and with support. Phoenix straight up suck vs anything that's not light. Carriers and Motherships not being really good vs Air in the first place.
Op you have good points and make valid observations and bring light on the (now) forgotten and (once) great Units of the Starcraft Universe.
Indeed I think they should make carriers and battlecruisers back to what they were in bw. fully uped battlecruisers were putting stuff in their place. While the switch to battlecruisers is very hard because they are expensiv you have to start researching the upgrades long before and you need to create many startports, it's very exciting to watch.
It's so hard for a sc lover to see what sc2 games come to... those finals of mlg... sup? 1 game was maybe longer than 10-15 min? the others were more like 6 minutes.
We've seen good matches this mlg, good defeces, hard pushes, air battles, but it's not the way it is in bw. If you watch an fantasy / flash tvt or something like that.
God I know I shouldn't compare those two games, but why not? You have to see what we loved on bw and leave what we didn't like (7 unit controle groups, bad grafic, and some other minor things ).
I think it's stupid to try to close out bw on everything. We all (many) came from bw and to deny our backgroud and to forget the game we followed for a decade isn't easy and shouldn't be nessecary.
This is more a reply to this thread then to exactly op's questioning, but I agree with Op, and I wouldn't appreciate if blizzard removed the carrier. "Carrier has departed" shiet.
Carriers should get a "detonate interceptor" ability.
Maybe for balance sake, have it only work only on air units and maybe give it a time delay for the interceptor to arm so you can't just detonate 8 interceptors rapidly (or balance it around the fact that you can detonate 4 or 8 interceptors rapidly).
This would make the carrier a great back line support unit, which is really where it should be given it's attack style. It could also make phoenixes a lot more interesting if there were situations where you wanted to use graviton beam and detonate an interceptor on the gravitated unit.
Carriers are actually quite good as they are and the BC is ok... What people need to realize is not every unit needs to be usable in every situation. Some units will be useful in almost any situation others will be good in only some while others may only have one time where they can shine but do well when that time comes.
The battlecruiser is actually pretty good against a protoss player if you can sneak them out the only thing they really fear is a shitton of stalkers. If they don't have the ability to yamato due to templars feed back or it just flat out not being upgraded then carriers and voidrays rape them. If you can safely transition to it while your opponent is primarily stuck on stalkers for AA then the BCs will actually do pretty well just be sure to emp your own bcs if templar start to arrive or neutralize the templar themselves. Against zerg you better have air superiority because zerg can go mass corruptor kill of almost all the bcs then instantly switch to say roach or zergling to deal with the marines you will build with your left over minerals. (also ravens are basically a must if you decide to go bcs against the zerg pdd stops all of their AA but fungal and IT) BC in the mirror however are most useful if you decide to mech or go air where you gain that supieriority the BC's actually do pretty well against marines and you dont have to worry about vikings if you have more.
The carrier is actually pretty bad in the mirror because guardian shield basically gives everything base 2 armor and although I don't really play pvp ever I don't think it is possible to even tech safely to carriers without dieing. Against zerg just like with the BC you better hope you have superiority in the air or enough ground support for them because a mass transition to corruptors will just screw you over. Against terran like you said not to useful right now but TBH templar/carrier though very gas intensive is actually pretty damn hard for the terrans to beat marines and vikings are the terrans only AA that can hold their own against carriers marines melt to storm so long as they don't get emped or sniped first. and carriers can actually fight pretty cost efficiently vs carriers and if the carrier is 3 on weapons vs a 0 armor viking that means the vikings die in 1 hit. Also vikings are slow so storm can hit them pretty easily too.
Hopefully blizzard leaves the carrier in they appear to be moving in the direction of helping terrans mech (although I do it anyway as they are now ) If you have a meching the marine count will be low and since carriers and vikings can fight pretty evenly all the toss would have to worry about is turrets built on the spot and this new warhammer because thors are really bad against carriers unless you stack them.
I recently switched because of all the bad mouthing I get just for playing Terran.
that's a very stupid reason to switch, I switched from Terran to Protoss because I realized I liked the Protoss style more, but just because you get badmouthed for being a terran is a stupid fucking reason, thats all I have to say, gl with zerg i guess
Note: For those of you who will judge me based on my ranking, I'm a mid-level Plat player who's just switched from Terran to Zerg. I hate MMM and Tanks, always opting for something more interesting, even if I lose. I recently switched because of all the bad mouthing I get just for playing Terran. Quit hatin', bros.
I find it funny when lower level players get bad-mouthed for playing terran just because at the highest level terran may be slightly op. at plat level terran is by far the hardest race from my playing random experience (fungal growth == whole army just died!). It's like when i get hate from zerg's in PvZ even though I find zerg the easiest race at platinum.
and yeah i agree i never understood why in all the balance changes throughout the game blizzard never seemed to give a damn about the carrier
On November 22 2011 01:58 Muffinmanifestation wrote:
On November 22 2011 01:41 Nizzy wrote: And my god I just realized why I stopped going BCs vs toss its because feedback automatically started them down 100hp+ every fight.
A bit off topic, but yeah, High Templar were my go to unit vs. Terran when I played Random a while back. I think they can Feedback, like, 8 units Terran makes? If you just Feedback the Medivacs in a big Bio ball, Feedback Thors, Feedback Ravens, Feedback BCs, the Terran's now just sitting on a bunch of units with little support. Then you throw Storms, bring in the Zealots, and mop up.
Back on topic.
To Lightspeaker, I'll try it when I get home. Minerals and Gas have equal value or is Gas x2?
To Big J, yes, Phoenixes are too fragile to really be used in a big fight, and they don't hold air superiority very well because they are so easily outclassed by the other races' "air superiority units." (Viking and Corruptor) Another mechanic that has also led to the decline of Tier 3 units is the removal of the 12 unit hotkey. In Brood War, let's face it, if you wanted to get 60 Marines and Medics to the other side of the battlefield, it'd take you a week. You could make 5 control groups, but that severely limited your production capabilities unless you were a pro. And what happens if you run into a Carrier fleet? Good luck focusing down that bad boy. But in SC2, you can just ball up 60 Marines, Stim under the Carrier, two shot it, and run away, suffering minimal losses. No, I'm not saying Terran's imbalanced, but I am saying the new game has made micro a lot easier. In BW, if you had twelve Carriers on a hotkey, there wasn't much that could get in your way that you couldn't micro out of only because it was nearly impossible for an opponent to keep up with you with more, less expensive units.
yeah I know, isn't it aweful that blizzard made the game more fun to play? God how I hate those "12 unit control group with fucked up pathing and dumb targeting/casting is the best way to balance a strategy game" - arguments. Of course the balancing changes because of that, and no... I'm not suggesting autokiting/blinking or whatever, but I think that there are certain control/AI standards that a game has to fullfill these days which SC:BW doesn't fullfill anymore.
Also it is just straight up wrong to say T3 units are being declined... Dt's, colossi, HT's, Thor's, BC's, Broodlords and Ultralisks are all being played frequently. It really comes down to the mothership and the carrier not having a lot of use and even the mothership is rather common in the PvZ lategame (but usually PvZ doesn't reach that stage)
Give it a rest, the carrier is (at least close to) fine, but its basic design just doesn't make sense in the protoss arsenal with the current metagame.
How can people like you just not see my argument? I'm not saying that we need the 12 unit hotkeys, I'm not saying a Dark Templar should find about 12 different ways to get from point A to B. What I'm saying is that the Carrier in Brood War was good because of that. To keep up in the metagame, it needs to be better.
On November 22 2011 02:39 heroofcanton wrote: I think the reason you think they suck is because you believe they should be an A-move and win unit. You spend sooooo much money and tech time to get them that it's "Oh hey shouldn't I just win now?"
Fortunately, that is not how this game works. If I scout you doing a carrier/bc heavy build and I make the units to be rewarded. If you micro your bcs/carriers over marines and lose them, that's your fault and not the units. Carriers and BCs are units that need support, either from a strong ground army or units like vikings or ravens. These units are actually pretty good if you use them well (see- any tvt game, hongunprime). I feel like you really don't understand the unit and are just trying to slip something in about lol marines op.
In short: QQ less or learn to troll better.
1. I never call anything overpowered. Each unit has a niche and a way to be defeated. 2. You may not have noticed, but I don't play Protoss. I don't get the opportunity to build Carriers, so me going out of my way to comment on them means I actually give a flying fuck about the game as a whole. 3. I don't expect an A-move unit to win the game for me, but I expect there to be a unit that can hold its own in a stand-up fight. Maybe people just aren't playing Carriers as they should be. I recall seeing a professional game where someone got a couple of Carriers along with his zealot/stalker army and was pretty effective vs. Terran, but you also could argue the damage they did was minimal at best at that point in the game. Whether you like it or not, it's incredibly easy to do simple micro in this game that would have been intensive in Brood War.
EDIT: And for all the people who are bad mouthing me for switching because of people who bad mouthed me. Please, think about that. There were other reasons, as I said. One of them was Infestors.
EPT![[image loading]](http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6235/6364004353_727f9fa2a9_b.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6105/6364003557_5be6e9bb55_b.jpg)
I still feel there's a place for the carrier in sc2, only blizzard fucked em up. I want mid game hidden stargate tech switch pvt ffs.
![[image loading]](http://images.wikia.com/starcraft/images/c/c3/Tempest_SC2_Game1.jpg)
