I’ve been trying to incorporate Sky Furies into my late game P2 Mengsk army as I find that BC’s, Thors, Shadows and Medivac-Tanks are still a bit lacking especially against massive capital ships or ultralisk waves. I thought adding some Sky Furies with my remaining free supply would be a good supplement but so far I can’t really feel the difference especially against ultralisks/thors despite sky furies having bonus damage against massive units, then there’s the additional APM needed to switch between modes to get that sweet aspd buff.
Do you guys think Sky Furies are a good complement to your RG army or is the supply better spent with an additional shadow, siege tank, or even troopers?
I prefer Aegis Guard vs ground, 140dps @ 3-star with stim vs armoured. Their average dps is slightly lower than SF, but they’re tankier. Versus massive air sky furies are awesome, e.g. shuttles, but to use properly you need them in a separate control group. Overall I find them situationally good, but generally I’d add more RG/ES & sometimes PoA.
For tankivacs their dps is terrible, but burst is great so you need to kite with vision to use them well. PoA are really good too, but you need enough 3-star units to wipe those heavy enemy units, which takes longer.
I get the most success out of them by making sure they are my only royal guard type, that way I can focus on them. That said they still work best if you have manned bunkers or missile turrets to screen for them as air waves scan still claim a few sky furies, especially waves with enemy Vikings.
Generally I only build them if they are going to be my only RG unit and usually only on Void Launch. One good strategy is to combine them with 10 or so ESOs (only manned if vs Ground) and use the Contaminated Strike on waves before diving in with the Sky Furies (the fear affect is just enough time to come into range and transform for maximum DPS).
If wanting to use them against Terran then I’d bring along an ES to try to EMP the BCs and if it’s ground mech I’d just build mass Aegis Guard.
They’re nice addition against capital ships when Amon happens to also have powerful ground aoe that would eradicate my Rocket Troopers (like Reaver, Colossus, Storms, etc).
The best thing about Sky Furies is their mobility. They are super fast when upgraded and can deal loads of damage in a hurry. But they aren’t great direct combat units. Against enemy air units you want to be focus firing and kiting, using their range to kill things without taking return fire. This makes them very bad in mixed unit formations because of how micro intensive this is. In head to head engagements, Mengsk’s best anti air is actually his Troopers with AA Launchers. These guys do insane DPS vs armored and are normally so cheap that they trade super well.
With P2 obviously this gets a lot weirder. Since you won’t have as much of a mineral bank. So you gotta be more careful with your Troopers can’t afford to replace them as much. But having a mixed army of Pride of Augustgrad for extra range, and Thors for the extra armor is still your best AA fighting force for straight up battles.
Skyfuries are even worse vs ground targets. You don’t want them for this role. Use Marauders, and Tanks or even Ghosts depending on what the enemy army is. Marauders especially when upgraded do terrific damage to Ultralisks.
Sky Furies have the same supply as Marauders and have 113 ground DPS and 120 air DPS vs Massive units during Tactical Realignment while in comparison Marauders have 93 DPS vs Armoured during Super Stimpack.
Obviously each unit has different utility but against any comp that has a significant amount of massive units (which is a tricky assessment) that isn’t going to punish the Sky Furies with spells (BCs are particularly bad at this) then they can do very well.
I might try to Sky Furies + ESOs for Contaminated Strike strategy. Does Evasive Maneuvers get applied to Double Edge damage?
Even in P2, gas can be a hindrance. I often found myself with a lot of mineral and still not enough gas to make royal guards, so I make additional troopers. And honestly, having troopers as fodders in early game is well worth it. If Amon has Reaver and Colossus, all the more reason to use Skyfury for anti-air later.
I like to use Skyfuries when I am using a heavy ESO strategy as well. Their high mobility and versatility is perfect for mopping up what the ESOs leave behind.
As far as I know, nothing blocks Double Edge damage except for Artanis’ Guardian Shell.
being inside medivac/imperial Intercessor (drop 10 nukes and then load Emporers Shadow into the Intercessor to avoid Double Edge damage).
Griffon evac (drop Nova nuke and Sabotage Drone and then evac her).
Tychus medivac (drop Big Red Button and then medivac the Odin).
Load Kerrigan and/or army into Omega Worm to avoid Double Edge damage or whatever ground army you have if your ally is Kerrigan.
Shoot off Psionic Orbs of 4 Ascendants and then load them into a War Prism.
maybe Abrogators could fire and then load into Void Prism? Haven’t tested that one.
Sky Furies Pheonix Protocol might give some protection when it activates from assault Walker mode?
Swann can load units into Hercs to avoid double edge damage but primary herc unit is tanks which are hitscan so unclear on effectiveness (though loading Goliath’s when fighting air before the Missiles hit will be an effective strategy).
Raynor and Mengsk bunkers let infantry avoid Double Edge damage.
Actually Guardian Shell doesn’t block damage, it avoids/dodges it.
“Block” is when something else takes the hit instead of the target. For example, block a punch with your arm, block a bullet with sandbags, block a swordstrike with a shield, etc. So PDDs also block damage.
We would much rather avoid/dodge the damage entirely than block it, hence what Cap mentions.
Guardian Shell blocks it because the damage that would normally kill the unit gets stopped when the shell comes up and prevents it from ticking any further.
Does it automatically. Everything Guardian Shell does is a block. The damage is still being done to the target the target is simply immune from damage.
I’ll give you a perfect reason why the two are different. A Zealot that has Guardian Shell active can still be attacking. Dealing additional damage thus triggering additional procs of Double Edge. Anything hiding in a Dropship, Omega Worm or otherwise cannot do this.
As per your last point. I agree. Avoiding is better.
I think you misunderstand Guardian Shell. I did some checking in the Maguro maps and while a unit is under SOAHeroicShieldImmunity it doesn’t receive 0 DE damage, rather there’s no damage indicator at all. Unless you can show otherwise it looks like the target is completely untargettable. Hence, there’s nothing to block since no damage can target the unit. This fits with the fact that enemy units don’t even try to attack.
On the other hand Nova’s blink shield & defensive drone, Kerri’s carapace, Stetmann green shield, etc. all block damage; and this includes damage from DE.
Edit1: This is also confirmed by units in bunkers taking no damage since they’re also untargettable. Remember that with Double-edged the unit receives damage because they’re targetting themselves.
Edit2: Also see https://starcraft2coop.com/resources/mutators#tePDMamageReflect
I tried using Sky Furies to snipe objectives (i.e. void shards) but they can’t even do that well. As far as I can tell, the only thing they’re good for is hit and run against air, which is uncommon outside of Void Launch.