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I saw this on catz stream last night so if anyone was watching maybe you saw the game, I can't remember who he was playing against but it was on lost temple. Basically the protoss cannon'ed up and open with normal phoenix harass only he kept massing more and more of them until he had 15-20, catz went hydras and threw down a few spore crawlers to try and shut down the harass and then tried to go offensive but the crazy thing was while hydras normally melt phoenix he had so many of them he was able to lift the majority of hydras and then melt the rest with a single colossus. The protoss kept expanding up to I think 4 bases all defending with tons of canons and I am pretty sure he never made anything other than these three units (maybe some defensive sentries in the early game, can't remember).
By the time catz had corruptors out he wan't able to get enough to deal with the phoenix numbers + void rays while the protoss was using the superior mobility (death ball that is basically pure air with the cliff walk ability) to shut down expansions.
So I'm curious if people are seeing this on the ladder and what the possible ways to deal with it are. The unit comp seems unapproachable in the late game, so it seems like a case of "don't let him get there", I could be wrong and perhaps the right mix of mutas to deal with the void rays and corruptors to deal with the phoenix would work though it feels like this would require a superior economy which would not be possible with the phoenix harass. So, what about ways to shut it down early?
1. Roach rush to punish the FE, viable on some maps but not really on LT, still pretty risky on other maps.
2. Well timed nydus attack, probably needs to hit before colossus are out, and would require enough hydras to deal with graviton beam, perhaps a hydra/infestor nydus attack though I have a hard time imagining how to get all that before colossus.
3. Hydra/infestor timing attack, before colossus. Seems like it would be more doable to hit with the before colossus. With good micro fungal + hydra can completely shut down the phoenix life, but I don't believe it is viable to try and fungal once colossus with range upgrade are in the mix.
Thoughts or experience with this build?
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Sounds sick.
Although I've never done this kind of strat, I would assume nydus would be the way to go, multiple nyduses at once, split up his army, end up owning one of his mineral lines eventually. And I would ASSUME hydra/infestor timing would work even after collo. Just come in from the back, neural parasite voids and collo, fungal phoenix, etc etc. Manually attack the collo with your hydras even when they're neural parasited. My solution sounds funky, but thats the only thing i can actually imagine beating this unit composition in a straight up fight besides like 80 corruptors lol.
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The player CatZ was facing is named PiQLiQ. The game seemed very one-sided. Perhaps CatZ should've switched to mass Corruptors earlier?
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Sounds like a variation of the build GuineaPig did in the GSL. Cannon turtle -> mass air with a few collosus. Very stoppable with straight corrupter play.
E: Might want to change your thread title to PvZ.
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Yeah sorry I fucked up the thread title, hopefully a mod will change it soon.
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Yea I think the answer is more corrupters, with air upgrades, and only if you let him get all that tech out.
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On February 15 2011 00:38 Rakanishu2 wrote:
Yea I think the answer is more corrupters, with air upgrades, and only if you let him get all that tech out.
It sounds like you haven't actually tried it? Just theorizing here, but how are you going to deal with the phoenix harass early on? I don't think you will have corruptors in time, you would have to go heavier on spore crawler and/or queens, which will further reduce your corruptor count later on, though maybe not by as much as if you go hydra first.
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I do not think that spore crawlers or queens should further reduce your corruptor count. Usually you are limited by gas in that case, not by minerals. (Assuming that you do not need that much of an army besides those corruptors, considering you face Phoenix+Colossus+Voidray)
Getting some more queens early on should really help you against phoenix harass. For a mere 150, their anti-air attack is really useful.
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On February 15 2011 00:55 Treemonkeys wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2011 00:38 Rakanishu2 wrote:
Yea I think the answer is more corrupters, with air upgrades, and only if you let him get all that tech out. It sounds like you haven't actually tried it? Just theorizing here, but how are you going to deal with the phoenix harass early on? I don't think you will have corruptors in time, you would have to go heavier on spore crawler and/or queens, which will further reduce your corruptor count later on, though maybe not by as much as if you go hydra first.
More spores/queens wouldn't limit your corrupter count at all. Just mineral units. If you were doing something like ling/muta, it shouldn't be difficult at all to make queen/corrupter instead. If you skipped out on a spire completely vs protoss, then that's why you lost anyway.
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Most protoss just make a small amount of phoenix; hydra/spore can deal with that.
But if you go hydra/spore and you see he keeps making phoenix, then you need to add infestors. hydras outrange graviton beam, so one good FG and all of his phoenix are dead.
But you need corruptors for a large air army, so I would say hydra/spore to get 3rd up, then add in 1-3 infestors -> go for corruptors.
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I think the most appropriate response from the Zerg player would be to steadily pump queens and roaches while going straight to spire, defending, and just expanding everywhere.
Playing vs Phoenix builds is just like playing vs pure voidray colo... You have to really overkill it with the corruptors, and then rely on your next wave of units to do the rest.
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I do it all the time, people that say hydras "counter" phoenices are out of their mind. Hydras are okay against phoenices and the reverse. It depends on your graviton beam micro of course but hydras still count as light. If they get a lot of hydras, I just get more phoenices, especially when they come to attack you with their roach/hydra army and the hydras don't aggro on the phoenices.
Also, because of the lifting mechanic, phoenices automatically focus-fire all their firepower on the units lifted so you can swiftly take them down one at at time instead of spreading your fire and not reducing your dps.
The answer to phoenices is still fungal growth or corruptor/muta in my opinion. Just getting hydralisks is what the protoss want as he's making colossi and as long as you don't have a lot more hydras than he has phoenices he can easily pick them off.
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On February 15 2011 01:29 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote:
I do it all the time, people that say hydras "counter" phoenices are out of their mind. Hydras are okay against phoenices and the reverse. It depends on your graviton beam micro of course but hydras still count as light. If they get a lot of hydras, I just get more phoenices, especially when they come to attack you with their roach/hydra army and the hydras don't aggro on the phoenices.
This is true but only in relatively equal numbers. The problem with phoenixes in most cases is that the zerg player can straight up out mass you most of the time. Against a phoenix/collo build, hyrdas are a bad idea. Corrupters fill the same role and are far more tanky (and only have to worry about voids).
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Zenith just did this strategy on the stream, but he went for more voidray first when the Zerg saw that he scouted quickly his first VR + phoenix.
The zerg won by having enough queen + spores to withstand the phoenixes + VRs, teched to spire, got a tons of corruptors (15+), and rolled the VRs Phoenix Colossi.
Right now, scouting and seeing it coming by adding queens + spores in order to not be overwhelmed by the air, while getting spire and still having map control with zerglings, seems the way to go.
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I actually played against someone who used a similar build yesterday. Granted they weren't as good as PiQLiQ and I'm not CatZ but I used Hydra/Queen/Spore to defend my expansions early. Later in the game I scouted their tech and when I realized all I needed was anti air I maxed out the rest of the way on Corruptors. I was on 4 base by then and I lost my first army after dealing a good amount of damage and rallied out another round of Corruptors to finish off his army and the rest of my stockpiled larvae became Speedlings to take out the expos. That's the closest thing I've run into and how I handled it.
Edit: And it seems that as I was posting this Maggeus beat me to the punch with his similar response lol. At least I know I was on the right track ;-)
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On February 15 2011 01:29 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote:
I do it all the time, people that say hydras "counter" phoenices are out of their mind. Hydras are okay against phoenices and the reverse. It depends on your graviton beam micro of course but hydras still count as light. If they get a lot of hydras, I just get more phoenices, especially when they come to attack you with their roach/hydra army and the hydras don't aggro on the phoenices.
Also, because of the lifting mechanic, phoenices automatically focus-fire all their firepower on the units lifted so you can swiftly take them down one at at time instead of spreading your fire and not reducing your dps.
The answer to phoenices is still fungal growth or corruptor/muta in my opinion. Just getting hydralisks is what the protoss want as he's making colossi and as long as you don't have a lot more hydras than he has phoenices he can easily pick them off.
out in the open they are more or less equal, but on-creep with spore + queen nearby hydra > phoenix for sure, just a few hydras near each hatch is more than enough to deter phoenix harass long enough to get corruptors out.
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THe answer is just hydra into corruptor focussing on corruptors mostly. Hydra's are a shitty unit mostly and shouldn't be massed too much, corruptors are actually fine against any protoss air as unlike most who never checked it say corruptors actually fare 'ok' against voids.
Just mass a shitload of corruptors and get an armor upgrade on them and they will demolish the composition. If he is really loading up on the phoenix you are better off simply stopping with hydra at all as they will only provide a juicy target for the phoenix, corruptors take hardly any damage from phoenix and neither do roaches.
Hydra's are only good to stop the initial harass and to threaten or do a quick counterpush (nestea style). Massing them for a long time in PvZ simply sucks. Imo it is the most made mistake in sc2, zergs make way too many hydra's agianst P. Pure roach is simply better 9 out of 10 times.
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Fungal growth + queens or hydras punishes phoenix horribly, due to the limited range of phoenix. Problem is, once a Protoss gets a decent death ball of VRs + Collossi, its very difficult to beat in a head to head fight. Once the protoss reaches this stage, abuse the fact that splitting this army is NOT an option for them, and attack multiple locations. Nydus worms are ideal as they can successfully retreat your army. Punish his production and economy, then start grinding down the death ball.
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Whenever I encounter heavy Phoenix play(2 star off 2 base, or 1 star off 1 base), I just make 3 spores(1 at both mineral lines and 1 at rally) and make 3-4 Queens to deal with the early Phoenixes, then I mass Hydras and drones. While fighting off the harrass, I build up my Queen and Hydra numbers and after I have some, I research Overlord speed. Then I make a creep highway to their natural with overlords and attack with all the 20-30 Hydras and like 3-6 Queens. Queens are great vs the single colo that they're going to have at most, and if they have none they just die. He can try to kill the ovs but I don't think he can since he needs to defend.
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I've faced similar (2.8k masters zerg) and I can safely say hydras are not the anwser. A fast spire doesn't help much either. You need more then a few queens, and then you need to transition into heavy corrupters. Otherwise you will simply fall behind in economy and army.
Nice to see Piqliq coming out with more interesting builds
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if he truly only really made collo/phoenix/void rays i feel like a spore crawler/ling push could do decently...
....it would also be hilarious
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On February 15 2011 03:59 ishboh wrote:
if he truly only really made collo/phoenix/void rays i feel like a spore crawler/ling push could do decently...
....it would also be hilarious
Haha I don't know if this is viable but it would be hilarious to see!
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pheonix/vr/collosus combos are definetly starting to become more common. Hydras are definetly not the correct response to phoenixes anymore. In fact id say you shouldnt even get a hydra den if u see phenoixes but instead get a spire and corruptors out as soon as possible. Roaches alone should be enough to deal with the gateway units.
Reaching a max army of pheonixes/vr/collosus takes a really long time and chances are the protoss will be lacking in one type of unit so you can just adjust accordingly. But ya i think the endgame composition to fight this is corruptors/roaches/broodlords. But to be honest if you let the protoss reach late game with that combo its pretty hard to win.
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On February 15 2011 03:59 ishboh wrote:
if he truly only really made collo/phoenix/void rays i feel like a spore crawler/ling push could do decently...
....it would also be hilarious
How are you going to break through canons with colossus behind them? One colossus per sim-citied expo would kill an almost infinite number of lings.
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On February 15 2011 04:30 tmzu wrote:
pheonix/vr/collosus combos are definetly starting to become more common. Hydras are definetly not the correct response to phoenixes anymore. In fact id say you shouldnt even get a hydra den if u see phenoixes but instead get a spire and corruptors out as soon as possible. Roaches alone should be enough to deal with the gateway units.
Reaching a max army of pheonixes/vr/collosus takes a really long time and chances are the protoss will be lacking in one type of unit so you can just adjust accordingly. But ya i think the endgame composition to fight this is corruptors/roaches/broodlords. But to be honest if you let the protoss reach late game with that combo its pretty hard to win.
This makes the most sense to me, hydras are basically a waste of income that could otherwise have been more corruptors, which catz never had enough of. I curious if you did this though, how would toss be able to punish you for having basically no ground army. If he was able to hide ~6 gate ways for a minute or two it could prove to be a deadly tech switch.
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Well if you're going to mass corrupters (which I believe is the best reaction to this) you lack any kind of finisher. Broods are the most logical transition, and collo/void/phoenix production isn't going to leave any gas open for more tech.
The chance for a mass backtech to warpgates is possible, but would lack blink or charge or ups or anything that makes gateway units viable lategame.
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On February 15 2011 01:36 Offhand wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2011 01:29 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote:
I do it all the time, people that say hydras "counter" phoenices are out of their mind. Hydras are okay against phoenices and the reverse. It depends on your graviton beam micro of course but hydras still count as light. If they get a lot of hydras, I just get more phoenices, especially when they come to attack you with their roach/hydra army and the hydras don't aggro on the phoenices.
This is true but only in relatively equal numbers. The problem with phoenixes in most cases is that the zerg player can straight up out mass you most of the time. Against a phoenix/collo build, hyrdas are a bad idea. Corrupters fill the same role and are far more tanky (and only have to worry about voids). Well, if you overcommit he's already won, if he can force you to make so many hydras while he can scout just how many you have ...
Hydras are good, but also easily counterable.
On February 15 2011 02:15 BlasiuS wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2011 01:29 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote:
I do it all the time, people that say hydras "counter" phoenices are out of their mind. Hydras are okay against phoenices and the reverse. It depends on your graviton beam micro of course but hydras still count as light. If they get a lot of hydras, I just get more phoenices, especially when they come to attack you with their roach/hydra army and the hydras don't aggro on the phoenices.
Also, because of the lifting mechanic, phoenices automatically focus-fire all their firepower on the units lifted so you can swiftly take them down one at at time instead of spreading your fire and not reducing your dps.
The answer to phoenices is still fungal growth or corruptor/muta in my opinion. Just getting hydralisks is what the protoss want as he's making colossi and as long as you don't have a lot more hydras than he has phoenices he can easily pick them off. out in the open they are more or less equal, but on-creep with spore + queen nearby hydra > phoenix for sure, just a few hydras near each hatch is more than enough to deter phoenix harass long enough to get corruptors out. Creep makes no real difference in a fight between them, creep is for the hydras to reach them.
The point is that you will have to invest more money in hydras than he in phoenices to stop the harass, which is what makes the strategy so powerful, because while he harasses he can scout what you have and prepare diligently. Also, a good protoss player will use them in his main army later on, the phoenix really has a sick dps for cost versus light units.
It also depends if you face one of those people who just makes 4 and keeps it at that or one of those turds like me who will literally get 30+ of them and will happily trade 5-10 of them just to lift every drone at an expansion.
I loved that TLO game where he just threw down 3 starports and suddenly got there with 9 of them and eventually got like 24 of them, I think it was against MorroW, there was basically nothing he could do, he kept losing drone after drone.
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On February 15 2011 05:51 Offhand wrote:
Well if you're going to mass corrupters (which I believe is the best reaction to this) you lack any kind of finisher. Broods are the most logical transition, and collo/void/phoenix production isn't going to leave any gas open for more tech.
The chance for a mass backtech to warpgates is possible, but would lack blink or charge or ups or anything that makes gateway units viable lategame.
Gateway units viable lategame is also assuming that zerg is upgrading a ground army too, I think a un-upgraded gateway army is going to be pretty viable against a zerg who is going pure corruptor, gas restrictions also kind of go out the window when you are on 3-4 base. Blink might be needed to shut down the transition to brood lord, but it is very cheap this late in the game, and protoss also has phoenix to help with that as well. I think it would all depend on what happens to the phoenix/void ray numbers vs. the corruptor numbers.
Tech switches make the game more fun and interesting IMO, I'm really anxious to see this play out if it become more popular.
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i can tell you as protoss the counter,
1) scout stargate early
2) get more queens asap
optional 3) get 1 spore for each mineral (depending on the map, queen count)
if you can effectivly deny the first harass you already win the game.
Phoenix as mutas need to deal damage to pay for them selfs, cause they suck.
(phoenix are more expensiv than mutas (150/100), with less harassing capability!)
stargate does a huge cut in ground army
i.e.
1 Stargate +4 phoenix = 150/150 + 4*150/100 = 750/550 less in ground army.
while 4 phoenix in the optimal case can do 4 kills every 88s, thats crap dmg output as far as i see.
if you can keep your Queens and Overlords save.
thats why lifting queens in most cases is the first priority.
remember that those lifts need to be ready for counter pushes, so he shouldn't waste lifts too much on harassing economy.
also Phoenix based army means actual free expansions, gain imho economy faster then phoenix can deal economy damage.
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On February 15 2011 06:37 freetgy wrote:
i can tell you as protoss the counter,
1) scout stargate early
2) get more queens asap
optional 3) get 1 spore for each mineral (depending on the map, queen count)
if you can effectivly deny the first harass you already win the game.
Phoenix as mutas need to deal damage to pay for them selfs.
stargate does a huge cut in ground army, and you should be able to counter push easily with superior economy.
This would force zerg into a hydra timing push, you don't want to attack canons backed up by phoenix without anti air, and is literally shut down complete once toss has one colossus. Sounds doable but you have a small window to scout that stargate before the harass starts.
Ultimately you can't count on scouting everything early so you need a gameplan to play more reactively.
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On February 15 2011 06:00 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2011 02:15 BlasiuS wrote:On February 15 2011 01:29 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote:
I do it all the time, people that say hydras "counter" phoenices are out of their mind. Hydras are okay against phoenices and the reverse. It depends on your graviton beam micro of course but hydras still count as light. If they get a lot of hydras, I just get more phoenices, especially when they come to attack you with their roach/hydra army and the hydras don't aggro on the phoenices.
Also, because of the lifting mechanic, phoenices automatically focus-fire all their firepower on the units lifted so you can swiftly take them down one at at time instead of spreading your fire and not reducing your dps.
The answer to phoenices is still fungal growth or corruptor/muta in my opinion. Just getting hydralisks is what the protoss want as he's making colossi and as long as you don't have a lot more hydras than he has phoenices he can easily pick them off. out in the open they are more or less equal, but on-creep with spore + queen nearby hydra > phoenix for sure, just a few hydras near each hatch is more than enough to deter phoenix harass long enough to get corruptors out. Creep makes no real difference in a fight between them, creep is for the hydras to reach them.
when you're running hydras back and forth between 3 bases to defend against phoenix, creep makes all the difference. Without creep you'd have to have enough hydras to defend all 3 bases at once, that's way too many hydras. That's part of the reason why hydras can defend phoenix cost-efficiently.
On February 15 2011 01:29 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote:
The point is that you will have to invest more money in hydras than he in phoenices to stop the harass
no you don't, hydras cost half the gas of a phoenix. a few hydras + queen + a spore at each base costs less gas than 5-6 phoenix.
On February 15 2011 01:29 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote:
which is what makes the strategy so powerful, because while he harasses he can scout what you have and prepare diligently. Also, a good protoss player will use them in his main army later on, the phoenix really has a sick dps for cost versus light units.
It also depends if you face one of those people who just makes 4 and keeps it at that or one of those turds like me who will literally get 30+ of them and will happily trade 5-10 of them just to lift every drone at an expansion.
"later on" zerg will have 3rd up and spire completed, at which point zerg will have corruptors to fight the phoenixes. Remember you're only making the minimum number of hydras to defend your 3 bases while you drone up your 3rd. After that it's corruptors.
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On February 15 2011 06:42 Treemonkeys wrote:
This would force zerg into a hydra timing push, you don't want to attack canons backed up by phoenix without anti air, and is literally shut down complete once toss has one colossus. Sounds doable but you have a small window to scout that stargate before the harass starts.
Ultimately you can't count on scouting everything early so you need a gameplan to play more reactively.
true but that timing push works, cause you have alot more ground army, i wouldn't be even to much concerned about Phoenix, a P can never outproduce Z to lift you for ever, while you can outproduce him, it doesn't even has to be a hydra counter push imho. roaches are alot better since they don't die that quickly to either Phoenixes or Colossus.
(they are alot harder to kill with phoenixes, so lifting only delays the inevitable)
Phoenix as mutas are great to contain a scared player.
but as the counter to mutas is 5 Gate pressure the same can be said to Z.
Though this forces of course a more aggressiv gameplay Zerg need to realize how much phoenixes actually cut into their ground army/sentry count.
i mean how does Z play against fast mutas? (sure it is alittle different cause mutas actually can shoot ground)
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On February 15 2011 06:46 BlasiuS wrote:
"later on" zerg will have 3rd up and spire completed, at which point zerg will have corruptors to fight the phoenixes. Remember you're only making the minimum number of hydras to defend your 3 bases while you drone up your 3rd. After that it's corruptors.
Wish I could post the replay, but this is basically what catz did. With constant phoenix production, the usual "minimum number" of hydras doesn't cut it, with enough phoenix toss is still able to zoom in and kill a queen or a few hydras and take minimal losses, abusing the fact the zerg needs hydras at three places to defend against a faster air unit. By the time corruptors were out, it was really too late.
This wasn't phoenix harass that I had seen before, I couldn't see exactly what the toss was doing but it looked like constant phoenix production switched to void ray when corruptors show up.
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Against phoenix harass you actually can't defend multiple bases with hydra's by splitting them up til you have a large number. Until you get somewhere around 6-7 hydra, phoenix are actually better against hydra's than hydra are against phoenix.
I played this style and I think the key is to mass corruptor/mutalisk. You also NEED to be 2-3 gas ahead because otherwise you can't remax on what you need to clean up. The goal is to kill the very expensive colossus and voidrays and then remax and clean up what's left.
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On February 15 2011 06:55 Treemonkeys wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2011 06:46 BlasiuS wrote:
"later on" zerg will have 3rd up and spire completed, at which point zerg will have corruptors to fight the phoenixes. Remember you're only making the minimum number of hydras to defend your 3 bases while you drone up your 3rd. After that it's corruptors.
Wish I could post the replay, but this is basically what catz did. With constant phoenix production, the usual "minimum number" of hydras doesn't cut it, with enough phoenix toss is still able to zoom in and kill a queen or a few hydras and take minimal losses, abusing the fact the zerg needs hydras at three places to defend against a faster air unit. By the time corruptors were out, it was really too late. This wasn't phoenix harass that I had seen before, I couldn't see exactly what the toss was doing but it looked like constant phoenix production switched to void ray when corruptors show up.
which brings us back full-circle to my original post:
On February 15 2011 01:28 BlasiuS wrote:
But if you go hydra/spore and you see he keeps making phoenix, then you need to add infestors. hydras outrange graviton beam, so one good FG and all of his phoenix are dead.
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On February 15 2011 06:46 BlasiuS wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2011 06:00 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote:On February 15 2011 02:15 BlasiuS wrote:On February 15 2011 01:29 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote:
I do it all the time, people that say hydras "counter" phoenices are out of their mind. Hydras are okay against phoenices and the reverse. It depends on your graviton beam micro of course but hydras still count as light. If they get a lot of hydras, I just get more phoenices, especially when they come to attack you with their roach/hydra army and the hydras don't aggro on the phoenices.
Also, because of the lifting mechanic, phoenices automatically focus-fire all their firepower on the units lifted so you can swiftly take them down one at at time instead of spreading your fire and not reducing your dps.
The answer to phoenices is still fungal growth or corruptor/muta in my opinion. Just getting hydralisks is what the protoss want as he's making colossi and as long as you don't have a lot more hydras than he has phoenices he can easily pick them off. out in the open they are more or less equal, but on-creep with spore + queen nearby hydra > phoenix for sure, just a few hydras near each hatch is more than enough to deter phoenix harass long enough to get corruptors out. Creep makes no real difference in a fight between them, creep is for the hydras to reach them. when you're running hydras back and forth between 3 bases to defend against phoenix, creep makes all the difference. Without creep you'd have to have enough hydras to defend all 3 bases at once, that's way too many hydras. That's part of the reason why hydras can defend phoenix cost-efficiently. Great, and that was not the point. The point was that hydras and phoenices are more or less the same in a straight up fight.
Show nested quote +On February 15 2011 01:29 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote:
The point is that you will have to invest more money in hydras than he in phoenices to stop the harass
no you don't, hydras cost half the gas of a phoenix. a few hydras + queen + a spore at each base costs less gas than 5-6 phoenix.
Even on creep, the speed of hydralisks is pathetic compared to that of the phoenix, which also of course travels by air.
Also, if you pit 6 hydras, a queen and a spore against 6 phoenices the phoenices will simply position themselves in a place the spore can't reach it and win the fight, simple as that.
"later on" zerg will have your 3rd up and spire completed, at which point zerg will have corruptors to fight the phoenixes. Remember you're only making the minimum number of hydras to defend your 3 bases while you drone up your 3rd. After that it's corruptors.
Depending on the map, you will put more gas (and certainly more minerals) in hydras to effectively defend three bases from phoenices, you have to keep them spread, running them around along your bases won't cut it.
Corruptors are obviously a better choice as they're faster than hydras and travel by air..
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On February 15 2011 01:28 MrBitter wrote:
I think the most appropriate response from the Zerg player would be to steadily pump queens and roaches while going straight to spire, defending, and just expanding everywhere.
Playing vs Phoenix builds is just like playing vs pure voidray colo... You have to really overkill it with the corruptors, and then rely on your next wave of units to do the rest.
That definitely makes sense, except maybe the expanding everywhere. The phoenix harass is so strong that even 3 bases are difficult to defend. When phoenixes reach a critical mass, they can kill queens really fast and 2 or 3 spore colonies do only shield damage before switching target...
At the end of the game against PiqLiq, Catz said that queens wouldn't work. And Catz should know what he is talking about: he has tried queens, and have seen the forge FE + phoenix build many times. (First time I saw it on his stream was against ppgbubles the day after the patch).
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On February 15 2011 06:50 freetgy wrote:
Phoenix as mutas are great to contain a scared player.
but as the counter to mutas is 5 Gate pressure the same can be said to Z.
Though this forces of course a more aggressiv gameplay Zerg need to realize how much phoenixes actually cut into their ground army/sentry count.
Well... you see... Catz is one of the most aggressive Zerg. In the game the OP is talking about, he did attack as soon as he got enough hydra to move out, and he wasn't able to break into the huge amount of cannons (not to mention what happened when the colossus arrived...).
Roaches are picked up by phoenixes. And lings are awfull against a full wall with a ton of canons.
So yes applying pressure is a great idea, but how exactly do you do it ???
What is the timing window ?
The 6 gates counter muta, by attacking before the muta gets into play.
You can not counter the phoenix by attacking before the phoenix gets into play, because before getting phoenix the protoss is spamming cannons which is the best early defense of the game.
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Well i as Zerg would just get more queens in general (2-3) , thus not scouting stargate isn't even an issue and deflect the attack, the timing comes after the attack.
don't underestimate the strengh of phoenix against hydras using hydras to push is BAD:
hydra = light no armor (take 20 dmg per attack) = 80 hp = 4 shots (actually 5 since hydra heals +1hp in the time the attacks accur 8D)
roach = armored with +1 armo = 145 (take 8 dmg per attack) = 18 Shots
roaches cheaper than hydras just mass roaches and go in 
hydras are a bad response against unscouted Phoenixes:
4-5 phoenixes deal with almost no loses against 4-5 hydras.
i can tell you this works, keep baiting forcefields with lings! and then push with an army.
1 basing protoss can't sustain phoenix/air production when he needs sentrys to survive.
you don't need your ground army in your base when he has air be aggressiv
realize that expense on the stargate/phoenix of 750/550 should have been:
5 Zealots/5 Sentys instead = 20 supply
4 phoenix = 8 supply
thats alot army lack on ground, which never will be maid up by phoenix in straight fight.
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On February 15 2011 07:20 Elean wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2011 06:50 freetgy wrote:
Phoenix as mutas are great to contain a scared player.
but as the counter to mutas is 5 Gate pressure the same can be said to Z.
Though this forces of course a more aggressiv gameplay Zerg need to realize how much phoenixes actually cut into their ground army/sentry count.
Well... you see... Catz is one of the most aggressive Zerg. In the game the OP is talking about, he did attack as soon as he got enough hydra to move out, and he wasn't able to break into the huge amount of cannons (not to mention what happened when the colossus arrived...). Roaches are picked up by phoenixes. And lings are awfull against a full wall with a ton of canons. So yes applying pressure is a great idea, but how exactly do you do it ??? What is the timing window ? The 6 gates counter muta, by attacking before the muta gets into play. You can not counter the phoenix by attacking before the phoenix gets into play, because before getting phoenix the protoss is spamming cannons which is the best early defense of the game.
Yes and the 6 gate vs. muta works because muta takes a while to tech to and build up a critical mass, phoenix harass on the other hand can be very fast and usually shows up towards the end of when zerg wants to build up econ, so zerg can't really do a timing push before the harass starts without going all in. I still don't believe roaches would be viable (outside of an earlier all in) but I would like to try it or see someone try it, the armor is almost irrelevant because toss only needs to lift the roaches while the canons deal damage and delay for the fist colossus.
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When should you become aggressive against that kind of play?
I dont like seing a toss on 3 bases...
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On February 15 2011 07:27 freetgy wrote:roach = armored with +1 armo = 145 (take 8 dmg per attack) = 18 Shots roaches cheaper than hydras just mass roaches and go in ... i can tell you this works, keep baiting forcefields with lings! and then push with an army. 1 basing protoss can't sustain phoenix/air production when he needs sentrys to survive. ... realize that expense on the stargate/phoenix of 750/550 should have been: 5 Zealots/5 Sentys instead = 20 supply 4 phoenix = 8 supply We are talking about a Forge FE into phoenix build, not a 1 base phoenix which is not nearly as strong.
Baiting forcefield is a good idea, except when you don't see any sentry just a wall full of cannons.
Roaches are good, I guess. The only problem I see is that they die rather quickly to cannons... especially when they are in the air.
Stargate/phoneix sure are an investment. But it forces you to build spore colonies, and queens that also are an investment.
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i don't how a zerg hasn't enough time to react, before Forge FE gets decent number of phoenixes.
Overlords should have free scouting info for a pretty long time if he really canons up. like that.
each canon again is static defense which reduces fight supply alot.
each canon could have been a gateway, producing units.
get queens, spores and macro hard
as protoss, 1 base phoenixes are imho way more "viable" as you can atleast can catch your opponents pants down (not enough queens, no tech, just hard droning, deperately trying to get AA)
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On February 15 2011 07:43 freetgy wrote:
i don't how a zerg hasn't enough time to react, before Forge FE gets decent number of phoenixes.
You are still thinking about 1 base phoenix play.
The forge FE into phoenix isn't a rush relying on making damage before the zerg has time to react.
It makes damage even after the zerg has 10+ hydra, spore colonies, queens...
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when does this hit in your experiance?
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Both players are delayed by a cannon rush, so there is probably no precise timing.
From what I've seen, the first phoenixes comes slightly before the zerg is ready to take his third.
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I have been playing with mass Phoenix/Cannons/DT's. I use the cannons early to get my star gates up then start mass harassing muta style and mass expanding. The Phoenix are too fast for corruptors as long as you dart in and out quick. Phoenix straight own mutas in equal numbers and I just avoided the hydras. I ended up crippling the zergs economy so badly that he couldn't do anything. I focus on killing queens and gas drones then move on, never staying anywhere long enough for his army to catch me. My other targets are overlords and overseers. I made enough cannons that he couldn't ever overcome them. The trick is to have the cannons radiate outwards from the nexus so your tech is protected. The last part of the plan is to make DT's to clean up the abandoned hatcheries and kill off tech...
The last game I played I had the zerg down to his original base, no income, no gas and no tech. All he had unit wise was a butt load of corruptors that he could do nothing with. I was on 3 bases (lost one), 2 of them still mining and more money in the bank than I could spend.
I am not the best player and I have a lot of work to do to perfect my phoenix micro but it felt good to give the zerg a little of the frustration that I have felt a thousand time when they go mass mutas...
Here is a link to the game: How I destroy zerg
Warning though, both me and my opponent are bronze. I know the play is very poor. I still don't have the build well fleshed out and practiced. I am sure the strategy would need massive refinement to work at higher level (if it would work) but its a start...
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EPT
