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I know there have been threads about phoenixes in PvP, but I'd like this thread to be about the specific scouting cues and timings in a phoenix -> immortal opening. I think this more focused topic is deserving of its own thread, but if a mod wants to shut it down, I suppose that's okay too.
My thoughts on the opening:
Phoenixes are strong against robo in the early game. Robo builds have trouble protecting their probes, and in a fight, the phoenixes can pick up immortals, and should the robo player try to tech quickly to ranged collosi, the less tech-expensive phoenix + gateway army wins until several collosi are on the field. Phoenix openings force stalkers, and often, a robo player will switch from collosi tech to get blink. The immortal transition is designed to punish this build-up of stalkers.
This sounds great to me, but I'm having a lot of trouble with the build as I'm trying to iron out timings at ~1500. The big questions I'm having are:
-What BO gets you to phoenixes most safely against 4-gates? 2 gates before stargate seems clear, but do you want to get a zealot before your 2nd assimilator? What ratio do you want between zealots, stalkers and sentries? Phoenix openings are pretty gas-heavy, so you want the second gas early, but getting the second gas before your first zealot reduces your gateway production time slightly. You'd like to skimp on sentries and stalkers, but you obviously need at least one sentry for the ramp FF, and stalkers are good at the choke because they don't take damage from the low ground. If your opponent 4-gates, how do you respond? Cut phoenix production and add gates/robo?
-Against a robo opening, when do you time your own robo? How many phoenixes do you want to produce before starting immortal production?
-Against a robo opening, when do you time your expansion and/or your attack? If he has a support bay, how does that affect these timings? If you see he's adding a twilight council, what impact will that have?
-How should I respond if he ignores the phoenixes and continues building collosi? Do I need to attack early before he has too many? What's the proper way to micro phoenix + gateway vs collosi + gateway?
If any decently high level players have replays or tips (especially replays), I suspect a lot of Protoss players around here would be very much appreciative. We're all sick of 4-gate and robo openings, but everything else seems much more difficult.
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Seems kind of open ended at the moment. Have you tried this out at all?
I'd love to experiment with it since pvp is pretty lame right now with its endless colossus wars.
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Eeeh, you dont need that many stalkers to shut down phoenix, so you punishing them with immortal might not be as effective as you might think.
Plus you run the risk of him saying "Oh you went phoenix, well you are weak, ill forget my robo and just 4 gate push you". Which I think you will have a very hard time stopping.
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It's good that toss players are thinking of new tactics against other toss players. Yeah Im pretty sick of collossus wars too.
IMO, I think you should open with robotic and get your standard gate + imm mix. Then throw down a stargate or 2 for phoenix later so that the timing of his collossus and ur phoenix are on the field around the same time. I would also suggest pick off his gas probes while trying to get ur phoenix to critical mass. Your opponent would probably respond with a more anti air build i.e. stalker sentries and of course collossus. I would suggest to focus on chargelots and immortals. When you are in the main battle, don't go head on, have your charge lots come from behind with charge on the collossus and add the phoenix attack. and finish off the rest of his gateway units later.
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Some P players dont get anything but stalkers in the first 8 minutes of the match, so I wouldn't encourage phoenix openings, because they are so much less effective than a strong gate army.
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I have experimented with phoenix openings in PvP. It seems almost impossible to hold off a well executed 4 gate push with only 2 gateways and a few phoenix. I feel like this would be great if you scouted a robo build or a 3 gate expand, but I can't see it beating a 4 gate without superb control.
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I'm not a Protoss player but generally I'd think Stalkers > Immortals. Sure Immortals do tons of damage to Armored units such as Stalkers, but Stalkers move so much faster, I think with the right micro they'd be able to take on an Immortal ball, especially if they have blink.
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While interesting, I fear I do not understand how this build beats all of the current toss builds. Or any for that matter. Early lot pressure (60% of games) would kill you outright. A 4 gate push, would also kill you. Immortal timing pushes would kill you. Basically anything but Due to the unfortunate nature of PvP having hands down the least room for difference between your army and your opponents army without you losing, creativity is killed. Its practically impossible to take an expansion in PvP let alone build a stargate. I truly wish this could work, it would make pvp more interesting, but I just dont see it.
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Phoenix openings look especially complicated. For some reps I suppose mainly look at socke.
http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=147465
http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=147476
One of the above should be 1gate-1star-1robo and the other should be 2gate/robo-1star so it shows both extremes. 2gate-1star-1robo and 1gate-1robo-1star would be the the middle builds. If you 2gate opening probably don't get wg...2wg+robo+star is too much on 1base. Actually that is probably a suggestion to not get wg at all with this style until later...1wg is around production of 2gate, 50/50 is basically the cost of a gateway but takes forever without cb. Though opponent being able to scout fast 2gas and no wg kinda sucks.
Generally, faster you get stargate the less safe it is vs 4gate I suppose...so start off with 2gate/robo-star and see how that goes.
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I generally do a heavy econ build with tech straight into charge it works pretty well against it. Socke used it on me game 2 in our bo3 during the vt gaming tour, didn't work so well, i lost the other games to standard play but this game I did something different to make the game get into a longer game.
The thing about phoenix's and getting the robo is that you're unable to do any sort of push if your opponent spots it and FEs.
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-155815.jpg)
edit: if it gets unspotted its really difficult to beat, people make too many stalkers since they fear the phoenix. I generally do not like getting a robo against stargate since by the time you get collosus the phoenix count is pretty high, and also cause immortals can get picked off by phoenix or lifted during battles. The 2 hits of 5 is really strong against immortal shields, though from experience if someone goes phoenix's I kind of expect immortals nowadays.
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On October 09 2010 03:16 Kaiko wrote:
I'm not a Protoss player but generally I'd think Stalkers > Immortals. Sure Immortals do tons of damage to Armored units such as Stalkers, but Stalkers move so much faster, I think with the right micro they'd be able to take on an Immortal ball, especially if they have blink.
that'd be true if 4 immortals didn't 1 shot a stalker. My normal composition early game while I wait for colossi tech to finish is to go 1 or 2 immortals/zealot/stalker.
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On October 09 2010 03:16 Kaiko wrote:
I'm not a Protoss player but generally I'd think Stalkers > Immortals. Sure Immortals do tons of damage to Armored units such as Stalkers, but Stalkers move so much faster, I think with the right micro they'd be able to take on an Immortal ball, especially if they have blink.
Just to educate you on your future posts. This is what is known as theorycraft. The idea of stalkers using their +1 range over immortals combined with micro to quickly move injured stalkers to the back of the ball while kiting the immortals is (much like the idea or a form of government where everyone is payed equally to perform tasks of varying skill so that all members of the society may enjoy a decent quality of life) is a good(sort of) idea on paper. Unfortunately, you have to test it to see just how terrible it really is.
Keep in mind that an immortal is essentially the cost of two stalkers. So let us account for the long build time of immortals and say 8 immortals vs 20 stalkers. Regardless of the stalkers trying to kite the immortals, the fact remains that the immortals are doing 400 damage per shot to the stalkers cumulatively. While the stalkers are doing 200 damage to the immortals with their hardened shields and 280 if hitting only armor.
Now lets check our cumulative hp's. 8 Immortals is 2400 hp total. 1600heath 800shields.
20 stalkers is 3200hp 1600hp and 1600 shields.
So 400dps on 3200hp is gonna take 8 shots to wipe out all of you stalkers.
250 dps average on 2400hp is gonna take 10 shots to wipe out your immortals.
So only through the assumption that the immortal player micros none and the stalkers player micros with Jaedong like precision could the stalker player ever hope to win this encounter.
This is similar in a way, to how 2 stalkers cannot defend a base from 8 zealots. It does not matter that they can (in theorycraft) kite indefinitely, because the damage output of the zealots so heavily exceeds that of the stalkers, they can afford to send one zealot after the stalkers while the remainind seven destroy the base.
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@bobcat
I agree, but pure mathematics doesn't account for the terrain, running distance and actual positioning of the units.
What I'm saying is that you make it seem like that this kind of encounter is impossible to defeat, but in reality there is a lot of situations and factors that you have to account when it comes to 'microing against odds'. So, depending on your current situation, this could be impossible to fight against, or 'challenging but possible.' I agree about the theorycraft point though.
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after some testing even going 2gate is too hard on production. so 1gate-1robo-1star.
~7:00 6units +2immortal. With ff to block or split ramp should be fine vs majority of stuff. Then by 8min should have 2phoenix. Get 4+ and try to pick off some probes. Then expo/attack if it makes sense. That is how I would play it. kiwikaki rep is good example...you can see how he did not need wg production at all, and with some tweaks its what I describe.
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On October 09 2010 04:36 Knickknack wrote:
after some testing even going 2gate is too hard on production. so 1gate-1robo-1star.
~7:00 6units +2immortal. With ff to block or split ramp should be fine vs majority of stuff. Then by 8min should have 2phoenix. Get 4+ and try to pick off some probes. Then expo/attack if it makes sense. That is how I would play it. kiwikaki rep is good example...you can see how he did not need wg production at all, and with some tweaks its what I describe.
The way to do it is wait until you are finished producing from the stargate to start building immortals. This is my standard build and it has worked very well for me. I always get 2-3 gates to keep macro up while harassing. Many players will immediately push when they see harassment strategies, so keeping gate production up is crucial.
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You are describing the other end of the spectrum with phoenix fast instead of units then phoenix. With many phoenix quick to hold off attacks you would have to rely on just blocking them out, so needs at least 2sentry quick. You can't counterattack with this like slained points out. perhaps trouble vs 3gate blink simply going up your ramp. Still, this is probably just as valid a way to approach it.
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I have been trying to get phoenixes to work for a while, but it's been mostly losses. It's really effective against someone who builds immortals or pushes out with 2 or less colossus, but it's pretty weak against 4 gate and a turtling toss who pushes out with 3+ colossus (or more annoying, some DT push knowing you tech'ed in the direction of stargate vs robo). This is true with or without immortal follow-up. 4 gate will run down 2 gate phoenix immortal and 3+ colossus is just impossible to stop with zealots and immortals and phoenixes.
My current belief is in a BO1 (e.g. ladder game), a PvP phoenix opener is a gamble strat. In a BO3/BO5 series, you can probably incorporate phoenix play with better calculation.
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I tried it for awhile and it's really hard to pull off.
I like to 3 gate with stargate and only commit to pheonix if I see a robo. If there's no robo make void rays, and bunker down with sentries. remember not to wall your choke and you can use sentry/stalker + a void ray (precharge on your cyber core or something) and use FF to cut up the toss while he's comming up the ramp like you would a terran player.
But it's not easy, one slip and you'll lose.
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On October 09 2010 05:03 Knickknack wrote:
You are describing the other end of the spectrum with phoenix fast instead of units then phoenix. With many phoenix quick to hold off attacks you would have to rely on just blocking them out, so needs at least 2sentry quick. You can't counterattack with this like slained points out. perhaps trouble vs 3gate blink simply going up your ramp. Still, this is probably just as valid a way to approach it.
Not necessarily. There still is a ground army being built up as the phoenix are being produced. There really isn't a problem with Blink stalkers, because by the time they have blink and are at your ramp, you will have immortals along with your army. It is slightly susceptible to the 4gate, which is why scouting is important, even then, the phoenix can help greatly with this by lifting up the attacking units, splitting the army up.
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I know the safety of this build with phoenixes is in question against 4 gates and generally aggressive players. Perhaps its possible to transition into this from a voidray opening. The voidray can work by keeping the opponent back while you get your robo operational.
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Anyone have a replay of someone utilizing the 1/1/1 immortal/phoenix against standard collosus builds later in the game? Or is the point of this build to shut them down earlier on if they choose to hard tech?
People say this build rapes it but it seems critical number of collosus + gateway units still would win.
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On October 09 2010 02:54 Champ24 wrote:
Seems kind of open ended at the moment. Have you tried this out at all?
I'd love to experiment with it since pvp is pretty lame right now with its endless colossus wars.
Double immortal warp prism is a strong timing push against 2gate robo, drop the immo's behind the colossus and they kill it in no time
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funkmunk (1850 rated P) was doing this in his replays PvP. I can dig up the replays if you're interested (Lost Temple PvP).
the "ignores and goes colo" you kite the colo crossmap with the phoenix shoot on the run mechanic taking potshots on it's route to your base. And like you thought, it's strength is 1base fast colo and 2-3gate robo EARLY in the game before the colossus/stalker count overwhelms you with the range and anti-air. PM if interested.
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I've been using Phoenix in PvP (1400 Diamond) for the last two weeks or so..
Two gate star has been too hard to defend a good four gate, so when I scout a four gate, I just answer with a 'defensive' four gate, and expo after my 2nd warp Cycle, then if I havnt seen him for awhile I'll go poke around with that army while my expo is going up, and usually throw a stargate down the, then robo once you get your third gas going.
If I see two gate robo, then I 2 gate starport. And usually look to expand fairly soon.. When they see Phoenix, if they:
Build twilight: I build robo and stop Phoenix production
Build robo bay: Take nat and try to always have 6 Phoenix out at all times
Build starport: Havent had this happen.. So I dunno
The way I've found most efficient to micro is use Phoenix like Zerg use Muta, only more abusive.. They are quick and can get behind Colo easily and stay out of range of stalkers.. So just pull main army back (assuming he has lance upgrade) then hes forced to either pull stalkers back to help his colo (You move main army forward) or let his colo take free shots while chasing your army.. If you feel like hes gonna pull back, you can always throw a few FF up and catch stalkers trying to go back to help the colo..
PvP tech is like this in my view..
Twilight > Starport
Starport > Robotics
Robotics > Twlight
4 Gate is just a easy way to not get into a rock paper scissors situation ^^
I'll upload replays later when I get home
P.S. I dont have a 'set' build order for this.. I just kinda wing it, but I do very well in most pvp except where I lose 4 gate 
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I'm interested to see this too (1700+ for whatever that's worth).
Phoenixes do great in the early phases as kcdc says, but when the enemy is using stalker/sentry/colossus in larger amounts, phoenix/immortal runs into the immediate problem that their army is easily abused with forcefields and the superior range of the stalker/colossus army, and that phoenixes are basically inferior versions of vikings that can easily be picked off.
I've played a few practice games with it and have no idea what I'm supposed to do to actually win with it, so I'd love to see some high-level replays.
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You need to flank from the side, or behind with Phoenix.. Of course you'll lose if you run head on.. But thats like trying to run head on into a Terran with tank // ghost.. Dont work no matter how many times you try..
Six take out a colo very quickly.. And like I said earlier, Colo are usually far enough back.. That if you put Phoenix BEHIND them, they will be stalker free.. And if he pulls stalkers back, then just move back some.. They are quicker than stalkers..
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EPT
