EPTSadly, Blizzard rarely listen to their good player base which is why WoW ended up the way it is today.
The future of the carrier - Page 13
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ODKStevez
Ireland1225 Posts
Sadly, Blizzard rarely listen to their good player base which is why WoW ended up the way it is today. | ||
Destructicon
4713 Posts
However, in the fights where you didn't get stormed and you did manage to do some hit and run micro, you compleatly obliterated the carriers. Vikings with micro >>> Vikings without micro >>> Carriers. I find that to be about right. But you also let the Toss preaty much do what he wanted, you gained a lead but failed to exploit it. You went mech against Toss, which is horrible atm. You didn't EMP your own thors/banshees to prevent them from being feedbacked. You didn't use the energy on your orbitals late game. And you let him get into a split map situation where he could do what he wanted. Don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing on you, I'm mearly pointing out you weren't playing at the highest level possible. There is even a massive difference between GMs and ladder and then tournament winners and Code S players. Code S players have builds and timings so rafined and do battles so cost effectively that they constantly put pressure on the protoss and never let him expand uncontrolably, always force them to build army etc, so its really hard for a protoss to get into the the super late game with enough of a margin of a bank and security to get carriers. The only two times I've seen TvP get into a split map situation was Genious vs SC on Daybreak and Puzzle vs Keen in the recent GSL, and even in those situations they where applying so much pressure to each other that the Toss wasn't able to even think about Carriers, however when Keen went for BCs (the equivalent of going carriers for Toss) he basically flat out lost. Though I do have to admit your replay was entertaining as a demostration of what Carriers can potentially do to mech. Also yes, Blizz hinted very faintly that Carriers might make a combeack, at Blizzcon when Dustin Browder anounced the Tempest, his wording was "We are getting rid of the Carrier, for the moment". | ||
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Dariusz
Poland657 Posts
For example something like slowing cloud that works only vs air units so you can slow corruptors/vikings and escape/storm them. And maby reduce building time slightly, cuz every time a carrier finishes i have more gray hairs on my head then i've had when it started building... | ||
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Iatrik
Germany159 Posts
On November 29 2011 22:13 Destructicon wrote: The Carrier Flaws First I'll enumerate each problem and then I'll start building the arguments. 1. The carrier is too slow to build. 2. The carrier is not micro friendly. 3. The carrier is the most dependent unit on upgrades and hit hardest by enemy upgrades. 4. The carrier is too easy to counter. 5. The carrier's role and weaknesses seem to overlap that of other units 6. The carrier's interceptors are too fragile. Every unit has it's flaws. If you really want the carrier to work, you'll find a way. Just be creative. Let's look for solutions. 1) The building time can be avoided by some things: - Get more stargates - Use Chronoboost all the time - Have a safe transition period to stay alive. Don't think these point are impossible  2) The carrier itself might not look very micro friendly. But that doesn't mean you can't make it microable. - Use Storms/Phoenix/Stalkers/Vortex etc. to scare off vikings - Only poke with your carriers and make use of the burst damage of your interceptors. - Use Motherships Recall to make the unit "mobile" 3) - Play a playstyle that revolve around maybe getting air upgrades. - Get Shield-Upgrades first - Use a small amount of guardian shields in your transition times to emulate a part of the upgrades. 4) Counters to Carriercounters are very easy to counter. - (Once your opponent goes mass marines, storm him) - (Once your opponent goes mass vikings, build zealots or storm him) - (Once your opponent goes mass hydras, storm him [or just kill him with carriers]) - (Once your opponent goes mass corruptor, build zealots or storm him) Another possibiliy (since you already have a fleet beacon) is just to go for a mothership and vortex his vikings/corruptor. 5) You can use this fact to your advantage. - A carrier can't be countered by marauders, while a collossus can be. - Leave out the units it's similiar to. (You don't need collossus, once you already started carrier production) 6) Poke with your Carriers, but try to avoid a big fight unless you've got a critical mass. Use Motherships Recall or Vortex ability to retreat once your interceptors are gone. Just work around these flaws. If you look at it, you can create a very powerful way of playing: - Get Shield-Upgrades in the early game. - Go Twilight- and Stargate-Tech (don't know about the order) - Build Carriers and HTs, while using your minerals to expand and/or zealot harass. - Transition to Archon Zealot possible (because you keep getting shield-upgrades and already have templar tech) - Transition to Archon Toilet possible (because fleet beacon is already there) - Transition to Gateway strategies possible, because they are already upgraded to a certan extend. I don't know. I want players to work around flaws themself instead of waiting for blizzard to do something. | ||
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FeyFey
Germany10114 Posts
On January 19 2012 18:23 Rimak wrote: Honestly, i think Blizzard did a bad job on Protoss air units, not just carriers. In every aspect of the story Protoss are presented as superior tech race with their fleet counted as almost Unbeatable. And yet in the game we see that Toss are stuck with: 1. Fragile Phoenixes, which is a good scouting unit and for harrasment in descent numbers, but they are not so cost-efficent in straight-up battles, almost useless. 2. Void-rays - a big, slow, flying, heavy-fire turret. Would be very nice to use it for good hit and run on key buildings, except right now there is no Run. Speed makes efficency of void-rays go down heavy. 3. Carriers. Well a lot is explained in OP, i would only add that it's hard to think out a build with carriers as a backbone. But lets just switch to what is said about Protoss fleet, as being air-dominant. What are Protoss Air counters to: 1. Muta - Phoenix, but muta usually overwhelms them, due production speed and quantity. 2. Corrupters - Phoenix? - nope too fragile. Void-ray - probably, but again zerg is just going to overwhelm void-ray count. Carrier? no wait, it's massive and corrupters do well agains massive, oh yes and there's corruption ability. 3. Brood lords - ALL PROTOSS AIR COUNTER BROODS CUZ THEY DONT ATTACK AIR. Hm, no wait there are usually a ton of corrupters flying with them, damn, failed. So see p.2 4. Vikings: Range 9. coolface.jpg 5. Banshee - Phoenix, yes! cuz they dont attack air, but they do have cloak, so u should get obs and speed for obs also. 6. Battlecruisers - Void ray? - Yamato fire! 7. Raven - Void ray. So as i see it dominance of protoss in the sky is very doubtfull. 1. Phoenix are faster then mutas and can always choose when to engange, making mutas worthless at every position where a sentry is or a few canons. And actual engagements, phoenix kill mutas super fast, only reason why mutas are better is because of their splash killing even phoenix faster, which is not given if there is guardian shield or units under them. 2. voidrays pre charged destroy corrupters also corrupters can never flee against voidrays without taking additional losses. Carriers do work as they can kite corrupters reducing their hits, but a buff to the corrupter that was done because people weren't able to click a button (use the ability), and afterwards people were able to use this skill suddenly, resulting in extra damage. 3. as long as there are corrupters with the broodlords there won't be enough broodlords to produce enough broodlings, so they aren't that dangerous, especially since carriers have a range advantage over them paired with storm that makes attacking with corrupters pretty risky. 4. Vikings: can't run away from voidrays if you lose the fight you lose all your vikings, but they can abuse their range with good splitting, so its quiet even fight. Carriers on the other hand can chase vikings down and with a lil bit of micro you won't take much damage and will have your interceptors out all the time doing massive damage. 6. Battlecruisers guarantee airdominance, there is nothing in the skys that can deal with a massive sky terran army in position. But voidrays do rip them appart and while yamato guarantees losses in pvt, feedback will make sure that no yamato will ever land. 7: raven gets destroyed by phoenix, just 2 passing by slightly is the end for the raven, so better protect the raven really well if you want to keep it with energy. Oh and phoenix are fragile and doesn't work in straight up engagements is funny. They can most of the time lift the strong units of the opponent without being in danger of being focus fired, there are actually not many units that can reach phoenix over a toss army and really deal damage to them. For example against bio, so you want to save your marauders with your marines, well go into melee with mister zealot then, that is protected by guardian shield. And speed voidrays you have seen how imba they are, it just didn't worked having them fast. And even without speed they still do a really good job if you are careful. Which is the essence of any sky play, keeping units alive. And recall is something that makes it really easy for toss to keep carriers and voidrays alive. | ||
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Saethwyr
United Kingdom18 Posts
is this just because many Zergs naturally tech into air for mutas/corruptors so broods are the natural climax whereas Protoss only really go for air as a harassment? I don't like the "this unit is underused? might as well not be there then!" attitude taken with the carrier. Then the proposed replacement (in tech path anyway) is essentially an anti-muta only unit [from what has been shown so far anyways]. Needing a fleet beacon to build something to take out mutas seems a little bit too much investment to be worth it. <ridiculous example time!!> its like making Vikings require a fusion core to take out colossus | ||
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Destructicon
4713 Posts
You should have read all my arguments, not just the summary. Basically what I said about getting more SPs and dedicating crono to it is that, you are stuck with having 12-18 supply and 3 nexus worth of crono + all the resources tied up into something that won't pay of until 2 minutes, and which at the moment requires a critical mass. You can't make a micro unfriendly unit micro friendly, just look at the marine with stim and combat shield, it can stutter step, focus and split vs banelings, now try to do that with thors or carriers. Saving up and investing into air upgrades hardly seems worth while when the rest of protoss air isn't worth it and usually doesn't see any use except in certain timings in PvZ. It is in no way a situation reminiscent to Terrans investing early into Vikings and Zerg investing into air upgrades, because Terran knows for sure Toss will need to get colossus at some point and he can only counter Colo with Vikings. On the other side zerg uses mutas to harass so they can start upgrades early for air units. Also, counters of Carriers aren't easy to counter, and the counters get build in almost every game due to how the meta-game has evolved. Marines, while they do melt to storms, they are cheep and easy to replace, and they can stutter step micro along with marauders to remain a constant thread. Stutter step bio kites and trades very cost effective with mass zealots. Thanks to their range vikings can poke at carriers without risking too much damage and can even dodge storms if careful +repair vikings. Hydras do melt to storms but and they aren't a usual part of the zerg army, but Corrupters are a regular part of the army, because they transition into Brood Lords, this combo is usually also accompanied by infestors, which makes for a very hard composition to stop, so much so lots of Toss are now going mothership late game to stand a decent chance to beat it. The problem with carriers feels like they need to reach critical mass to be effective so pokes will be hard to do. And you don't want to risk your 2-3 carriers on a poke just to get the obliterated by a group of vikings. Yes I kind of agree, I want players to work out some of the flaws too, but. The fact of the matter is some can't be ignored, like the silly interceptor AI, and some problems are just a matter of the meta-game being so rigid and not allowing for any innovation. | ||
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Klystron
United States99 Posts
On January 19 2012 23:01 Saethwyr wrote: it always bugs me how Carriers (and Cattlebruisers for that matter) seem so underused in serious matches. On the other hand nearly every Zerg long match strategy revolves around getting Broodlords or ultras to finish an opponent. is this just because many Zergs naturally tech into air for mutas/corruptors so broods are the natural climax whereas Protoss only really go for air as a harassment? Broodlords and Ultras are used by Zergs because they are the only two siege units that Zerg has. You cannot assault a terran or protoss main that is turtled up with static D and siege tanks / colossus before hive tech. PF's are also a massive pain to deal with before BL's or Ultras. | ||
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IPS.Blue
Germany309 Posts
On January 19 2012 23:14 Destructicon wrote: ... Yes I kind of agree, I want players to work out some of the flaws too, but. The fact of the matter is some can't be ignored, like the silly interceptor AI, and some problems are just a matter of the meta-game being so rigid and not allowing for any innovation. I agree. You can't work out every flaw (and sure, you can't run to Blizzard with everything), but asking to broodwar-ize the SC 2 carrier micro doesn't seem to be that huge. | ||
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Felnarion
442 Posts
I wrote out a whole big thing, and then closed the window by accident. So I'll just shorten it to this. Interceptors are too vulnerable. They give the carrier the same weakness as tier 1 units, which is that their damage scales down as the low-hp units die off one by one. Other end-game units do not have this problem. But more importantly, I had some suggestions to fix it. Get rid of graviton catapult. It's useless, the carrier is already the slowest unit to get out, AND the extra interceptors have to be built afterward for additional cost. As a cool fact, when a carrier spawns, its DPS is lower than a single hydra, and without the upgrade, interceptors launch so slowly as to be completely useless. Give the carrier one of two fleet beacon upgrades. 1. An interceptor repair/durability upgrade 2. A reactor upgrade that allows simultaneous building of two interceptors. Reduce interceptor cost slightly (With or without upgrade) And, in either case. Remove build time from the unit. Either, increase the upfront cost to allow the carrier to spawn with 8 interceptors Or. Reduce build time. Both, I feel, at least partially address the weakness of the unit, specficially vs Marines and Hydras. Marines are hydras should not be the most cost effective solution to an end-game unit. Vikings and Corrupters and VRs will still give trouble, which is as it should be | ||
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Destructicon
4713 Posts
I'll try and make a compilation of these some time in the future and eventually post it on Battle.net forums. Our support is what might save the carrier, so keep the suggestions comming and keep fighting! | ||
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jonaa
Netherlands151 Posts
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Chronald
United States619 Posts
Since Interceptors cost money, unlike Broodlings, Carriers become a massive expense later in the game | ||
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Surili
United Kingdom1141 Posts
One thing that you missed i think is the way that the mothership's vortex also counters carriers, so that the two big units on the same tech tree can't be used very well together. I think making interceptors immune to the vortex might well help Carrier's in PvZ a lo in certain situations. | ||
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soapyy.
United States103 Posts
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ShatterZer0
United States1843 Posts
Do you think that level of availability in Carriers would make them overpowered or still just not good enough? | ||
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Destructicon
4713 Posts
Untill the meta-game changes to such a degree that, those units are more uncomon, or there are strategies that work without them, than the carrier will still strugle. Again though, I believe such strategies/compositions could arise in HoTS. | ||
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neobowman
Canada3324 Posts
The carrier is not micro friendly. Make it like Brood War micro and boom, they're used again. | ||
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Destructicon
4713 Posts
I kind of adressed this issue. Even if the meta-game changes, the carrier will still be a borring a-move unit. If the carrier/interceptor AI would be made to be more like BW, than it would be a much more fun and rewarding unit, and lots of people would probably find a place for them in their army. | ||
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Arco
United States2090 Posts
boom fixed | ||
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