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The pheonix is the scout of starcraft 2 in its current state... Except the scout was atleast good at SOMETHING (taking down carriers/bcs cost effectively).
This unit is seriously a joke, you cannot viably use this unit for any purpose what so ever at high level (and believe me, i've tried my heart out the past couple of days). It definitely has a role, and it is a fine design for a unit, its general stats just suck way to much ass at the moment to make it effective, even in the niche it's suppose to be.
I'm not going to throw out a whole bunch of stats, because they for the most part are worthless compared to real game play experiance, and anyone who has tried to counter mass muta by going mass pheonix (once again, at a decent level of play) knows what I'm talking about. They do NOT effectively counter mass muta. Cost for cost - yes, but you cant look past the fact that zerg can tech switch at any moment and instantly have the ability to mass produce whichever other unit they want, whilst your stuck with 2-3 useless stargates and x amount of phoenixs which at most can lift up units, snipe some overlords or die incredibly quickly to anything anti-air.
I really want this unit to be viable, i WANT to be able to viably fight a zerg for air control, but at the moment, dispite opening FE into stargate and CONSTANTLY pumping phoenixs, adding more stargates if i see the zerg going for muta, i still lose half the time to muta, the other half to a quick ground transition (roach+hydra, or just pure hydra).
Viable fixes: If they dont want to re-work the design of the phoenix (which imo they dont need to do, this isnt broodwar and we dont need a corsair, especially since zerg doesnt have scourge), they need to up there stats in some/any way shape or form, fairly significantly. Something like reduced build time (so you can actually build a decent amount of them without having to build 2+ stargates, which then become useless as soon as the zerg realize how much you're investing in phoenixes) and maybe increasing their armour so the muta glaive doesnt rape them (make them come out with 1 or 2 default armour). Maybe this would be enough, maybe it wouldnt be, I dont really know, but im sure any platinum zerg or protoss would agree that phoenixs are fucking laughable right now...
/rantblog after trying to include phoenixes in my build for the last 5 PvZs... Look forward to <100 post count people telling me phoenixes are infact useful atm and im wrong.
 
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seems strange how now that sc2 is out everyone suddenly is a professional game balancer.
maybe protoss isnt supposed to have amazing anti air so you have to compensate more for it because immortals and colo are so damn strong against ground?
no nevermind lets make phoenix on par with other A2A so that you can 1a your colo army into your opponent every game
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On April 20 2010 20:22 petzergling wrote:
seems strange how now that sc2 is out everyone suddenly is a professional game balancer.
maybe protoss isnt supposed to have amazing anti air so you have to compensate more for it because immortals and colo are so damn strong against ground?
no nevermind lets make phoenix on par with other A2A so that you can 1a your colo army into your opponent every game
You're right, but lets give them a unit that cant effectively do anything, thats a good idea, just to fuck with their heads a little... And the whole point of the beta is so we can help balance the game and give feedback on balance & bugs we find, so i don't know wtf the point of your first line is tbh...
and for the record, I'm not asking for a pheonix that demolishes corrupters or something liek that, i just want it to be reasonably good at countering mutalisks(outside of the vacuum of x amount worth of phoenix vs x amount worth of mutalisks)... Pretty much the ONLY thing in the game they're suppose to be good at...
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maybe if all of the other units werent so powerful that they completely crush any other races well balanced army you wouldnt have units that arent used
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I certainly agree that the Phoenix is garbage. I feel like it 'can' have a role in AA and harass in PvZ, but as you already said it's just not very effective. It's essentially useless at the moment. But then again, this would have to be counteracted somehow, either within the protoss army or the other two races, or else it would just give Protoss another quality unit without compensating elsewhere.
By the way, petzergling, bullcharging people's blogs with your own mindless rants that don't really have anything to do with what's being discussed isn't really very effective.
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On April 20 2010 20:29 petzergling wrote:
maybe if all of the other units werent so powerful that they completely crush any other races well balanced army you wouldnt have units that arent used
So you admit the phoenix sucks dicks and has no use in the game right now... Which was the entire point of my first post... That the phoenix has no real use....
I do understand the idea fwiw that protoss ground to ground is quite strong atm, and if someone is going mass collosi, you do need air to deter it, either corruptors or vikings, both which work well at quickly taking out collosi.
But... Altho im not 100% sure, i dont think giving the pheonix's extra armour, or decreasing there build time would make them strong enough to counter the corruptors or vikings effectively what so ever, especially considering 100gas is quite hefty if you're going for a collosi based army, which is alrdy gas heavy as hell, you're not really going to have enough gas to churn out the starport(150gas) & robo(100gas) & robo bay(200gas) & collosi upgrade(200gas) & collosi(200gas each) & phoenix(100gas each) to good enough effect for it to really become a big balance problem.
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I actually saw someone use them PvP against me. Speedzeals + Phoenix (To pick up immortals, and kill colossus)
It caught me by surprise... He played very well.
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On April 20 2010 20:58 TwilightStar wrote:
I actually saw someone use them PvP against me. Speedzeals + Phoenix (To pick up immortals, and kill colossus)
It caught me by surprise... He played very well.
this does work somewhat, but pretty much everything phoenix can do in pvp, voidray does a LOT better except scout. Zealot+Voidray is a solid (and works well against robo first builds) PvP build. collosi + a few stalkers rapes zealot phoenix too hard because the phoenixes are really, really slow at killing the collosi.
infact the one real decent use ive found for phoenixes IS in pvp is if you both go blind voidray builds (which is semi-common on desert oasis) and the phoenixes are really good at killing the voidrays (mainly because u can micro them out of the voidrays damage before it gets close to charging really really effectively, since they're so fast.)
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In my opinion they should either buff the Phoenix or reduce it's cost heavily.
The unit is horrible right now, it's worse then the scout in SC1 
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Calgary25981 Posts
I'm tired of reading jobbers making absolute statements based on nothing. The phoenix is good vs mutas and your thread is a joke.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On April 20 2010 22:11 Chill wrote:
I'm tired of reading jobbers making absolute statements based on nothing. The phoenix is good vs mutas and your thread is a joke.
True, but the Phoenix is pretty limited in use at the moment. Although anti-grav is certainly fun.
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On April 20 2010 22:11 Chill wrote:
I'm tired of reading jobbers making absolute statements based on nothing. The phoenix is good vs mutas and your thread is a joke.
Urgh, wouldnt expect this from you tbh, but whatever... I really haven't seen them used, ever, in competitive matches yet, and I'd say they're the most underused unit in the game, this is a blog, im venting my opinion on a unit in starcraft 2, has a lot of content, so what exactly makes it a joke other than the fact you think they are good against mutalisks, which is a pretty broad statement and I'd be very interested if you had a decent replay of someone countering a good zerg going for an initially muta-heavy build with them...
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Calgary25981 Posts
On April 20 2010 22:20 Ftrunkz wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2010 22:11 Chill wrote:
I'm tired of reading jobbers making absolute statements based on nothing. The phoenix is good vs mutas and your thread is a joke. Urgh, wouldnt expect this from you tbh, but whatever... I really haven't seen them used, ever, in competitive matches yet, and I'd say they're the most underused unit in the game, this is a blog, im venting my opinion on a unit in starcraft 2, has a lot of content, so what exactly makes it a joke...
Look. I realize everyone and their mother thinks they are David Kim and could balance this game, but it leads to them getting tunnel vision and making stupid statements and suggesting radical changes. You cite no evidence other than 'I played 5 games and the phoenix sucks.' Well, you probably used the unit wrong. I've lost huge groups of mutalisks to huge groups of phoenixes many times.
Your thread is a joke because it's subjective and uses analytical evidence. As such it's impossible to argue against. It's like me saying "LOL people say the sky is blue but for the past 5 days it's been grey in my city." How do you want anyone to get ANY value from that whatsoever?
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On April 20 2010 22:25 Chill wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2010 22:20 Ftrunkz wrote:On April 20 2010 22:11 Chill wrote:
I'm tired of reading jobbers making absolute statements based on nothing. The phoenix is good vs mutas and your thread is a joke. Urgh, wouldnt expect this from you tbh, but whatever... I really haven't seen them used, ever, in competitive matches yet, and I'd say they're the most underused unit in the game, this is a blog, im venting my opinion on a unit in starcraft 2, has a lot of content, so what exactly makes it a joke... Look. I realize everyone and their mother thinks they are David Kim and could balance this game, but it leads to them getting tunnel vision and making stupid statements and suggesting radical changes. You cite no evidence other than 'I played 5 games and the phoenix sucks.' Well, you probably used the unit wrong. I've lost huge groups of mutalisks to huge groups of phoenixes many times. Your thread is a joke because it's subjective and uses analytical evidence. As such it's impossible to argue against. It's like me saying "LOL people say the sky is blue but for the past 5 days it's been grey in my city." How do you want anyone to get ANY value from that whatsoever?
I said i was venting because i was pissed after the last 5 games, not that i've only used 5 games to draw a complete conclusion on it(See: "that past few days" i wrote somewhere in the op)...
Another part of the thread was to find if people are actually having the same issues, yeah it's heavily weighed in op (as i said at the bottom, i was on a rant and wanted to vent), I was genuinely interested if anyone else has found these units remotely succesful, as i said, if you have a replay in which someone used them effectively vs a large number of mutalisks, I would like to replay to see the build and how the match played out. As at the moment it seems as soon as I take air control over, he can tech switch to hydras and rape my face as I don't have the gateway number/collosi tech to deal with it, and just going stalker sentry zealot against muta-ling seems sooo much more logical then going for phoenixes that it makes them useless.
edit: I also hardly think modifying the phoenixs armour and making its build time less is a 'radical change' likely to break the current balance of the game..
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Your last post is pretty much my experience with phoenixes too (but I play mainly zerg). The protoss begins to start beating me pure muta vs pure phoenix so I just plop down a hydra den and survive a little longer and his pheonix army becomes essentially useless. Perhaps getting a combination of phoenixes + cannons +sentry works. Have just enough to defend each base with phoenixes + static defense and have an army composition of phoenixes and other units so you are more flexible.
I open phoenixes a lot in pvp. I get like 4 and they help against colossi tech and also let you snipe probes (4 phoenixes 1 hits probes) constantly.
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Pheonix's can harass the heck outta a zerg player by taking 3+ and lifting queens. It's just really annoying. During big fights, having a lot of pheonix's lifting off some units can really change the outcome too. But I agree that in Air vs. Air, pheonix's are horrible.
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Congratulation to Chill for being a pain in the butt yet again.
User was banned for this post
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On April 20 2010 22:25 Chill wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2010 22:20 Ftrunkz wrote:On April 20 2010 22:11 Chill wrote:
I'm tired of reading jobbers making absolute statements based on nothing. The phoenix is good vs mutas and your thread is a joke. Urgh, wouldnt expect this from you tbh, but whatever... I really haven't seen them used, ever, in competitive matches yet, and I'd say they're the most underused unit in the game, this is a blog, im venting my opinion on a unit in starcraft 2, has a lot of content, so what exactly makes it a joke... I've lost huge groups of mutalisks to huge groups of phoenixes many times. Why aren't you building corruptors if he's making phoenix? Their 2 armor makes phoenix useless as it makes phoenix only deal 6 damage to them. Over 30 shots from them before a corruptor dies
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fenix are alright, zerg player here
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Watch Nony's stream, he uses Phoenixes to great effect in PvZ for harassing Overlords and taking out Queens in early-mid game.
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Calgary25981 Posts
On April 20 2010 22:57 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2010 22:25 Chill wrote:On April 20 2010 22:20 Ftrunkz wrote:On April 20 2010 22:11 Chill wrote:
I'm tired of reading jobbers making absolute statements based on nothing. The phoenix is good vs mutas and your thread is a joke. Urgh, wouldnt expect this from you tbh, but whatever... I really haven't seen them used, ever, in competitive matches yet, and I'd say they're the most underused unit in the game, this is a blog, im venting my opinion on a unit in starcraft 2, has a lot of content, so what exactly makes it a joke... I've lost huge groups of mutalisks to huge groups of phoenixes many times. Why aren't you building corruptors if he's making phoenix? Their 2 armor makes phoenix useless as it makes phoenix only deal 6 damage to them. Over 30 shots from them before a corruptor dies
Because it was 2v2.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On April 20 2010 23:50 Chill wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2010 22:57 Plexa wrote:On April 20 2010 22:25 Chill wrote:On April 20 2010 22:20 Ftrunkz wrote:On April 20 2010 22:11 Chill wrote:
I'm tired of reading jobbers making absolute statements based on nothing. The phoenix is good vs mutas and your thread is a joke. Urgh, wouldnt expect this from you tbh, but whatever... I really haven't seen them used, ever, in competitive matches yet, and I'd say they're the most underused unit in the game, this is a blog, im venting my opinion on a unit in starcraft 2, has a lot of content, so what exactly makes it a joke... I've lost huge groups of mutalisks to huge groups of phoenixes many times. Why aren't you building corruptors if he's making phoenix? Their 2 armor makes phoenix useless as it makes phoenix only deal 6 damage to them. Over 30 shots from them before a corruptor dies Because it was 2v2.
Good point, Phoenix are really really annoying in 2v2. imo they are more viable there than anywhere else.
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Don't have SC2 Beta, but watch every video I can on it. I've seen some good Phoenix play in a few Vids and replays and I DO NOT believe the purpose they serve is useless. In PvZ Phoenix is just a losing battle against mutas. Don't counter mutas with Phoenix, it is illogical. Phoenixes can help a protoss player get to the hard to reach places that Broodlords sit in PvZ. If you are applying the Phoenix against mutas, you are applying them incorrectly from a Strategic Stand Point. There is a difference in what they can do, and what you wish they could do. Every unit serves a purpose.
Muta - Attacks air and Ground
vs
Phoenix - Attacks Air (special ability to lift ground) Focused
You quite simply need a ground force to counter Mutas and a quick Zerg tech change. Might I suggest Stalker's with the Blink ability? Sentrys as well can work a Zerg ground force into a prefect shape that the Protoss can lay a hard beating on!
There are numerous effective applications for the Phoenix in PvT, PvZ and PvP. Take the time to find the right one!
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phoenix are pretty bad at A-moving into mutas or a zerg base with hydras. that much is true. (have you tried combining phoenix with sentries/shield? mutas melt.)
but, they are fast and can take out key units with decent micro. show 3 or 4 or them and the zerg is forced to stay in his base or add spores. if he moves out prematurely you can take out ovies and queens and then bring the phoenix's back to lift roachtanks while you kill the measly hydras or viceversa.
i agree they could use some tweaking in the stat department but you are not exactly justified in proclaiming "phoenix is a joke".
your blog is rife with emotive frustration which is fine- but dont try to defend yourself in any objective way when pzergling or chill calls you out for subjective lamentations.
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intrigue
Washington, D.C9934 Posts
phoenixes can be frustrating, certainly, but i'm i think i'm starting to get the hang of them. they are a lot stronger in combination with other units - for example, in pvp and pvz i've had a lot of success making only 2-3 void rays and then making 2-3 phoenixes, instead of just making all phoenix or void ray (both which have quickly diminishing returns). for this reason yeah as plexa said they can be surprisingly strong in 2v2, especially also considering their speed and agility
use them surgically and you can do a shitload of damage while denying map control
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I think phoenix is ONLY good to make if the zerg makes mutas. theyre really really useless if the zerg goes hydra since their GtA is just so good. I would say hydras need to be nerfed a bit vs air but then zerg would get raped by banshees every ZvT. It feels like phoenixs just arent nearly as useful vs a ground army Z and corsairs were in BW. Maybe its just that I dont have the multitasking for it though. I really hope Phoenix becomes useful soon (either by buff or people figuring out how to be used properly) because theyre AWESOME.
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The Pheonix makes the Scout look like an amazing AA unit
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Well they obviously aren't the powerhouse corsairs were once critical mass was reached, but I think they're still very viable harass units. Picking off overlords is just as easy as it was with sairs, you can get a lot of scouting info, and you can even snipe queens and drone with antigrav. Zerg also lacks scourge this time around...
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United States42815 Posts
I remember a year ago they used to have this overdrive ability where, according to lore, the pilot overloaded and unshielded the engine and a field of radiation went out that damaged everything around it including the Phoenix itself. I thought that was pretty cool, made it an air vs air splash damage bomb with penalties.
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United States7166 Posts
On April 20 2010 22:57 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2010 22:25 Chill wrote:On April 20 2010 22:20 Ftrunkz wrote:On April 20 2010 22:11 Chill wrote:
I'm tired of reading jobbers making absolute statements based on nothing. The phoenix is good vs mutas and your thread is a joke. Urgh, wouldnt expect this from you tbh, but whatever... I really haven't seen them used, ever, in competitive matches yet, and I'd say they're the most underused unit in the game, this is a blog, im venting my opinion on a unit in starcraft 2, has a lot of content, so what exactly makes it a joke... I've lost huge groups of mutalisks to huge groups of phoenixes many times. Why aren't you building corruptors if he's making phoenix? Their 2 armor makes phoenix useless as it makes phoenix only deal 6 damage to them. Over 30 shots from them before a corruptor dies
corruptors are awful vs phoenixes too. just test it with a friend and you'll see, neither can kill each other in any reasonable amount of time. iirc they are about equivalent in fighting power except that phoenix moves almost twice as fast and so if outnumbered, can instantly get away from corruptors but if they outnumber the corruptors, the corruptors will just die if they try to chase. it also means that losing a phoenix is like impossible since you can pull each phoenix away before they die quite easily (slow rate of fire, low dmg)
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On April 21 2010 01:40 Tripen wrote:
The Pheonix makes the Scout look like an amazing AA unit
The scout IS an amazing AA unit.
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On April 20 2010 20:25 Ftrunkz wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2010 20:22 petzergling wrote:
seems strange how now that sc2 is out everyone suddenly is a professional game balancer.
maybe protoss isnt supposed to have amazing anti air so you have to compensate more for it because immortals and colo are so damn strong against ground?
no nevermind lets make phoenix on par with other A2A so that you can 1a your colo army into your opponent every game You're right, but lets give [Protoss] a unit that cant effectively do anything, thats a good idea, just to fuck with their heads a little...
*cough* scouts *cough*
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On April 21 2010 02:30 Zelniq wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2010 22:57 Plexa wrote:On April 20 2010 22:25 Chill wrote:On April 20 2010 22:20 Ftrunkz wrote:On April 20 2010 22:11 Chill wrote:
I'm tired of reading jobbers making absolute statements based on nothing. The phoenix is good vs mutas and your thread is a joke. Urgh, wouldnt expect this from you tbh, but whatever... I really haven't seen them used, ever, in competitive matches yet, and I'd say they're the most underused unit in the game, this is a blog, im venting my opinion on a unit in starcraft 2, has a lot of content, so what exactly makes it a joke... I've lost huge groups of mutalisks to huge groups of phoenixes many times. Why aren't you building corruptors if he's making phoenix? Their 2 armor makes phoenix useless as it makes phoenix only deal 6 damage to them. Over 30 shots from them before a corruptor dies corruptors are awful vs phoenixes too. just test it with a friend and you'll see, neither can kill each other in any reasonable amount of time. iirc they are about equivalent in fighting power except that phoenix moves almost twice as fast and so if outnumbered, can instantly get away from corruptors but if they outnumber the corruptors, the corruptors will just die if they try to chase. it also means that losing a phoenix is like impossible since you can pull each phoenix away before they die quite easily (slow rate of fire, low dmg)
But they soak damage - allowing mutas to clean up. At least that's what happens in my experiences.
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I sort of agree with the OP.
Phoenix play out more like a caster unit than an anti-air flier. Think of all the things they're good for, harassing queens, killing drones, nullifying immortals and siege tanks. The only air they really counter are banshees and mutalisks. There's no real reason to build more than like 5 of them.
And they do counter mutas pretty hard it's just so easy for the zerg to counter phoenixes after 10 of them pop out that it's generally not a good idea. corruptors hydras or spore colonies.
The bummer is you really have nothing to escort your void rays around.
I'm kind of dissapointed in the phoenix as a unit overall. I think the corsair would fit in perfectly with protoss air without unbalancing things.
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If you think about it, in broodwar the counter to mutas were corsairs and science vessels. It's really hard to counter a powerful air unit with ground units. Like going pure MnM or archon could work in the beginning of broodwar, but as muta micro improved...
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Scrubs...
The Phoenix is one of your greatest tools in PvT. It's hands down the best ghost counter available if you use your observers wisely and have just the slightest hint of micro. Two-base marauder clump plus two or three ghosts EMP:ing is right now impossible to counter with any Protoss ground army that's available to you in early midgame. By having a small number of phoenixes - you are forcing the Terran not to go exclusively marauder as he will loose his ghosts very quickly to anti-grav (snipe them with phoenixes just before his push is about to hit - keep an obs ahead of your army).
If the terran is forced to invest in Thor tech or 10+ marines - that's less marauders and suddenly the invincible clump becomes very manageable for a 1 colossus, 4 immortal, X sentries & X-XX zealot standard composition.
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How long was it until corsairs were used on non-island maps? 6 years? The Phoenix is getting used almost immediately.
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phoenix requires quite a bit of micro to be used effectively. I've found that going phoenix in PvZ to do a sort of phoenix + void ray rush that attempts to cripple their queens and w/e before they can get other anti air is less effective now that void rays have been nerfed (build slower + more expensive). phoenix by itself is ineffective because of how weak they are, queens fend them off nicely unless you have about 3 phoenix and use 1 to lift the queen and the other 2 to kill (then it's a pretty heavy investment) ... even killing a queen is not that big of a loss to zerg, especially if they've FE'd because they will likely have 2 queens, or can make spores, etc...
don't know about phoenix in PvT but it seems to me that the micro and precision required to lift up tiny ghosts in a big terran blob makes it a pretty ineffective counter to ghosts... also what if they don't just go pure marauder+ghost, but have marines and medivacs... then your phoenix is fucked.
I think the big problem with the phoenix is that it requires such a heavy tech investment... it's not like you just make a few phoenix and "oh well my plan didnt work time to switch gears" - building the stargate + 2-3 phoenix is like 600 mineral 500 gas investment for something that has a very limited window of effectiveness. if your plan happens to not work that puts you so far behind economically and in troop count because you've invested so heavily in the phoenix. i think THAT is its biggest problem...
i think the op is trying to make its effectiveness more broad to make it viable to juse use as a unit rather than it being something that really only works in 1-2 limited scenarios.
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Phoenix is terrible vs mutas
To beat mutas you need a lot of sentries and stalkers, which ofc cuts into your colossi production but its a fine balance
The best counter ofc is just to do a good timing attack before mutas come out
For the high level zergs out there who ARNT going muta vs protoss, ofc it is just ez game for protoss... Go mutalisk there is no reason not to.
Eventually stalkers have blink which helps but PVZ is very gas heavy so it is best to use cannons liberally for defence (minerals are pretty cheap in PVZ mid/late)
If you don't get blink, eventually there will be a critical number of mutalisks where you can shift queue all protoss ranged units and win the game so don't let that happen
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So have you been watching the HDH Invitational? Go check out Huskystarcraft on Youtube. He has a game with Nony Vs. MoonGlade. Dont' want to spoil it but it is related to this thread, and you must see it! Click to see Husky's Channel
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Except the scout was atleast good at SOMETHING (taking down carriers/bcs cost effectively).
debatable
agasint BC's and Carrier's i would much rather just build more dragoons
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On April 29 2010 07:46 Time2Shine wrote:So have you been watching the HDH Invitational? Go check out Huskystarcraft on Youtube. He has a game with Nony Vs. MoonGlade. Dont' want to spoil it but it is related to this thread, and you must see it! Click to see Husky's Channel
This. The game here shows exactly how well phoenixes are if used correctly. Protoss have a fairly decent ground army that can take on air with sentries shield, stalkers and their blink. The phoenixes are nice addition, no you cannot just get a few and be like "ok im good on AA" you need to get a good amount of them, that is just how the unit works. The phoenix is basically fine and if it does need a buff it needs a VERY small buff, like an extra 10 health the banshees got.
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EPT
