Carrier guide - discord

# CARRIER GUIDE

I. Ship presentation

1. General description

2. Ship stats

3. Ship abilities

II. Carry (sidelane) carrier section

1. Opening

2. Early game and and efficient interceptors uses

3. Different builds

III. Support (middle) carrier section

1. Openin and early game

2. Uprades and upgrades summary

3. Tips for abilities

## I. SHIP PRESENTATION

### 1. Ship general description

Carrier is a slow and squishy lategame ship relying on its spawned fighters to deal damage. This minion master has a very high skillcap and, in the end, its power is limited by nothing (except chronorift) but its player skill. Here are some descriptive elements about it :

Attack : •••

Range : ••••••

Defense : •

Utility : •••

Team reliance : ••

Carrier is a :

Very weak pick against : Voidray

Weak pick against(*) : Colossus, Leviathan, Battlecruiser*

*Fair pick agaist : Dreadnought*

*Strong pick against : frigate*

*Very strong pick again : overlord, Raven, Arbiter, Guardian*

### 2. Carrier stats :

Hull : 6000, 4(+3/up) armor

Shields : 600(+500/up), 3(+1/up) armor

Speed : 1,3 (+0,1/up)

Lasers : 8(+2/up) damage

Interceptors stats :

Carrier capacity : 10(+2/capacity up) interceptors

hull : 30(+2/up), 0(+0,5/up) armor

shields : 30(+2/up), 0(+0,5/up) armor

shield regen : 5(+1/up)shields/s

Speed : 3

weapon : 12(+2/up) damage, 2,4s attack rate

### 3. CARRIER ABILITIES

Plasma barrage :

Price : 175minerals Cost :

125energy Cooldown : 15s

Upgrade price : 50/100/200

Carrier instantly launches a volley of 10(+1/up) plasma missiles, each dealing 250 damage. With the 3rd (last) upgrade, carrier launches 12 missiles for 125 energy, then consumes 40 energy per missile, until it runs out of energy. Barrage damage is denied by cloak.

A muke that should be bought only if interceptors are not a viable choice as it would delay interceptor build otherwise

Scouts :

Price : 225mins

Allows the spawn of scouts. 1 Scout is spawned every 15 seconds, for up to 4 at once. Scouts are controlled independently of carrier and other minions, although they have to remain within a certain range with carrier.

Scouts stats :

hull : 125(+7/up), 0(+0,8/up) armor

shields: 125(+7/up), 0(0,8/up) armor

Weapon : 40(+4/up)\*2 damage, 2s attack rate

Scouts can be good both against ships that got bad laser attack rate, or ships that don't want to buy alot of lasers (dreadnought, colossus). They can also be purchased, upgr try to kill a specific ship.

Warp in Tempests :

Price : 175mins

Cost : 125energy

Cooldown : 10s

Warps in a tempest that deals damage from a long range, for up to a maximum of 4 tempests on the field. Tempests are good along other minions (guardian's and swarm command), but should not so often be purchased if interceptors are viable.

Plasma surge :

Price : 150mins

Cost : 125energy

Cooldown : 20s

Refills 500 shields to all units in the area, and gives them +7 shield armor and increases the damage dealt by these by 20% for the duration. Lasts 20 seconds.

Greatly increases your minions durability and damage. Also useful for increasing the damage of your allies (mukes, torpedo..). And finally can be used to cover an ally in trouble.

Warp in :

Price : 150mins

Cost : 125energy

Cooldown : 40s

Instantly refills carrier in interceptors and scouts to its maximum capacity.

Graviton catapult (passive) :

Price : 100mins Makes carrier launch interceptors more quickly.

Once you initially released your interceptors, you rarely get to release a full flock at once, so this passive is pretty much a waste if you don't have Warp In.

Warp technology (passive) :

Price: 175mins Removes warp cooldown.

Reduces Warp In cooldown by 15s. Removes Warp in Tempest cooldown. Decreases energy cost of tempests to 100 energy.

When buying this, you have to take in account that you will be using Warp In and/or Warp In Tempests much more often, so you'll need to upgrade energy accordingly.

Vortex :

Price: 400minerals

Cost : 200energy

Cooldown : 240s

After a casting of 3 seconds, makes a black hole appear, pulling every nearby unit in a small radius in.

This spell range is actually about 1,5 times wider than indicated (fact is that you must be within the displayed range at the beginning or at the end of the cast). Changes nothing if cast backwards, can be casted further if cast forward). Excellent for engaging/disengaging. Synergizes very well with some abilities involving/depending on acceleration/movement/position (contaminate, torpedo, shockwave,etc.).

## II. CARRY (sidelane) CARRIER PART :

### 1. Openings :

2speed, 5 interceptors (recommended) : Increases your interceptors strength, plus gives you enough speed to engage and not to get in trouble.

1 speed, 6 ints : Increases your interceptors strength, yet you cannot rely on your ship to tank damage as you will easily get caught up.

Scouts, 1 scout up (alternative, recommended) : May give you less farm than ints opening, however allows you to handle/push back most lane foes.

### 2. Your early game job (tips for efficient interceptors uses) :

Early on, the most you'll be able to do is farming. But this doesn't just consist in launching your interceptors and retargetting them to where farm goes at. You will have to apply a few technics to farm efficiently while keeping your interceptors alive, this goes as long as the game goes, but is more important in early as your interceptors strength is the most limited in this phase of the game.

Keeping your interceptors alive in fighters fights :

-When enemy fighters are inbound, wait the best moment to take the fight, when there's as much firepower as there can be on your side and as least firepower as there can be on enemy's. Everything dealing damage has to be taken in consideration : lasers, fighters, creep. Some cases where you should avoid the fight : your interceptors fighting enemy fighters+ enemy creep. Your ints fighting enemy fighters+ enemy lasers. Your ints fighting enemy creep+enemy lasers. Some cases you should engage : your ints and ally fighters fighting enemy fighters. Your ints fighting enemey fighters within your laser range. Your ints and a swarm of allied fighters (4+) fighting enemy fighters+ enemy lasers.

You can consider lv0 lasers as a squad of 4 creep damage-wise.

-Remember that T key is very important. Targetting your ship will recall your interceptors. You can use it to disengage from fights you misread the outcome of, you can pull enemy fighters (that aggro on your ints) into your lasers and/or creep range. You call reroll your interceptors by fully recalling then relaunching them (first in, first out, if the interceptors behind are damaged, they will come out last, letting the first ones tank for them).

-If not facing any enemy fighter, you may split your interceptors to increase your farm area. Order a move to a creep squad, then when a few interceptors enter the aggro range\*, retarget them to another creep squad. This way, some ints will aggro on the first squad while the others out of aggro range will follow your latest order. To keep your interceptors split, make sure that when one half is fighting, your order the other half to move away from it.

-Carrier has 6000 shields. Don't let them be wasted, and use them to tank creep/lasers damage. Getting close to enemy capital ship will make him target you with both his main weapon and lasers, letting your interceptors operating unharmed.

\*: Every non massive unit has an aggro range. Aggro can be provoked by attacking these units or be spontaneous, when an enemy unit enter the aggro range of this unit. Aggro range varies depending on attributes of the unit. Creep have the smallest aggro range (2-3), fighters also have a small one (4-5), scouts/hell's angels and tempests/skyfuries have a wide one (15-20).

You may also time attacks on your lane foe (tips to attack with interceptors) :

-Ships only have one laser battery, lasers don't do AoE damage. Use that to your advantage by using interceptors along with non-massive ally units (creep, fighters, scouts, etc.). This way, the effectiveness of a scout squad can easily be doubled.

-Your interceptors have a lower attack rate than lasers. And lasers will focus your ship if it is in range.

Once again you can use these 6000 carrier shields to mitigate lasers damage on your ints, by « kiting » that ship by switching interceptors targets between creep/fighters and enemy ship, so interceptors get hit by a minimal amount of lasers. This being executed perfectly could theoretically make your interceptors take 90% less damage.

-When attacking an enemy ship and your interceptors are also chased/damaged by non-massive units, make sure to shift regularly between « attack ship » and « attack area » to regulate the amount of chasers. It is obvious that the need of this depends on the level of your ints and the strength of the chasers (Don't bother doing it when your lv20 ints are being chased by lv0 fighters).

-Remember that creep ignore 85% of OnBoard Fighters (interceptors included) armor. So for 1 armor point on your interceptors, each creep attack will be reduced only by 0,15 damage. This is another reason not to engage too many creep or fighters and creep with only your interceptors.

-Sending interceptors on a moonwalking voidray will reduce its efficiency (they then need a different method to moonwalk, which is harder).

### 3. UPGRADES :

Build 1 (int build) :

If there is no voidray, you can and should go for interceptors stuff only. Buying other abilities (barrage, warptech, vortex) will delay your ints upgrades, so will greatly delay the moment your ints are strong enough to be a threat.

Here is the general timing for getting ints ups/abilities:

ints lv10-15 : plasma surge, first interceptor capacity

ints lv15-20 : 2nd interceptor capacity

ints lv 20± : warp in, 3rd int capacity, graviton catapult

As told, this is a general idea. You want to adjust it to the game you are playing. If there is no AoE or high lasers, you may delay plasma surge purchase. If there are alot of AoEs, you will buy warp in earlier. If you're against an enemy carrier, you may get warp tech early, etc.

With this build, you outmatch any ship minion-wise, meaning that your ints and should dominate any place they are at, being able to quickly remove any non-massive unit (creep, fighters, scouts/hel's angels, tempests/skyfuries, broodlords) and defend most of these with ease too (unless you are facing a minion master too) (plasma surge does an amazing job for that too).

Until your ints are strong enough to kill a ship on their own, you will mostly farm with them. Mostly means that you will wait for moments when their efficiency will be at a peak, keep using them with allied units (scouts,broodlings,etc.) for more damage, to deny shield regen (see that frigate taking damage from time to time, if you allow it to regen, the damage dealt to it is wasted), and to deal hull damage, as it won't regen.

Build 2 (scout cheese with transition) :

If there is a voidray, you will either go for support build (further below), or you may cheese with scouts. The idea is to spare at least 1000 minerals during 2 farming phases. Then you get scouts, plasma surge (and 2-3 energy ups), and spend the rest in scouts. The idea is to not let your scouts or your ship be seen by enemies (as they will prematurely go back and you wont have a chance to see it working), and to launch them on voidray as soon as you see it. The least there are supports, better are the chances it works. Also don't even try it if you already saw chronorift, cloak, forcefields, pdds or defensive matrix.

If it works and you kill voidray, you can transition into a standard interceptor build. Otherwise you will most likely have to go for a delayed support carrier as voidray will have chronorift and supports ff/pdds. Your scouts will still be useful to put some pressure/damage, and will provide you some map control by sending them on sides.

Build 3 (scout build) :
If there is no support, or if you're facing a dreadnought/colossus/leviathan, you may want to go scouts instead of interceptors.
Then your build should look like :

scouts lv5-10 : Plasma surge

scouts lv10+ : Warp in

scouts lv15± : Warp tech

A full scout squad dps scales as good as 16 interceptors do, and their tankiness scale as good as 19ints. Scouts are also less vulnerable to AoEs as they are only 4. Also scouts don't farm at all. As you probably guessed, scout build gets less and less efficient compared to ints build as the game advances. This means you either have to get a kill before they get handled, or put enough pressure on enemy team to outfarm/contain them to allow your team to outmatch enemy team and try keeping your scouts in the game.

Build 4 (hybrid build) :

That is usually the build you are aiming at when opening with scouts. To make it simple, here are the build essentials for a ratio of 1scout up/1 int up :

lv5+ : Plasma surge

lv10± : Warp in

lv15-20 : From then on, you most likely want to focus on interceptors as, again, the more int capacity you buy, the more they become prevalent.. With this build, you are able to deal quite sustained damage early on , being able to push back some of the toughest lane opponents (this dreadnought will look like a chihuahua that just saw a bulldog). This damage cannot be totally denied by pdds/ff and even if scouts damage is negated, scouts will still tank for interceptors. Also the scaling of this build is almost as good as ints build, it is just delayed in time.

## III. SUPPORT (middle lane) CARRIER PART :

Support carrier has for main purpose to help its allies by providing them more pushing power, damage and defense wise, aswell as a powerful crowd control ability. You player want to go for one of these builds mostly as a middle laner, where your income is limited, but also as a sidelaner, when your close range minions are useless.

### 1. Your early game job :

As a middle lane carrier, you want to get 2energy, barrage, wait for 5minerals and get 1speed. As a sidelane carrier you will get it at first upgrades.
As barrage takes 3 seconds to cast (not true anymore) and 3 seconds to channel, you want to use it on accessible targets to avoid getting in trouble while using it. Colossi, battlecruisers should be your main targets. You may use it on raven if you can, that will prevent it from shielding its allies. You will only have a few barrages during the first push, so make sure they are as impactful as they can be. Even barrage has some conditions to be used efficiently :

-Know that barrage will cancel if target runs further than 25-30 range away.

-You're very predictable when channelling barrage, so make sure you're not an easy target for enemy energy deniers.

-Barrage is the only muke that can be cancelled manually, so don't hesitate pressing esc if you see problems are coming at you.

### 2. Your upgrades :

Upgrades depend of course of the farm you got, but there are still steps in your build you must follow, yet the order of these may depend on what your team needs and what ships compose it.

You want to get 325-375 energy before upgrading barrage. Do not spend too many minerals in barrage ups as it will become worse as game progresses (counters like dmat, cloaking field, dangerousness of cast, energy denial).

Then you have to choose. If there are alot of shielded ships in your team (in in houses, captains will usually put as many of them as they can with a support carrier), you want plasma surge first. Also plasma surge requires way less investment than tempests to be effective. Even with 2zerg ships, you will help more with 450 energy and plasma surge than with 425energy and unupgraded tempests. Also note that having plasma surge helps preparing a good tempests build.

Unless you have high burst damage team composition (where offensive vortex may be useful), or very unstable game (with alot of warptrick, rundowns potential, where defensive vortex may be useful), you want to get tempests. Before spending 500 in tempests upgrades, make sure you have enough energy to sustain them, and enough range to keep them alive. Some interceptors upgrades are also nice to help keeping your tempests alive. Once you have over 500-600energy and at least 1-2range (requirements varies depending on your and enemy team, as always), you want to get warp technology to be able to constantly have 4tempests on the field.

Make sure your team has map awareness ability (scan, radar, obs and antennae) when your tempests start being a problem for enemy team, as this is also the time they should start doing warptricks/use crowd control ultimates (blackout, stasis).

If you feel needs some more security, get vortex. If you feel your tempests are too easily doven by, get scouts. Scouts have the highest priority rank as non-massive units. Meaning that launching scouts anytime enemies try diving on tempests will make tempests invulnerable as long as scouts live. That being said, you will have to equilibrate between scouts and tempests upgrades, between safety of tempests and their damage.

Upgrade sumary : Barrage > plasma surge > tempest > vortex, scouts

### 3. Some tips for these abilities :

Plasma surge :

-use it when you are barraging, or better, when you will barrage and allies are close to you.

-use it when you see (one of) your allies are going to do big damage.

-use it on an ally that is taking severe damage, 500 bonus shields and +7 shield armor is not to be neglected. -do not use it to defend minions until they are out of shields (waste).

-when AI medium/large creep spawn, ball ints, scouts, and as much as possible tempests with them before using surge (not sure people realize how strong this is).

Tempests :

-Carrier gives tempest a high flexibility upgrade-wise to parry most problems (range, ints, scouts, plasma surge), and as you can't control them manually, you have to upgrade them (and stuff related to them) efficiently.

-You can also mitigate AoEs damage (that scouts are no help against) by spawning them spread. Mind that the more you spread them, the hardest it is for you to surge them all and the potential allied units around.

Scouts :

-Scouts have highest target priority rank, meaning they can tank lasers for anything. Use them to cover ints, broodlords, tempests.

-Usually you will not have scouts when there is a voidray. But if you have, splitting your scouts and ints will force voidray to let ints or scouts free. This is by the way another way to play against voidray.

-Scouts can be used as a mapcontrol tool. You may check sides with them to spot warptricks before they get problematic.

-You may use your scouts to help depleting pdds.

Vortex :

-When casting forward, always cast further than the limit range. Cast range is wider than indicated.

-It may seem obvious for some, but I've seen it too many times, do not waste your vortex. Using a vortex to defend a ship that is full hp can prevent you from using it one minute later to get a kill.

-Offensive vortex may not always have for purpose to kill ships inside the vortex. It can be used to take a ship off a fight, to leave your ints free to kill someone else.

-Vortex, like stasis, is a a great ability to mess with timed abilities and their cooldown. For instance, vortexing a dreadnought as it pops protective field will leave it vulnerable for 15 seconds.

-when warptricking, boosting carrier as it warps in greatly increases its chances to hit a ship with vortex.