Dealing with Void Rays

Played some 2v2 games tonight with a mate; we were noobing it up in Bronze (yeah, I can code pretty well, but SC2ing well is another thing entirely :) ).

In one game we were totally raped by void rays. My mate saw them coming with a scout (more accurately, a void ray shot down his scouting overlord), so I switched a barracks onto a reactor from a factory to try to pump 'rines as fast as I could. He got some mutas, but it wasn't enough. They raped us pretty hard.

So I submit to you, the pros of SC2, what does one do when you see void rays and you're going not-marines (specifically in my case, rauder + reactor hellion + tank)? Is there anything you can do? My marines just melted under the focus fire of 8+ (over 9000!) void rays and my mates mutas got fucked too. Is this simply a case of "you shoulda scouted him earlier and seen his stargate then gone double reactor marines [it's almost a triple reactor!]" or is there some "oh fuck" recovery you can make?

The problem really was that you scouted the void ray when it (or more?) was already completed. You're in a pretty bad situation at that point. The times I've been able to smash void ray in 2v2 is when I scout the stargate tech as it's warping in. Be extremely thorough with your scouting in 2v2s, it is a breeding ground for all-in strats (void rush, reaper+ling combo rush, reaper+zeal combo rush, etc).

However, I still think you could've recovered easily enough. You have to do two things. I like that you hot-swapped your rax over to the reactor, that was good. It's very important to keep the production constant from that reactor once you get it. Also make sure you manage to try and get the shield upgrade on those rines. That's the first thing I was going to say you should do, and you did it, so that's good. But in addition to that, you should immediately put down an ebay for turrets. Did you also know you can get a range upgrade for your turrets? You can, it's at the ebay. Also at the ebay is an upgrade to give all your buildings better armor. Depending on how deep the shit is that you're in, it might be overboard to get both of those upgrades, but I'd certainly get at least one of them.

The other thing you could've done is put in some time to harrass that protoss' base. With whatever units you have, you (but moreso your ally since he's zerg, probably has some speedling?) could threaten their base with some lingering units. You want the void rays to chase those units. Do whatever you can to give the void rays a target other than your base. It's just a technique to purchase yourself some time. This time should afford you more marines and you'll be better equipped to handle the void rays once your distraction has been disposed of and they're heading toward your main.

You also need to be acutely aware of whether it's double stargate or single stargate. If it's a double, there's a huge chance he has fuck-all units. You can probably take his whole base out or deliberately wait for the void rays to get half across the map and counter his ally. The combined force of you and your ally should easily be able to take on the non-voiding guy and he'll have no assistance.

If captain-voidray doesn't turn around and go home to help his ally, you have time to adequately build anti-air defence (AND it will take so long for the voids to get there taht you'll have done significant damage to the ally, probably killing him even). If he ignores your attack on the ally and continues to go for you, you will probably kill both the opponents well-before your own bases are taken out (in this situation it's good to think ahead and start planting a CC somewhere else to try rebuild, with your aim being to get a couple reactor barracks to pump marines purely).

I might add that I have made it somewhat of a rule to scan with my second round of 50 energy on my orbital. The timing seems to match up nicely with important protoss tech being built, so you usually get to see something of interest.

Cheers for the advice. I didn't know about the range upgrade for turrets, I'm totally getting that next time.

We did go to attack their bases fairly soonish after we saw the void rays, however, as we had mostly ground units (I had hellions & marauders and a few marines which evaporated very quickly and zerg had brood lords) the void rays raped that pretty hard (he'd left a contingent of rays back at their bases and took some of them over to ours at the same time). Another thing I noticed happened is my stim either didn't start or took too long to finish (I can't remember which way I screwed that up), which hurt my marines chances.

Next time we go up against Protoss, I'll save a few scans for their bases to watch for these bastard units.

LuckySword wrote:

I might add that I have made it somewhat of a rule to scan with my second round of 50 energy on my orbital. The timing seems to match up nicely with important protoss tech being built, so you usually get to see something of interest.

That's nice, I'll definitely start doing that one.

Also keep in mind that void rays' attack gets more powerful as more beams come online. When u engage a void in battle, pull your force away til the charge dissipates so it has to start again doing minimum damage, then attack it again. Rinse, repeat.

How about a question about Void Rays as Zerg.................

I just finished my game under the Gold rank and got promoted to Platinum(yay go me). However, the game that qualified was really close. Actually, I was surprised when my opponent left. Here is the question:

The P blocked himself in and I couldn't really scout what he was doing...all I know was that he 2 gated, cross positions. He attempted Stalker/Sentry/Zealot push but I stopped it with roaches. Then a minute or two later he shows up with Void Rays. In my head im thinking "wtf do I do". Roaches can't attack air and we all know lings don't either. My question to you guys...

How exactly am I suppose to expect Void Rays? What do Protoss normally do when they begin their tech to Void Rays? Zerg only gets air defense units until you have a Lair, so would it be helpful for every Zerg to tech to lair on their first 100 gas after getting ling speed? What units are better to defend against Void Rays...hydras or mutas?

I was able to win the game and it was actually really close, but still, I know as I go up in the ranks and play better people, I won't be so lucky.

I think your first mistake is to say "Zerg only gets air defence after Lair" like it's somehow a bad thing. It is not necessarily 'bad' that in order to counter a Stargate unit, you have to tech lair. Look at it this way, your opponent has gone gate, cyber, stargate. I would say that him going stargate is the protoss version of going Lair. He's making the first move, and you need to react. Also, although hydras are more expensive now, their anti-air viability is freaking insane. Basically as soon as your opponent sees a few hydras he will give up trying to harrass u with those void rays.

Also make sure you've got creep spread between your expo and main so you can get your hydras to the void rays faster if he comes in at multiple positions (like one at ur main, one at ur expo etc).

Not only that, but queens are actually really good against low numbers of air, be it banshees, vikings, or void rays. If you think it's going to take you too long to tech to hydra, get an extra queen to buy you some more time.

Most importantly, after you noticed he had blocked himself in, I definitely think it would have been worth sacrificing an overlord to scout his base. The knowledge you gain is absolutely worth the cost of the overlord.

Thanks for the help Dwain! Really helped. About how many hydras does it take to fend off 1 void ray?

And also, is it more expensive to tech to Void Rays than it was to tech to Sair in BW? I'm just trying to compare the both, that's all.

How many hydras you need to take out a void ray really depends. You can probably take it out with just 2 or three if you have decent micro. Refer to what I said in a previous post about pulling back and forcing it to lose charge. Also, being on creep allows you to chase it better if it retreats and you can usually finish it off.

Okay thanks. Do you guys know any websites that I can use to upload my replays so I can share them with you guys to get input?

Bobotastic wrote:

Okay thanks. Do you guys know any websites that I can use to upload my replays so I can share them with you guys to get input?

Sure, this site is good I think:
http://sc2.nibbits.com/replays/submit/
Keep in mind we plan to implement the Replays section eventually ^^

I agree with Dwain's responses. Also bobo, teching to lair very early is a must in sc2 as there are no units that are actually effective without it. i usually spend the first 100 on ling speed whilst my queen is making and then get a lair wen the queen finishes.

oh and right after ur lair finishes.. u should morph the lord which is near their base into an oversear then use changelings to scout

Pete wrote:

oh and right after ur lair finishes.. u should morph the lord which is near their base into an oversear then use changelings to scout

Forgot about that, definitely worth doing.

Well I've actually liked going 3 queens if I see a Protoss go 1 gate and block off his ramp. 3 queen allows me to use 1 queen each at my nat, and another queen focus on spreading creep. Therefore it allows for easier movement of queen and usually by that time I have already scouted Protoss going void rays or something similar to it.

I'm pretty sure we can all agree that teching(whether it be any race) means less economy and less worker count. After playing practice games with maar, playing ladder game, watching my reps(both wins and losses), and seeing replays from other players I really like how 3-4 queen defends against void rays. It's versatile, allows you to spread creep, making a third expansion after the Void Ray harass a lot easier to do because of all the creep that can be used to connect all three bases.

However, this 3-4 queen has not worked on me 100% of the time, but has fended off Void Ray harass 100% of the time.

Another thing I forgot to mention is that if you have multiple queens and u know he's going void ray, save some energy for transfusion. That shit is gosu.