Phoenix range is a deterrent - Page 2

On February 22 2012 11:26 sluggaslamoo wrote:


Sorry to make a BW reference, but nobody complains about having to do constant Corsair micro the entire game (slowly build them up while teching, scouting, denying overlords, stopping muta backstabs, stopping shuttle snipes) and its one of the coolest things about BW and makes PvZ really fun.

Honestly this upgrade if done well will stop the single big blob battle into gg syndrome that we are experiencing with PvZ at the moment. It will open doors to drop/harass play (phoenix/storm-drops), interesting tech play (carrier-pheonix // phoenix-templar), aggressive play (early phoenix/zealot/archon 3rd denial). The single reason stopping all this is the inablility for Toss to achieve air-dominance without a significant investment and losing any thing that isn't a deathball to Muta Ling.

When you have 20 mutas on the field, you can have overlords all over the map, and prevent Toss from doing any squad based play, drop play, greedy expansions, completely forcing them into boring turtle into colossus/stalker/storm timing attacks.

Of course this doesn't make Muta/Ling unviable either, it just stops all the stupidity in the matchup, because now Toss has a solid strategy that relies on micro to be effective, which obviously Zerg can also exploit.

On February 22 2012 11:49 mrafaeldie12 wrote:


I'm sorry, I doubt we will see any new strategies unless blizzard stops changing the metagame every patch cycle.

On February 22 2012 12:02 CrazyF1r3f0x wrote:

Don't patch changes usually cause people to do more strategies than anything else?
Especially buffs, once the buffed the warp prism, it's usage exploded--I don't see why people won't experiment with the new Phoenix upgrade.

On February 22 2012 13:51 Zeke50100 wrote:
*see Zerg creating Spire and scouting with Overlord*
*build Fleet Beacon in front of Overlord*
*watch Spire cancel*

Is that essentially what the goal is? ^_^

On February 22 2012 14:49 HoMM wrote:
I am suprised at people shrugging this upgrade off.

So, lets assume this, you scout a zerg going mutas and you want to counter it with phoenix.
Phoenix are supposed to be good right? And you hate mutas because even blinkstalkers are too slow to stop the harass yes?
You place down 2 stargates and start pumping phoenixes.

But, the way the game is without phoenix range is that it just doesnt work. The zerg will have 6 gas and he can use larva to turn all of his gas into mutas. You probably only have half of the phoenixes that he has mutas.

But you might say, phoenix are able to kite mutas so you're still able to kill so many mutas for free?
Except not really, with minimal easy micro mutas can deal with phoenix micro easy.
Think of it like marines vs stalkers, if you a-move your marines vs stalkers and stalkers micro a bit, your marines will eventually die. Yet with stutterstep you can easily pick off some stalkers and not take any unnessecary damage from stalkers kiting you. With phoenix being the marines, and mutas being the stalkers in this analogy, the situation is exactly the same.

If you get your range upgrade about matching the time when u reach about 10 phoenixes, you will probably kill any amount of mutas he has, and air dominance will be yours. This is really amazing upgrade especially if you go for a air-heavy build, like the voidray+colossi deathball. You will want mothership (and air upgrades) anyway, so the fleet beacon is no problem.

Ok i'm rambling a bit too much but tl;dr
atm phoenix are useless vs muta, upgrade makes phoenix viable vs muta

On February 22 2012 21:23 Mementoss wrote:
The main reason IMO for this upgrade is because many zergs go muta to counter stargate expands. This is because in smaller stargate numbers mutas wreck phoenix/void rays. Then the Zergs take there third and keep the muta ball up, while toss is forced to switch to templar tech for blink/and/or/storm, as well as 2 cannons per mineral line. Against a good muta player the tosses third will be very very late if they didn't open templar tech. But in the case with the phoenix upgrade, toss players can open stargate and if its countered with mutas, instead of going council blink, archives storm, they can go beacon phoenix range. This allows toss to keep muta balls controlled and a viable option for harassing zerg mineral lines even with spore crawlers/queens while taking there own third.

On February 22 2012 11:49 mrafaeldie12 wrote:


I'm sorry, I doubt we will see any new strategies unless blizzard stops changing the metagame every patch cycle.

On February 22 2012 13:51 Zeke50100 wrote:
*see Zerg creating Spire and scouting with Overlord*
*build Fleet Beacon in front of Overlord*
*watch Spire cancel*

Is that essentially what the goal is? ^_^

On February 23 2012 06:10 Erik.TheRed wrote:


allow me to finish that thought.

*kill overlord*
*cancel fleet beacon*
*go 2 robo colo*

On February 27 2012 04:24 jaman4dbz wrote:

Where are you getting all of this gas?!

I was super excited for this upgrade, now I'm just sad.
450 minerals 350 gas and 170 in game seconds... are you kidding me?
Overall to get to this point it's actually 600 mins 500 gas and 230 in game seconds to get to this point.
As soon as you see the fleet beacon, it's easy to stop muta production and ling roach all-in, Good luck getting out collosus, even if you do cancel the fleet beacon. Hopefully you only made a void ray and he didn't see it, because if you made a pheonix or two, they are completely useless.
"Oh but you force a reaction with pheonix" Nope, just queens, which are useful anyways.
Protoss air is BRUTAL again zerg, as is.

IMO drop 10 seconds in game seconds on the fleet beacon, drop 25 gas from pheonix, and drop the range upgrade by 30 in game seconds.
easier to hold mutas with pheonix before range, faster range, yet you are still committing a lot of gas to air, so a zerg tech switch will still hurt you (although now you can get another pheonix to counter harass, while you are narrowly or completely losing your base to a roach ling all-in.)

On February 27 2012 10:07 beetlelisk wrote:

Aren't you forgetting about chronoboost? And dude, jesus, with zerg going 3 bases as an answer to FFE or 1 gate expand Protoss air comes out much faster - for zerg the lair is done and protoss already has some air units!
It's impossible to go 2 stargate phoenix and lose to 3 base zerg mutas.
Even if zerg is going for mutas from 2 bases then he's behind in economy which means getting colossus as an answer to roach ling isn't such a problem.

On February 27 2012 10:32 jaman4dbz wrote:

Don't make mutas, mass queen and spore up and spine up, then put down a hydra-den and make lings to defend. If we don't break the wall of spines, you take a fourth and fifth with your massive number of spines and you already have a spire to make corrupters for the late game. When the late game happens, toss has tons of useless pheonix and is down bases. On the plus side, they are ready against broodlords with the fleet beacon, but it won't matter because the resulting roach ling hydra all-in will crush toss before they get enough collosi to counter it. Worst comes to worst, you back up stutter step, taking loses while punishing stalkers who go too far onto creep with stutterstep, then you make just enough corruptors to counter the number of collosi.

generally, worst comes to worst and zerg doesn't make mutas, but still has the spire for inevitable corruptors, while the toss has 1000+ gas wasted in pheonix.

Another idea just popped in my head. Lower the range of corruptors by 1, so pheonix can kite them, and poke in and kill off one or two here and there. They would be raped in a 1v1 battle, but they could help thin the numbers so toss can doa collosus push without being crushed by the instantly produced perfect number of corruptors.