Some quick unit tester results, everything fully upgraded:
- 150 supply of corruptors massacre 150 supply of carriers when you focus fire, like ~half the corruptors will live through the fight. But you have to focus fire - if the corruptors just a-move on interceptors then not a single carrier dies (!!!)
- 150 supply of hydras in the same situation don't fare so well - they can eventually win against the interceptors if a-moved, but are so depleted by the time they do that they can't effectively focus down the carriers faster than the carriers can make more interceptors to clean up the hydras. And if you try to focus down carriers with hydras (rather than fight interceptors), the hydras just get completely destroyed, the interceptors shred them.

I'm telling you guys, corruptor armor is ****ing magical. Just bring some parasitic bombs with you, nobody is going to be good at splitting their voids.

This also doesn't take into account other benefits - corruptors can't be abused positionally the way hydras can if Protoss uses terrain to make your hydras fight in an awkward location or something.

You're not wrong, but try your unit testing again with Hydras and just a couple of infestors on hand to fungal the swarms of interceptors. That added damage makes such a huge difference.

Sprinkle in 10 Void Rays in that Carrier vs Corruptor fight and see how they do. If parasitic bomb still stacked, I'd be more inclined to agree with just trying to win on corruptor count alone. But if you tell me to fungal + para bomb, now you've exceeded my useful APM cap. Gotta keep these strats on a Diamond level.

You also have to consider the fact that if you go full air, he might just switch to full Void Ray production before your subsequent brood lords can finish the game. Hydras are more versatile that way, and obviously wreck Void Rays.

I've also seen people like Stephano sprinkle in some upgraded Ultras if the opponent goes full carrier. The Ultras go HAM on the accompanying High Templar, if any, and I believe a carrier takes approximately 43 minutes to kill a fully armor upgraded Ultra. That's a lot of damage your Hydras aren't taking.

I'm sure the corruptors lose at that point, but that's why you modify your composition too in reaction to their modifications. You could also add like two high templars to the hydra-carrier fight and watch your entire hydra army melt under storms, there's always things Protoss can do to try to counter you, just like we can counter back.

Once you kill a carrier army, game should be over. Your corruptors can camp over (or even caustic spray) their air production while you only make a few into broods to combat any attempted switch into stalkers or whatever on their part. Full void ray is pretty bad and easily countered by a number of Zerg tech switches.

I'm not positive but I believe, as a general rule, that air units will (on their own, without being microed) target anti-air units attacking them over ground-only units that aren't. I don't think ultras tank carrier damage for your hydras in that scenario. Ultras are definitely an effective way to clear up the ground army underneath a carrier ball though, as long as it's not full of immortals.

If the two armies magically appeared on top of each other, then yes you're correct. But in actual gameplay, the ultras lead the charge and your hydras get a lot of free damage in. My Twitchfu is not as good as yours or I'd go find some VODs of it in action, but it's been very effective the times I saw it done. The Zerg in these cases just sends the ultras at the templar and can A-move the hydras to victory. Only once the interceptors begin to take damage will they re-target, and not all at once.

In full "Golden Armada" mode where the protoss has the absolute perfect army composition of T2/3 ground and air, I don't think it matters what a Zerg does; they lose. But in Plat/Diamond when the protoss goes full carrier/voidray and maybe some templars hiding behind for storms, those ultras are pure gold.

Fun fact: how many of you knew there was a map called Darkness Sanctuary in this season's GSL map pool? I sure didn't! (until I went to look up the ro4 schedule and happened to see it on the main liquipedia page)

Of the dozens of matches that have been played this season - 40 in the ro32, 20 in the ro16, 4 in the ro8 - with each match taking place on between 2 and 5 maps - Darkness Sanctuary has been played exactly once, between Innovation and Creator in the ro32:



There were three other times (twice in ro16 group A, Innovation-Leenock and Innovation-Scarlett, and in the Scarlett-Soo ro8 series) where the map was scheduled to be played, but the series ended before it got there. Otherwise, I guess it's gotten vetoed into oblivion.

so i did make mass corrupter vs that unit comp, but like 4 fully charged void rays just absolutely tore through them. it was brutal. i do think fungal + hydras are prob the way to go. can have some corrupters hold back and come in late, but void rays just melt them for breakfast.

also dam the climb is hard. im 12-3 in my last 15 and have barely moved through diamond 3.

You also prob shouldn't fight the void rays when they have their ability, as of the most recent patch it slows them down so you can escape with your corruptors and then come back when it's on cooldown - the charge ability alone adds another 17dps against armored units

streaming for a little

https://www.twitch.tv/karakstarcraft

if i have a mass bl/corruptor army that hard counters their pure zealot/archon/immortal army and i attack and they just counter to my base do i

a) base trade and go right for their production structures
b) do some damage, then come back
c) pull everything back


i feel like it has to be a? by time i get back they've done a ton of damage and then just recall away.

That was a tough choice, but I think you had to go back there because the issue with a Brood Lord army is that you are slow as ****. You risked losing even after a successful base trade because he could've scoured the map for buildings faster than you.

Nooooo, I missed it! Will try to catch next time

lmk if there are any games from vod you'd liked reviewed

(to your question, I think you have to base trade)

it was brutal. i think i can make a ton of static defense. i used to do that late game zvp during WOL. mass spine mass spore then base trade. or, perhaps, scout where his army is and just attack there.

check out the vod, especially the 2 ZvP games. i had some bad losses due to supply blocks, but got cleaner later on.

Played ranked for the first time in years. Went 5-0 in placements to get placed in Plat 2 or 3 (can't remember lol), then went 5-1 and am now in Diamond 3 3900 MMR. The only loss was to a ling all-in in a ZvZ where the guy a)managed to kill my pool and all but 4 of my drones because i suck at micro and b)was probably a smurf anyway since he had 250 APM in Diamond 3.

Biggest thing for me was my early game is still garbage, though I think it was more related to knowing nothing about the meta nowadays. I got blindsided by a few things that are probably really basic, but I just had no clue what I should be looking for or when to look. I still won the games because I was much better mechanically, but until I learn the timings and stuff, early game is just gonna feel like a gamble.

Overall, I was pretty happy with how I played. Definitely rusty, but still wasn't particularly challenged in any of the games mechanically. That combined with the lack of meta knowledge (which will solve itself with more games and maybe checking out a stream) makes me feel like I've still got a ways to go before I hit a plateau.

Well done, sir.

Don't fret over APM. You can be GM with 90 and I've seen spectacularly awful play in Diamond with 250 avg. Usually Terrans have the inflated APM that goes seemingly nowhere.

sjow famously only has like 90 apm

Elfi ftw.

i average around 225 APM, and i suck.

narwhal remember our always very-friendly zvzs back in the day?

#memories

We just need narwhal to start streaming again along with karak and it will be like 2013 all over again

Ah yes, the days of you 6 pooling me in every WNF finals and tilting me off the face of the earth. #memories

If you wanna play some on Sunday, I'm around all day.

lol every week i'd practice some new stupid zvz cheese on ladder just to use it during WNF. im sorry.

i can prob play sunday night i think

So WESG is a tournament that hasn't been on my radar at all but I just happened to look at the liquipedia and notice that...
- the finals start in 2.5 hours (7pm Pacific)
- it's Maru vs Dark
- first place is TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS WTF

So uh yeah that sounds interesting. https://www.twitch.tv/wesg_sc2

Rofl this Game 1 is one of the many reasons I play as aggressively as I do. Dealing with that Terran army? No ****ing thank you. But it's a master class by Dark in how to choke someone out.

i lose to the absolute stupidest builds all the time on ladder now cause it's the first time ive ever seen them and have no idea what's coming. so tilting. lol mass adept phoenix while im on 90 drones. just make some banelings and the game is over.

i see mass phoenix and just assume he's going all air. woops.

It's absolutely disgusting that Maru nearly won that game. Backwater has 14 bases; Dark mined out 8 of them, Maru mined out 5, and they were fighting over the last one. On what planet should it be possible for Maru to trade so efficiently that they were very nearly even on army/bank at the end with that kind of resource disparity?

This is why anti-armor missile should have had its damage nerfed - it's just so stupid how many long-range, undodgeable spells Terran has at its disposal against any army composition. High number of banes? No problem, spam "anti-armor" (lol) missile and they'll go right away. Low number of high-hp units (ultras, broods)? No problem, snipe them with ghosts and they disappear.