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If there is no wall, this strat stays about the same, or gets even better.
A wall is necessary to prevent the stalkers just walking into the T base, and kiting the T units around until they get marauders + concussive.
When the void ray, or any units you warp into the opponents base using a pylon near their cliff, attack the back of their base - they will have to pull back their army, and you can just charge up their ramp with the rest.
White-ra does a void-ray + cliff pyon warp-in + front assault ALL THE TIME. I just watched a few replay packs of his over the last week (~40 games) and he probably does it in 1/2 of his PvT games. That play is stronger if there is no front wall, since you can join your main army with your void ray and warp-in units very quickly, or engage the T army from 2 sides without obstruction.
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Wasn't the point of the Stalker harass to keep them from dying / getting any hull damage, though? In all the replays I've seen, you abused Protoss shield recharge in combination with the Terran wall to keep them from dying.
Assuming Terran does a more agressive opening and doesn't wall, he'll have enough marines/marauders to at least armytrade you. The voids only come quite a while later. If the Stalkers are gone/reduced in numbers by that point I don't see how the VR harass will work too well.
Sort of a moot point though, since I have still to encounter a Terran that doesn't wall :p
For laughs, I'll try it out later today.
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Yeah, when I uploaded the replays I was hoping to make a very specific point about how good the two are together. Just like any build though, you have to be flexible, and white-ra has done a take on the build that seems to provide that flexibility.
I'll upload some replays once my internet gets installed at my new place this weekend, since his style is very effective. Essentially, he only makes 1 stalker, and then makes a whole bunch of zealots, and uses the extra gas to tech to void ray faster, uses cliff pylons to warp into the enemy base, and then get templars or colossi more quickly.
And rather than poking up the ramp with just stalkers, he pokes up with 1 zealot and 1 stalker usually, since he can make those units quickly with just 1 gateway, allowing him to get his second assimilator sooner and, ultimately, get his void ray out sooner.
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On September 17 2010 00:20 DarQraven wrote:
Wasn't the point of the Stalker harass to keep them from dying / getting any hull damage, though? In all the replays I've seen, you abused Protoss shield recharge in combination with the Terran wall to keep them from dying.
Assuming Terran does a more agressive opening and doesn't wall, he'll have enough marines/marauders to at least armytrade you. The voids only come quite a while later. If the Stalkers are gone/reduced in numbers by that point I don't see how the VR harass will work too well.
Sort of a moot point though, since I have still to encounter a Terran that doesn't wall :p
For laughs, I'll try it out later today.
If this was the case, wouldn't the appropriate Terran counter be to just lower his depots and charge out of the base at you into open ground?
I also believe that the Stalkers can still kite the marines around (even kill a few) before shields are gone and retreat with their superior speed until it recharges again. By then they will be pissed off and go for mass marauders = GG because at that time your void ray shows up =].
That's what happened on my non-wall game anyway....disclaimer: user experiences may vary.
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My standard opening TvP is Hellion drop into bio drops. I make a quick bunker and supply depot at the front, effectively stopping the stalkers from getting in. Then when I drop my hellions to harrass the probe line I see the tech and am able to quickly get a vikings. Even if I don't see it, My bunker+scvs can hold the front while 5 marines fend off the VR until the viking pops out.
Quite simple this build is not a scary build in my opinion.
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Excellent post bud! I will defiantly be trying this in the future, I even took notes 
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Hey, its Hat from one of your videos
I actually found this strategy to be very weak against a composition that a high level friend of mine was using, mass marines and tanks. He was able to push the void rays off easily with stim then eventually seige up around my ramp and push up it with the marines. Turrets were up at his main base by then.
I still do the stalker opening pretty much every game but as soon as I get 4 out, I throw down a second gas and get up a twilight council immediately for charge. This lets me hold off virtually any mid-game push and easily transitions into an expansion with HTs or DTs. Its just a little more versatile, the void ray thing is nice but it gets countered too hard.
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On September 17 2010 07:52 K Love wrote:
Hey, its Hat from one of your videos
I actually found this strategy to be very weak against a composition that a high level friend of mine was using, mass marines and tanks. He was able to push the void rays off easily with stim then eventually seige up around my ramp and push up it with the marines. Turrets were up at his main base by then.
I still do the stalker opening pretty much every game but as soon as I get 4 out, I throw down a second gas and get up a twilight council immediately for charge. This lets me hold off virtually any mid-game push and easily transitions into an expansion with HTs or DTs. Its just a little more versatile, the void ray thing is nice but it gets countered too hard.
Yeah, marine-tank is quite strong. If you decide to commit to void ray after seeing all the marines, it definitely requires some intense void-ray harass and poking around, to at least hold some of their marines back and let you transition into something a little better.
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Actually im really happy you posted this i did a very similar but much more crude version in my earlier days and it worked fine your version seems more refined and way more effective
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Hahaha... hey GNIAL!! I remember playing drunken cs with ya back in residence... guess who man. Lol.
Good to see this kind of strat, I definitely have the most trouble with terran and subsequent marauder abuse. Will try it out asap
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@Gnial are you still opening like this versus Terrans or have you switched over to the KCDC expand? I am just curious, I like both builds personally, KCDC's feels safer to me, but stargate tech is always fun. Ive seen a ton of recent phoenix openers from top players, but I've had mixed success, mainly because im not a top player lol
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On September 18 2010 00:32 jarude wrote:
Hahaha... hey GNIAL!! I remember playing drunken cs with ya back in residence... guess who man. Lol.
Good to see this kind of strat, I definitely have the most trouble with terran and subsequent marauder abuse. Will try it out asap
ROFL ROFL. Yo!!!
We will have to game some time soon 
By the way, I was really confused for a sec since the fellow who posted after you is also named J-rod (with a slight spelling variation).
On September 18 2010 01:45 Jayrod wrote:
@Gnial are you still opening like this versus Terrans or have you switched over to the KCDC expand? I am just curious, I like both builds personally, KCDC's feels safer to me, but stargate tech is always fun. Ive seen a ton of recent phoenix openers from top players, but I've had mixed success, mainly because im not a top player lol
I kept running into people countering me without scouting me because they recognized me, so I started experimenting with phoenix play with some success.
However, I haven't been able to play for like, 3 weeks since I've been so busy...I've finally had time in the last week, but I haven't had internet at home...once it gets put in on Sunday I plan on experimenting a lot with robo-facility openings, fast obs, into whatever best destroys my T opponent 
I will always keep this build in my back pocket though, and will probably keep using it on maps like Desert Oasis, and close-air positions on metalopolis and lost temple.
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Omg no!!!!! Why did you post this?!?! This strategy is very good, I have such a hard time with it as Zerg.
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On September 18 2010 13:14 ckw wrote:
Omg no!!!!! Why did you post this?!?! This strategy is very good, I have such a hard time with it as Zerg.
Lol, I think you are thinking of Antimage's PvZ build. This is primarily for PvT. I can't imagine early stalker harass being very good vs Z - what with the hard counter being...zerglings.
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Hey, I have different comments for both replays!
The Xel'Naga replay your fundamentals of the strategy were solid. During your stalker harass you got ahead, and later during your void ray harass you were WAAAAAAY ahead. I was watching like, "how could he possibly lose this, he has a lot more workers, an expansion, map control, his opponent can't leave his base", etc. You held him to his base for like, 12 or 14 minutes. But several things stopped you from leaping way ahead of your opponent, and it all comes down to one thing: MACRO!
During your stalker harass you stopped making probes and didn't get a stargate, and just accumulated resources. You could have improved your economy and your tech. Likewise, when you void ray harassed and you expanded, your nexuses sat there not making probes for several minutes. Not only that, but you didn't tech. You just void ray harassed and contained with a fixed number of units and accumulated resources. You had about 3/5ths of the number of probes you wanted to saturate your main and natural. You could have had thousands more resources if you had kept making probes. However, that wouldn't have even mattered since you had 1600 minerals and 600 gas when your opponent reached your base with his final push. You could have had an army large enough to obliterate his, even though you had handicapped yourself by significantly delaying your economy and tech, if you had tried to keep your resources down by building units and buildings. Your micro was great: you probably shouldn't have attacked the ramp when you had 2 bases to his 1, and you had a solid contain. You should have sat back and macro'd and tech'd up. But that miniscule decision pales in comparison to your lack of macro. Remember to macro! You even had your nexuses hotkey'd: make probes! And the "W" key lets you select your warp gates...build units!!! And you had probes hotkey'd too...make unit producing structures and tech!!!
For the lost temple replay, I don't know what exactly was happening there. You did a 3 stalker poke after the 6 minute mark, and didn't support your void rays with stalkers. If you aren't going to attack really, really quickly with those stalkers, don't open with the quick 2-gate opening. Keep making units for gods sake! (MACRO!!!!) And make sure that when you slow tech, or cut probes, to do something like a 2-gate opening, that you make sure you do it for a specific reason: namely, get that quick harass on.
So, you don't make unit producing or tech buildings even when you have the resources; you don't make units when you have the resources; and you don't make probes when you are busy elsewhere. You were slow to put probes on gas, etc etc... so all I have to say is be diligent about your macro. I thought you were situated to win the Xel'Naga game because of your huge economic advantage, and situated to win the lost temple game since you had void rays while he had only a couple of marines...but you didn't follow it up with good enough macro. Keep playing, it'll come to ya
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As mid-high gold this strat is very effective. Although after training my macro with zerg Ive mostly used the void rays, as you would harass with mutas, from the back while my zeal / stalker army hits the front. Trying to hurt his eco more than his army. Works pretty nice, some players straight up leave when they see the void rays comming out, other have tried to base-race. Power to the rays! :-)
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I've been using this build a lot (i was doing a variant of it myself until I came across this thread and went ah-hah). It works really well, even in diamond. The main issues are bunkers (or them simply not walling off or long rush distances.
But even in the latter two cases if they bunker up you can just poke and harass long enough to get an expo up. Usually if the terran is competent, I find them expanding while I do, and putting up a starport to get some vikings.
Another terran variant is they decide to stay on one base get 3-4 vikings and push out with a big mm blob. If you don't scout it you're susceptible to a pretty nasty timing attack before you can get extra gates pumping following your expansion.
This build is far from a panacea but it's a great weapon to have in your arsenal to put some pressure on terrans and to take the initiative. Something that is quite hard in this mu from the 5-10 minute window.
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I'm gonna try this when I get home from work. Thanks for the great guide.
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EPT
