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EDIT: Comments on blizz's 1.4 Situation report/patch explanation:
1) I'm glad they buffed mothership instead of carrier. Carrier does NOT need to be buffed imo, they are extremely strong in PvZ, and in PvT they are great against mech. Currently there is already no way for Z to effectively deal with mass carriers supported by HT/archon/etc.
2) The mothership acceleration buff actually is a huge buff. Why is it a big deal? In order for mothership to cast spells such as vortex, it can't be moving. So if it's moving and sees an infestor or ghost, it takes a LONG time for it to finish decelerating to cast the spell after you actually issue the command, and by then you've been EMP'ed or NP'ed. Post-patch this is no longer an issue and the mothership is much more reactive, and NP/EMP, 2 of the biggest counters to mothership, are much easier to deal with.
Here's a small replay pack of 14 games containing late game PvZ mothership and/or carrier usage. All of these games are from within the past month or so and are taken from a combination of ladder, practice, and tournament games. I know lots of people think carriers and motherships are underused and useless, but I've found the opposite to be true - carrier/mothership is an awesome counter to the zerg "deathball" of infestor/corruptor/bl.
Not all of these games showcase the best of play from either side (especially some of the earlier ones as I'm just starting to experiment with them), and I know some of them have long boring stretches of turtling and non-action. But there are some gems in there, including plenty of archon toilets and zerg tears 
Enjoy!
[url blocked]
(Also as a strategical note, I never rush to carrier/mothership. I think this is the mistake people make, they try to rush to carrier on 2-3 bases and complain that they take too long to make and are too weak. I often max out before getting a single carrier, but gradually transition into a carrier/mothership fleet and phase out supply-inefficient gateway units).
EDIT: I hate labeling threads with "I'm rank 8 masters" but as requested below, FYI I'm currently ranked #7 in GM.
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Nice, thanks! I think vortex can be quite strong.
It might be good to write your league/rank or whatever for people who don't know you.
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for a sec, i was thinking WTF ANIHC ISN"T A BLUE ANYMORE but then realised this was the general forum.
thanks for the replays, will go study your play more
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:D cant wait to see these
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destiny complains all the time of your mothership usage, will take a look....
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Yeah, I love going air in PvZ late game
Although I dont generally use carriers, its pretty standard to see 3 or more sg's from me late game pumping void rays
guess i'll try out carriers next time ^_^
(masters)
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Hell, It's about time!! For another of your great protoss threads!! :D
Thx rsvp, gonna check those reps 
Edit.: Man...you don't need to label your posts with ladder rank, i mean, not you, lol.
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not that its a huge deal or anything, but the rep. labeled "Jecho" is actually a PvT vs. zenexhack and does not feature any carriers or mothership :x
Still a very fun and entertaining game to watch however
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On September 20 2011 12:17 JerKy wrote:
Yeah, I love going air in PvZ late game
Although I dont generally use carriers, its pretty standard to see 3 or more sg's from me late game pumping void rays
guess i'll try out carriers next time ^_^
(masters)
Fungal owns voids, even if you spread them out (ok so it takes 5 fungals to hit all your voids instead of just 1... but that doesn't matter when the zerg has 10+ infestors). That's why I go for carrier instead of voids.
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On September 20 2011 08:06 Anihc wrote:Here's a small replay pack of 14 games containing late game PvZ mothership and/or carrier usage. All of these games are from within the past month or so and are taken from a combination of ladder, practice, and tournament games. I know lots of people think carriers and motherships are underused and useless, but I've found the opposite to be true - carrier/mothership is an awesome counter to the zerg "deathball" of infestor/corruptor/bl. Not all of these games showcase the best of play from either side (especially some of the earlier ones as I'm just starting to experiment with them), and I know some of them have long boring stretches of turtling and non-action. But there are some gems in there, including plenty of archon toilets and zerg tears Enjoy! [url blocked] (Also as a strategical note, I never rush to carrier/mothership. I think this is the mistake people make, they try to rush to carrier on 2-3 bases and complain that they take too long to make and are too weak. I often max out before getting a single carrier, but gradually transition into a carrier/mothership fleet and phase out supply-inefficient gateway units). EDIT: I hate labeling threads with "I'm rank 8 masters" but as requested below, FYI I'm currently ranked #7 in GM.
yo rsvp i know im much lower ranked than you but i swear mass voidray armies are also pretty sick in PvZ
voidrays actually beat corrupters cost effectively and cant get neural parasited and against mass hydra carriers get alot weaker (it has something to do with interceptors being blown apart so quickly as masses increase) but the voidrays seem to get stronger as food levels increase vs hydras. 30 voidrays vs 45 hydras is like lol hydras just melt
in lategame pvz i like to get maybe 3 carriers and the rest of the sky army is voidrays. try it sometimes im sure you will be amazed
so many tosses are massing stalkers in PvZ...
stalkers are food for zerglings. but voidrays are only 50 more gas than 2 stalkers, have similar health, can fly, and deal similar dps.
so many tosses will see huge improvement imo if they replace stalkers with voidrays
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On September 20 2011 12:47 Anihc wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2011 12:17 JerKy wrote:
Yeah, I love going air in PvZ late game
Although I dont generally use carriers, its pretty standard to see 3 or more sg's from me late game pumping void rays
guess i'll try out carriers next time ^_^
(masters) Fungal owns voids, even if you spread them out (ok so it takes 5 fungals to hit all your voids instead of just 1... but that doesn't matter when the zerg has 10+ infestors). That's why I go for carrier instead of voids.
ahhh yes... fungal does own voids... but lately ive practiced methods of magic-boxing the voids and doing heavy void-splitting in lategame armies.
i think if you magic box and split properly, the voids do not get owned too much by fungal growth
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On September 20 2011 12:46 AGIANTSMURF wrote:
not that its a huge deal or anything, but the rep. labeled "Jecho" is actually a PvT vs. zenexhack and does not feature any carriers or mothership :x
Still a very fun and entertaining game to watch however
Ahh oops. That game was actually pretty entertaining/close. Here's the correct replay:
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-232510.jpg)
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well i shouldnt talk until i start facing grandmaster zergs more often
i think infestors will absolutely stomp the voids if the infestors can recharge energy
if a infestor can only use 2 fungals, lets say each fungal hits 5 voidrays. that is 225 damage for a single fungal, so a single infestor can deal 450 damage if it gets off 2 good fungals
in my lategane games vs zerg normally i have like 30 voidrays and i magic box the hell out of them and as im attaacking im splitting them. if the zerg has 30 infestors (equal gas cost) it gets a little ugly as he can fungal all the voids but normally he has to use 6 perfectly placed fungals to get all my voids then if he does 6 more perfect ones i will recall with the mothership. thats 12 fungals down the drain then you can attack when shields recharge and force another 12 fungals and normally you can attack before he has an extra fungal.
this looks ugly because the zerg has 60 available fungals. but normally they dont mass pure infestor if i notice there IS pure infestor i will split my voids so much that he will normally hit maybe 2-3 voids per fungal.
but yeah i think using mass recall is required to combat the fungals so you can recharge shields and attack again before he regenerates enough energy for more fungals. if you can somehow kill the infestors or deal damage before they can use a third fungal, should be golden i think but it requires lots of nonstop aggression
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I love mother ships late game PvZ the cloak is really useful and is cool if you snipe their overseers. Vortex is game changing as well.
omg, I just thought of something, Keep a warp prism on follow of your mother ship, it will be cloaked so it wont die and you will always be able to warp in
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i didnt know you were rsvp haha oops. i will definitely check these out!
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On September 20 2011 12:50 roymarthyup wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2011 08:06 Anihc wrote:Here's a small replay pack of 14 games containing late game PvZ mothership and/or carrier usage. All of these games are from within the past month or so and are taken from a combination of ladder, practice, and tournament games. I know lots of people think carriers and motherships are underused and useless, but I've found the opposite to be true - carrier/mothership is an awesome counter to the zerg "deathball" of infestor/corruptor/bl. Not all of these games showcase the best of play from either side (especially some of the earlier ones as I'm just starting to experiment with them), and I know some of them have long boring stretches of turtling and non-action. But there are some gems in there, including plenty of archon toilets and zerg tears Enjoy! [url blocked] (Also as a strategical note, I never rush to carrier/mothership. I think this is the mistake people make, they try to rush to carrier on 2-3 bases and complain that they take too long to make and are too weak. I often max out before getting a single carrier, but gradually transition into a carrier/mothership fleet and phase out supply-inefficient gateway units). EDIT: I hate labeling threads with "I'm rank 8 masters" but as requested below, FYI I'm currently ranked #7 in GM. yo rsvp i know im much lower ranked than you but i swear mass voidray armies are also pretty sick in PvZ voidrays actually beat corrupters cost effectively and cant get neural parasited and against mass hydra carriers get alot weaker (it has something to do with interceptors being blown apart so quickly as masses increase) but the voidrays seem to get stronger as food levels increase vs hydras. 30 voidrays vs 45 hydras is like lol hydras just melt in lategame pvz i like to get maybe 3 carriers and the rest of the sky army is voidrays. try it sometimes im sure you will be amazed so many tosses are massing stalkers in PvZ... stalkers are food for zerglings. but voidrays are only 50 more gas than 2 stalkers, have similar health, can fly, and deal similar dps. so many tosses will see huge improvement imo if they replace stalkers with voidrays
I agree with you that
1) Void ray are good against corruptor, or at least much better than carriers fare against corruptors.
2) I'd rather have void rays than stalkers in my army.
However, the problem with magic boxing and spreading out void rays is that it's not like muta vs thor where the mutas (and rest of zerg army) are going to be surrounding the thors (mutas have much less range than thors). Zerg anti air has the same range or greater than void rays (corruptor, infested terrans, hydras, etc.) such that if you magic box your void rays, more than half your void rays are not going to be attacking - and you don't want your void rays to be picked off by zerg anti air 1 or 2 at a time. And then when you do spread them out and then a-move, they clump up again.
Also hydras are a complete non-issue. Hydras are probably the worst unit a zerg can make against this type of deathball - if you watch a lot of those replays, any battle that has zerg going hydras end up with me losing about 10 supply and the zerg losing his entire army. Remember that I have supporting units - colossus, archons, ht - and hydras just simply die too easily to any protoss unit.
Trust me, I've experimented a shitload with pure void ray, void ray/carrier mix, and pure carriers. Pure void ray is no good, I gave that up after my game 3 vs darkforce on metal in the IPL2 quals :p Void ray/carrier mix is pretty good and oftentimes while teching to carriers I'll get a few void ray. But I've found that they still die rather easily, and I prefer making units that don't die (aka deathball). A lot of times I'll even storm my own army on purpose when he has a bunch of corruptors trying to dodge my archons and kill my air. So basically a mostly carrier army is much more versatile than a composition with more void rays.
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On September 20 2011 08:06 Anihc wrote:Here's a small replay pack of 14 games containing late game PvZ mothership and/or carrier usage. All of these games are from within the past month or so and are taken from a combination of ladder, practice, and tournament games. I know lots of people think carriers and motherships are underused and useless, but I've found the opposite to be true - carrier/mothership is an awesome counter to the zerg "deathball" of infestor/corruptor/bl. Not all of these games showcase the best of play from either side (especially some of the earlier ones as I'm just starting to experiment with them), and I know some of them have long boring stretches of turtling and non-action. But there are some gems in there, including plenty of archon toilets and zerg tears Enjoy! [url blocked] (Also as a strategical note, I never rush to carrier/mothership. I think this is the mistake people make, they try to rush to carrier on 2-3 bases and complain that they take too long to make and are too weak. I often max out before getting a single carrier, but gradually transition into a carrier/mothership fleet and phase out supply-inefficient gateway units). EDIT: I hate labeling threads with "I'm rank 8 masters" but as requested below, FYI I'm currently ranked #7 in GM.
Nice, glad to see other top level players using Carriers/mo.ship. Saw Kiwi pop out a mo.ship in a clutch moment at raleigh vs ret to save a game he should've lost, inspired me to start using them since then. Carrier/mo.ship with colo or HT support to deal with neurals is insanely strong, and as long as i have enough gas (generally minimum of 6), it's my go-to lategame comp vs zergs, as it obviously completely stomps all hive tech.
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On September 20 2011 13:07 Anihc wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2011 12:50 roymarthyup wrote:On September 20 2011 08:06 Anihc wrote:Here's a small replay pack of 14 games containing late game PvZ mothership and/or carrier usage. All of these games are from within the past month or so and are taken from a combination of ladder, practice, and tournament games. I know lots of people think carriers and motherships are underused and useless, but I've found the opposite to be true - carrier/mothership is an awesome counter to the zerg "deathball" of infestor/corruptor/bl. Not all of these games showcase the best of play from either side (especially some of the earlier ones as I'm just starting to experiment with them), and I know some of them have long boring stretches of turtling and non-action. But there are some gems in there, including plenty of archon toilets and zerg tears Enjoy! [url blocked] (Also as a strategical note, I never rush to carrier/mothership. I think this is the mistake people make, they try to rush to carrier on 2-3 bases and complain that they take too long to make and are too weak. I often max out before getting a single carrier, but gradually transition into a carrier/mothership fleet and phase out supply-inefficient gateway units). EDIT: I hate labeling threads with "I'm rank 8 masters" but as requested below, FYI I'm currently ranked #7 in GM. yo rsvp i know im much lower ranked than you but i swear mass voidray armies are also pretty sick in PvZ voidrays actually beat corrupters cost effectively and cant get neural parasited and against mass hydra carriers get alot weaker (it has something to do with interceptors being blown apart so quickly as masses increase) but the voidrays seem to get stronger as food levels increase vs hydras. 30 voidrays vs 45 hydras is like lol hydras just melt in lategame pvz i like to get maybe 3 carriers and the rest of the sky army is voidrays. try it sometimes im sure you will be amazed so many tosses are massing stalkers in PvZ... stalkers are food for zerglings. but voidrays are only 50 more gas than 2 stalkers, have similar health, can fly, and deal similar dps. so many tosses will see huge improvement imo if they replace stalkers with voidrays I agree with you that 1) Void ray are good against corruptor, or at least much better than carriers fare against corruptors. 2) I'd rather have void rays than stalkers in my army. However, the problem with magic boxing and spreading out void rays is that it's not like muta vs thor where the mutas (and rest of zerg army) are going to be surrounding the thors (mutas have much less range than thors). Zerg anti air has the same range or greater than void rays (corruptor, infested terrans, hydras, etc.) such that if you magic box your void rays, more than half your void rays are not going to be attacking - and you don't want your void rays to be picked off by zerg anti air 1 or 2 at a time. And then when you do spread them out and then a-move, they clump up again. Also hydras are a complete non-issue. Hydras are probably the worst unit a zerg can make against this type of deathball - if you watch a lot of those replays, any battle that has zerg going hydras end up with me losing about 10 supply and the zerg losing his entire army. Remember that I have supporting units - colossus, archons, ht - and hydras just simply die too easily to any protoss unit. Trust me, I've experimented a shitload with pure void ray, void ray/carrier mix, and pure carriers. Pure void ray is no good, I gave that up after my game 3 vs darkforce on metal in the IPL2 quals :p Void ray/carrier mix is pretty good and oftentimes while teching to carriers I'll get a few void ray. But I've found that they still die rather easily, and I prefer making units that don't die (aka deathball). A lot of times I'll even storm my own army on purpose when he has a bunch of corruptors trying to dodge my archons and kill my air. So basically a mostly carrier army is much more versatile than a composition with more void rays.
i think the main problem is of course fungal
if theres was no fungal growth voidrays would be the obvious choice ... but your right if you magic box the voidrays they are worse against the hydras
hmmm i guess getting carriers + storm + archons is probably stronger because storm is sex, archons are only 4food and do splash to corrupters and archons do pretty huge damage when the zerg starts getting lots of air. in fact a archon attack is almost like a free fungal in terms of damage if it hits 3 units
and then this army composition uses lots of gas and could also spend its minerals on plenty charge zealots to force lots of lings which evaporate to the storms anyway, then the zerg has to make roaches to beat the zealots and roaches arent great to storm+carrier+archon
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C'mon why not use one of the many dedicated replay upload sites. -_-
Anyway, I do, deep down inside, I am a closet carrier lover. I know that they have some issues, but once they are out they are pretty imba. It's really a matter of good timing and a good build and I don't think I have that. Only in my nub diamond league play can I get away with it because my opponents don't expect it and let me freely get them.
Still, just like the warp prism, I have my doubts of their usefulness. It's really just the enormous build time... 120s seriously why? And that FG will probably destroy any such "death ball".
Looks like my DLs done.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
Motherships are the most underused unit in PvZ  at least kiwi knows their worth lol
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EPT
