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The idea is to wall off when the enemy scouting probe is out of your base (when your stalker chase it out) with 2 to 3 cannons then proceed to go stargate phoenix. Vs any sort of rush you will have cannon defends with sentries FF until your phoenixes came out.
What good about this is that if you play vs a 4 gate or a blink rush build, you forced them to stop the rush and get detection while you are ahead on probes count. Mean while if it is against a robo build, phoenix is almost an auto build order win. If by some cases the enemy scouted your cannon and decided to expand themself, you have your own expand option since you dont have to cut much probes from the first place
What good about this is that if you play vs a 4 gate or a blink rush build, you forced them to stop the rush and get detection while you are ahead on probes count. Mean while if it is against a robo build, phoenix is almost an auto build order win. If by some cases the enemy scouted your cannon and decided to expand themself, you have your own expand option since you dont have to cut much probes from the first place
Build Order:
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9 pylon
13 gate (to bait 4 gate, use 13 gate and 3 chrono on probes)
15(14) gas
16 pylon cyber
18 zealot
cut probe at 22 (21 probes + zealot - death of 1 scouting probe)
@100% core stalker wrap tech (chrono)
22 pylon at choke (to wall)
@100% stalker sentry (chrono) chase the scouting probe after your stalker came out. Put down 2nd gas and forge at wall asap. Have your zealot and stalker hold position down the ramp to prevent probe poking up while forge building.
@100 forge put down 2 to 3 cannons depend on how likely enemy will 4 gate. 2 should be enough but 3 is safe. RESUME PROBE PRODUCTION with all your might (use chrono on them)
@100% sentry 2nd sentry
by 5:45 you should have 1 stalker, 1 zealot, 2 sentries(one at ~80 nrg and one ~60 which enough for 3 FF) and 2~3 cannons about to finish (they will finish around 6:00 at latest)
After 2nd sentries came out, put down a stargate asap and +2 more gate (3 gate 1 star total). You should have a full saturation base with extra chrono, save them all for phoenix and spend 1 on +1 air attack on cyber.
Move out harras at 3~4 phoenix (chrono them).
summary: 13 gate greedy build to bait 4 gate. Forge cannon cannon after scouting probe out of your base. Chrono 2 sentries out and use the rest on probes until saturation and save the rest on phoenix.
13 gate (to bait 4 gate, use 13 gate and 3 chrono on probes)
15(14) gas
16 pylon cyber
18 zealot
cut probe at 22 (21 probes + zealot - death of 1 scouting probe)
@100% core stalker wrap tech (chrono)
22 pylon at choke (to wall)
@100% stalker sentry (chrono) chase the scouting probe after your stalker came out. Put down 2nd gas and forge at wall asap. Have your zealot and stalker hold position down the ramp to prevent probe poking up while forge building.
@100 forge put down 2 to 3 cannons depend on how likely enemy will 4 gate. 2 should be enough but 3 is safe. RESUME PROBE PRODUCTION with all your might (use chrono on them)
@100% sentry 2nd sentry
by 5:45 you should have 1 stalker, 1 zealot, 2 sentries(one at ~80 nrg and one ~60 which enough for 3 FF) and 2~3 cannons about to finish (they will finish around 6:00 at latest)
After 2nd sentries came out, put down a stargate asap and +2 more gate (3 gate 1 star total). You should have a full saturation base with extra chrono, save them all for phoenix and spend 1 on +1 air attack on cyber.
Move out harras at 3~4 phoenix (chrono them).
summary: 13 gate greedy build to bait 4 gate. Forge cannon cannon after scouting probe out of your base. Chrono 2 sentries out and use the rest on probes until saturation and save the rest on phoenix.
Game play:
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I just recently testing out this build (i played like 20 PvPs with it) so a lots of stuff could be refined as people keep exploring the match up. Please take this as a general guide line instead of a 100% perfected game play.
Early game:
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scouting period:
you want to let the enemy see everything: late gate, 3 chrono on probes to bait a 4 gate. But also take in mind how he is spending his chrono. If he does use his 3rd chrono, immediately take your 2nd gas to prevent a gas steal and steal his gas if needed. no need to mine from your 2nd gas early since you need minerals for cannons but just take it to prevent gas steal. Do spend your first chrono on
vs 4 gate:
you should have 3 FF to held this with 2 cannons. A key on how to play this on high master level is to keep your enemy from knowing the cannon exist until they have their zealots wrap in (after the 1st 4 stalkers wave) by FF bottom of the ramp. This way you enemy also waste the minerals and wont have option to go back to expand. It also depend on luck how you want to position your cannons so they cant fire to the stalkers struggling to get up but blocked by FF. A trick is to hotkey all of your cannons and make them attack forge while you FF ramp and resume after the enemy wrapped in zealots.
you want to let the enemy see everything: late gate, 3 chrono on probes to bait a 4 gate. But also take in mind how he is spending his chrono. If he does use his 3rd chrono, immediately take your 2nd gas to prevent a gas steal and steal his gas if needed. no need to mine from your 2nd gas early since you need minerals for cannons but just take it to prevent gas steal. Do spend your first chrono on
vs 4 gate:
you should have 3 FF to held this with 2 cannons. A key on how to play this on high master level is to keep your enemy from knowing the cannon exist until they have their zealots wrap in (after the 1st 4 stalkers wave) by FF bottom of the ramp. This way you enemy also waste the minerals and wont have option to go back to expand. It also depend on luck how you want to position your cannons so they cant fire to the stalkers struggling to get up but blocked by FF. A trick is to hotkey all of your cannons and make them attack forge while you FF ramp and resume after the enemy wrapped in zealots.
Mid game: there are 2 scenario: the enemy saw your cannons and they did not. One will make sure that they DO get detection and 1 said they might get detection.
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They know about your cannons:
They will either get a robo or a forge to prevent DT. Occasionally if they saw you having 3 cannons they might decide to forge expand. Keep in mind that you have the probe advantage since you didnt cut probe for a while therefore its ok for your nexus to be later. Use the phoenix to kill 1 or 2 probes but dont over do it since you will need their energy to held off counter attack. Scout the enemy base whit your phoenix while put down 1 or 2 cannons at your nature for detection. If the enemy get an VERY early nexus, Consider cutting on phoenix and do a 3 gate timing attack with phoenix disabling the key units of the enemy defends line. Most of the time you just need to expand yourself since you have probes lead. Noticed to patrol with your first 2 phoenixes vs any sort of wrap prism attack.
If they dont know about your cannons:
dont show the phoenix until you have 4 of them. There are 2 option for them to go: either blink timing or teching with robo. Robo its a build order win. Blink attack there are 2 types: 1 with obs and one without obs. The one with out obs they will blink from your ramp up so just FF at bottom of the ramp and position your units nicely. Blink with obs require you to have a good stalkers count, just get 1 stalker 1 zealot per phoenix you made and you should hold it with guardian shield just fine. The key to hold vs Blink is to scout if he expanded or not. If not just dumb minerals on unit (zealot) to expect a timing attack with your probe lead, else expand yourself.
Mid game composition: There will be 2 ways to held off a phoenix attack: cannon or blink stalkers. You want to get a robo and pump out immo if he is going blink and you want to pump out VR if he is going cannon. Why? Cannon indicates the enemy want to go on a gas heavy build which most likely will be archon charges. 2 to 3 VRs with good sim city should help you hold this by a far margin. The forge will always help you to be ahead in upgrades and dont get twilight until you have +1 +1 (you already invested a tons in tech so now you need units more).
Late game:
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Ideal composition will be phoenix mothership with 2-3 obs and ground support. The key is to vortex/snipe the enemy obs so you will have a good protection by your mothership. Ground composition will be decided based on your phoenix scouting.
3rd base: with the phoenix mobility, you can easily take a proxy 3rd to avoid basetrade situation. Notice how you should not take a proxy 2nd since you will be lacked of detection vs a DT attack.
3rd base: with the phoenix mobility, you can easily take a proxy 3rd to avoid basetrade situation. Notice how you should not take a proxy 2nd since you will be lacked of detection vs a DT attack.
Replays:
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Sorry for the lack of replays but these are the most recent one. If you guys have any good master level replays feel free to post and i will put them on top of the page.
WIN
http://drop.sc/26367
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(2 bases vs 1 base charge archons)
http://drop.sc/26366
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(this on has mothership :D)
LOST
http://drop.sc/26368
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(lost to prism attack)
Feel free to fire questions at me, good questions will be tagged on this top posted as FAQ :D.
FAQ
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Q: Will this work on taldarim?
A: May be. The key is to held the 4 gates with cannons and 2 FF. 2 FF is enough to block ramp on taldarim and force the enemy to pull back to defend vs DT. But if somehow the decided to push through the 3 cannons, you are screwed. Again, its a gamble.
Q: Which map is the best to use this?
A: close air spawn. If you are on the rotational symmetry it will be more complicated: based on how his back of mineral line is closer to your base for an air bound retreat. But again, Phoenix ms is really fast so it should not matter.
Q: 1 cannon?
A: I dont know for sure if that is safe vs non obs blink. Feel free to test it out but personally i feel like 2 cannons is already risky enough. Often i just use 3 cannons in case i mess up the FF.
Q: What is the counter to this?
A: 14 nex? tbh i dont know. The build has a ton of micro which sometime requires more than 3 army control groups just to execute it perfectly while i still only having 1. Due to the speed of phoenixes, you can easily scout enemy composition and counter it. It also provide an easy access route to mothership/carriers late game. I think this is a good build to drag out a long PvP macro game but a build order win in rock paper scissor. Scout and react is how you win vs this.
edit: after a few discussion with Geiko and NrGMonk over IRC, there might be some weaknesses of this build vs RoboBlink or 3 gate expand on shakuras as well as a chance of you wont be able to secure your expansion early on. I think i have not experienced enough with this build to prove them wrong so i will leave it as what it is for now until i have more replays
Cheers.
