Title, what is the counter to carriers? Besides, don’t let them get there?
1 Like
corrupter tempest or viking lib even enough bcs will kill them. as for ground mass marine with good micro or mass hydra with vipers abducting. Although ground vrs air aint great but with enough numbers and a sufficient bank it can be done.
3 Likes
There is no counter to it. Plain and simple, I quit the game, come back after years and quit again because of this.
2 Likes
Also anything with high base armor and armor upgrades counter carriers very hard.
Even hydras can counter carriers easily if you prioritize armor upgrade and have few caster support (fungal/abduct).
It is usually terran that has problem as carriers are usually supported by stalker/HT/archon that can deal serious damage to mass vikings via AoE. In that case you may need EMP.
Asks what the counter is. Gets told what the counters are. Says there are No counters without any further explanation and quits the Game 
Most people that lose vs Carriers dont realize that they arent supposed to win the Fight with their Army value. When you Switch Carriers with any Other Army composition they would also get Destroyed but they cry about Carriers to have Something to cope.
Carriers arent hard to counter…you Just suck (as harstem would say it)
1 Like
With the right units they can definitely be beaten in a direct fight.
I love seeing carriers, i pop them like pimples. its quite funny when you get a protoss that max’s out carriers and you come in with a but load of corruptors and wipe them out, then the toss gets buthurt and leaves instantly.
2 Likes
Yea. The main issue though is that in team games if you mass corruptors to match one playing going carriers then you may be vulnerable to other attacks from ground units. Which can be kinda a pain, but its a roll of the dice with team games at times. But it is loads of fun taking down carriers with anti air then punishing them for going mass carriers.
trust me i know ray, i play 3v3 all day long, the way to keep that from happening is to make sure your ready for the transition into the next unit thats out on the feild that needs countered. Dont put all your eggs in one basket basically. If carriers are the only air units on the field ill pop them then run my coruptors straght into the toss base then camp there stargates, wait for the next round of units to pop then mountain dew there buildings. Now while doing this im already racking up money by not producing anymore units while im microing the corruptors so as long as you have the right building for the units you want, once the corruptors are used up ill switch over and pour out mass ling ultra or what ever is really needed. Im sure if you have played 3v3 at all our paths have crossed at somepoint.
1 Like
Perhaps Ill see you in game sometime. I primarily play 3v3 right now.
Im always on, playing on na, The only winterknight youll see in this game.
1 Like
Carriers aren’t even that good right now…
If you see the cyber-core spinning, you should know the air transition is coming at some point and start prioritizing armor upgrades and preparing a response, because carriers are dependent on an upgrade advantage and/or fighting and under-prepared enemy.
Zerg has by far the easiest answer to them between Corruptors (which are already the best unit in the game vs carriers in a fight) and vipers; just fly the corruptors on top of the carriers and cast Parasitic bomb to kill all of the interceptors with AoE.
Terran can deal with them pretty easily with ghosts + any anti-air unit. Marines or libs will shred interceptors, Vikings/Thors can kill the carriers more directly, and Battlecruisers just win regardless of whether they focus fire or not due to their 3 base armor, and they have yamato.
Protoss has the hardest time dealing with carriers if the transition actually happens because its anti-air is sort of garbage (The only unit that can fight carriers head-on is charged voidrays, but even they don’t do it well), but actually getting into game-state where making carriers in numbers is viable is usually a difficult proposition at best considering how aggressive the match up is. Stalkers can blink under carriers before critical mass, sentry guardian shield neuters their DPS (-2 damage from base 5), and Tempests can kite them (though they don’t fight them effectively straight up on even supply).
2 Likes
yeah i forgot thors and ghost are good for carriers. As for tempest I disagree with you on that one, tempest are like a slow moving version of the corrupter but with greater range. Just stay out of the carrier range and one shot them. Ive seen it enough times it can be done. Throw down some storms on the interceptors and the carriers go down quick after that. Ive actually seen alot of blink stalker killing carriers lately. With the targeting ai getting changed the way it did carriers have become a lot less of a problem
2 Likes
If you need ground ,specifically, then Cyclones, Hydra-viper, Stalker( Terrible choice, go Stargate: PvP Stargate counters Stargate)
You have to be about 500 mmr above the opponent you are playing vs to start. Then you have to play a ducking piano while they a-move a clump of units back and fourth. Congrats you just made the game even.
Or just scout properly just make some decent anti air options. I’d defeated many protoss players massing carriers in my league before. In fact, I tend to find mass stalker more scary at times.
Yes the race protoss goes skytoss against the most also has the easiest answer to the unit they mass the most, in that case I wonder why professional zergs counter carrier rushes with queen spore since countering them with corruptors is just that easy.
On the other hand, any idea why you don’t see carrier rushes vs toss or terran anywhere near as often?
1 Like
From my xp in PvP you can die pretty quickly to a blink stalker push before you get critical carrier mass, and the rush is pretty easy to spot, so it’s best to naturally transition after 3 bases.
In PvT carrier rushing is not worth it at all. You won’t have enough troops to survive the inevitable lol-stim push.
1 Like
Because one would die instantly because p and t have better Access to early Game anti Air and early Game harassment.
Doesnt Change the fact that zerg has the best midgame/lategame answer to Carriers.
But they do counter it with corrupter rush oO
2 Likes
The reason is because the Zerg early-mid game army lacks anti-air entirely, Hydras are one of the worst anti-air units vs large numbers of carriers, and Queens are a bit lacking in DPS and are slow, so can’t be used to attack the protoss player very effectively or actually threaten to kill the carriers. Zerg also usually skips carapace upgrades to get both +2 melee and ranged attack, which is particularly relevant for carriers that rely heavily on attack upgrades. PvP is usually stalker/disruptor wars, so the match up is pretty volatile, armies are already expensive, particularly in gas, and games often end very quickly once one player has a notable advantage; transitioning to air is difficult, and Stalkers can blink under and focus fire small numbers of carriers when they have an army advantage.
Zerg is the only race that’s actually forced to transition against Skytoss, so it’s the match up where carriers can get the most reliable value, and when Zerg is spending all their resources slamming into a fortified Protoss, they often forget to go hive or build a spire until it’s already too late. Usually, when the carrier transition wins vs Zerg, either the Protoss was already advantaged by 10k or so in resources lost, or the Zerg didn’t do anything to prepare in time. That’s been the case since the initial carrier buff/removal of infested terran, and Hydra-bane meta when carriers first started seeing significant play in the match up, except that interceptor priority is now fixed, so the micro is way easier for Zerg than it was in the past.
The other reason is that it forces the Zerg into corruptors, and corruptors can’t shoot ground at all and have “only” 6 range, so storm/archons can hit them more easily than the Terran options. It’s easy for the Zerg to over-make corruptors and die to a full ground transition from the protoss (In fact, that seems to usually be what happens when Protoss ends up winning in PvZ games that go long at the highest level; if the Zerg was able to prepare the response after the initial transition).
1 Like