EPTPeople are exaggerating the use of lift-off vs (blink) stalkers way too much. If you use one phoenix to lift off one stalker during a battle, you spend 150/100 (phoenix) to immobilize a 125/50 (stalker) unit. Now please think again if this is actually cost-effective. If you try to out"play" a blink-player by lifting off and sniping stalkers, he should be able to overwhelm you with pure force since his units are simply cheaper.
[D] PvP Phoenix Play - Page 2
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sleepingdog
Austria6145 Posts
People are exaggerating the use of lift-off vs (blink) stalkers way too much. If you use one phoenix to lift off one stalker during a battle, you spend 150/100 (phoenix) to immobilize a 125/50 (stalker) unit. Now please think again if this is actually cost-effective. If you try to out"play" a blink-player by lifting off and sniping stalkers, he should be able to overwhelm you with pure force since his units are simply cheaper. | ||
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HexSCII
Canada115 Posts
On November 16 2011 22:24 rEalGuapo wrote: Well, you say that you put down cannons after you know its phoenix. so I kill 4 Probes, then you put down 2 Cannons that is a 500 Mineral loss for you, not regarding the mining time. I can do that with 3 Phoenix, if you go for 1Base Blinkstalker I forcefield my ramp and snipe your observer (you should get a Robo behind the Phoenix) Then I just pump Immortals and win. Of course it does not always work that way, but if you paly perfectly I think Phoenix is the way to go, they eat Zealots and Sentries, they are slightly more expensive than Stalkers but give me map control, make me the agressor and let you waste minerals on Cannons. Sounds nice to me  Plus, pheonix kills the early game. Usually, you can get 3 sentries to hold off your ramp. With proper pylon placement/scouting you can get vision/idea if a push is coming or not. That being said, it is extremely risky which is why we see Naniwa get 3 stalkers and be aggresive while getting his pheonix. When chrono boosted that take 16 secs...nuff said. If a player is spending is money on cannons in the early game, he is pretty much screwed... + they are light units so stalkers take a long time to kill them. Sentries do damage to them but, they are also high priority. I think it is probably one of the most intense plays I have seen. + oppurtunity to expand when harrassing. On November 16 2011 23:42 sleepingdog wrote: I feel like the PvP metagame spins in endless circles...people have started to incorporate more immortals, thus the increasing success of phoenix play. DT expands are deadly vs stargate openers, also obs+blink is really strong since the stargate player has no way to get rid of the observer who floats around his base. People are exaggerating the use of lift-off vs (blink) stalkers way too much. If you use one phoenix to lift off one stalker during a battle, you spend 150/100 (phoenix) to immobilize a 125/50 (stalker) unit. Now please think again if this is actually cost-effective. If you try to out"play" a blink-player by lifting off and sniping stalkers, he should be able to overwhelm you with pure force since his units are simply cheaper. Nobody sends 1 pheonix to face 1 stalker. Pheonix are better in bigger numbers. 7-8 pheonix are enough to take out 5-6 stalkers. Plus you are forgetting the investment that they are making in blink. And that, Pheonix are more mobile than stalkers. That way you are never committing in an attack. | ||
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skatbone
United States1005 Posts
On November 16 2011 22:14 SolidZeal wrote: I was surprised but i don't think blink stalkers necessarily hard counter phoenix. But the phoenix player plays on a razors edge in that fight, so best not to go for them if you're not extremely good at PvP. Eu global inv. spoiler: + Show Spoiler + In Naniwa v.s.Sase, Naniwa went phoenix v.s. a blink stalker opening and through knowing when he could press forward with his units (counting the blink timing) he slowly worked down Sase stalkers. PvP may not be Sases strong suit, but he didn't really play poorly, Naniwa was just beastly with his phoenix They aren't super effective v.s. colossus but they are effective enough that the phoenix player should win. In fact phoenix is really good against all robo builds. The builds major weakness is 4-gate, but that build has it's own gaping flaws. Other than that, all the other benefits listed in the thread: -knowing exactly what your opponent is doing -being able to punish opponent if they move out of base -guaranteed kills on any isolated units -map control -sex appeal Phoenix really are just great units, I hope PvP does start to see heavier stargate play. I'd have to agree with this. When I go phoenix, I keep my opponent in his base while dropping a robo. If they have gone robo, they generally stop making immortals and switch to twilight tech. I start pumping immortals and zealots. I LOVE when players mass stalkers against this unit composition. Zealot-immortal-phoenix with equal macro owns mass blink stalker in my experience. And phoenixes are good against colossi when you have 5+ and they only have 2 colossi. If they continue colossi production off of one base, they won't have the gas to make enough stalkers to deal with the phoenix. In other words, in a 1-base scenario, a commitment to colossi can lose you a game vs phoenix so long as the phoenix player is careful about where the engagement happens. | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On November 16 2011 23:08 Geiko wrote: Scouting an early Darkshrine is easy. You don't need to see the building, just the units that your opponent has. I don't know how this is supposed to be easy against someone that intentionally makes it hard. You'd have to really commit hard to reliably scout the Dark Shrine, and that's just not a realistic thing to do at that point in the game unless you're doing a delayed 4 Gate off of no scouting info. | ||
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HexSCII
Canada115 Posts
If sentry count is low and they have double gas. They must be saving it up for something... | ||
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Arcanefrost
Belgium1257 Posts
I don't know how this is supposed to be easy against someone that intentionally makes it hard. You'd have to really commit hard to reliably scout the Dark Shrine, and that's just not a realistic thing to do at that point in the game unless you're doing a delayed 4 Gate off of no scouting info. You just scout with the phoenix and check how many gas units he has. | ||
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Geiko
France2035 Posts
On November 16 2011 23:42 sleepingdog wrote: I feel like the PvP metagame spins in endless circles...people have started to incorporate more immortals, thus the increasing success of phoenix play. DT expands are deadly vs stargate openers, also obs+blink is really strong since the stargate player has no way to get rid of the observer who floats around his base. People are exaggerating the use of lift-off vs (blink) stalkers way too much. If you use one phoenix to lift off one stalker during a battle, you spend 150/100 (phoenix) to immobilize a 125/50 (stalker) unit. Now please think again if this is actually cost-effective. If you try to out"play" a blink-player by lifting off and sniping stalkers, he should be able to overwhelm you with pure force since his units are simply cheaper. It's a bit more complicated then that. Once the stalker is dead you can still lift off another stalker. Phoenixes aren't high priority targets so they don't get targeted down, they can even screw with the AI when the stalkers in the back use a couple of shots on them (and phoenixes take a long time to kill with stalkers). If the blink player focuses the phoenixes down, it gets harder though. However, I have never seen anyone with enough micro and APM to -stop micro stalkers vs zealots -blink back injured stalkers -focus fire individual phoenixes at the same time. I'd also disagree that DT expands is autowin vs stargate play. I find on the contrary that the DTing player is committing a lot of resources to something that is very scoutable and stoppable even with a Stargate opening. On November 17 2011 01:41 CecilSunkure wrote: I don't know how this is supposed to be easy against someone that intentionally makes it hard. You'd have to really commit hard to reliably scout the Dark Shrine, and that's just not a realistic thing to do at that point in the game unless you're doing a delayed 4 Gate off of no scouting info. I meant that you scout with your phoenixes what he has in his base (double gas and a lot of zealots with no tech ?). If you have a good timing on your units you can easily prepare for even the most all in of DT rushes. | ||
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rsvp
United States2266 Posts
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On November 17 2011 02:44 Arcanefrost wrote: You just scout with the phoenix and check how many gas units he has. You'd have to do it with your first or second Pheonix, because it's going to be too late if you wait for the third or fourth. And then in that situation the opponent would see a Pheonix and the tradeoff in info would feel even to me. | ||
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Geiko
France2035 Posts
On November 17 2011 03:22 coL.rsvp wrote: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=284244 I agree with everything you said in that thread Anhic except for the phoenix/immortal combo being able to beat everything. I did phoenix immortal pushes a bit, and against people who know what they are doing, they can easily grab an expansion, and go gate/zealot heavy into eventually archons and you can't break that. I feel that getting a robo nullifies the offensive power of the phoenix since you have to wait so long for your immortals to cross the map. Basically, with a standard phoenix/gateway mix, your play is extremely reactive, you can decide if you want to all in his ramp, expand, go into harass mode etc... If you add in slow immortals, you lose a lot of the timings and possibility to adapt (once you start making the first immortal, you already spent 200/100 and 250/100 so you can't hope to win a fight until the immortal is across the map). On November 17 2011 03:32 CecilSunkure wrote: You'd have to do it with your first or second Pheonix, because it's going to be too late if you wait for the third or fourth. And then in that situation the opponent would see a Pheonix and the tradeoff in info would feel even to me. I scout with my first 2 phoenixes to be able to scout DT shrine in time and still kill two probes if my opponent isn't being aggressive and I don't plan to immediately bust his ramp. By that time, he's already committed to his tech anyways and if he tries to grab an expo right when he scouts this, I can all in him before his FE pays off. | ||
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Brutland
United States92 Posts
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sleepingdog
Austria6145 Posts
On November 17 2011 00:24 HexSCII wrote: Nobody sends 1 pheonix to face 1 stalker. Pheonix are better in bigger numbers. 7-8 pheonix are enough to take out 5-6 stalkers. Plus you are forgetting the investment that they are making in blink. And that, Pheonix are more mobile than stalkers. That way you are never committing in an attack. That's what I was talking about - 7-8 phoenixes are WAY more expensive than 5-6 stalkers. The blink-investment gets pretty much evened out by the fact that you need to build the stargate. For each and every phoenix vs stalker built the stalker-player "saves" 50 gas. You build 3 phoenixes, I build 3 stalkers? BAM, I've just been able to afford blink. Also I don't get how stargate is "safe" vs DTs. Yes you can scout it in time and react so you don't die...but the DT-player can expo while you can't do anything about it, on the other hand he can prevent you from expo-ing until you have obs. All the DT player has to do is stay in his base and defend his 2 mineral-lines. Which is actually not that hard considering you already have the TC and can start teching blink asap. Please don't get me wrong, I'm not saying phoenix-openers are bad by any means. What I'm saying is that currently people are favouring builds that are suboptimal vs phoenix-openers which makes them "seem" more viable. If phoenix openers become more standard, I'm 100% sure that the meta-game will adjust accordingly. | ||
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Sceptre
Canada130 Posts
On November 17 2011 01:41 CecilSunkure wrote: Phoenix builds seem okay, but I just haven't lost to any in months due to playing pretty unorthodox, like this: DT -> Chargelot Archon. I don't know how this is supposed to be easy against someone that intentionally makes it hard. You'd have to really commit hard to reliably scout the Dark Shrine, and that's just not a realistic thing to do at that point in the game unless you're doing a delayed 4 Gate off of no scouting info. Dhalphir and I played some games where he went Phoenix vs my DT-> Charge/Archon earlier this week. He would scout with his first phoenix to figure out what tech path I was heading down and immediately after seeing few gas units/ a twilight council would cut a phoenix to throw down a robo. From here he had to chain FF his ramp until the obs came out, but he didn't instantly die. What was interesting was that neither player felt comfortable to move out of their base with each others main army, as the phoenix were still a threat to me as he blocked his ramp with force fields. The follow up chargelot/archon push was again problematic, but Dhalphir held it off consistently by moving down his ramp and engaging at the natural with phoenix/zealot/a few stalkers. It was very important that the chargelot/archon player was not allowed to establish a contain. As for the actual battle, lifting zealots was the clear way to go, as the phoenix made quick work of them. Immortals were a bit of a liability in this scenario, so he avoided making them. The few key things we deduced from these games were: A) Don't stop making phoenixes unless you need to cut one to get detection up. B) Expand alongside your opponent. Expansion timing can be tricky, and you are very susceptible to all-ins if you dump 400 minerals into an expensive pylon. C) Do not get contained. While it may be tempting to try and use your ramp to get a defensive advantage, you don't really have the stopping power to break the contain with just phoenix. In summary, the games came down to who played their respective style better, with perhaps a slight advantage going towards the DT->Charge/Archon player (especially if they can get a DT into your base). I can post some replays if people would like to see them. The really awful game is when both players open Phoenix. Get ready for the most frustrating and volatile micro experience of your life. | ||
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Arcanefrost
Belgium1257 Posts
On November 17 2011 03:32 CecilSunkure wrote: You'd have to do it with your first or second Pheonix, because it's going to be too late if you wait for the third or fourth. And then in that situation the opponent would see a Pheonix and the tradeoff in info would feel even to me. Well, it's better to scout witht he second one than to die to dt rushes ^^. It's not freewin for the dt player, it's evenish. | ||
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hzflank
United Kingdom2991 Posts
That said, I have been trying a quirky build. It is basically 1 gate 1 stargate, where you only make one stalker and then go straight into chronoboosted phoenix. It sounds terrible, but I add a forge and get a cannon at my natural finished by 5:20. It works because you can add an additional two cannons and have them all by 5:30, and have two phoenix out by 6 minutes, which means it actually holds a four gate without the need for any sentries, and allows you to start your expansion before 8 minutes. In my cases you are not 4 gated and can start your expansion by 6:30. I know most people think that blink stalkers beat phoenix, but they actually dont. Stalkers take 16 shots to kill a phoenix, so you can pick stalkers off one at a time and move injured phoenix away. Even with imperfct micro you can kill more than you lose. Phoenix work well in conjuction with cannons since you will have a mineral surplus. Cannons have the same vision range as observers, and since phoenix two-shot observers, a single phoenix + cannon can stop them blinking into your main. And it they try to engage your phoenix ball within range of your cannons then it is a massacre. I am still working on getting my timing right for a DT transition. I know this sounds like really low level stuff, but it isnt. If you can get phoenix out fast enough they really do a number on stalkers. | ||
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Geiko
France2035 Posts
On November 17 2011 05:16 hzflank wrote: I really like the idea of phoenix play, but I have not got it working as I want it to, yet. That said, I have been trying a quirky build. It is basically 1 gate 1 stargate, where you only make one stalker and then go straight into chronoboosted phoenix. It sounds terrible, but I add a forge and get a cannon at my natural finished by 5:20. It works because you can add an additional two cannons and have them all by 5:30, and have two phoenix out by 6 minutes, which means it actually holds a four gate without the need for any sentries, and allows you to start your expansion before 8 minutes. In my cases you are not 4 gated and can start your expansion by 6:30. I know most people think that blink stalkers beat phoenix, but they actually dont. Stalkers take 16 shots to kill a phoenix, so you can pick stalkers off one at a time and move injured phoenix away. Even with imperfct micro you can kill more than you lose. Phoenix work well in conjuction with cannons since you will have a mineral surplus. Cannons have the same vision range as observers, and since phoenix two-shot observers, a single phoenix + cannon can stop them blinking into your main. And it they try to engage your phoenix ball within range of your cannons then it is a massacre. I am still working on getting my timing right for a DT transition. I know this sounds like really low level stuff, but it isnt. If you can get phoenix out fast enough they really do a number on stalkers. Lol that indeed sounds like a terrible build ^^ As rsvp said, you don't want to lose offensive potential when playing phoenix, and getting 2-3 cannons is terrible :/ | ||
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hzflank
United Kingdom2991 Posts
On November 17 2011 05:20 Geiko wrote: Lol that indeed sounds like a terrible build ^^ As rsvp said, you don't want to lose offensive potential when playing phoenix, and getting 2-3 cannons is terrible :/ Yeah it plays better than it sounds Typically you only need one cannon at your natural. I will make it sound worse by saying that you cant spare the 50 gas for warpgate for several minutes :pBut the idea is to use phoenix like mutalisks. You do not bring a ground army with them, instead you control the map with them and expand. I am tired now but I will see if I can make some good replays tomorrow (I only started working on this yesterday, so the games so far have all been learning). | ||
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Geiko
France2035 Posts
On November 17 2011 05:50 hzflank wrote: Yeah it plays better than it sounds Typically you only need one cannon at your natural. I will make it sound worse by saying that you cant spare the 50 gas for warpgate for several minutes :pBut the idea is to use phoenix like mutalisks. You do not bring a ground army with them, instead you control the map with them and expand. I am tired now but I will see if I can make some good replays tomorrow (I only started working on this yesterday, so the games so far have all been learning). Add me on EU if you want to play ^^ (geiko.813) | ||
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Ruscour
5233 Posts
From what I've seen one of the biggest driving forces behind Phoenix in PvP is Axslav, he's been using them since the patch and he does everything right. Yesterday in the Playhem Daily against Korean Protoss Mentalist on Shakuras Plateau, Axslav opens Phoenix and Mentalist opens with a robo expand. Axslav's Nexus is later though he has more probes due to his harassment. He is able to completely control the map and scout out everything and secure a much earlier third, getting a Mothership unopposed and what exactly can you do against Zealot/Archon/Phoenix/Mothership with good control...Vortex hitting most of the Colossus and such. As for openers, obviously this is still being figured out but 3gate -> stargate is safe, ultimately you're behind if your opponent opens 1gate anything but it stops you from dying to a wide variety of things, the most important being 4gate. This doesn't affect small numbers, but if people start non-stop pumping Phoenix all game out of at least one stargate, you can always turn to the Mondragon Guide to Unit Counters: ![[image loading]](http://i51.tinypic.com/2dglufr.jpg) Those things can't hit nexuses. | ||
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Drizzt3
United States189 Posts
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