Vikings are a decent counter if you can get enough out quick enough.
There’s another dimension here to consider - build time. Vikings are a good counter unit but they are of limited value offensively (other than to counter what someone else is doing).
So the challenge is usually having to find that they’re building the void rays and get the starport up (N seconds), get the reactor on it (M seconds) and then start cranking them out.
The void rays aren’t particularly hard to counter. My objection to them is that there is really no negative to not building them for the Protos. Void rays are a pretty good offensive unit. Hence, the player loses little by building up a few of them to see if he can take you out. By contrast, the Terran has to actively scount to be ready to counter. That’s why they’re annoying.
Maybe I’m doing it wrong, but I rarely use Void Rays. I’m really wary of going air at all against Terran, but either way, I stick to Gateway and Robo units for most of my games.
Yea in any of my Terran games I’ve had absolutely no problems dealing with air. Albeit a few times some Muta might get in some nice harassment because in the heat of the game I’ve forgotten to build a few turrets but really air seems to evaporate so quickly whenever it comes up against marines.
A single void ray is great against Terran who wall off, in the early game. You can use the void ray both to snipe the buildings on their ramp and provide vision for stalkers and sentries to take out any marines who try to stop it (sentries also cut marine damage by 1/3 when they use guardian shield), while the void ray destroys marauders.
3-5 stalkers, a void ray and maybe some sentries is my standard opening gambit against Terran, it’s very strong on defence and on offence, providing they’ve walled off (which I think Terran players have started to avoid in PvT, possibly for that region).
Reldan
1685
Scan costs Terran roughly 250 minerals on average that could have been a MULE and can be wasted if you are just trying to figure out where their expansions might be.
Early game zerglings are an incredibly fast and awesome 25 mineral 1/2 supply scouting unit. Mid to late game Zerg can get overlord speed for a one time 50/50 and you can at worst suicide a 100 mineral overlord to see exactly what another player has in their base (and if they don’t have AA you can reuse the overlord). This is not a bad deal at all.
Wolff
1686
I love this game.
Just randomly paired up with a guy “FatsChicago” while playing 2v2 bronze league, I’ve been actively trying to get that up to silver but just keep getting paired with absolute tools (not just noobery which is expected, but actual assholes) anyway long story short we ended up placing into platinum which was a very exciting ride. We lost in platinum to our mirror but wow coordinated 2v2 is excellent.
We are Z&P and we push with 6 roaches, 6 lings, a few zealots and stalkers. If one is teching we basically take one player out and win right there. Otherwise we try to hurt mineral lines and then back off. He then just makes a crazy ground army while I tech to mutas to harass (oh boy does my macro suffer with such aggressive play) bouncing between the two bases. The killing blow is of course corruptor/BL with blinking stalkers and maybe a colossi or two.
Its going to be interesting to see if 2v2 will enjoy the same balance tweaks that 1v1 does or if certain pairings will just be very strong early on. I really see Toss&X being strong since the zealots are just great early tanks in melee range and both zerg (roach) and terran (MM) slide nicely behind them.
JMR
1687
This thread is tl;dr so apologies if this has already been posted.
Unbeatable Protoss 1v1 strategy
Ayr
1688
Ah, but voids are very expensive and relatively easy to counter. The negative is that against a prepared enemy you would be better off by using those resources into more/better ground units.
As to scouting, that is the name of the game. I feel the same way about banshees - if I do a scouting run and only see a handful of infantry/tanks then either the opponent is a very bad player or he went air (even if he hid his production facilities). So it’s time to get some AA or cannons out. Inferring this type of conclusion from scouting data is half the pleasure of the game, and I would argue that every race has to actively scout all the time if they want to be competitive.
If it was someone here that hooked me up with a beta invite, thanks! I played my first game last night and now I’m dying to get home from work and spend an entire evening with it. I really didn’t think I’d care for it but damn this game looks and plays good.
BirdFlu.hedon here. If anyone wants to whip a newb this weekend add me as a friend. With any luck I’ll be online most of the weekend!
Perco
1690
New patch and situation report. Quite a few big changes and additions.
OMG THEY REDUCED STIM!!!
Ok and combat shield aswell but this is a huge change, 100/100 for both means that it’s now feasible to get a ridiculously early Stim. Lots of other fun changes as well including 3v3 and 4v4 being enabled and a reworked ladder.
Lorini
1692
Seems like this will invalidate most TvP replays for learning purposes. True?
Well only if your going Bio, for once they didn’t change up Mech at all. But yea, this is a huge change in the dynamics of the early game for Terran.
Lorini
1694
One day McKnight, I’m going to have to find you in a chat and you can explain all these terms to me :). Bio?
I am assuming bio = dudes, mech = robots
Day9 analyses a silver level replay for common mistakes:
http://blip.tv/file/3651794
I’d say this is as close as it gets to required viewing for pretty much anyone below very high rated platinum who wants to improve their game.
Bio/MMM is Marine/Marauder/(Medevac).
It’s a sizable buff… going to have to try playing some Terran!
Bnet’s down. Looks like they’re rolling out the patch.
Jab
1699
Great video, would someone be able to send day9 a few of my replays :)
Going on 5 hours now. What did they do to battle net?
