What's the best counter for Void Rays?
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:
- Blinking and engaging into the flank of the void line will greatly increase your stalkers' cost effectiveness.
- Have at least 8 gateways, and some well-placed forward pylons for warp-ins.
- Since stalkers are gas heavy, spend excess minerals on zealots to take down expos and keep map control, or, if you must, photon cannons to fortify your base and distract the void rays.
- Keep the battle out of your base, since while you retreat from the charged cannon, those voids could just stop and destroy several structures. If you must fight in your base, try to dance like a butterfly, sting like a bee with those stalkers, getting the voids to focus on your units and waste facemelt time chasing you around.
- Remember that void rays are expensive and slow to build, and although that void cloud may look menacing, it's made of about 20 voids at the most, and it's only strong when charged. Using the stalkers to blink in and snipe one here and there will add up quickly to victory.
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.