I find more and more protoss going mass stalker with the occasional support from HT or immortals. Marauders beat stalkers 1 on 1 but (after running it through a simulator app I found earlier) not by enough to counter the availability of stalkers. Siege tanks, obviously, are slow as hell, so is there another option that is a bit quicker?
Marauders with stim and conc grenades would be the most mobile and efficient counter. Stalkers can easily blink behind your position too, so watch out for this.
Im no pro but im thinking prob the best way is to prevent it or like Vulcan said if this happens Maruaders. I had this situation once. Used Maries (allot) and 2 - 3 thors , marines was meat shield and focused fire with thors 1 shot each took a stalker down so i just shift attacked them , bam killed them with only marines that was lost.
Dude marauders counter stalkers hard. So you will be ahead with your money. Use the spare money to harass like drop or something.
I guess the main idea of the post didnt come through... what I meant was late game situations in games where there are 3-4 bases per player. By that point, money doesn't matter much at all. So if a situation were to arise where both armies (maxed out 200 food type beasts) were completely wiped out and you have all the money you could ever want but 4 bases to protect, what is the solution to the swiftly coming stalker mass that spawned from the warpgates. It can be a mix of units too, but they goal really is mobility at this point since there is a large area to protect from a mobile unit attacking it. Does that clarify? I know it is a specific situation but as I have been twiddling more and more with stalkers as protoss, I find that when both armies wipe each other out I will win more often than not due to me being able to spit out a good bunch of stalkers (10-15) in a very short period of time. I was getting bored and going back to T (protoss devastated my win/loss since I didn't really have anyone to practice with so I went straight to the ladder) and I was just wondering if there is a particularly effective course of action to deal with that situation. To reiterate: late game, 4 or so bases per side, the big badass armies both just got wiped, they warped in a good amount of stalkers quickly and want to harass the hell out of you (or just win, either/or). Whats the plan?
Marauders. Having tons of money just means more support: Ghosts (EMP) and Medivacs. You may not like the unit, but they really are both the most efficient and most mobile response to Stalkers.
First off the situation that you described is incredibly artificial. You should not have that much money sitting around, you should be using your units to keep the enemy on the defense as you crush them and deny them money. However, if for whatever reason the situation you are describing did happen, then siege tanks backed by marauders. Cloaked banshees, ghosts, 6 factories churning thors, any of the above, or even maxed out bcs. If you have that much money you should have at the very least 7 or 8 unit production buildings of whatever your focus is.
If you're talking about a purely countering situation, as you described above, your ideal counter is a mix, just like any other game. The most effective builds in StarCraft 2 are compositions of units, not a single mass of a unit. A player going strictly Stalker is going to be at a disadvantage because of his limited abilities and weaknesses. If you can contain his Blinking and are able to pressure him into a situation where you can do damage to his facilities, you'll be in good shape. The mix you're looking for to counter mass Stalkers (with an occasional HT or Immortal thrown in) is heavy Marauder, Thor, Siege Tank, and Ghost mix. Throw in Medivacs for good measure. The Thors do enough DPS while on the move to provide an effective push as you move and the Siege Tanks will win major battles for you. But you can't sit around and let him come back after you. You have to be the one pushing to take out his production quickly. Upgrades are also important in this type of matchup. Check out the upgrades article we posted last week. And lastly, half of StarCraft is positioning and tactics, not just counters and macro. You can easily win a game by obtaining a favorable position and forcing your opponent to come to you. This can often be achieved with a doom drop on his production facilities. Force him to fight you on your terms, not his. This is why players go for the economy rather than the main army head-on.
The solution is to attack before the protoss gets 200/200, 15 warp gates, and 1875 minerals + 750 gas in the bank. Or just don't let your whole army get wiped out (shouldn't be hard since a 200/200 terran army is generally stronger than a 200/200 protoss army)
Banshees and a Raven can be pretty effective too. Dropping point defense turrets and keeping a look out for observers, along with cloaked banshees.
In my experience, a 200 protoss army fully upgraded is probably more powerful than a 200 terrain army max upgraded. The answer is ghosts & maruaders with medivacs at the back. That to me is the most effective way to counter that isn't too micro intensive. Jim is right raven's are good, but tough to micro imop. I would try to EMP with ghosts being agressive on him, maybe 2 EMP's, and then stim & attack if he engages. Its also better to have your medivacs follow a unit in the back, rather than just grouping them with your whole army, cause they will get focused fired that way. Again though this makes it harder to micro.
Yes EMP is a must against the protoss ball as well! If you add in a ghost with some ravens and banshees using point defense drones, of course some nice micro too then you can do pretty well. Try some of these out and see how you feel microing each one.
Just be sure to have your army components set up into control groups you you can mico them properly and also use their abilities as needed. Example: Main army (Marines, Marauders) control group 1 Special ground units (Ghosts) control group 2 Special air units (Raven, medivacs) control group 3 Air units (Banshees) control group 4 With the above method you can use each component to their maximum ability. Example of an engagement with approaching Protoss army: 1>T (Stimpack), 2>E(EMP), 3>D (Drone if needed), 4 etc There is no way to micro all this stuff when it's massed and fighting other than to use control groups.
