Nuff Said. Carriers are OP
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All is need have air ships lower priority because any thing try target air units instead of carrier will die.
I take air ships for carrier be free and instant as long they have lower priority.
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Carriers are fine as long as you target-fire, build anti-air and/or casters units in large enough numbers, and remember your armor upgrades. Armor upgrades are especially important because each upgrade the carriers have over you is at least a 20% damage increase.
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No they’re not. Skill issue.
thats literally the point of carriers its to disrupt AI. learn to target fire.
This. Infestors will destroy carriers so long as you avoid HT. fungal microbial shroud is absolutely insane with hydra lurker.
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Yea, sadly the “Balance Team” doesn’t care about what 90% of people on ladder are using. Just the top 1%.
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Focus-firing with ranged units is such a basic skill that almost everyone should easily learn it.
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In team games I do agree carriers are very hard to deal with especially on certain maps with abuseable cliffs
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Problem once you start useing spells it switch back and if don’t catch fast enough you start losing units.
Actually, the main reason they’re good (and they’re only usable vs Zerg) is because interceptors mess with the AI because they have the same priority as normal units, and that puts a heavy microtax on an opponent that can’t effectively kill the interceptors (AKA: Zerg). The other reason is because Hydras are bad against them unless you support them with shroud, but practically nobody uses the spell (and it completely guts carrier damage. Carriers vs shroud Hydras, which have 0 base armour, deal 1 damage per attack if upgrades are even).
Once the “carrier meta” lasted long enough to really be figured out, even vs Zerg, Protoss players tended to start cutting most of the carriers in favor of voids/tempests/templar/archons for the late game compositions.
They’re expensive, slow to produce, not particularly strong, and have a high tech requirement.
They’re just easy to use, and sort of hard to fight if you don’t have the counter prepared or don’t know what you’re doing.
They’re worthless vs Terran, because Terran anti-air DPS with marines/turrets is high enough to just shred the interceptors, and PvP generally too aggressive to even make them + their damage is gutted by guardian shell, stalkers can blink under to focus fire them, storm/archons can kill interceptors, and all of the other Protoss air units can beat them.
Really, carriers have sort of the same problem as brood lords, where, because they’re difficult to fight, they really can’t be allowed to be good (Meanwhile, Broods actually are a good unit, because in sufficient numbers ground units literally cannot fight them at all, which forces the opponent to go air, and the Zerg can morph 10 of them at once without spending thousands of resources on dedicated production buildings).
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Tell me you are bronze without telling me you are bronze.
How hard is to Focus fire one of the biggest Units in the Game ? Also Note that you also Always use Focus fire with Carriers because otherwise the damage will spread too much. In fact you nearly Always want to Focus fire Something doesnt Matter the Units. That so many people actually cry about having to Focus fire proves that the Bronze League needs to be much bigger.
Actually No very wrong. Hydras are very good vs Carrier and can absolutely kill every interceptor ezpz but once lategame is reached and Carrier Hit a critical Mass Hydras suuuuck vs Carrier. Shroud doesnt Change anything. Because there will be also storm.
People Need to know the Basic counters. Same value corrupter sh|t on Carriers. Even with storm Support. And Same value is so freaking easy for zerg to achieve since a) much less cost intensive Tech tree b) can be Mass Produced c) zerg has Generally Higher income d) they save a Ton of Gas since they basically dont need to build any Gas unit as Queens can perfectly Deal with anything Stargate related in early to mid midgame. And then corrupters kick in.
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And meaner than a junkyard dog
Carriers aren’t used by themselves. There are also archons and templar, so corruptors need to be split to avoid splash damage. Air units have a tendency to stack up when focus firing, especially with the carriers being microed back.
It’s not that focus firing is difficult, it’s that it’s extra actions that require time/precision in the midst of other things, like dodging storms, casting spells, and any micro required for other units. There’s a reason that dealing with carrier compositions in the late game is difficult even for professional players. Most micro, when looked at in isolation, is easy, but the more different kinds of micro you need to do, the more difficult it gets.
It’s also the reason why having a few ultras on the ground is so helpful vs protoss in that stage of the game; archons/templar/carriers are all terrible against them, and they draw splash damage away from corruptors.
Sort of. The problem is that carriers aren’t used alone, carriers are usually ahead in upgrades, and even if the Zerg resets the carriers, if they only kill the carriers and all of their corruptors die, then the fight was practically even.
It’s also very easy for Zerg to overproduce corruptors, which is actually something that happens fairly often even in pro play.
Only if they have a huge supply and resource advantage or are ahead on upgrades. Once carriers hit a sufficient count and are at least even on attack vs armour upgrades, Hydras are just awful against them even without storm/disruptors being involved.
Storm/disruptors do counteract shroud to some extent, but shroud still takes off 80% of carrier damage, and Hydras don’t die to a single storm, so that damage mitigation helps a lot.
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If you havent pre-made mass BC I have yet to see a mothership and mass carrier instantly losing to no matter what ghosts and bio you have with no matter how many vikings
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you can use magic box. i never had the issue of too much stacking, honestly. ofc it happens but it can be mitigated.
Also you dont need to directly engage a full stacked lategame toss army. you can also use vipers and pull them away.
or you can use the good old dont let them get there. if hes turtleing and straight up going for carriers you can straight up go for corrupters and deny him getting a critical mass. honestly its pretty much over if you manage to fully reset the carrier count once.
but yeah engaging a full stacked toss army after 25 minutes is indeed pretty hard to do and i especially referred to the micro tax part of having to focus fire carriers. because of all the things you have to do lategame vs protoss army thats the least taxing but you actually explained it with:
its actually a well thought response i didnt expect. most players will just say hurr durr carrier op thats why i lose my matches 
which is certainly not true at all.
Thats really not true since you can rebuild a good amount of corrupters instantly but it takes ages to get a decent carrier count again. so yeah if you wiped the carrier count you can rebuild a good amount of corrupters and babysit the stargates (like we have seen in many many many pro matches). protoss needs to either all in or also babysit at home.
yeah as i explained that only works for early to midgame and not lategame. there is a huge window where you can counter carriers with hydras because you will have supply and resource advantage (you have it automatically since toss is teching up to t3 and cant be super super greedy and you build t2 units and nothing to fear in early game so ofc you can drone like hell) but once its over you cant get anything done with hydras.
hell…beating carriers in early to midgame is that easy that you can actually use mutalisks for that and also harass with it too. or dont forget the queenwalk. literally anything that shoots up will kill a carrier eventually. people vastly overestimate carriers. obviously a full stacked lategame protoss army is hard to deal with thats true but before that killing carriers is pretty easy.
they pretty much die to it tho. storm does 80 dmg max and nova does 145 dmg and hydras only have 90 hp meaning they either die instantly to nova or they eat a bit of storm and then go die once they are out of shroud. that why we never see shroud. its next to useless. ive seen more shrouds on queens vs carriers than on hydras tbh. also note that hydras are pretty slow units compared to the rest of zerg units. especially off creep you wont be able to split or dodge anything.
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I think the biggest reason Zergs struggle with using hydras against carriers is because they are a projectile so they overkill interceptors like crazy.
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The logic is weird: you build a counter(Viking/ Corruptor) according to sc2 guide… but it is only a counter if you use micro.
Queen/ Thor has been changed to fulfill its role as a counter as well.
you just lose ~2-4 units simply because the leash range is 14.
hydra shroud is actually cool, but once nova or storm is out you have to adjust again.
There are other counters that require micro. Cyclones, Hellions, Vikings (against Battlecruisers or Void Rays), Marines (in many cases at least), Disruptors, all casters, Stalkers (against at least some units such as Ultralisks), etc.
Carriers have been that way since SC1. The main advantage of Carriers is that the Interceptors can tank by drawing fire from other units. The solution to that is to focus the Carrier. That is unless you happen to be using a unit which can either kill Interceptors fast enough that it doesn’t matter, or that happens to be specialized against swarm of light units like Interceptors to such an extreme that going after the Interceptors first is actually more efficient.
It’s quite similar to the StarCraft 1 Hydralisk+Dark-Swarm situation. Hydralisks are weak to splash, and they are not particularly good at getting under Carriers or killing Interceptors quickly.
first welcome to SC2 forum and the game Sc2.
here is a link for sc:
https://www.starcraftforum.com
more specific examples of: Marines, Disruptors, Cyclones, Hellions. PLS
Good point with: Vikings I have to think about it again.
caster are to be evaluated differently. are also not normal fighters (except Ghost maybe).
Stalkers: never read anywhere that Stalkers counters are to Ultra or that the game suggested that. you are referring to the +Armored damage?
Marines usually need to kite to deal with Zealots. That is without considering the splitting micro they often need against some splash units.
Disruptors have to be manually triggered like casters.
Cyclones usually require kiting to be effective, similar to how Vikings kite Battlecruisers and charged Void Rays. They should be kept out of prolonged fights.
Hellions need to kite to be effective against Zealots, and they sometimes need to kite or squeeze into corridors against Zerglings if they aren’t above a certain mass. This is when not using the Hellbat transformation.
The Ravager also should have been included in the initial list because of its dependence on bile shots for damage.
No. Stalkers were previously able to deal with Ultralisks by kiting off creep in WOL and HOTS. I forgot that is no longer the case with the speed upgrade in LOTV.
neither in the game nor on liquipedia is Marine shown as a conter for Zealot.
Marine are the reason why Z/P need aoe sooner or later. but has nothing to do with countering.
another point as with the marine, they are actually no counter to Ultra.
you say yourself is a caster… special case.
I have tested a bit, never with Hellbat.
Without micro and different varation of upgrades, Hellions are not a good counter in low numbers. only in higher numbers, when you see 40 Hellion vs 40 Zealot. With lings it is a bit better for Hellion, but Hellion have the option for Hellbat.
For Viking vs void, also haven’t seen the 36 sup Viking vs 36sup void in normal game. similar to hellions. also interesting Viking are more expensive than void for same sup.
you are right. Cyclon, possibly Ravager. fall into a more utility role and are micro or compsition dependent.
generally eventeull I reconsider “counter” in the theme of utility as with viking range, speed, micro intensity.
Conclusion: skytoss is still lame. Like viking, corrupters are more expensive than carriers at the same sup (cost more gas).