Is Airpower in general a tad too good?

I'm a decent player so far in SC2. I'm silver league with 60% wins. I play Zerg.
The following applies to 1v1. I haven't played any team games so I dont know if it's different there, please dont comment if your only experience is in team games.

This could just be my lack of skill but I'm finding that meta game seems to revolve around dominating the air... That is, if my Zergling rush fails completely or I didn't damamge his eco enough. Quite a few times now my rush has succeeded enough to where I'm comfortable either spamming zerglings to finish him off or getting roaches to ensure a quick win. However, if my opponent manages to resist the early attacks I feel i'm FORCED to dominate the airspace. It doesn't matter if i'm vs Terran, Protoss, or another Zerg. In fact, the only losses in league I've had so far have been because I lost air dominance.

I used to think Terrans and protoss had an advantage because Missle towers and protoss towers (dont know name) are better than spine crawlers. Really though all AA sucks vs large air blob. Ground units also seem ineffective to a large degree vs air. Granted in an allout brawl of ranged (air attack capable, say marines, stalkers, or hydras for example) would defeat a large air blob, the problem is the air blob will outmanuever the ground forces and proceed to destroy the base.

I don't mind airpower being powerful but it seems that air > ground regardless of the units / race. Leaving the only way to dominate the air is by building an excessive ammount of air units.

IMO Airpower should be a supportive or harassment unit, not the dominant unit in my army.
I would like to see a minor boost to both mobile and immobile AA.

Again I could be wrong but please discuss.

 

I disagree. Air is fine the way it is (except maybe a slight Void Ray nerf wouldn't hurt).

The thing with air is that it takes a lot of tech, resources and time to reach. Since you play zerg, if someone rushes air, you should be able to spot it with an overlord. Sounds like you're doing the right thing by zergling harrassing. You should take note when you harass of what their build looks like. An early gas or two can indicate air.

Zerg's strongest air counter is Hydras or Corrupters. Also, believe it or not, but Queens are a super counter to void rays. If you manage to scout a double stargate, start pumping Queens, while getting to Hydras. Make sure to place creep tumours so your troops can keep mobile.

Basically, the trick is to be knowledgeable of the opponent. When you see air structures forming, start pushing. You'll catch them with their pants down. Air is extremely gas-heavy and slow, so hit em while they're just making them.

 

Maybe its just a problem in the lower divisions, i've only ever seen air as a harrasment device or late game as a siege breaker. I play zerg and normally 3 hydras's and a queen per base can fight off a decent amount of voidrays, banshees or mutalisks.

You might have this problem because you are rushing with a ground to ground force and therefore crippling your ability to field hydras which will mean your enemy will automatically go air to counter your force. If protoss decide to go air mid game they generally cripple their ground force allowing you to overrun them. Terran and zerg can more easily adapt however a small anti air force at each base is cheaper than the attacking force.

It sounds to me your army is unbalanced (Not enough AA) and your telling your opponent this right at the start. of the game.

 

I've only done 3v3 and 4v4 so far, and gold ranked for both. Air is pretty powerful here too since mass air can usually deal lots of damage to even AA armies. I've found Phoenix/Ray to be a good strat since the rays can go to town on enemy bases and the phoenix can deal with the AA and lift up any GtA troops they have.

 

Air will always be powerful because of endless mobility, this will never change.

 

im assuming we are strictly talking about basic air units (mutalist/voidrays/banshees). they are relatively weak, i find big balls of stalkers/sentries/marines/hydras can easily take out air armies.

If they manage to get a big enough air force, that means you haven't put down enough pressure on them. too much turtling. Putting on pressure on their base, prevents them from making 24 mutalisk to your workers because they have to produce to fend you off. That's why air is so much more expensive.

 

I think there's only one match-up right now where Air Superiority is important; Terran vs. Terran 1v1 and even then only if it turns into a siege tank cold war.

 

this is somewhat true in that air can go anywhere they want to, but in starcraft 2 it can only get there so fast, i as a protoss player prefer gateway tech, ill use a void ray to force terran to make marines but thats about it, stalkers are far more mobile than any air unit (cept phoenixes and mutas to a degree) with blink they can bring down a large force of harassing mutas in no time, and if they have that many muta why not just base race them you will win as they will have no gas. as for zerg hydras i very mobile you just have to have creep everywhere and throw up some nydus worms, even with all that stuff it still leaves you with more money and map control. basically air is great for support and harass but is simply to expensive to be used as the bulk of your force in most games (1v1) if the enemy is getting a lot of battle cruisers or carriers then you have not done enough countering and timing pushes / harassment

 

That's true, air as main force is too expensive, but if the harass works well enough that's gg. When I go mutas I try to split my resources between mutas for harass and picking off helpless units and a decent baneling/speedling/infestor ground force to scare the opponent's ground force off. It often works, especially against terran with no turrets. A good protoss will kill my mutas constantly while building more stalkers or teching, and finally overrun me. It's really all about the skill level of the other player.

The big weakness of this strat is, I must spend alot of rescources to make sure the opponent doesn't get air superiority, becausemy mutas are my only aa and if I loose that, I stand against some void rays and a ground force stronger than mine. I gotta try new strategies Nydus worms are powerful, but hard to manage, I gotta learn using them. Or OV drops.

 

good ground micro is just as good as air mobility.