I had heard of this build being used in the GSTL, apologies for not remember who it was pulled it off. I first actually saw it in use last nightwith Kiwi vs StrifeCro in the Reign vs EG matchup
Sadly I missed the opening, but I came into the game to see Kiwi with chargelot/sentry/phoenix just crushing his opponents Roach/Hydra ball consistently, sniping queens and overlords for fun and later transitioning in some immortals and archons
It seems a relatively solid way to approach the matchup, given that Phoenix give Protoss a lot of map control and guaranteed harass potential, unlike say DTs which can be shut down for little loss if they are anticipated
From the match I saw he had 6 or 7 gates with dual stargate, he got charge on his zealots plus at least +1 to begin with, and +1 air attack as well.
I haven't been able to find a VoD, so I was wondering what those who saw the whole game through think about this build, what are the specifics, and also what the Zergs responses can be to this pretty fun style
I don't see how chargelot sentry would be good against mass roach/roach hydra. Maybe he was able to do it because his opponent gave him a large lead by mishandling the pheonix harass?
EDIT: And my counter would be mass roach. Neither sentries, nor zealot nor pheonix are good against them. Or HTs. Or even archons.
It was on 2, then 3, then 4 bases. The units that Zerg has which beat phoenixes are Corruptors and Hydras. Which are probably Zerg's 2 worst units. Specifically, it's not even clear that Hydras beat phoenixes by that much - certainly if there's a phoenix lead, phoenixes crush hydras with few losses.
Infestors are the other choice - the problem is largely that infestors are also light, and Phoenixes massacre them, so perfect control is required.
From watching the Kiwi vs. Strifecro match, I think the style is probably weakest against Roach or Zergling into Infestor. The real issue is estimating how committed the 'toss is going to be to air - it seems like StrifeCro would have been well-served to drop like 3 or more spores at each base as soon as he saw the phoenix. and, more importantly, to drop them all next to eachother, with queen + overlords in the middle. Having 1 just isn't enough of a deterrent. It barely scratches shields if you've got enough phoenixes.
The game didn't go optimally for him, and he still won which is the impressive thing about it.
From what I can gather he got his forward pylon sniped so he couldn't pressure much with a +1 6 gate timing attack, and he didn't massively commit to phoenix harass either, but the zerg got annihilated in all the big engagements. I think he took a relatively early second which is the only way he could support the unit comp, but a relatively late third base saturation. I think he was only able to delay his third because the zerg player was losing so much stuff in the confrontations
Again I was having to alternate between the game and helping my dad with some DIY, so hence why I was asking more about the specifics. In essence I saw a lot of how the composition DEALT with mass roach/hydra, and later infestor play, but not how the overall build was achieved.
On August 04 2011 05:52 Crosswind wrote: It was on 2, then 3, then 4 bases. The units that Zerg has which beat phoenixes are Corruptors and Hydras. Which are probably Zerg's 2 worst units. Specifically, it's not even clear that Hydras beat phoenixes by that much - certainly if there's a phoenix lead, phoenixes crush hydras with few losses.
Infestors are the other choice - the problem is largely that infestors are also light, and Phoenixes massacre them, so perfect control is required.
From watching the Kiwi vs. Strifecro match, I think the style is probably weakest against Roach or Zergling into Infestor. The real issue is estimating how committed the 'toss is going to be to air - it seems like StrifeCro would have been well-served to drop like 3 or more spores at each base as soon as he saw the phoenix. and, more importantly, to drop them all next to eachother, with queen + overlords in the middle. Having 1 just isn't enough of a deterrent. It barely scratches shields if you've got enough phoenixes.
Infestors are actually armoured, they just don't have much health.
I can't see why roach/infestor like IdrA just did on his stream wouldn't work fine against this. If you control well and fungal some of his phoenix, there's no way his ground army can stand up to your roach/fungals in a straight up fight. Phoenix take forever to kill roaches. You'll also need a few spores to protect ovies.
When the infestors popped (a bit later than optimal granted), Kiwi already had archons out, a few of them remain as HTs for feedback + gravition on the rest would if not shut down, at least minimise losses against infestor play?
I actually think that fungalling the units isn't an ideal use of the infestors, but maybe infested terran spam would fill the anti-phoenix role better. Once the phoenix count gets lowered they get exponentially less effective
Infestors are actually armoured, they just don't have much health.
I can't see why roach/infestor like IdrA just did on his stream wouldn't work fine against this. If you control well and fungal some of his phoenix, there's no way his ground army can stand up to your roach/fungals in a straight up fight. Phoenix take forever to kill roaches. You'll also need a few spores to protect ovies.
This is going to be off-topic, but thank you. I almost stopped reading the thread when someone said 'Infestors are light'. It just amazes me how long the game has been out and people still don't know the basic stats on all the units. Like a week or so ago there were people arguing that Brood Lords didn't have an air attack and they just spawned broodlings which did all the damage. I'm surrounded by noobs! *Shakes head*.
Infestors are actually armoured, they just don't have much health.
I can't see why roach/infestor like IdrA just did on his stream wouldn't work fine against this. If you control well and fungal some of his phoenix, there's no way his ground army can stand up to your roach/fungals in a straight up fight. Phoenix take forever to kill roaches. You'll also need a few spores to protect ovies.
This is going to be off-topic, but thank you. I almost stopped reading the thread when someone said 'Infestors are light'. It just amazes me how long the game has been out and people still don't know the basic stats on all the units. Like a week or so ago there were people arguing that Brood Lords didn't have an air attack and they just spawned broodlings which did all the damage. I'm surrounded by noobs! *Shakes head*.
Haha I would love it if Brood Lords didn't have a direct damage attack, Archons shut down broodlings like nobody's business
Also back on topic, was it Sage who did this in the GSTL recently? My mind is somewhat shot with trowing through the MLG replay pack atm, but I'm searching for a VoD to get an idea of more specific timings. If not it's time for the good old trial and error method
Uhh, Kiwi tried 6 gating, but his pylon and probe got shut down, so he panic'd and made 2 stargates and hid phoenixes until he had about 10, and strifecro wasn't prepared for them at all and had no idea they were coming. Suddenly there was a cloud of 20 phoenixes flying around, and strife was in panic mode trying to mass hydra and get to infestors, since all he had were roaches to deal with a 6 gate. By that time, Kiwi was able to get up his 3rd and 4th and switched to making only chargelot/archon/immortal. It wasn't really a style, so much as kiwi rolling the dice to try and get back into the game, and it worked.
Yes, it was Sage who showed this off. He used phoenixes and zealots with proxy pylons around the map to warp in zealots on high ground with phoenix vision. It is a very micro intensive style and can lead to some fun harass. However, I think it was only effective because the zerg did not know how to respond since he hadn't seen it before. MC said that he used this style a bit, and that it is beaten by the zerg player making mass roaches with plenty of spines to defend.
On August 04 2011 05:43 Peterblue wrote: EDIT: And my counter would be mass roach. Neither sentries, nor zealot nor pheonix are good against them. Or HTs. Or even archons.
Chargelot and Phoenix handle Roaches quite easily actually. Neither are good against them on their own, but with mass Grav Beam, Forcefields and Chargelots waiting below, mass Roach is completely demolished. Once you get Archons or Storm it's even easier.
Infestors are the only unit that's a reasonably solid counter, but it's easier said than executed well, and the correct timing to get Infestors without being too vulnerable (especially as Protoss has 100% scouting and vision all the time) is really really had to pinpoint. The tech switch from Roach/Hydra to Infestors can cost you A LOT of economy because mass Phoenix take only a few dozen seconds to completely rape your bases.
Of course you can just decide to go straight for Infestors as your standard ZvP style, kinda the way Destiny does it. This way your Infestors are out sooner and the mass Phoenix is shut down on time, but that style in itself has a lot of vulnerabilities and is punishable in a number of different ways. Kiwi had 6 or 7 Gateways on 2 bases and got Twilight tech quite early in that game, if his opponent decided to go straight for Infestors he probably had a backup plan.
Someone asked about this in simple questions and answers and what I wrote applies here. Keep in mind this is just me writing notes on a VOD which limits what I can see. I'd love to get some high level feedback and explanations on this stuff.
Spoilers for the IPL team arena if you open the VOD link + Show Spoiler +
Game breakdown focusing on kiwikaki (As does the VOD haha) + Show Spoiler +
Crevasse is the map which is very important. The spawns are vertical on the right hand side, but Crevasse is still very large. Kiwikaki sees Strifecro expand at the third instead of at the in base natural. Kiwikaki decides to go nexus first at his natural. This makes sense as Kiwikaki won't get terribly behind if Strifecro takes a fast third (Which he opts to as he can expand to his in base natural) and Kiwikaki can defend his entire base against any pressure with a wall by the ramp and destructible rocks.
The build is 18nex, 18 pylon,18forge, 19gate, 21 assimilator. The nexus could have been planted at 17, but a lot of players have different timing for nexus first so it is very possible that this was intentional. Plenty of probes are coming out and two cannons come after the gas and keep the wall safe. A cybercore goes up at 27. Again I think he has been just a little late on some of these structures, but I'm not a pro so there may be a reason to some of these timings.
Kiwikaki continues to make lots of probes, gets a second gas before his core finishes, and gets warpgate as soon as the core finishes. Kiwikaki begins plus one weapons quickly after warp gates. It should be noted that lots of probes are coming out with chronos still going to them despite warp gate and plus one being researched. 5 gates are placed down before the 50 food mark for Kiwikaki to bring him up to six gates.
2 stargates get thrown down simultaneously and then ground armor after that. The gates start making a mix of units, but there are a lot of zealots. The stargates get chronoed to produce tons of pheonixes. Kiwikaki wants to expand here but when it gets denied he instead makes zealots to spend his money temporarily. After fighting back the lings Kiwikaki does plant the third again while getting a robo. This happens just before Kiwikaki hits 100 food.
Strifecro engages at the third with roaches and lings, but the pheonixes keep a huge chunk of the roaches lifted while the whole army of Kiwikaki just blasts the units on the ground with the help of two photon cannons and good force fields. The +attack speedlings were getting ripped apart by the +attack zealots which were present in pretty decent numbers.
Lots of pheonixes are still coming out, a few cannons are used to defend the third. The robo makes mostly observes, but a few immortals are used (I think he consistly keeps a couple throughout the game). Once kiwikaki's third gets up and running and he has both gas at the third, Kiwikaki starts making a twilight council and gets plus 1 air attack. Once the twilight council comes up charge and plus 2 ground attack start getting researched. It is still pretty impressive how many probes Kiwikaki is producing.
Strifecro again engages the third of Kiwikaki but it is a large group of hydras with too few speedlings to tank and almost no roaches. The speedlings are again getting two shot by the upgraded zealots. The pheonixes kill huge quantities of hydras (I think the upgraded air attack helps lower the number of shots they need to kill a hydra). The interesting part here is that the high hydra dps gets split trying to kill pheonixes and zealots (Charge isn't done yet). Both of these units usually die too quickly to really hurt hydras, but once they start dealing damage the hydras just melt due to the good dps of both units and especially due to the paper tissue health of the hydras.
After that failed hydra push Kiwi starts templar tech and charge finishes. He gets his fourth relatively soon after templar tech starts and also begins +3 attack. Kiwikaki begins building archons around the time his fourth finishes. The next attack from StrifeCro (Again at the third of Kiwikaki) contains mostly hydra but this time there are a few more roaches and speedlings. The thin roach line melts to archons and the few immortals kiwi has produced. After that it is just chargelots and the huge pheonix ball melting the hydras.
Kiwi's economy at this point is insane and he can just make mass quantities of archons or whatever he wants and his units are insanely well upgraded. His next push smashes through StrifeCro's stuff to end the game.
Speculation/End Thoughts
The only thing I didn't track was the gateway count past the 6gates in the early game. I think the gateway count and pheonix count are pretty important to keep track of as Kiwikaki could die easily if he lacked production. However, the upgrades and insane probe production seemed to be the most important tool here to keep the build effective as you need both to make zealots work well, to support enough gateways to protect yourself against zerg pushes, and to make expensive units such as pheonixes and archons viable to produce and fight with.
I think you can justify the high gateway count as you need them to build large unit counts in quick bursts. Kiwikaki definitely seemed to spend his money on anything but gateway units when he could do so without dieing. Also, Painuser seemed to think that infestors are the answer to this style, but I really beg to differ. Sniping infestors with pheonixes is way easier than vice versa. Pheonixes are hard to pin down with fungal and as long as you aren't surprised by infestors they are also easy to keep spread out (They attack while moving come on!).
Building infestors and hydras at the same time would be necessary just to kill the pheonixes, but at that point the zerg won't have enough gas. Catspajamas did seem to make fun of that fact that getting spire tech would take too long, but honestly that should not be the concern. I think the appropriate response is spire tech as corruptors own pheonixes and set you up for brood lords in the late game which will do well if you have successfully taken air control (Ultras don't help very much against zealot/archon anyways).
Another thing that would be important against this style is to get the right upgrades. Plus melee attack is the wrong upgrade. Lings are going to melt without armor and are very bad against high zealot counts and totally worthless once archons show up. The zerg has to be johnny on the spot with his upgrades as they are what stop the Protoss units from being cost effective. In short, make sure your roaches get lots of attack and armor upgrades and that your corruptors don't get out upgraded either as they need to be extremely efficient or you will have too many and just die to the ground army. Armor is important when you fight zealots and pheonixes which attack twice in one firing animation.
On August 04 2011 06:18 Gooey wrote: Uhh, Kiwi tried 6 gating, but his pylon and probe got shut down, so he panic'd and made 2 stargates and hid phoenixes until he had about 10, and strifecro wasn't prepared for them at all and had no idea they were coming. Suddenly there was a cloud of 20 phoenixes flying around, and strife was in panic mode trying to mass hydra and get to infestors, since all he had were roaches to deal with a 6 gate. By that time, Kiwi was able to get up his 3rd and 4th and switched to making only chargelot/archon/immortal. It wasn't really a style, so much as kiwi rolling the dice to try and get back into the game, and it worked.
I doubt Kiwi panicking is the only case. The 6 gate timing did essentially fail, but even if the pylon had gone up StrifeCro had a lot of stuff making and plenty of speedlings already alive to delay. I think Kiwi had a plan at least in the back of his mind. Plus, Strifecro saw the pheonixes when there were six of them and did lose overlords and queens, but what really hurt was his push. It did force the pheonixes out of his base but it also got stomped hard and did 0 real damage. StrifeCro should have been suspicious before this oh shit moment considering the third timing and lack of units for Kiwikaki.
StrifeCro did take some decent damage from pheonix harass, but this was only once and took a long time to occur because Kiwi was in fact building up pheonixes as part of his composition. In this way I don't think you can justify StrifeCro getting killed by the hidden Pheonixes as he had such little pressure applied to him throughout the game and had so much time to deal with the Pheonixes once they did show up.
On August 04 2011 06:18 Gooey wrote: Uhh, Kiwi tried 6 gating, but his pylon and probe got shut down, so he panic'd and made 2 stargates and hid phoenixes until he had about 10, and strifecro wasn't prepared for them at all and had no idea they were coming. Suddenly there was a cloud of 20 phoenixes flying around, and strife was in panic mode trying to mass hydra and get to infestors, since all he had were roaches to deal with a 6 gate. By that time, Kiwi was able to get up his 3rd and 4th and switched to making only chargelot/archon/immortal. It wasn't really a style, so much as kiwi rolling the dice to try and get back into the game, and it worked.
Completely wrong.
Kiwi was going to 6gate, but saw his forward pylon and probe get shut down by Roach/Ling. Judging by that, he assumed strifecro was already prepared for 6gate, so he threw down double SG and massed phoenixes. 6gate double stargate is actually quite popular with koreans as of late. High number of phoenixes rape hydras, and give so much map control because you can't leave OLs anywhere. Thing is, strifecro made hydras over infestors, which stop phoenixes cold.
Sage did a really interesting strategy that we could be seeing more of in the future it was very brood war esque. Although this build could be entirely map dependent, what he did was forge expand on Tal'darim Altar and then he went for the standard stargate into voidray but the voidray to me recollection did not do much damage however after the initial voidray to stop roach ling all in's and etc. He got a nice fleet of phoenix, all the while constantly harassing the zerg with proxy pylons at his third base warping in zealots everywhere he could while harassing the overlords and teching to storm as well as getting charge and upgrades all the while this was going on so although his army wasn't too powerful because he was CONSTANTLY killing things with his zealots it bought him time to get templars with maxed energy resulting in a storm fest for the final battle, however the reason I feel this is somewhat map dependent is because tal'darim has a very easy 3rd base but who knows.
On August 04 2011 06:18 Gooey wrote: Uhh, Kiwi tried 6 gating, but his pylon and probe got shut down, so he panic'd and made 2 stargates and hid phoenixes until he had about 10, and strifecro wasn't prepared for them at all and had no idea they were coming. Suddenly there was a cloud of 20 phoenixes flying around, and strife was in panic mode trying to mass hydra and get to infestors, since all he had were roaches to deal with a 6 gate. By that time, Kiwi was able to get up his 3rd and 4th and switched to making only chargelot/archon/immortal. It wasn't really a style, so much as kiwi rolling the dice to try and get back into the game, and it worked.
This is exactly what I was about to post...
Edit:
On August 04 2011 12:08 Flonomenalz wrote: Completely wrong.
Kiwi was going to 6gate, but saw his forward pylon and probe get shut down by Roach/Ling. Judging by that, he assumed strifecro was already prepared for 6gate, so he threw down double SG and massed phoenixes. 6gate double stargate is actually quite popular with koreans as of late. High number of phoenixes rape hydras, and give so much map control because you can't leave OLs anywhere. Thing is, strifecro made hydras over infestors, which stop phoenixes cold.
tldr - hydras fucking suck in SC2
So, you're saying almost the exact same thing as Gooey? >.<
On August 04 2011 05:52 Crosswind wrote: It was on 2, then 3, then 4 bases. The units that Zerg has which beat phoenixes are Corruptors and Hydras. Which are probably Zerg's 2 worst units. Specifically, it's not even clear that Hydras beat phoenixes by that much - certainly if there's a phoenix lead, phoenixes crush hydras with few losses.
Infestors are the other choice - the problem is largely that infestors are also light, and Phoenixes massacre them, so perfect control is required.
From watching the Kiwi vs. Strifecro match, I think the style is probably weakest against Roach or Zergling into Infestor. The real issue is estimating how committed the 'toss is going to be to air - it seems like StrifeCro would have been well-served to drop like 3 or more spores at each base as soon as he saw the phoenix. and, more importantly, to drop them all next to eachother, with queen + overlords in the middle. Having 1 just isn't enough of a deterrent. It barely scratches shields if you've got enough phoenixes.
-Cross
Hahahaha you have no idea what the heck you're talking about. Infestor is good against everything (maybe except for siege tanks) including phoenixes.
Just a little tip, if you're using phoenix vs infestor be sure to stay spread and move the phoenixes around by clicking far away on the minimap to avoid clumping. As long as a decent % of phoenixes remain un-fungaled you should be able to lift the infestors and prevent a chain fungal.
high masters ptoss here. Ive been experimenting with double stargate phoenix for awhile now, and find it way better vs hydras than collo, especially after opening with stargate after expo to harass the 3rd. Only weakness I found was versus infestors, or fast corruptors. Phoenix in high numbers decimate hydras in a army vs army fight because it seems like when you A-Move hydras, the AI prioritizes your zealots over phoenix. I feel like this is much better than going for robo facility -> robo bay after stargate, b/c you will only have 1-2 collo and barely get range when the roach hydra timing hits, which you usually take crazy damage from.
Because you have double stargate, I havent tried it yet, but i think carriers would be a good transition as well (besides the obvious immortal archon). High range and huge dps, throw a couple into your already solid army. I have been trying to stray away from using collosus at ALL in any matchup, because i find that they are so immobile, hard to replenish, and you rely on them too much off 2base. Because infestors own stalker/collo mixes, we gotta start using immortal HT archon and POSSIBLY carrier mixes :p. They are not a bad unit! They can deal with low numbers of corruptors and can kill broodlords, UNLIKE collo. Only problem i see is neural parasite.
I am only in plat but I have seen this twice, protoss went for ffe and I responded by getting early third. I have tried infestor ling but definitely is not the solution because it takes so much fungal to kill off the phoenix (which can come before your infestor energy build up for enough chain)
I did a huge mass muta+ corruptor change while pumping lings and queens and some spores corruptor and muta can deal with mass phoenix extremely well. because of his huge investment in stargates unit, he won't have blink stalkers or ht.
On August 04 2011 13:24 HinagikUx wrote: high masters ptoss here. Ive been experimenting with double stargate phoenix for awhile now, and find it way better vs hydras than collo, especially after opening with stargate after expo to harass the 3rd. Only weakness I found was versus infestors, or fast corruptors. Phoenix in high numbers decimate hydras in a army vs army fight because it seems like when you A-Move hydras, the AI prioritizes your zealots over phoenix. I feel like this is much better than going for robo facility -> robo bay after stargate, b/c you will only have 1-2 collo and barely get range when the roach hydra timing hits, which you usually take crazy damage from.
Because you have double stargate, I havent tried it yet, but i think carriers would be a good transition as well (besides the obvious immortal archon). High range and huge dps, throw a couple into your already solid army. I have been trying to stray away from using collosus at ALL in any matchup, because i find that they are so immobile, hard to replenish, and you rely on them too much off 2base. Because infestors own stalker/collo mixes, we gotta start using immortal HT archon and POSSIBLY carrier mixes :p. They are not a bad unit! They can deal with low numbers of corruptors and can kill broodlords, UNLIKE collo. Only problem i see is neural parasite.
Mass phoenix would be fun to deal with hydra roach, but like you said they can just get infestor + zergling and A move you. Rushing collossus seems to be the safest thing you could do.
You're getting a pretty early twilight for charge, which gives you the option to get some archons out, which annihilate lings, with a few temps for feedback OR graviton on the infestors you'll be fine against that composition. You should have enough gas as you've gone very zealot heavy on the ground comp
Im top diamond(not that that matters, season just started), and I was trying to use this strat in custom games last night vs diamond/masters, and I could not get phoenix to work vs hydra or infestor. Its the most fun strat to play so far, but goddam i suck with it, but i gonna keep trying for the fun factor.
I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but I cant figure out how to get zealot + phoenix to beat mass hydra, and i get demolished when infestor are thrown in. I won't be adding a replay, too many mistakes/too new to the strat---just seeking some general tips.
I think I might just be attacking too late or something, but i feel like my zealots get shredded before they can do any damage, and I cant lift that many hydras off the ground.
I'll practice with it some more tonight, as it seems doing this strat forces hydra. And if they get hydra and I did a FFE, i can quickly switch to colossus and clean that up pretty easy. FYI for people trying this--- get obs out ASAP. I tried to get them fairly late(relying on cannons instead) one game and got demolished by burrowed infestors spewing infested terran at me O_o.
You can really dictate the pace of the game with this strat though, its fun. I was vsing a masters zerg and I pumped zealots off 6 gates and mass phoenix up to a point, and just randomly threw zealots at his expos from time to time and picking stuff off while i massed up carriers. I got destroyed by hydras---carriers are damn terrible, but I was able to get to them incredibly easy and early by having complete control over the game.
On August 05 2011 02:10 brandog712 wrote: Im top diamond(not that that matters, season just started), and I was trying to use this strat in custom games last night vs diamond/masters, and I could not get phoenix to work vs hydra or infestor. Its the most fun strat to play so far, but goddam i suck with it, but i gonna keep trying for the fun factor.
I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but I cant figure out how to get zealot + phoenix to beat mass hydra, and i get demolished when infestor are thrown in. I won't be adding a replay, too many mistakes/too new to the strat---just seeking some general tips.
I think I might just be attacking too late or something, but i feel like my zealots get shredded before they can do any damage, and I cant lift that many hydras off the ground.
I'll practice with it some more tonight, as it seems doing this strat forces hydra. And if they get hydra and I did a FFE, i can quickly switch to colossus and clean that up pretty easy. FYI for people trying this--- get obs out ASAP. I tried to get them fairly late(relying on cannons instead) one game and got demolished by burrowed infestors spewing infested terran at me O_o.
You can really dictate the pace of the game with this strat though, its fun. I was vsing a masters zerg and I pumped zealots off 6 gates and mass phoenix up to a point, and just randomly threw zealots at his expos from time to time and picking stuff off while i massed up carriers. I got destroyed by hydras---carriers are damn terrible, but I was able to get to them incredibly easy and early by having complete control over the game.
I prefer templar for storm + feedback and Archons for my AoE over collosi, plus if they go corruptors to take out your phoenixs, those will clean your collosi up anyway
I was trying it last night, was so much fun and I like the ability to control the map, passivity is my biggest weakness so I was trying out a build in which I could be CONFIDENT to be aggressive with. The one thing I dislike about the build is that you can't rely make any hay out of DT harass on the expands as your early phoenixes pretty much force a ton of spores
I managed to wipe out 10 infestors in one engagement with graviton and feedback spam but there are a lot of timings and stuff I think need to be set in stone to really adopt this as a standard build
It's also pretty map dependent, something like Tal'Darim size, the speed of the phoenixes and the ability to pretty safely go FFE seem pretty integral to trying this build.
Yeah i could see this being map dependent. I was exclusively trying it on xel naga-- while i was able to control the game, i always felt unsafe if he decided to actually push me instead of try to defend his expos. I think ill try the HT transition, i'm already getting a lot of gateways for the zealots so it makes sense.
I think a big early timing attack needs to happen to do some serious damage. Some point where he doesnt have enough hydra to murder the zealots before they can be graviton raped.
I've been going +1 attack first on zealots, but i think armor might be better vs hydra. Gonna keep messing around til something works. I havent won a match yet with this build vs anyone decent, but i feel like all of the games are competitive, so i wont give up on the strat yet.
I've been using Double SG Phoenix opener against zerg for a while as of late, and I have to say its pretty solid. This opening allows for complete map control, you can deny his queens consistantly once your Phoenix numbers get really big, your safe against Hydra, you can snipe Overlords, and in the case of a roach all in you can easilly chrono 2 voidrays and insta win.
But its not the phoenix that impresses me the most with this style, its the follows ups you have avaliable. A while back Ace and Squirtle were using a mass phoenix/chargelot build and it never really caught on until now, You may use abuse your opponents response if he overcommits on Hydra and simply set up a timing to kill him or use it as a harassment option and have pylons all over the map and use the phoenix to warp Zealots onto high ground and help harass. (You can also use DTs) During all of this you may either be taking your 3rd and/or simply teching up to Archons or Colossi (Archons more preferabley as you can easily transition into a Archon/Voidray/HT army which is very powerful late game coupled with Immortals)
The best examples I can find of this are Sages GSTL game YongHwa Replay Ace vs Idra a while back in IEM (The one in which he took 1rst place) Bischu (I believe he used to do this alot back in the earlier days of Starcraft)
On August 04 2011 06:18 Gooey wrote: Uhh, Kiwi tried 6 gating, but his pylon and probe got shut down, so he panic'd and made 2 stargates and hid phoenixes until he had about 10, and strifecro wasn't prepared for them at all and had no idea they were coming. Suddenly there was a cloud of 20 phoenixes flying around, and strife was in panic mode trying to mass hydra and get to infestors, since all he had were roaches to deal with a 6 gate. By that time, Kiwi was able to get up his 3rd and 4th and switched to making only chargelot/archon/immortal. It wasn't really a style, so much as kiwi rolling the dice to try and get back into the game, and it worked.
On August 04 2011 12:08 Flonomenalz wrote: Completely wrong.
Kiwi was going to 6gate, but saw his forward pylon and probe get shut down by Roach/Ling. Judging by that, he assumed strifecro was already prepared for 6gate, so he threw down double SG and massed phoenixes. 6gate double stargate is actually quite popular with koreans as of late. High number of phoenixes rape hydras, and give so much map control because you can't leave OLs anywhere. Thing is, strifecro made hydras over infestors, which stop phoenixes cold.
tldr - hydras fucking suck in SC2
So, you're saying almost the exact same thing as Gooey? >.<
ROFL.
I didn't mean to quote him, I meant to quote the OP. Idk how I ended up quoting him.... smfh.
do any of the zergs u guys play put down spores? i like to put at least 3 in every base, more if he keeps making phoenix, rally overlords to a spore, pump roaches, and when im getting ready to push out make 10ish corrupters if he has a large phoenix count. phoenix openers are not good imo.
If you're sporing up you're not droning as hard as you can, if you're keeping your overlords in base you're ceding map control to the Protoss player which can be exploited
On August 04 2011 13:24 HinagikUx wrote: high masters ptoss here. Ive been experimenting with double stargate phoenix for awhile now, and find it way better vs hydras than collo, especially after opening with stargate after expo to harass the 3rd. Only weakness I found was versus infestors, or fast corruptors. Phoenix in high numbers decimate hydras in a army vs army fight because it seems like when you A-Move hydras, the AI prioritizes your zealots over phoenix. I feel like this is much better than going for robo facility -> robo bay after stargate, b/c you will only have 1-2 collo and barely get range when the roach hydra timing hits, which you usually take crazy damage from.
Because you have double stargate, I havent tried it yet, but i think carriers would be a good transition as well (besides the obvious immortal archon). High range and huge dps, throw a couple into your already solid army. I have been trying to stray away from using collosus at ALL in any matchup, because i find that they are so immobile, hard to replenish, and you rely on them too much off 2base. Because infestors own stalker/collo mixes, we gotta start using immortal HT archon and POSSIBLY carrier mixes :p. They are not a bad unit! They can deal with low numbers of corruptors and can kill broodlords, UNLIKE collo. Only problem i see is neural parasite.
Mass phoenix would be fun to deal with hydra roach, but like you said they can just get infestor + zergling and A move you. Rushing collossus seems to be the safest thing you could do.
Yep, but if i see that comp i usually transition into mass chargelots and archons with chronoboost on pure atk upgrades, which destroys that comp. Save some HT's for feedback if u have obs out too. I usually just make phoenixes till i see infestors out, because they are the only mobile unit that tosss has and we gotta lear to use it better in all matchups imo
On August 05 2011 07:05 Ubertron wrote: If you're sporing up you're not droning as hard as you can, if you're keeping your overlords in base you're ceding map control to the Protoss player which can be exploited
what, i dont follow you.
you have 2 options as a zerg make more hydras then he has phoenix which can then be exploited by collosi. queens against phoenix in numbers are not good. plus you have to run the hydras after the faster phoenix. its a mess. if the toss is decent he can pick off hydras as they spawn too, leading to never having enough to actually kill all the phoenix.
or you can make spores and not worry about it anymore. i can immediately replace any drones that made spores in one larva cycle, plus this response costs no gas whatsoever.
phoenix cant kill creep tumors, that plus ling scouts is enough to know what is going on at least until corrupters.
i have never lost a game where im like damn those spores really cost me any chance to win. you're not going to come kill me with phoenix, your ground army will be significantly weaker then mine.
droning as hard as i can?? phoenix to me (diamond zerg) is the surest sign in the entire game that i'm safe to drone as hard as i can.
Making spores in your base will stop me killing workers, it does nothing to regain the map control and mobility which is the whole strength of the build, plus the later transitioning into archons with attack upgrades and phoenixes with attack upgrades will annihilate hydra/roach balls + pure hydra balls + pretty much any composition that you can pull out of the hat.
Fast infestors are the counter as far, or specific timing pushes, turtling behind spores in your base will do nothing but hand the initiative to the Protoss player
On August 05 2011 15:51 Ubertron wrote: Making spores in your base will stop me killing workers, it does nothing to regain the map control and mobility which is the whole strength of the build, plus the later transitioning into archons with attack upgrades and phoenixes with attack upgrades will annihilate hydra/roach balls + pure hydra balls + pretty much any composition that you can pull out of the hat.
Fast infestors are the counter as far, or specific timing pushes, turtling behind spores in your base will do nothing but hand the initiative to the Protoss player
i was just watching blade5555's stream (he is GM on NA and masters korea and posts around here a bit) and he said pretty much exactly what i said in my post. and as soon as he saw phoenix in the game he was playing he put 2-3 spores down in his bases and made drones.
the whole point of spores is so that you dont have to make hydras. who are you playing that goes pure hydra anyway?
as for infestors a good toss will pick them off one by one or simply spread his phoenix out to make fungal useless. corrupters are the one zerg unit that can straight up kill phoenix head on, no relying on your opponent to be bad or luck.
Also because phoenix clump together fairly often, a well placed chain fungal will kill them all easily. I didn't see the games mentioned OP but it sounds like a very interesting follow-up to the 6 gate.
On August 04 2011 06:18 Gooey wrote: Uhh, Kiwi tried 6 gating, but his pylon and probe got shut down, so he panic'd and made 2 stargates and hid phoenixes until he had about 10, and strifecro wasn't prepared for them at all and had no idea they were coming. Suddenly there was a cloud of 20 phoenixes flying around, and strife was in panic mode trying to mass hydra and get to infestors, since all he had were roaches to deal with a 6 gate. By that time, Kiwi was able to get up his 3rd and 4th and switched to making only chargelot/archon/immortal. It wasn't really a style, so much as kiwi rolling the dice to try and get back into the game, and it worked.
The commentator said that is a build he had been working on. You are saying he just tried something weird and got lucky but I think it is far the opposite.
Obviously he wanted to 6gate, but I don't think that double stargate play or anything that followed was random chance imo.
On August 04 2011 06:18 Gooey wrote: Uhh, Kiwi tried 6 gating, but his pylon and probe got shut down, so he panic'd and made 2 stargates and hid phoenixes until he had about 10, and strifecro wasn't prepared for them at all and had no idea they were coming. Suddenly there was a cloud of 20 phoenixes flying around, and strife was in panic mode trying to mass hydra and get to infestors, since all he had were roaches to deal with a 6 gate. By that time, Kiwi was able to get up his 3rd and 4th and switched to making only chargelot/archon/immortal. It wasn't really a style, so much as kiwi rolling the dice to try and get back into the game, and it worked.
Hahahaha, you really think that a player who plays +8 hours a day get panic'd ?!? I lol'ed at you my friend. I just watched the game. For those who said that kiwi was behind, he never got behind, never ever in the whole game. The Z with 1 more base up is totally normal, but once the phoenixes kicked in, there was almost over, kiwi got even in bases, even in eco, better in army, no infestors for the Z (til the very end), game over. For any who tries the build: It is heavy skill intensive. I'm a macro mid masters P, and prolly get crushed if i use this build, u need to have high multi task level, and very good game vision/transitions (this build prolly get raped aganist fast infestors). However, practice with this build could make us improve a lot, due to his skill demands. Overall, another amazing fun build from kiwi.
Edit.: Another thing to consider is the fact that almost 75% of high masters and above Z's are using infestor ling, so this strat could be blindly repelled.
I don't believe this was a "panic" build by Kiwikaki, as I saw him trying out the style in practice games vs Sen a couple of weeks ago on Sen's stream. It's a pretty sick build tbh, but I think roach + spore + infestor is the way to go against it.
I've been doing a 2-gate forge expand into heavy phoenix/chargelot with shield upgrades and transition into archon, it's been doing very well. (im masters)
I build my first pylon below the ramp. What's important is that all of my buildings contribute to my wall. I only build three zealots- which are enough to beat zerglings out of the way long enough to throw up two cannons at zerg natural, which will require quite a few roaches to take out. I then stop probe production, throw up a nexus and several cannons at my own wall, and then continue probing.
I will use one or two of the zealots to scout what zerg's reaction is to this- they are beefy and will definitely get to see the base before they die, and I pull one back to patrol my base for nydus worms.
I then build two stargates and make two voidrays to contain zerg/ stop drops ; after that I get saturated, cut probes again, pump phoenixes/shield upgrades/chargelots and go all out.
It's been working very well. The only logical response is for them to get hydras because enough corruptors to deal with 8-10 phoenix and 2 void rays means they cant deal with the 20-25 charge zealots with + 3 shield.
Final step is take third base and transition to archons. For which you already ahve the +3 shield upgrade that was necessary in the first place to cover both zealots and phoenixes.
Honestly it's a beautiful build and it fucks infestors over hard.
On August 09 2011 14:48 Borkbokbork wrote: I've been doing a 2-gate forge expand into heavy phoenix/chargelot with shield upgrades and transition into archon, it's been doing very well. (im masters)
I build my first pylon below the ramp. What's important is that all of my buildings contribute to my wall. I only build three zealots- which are enough to beat zerglings out of the way long enough to throw up two cannons at zerg natural, which will require quite a few roaches to take out. I then stop probe production, throw up a nexus and several cannons at my own wall, and then continue probing.
I will use one or two of the zealots to scout what zerg's reaction is to this- they are beefy and will definitely get to see the base before they die, and I pull one back to patrol my base for nydus worms.
I then build two stargates and make two voidrays to contain zerg/ stop drops ; after that I get saturated, cut probes again, pump phoenixes/shield upgrades/chargelots and go all out.
It's been working very well. The only logical response is for them to get hydras because enough corruptors to deal with 8-10 phoenix and 2 void rays means they cant deal with the 20-25 charge zealots with + 3 shield.
Final step is take third base and transition to archons. For which you already ahve the +3 shield upgrade that was necessary in the first place to cover both zealots and phoenixes.
Honestly it's a beautiful build and it fucks infestors over hard.
Looks interesting. Do you consistently do well with this? Got any replays?
Looks interesting. Do you consistently do well with this? Got any replays? [/QUOTE]
I have been consistently doing well with it, yes. I don't have replays because I'm still working out the kinks in the build. But if you want to talk about it in-game, add me, I don't know character code but you can use my email "jeffk@dobsis.org" to add me.
Anyway, the 2 gate pressure is absolutely necessary, it slows him down enough to mean that he cant just roll me with roach/hydra when all i have is phoenixes.
I just played a game where the opponet's mid-game push (15 or so hydras, 15 or so roaches) was crushed by my 10 phoenix 20 chargelot/ 2 void rays.
When he lost the battle he said "...wow" and quit.
What makes this build so great is that hydras do not counter phoenixes, not when you make so many.
EDIT: And my counter would be mass roach. Neither sentries, nor zealot nor pheonix are good against them. Or HTs. Or even archons.
Of course, roaches are the counter to everything. All it takes is a simple 5 s RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR + A click from skill-less zergs to crush a toss deathball. Seriously the roach is too op atm. Either it needs to cost more, or have a bit less HP, or do a bit less dmg.
I've been experimenting with more phoenix-heavy play out of a FFE opening more lately as zergs are getting better are denying void ray harass and 6-gates. On maps where the 3rd is easily defended I've opted to go phoenix instead of void ray and make void rays more for defense than aggression. I also feel transitioning into a heavy gateway based army rather than trying to go for colossi for hydras is more effective unless you can deny the 3rd since going 2-base zealot/VR/Colossi vs 2-base zerg is gg.
Also generally speaking if infestorling is your issue 6/7-gate zealot/archon timing push will destroy them. Zerg is pretty much forced to get roaches and/or hydras to stop 6-gate.
EPT
