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[H] PvT Phoenix & Collossus

Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy
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1 2 Next All
Panoptic
Profile Joined September 2009
United Kingdom515 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-09-28 13:25:38
September 28 2010 13:24 GMT
#1
Wondering if anyone could give any tips on how to deal with predominantly Phoenix & Collosus as Terran.

In this game in particular, I think there are a few things other than unit composition which might have lost me the game, but I'm curious to know what the general approach should be.

I understand that my opponent aggressively out-expanded me and that I should probably have done a better job scouting him. I also let a robo bay survive with 23hp which was a horrendous mistake.

Once I'd noticed that I was up against so many phoenix's I figured I should stop building vikings...is this a good move? Instead I thought I should try to emp the phoenix's...hopefully leaving me with a stronger ground army, and my opponent with a bunch of useless phoenix's. This is what I tried to do...but maybe I just miss micro'ed?

Any tips on my gameplay in general would be appreciated, but anything specific to help counter this build would be extra awesome.

[image loading]

EDIT: Oh and I also searched the forums for any previous topic's on this but had no luck...please redirect me/close the thread if this has already been discussed etc.
"Crom laughs at your four winds!"
mx99
Profile Joined March 2010
Poland23 Posts
September 28 2010 14:03 GMT
#2
What i would try to retake air dominance as terran (from mass phoenix) it would be thor (bonus vs light+splash) or BC - Havy damage decrease from phoenixes. To mix together with vikings.
Thor together with emp shot can quite deadly.
XKaLiBaR
Profile Joined September 2010
England20 Posts
September 28 2010 14:08 GMT
#3
I am sure, you can get more vikings than phoenix's with a reactor. Viking has longer reach aswell.
The Most Complete Player In The World
Panoptic
Profile Joined September 2009
United Kingdom515 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-09-28 14:34:08
September 28 2010 14:16 GMT
#4
Vikings and Phoenix's have pretty much the same build time...he had 2 starports...and he could have chronoed, so unless I wanted to invest in another starport I'm pretty sure he could have made more phoenix than me if not at least kept even.

Aren't vikings useless other than for killing collossi/maybe harrassing a probe line? On the other hand the phoenix's were graviton beaming the crap out of everything. Part of me feels like it would be a fools game to continue trying to win the air battle when vikings have less utility than phoenixs. I wanted to maintain a heavy ground force because collossi are scary when they reach critical mass. I don't want to spend all my time killing phoenix's.

Collossus & Phoenix poses a dilemma...do I make more vikings to counter the phoenix and thus have a smaller army which is vulnerable to collosus or do I make a stronger ground force, try to take out the collosus but then get graviton-beamed by all the remaining phoenix's.

I like the Thor suggestion. Anyone confirm this works against that many phoenix's?
"Crom laughs at your four winds!"
statikg
Profile Joined May 2010
Canada930 Posts
September 28 2010 15:12 GMT
#5
You can't let him have air dominance AND collosus, he will beat you. As well if he is using grav beam then his units arent attacking you, so don't worry about that utility. You won't be able to beat this combo from the ground. He will grav beam your tanks and the collosus/zealots will eat the rest of your army for breakfast.

Throwing in a couple thors will definitely help in the battle for air dominance and be helpful for tanking collosus as well if you can position your infantry behind, but u absolutely MUST retain air dominance because without it you will have a really hard time with collosus
Jayrod
Profile Joined August 2010
1820 Posts
September 28 2010 21:32 GMT
#6
absolute mass marauder and enough marines to deal with the voidrays that come later. I dont see how he could afford phoenix and collossus and still keep enough sentries for your maras to not stim-pwn his collossus, 9 range or not.
Senorcuidado
Profile Joined May 2010
United States700 Posts
September 28 2010 22:22 GMT
#7
I suspect that with such a composition he would have a small gateway army. Thors are so good against phoenixes, as long as high temps don't come out which would be crazy (all three tech trees). My suggestion is marauders and thors and some vikings. Don't give up completely on Vikings, but keep them with the thors. I've only run into this once and it's pretty strong. A raven or two helps for pdd against stalkers but phoenixes eat through it quick with the double lasers. You actually shouldn't need too many thors, their long aa range should keep the phoenixes from engaging the vikings. All in all it'll probably be pretty damn micro intensive, but I can definitely verify from experience that a couple thors brutalize phoenixes.

Battlecruisers would work great but he has the starports to switch into void rays.

That's all mostly theory, though, I'll watch the replay when I get home and see what I can see. No matter what you're probably boned if he outexpands you.
MassAirUnits
Profile Joined April 2010
United States66 Posts
September 28 2010 22:31 GMT
#8
What's wrong with going mostly Vikings in this case? If your Viking army is strong enough to beat his Phoenix army then his Colossi are toast as well.
Fortune favors the bold!
PieShopPwner
Profile Joined June 2010
United States75 Posts
September 28 2010 22:45 GMT
#9
On September 29 2010 07:31 MassAirUnits wrote:
What's wrong with going mostly Vikings in this case? If your Viking army is strong enough to beat his Phoenix army then his Colossi are toast as well.

Ok so what you do with no ground army and I am going to assume not that many Vikings vs a stalker/zealot army?
murkk
Profile Joined September 2010
Canada154 Posts
September 28 2010 22:58 GMT
#10
at 6m you had 9 marines vs 1 stalker and 1 zealot
at 8m you had 15 marines and 1 maurader vs 2 stalkers, 2 zealots and 3 sentries.
at 8m you had 17 marines and 3 mauraders vs 5 stalkers, 2 zealots and 3 sentries
at 11m you had 21 marines, 6 mauarders, 2 medivacs vs 5 stalkers, 2 zealots, 3 sentries, 1 colossus and a pheonix.

You attacked at 16.5m with
34 marines, 17 mauraders, 2 medivacs, 2 vikings against
11 pheonix, 15 zealots, 5 stalkers, 3 sentries, 3 colossus

what were you ghosts doing? You had 3 of them sitting around picking there noses and an EMP or two would have crippled protoss.

Basically, he just forcefielded you, shielded himself, and went to business annihilating your entire army.

You could have actually used your ghosts in the fight
you could have attacked him for the first 11 minutes with easy, wiping out his expansions.
Hakker
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
United States1360 Posts
September 28 2010 22:59 GMT
#11
Uh just use you're 9 range vikings to take out his colossus and phoenixes. Vikings are retardedly good vs all protoss air and colossus.

Vikings are not only cheaper but also beat phoenixes by quite a large margin.
MassAirUnits
Profile Joined April 2010
United States66 Posts
September 28 2010 23:04 GMT
#12
On September 29 2010 07:59 Hakker wrote:
Uh just use you're 9 range vikings to take out his colossus and phoenixes. Vikings are retardedly good vs all protoss air and colossus.

Vikings are not only cheaper but also beat phoenixes by quite a large margin.

Actually Vikings vs. Phoenices probably goes to Phoenices. Vikings can't dance against Phoenices, they have worse vitality and Phoenix dps vs. Vikings is barely worse than Viking dps vs. Phoenices.

On September 29 2010 07:45 PieShopPwner wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 29 2010 07:31 MassAirUnits wrote:
What's wrong with going mostly Vikings in this case? If your Viking army is strong enough to beat his Phoenix army then his Colossi are toast as well.

Ok so what you do with no ground army and I am going to assume not that many Vikings vs a stalker/zealot army?

Wait I thought we're discussing Phoenix + Colossi here. If you wanted an all encompassing solution to Phoenix + Colossi + whatever else the P will use later on I don't think even Terran can do that for you.
Fortune favors the bold!
Kyadytim
Profile Joined March 2009
United States886 Posts
September 28 2010 23:18 GMT
#13
Phoenix vs Viking 1v1 will see the Phoenix surviving with 1 hit needed still to kill it. Note that Phoenixes cost 25% more gas than Vikings. If your opponent is investing in Phoenix and Colossi, you can invest equal resources give or take purely in Vikings, giving you an air force that will dominate his, then clean up the Colossi.
Zecias
Profile Joined September 2010
United States116 Posts
September 28 2010 23:38 GMT
#14
u should have kept going vikings, have them focus fire on the colossus. it doesnt matter if they die because if the colossus dies, yur rines live and rines kill pheonix. also u should have yur rauders in front of yur rines so that they tank for them. if u r fighting colossus yur ratio of rines to rauders should be 1:1-1.5 around 2-3 techs for each reactor.

in general, u should always wall off yur ramp. if toss goes, 2 gate or any kind on 4 gate vs u, u will die if u dont have a walled off base. if zerg goes 6, 7, or 10pool, u will also die. u didn't scout enough. when u killed his nexus it didn't do anything because he had a third unsaturated expansion(something u should have scouted). u didn't scout early in the game either, if u attack him with yur rines, u would have won.
i would not recommend getting thors in anything other than TvZ. they can tank decently well if the toss doesn't have immortals but i would prefer having vikings or a larger mmm ball and kite instead of using thors to tank.
tanks, with or without siege, would have been useful.
Panoptic
Profile Joined September 2009
United Kingdom515 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-09-28 23:50:11
September 28 2010 23:48 GMT
#15
Woah...a big variance on the kinds of advice I'm receiving here.

To Murkk, thanks for going through the effort of noting all that down, I'll bear it in mind, but ultimately those are issues to do with me and not necessarily the match-up and unit composition.
I actually did use the ghosts in the final battle, perhaps my micro was off, but I was just amazed at how badly the EMP worked on the phoenix's. They were all pretty heavily stacked and I thought I'd drain most of their energy...but apparently not...and that should be a good tactic right? disable the phoenix's and what's he gonna do...I should have a bigger ground force to stomp him no?

To those saying vikings...I really just can't imagine that trying to out-viking his phoenix's would have been any good. Like Kyadytim said, phoenix's technically beat them in 1 on 1 (admittedly for more gas cost)...but then at least they can graviton beam. If I go heavy vikings I have to kill off phoenix's then collossi, all whilst getting shot at by stalkers...which my diminished ground army will also have to try and deal with.

I'm feeling like the thor should help the most...splash damage to light...incredible range...and good for tanking collossi.

To Zecias.....are you sure you wanna wall in v toss?

I'm pretty sure the consensus is that you shouldn't.
"Crom laughs at your four winds!"
Leath
Profile Blog Joined July 2006
Canada1724 Posts
September 28 2010 23:57 GMT
#16
Well, the idea would be to make another starport, no?

Seems pretty obvious, since viking aren't so bad vs phoenix and they kill colossus too.
So, if you have air dominance, your opponent won't be able to have a high count colossus.
But yes, once he switches tech, your vikings can't do too much.,,, but they're still useful.
http://www.kongregate.com/?referrer=Sagess
Panoptic
Profile Joined September 2009
United Kingdom515 Posts
September 29 2010 00:11 GMT
#17
On September 29 2010 08:57 Leath wrote:
Well, the idea would be to make another starport, no?

Seems pretty obvious, since viking aren't so bad vs phoenix and they kill colossus too.
So, if you have air dominance, your opponent won't be able to have a high count colossus.
But yes, once he switches tech, your vikings can't do too much.,,, but they're still useful.


Are you sure? Have you actually been up against this build? and massing vikings worked?
"Crom laughs at your four winds!"
MassAirUnits
Profile Joined April 2010
United States66 Posts
September 29 2010 00:14 GMT
#18
On September 29 2010 08:48 Panoptic wrote:
To those saying vikings...I really just can't imagine that trying to out-viking his phoenix's would have been any good. Like Kyadytim said, phoenix's technically beat them in 1 on 1 (admittedly for more gas cost)...but then at least they can graviton beam. If I go heavy vikings I have to kill off phoenix's then collossi, all whilst getting shot at by stalkers...which my diminished ground army will also have to try and deal with.

Well Vikings can land. Vikings are terrible ground units but at least they're bodies that can either provide support fire or absorb damage for your more important units without requiring energy.

On September 29 2010 08:48 Panoptic wrote:
I'm feeling like the thor should help the most...splash damage to light...incredible range...and good for tanking collossi.

Also expensive and easy to outmaneuver =[ Going Thors generally means you plan out ahead for them due to how costly and slow they are, both in movement and in build time.
Fortune favors the bold!
Zecias
Profile Joined September 2010
United States116 Posts
September 29 2010 00:27 GMT
#19
On September 29 2010 08:48 Panoptic wrote:
To Zecias.....are you sure you wanna wall in v toss?

I'm pretty sure the consensus is that you shouldn't.

srry bad wording. u should have 1 supply depot near the ramp, then scout to check for any zealots pushes. i didn't mean a full wall off just have 1 supply depot and scout then check to see if u actually need a full wall.
Infamis
Profile Joined August 2010
Poland13 Posts
September 29 2010 00:46 GMT
#20
high air numbers mean low ground numbers.

Imo just make more mara and steamroll his ground army.
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