How do I combat mass Void Rays as Protoss?

Question

I play PvP games with a friend of mine. Neither of us is very good, but he usually wins because he has played more than me. Thing is though that he rarely does anything other than build a bunch of void rays and come have his way with me; he rarely rushes with anything else.

What should I be building to counter this? My inclination is to build stalkers but I am unsure of the exact build and I'm too much of a newbie to know when I should be building what.

Edit: Up until he attacks me, he keeps up a good defense at his base. Last time I played him he blocked his ramp with cannons.

Answer 1

There are a few things that you can do to kill a void ray rush, mass stalkers that target fire can counter his void rays. Just shift+right-click his void rays and they will drop like flies.

If you let him get that many void rays then it's your fault he wins, if you scout early that he's going void rays just 4 gate him. He will have a tough time holding against you. Most protoss players should have this build in their toolbox all the time, though higher ranked/skilled players will know how to hold it off properly.

Watch this video about Pylons & probes to be able to macro up effectively. Your macro can beat him straight up, even if he cannons in. Immortals destroy cannons so you can get a few of those and break him. Or you can abuse the fact that he only has cannons up front and use a warp prism in the back/side of his base and just warp in a bunch of stalkers and destroy the inside.

If he goes that defensive you can also abuse the fact that he won't be expanding and expand quickly. Get up another base quickly and out produce him. Because he's so heavily invested in static defenses he won't have a big mobile army. That means you can freely and for the most part, safely expand. Just make sure you know where he is at all times. A few observers outside his base can be very handy.

Answer 2

This is not fool proof, but it should work and it is quite easy to pull of.

Once you see he invests in static defenses (especially when taking an expension). You keep unit production and static defenses to a bare minimum, this means one or two gate constant production. And chrono boost your probe production.

You take two expansions very fast, so you have three bases. Then create mass blink stalker with an observer out of 10 or more gates. Get all the upgrades etc. With blink stalker you are way faster than he is.

So try to see when he is moving out. If he does that blink into his base, kill workers or unit producing structures (fast damage). Then run the stalkers as fast as you can to your base and blink right under the voidrays. Focus one voidray at a time.

This works because:

• At the early stages he has not enough stuff to attack you.
• You are more mobile and he is forced to stay in his base to prevent you from attacking him.
• Once he is out you can blink right into his base with observer vision and avoid static defenses doing some free damage.
• When he attacks your base you can easily reinforce your army (10+ gates) and he usually produces only 2-3 voidrays at a time.
• Voidrays cannot escape as your stalkers are faster with blink.

Just try to prevent the voidrays from charging up.

This strategy works somewhat like any Zerg strategy. You throw money at the enemy until he crumbles under your pressure.

A variation would be to create mass voidrays/stalker to win the game. As you have more bases you can produce the same amount of voidrays and additional stalkers. But your timing is later than his.

Answer 3

Avoid mass void rays by scouting sooner and consider phoenixes as part of a void-ray counter.

For scouting options consider either:

• Researching hallucinations after warp gates to make hallucinated Phoenix
• Robotics for observers, which can help prevent with DarkTemplar rushes.

Strategy

If you see few warp gates, little-to-no units, and 2 star gates assume mass void rays. Go for units quickly via your gateways and pressure your opponent. Any void rays will arrive too late to counter.

Stalker + Phoenix Counter

If you know your friend is already going mass void rays, consider stalkers with phoenixes.

Phoenix benefits:

• Quick spawn time
• Not bad anti-air
• Stack-able (unlike stalkers, which scramble over terrain and each other)

Phoenixes stack just as all air units do thus leveling the battlefield. You can amass a faster pheonix + stalker army to allow you to roll right over him.

Best of luck in your future games.

Answer 4

Ok. So. Archons do small amounts of damage on their own. But they are useful against this. Get shield/attack upgrades and a bunch of ht, then psi-storm and merge. The storms do quite a bit of damage, and the archons finish it. Voidrays are very expesnive, so it may take a while to get more. Therefore, you can counterattack with stalkers, which easily pick off voidrays a few at a time.

Answer 5

This way can be quite expensive, but it's worthwhile. Get a Mothership and lots of Archons, then put his army in a vortex and send all of the Archons in. They should all die, or nearly so, depending on the amound of Archons that make it in the vortex