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On February 15 2011 09:10 wherebugsgo wrote:
Correction to your post:
Force fields last 15 seconds each, not 30. Thus, two sentries will keep you alive for 30 seconds at most.
What do you do against blink builds? Korean 4 gate all-in?
2 sentries keep you alive for 30 seconds, but your next 2 sentries and warpgate research finish well within that 30 seconds.
Blink builds are troublesome as I have said, but I do provide some details in the post.
The korean 4-gate all in is all about shutting down probes early, but will almost always kill you regardless. The real solution to this lies in the fact that a korean 4-gate is very easy to scout, and responding with a more appropriate build order is ideal. It's the same as with a normal 4-gate vs a korean 4-gate, if you don't change your build order at all he will kill a lot of your probes.
Generally sentries are out early enough to stop probes from entering your base, but the scouting probe causes problems, as does an immediate ramp warp in on his first cycle, I definitely wouldn't bother attempting to rush to phoenixes if you scout a korean 4gate though.
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On February 15 2011 09:19 Legion.217 wrote:
It seems like as long as you stop the initial 5-6 units coming in off his first warp in cycle with a FF, you can easily beat a 4 gate or robo play.
What i found super effective was actually lifting/sniping the zealots/ sentries out of his army. The zeals and sentries die so flippin fast, and it makes your opponent either hold their ground with their stalkers and get beaten on by your zealots, or retreat and lose their zeals/sentries.
Firstly thanks for trying it out. Secondly thanks for the feedback. This is exactly the idea of the build on both counts. If you can hold that intial 1-2 warp in rounds you're golden. Stalkers kill phoenixes really slowely, and he has a choice of either tanking the (much higher) zealot dps, or sacrificing a couple of units.
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On February 15 2011 09:10 wherebugsgo wrote:
Correction to your post:
Force fields last 15 seconds each, not 30. Thus, two sentries will keep you alive for 30 seconds at most.
What do you do against blink builds? Korean 4 gate all-in?
I questioned this as well.
Well, Blink builds seem more manageable. But what about KR 4gates? Sentries are useless vs that. Let me start off by saying that I appreciate the work you put into this build and the effort taken to try and change up the PvP match up. But, I don't think i'm feeling this. I as well have tried 2 gate sg builds with phoenix (not as polished/refined), but 4gate is just the end-all-be-all for it. I don't care about your "two FF's holding the ramp". I can still warp a zealot on the ramp, there's no denial of this. Why do you think robo builds aren't that effective? You even end up with more gas and more sentries but sometimes you just can't hold off a smart 4gate. At least in robo builds it delays for an immortal, which allows you to fully fend off the 4gate. 1-3 rushed phoenix with your sentries and a few gateway units just won't do it like robo builds do, sorry. But I can imagine this working marvelously vs robo openings, as you explained.
4gate gives you more room for mistakes. Despite being able to warp on the ramp, how does it feel to miss a key FF and have to f10 + n immediately afterwards?
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United States313 Posts
I've been using a very similar play in PvP since the build time patch as well, but I want to point out that I at least have been having good success with it (mid masters) as an aggressive build. My opening build is a bit different though, I don't feel that sentry is necessary as it slows down the stargate and I don't really commit to it unless I've seen the 2nd assimilator with my scouting probe anyway. The stalker allows me to delay proxy pylons in case its a 2 gas 4 gate attempt, the delayed pylon + assimilator is usually enough of a setback to really screw a 4 gate up.
I spend the majority of chronoboost on the stargate, moving out with a stalker zealot force as my 3rd phoenix is building. I warp in my own proxy pylon and wait for my 4th phoenix to engage. I lead with phoenix so i can snipe any sentrys, if they FF the ramp its not a big deal because I haven't started moving up it yet. If you can continue producing phoenix and gateway units (you'll actually add on a third gateway a couple waves after you start to engage) you isolate a situation where your phoenix micro is the deciding factor, they can't block their ramp and if they've teched you have an equal or greater gateway army. Only critical decisions to make is knowing what to pick up, and only picking up a unit or two at a time, it is absolutely critical that your phoenix contribute their DPS to the fight or you will not be able to do enough damage quickly enough despite disabling half of their army at a time with 4+ graviton beams.
This attack timing comes just before the first colossus completes in a straight colossus build, the general chaos caused by the phoenix and your army rushing up is usually enough to limit the effectiveness of the colossi. If they went for an immortal first then obviously you just pick up the immortal, its actually amusing how quickly the phoenix kill the 250/150 + robo unit. Blink builds usually have a smaller gateway army size, so unless you micro it horribly these are really not much of an answer against this push either.
I've had a lot of success with this build, but it is quite all in at least as I play it currently, I often cut probes around 24. The games I lose are caused by mistakes in my micro, not in the strategy itself. I'm not sure why this OP goes on to talk about transitions etc, or patrolling with 10 phoenix, but as a timing push the Gateway Stargate Gateway opening has worked quite well for me. If your interested let me know and I'll get some replays up.
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On February 15 2011 09:30 DuckS wrote:
4gate gives you more room for mistakes. Despite being able to warp on the ramp, how does it feel to miss a key FF and have to f10 + n immediately afterwards?
Personally, a hell of a lot better than winning through a 4gate vs 4gate fight. Yes it is frustrating, but the challenge it poses is fun and interesting, 4 gate builds are simply not.
I definitely lose more often than not against a 4gate push, but I almost NEVER lose to robo openings, and if I can hold the ramp against a 4gate (which is usually the case if they haven't gone berserk rushing to 4 gates) I almost always go on to win.
I'm also fully willing to admit that my win percentages are further skewed by the fact that there are a lot of people who are just genuinely disinterested in 4gating, and this build is generally extremely strong against them.
I have constantly stated that I don't believe this build to be superiour to 4gating as a victory strategy in a typical game, but I enjoy losing with this build more than I enjoy winning with a 4gate. I'm not wanting to cause a revolution in PvP, and I don't believe, as the game currently stands, the 4gate mould will be broken. I am wanting this to at least not be an auto-loss against four gates, and I genuinely don't believe it is. So maybe you have to outplay your opponent quite solidly, who cares? that makes winning even more fun.
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On February 15 2011 09:37 TrueRedemption wrote:
but as a timing push the Gateway Stargate Gateway opening has worked quite well for me. If your interested let me know and I'll get some replays up.
replays , would be very appreciated.
i also think anything aggressiv lets you transition into stargate alot easier.
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On February 15 2011 09:37 Methy wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2011 09:30 DuckS wrote:
4gate gives you more room for mistakes. Despite being able to warp on the ramp, how does it feel to miss a key FF and have to f10 + n immediately afterwards? Personally, a hell of a lot better than winning through a 4gate vs 4gate fight. Yes it is frustrating, but the challenge it poses is fun and interesting, 4 gate builds are simply not. I definitely lose more often than not against a 4gate push, but I almost NEVER lose to robo openings, and if I can hold the ramp against a 4gate (which is usually the case if they haven't gone berserk rushing to 4 gates) I almost always go on to win. I'm also fully willing to admit that my win percentages are further skewed by the fact that there are a lot of people who are just genuinely disinterested in 4gating, and this build is generally extremely strong against them. I have constantly stated that I don't believe this build to be superiour to 4gating as a victory strategy in a typical game, but I enjoy losing with this build more than I enjoy winning with a 4gate. I'm not wanting to cause a revolution in PvP, and I don't believe, as the game currently stands, the 4gate mould will be broken. I am wanting this to at least not be an auto-loss against four gates, and I genuinely don't believe it is. So maybe you have to outplay your opponent quite solidly, who cares? that makes winning even more fun.
errrrr..
so you want a strategy that's fun to do, and don't care if you lose?
1 base carrier, mothership rush.
and you kinda sorta avoided the rest of my post.. your main argument seems to be that you just want to challenge yourself and lose. sure, this build is strong vs things that aren't 4gate, doesn't refute anything - 4gate, the popular strat, will still beat it. that's like saying "immortals are strong vs marauders, let's just open with them anywa- OGH GOD BRAT_OK PUSH".
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if you want a challenge and a better chance of winning at the same time try KCDC's opener he posted. Its better vs 4 gate than this and seems worth refining. YOu can transition to phoenix or VR from that defense or collossus or whatever you want.
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I agree that the phoenix is made for PvP, probes can the 2shot, cannons don't do shat against it compared to missile turrets and spores for cost, the only protoss ground unit it can't lift it it can fire directly at. The primary protoss anti air does shit damage against light.
However, in the case of a 4gate, 2 gates don't cut it, you need 3gate stargate I would say. There's also not really a high need for stalkers at all if you go phoenices, if you don't have stalkers there is nothing armoured on the field for his stalkers, if he doesn 't go stalker then everything on the field is light for your phoenices. He can't kite you perpetually anymore if you just go with zealots and sentries because you just lift and take them off. And yeah, he can try to take your zealots off while he does that with kiting but if he doesn't try to fire at your phoenices he'll end up in the nasty situation where you have air and he doesn't have anti air. I also love to mix a void ray in as the defence goes on.
I'm not the best player, but I've seen some pretty cool successes with it myself where I completely stomped a standard protoss army by mainly going zealot/sentry/phoenix and cutting most stalkers. And yeah, he will forcefield you if you don't pick of sentries a lot, so that's a thing you have to be diligent about to make it work.
Splitting my phoenices in two control groups I never thought of, I really have to try this.
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I've played around with this build a little too, i got for a zealot,(warpgate) stalker, stargate, sentry chrono, get next gate. While my stargate is building i try to have enough chrono that i can get 2 off on my stargate otherwise i chrono warpgate. Add on stalkers/sentry/zealot as much as i can, but ususally only 2 or 3 sentries, i often add a third gateway and stop phoenix production at 4 or 5. Use the phoenix to push mineral line and take probes off the minerals, not gas. If you take off gas they build more stalkers due to lack of gas, with less probes on minerals they blindly make sentries....poke around a bit, expand, add on more ground army, keep poking with phoenix to pick up sentries/zealots to thin out army and push in with ground heavy army while transferring probes to expand.
Diamond level. (!2400)
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On February 15 2011 07:36 Methy wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2011 07:32 NB wrote:
to stop a 4 gates, you need 2 FFs at the ramp to stop zealots wrap in, not 1.
this build is really good but the fact that you cannot stop 4 gates with it make it completely useless
I've already addressed this. I'm not denying you will have to deal with a 4gate army at some point, but the crucial thing is the timing. Any delays to a 4gate rush and it becomes significantly weaker, in the large army limit phoenixes turn out to be more effective than straight gateway units (at least in every experience of it I have had), the idea is to stall until you get them out. and bear in mind 4-5 phoenixes are often enough, you must bear in mind that while delaying his push, you can be fly about with phoenixes, and pick off sentries and zealots with ease. Stalkers just don't kill phoenixes quick enough, or move quick enough to ward them off. If his stalkers are surrounding the ramp in an attempt to get vision and snipe something, circle round behind them and pick off a zealot. Pick off the probe building proxy pylons Again, I lose most of my games to simply not holding the ramp, but I'm reaching the point where I'm holding it more often than not against master level players.
If I 4gate against a tech build, I place two pylons directly below their ramp. One touching the ramp and another behind it. One of them will go up.
Against your army composition, both will go up. I will warp 4 zealots into your base and the game is over before the six minute mark.
The build looks fun and reasonable against other tech builds. It could play well vs fast colossus or KCDC's immortal build which both can be light on stalkers. If they don't get units up your ramp with a 4gate, your opponents are doing it wrong.
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Very nice post, I might start trying it on ladder. I'd been toying around with Phoenixes myself using mostly Immortals as my ground army. Phoenixes kill the Zealots/Sentries, Immortals mop up his Stalkers.
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I have been using this build for a long time and liking it a lot.
Also I made a deviation of this build with an all-in IF the guy is going for 3gate robo and getting an immortal, works wonders 
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On February 15 2011 10:30 Ummbeefy wrote:
If they don't get units up your ramp with a 4gate, your opponents are doing it wrong.
It's not about if they get units up your ramp, they will, it's about when and how many they get. That's what ultimately decides the game, and yes they have an advantage on that front, but it is *not* insurmountable.
In anycase I'm heading to bed now, so I won't be able to post for the next 8 or so hours.
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On February 15 2011 09:24 Methy wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2011 09:10 wherebugsgo wrote:
Correction to your post:
Force fields last 15 seconds each, not 30. Thus, two sentries will keep you alive for 30 seconds at most.
What do you do against blink builds? Korean 4 gate all-in? 2 sentries keep you alive for 30 seconds, but your next 2 sentries and warpgate research finish well within that 30 seconds. Blink builds are troublesome as I have said, but I do provide some details in the post. The korean 4-gate all in is all about shutting down probes early, but will almost always kill you regardless. The real solution to this lies in the fact that a korean 4-gate is very easy to scout, and responding with a more appropriate build order is ideal. It's the same as with a normal 4-gate vs a korean 4-gate, if you don't change your build order at all he will kill a lot of your probes. Generally sentries are out early enough to stop probes from entering your base, but the scouting probe causes problems, as does an immediate ramp warp in on his first cycle, I definitely wouldn't bother attempting to rush to phoenixes if you scout a korean 4gate though.
I doubt this is true. From my experience in PvP, you can't generally have any more than 3 sentries out during the time I'm breaking a ramp. Also, the additional time you buy won't help you at all when you run out of forcefields, because it's not possible to forcefield the ramp indefinitely. From my experience, a player who tries to go 2 gate robo, for example, will only have 2 sentries when I attack his ramp, and then I will manage to break during a five second window where he doesn't have energy for a forcefield right afterward.
In addition, my production off four gates will give me way more units than you can handle regardless of whether you go robo or stargate. Stargate is weaker precisely because there are no units other than immortals that can handle stalkers at that time in the game.
Lastly, there are still DT builds. If you go 2 gate robo, you can handle DT builds and blink builds fine because of the observer and immortals. If you go 2 gate stargate, you die to both. 3 gate robo can potentially hold off a 4-gate if executed properly. If you go 2 gate star or 3 gate star, you're dead. Period.
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^ timings work out that you get your 4th sentry out a few seconds after his warpgate research. 2 gate robo builds push to robo bays early, producing off 1 gateway, this gets 2 sentries out of one gateway, and then simeltaneously produces 2 from 2 gateways.
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No they don't.
Robo builds only push to robo bays early if there is no threat of a 4 gate. The threat of 4-gates forces robo users to chrono the immortal out. It comes roughly 30 seconds after the 4 gate hits, and there's usually a small timing window where the robo player has to stall to get the immortal while the four-gater is in his base.
The disadvantage you have as a stargate player is that the stargate costs 50 additional gas and yet gives you no unit that is cost-effective in killing stalkers. Thus, you'll have the same number of sentries, but when the attack hits, you'll die because you're not actually stalling for anything useful.
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Gotta agree with the other high level commenters here--this won't hold a good 4 gate. You don't have enough forcefields to spend 2 at a time, and if you don't spend 2 at a time, they can warp zealots up your ramp and into your main with 1 pylon. Also remember that a zealot+stalker poke forces you to spend a forcefield earlier than you're envisioning. Not a solid defense. You can't spend 150 gas on a stargate that early in PvP.
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The problem I have with phoenix is getting there with them. In low numbers they do nothing and getting a substantial number of them is hard(the critical number is 3 imo as you can start to kill zealots with 1 lift then and kill probes very fast).
Once you have a good phoenix amount they are basically uncounterable in the mirror. The only unit that can beat them are carriers and stalkers. Unfortunately stalkers are one of the main units in the begin of every PvP match because they are so versatile and never really bad. Phoenix openings will be at a disadvantage to way too many openings that make me reluctant to use them, for example 4 gate, quick DTs or blink stalkers. Phoenix play is favored against robo play but not even that super much imo, a robo player will always scout you with a obs quickly upon seeing 2 gas and they will cancel their support bay then if they are good. After that they can easily still transition into blink stalkers, while only having 'wasted' their money on 1 immortal usually.
One key thing I don't like about phoenix play either is that when your opponent responds with blink stalkers, which they usually will, you have to be very sharp in your scouting onwards. If you ever miss them proxying a dark shrine somewhere on the map you can instantly lose and when you DO find it you are forced into more costs then he is actually (robo + obs costs more then DT shrine).
What I prefer to use actually is a robo opening INTO stargate play when I scout them going with a robo as well. Immortal, phoenix, zealot is quite a potent combination. You can harass alot with the phoenix and you can lift their zealots with your phoenix opening up the way for your immortals against his stalkers and colossi or in case of lots of zealots and few stalkers you can simply focus the stalkers or the colossi. Either way I think robo + stargate > robo + bay nowadays.
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On February 15 2011 11:34 kcdc wrote:
Gotta agree with the other high level commenters here--this won't hold a good 4 gate. You don't have enough forcefields to spend 2 at a time, and if you don't spend 2 at a time, they can warp zealots up your ramp and into your main with 1 pylon. Also remember that a zealot+stalker poke forces you to spend a forcefield earlier than you're envisioning. Not a solid defense. You can't spend 150 gas on a stargate that early in PvP.
As soon as the first Phoenix popped you could start scouting for the forward Pylon Probe, lift it when you see it to stall it, then lift it again with your 2nd Phoenix to kill it. You'll either kill it or force a Pylon to be dropped in a position where he can't warp in units on your ramp. At least that's what springs to mind. Not sure if it'd work in practice.
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EPT
