Having to manually target carriers with vikings feels like far better counterplay than simply a-moving and deleting all the carriers. Making the interceptors higher priority would be a great soft buff to carriers that would make them more relevant without fiddling with the numbers.
1 Like
Interceptor targeting priority was specifically lowered by Blizzard to make Skytoss easier for the other races to deal with. Reverting it is a bad idea:
StarCraft II 5.0.11 Patch Notes — StarCraft II — Blizzard News
Developer Comment: For the majority of players across skill levels it is too difficult to engage into Carriers with an army that is more focused on destroying the Carriers themselves (such as Vikings and Corruptors). This should allow players to use units intended for fighting Carriers to actually be used effectively and even the micro requirement in engagements between the players.
4 Likes
For all intents and purposes interceptors are a protoss marine but that flies, auto micros, auto heals, and only costs 15 minerals. The carrier does not need buffs. It’s way too strong as is especially for the amount of effort that you put in (which is zero).
What they ought to do is remove the AI from interceptors so that they have to be manually microed by the protoss. That’s really the #1 change that carriers need. And yes, for 99.9% of players on earth, that would be a nerf. But, for hero it would be a buff.
2 Likes
Lowering the required skill to beat the lowest skill composition in the game is a good thing
3 Likes
I really don’t think that comparison holds. Marines are very high DPS glass cannon units, whereas the Interceptor’s stats are those of a low DPS tank.
Just for comparison, a stimmed Marine’s DPS on faster is about 26.6% of its health:
6 * 1.5 * 1.4 / 0.8608 / 55 = 14.637… / 55 = 0.26613
The Interceptor’s DPS on faster is about 5.83% of its health:
10 / 3 * 1.4 / 80 = 4.6666 / 80 = 0.058333.
There are plenty of other units between those two that are closer matches (Queens, Hydralisks, Mutalisks, etc).
1 Like
Dude carriers wreck vikings, what are you talking about, they hard counter vikings, you require no micro for the carriers, you will lose barely 2 carriers while destroying the viking army and wining the game.
Carriers should have some kind of micro or an weakness, they are basically good at fighting everything, and require no micro at all.
Vikings generally win against Carriers on equal supply with equal upgrades. Something else has to interfere for the Vikings to lose.
3 Likes
Vikings just end up shooting interceptors, and they die like in 4-5 seconds.
They are garbage against mass carriers.
Carriers have higher priority than the Interceptors (more accurately, Interceptors have lower priority than other air units),. This generally doesn’t happen unless you do something dumb.
Even if it was a problem, you could avoid it by target-firing some of the Carriers.
1 Like
While you are sniping carriers, usually 2 shot, you are losing Vikings much faster, as vikings are shooting very slow.
I’ve seen dozens of times, Terran pro players loose with Ghost and vikings on ladder against lower level toss players, against skytoss, when they were ahead.
The only way vikings work against carriers is when the carrier count is low, when it is mass carriers vikings are complete trash.
No, sorry. If you are getting EMP off and preventing storm, vikings and ghosts win vs carriers every time. Its genuinely surprising how bad they get wrecked. Team games is a bit different, but even there it can work well.
2 Likes
You do have to focus fire, but Vikings can win on equal supply until you get to around 120 or so. Again, that is without other interference.
Dude I’ve seen so many pro players loose with vikings plus even ghosts with good emp shots and best top notch control, still loose to carriers.
So that is a big NO!
This is something you can test, and yes, Vikings win if controlled correctly. You just aren’t accounting for the other stuff (higher supply, better upgrades, Archons or HT, prior damage on the Vikings, etc) that benefitted the Protoss side.
1 Like
I’ve played probably over 50 games of skytoss in my life as protoss in PvT, I don’t remember ever loosing to vikings, the only way I lost, which was 1 or 2 times, when I got my full supply skytoss, was against BCs. (but you can still win easily against BCs as well)
The number of times I have beaten carriers with viking ghost is a not insignificant number.
More than 50 times, in fact.
2 Likes
Terran really doesn’t have issues vs carriers because vikings are so flipping good. The only things that counter the vikings are storm and blink, and you beat that with liberators and emp. Ghost viking liberator is an extreme hard counter to skytoss.
Zerg by comparison has no real answer to storm. All zerg anti air melts to storm. You have to sack ground units to the carrier ball in the hopes of killing the templar. You either run up to it with lurkers and burrow or use ultras or banes. Anyway that is all beaten by simply having a ton of immortals and archons underneath. So zerg can’t kill the templar and you won’t win the air fight vs the carriers without killing the templar so you can’t fight his army.
Only option left is to use evasion plays like putting lurkers into a nydus and hoping the protoss doesn’t look at the minimap and you get to kill his main with lurkers. It takes an hour to do but you can actually beat skytoss this way it’s just incredibly dumb to rely on your opponent being literally blind in order to win. If he simply uses his eyes and splits his army he can’t lose. That’s why at code s level they don’t do that. They rely on +2 adrenal lings for the counter attacking. Ironically it still works because the toss refuse to use multiple hotkeys and do multiprong. Oh and they chronically leave their wall open even though they are building an air army and could full wall without restricting army movements. It’s hilarious how bad top protoss are but they are better than ladder toss because they do use their eyes to see the nydus on the minimap.
That’s why the zergling is and always has been zerg’s strongest unit. It’s the one unit actually capable of beating skytoss, which is quite ironic. Do you know how many tournaments have been won because a few lings slip into a mineral line? I’d say probably 90% of premier zergs rely on that happening in order to win. The zergling is zerg’s best unit by far.
1 Like