Science: Void rays vs mutas

[Kimera757]

So a friend of mine and I played a 1v1 custom game today. Agria Valley.

I was zerg, he was protoss, and we were not playing for real.

We tried roach vs stalker (stalker crushed roach), corruptor vs phoenix (obvious), corruptor vs void ray (obvious) and void ray vs mutalisk.

Splash damage was, of course, key.

2 mutalisks could not beat a void ray. It didn't even run out of shields (though it came close).

4 mutalisks barely beat 2 void rays though (12 hit points on the last mutalisk). 6 mutalisks did better vs 3 void rays (2 damaged mutalisks were left).

30 mutalisks vs 15 void rays ended with 17 mutalisks alive!

Void rays costs 250/150/3 so about twice the cost of 100/100/2 mutalisks. In practice, though, a mutalisk is more than half as expensive as void rays.

This is probably all known or something, but I thought I'd share.

[sandwich_bird]

Moved to the strategy forum.

[sulik]

Did you try to charge the Void Rays before the battle? What is the max damage output of Void Rays when it's fully charged?

[ROFLbanshee]

Fully charged Void Rays deal 10 damage per second, or 25 versus armoured. Uncharged they deal 5 to both.

[Todie]

yah, the splash dmage from the mtuas isnt what makes a diffeerance here, but to what extent the mutas fights against charged voids: with few voids invloved, youll be ble tocharge up on the first mtualisk and tehn deal 2x the damage therest of the battle.

with too many voids involved, he muta targeted wont have enough HP to charge up on (though, maybe if theytarget different ones..)

in terms of micromanagment, it should be profitable with some sort of hit & runs with the mutas, to avoid fighting at all vs full charge.. not sure if its best to withdrawwith teh whole pack, or just try to deny focused fire by pulling the one fired at back, though.


... the simplest way to play it with mtuas, say 10 vs 5, would probably be to bounce in, kill one void, and bounce out - wait for charge to die down, and then go in for another kill, etc.

[Norfindel]

The Void Ray isn't a good unit. The mechanic is interesting, but in practice it encourages players to not move the VRs at all, instead of micro.

Also, waiting like 10 seconds for the things to charge with the low unit survavility time in this game, is not the best idea in the world.

.

[Kimera757]

Did you try to charge the Void Rays before the battle?

No, this was deliberately micro-free, just attack move. It's supposed to simulate a game between two players of equal skill. (The protoss player is more skilled than myself, although I think his micro is only a little better than mine.)

[Norfindel]

How would you charge it before battle, anyways? Attacking your own units? It sucks, that's the truth.

[Todie]

How would you charge it before battle, anyways? Attacking your own units? It sucks, that's the truth.

you can attack a high HP low value unit like a zealot, a building or a set of conveniently palced rocks.

then you can move for a bit, then briefly attack something again, to reset the timer on the decay of the charged up attack, and then move again, etc, until you get where you want to be to engage the enemy.

The Void Ray isn't a good unit. The mechanic is interesting, but in practice it encourages players to not move the VRs at all, instead of micro.

Also, waiting like 10 seconds for the things to charge with the low unit survavility time in this game, is not the best idea in the world.

.

its more like 5 seconds, and if you can start charging before the enemy actually engages you, youre almost there.. what i said above; you can still move them around during battle, once they are charged; its really even more micro-intensive, as you will lose the charge if you move them for too long before stopping to attack again.

flux vanes upgrade makes all kind of move + shoot micromanagement with VR even more rewarding.


... if there is any sort of problem with the VR, its that its attack mechanic makes it very win / lose ; you etiehr manage to use the charged up attack to great effect without / before getting killed, or you dont; so far more straightforward mid-map skirmishing doesnt feature allot of voidray play; they're most frequently part of a gimmicky play; a surprise or at least a powerful timing attack. (and after that, disguarded in favour of other more straightforward units)

... i hope & believe that this will change a bit as everyone learns the game though; VR's ability to actively chase down target isnt purposely used much at this point.

[Kimera757]

How would you charge it before battle, anyways? Attacking your own units? It sucks, that's the truth.

You would attack your enemy's base, and they'd react by sending in mutalisks, at which point they'd get cut up by super-charged void rays.