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Any time I let a Protoss player live to mid-game, I seem to be swarmed by Void Rays, and while I can sort of react, it's generally a 50/50 at that point.
Let's say I scout a player with a single Void Ray and plans to build more. What should I do to counter them? As each race preferably, but I generally play Protoss as well.
You're falling into the trap of "What would be good right now." This is a mistake when evaluating strategy. Any choice at this stage will necessarily be too late as it requires a time and resource investment that can't be made instantly. Instead I would suggest the following:
Void Rays take a long time to build and represent a substantial Vespene investment. This should allow you to produce as substantially larger army against a Protoss player focusing solely on Void Rays. A small investment in defensive structures will keep off a small force of Void Rays, however any larger force of Void Rays is better handled by direct assault on the Protoss base as you can produce a more cost effective force.
Bear in mind that a Protoss player investing in a gas heavy strategy (like Void Rays) will have an excess of minerals. The result is that their defensive force will largely be made of Zealots. Take this into account. Additionally, they are also very likely to expand as expansions are made out of minerals and provide excess gas very quickly.
Finally, I recommend better scouting. Seeing an early second Assimilator is a tell-tale sign of a Void Ray rush.
A word to Protoss players: A Void Ray rush is not a sustainable strategy, neither are mass Void Rays before you have a Mothership out. However, Void Rays do complement a Tier 1/1.5 force very nicely, especially armored units with High HP.
Void rays are easy if you have sufficient ground anti-air.
Protoss
Stalkers, especially with blink. Do not make phoenixes-- they are not good against voids.
Terran
Marines. Early on marines can handle any void rays you come across. Later, vikings will make mince meat of them.
Zerg
This one is a little harder. Early on, if you scout that they are making voids making queens. Use the heal ability if you have the energy.
Spores work, but are not the best since they can't move well and have pretty short range. Tech to hydras as soon as possible. Infestor's fungal growth is pretty great esp. with hydras.
Void Rays are becoming an increasing problem for me as well. In 2v2 and higher games it is hard to account for them completely because even if you are ready for them the teammate you are with may not be. If you see the one void ray camped out when you scout and believe he intends to make more the best answer is to gather what force you have...(hopefully enough anti air to take out the ONE void ray.) and wreck his pylons. Most likely he is going to need a ton of space for a ton of voids and this will delay him enough to make the few voids he does push out futile. Killing pylons isn't very difficult either and can be done with any hard hitting fast unit so you can raid as you would against drones SVC's and probes. Reapers, Dark Templars, and even Muta's are good at the hit and run on pylons. Most of the time if you have a fear that he wants to mass void rays you have reason to believe so... meaning you have enough time to react. Reacting and properly taking away his strategy (when it comes to void rays because they are very hard to just switch to another strategy after you have geared up for them) is almost a certain win. BUT...
To further answer your questions DIRECTLY I have found that only one unit really does well against massed voids... massed marines. They are cheap and small enough that a void ray focus on a marine takes just enough time that your mass of marines can pick a few off.
To further lend some advice... If they are getting void rays on you, you and your teammate need to attack faster in every game. There is no circumstance that an enemy should have the resources and time to gather that many voids.
To be COMPLETELY honest.. there is little to no good way to defend against massed voids if they are already built. Your most likely behind already.
For PvP, I like blink stalkers against voids.
The basic principle is that stalkers are more cost-effective than void rays, as long as the stalkers don't engage while the voids are charged. As long as you can stay on even bases, you can wear your opponent's economy down before yours, and eventually have the numbers to win outright.
HotS changed the void rays' face-melter cannon to a timed ability with a long cooldown, rather than something that charges up automatically. Stalkers are fast enough, especially with a well-timed blink, to easily get out of range whenever the voids are charged. You MUST get out of that or your stalkers will dissolve almost instantly. Then, once the voids have powered down, blink back in and attack. You have a long time before they recharge.
Some basic fundamentals will help this strategy a lot:
A lot of people are pushing a "detect it early and shut it down" strategy, which is undoubtedly the best way of dealing with mass voids. This is what to do if you have not been able to stop that void cloud from getting established.
From a PvP point of view (ie from a Protoss perspective, even though you never really see this in a 1v1 setting):
Mmmm the problem with mass Void Rays if you let their numbers build up is that they kill your units so quickly, since you have fewer units than the other races, that you'll very quickly run out of things that shoot up in a balanced enough army to deal with their Zealots too (Sentries, Zealots of your own, Collosi).
Storm can be interesting if they don't magic box at all, but if they do you won't hit much, and storm templars is already a hefty investment in PvP where they're mostly useless in general.
What I'll instead suggest is Archons. Yea, you heard me! 5-6 Archons with one Mothership can clear out every single Void Ray in 3-4sec, while losing almost nothing. Massing Archons will leave you with a lot of excess minerals which you can sink in zealots to counter his Zealots, and after the Void Rays fall, Archons can help with splash damage on his Zealots too.
Of course we're talking about late game mass Void Rays, in smaller numbers Stalkers can shoot them down before they become a threat. Make sure you scout to see what he's doing, churning out a Mothership can take a while, but it's way worth it.
One thing that wasn't mentioned here is that harass tactics against the opponent's economy/base are very effective against an opponent with a heavy void ray composition. Void rays are most effective when sticking together as a large group, so players are reluctant to split them and therefore won't have as much capacity to defend their base and attack yours at the same time. If they can't attack you, you can gain an economic advantage. You'll need to be very fast at killing their probes, so dark templars are what I would recommend there (and you can morph them into archons after the opponent builds cannons).
Taking out the opponent's economy is extremely important in this situation, as the void rays have a synergy with themselves in large numbers.
When it comes to the actual fight, I can only comment from a Protoss perspective. You'll probably need high templars with storm. Forget massing blink stalkers alone, as they will be ripped to shreds by the prismatic alignment ability. You will need stalkers, but you won't be able to win by massing them.
You'll also need to be good about scouting if you want to win. If you see two starports, start getting high templars and storm ASAP so that you can save up enough energy for storm. After running out of energy, merge the templars into archons. Even if you don't see any void rays off of the two stargate, you may be going up against carriers, of which the interceptors are also vulnerable to storm.
Protoss units that are effective against Void Rays:
As always, better micro will give you an edge. Be sure to not be at an upgrade disadvantage as well as you will likely lose if that happens.
I want to complete @tzenes answer on some particular point: against void rays, I found out that it's better to have the fight at the protoss' base, than to let him attack your base. He won't be able to charge them against your buildings before the fight, making the void rays a lot less efficient.
So whatever you have, use it and attack, do not wait his attack.
To anyone reading this old question, here's what I've found works on Protoss vs Protoss-
Hit them early with as many Zealots as you can get your hands on. I know, I know. "Zealots vs Void Rays? They can't even touch them." Hear me out. This must be started quickly. So quickly I often don't bother scouting for anything more then map position and expansion when playing Pro vs Pro because this works for about anything another Protoss player could through at you early in the game. If as Protoss, you see you're playing Protoss, then start with the Z build immediately. Just enough gas for your Charge upgrade and also Warp Gate upgrade. (You will need Warp Gate early to keep the pressure on with a proxy Pylon.) Build your usual 4 or 5 Gate and get them Warp Ready asap while building Z's. Have a scout drop a proxy Pylon and then start building there. The other Protoss will either be doing the same thing by building Z's in which case your ok since it's just Z's vs Z's, or he's building stalkers which Z's can still handle, or he's building his Void Ray army which this is great for squashing early. In the time it takes for them to make 4 Void Rays you should have about 20 Zealots. (Especially if they fast expand and aren't ready for your early rush.) Rush the base and just let them fire on your Z's while you stop their production abilities. While they're chopping his base down, use your proxy Pylon and start building Stalkers to handle those Void Rays. Let them fire on you. 20 Z's can handle the fire of 4 Void Rays for about five minutes of game play before they're numbers dwindle. In that time you should be able to dismantle all power to their base and every probe they've built. So then it's everything you can throw at them vs. their only 4 Void Rays. By the time the 5 minutes is up you should have more then enough Stalkers to knock down the 4 Void Rays that have been firing on your Z's. Your opponent won't think much of a Z rush if he has Void Rays because he knows you can't touch his fighters with your ground units. But you're not after the Rays, you're after his whole damned base and his ability to make the 200 strong army of Rays that gives you all the trouble.
This plan works well with other Races. Use small fast units because Void Rays are better against big targets. Void Rays have a priority system but if you Macro well enough to draw them out they will fire on what is in front of them. Therefore, you can "All In" a little on this too because if the Void Rays are firing on your useless probes/SCV's/Drones your other units can continue to disable their base operations. Try a Marine Rush with the Terrans or a Speedling rush with Zerg. Just remember you're not fighting the 4 Void Rays. You're taking out the power to his Stargates and killing all his probes and allowing him to attempt to fire on your Charging Zealots. When he can't do anything more then fight with his 4, bring in 14 of whatever shoots down his Void Rays and finish him.
I had the same question and checked it out, using this unit tester. Here's the best options I came up with when you're playing as:
Marines do REALLY well, but make sure to move them forward, otherwise the back ones don't do anything. Also, use Stim.
Stalkers are OK, especially with Blink as somebody already mentioned. Pheonix are much better than Voids. High templars will set them running!
Again as somebody mentioned, Hydras are BAD (and they are cost for cost!) Mutas are amazing and cost for cost, so are Infestors. (use infested Marines)
Zerg player here I find that mass hydra with a bunch of zerglings mixed in the group do really well against the void rays, as the zerglings will distract the void rays (unless the opponent manually focus on ur hydras, but that’s going to be rather difficult considering the bulk of a Zerg army, and its much easier for u to target fire the void rays one by one) make sure that u get plenty of creep cover and get the hydra upgrades (especially the speed), this will allow u to play both defensive and offensive, which is essential considering the not so fast movement speed of the void rays. Ofc I’m not saying that when u both hit 200 supplies with void rays and hydras, u should go all in and definitely will win, but keep in mind that with the upgrades they will have the same attack range and ur hyras will have a faster movement speed both on and off creep, hence much better for u in a basetrade scenario. In terms of production, hydras are much cheaper, and as long as u remember to inject, u will have ur whole army back in no time, however it takes much longer to make a void ray , and once the pylons down everything is over. Don’t forget that if u scouted the mass void rays is coming up, make some mutas to harrase the mineral line expecially the gas if u can, as mobility is always on ur side when u playing Zerg against void rays.
Ghosts I haven't tried this, but has anyone considered ghosts? I know they do extra damage vs light units and void rays are considered armoured mechanical, but assuming the toss player hasn't built detector units, you could use snipe to at least weaken the force.
Ravens Haven't tried this either, but the raven's seeker missile does a lot of damage to groups. I've noticed most void ray spammers like to bunch up their group. Though, Ravens are expensive, require a lot of micro and lack real defense, it might be worth a shot.
