What is WRONG with SKYTOSS in StarCraft 2 - history of airtoss and why everyone hates it

Clips taken from @Tya. and @SC2HL and @LowkoTV and @WinterStarcraft and @PiGstarcraft and @PsyStarcraft and @Clan-de2yk
Timecodes:
00:00 A small story
00:18 What is skytoss
01:07 How did it become so strong
04:40 Carrier domination in LotV
06:34 Void Ray domination in LotV
09:33 Current state of the game and new patch
#sc2
#starcraft
#starcraft2
#esports

[EsportsStoryteller]

Timecodes:
00:00 A small story
00:18 What is skytoss
01:07 How did it become so strong
04:40 Carrier domination in LotV
06:34 Void Ray domination in LotV
09:33 Current state of the game and new patch

[caelestigladii]

I always find it funny when wipers yoink mamaships. The thought of a cityship several kilometres in diameter being towed by something 10, 000x smaller is quite funny.

[martinsz]

What always fascinated me is what you also confirmed: Below Grandmaster Skytoss is so A-move whereas in Professional starcraft, it almost looks like Zerg can deal fairly well with it. Even though these games often end in a drawish situation and become 30+ minutes long because nobody is risking the fight.

[-Raylight]

Nothing makes Protoss players hate Protoss than Protoss players xD
Finally we can make GroundToss great again!

[viceroy___]

Hating skytoss is actually just hating yourself for not 2-base all-inning.

[bennyang]

What is sad for me is the concept of a mothership it is supposed to be as powerful or more powerful than a battlecruiser.

[norberthiz]

Most people don't realise the real problem and the real reason airtoss is pure cancer. It is the design of the carrier(and all capital ships in sc2), carriers scale insanely well with higher numbers because of the way they deal damage. While pretty much all units that counter them, like corruptors, vikings don't scale well at all. This means the units is useless in low numbers and insanely op in high numbers. And because of this it is impossible to balance it well, The unit is either too weak and useless or too powerful. It also limits your army composition by a lot, it is literally never a good choice to just put some carriers into your normal protoss army, you either only make them or you don't make them at all.
In comparison other late game units like tempests and colossi for example don't have this problem, neither of them scale exponentially and both reach diminishing return once you have enough of them. This means you have a much more diverse army compostion, that also requires much more skill and are far more fun to play and watch, and you don't wanna insantly uninstall when you play against it.
Both bcs and broodlords have the same problem, they are just weaker then carriers. I know it is really hard to design and balance capital ships, but blizz really messed it up with sc2 imo.

[Xyonon]

I think Corruptors became a lot stronger against skytoss now. Previously you had to focus fire Carriers one by one which made a lot of attacks go to waste on each kill, now you can let corruptors do their work on their own, without wasting attacks on interceptors or thin air.

[Appletank]

my big issue with Skytoss is they’re predominantly general purpose combat units, outside of maybe Phoenixes. No real aerial late game mana spellcaster outside Mothership, which is very prone to being sniped. Carrier has a lack of interesting micro tricks.

[lotgc]

Bro, when you started playing the voidrays song, I swear I just saw my entire childhood flash before my eyes

It was beautiful... 😭😭😭😭

[chod]

naniwa: *basic micro with mistakes*
apollo: *losing his mind omg so good micro*

[CredenzioStudios]

Something I think Lowko has mentioned which would be a welcome change is if they made Carriers have more micro-ability. It would probably take an entire rework to the unit but in my opinion this is the Carriers biggest weakness. As a diamond player, I hate playing carriers because you cannot micro them and it's just not fun (even though I win more when I get them). Making them more micro-able would make them less OP in the lower leagues and have more potential to be effective for great control players like hero and Parting.

[deathcraft]

also love the intro :)

edit: pretty much the whole video. edits make it a joy to watch

engagement

[baptiste]

One of the problem is that in latest meta lurkers is too strong, and if zerg go to them early enough as protoss you have no choice but to go skytoss because enough lurkers can't be beaten by ground.

[ninosegers]

3:55 & 4:10 "legendary micro" dude is just pulling back dmged units. its the most basic of moves

[monkeybunny]

Skytoss and widowmines are the reasons why many ppl quit.

[flamerollerx]

Idk what the solution would be, but playing as a casual is horrible and not worth it with mass void rays. Catering to the top players makes sense from a business standpoint, but it really sucks when there aren't solutions to mass void ray that don't require more out of a casual player than mass void ray itself requires.

Take two players of equal (low) skill and the mass void ray player is pretty much guaranteed to win. There is no GIT GUD, because both suck and haven't gotten better in years of playing. The answers are infestors and vipers for zerg, or BC yamato/raven disabling missile for terran? So high micro skill units vs low micro skill units (void rays)? This is an insurmountable wall for low skill players and is the reason SC2 is trending down. Once a new game comes along with competitive play that doesn't essentially rule out low skilled players who quit before they "git gud", SC2 will die out.

Casuals are a necessity and that will never change. Who knows how many casuals quit when they could have improved because of this problem? Who knows how many Serral's just decided to play another game? Also, Serral etc aren't getting any younger. They will eventually have to move on as well. You have to remember, SC2 is a video game and video games are a business. Without casual players boosting sales, what company will invest the money into the RTS genre?

[chinogambino]

I think we are back to P relying timing attacks, getting figured out and dying. The patch seems to just be anti-P, best thing they got was templar speed which is long overdue, straight nerf to disruptors and huge nerf to carriers(no APM spent on targetting anymore). Z and T got buffs to EMP radius, Broods, Ultra and things that help them smash P. Its like oh no Z has to build 2 more vipers to get more pulls, that's 3 less roaches or corruptors. T has across the board buffs opening heaps of new strats for Banshee, Raven, Cyclone and Libs but sensor tower has 3 less range... big whoop.

[sanmarzano]

That psystarcraft clip had me reeling down memory lane

[lvo]

i think the problem with protoss is that it has some basic advantages that lag behind in higher level games, while terran and zerg both have some advantages that require more skill to exploit (creep and overlord give you vision everywhere, and terran economy is broken, for instance). That doesn t mean protoss is easier as people say, in fact, the higher you go, the harder it gets, it s just that some of its advantages are more apparent.