Pff look on queen a lot queen witch shroud can stop skytoss
Please name one tool that each race has to protect their air units from scourge that will apply consistently in effectiveness.
Phoenix archon stalker voidray marine mine thor liberator ghost hydra queen corruptor viper infestor
The idea that scourge would not be viable in sc2 comes from gold league scrubs that don’t even play the game enough to understand the concept of kiting.
20 characters required
Phoenix
Lacks AoE or smart fire. They can deal with small scourge, but short of face tanking an A-move attack they cant actually fend off scourge in large numbers. They can survive, probably, but they cant protect anything.
archon stalker
Are ground units, and therefore are subject to terrain. They cant keep up with air armies, and using any significant land presence specifically to fend off scourge mostly defeats the main advantages of having air units. To say nothing of the fact that archons have incredibly short range and stalkers suffer the same issues as phoenixes, but worse.
voidray
wut?
marine
are ground units and require an entire different tech line to keep relevant, dramatically hampering your ability to make air units.
mine
That might protect them in your base, but you certainly arent using them to proactively head off scourge. Theyre too slow to react.
thor
Thors ALSO lack smart fire, and while they might catch A-moving scourge in a single clump (again, if its conveniently over an area the thor can reach) , sending a couple ahead will trigger the long weapon cooldown.
liberator
youve FINALLY hit on a unit that might actually work effectively.
ghost
Are they going to use their spitball rifles in this scenario or what?
hydra queen
STILL lack smart fire and are STILL ground units.
corruptor
Ok, now i think youre just trolling.
viper
This one could potentially work, but its dependent on your micro ability, and can be countered by just not clumping your scourge. If you make enough vipers to counter THAT, youve already just killed your own army strength and they dont even need scourge to fight you anymore.
infestor
Same deal with the viper, but worse because its a land unit and cant regain energy nearly as quickly.
No, Scourge would still be a problematic unit based on their ability to obliterate air armies, and the lack of options to protect air armies from them.
I just listed all the options, feel free to keep quoting the same gold player tho.
Corruptors and Liberators both have long attack delays and acceleration issues could prevent them from kiting Scourge effectively even with that mild speed advantage.
Absolutely not, liberators are frequently seen kiting interceptors at the highest level which have a speed of 10.5, same with corruptors.
Kiting with Void Rays shouldn’t even be a consideration:
Gold league bias exposed. 5 VR’s 1 shot a scourge, 4 with +1 air. VR has attack delay of .36 meaning you are definitely shaving off scourges before they hit. Considering the best possible gas trade for zerg would be 3 scourge for 1 vr (112.5 vs 150) it would be extremely easy to turn the engagement into a favourable trade for the protoss, it’s the same concept as the current relationship of cyclone vs blinkstalker, or muta vs vr.
No, they don’t. Whenever Zerg masses Scourge they can simply overwhelm any normal air army.
No they won’t because air splash exists.
Other units can only be reasonably protected by high amounts of air-to-air splash; which simply isn’t present in StarCraft II the way it was in Brood War.
They absolutely do. L2p
The Thor’s splash radius is 0.5; and air units naturally split further than that within a second. It is a terribly ineffective tool at dealing with air units unless the opponent is explicitly trying to stack them up; and like most of the options on your list it would require the air units to always hover over a ground army for protection.
Given the nature of air stacking in sc2, thors would be great against scourge.
Those have limited mobility and a long delay that make them relatively ineffective tools for trying to protect slow air armies from Scourge.
Mines move at almost 4 speed and have a 1 sec burrow time.
In some cases those spells might kill Scourge, but they would be fairly unreliable.
In what sense would those “might” kill scourge? PB is seen as an effective counter to mutas, vikings, and vr at highest level all of which have several times the hp pool of scourge. In what universe are you living in where aa aoe spells “might” kill a 25 hp air unit?
On the other hand, if you gave Scourge splash they would be blatantly overpowered at those numbers. Zerg’s production capacity makes it far too easy to mass Scourge; and air play does not have collisions, forcefields, terrain, and the numerous other defenses against splash that help keep Banelings from getting out of hand.
They wouldn’t because:
a) you can kite them to death
b) they are incredibly gas intensive
c) air splash exists
No air splash units on protoss sky uh you forget it about gas heavy doesnt matter zerg can remax half corraptors easy then zerg on 5 hatch atleast
Lacks AoE or smart fire. They can deal with small scourge, but short of face tanking an A-move attack they cant actually fend off scourge in large numbers. They can survive, probably, but they cant protect anything.
If you are a-moving phoenix you belong in gold. Scourge are light, 7 range phoenixes would rape scourge like no tomorrow.
Are ground units, and therefore are subject to terrain. They cant keep up with air armies, and using any significant land presence specifically to fend off scourge mostly defeats the main advantages of having air units. To say nothing of the fact that archons have incredibly short range and stalkers suffer the same issues as phoenixes, but worse.
Air units can move towards ground units. Stalkers 2 shot scourge and have blink, archons can be transported in prism.
wut?
l2kite
are ground units and require an entire different tech line to keep relevant, dramatically hampering your ability to make air units.
The techline that terrans go for in 90% of games is irrelevant to their ability to counter air units? Thanks I guess I’ll fly my overlords in terrans base the whole game because the marine is that much out of the terran tech path.
That might protect them in your base, but you certainly arent using them to proactively head off scourge. Theyre too slow to react.
Do you even understand how counter relationships work? Here’s a hint: air units are not necessarily meant to be countered with air units, that was the entire premise of the broodlord in wol.
Thors ALSO lack smart fire, and while they might catch A-moving scourge in a single clump (again, if its conveniently over an area the thor can reach) , sending a couple ahead will trigger the long weapon cooldown.
If you are using it vs scourge for anything other than aoe you’re doing it wrong.
youve FINALLY hit on a unit that might actually work effectively.
Funny other gold leaguers seem to disagree.
Are they going to use their spitball rifles in this scenario or what?
No they’re going to use their 6 range and bonus to light to 1 shot scourge at +3.
Ok, now i think youre just trolling.
Again, l2kite
This one could potentially work, but its dependent on your micro ability, and can be countered by just not clumping your scourge. If you make enough vipers to counter THAT, youve already just killed your own army strength and they dont even need scourge to fight you anymore.
This is like saying the ability of vipers to counter mutas is dependent on micro ability. Seriously, l2p.
Same deal with the viper, but worse because its a land unit and cant regain energy nearly as quickly.
Fungal can’t counter 25 hp air units? Like???
You realize it does 30 dmg right?
Hahaha archon that does bonus to all zerg and one-shot scourge is not “air splash” hahahahaha
Archont ground splash doesnt fly also their role tank ground like a comedy zerg a move hydra corraptors and protoss must split against scourge take loss because he split and after fight
Right, archon toilet never existed, protoss build archons to tank ground, not kill corruptor! Ty scrub.
If you are a-moving phoenix you belong in gold. Scourge are light, 7 range phoenixes would rape scourge like no tomorrow.
Yeah, thats cool. What happens if i right click my scourge on the carriers and ignore the phonixes? When 10 phoenixes target two scourge between them, youre killing maybe 3 or 4 before the pack gets through to kill your carriers. Phoenixes can survive, but they cant protect anything.
Air units can move towards ground units. Stalkers 2 shot scourge and have blink, archons can be transported in prism.
So in order for air play to be viable in ZvX, it needs to actually be ground play? Neat.
l2kite
Im kiting those scourge away from my overlords or brood lords now am i?
The techline that terrans go for in 90% of games is irrelevant to their ability to counter air units?
Right, i forgot that skyterran consisted mainly of marines. How silly of me.
Do you even understand how counter relationships work? Here’s a hint: air units are not necessarily meant to be countered with air units, that was the entire premise of the broodlord in wol.
Are you genuinely stupid? The brood lord was hard countered by ALL air units.
If you are using it vs scourge for anything other than aoe you’re doing it wrong.
Wow, way to not even address the point.
No they’re going to use their 6 range and bonus to light to 1 shot scourge at +3.
So again, a terran going for mech/sky also now needs to invest in bio tech, and are also relying on the absolutely atrocious ghost auto attack to defend their units? You were better off with the marines.
Again, l2kite
If i need to kite the scourge to fight them, then i cant stop them from killing their actual targets: my capital ships or the equivalent. In ZvZ, overlords are also absolutely hosed.
This is like saying the ability of vipers to counter mutas is dependent on micro ability. Seriously, l2p.
Im sorry that you have literally no idea how to engage in the most basic anti-splash mechanics in the game (not stacking your units), but pretending that you cant do that with scourge isnt an argument.
Fungal can’t counter 25 hp air units? Like???
You realize it does 30 dmg right?
See above. If im catching two scourge per fungal, im not defending anything with infestors.
Archont toilet in the past also archont tank bane and any ground support role in sky and yes split corraptors against archont and zerg fine
Yeah, thats cool. What happens if i right click my scourge on the carriers and ignore the phonixes? When 10 phoenixes target two scourge between them, youre killing maybe 3 or 4 before the pack gets through to kill your carriers. Phoenixes can survive, but they cant protect anything.
You have a proportionate amount of phoenixes to his scourge. Sorry you can’t have 2 phoenix for 50 scourge. They would absolutely be able to protect carriers the same way tanks protect marines from banes, just because overkill is possible does not negate a counter relationship.
So in order for air play to be viable in ZvX, it needs to actually be ground play? Neat.
Wow you actually need to build ground units? What a revolutionary concept!
Im kiting those scourge away from my overlords or brood lords now am i?
If you want to protect broods from scourge build viper, but if you’re building broods in zvz then you’ve already lost.
Pure vr would be able to take favourable trades vs scourge the same way they do vs mutas, except scourge would be more gas intensive. Again, your gold league bias is showing.
Right, i forgot that skyterran consisted mainly of marines. How silly of me.
I forgot the ability to create marines was removed once terran invested into 3 starports.
Are you genuinely stupid? The brood lord was hard countered by ALL air units.
Are you? Or did the point fly that high over your head?
Broods countered all ground and were hard countered by air. Scourge at worst would counter all air and be hard countered by ground? L2p I’m sick of spoonfeeding gold league players fundamentals.
Wow, way to not even address the point.
That thors would be an effective counter to scourge? No, that’s you bud.
So again, a terran going for mech/sky also now needs to invest in bio tech, and are also relying on the absolutely atrocious ghost auto attack to defend their units? You were better off with the marines.
Ghost is essential unit in lategame tvz, regardless if you’re going mech or bio. Ty for again proving you have gold league knowledge.
If i need to kite the scourge to fight them, then i cant stop them from killing their actual targets: my capital ships or the equivalent. In ZvZ, overlords are also absolutely hosed.
If you need to kill scourge quickly then mine, archon, thor, marine etc are ofc better options. You can beat scourge with kiting or with dps/splash.
You think zerg would trade 25/75 for 100/0? Are you dumb?
Im sorry that you have literally no idea how to engage in the most basic anti-splash mechanics in the game (not stacking your units), but pretending that you cant do that with scourge isnt an argument.
Tell that to pro players that make vipers and infestors vs mutas, kid.
See above. If im catching two scourge per fungal, im not defending anything with infestors.
If you’re catching 2 scourge with a fungal that’s a l2p problem.
yes split corraptors against archont and zerg fine
Split corruptors can’t focus fire or dodge storms properly. L2p.
Who is storm then 2 fungal kill the ht so only archont left and wow zerg do a few ultras kill the archont and corraptors are focus fire
L2 use prismmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Nobody gonna use prism for ht unless you want some free loss prism
Yea no toss use it cause their race is so busted they don’t even need to.
Not used because corraptors shoot that thing free
So have vr kill corruptor.