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Often spoken is that Phoenix builds are the future of PvP. However, I find this hard to believe, because a mineral line harass can be shutdown with a few photon cannons (pheonixes can't hit ground, so taking losses for a few probes is no longer worth it) and it can be hard countered with blink stalkers which are very popular now a days. Against collosi, they are not very powerful, and pickng up stalkers off the ground in battle doesn't seem very cost efficient as they cost more than stalkers (so putting both of them out of commission for a moment actually puts you behind). The only real counter that I can think of is against immortals--- having 4 pheonixes take 4 immortals out of the battle is HUGE. However, I imagine one who sees phoenixes on the board will seize to construct immortals.
Besides this, so many people say phoenixes are very powerful PvP.
A few questions -
1.) Am I wrong about what I said above? Is there something powerful about a phoenix build that I am missing? Map Control perhaps? Can they help secure a fast expansion with their harass?
2.) Is there a popular phoenix build PvP that a pro has posted and the community has approved of? From my research and searching, it seems these builds are still being hammered out and no one has perfected a great build yet.
3.) Are void rays a key part of these builds as well? I imagine that immortals might be important in these builds as well to control stalkers.
Interested to hear your opinions on this type of PvP play
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The strength of phoenix builds is that you have complete information in a matchup that is defined by reacting to limited information. That's basically all there is to it. With appropriate knowledge of correct responses, you can theoretically react perfectly to everything.
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On November 16 2011 21:16 Dhalphir wrote:
The strength of phoenix builds is that you have complete information in a matchup that is defined by reacting to limited information. That's basically all there is to it. With appropriate knowledge of correct responses, you can theoretically react perfectly to everything.
The observer can get you that information. Besides, you can scout everything you need to scout with the probe before the obs comes out.
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I feel there are two ways to go about phoenix builds.
As Dhalpir said, they can give you great information and map presence. In this case you want a very limited number of phoenix for light harass and defense while playing reactive.
Phoenix get worse and worse as a match progresses and stalker/colossus/archon numbers grow. I feel phoenix are best when gotten early with a one or two gate stargate build. This allows the early phoenix to build energy. Then up to 4 gates or immortal if you prefer into a strong one base all in attack.
Use the phoenix to lift zealots/sentries. They both die very quickly. After those units go down, immortals and lastly the stalkers. Microing everything properly takes crisp execution. It is a very strong attack.
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I'm really liking the 3 Phoenix rush which you use to bum-rush the ramp. It's a bit 1 base all-inny but what in PvP isn't?
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what? they own colossus dont they? i dont know, on 1base v 1base which is extremely common in pvp, your not going to be able to get blink stalkers in numbers WITH colossus right? did i just missread?
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On November 16 2011 21:06 rawler wrote:
1.) Am I wrong about what I said above? Is there something powerful about a phoenix build that I am missing? Map Control perhaps? Can they help secure a fast expansion with their harass?
All of that and more. With phoenixes you have complete map vision. It hard counters any immortal build (by the time you scout your opponents tech with an observer, your opponent will already have a couple of phoenixes out and it's too late to switch to a fast blink build). You can't really move out of your base with a robo army if your opponent goes for phoenix -> phoenix build enables you to build a safe relatively fast expansion. Phoenixes can take out sentries that you need to in order to get away with fast tech / low amount of unit builds (when your sentries are in the air, they can't cast forcefields -> 3 phoenixes and a bunch of stalker zealot can win you games right away).
On November 16 2011 21:06 rawler wrote:
2.) Is there a popular phoenix build PvP that a pro has posted and the community has approved of? From my research and searching, it seems these builds are still being hammered out and no one has perfected a great build yet.
I'm sure someone has posted a decent phoenix build. Not necessarily a pro, tho. Also, there is huge variation in these builds, depending on what you aim for (fast expansion, 3 phoenix allin, just a couple of probe kills).
[B]On November 16 2011 21:06 rawler wrote:[/B
3.) Are void rays a key part of these builds as well? I imagine that immortals might be important in these builds as well to control stalkers.
I don't think anyone ever uses voidrays in pvp. Way too fragile against stalkers. Immortals are too gas heavy to be mixed in with phoenixes.
In general you just don't aim for a billion phoenixes. Unfortunately, they are no mutas. You just want a few to control your opponent or harass and then transition to whatever you feel makes most sense.
Phoenix builds aren't perfect. At least the ones I know of, but with the recent trend of immortal based midgame armies, phoenixes are incredibly potent.
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Phoenixes are awesome.
1) Total information of what your opponent is doing.
2) Probe harass if he is not doing anything aggressive
3) Most cost efficient combat unit in the PvP midgame
[ 4) no one has clue about how to play against phoenix right now ^^ ]
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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.
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Blink builds absolutely do not counter phoenix. I would argue it's the other way around, because phoenix lift basically negates blink and makes sure that they lose stalkers if they try to use blink stalker mobility to harass you, like blinking into the main and harassing your army at the front. You actually almost never want to harass probes with phoenix, because the energy is much better spent either pressuring their front or saving up so that you can lift several times in a fight.
On the vast majority of maps for PvP I do 1 gate stargate (2 more gates). If the opponent is doing a robo build with only 1 or 2 sentries, it's a build order win, and I'll wait for 3-4 phoenix, build a 4th gate, and JFKH. If the opponent is doing some other build or has 3-4 sentries (it can be hard to lift that many sentries, especially if their unit models are covered by stalkers or some other unit), I'll just expand safely, because armies with phoenix are better than every other army in the mid game
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I feel like robo twilight blink builds do not counter phoenixes but a pure twilight council only blink build has a timing that can just straight up kill phoenix play.
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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 
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What i'm seeing a lot right now is DT builds into archon/zealot play. I haven't tried phoenixes agains it yet but it seems it can be really difficult to play agians if they get the darkshrine somehwere you can't scout or simply because archons should do well agains phoenixs. Probably what will end up hapening is that both players will expand and then go for colossi or whatever tech of their choise. Still, hpeonxis are great ebucsset ehya allow you to scout though
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Phoenixes are just the best midgame combat unit. I often don't lift a single probe and just safe mass energy for lifting.
There are two styles of phoenix play though:
-1 base going for 25 probes and 3-4 gate pushing him, while sniping his sentries with the phoenixes.
-1 base with full saturation phoenix/immortal/stalker, insanely strong vs late expansions.
Voids aren't useful really, and the build itself doesn't matter that much. Just do a safe opening and a add a stargate or star/robo according to what you want to do.
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I'm not a toss player, but i've always thought pheonix builds could be strong in PvP. I'm not sure how they are against colossus. But I see a lot of 1base blink builds in pvp, what about a 1 stargate into chargelot/pheonix? If they have colossus you have phenoix, if blink stalkers you can lift stalkers/sentrys and chargelots do solid damage to anything they get hits on. Just a thought coming from a zerg player. May or may not be somethiing viable to think about as i've never played a pvp.
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On November 16 2011 22:34 SeriouR wrote:What i'm seeing a lot right now is DT builds into archon/zealot play. I haven't tried phoenixes agains it yet but it seems it can be really difficult to play agians if they get the darkshrine somehwere you can't scout or simply because archons should do well agains phoenixs. Probably what will end up hapening is that both players will expand and then go for colossi or whatever tech of their choise. Still, hpeonxis are great ebucsset ehya allow you to scout though
Scouting an early Darkshrine is easy. You don't need to see the building, just the units that your opponent has.
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I can imagine if you 1 gate stargate and add 3 more gates it would be a powerful build as long as you know a DT is not coming. If you start getting pheonixes earlier than blink stalkers(or before a mass of blink stalkers is there), then I would say it's good against blink build as well. But problem is, how do you get there?
You certainly can't open 1 gate stargate without dying to a normal 4gate, if you go forge and cannons your pheonixes will be delayed to the extent where there would be too many stalkers compared to the pheonix to begin with so you're probably going to lose. If you open 3 gate while getting stargate up, by the time you start getting pheonixes it would also be too late since blink robo build would be getting their stalker count up before you even started making pheonixes. Unless you are able to put on so much ridiculous pressure with only 3 gates and 2 gas that you force your opponent to make immortals and sentries while you get your stargate up, then it would be viable.
So yea, how do you create a pheonix build that can hold off a 4 gate, but also start producing pheonixes before stalkers can be warped in continuously?
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if i remember properly, a pvp mothership build works infinitely better if you have 1-2 pheonix. Since you have the stargate anyway, you crank them out when you have the money, and they will target the enemies obs first since they attack air only, its something you might not think of to micro your stalkers against the tiny little obs, but pheonix take all that away.
not like any pvp game is going to see a mothership but still..
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On November 16 2011 23:12 Xenorawks wrote:
I can imagine if you 1 gate stargate and add 3 more gates it would be a powerful build as long as you know a DT is not coming. If you start getting pheonixes earlier than blink stalkers(or before a mass of blink stalkers is there), then I would say it's good against blink build as well. But problem is, how do you get there?
You certainly can't open 1 gate stargate without dying to a normal 4gate, if you go forge and cannons your pheonixes will be delayed to the extent where there would be too many stalkers compared to the pheonix to begin with so you're probably going to lose. If you open 3 gate while getting stargate up, by the time you start getting pheonixes it would also be too late since blink robo build would be getting their stalker count up before you even started making pheonixes. Unless you are able to put on so much ridiculous pressure with only 3 gates and 2 gas that you force your opponent to make immortals and sentries while you get your stargate up, then it would be viable.
So yea, how do you create a pheonix build that can hold off a 4 gate, but also start producing pheonixes before stalkers can be warped in continuously?
you still need to scout. there's no way around that. 4gate strategies are revealed with the timing of their second gas, energy on nexus etc. So yeah, if your opponent goes 4g, you don't want to play 1g stargate.
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On November 16 2011 23:19 Mandalor wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2011 23:12 Xenorawks wrote:
I can imagine if you 1 gate stargate and add 3 more gates it would be a powerful build as long as you know a DT is not coming. If you start getting pheonixes earlier than blink stalkers(or before a mass of blink stalkers is there), then I would say it's good against blink build as well. But problem is, how do you get there?
You certainly can't open 1 gate stargate without dying to a normal 4gate, if you go forge and cannons your pheonixes will be delayed to the extent where there would be too many stalkers compared to the pheonix to begin with so you're probably going to lose. If you open 3 gate while getting stargate up, by the time you start getting pheonixes it would also be too late since blink robo build would be getting their stalker count up before you even started making pheonixes. Unless you are able to put on so much ridiculous pressure with only 3 gates and 2 gas that you force your opponent to make immortals and sentries while you get your stargate up, then it would be viable.
So yea, how do you create a pheonix build that can hold off a 4 gate, but also start producing pheonixes before stalkers can be warped in continuously? you still need to scout. there's no way around that. 4gate strategies are revealed with the timing of their second gas, energy on nexus etc. So yeah, if your opponent goes 4g, you don't want to play 1g stargate.
I don't think I ever mention about going 1 g stargate. I'm just saying it would be powerful IF ONLY you could do that. There is no way in hell you can scout a good 4 gate just with probes. Every build in PvP has to be able to defend a 4gate. Therefore 1 gate stargate is never going to work.
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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.
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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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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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Phoenix builds seem okay, but I just haven't lost to any in months due to playing pretty unorthodox, like this: DT -> Chargelot Archon.
On November 16 2011 23:08 Geiko wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2011 22:34 SeriouR wrote:What i'm seeing a lot right now is DT builds into archon/zealot play. I haven't tried phoenixes agains it yet but it seems it can be really difficult to play agians if they get the darkshrine somehwere you can't scout or simply because archons should do well agains phoenixs. Probably what will end up hapening is that both players will expand and then go for colossi or whatever tech of their choise. Still, hpeonxis are great ebucsset ehya allow you to scout though 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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Well, you just have to check their gas. And sentry count.
If sentry count is low and they have double gas. They must be saving it up for something...
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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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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:Show nested quote +On November 16 2011 23:08 Geiko wrote:On November 16 2011 22:34 SeriouR wrote:What i'm seeing a lot right now is DT builds into archon/zealot play. I haven't tried phoenixes agains it yet but it seems it can be really difficult to play agians if they get the darkshrine somehwere you can't scout or simply because archons should do well agains phoenixs. Probably what will end up hapening is that both players will expand and then go for colossi or whatever tech of their choise. Still, hpeonxis are great ebucsset ehya allow you to scout though 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.
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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On November 17 2011 02:44 Arcanefrost wrote:Show nested quote +
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.
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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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:Show nested quote +On November 17 2011 02:44 Arcanefrost 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.
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.
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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i wish i had a build to link but Axslav absolutely wrecks pvp using phoenix builds. he uses phoenix to harass and get probes, force the other player into his base, then techs, expands at will. think of the phoenix like a super fast muta in terms of how it effects the other player
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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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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. Show nested quote +On November 16 2011 23:08 Geiko wrote:On November 16 2011 22:34 SeriouR wrote:What i'm seeing a lot right now is DT builds into archon/zealot play. I haven't tried phoenixes agains it yet but it seems it can be really difficult to play agians if they get the darkshrine somehwere you can't scout or simply because archons should do well agains phoenixs. Probably what will end up hapening is that both players will expand and then go for colossi or whatever tech of their choise. Still, hpeonxis are great ebucsset ehya allow you to scout though 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.
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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On November 17 2011 03:32 CecilSunkure wrote:Show nested quote +On November 17 2011 02:44 Arcanefrost 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.
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.
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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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.
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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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On November 17 2011 05:20 Geiko wrote:Show nested quote +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 :/
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 :p
But 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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On November 17 2011 05:50 hzflank wrote:Show nested quote +On November 17 2011 05:20 Geiko wrote: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 :/ 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 :p But 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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Phoenix are very, very good in PvP. You can constantly scout, control the map, pick off probes, etc.
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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phoenixes have something like 3x the dps of stalkers, 3 TIMES!! they're also really fast and not too much more expensive than stalkers, and once you lift shit you can kill it really fast.
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So are phoenix builds essentially all-ins, since you have to do damage or kill your opponent early? Because in late game, as Tyler pointed out in a recent SotG, phoenixes are practically dead weight (they can't kill colossi fast enough and they can't pick up archons).
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I actually don't understand this. Perhaps it's just my method of play, but I have an extreme amount of difficulty dealing with Phoenixes, even though I don't think there are too many issues with my build.
I open 3 stalker rush and off of 2 gates go Robo -> Start TC -> See Phoenixes with observer, thus cancel initial immortal. Make the snap decision based off what I see to either warp in 2 more Stalkers or just go for a really fast expand with very few units.
The issue for me is that Phoenixes keep me ridiculously pinned and I have no idea when I can actually push out, nor what the best option for dealing with them is. In my past few games, I've gotten blink and 2 separate balls of ~5-6 stalkers to protect each of my bases. After that I throw down a Templar Archive and eventually start working on charge. Off of 2 base, I don't want to be going Colossi since they get picked off when I attack, right? So my only available option is Chargelot/Archon.
However, this is a HUGE timing window where A) I can't be aggressive with my blink stalkers and only can rely on keeping my probes alive and keeping a 2base econ and B) He has infinite scouting information since ~5 blink stalkers can't reliably kill phoenixes.
So what's my option against this? Usually what I've found is that the time it takes to get to Templar Archives AND Charge is -huge-, which allows my opponent to pump out a fuckload of immortals and Zealots himself. And yet, I don't believe that I can skimp on Stalkers or blink due to the option of my opponent overcommiting to Phoenixes, yet I have an extreme difficulty working off of lower tech.
tl;dr - What is the best army to deal with Phoenixes after establishing an expand shortly before my opponent, and assuming relatively equal economies with his Phoenixes killing a few of my probes?
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United States8476 Posts
On November 17 2011 06:50 Zarent wrote:
I actually don't understand this. Perhaps it's just my method of play, but I have an extreme amount of difficulty dealing with Phoenixes, even though I don't think there are too many issues with my build.
I open 3 stalker rush and off of 2 gates go Robo -> Start TC -> See Phoenixes with observer, thus cancel initial immortal. Make the snap decision based off what I see to either warp in 2 more Stalkers or just go for a really fast expand with very few units.
The issue for me is that Phoenixes keep me ridiculously pinned and I have no idea when I can actually push out, nor what the best option for dealing with them is. In my past few games, I've gotten blink and 2 separate balls of ~5-6 stalkers to protect each of my bases. After that I throw down a Templar Archive and eventually start working on charge. Off of 2 base, I don't want to be going Colossi since they get picked off when I attack, right? So my only available option is Chargelot/Archon.
However, this is a HUGE timing window where A) I can't be aggressive with my blink stalkers and only can rely on keeping my probes alive and keeping a 2base econ and B) He has infinite scouting information since ~5 blink stalkers can't reliably kill phoenixes.
So what's my option against this? Usually what I've found is that the time it takes to get to Templar Archives AND Charge is -huge-, which allows my opponent to pump out a fuckload of immortals and Zealots himself. And yet, I don't believe that I can skimp on Stalkers or blink due to the option of my opponent overcommiting to Phoenixes, yet I have an extreme difficulty working off of lower tech.
tl;dr - What is the best army to deal with Phoenixes after establishing an expand shortly before my opponent, and assuming relatively equal economies with his Phoenixes killing a few of my probes?
I don't see what your problem is this situation. Your unit comp of zealot/archon/stalker should be able to beat zealot/immortal/phoenix in the long run. Also, have you tried templar for feedback on phoenix?
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On November 16 2011 22:34 SeriouR wrote:What i'm seeing a lot right now is DT builds into archon/zealot play. I haven't tried phoenixes agains it yet but it seems it can be really difficult to play agians if they get the darkshrine somehwere you can't scout or simply because archons should do well agains phoenixs. Probably what will end up hapening is that both players will expand and then go for colossi or whatever tech of their choise. Still, hpeonxis are great ebucsset ehya allow you to scout though
I actually played a bunch of games against a friend of mine with this exact strategy in mind. If you rally your firstp hoenix to their base, you can find their DT shrine usually in enough time to lay a robo, and then you just continue phoenix production and avoid expanding. In battles agaisnt archon/zealot with phoenixes you want to lift his zealots.
EDIT: it appears he made a post regarding this very series of games halfway down the second page already.
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On November 16 2011 23:42 sleepingdog wrote:
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.
No offense, but that statement is incredibly short-sighted. You are almost implying that someone would make pure phoenix to combat blink stakers. There will of course be the rest of the army present which changes the cost/efficiency analysis. Graviton beam severely limits the utility of blink because you can no longer avoid direct confrontations. I'm personally delighted when stalkers focus my phoenix because they are wasting dps on light armor. I wreck blink stalkers if they try to trade for phoenix. I think a lot of people try to phoenix harass against blink and simply lose too many. If you just keep them with your army and force a confrontation you just win.
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I personally dont really like phoenix play because i feel that they get straight up hardcountered by some1 who goes straight for archon, chargelot (without dts, but instead high templar).
While you might be able to hold you expansion against a dt--> archon player ab chargelot archon player with templar will have more archons and more zealots, the the only way to survive an archon chargelot allin while having gone phoenix is in my opinion completly walling yourself off at the top of the ramp, and then you will just get contained and the archon + charge player will get a free expansion.
Also if he has rly good reaction timing he can warp in 2 templar at each base and completly negate probe harras by feedbacking the phoenix when they fly in.
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On November 17 2011 18:51 Despicatus wrote:
I personally dont really like phoenix play because i feel that they get straight up hardcountered by some1 who goes straight for archon, chargelot (without dts, but instead high templar).
While you might be able to hold you expansion against a dt--> archon player ab chargelot archon player with templar will have more archons and more zealots, the the only way to survive an archon chargelot allin while having gone phoenix is in my opinion completly walling yourself off at the top of the ramp, and then you will just get contained and the archon + charge player will get a free expansion.
Also if he has rly good reaction timing he can warp in 2 templar at each base and completly negate probe harras by feedbacking the phoenix when they fly in.
There's a timing where you can allin a player going for pure zealot archon. If he his playing reactively and getting templar tech a bit later with more stalkers, then you can expo and defend with simcity.
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Phoenix builds are quite strong but I feel they are already getting overrated and will probably decline in popularity when people get more used with it.
On small maps I don't really feel uncomfortable with robo play against phoenix builds:
I make an observer first and quee a immortal afterwards. The obs arrives fast enough at small maps that I can still cancel my immortal and smoothly change into a blink + obs build which I feel does quite well against phoenix. It's very important to never overmake sentries though as they are horrible agianst phoenix, going without zealots is also great but not at all times possible.
If you go twilight council after robo you basically force the phoenix play to go robo as well so you'll be twilight + robo against his stargate + robo. If you notice he expanded in response to your robo you can simply go with an archon / zealot / stalker timing attack on small maps, an archon can't be hurt by phoenix so as long as you win the ground fight you are basically in a won position, phoenix also suck for counterattacking your probes because of limited energy.
On big maps phoenix get alot better but I play DT as described by Cecilsunkure alot on big maps now. It's great vs anything but robo and on huge maps it's also quite fine against that still. It beats phoenix quite well and is also safer to do against 4gate then stargate, thus I like it really much.
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[QUOTE]On November 16 2011 21:06 rawler wrote:
Often spoken is that Phoenix builds are the future of PvP. However, I find this hard to believe, because a mineral line harass can be shutdown with a few photon cannons (pheonixes can't hit ground, so taking losses for a few probes is no longer worth it) and it can be hard countered with blink stalkers which are very popular now a days.
I personnaly use Pheonix builds in PvP at a High Level and the cannon part is untrue. If the harass forces your opponent to put 1 - 3 cannons in mineral line to defend it they lose 150 - 450 minerals to something useless in an army fight. Plus you can still poke in and kill 1 - 2 probes with only taking shield damage. You mentionned blink stalkers as a problem, but they were never one for me. The trick I found is to make only 5 - 6 pheonix and go mass blink stalkers with heavy upgrades. Usually I outplay the opponent like that. Try it out.
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Been messing around in my last few PvPs with Pheonix, going typically 2 gate -> Stargate if I don't see any chrono saved, or a 3 gate 4 gate defence if I do see no second gas/saved chrono, and I've got the following things to say on them:
1) Blink all ins are actually quite hard to hold off, but it's not impossible, especially if they're stupid enough to blink up your ramp and your follow up FFs are then good enough to trap them into zealots. If they don't blink all in you, but go that robo/blink composition -- delay your 4th Phoenix for a robo, and just keep killing observers.
2) Most common response I'm seeing to this atm is for them to just expand because they think they're safe. They're not, really. Your opponent can't rely on blink stalkers to reliably deflect the Phoenix, so they're going to need cannons. Especially if they botch their sim city. If the blink stalkers are split up too much, as well, you can often just kill them off and move onto the probe line. Ditto sentries if there's only 2-3 stalkers around them, just lift them up and they die for free. At this point, if they have to get a forge and 1-2 cannons at each mineral line, plus the losses that they're going to take, if you've made 4-5 phoenix then transitioned into robo you're miles ahead. Plus, typically, you can expand off of your first three pheonix because unless they want to get their probe line totally butchered they have to keep their units back.
3) It hard counters the crap out of a Warp Prism 4 gate all in.
4) The amount of map control you get is just obscene. It's also very fun, and stretches your multi-tasking and decision making to it's outer limits. I like it.
5) Transitions: I've been having a lot of success with building 3 immortals, 5 gates off of two bases and then just shoving with a forward pylon and using the pheonix to kill off sentries before I push, along with using the pheonix to make sure that the enemies army is always spread out and out of position. Since the usual response is to go blink stalker, this just runs them over.
6) DT rushes aren't much of an issue, since you scout initially with your first pheonix. If you see a TC, then getting a robo earlier is never a bad idea since it means blink or DT -- which, realistically, is hard countered by getting a robo bay up. If I see no tech in my opponents base at all, and few units, I assume DTs by proxy and just throw down a robo as early as I can. If they've hardcore rushed for DTs, cancel your second or third pheonix and then just throw down a robo. Not failed to DTs yet!
This is all at a mid-high diamond/low masters kind of level, so take from it what you will
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Tyler was asked about phoenixes on state of the game, because JP and Artosis casted several PvP's earlier in the day where I believe it was Naniwa went 4-0 and then 4-1 and often used phoenix play to do so. Not every game, mind you, but quite a few of them, and Naniwa absolutely destroyed his opponents.
Stalkers needed blink to just keep up with the phoenix, but since stalkers need to be kept in a ball to actually be effective, Naniwa would constantly pick up stragglers, throw down a forcefield, and completely change the landscape of each battle, and his technically smaller army would absolutely crush his opponents with almost no losses.
Phoenixes are a lot like mutalisks in that they don't engage directly against things that can fight back, but they give a lot of map control, and a lot of space control when used in combination with forcefields. Blink was actually not that helpful for Naniwas opponents, as they were forced to keep their units in a ball, and while neither player had a distinct ability to actually press an engagement with his opponent from openings alone, Naniwa actually had more versatility with the phoenixes and after whittling down his opponents just straight steamrolled them. It's not even funny how one-sided those games looked.
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On November 17 2011 03:59 Brutland wrote:
i wish i had a build to link but Axslav absolutely wrecks pvp using phoenix builds. he uses phoenix to harass and get probes, force the other player into his base, then techs, expands at will. think of the phoenix like a super fast muta in terms of how it effects the other player
I don't think they are like mutas. Mutas can base trade and don't rely on energy to kill units.
When I see phoenix I just go all-in at the moment, works best for me. I add one or two gates and move out. The obs I already have helps me fight at his choke. Now there are two points. If he spends all his energy on my probes I have a superior ground army and should have no problems to crush him, but if he uses his phoenix for defence it should come down to micro of if he spend to much in additional tech.
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On November 17 2011 22:01 Ada wrote:Show nested quote +On November 17 2011 03:59 Brutland wrote:
i wish i had a build to link but Axslav absolutely wrecks pvp using phoenix builds. he uses phoenix to harass and get probes, force the other player into his base, then techs, expands at will. think of the phoenix like a super fast muta in terms of how it effects the other player I don't think they are like mutas. Mutas can base trade and don't rely on energy to kill units. When I see phoenix I just go all-in at the moment, works best for me. I add one or two gates and move out. The obs I already have helps me fight at his choke. Now there are two points. If he spends all his energy on my probes I have a superior ground army and should have no problems to crush him, but if he uses his phoenix for defence it should come down to micro of if he spend to much in additional tech.
But it doesn't work like that. The second a phoenix player sees you throwing down more gateways it's obvious what your plan is. Plus, if I have 4-5 pheonix I can butcher 9 probes and then fly back. An all in won't work at this stage, since the pheonix player can stabilise.
Could you post a replay of an all in killing a phoenix player?
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On November 17 2011 22:01 Ada wrote:Show nested quote +On November 17 2011 03:59 Brutland wrote:
i wish i had a build to link but Axslav absolutely wrecks pvp using phoenix builds. he uses phoenix to harass and get probes, force the other player into his base, then techs, expands at will. think of the phoenix like a super fast muta in terms of how it effects the other player I don't think they are like mutas. Mutas can base trade and don't rely on energy to kill units. When I see phoenix I just go all-in at the moment, works best for me. I add one or two gates and move out. The obs I already have helps me fight at his choke. Now there are two points. If he spends all his energy on my probes I have a superior ground army and should have no problems to crush him, but if he uses his phoenix for defence it should come down to micro of if he spend to much in additional tech.
There is absolutely no way that a gateway centric 1 base all-in can break the ramp of a phoenix player.
Infinite FF being one of the reason, ramp defender's advantage another reason, and phoenixes being so badass against gateway units a third reason.
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I have never lost to a phoenix build at my level, i usually do 1gate robo into 3gates so my obs gets there just as his first phoenix might be coming out depending on how quickly he got the stargate. At that point I just throw a forge down, put a couple cannons in my main and throw down an expo with a few cannons. Chargelot immortal with eventually transitioning into archon charge blink immortal completely wrecks phoenix play. The cannons work wonders.
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On November 17 2011 22:01 Ada wrote:Show nested quote +On November 17 2011 03:59 Brutland wrote:
i wish i had a build to link but Axslav absolutely wrecks pvp using phoenix builds. he uses phoenix to harass and get probes, force the other player into his base, then techs, expands at will. think of the phoenix like a super fast muta in terms of how it effects the other player I don't think they are like mutas. Mutas can base trade and don't rely on energy to kill units. When I see phoenix I just go all-in at the moment, works best for me. I add one or two gates and move out. The obs I already have helps me fight at his choke. Now there are two points. If he spends all his energy on my probes I have a superior ground army and should have no problems to crush him, but if he uses his phoenix for defence it should come down to micro of if he spend to much in additional tech.
well a good phoenix player ofcourse knows how much probes he can pick off and still return with enough energy to use the phoenix in fight. A group of say 5 phoenix can easily kill 5 probes and be used for defending.
To the people that say phoenix can still do ok against DT, i just don't get it. First of all scouting DT in time with phoenix is quite hard since by the time the first phoenix flies over opponents base DT will be close to done (probably around 30 seconds). This hardly leaves enough time to get an obs especially as phoenix builds tend to lack a sentry. Also if you get a sentry to hold off DT you can be quite vulnerable to an archon push, archons can't die to phoenix afterall.
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This perhaps is a dumb idea, but how necessary is blink in order to deal with Phoenixes? Perhaps getting ~8 stalkers, 4 at each mineral line, and then just rushing for TC for charge and Archons? Not having blink will lessen your ability to punish poor micro from phoenixes, but then again, you barely ever will be able to actually kill them anyway. Therefore the timing push with chargelot/archon will come out much faster. Additionally, going Charge instead of Blink still has roughly the same look - still a TC being chronoed, low gas count. Only issue is if your opponent 'overcommits' to Phoenixes and gets a critical mass, but wouldn't having earlier HT/Archons be able to punish this in an indirect fashion?
Any idea what the weakness of this would be?
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It seems like if you ever let a phoenix player kill a bunch of your probes then you can just go and kill him, because his phoenix won't have any energy left to defend against your attack. They'll just be dead weight.
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On November 16 2011 21:06 rawler wrote:
1.) Am I wrong about what I said above? Is there something powerful about a phoenix build that I am missing? Map Control perhaps? Can they help secure a fast expansion with their harass?
A couple of things. For one, you're underestimating how good the raw numbers of a Phoenix are. In equal food, Phoenixes actually do the about the same damage to Colossi as Stalkers do, even after the bonus damage is factored in. For another, the threat of flying into his mineral line and eating a bunch of probes means that any early push he makes is completely allin, which in turn means you can take a safe expansion. If he pushes: cancel the nexus, camp the ramp with forcefields, and enjoy the ~10+ worker lead. What other people have mentioned about constant scouting and map presence is good too, but it's not the only point in Phoenixes favour.
On November 16 2011 21:06 rawler wrote:
2.) Is there a popular phoenix build PvP that a pro has posted and the community has approved of? From my research and searching, it seems these builds are still being hammered out and no one has perfected a great build yet.
Axslav's build is phenominal. Rough outline:
13gate (three total chronos on probes), second gas on 18, chrono boost initial gateway units: Zealot, Stalker, Stalker, Sentry, Sentry. Don't chrono Warp gates much. Make a stargate and a second gateway as money allows. Start a robo when your second phoenix is making, unless you confirm an opposing Phoenix build; use zealot/sentry/immortal to defend against blink builds. Expand and harass. Transition into chargelot/archon (with DTs) and good upgrades, and eventually a mothership.
On November 16 2011 21:06 rawler wrote:
3.) Are void rays a key part of these builds as well? I imagine that immortals might be important in these builds as well to control stalkers.
Void Rays are pretty awful. The only time I'd consider them in PvP is on 4+ bases as a surprise to break a Colossus war, but Phoenix builds don't really transition into Colossi, so it's not relevant here.
On November 16 2011 22:20 Zefa wrote:
I feel like robo twilight blink builds do not counter phoenixes but a pure twilight council only blink build has a timing that can just straight up kill phoenix play.
A pure blink build will never get vision up the ramp. Simple as that. Once there are a couple immortals in play the phoenix player can expand easily.
On November 16 2011 23:30 Xenorawks wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2011 23:19 Mandalor wrote:On November 16 2011 23:12 Xenorawks wrote:
I can imagine if you 1 gate stargate and add 3 more gates it would be a powerful build as long as you know a DT is not coming. If you start getting pheonixes earlier than blink stalkers(or before a mass of blink stalkers is there), then I would say it's good against blink build as well. But problem is, how do you get there?
You certainly can't open 1 gate stargate without dying to a normal 4gate, if you go forge and cannons your pheonixes will be delayed to the extent where there would be too many stalkers compared to the pheonix to begin with so you're probably going to lose. If you open 3 gate while getting stargate up, by the time you start getting pheonixes it would also be too late since blink robo build would be getting their stalker count up before you even started making pheonixes. Unless you are able to put on so much ridiculous pressure with only 3 gates and 2 gas that you force your opponent to make immortals and sentries while you get your stargate up, then it would be viable.
So yea, how do you create a pheonix build that can hold off a 4 gate, but also start producing pheonixes before stalkers can be warped in continuously? you still need to scout. there's no way around that. 4gate strategies are revealed with the timing of their second gas, energy on nexus etc. So yeah, if your opponent goes 4g, you don't want to play 1g stargate. I don't think I ever mention about going 1 g stargate. I'm just saying it would be powerful IF ONLY you could do that. There is no way in hell you can scout a good 4 gate just with probes. Every build in PvP has to be able to defend a 4gate. Therefore 1 gate stargate is never going to work.
That's actually quite wrong. 1gate stargate (Axslav's build) has enough sentries in time to stop a 4gate. The only way a 4gate can actually be at all threatening is if it tries to bumrush up your ramp with pylons before warp gate tech finishes - which he'd have to do blind when it's actually a bad idea against most builds - and even then you're fine if you just pull probes intelligently. That aside, you can scout 4gate builds pretty well with your initial probe: look for chrono usage and gas. You can't confirm it that way, but if he does a build that looks like a 4gate just go 2gate Stargatge instead, and you're totally fine. Even if he was bluffing and switches into a tech build, your slightly later Stargate is mae up for by the fact that he delayed his second gas to make the bluff.
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On November 17 2011 23:40 Zarent wrote:
This perhaps is a dumb idea, but how necessary is blink in order to deal with Phoenixes? Perhaps getting ~8 stalkers, 4 at each mineral line, and then just rushing for TC for charge and Archons? Not having blink will lessen your ability to punish poor micro from phoenixes, but then again, you barely ever will be able to actually kill them anyway. Therefore the timing push with chargelot/archon will come out much faster. Additionally, going Charge instead of Blink still has roughly the same look - still a TC being chronoed, low gas count. Only issue is if your opponent 'overcommits' to Phoenixes and gets a critical mass, but wouldn't having earlier HT/Archons be able to punish this in an indirect fashion?
Any idea what the weakness of this would be?
I have killed Phoenix users with Zealot/Archon but they were fairly poor Phoenix builds, and I've also lost with Zealot/Archon to Phoenix builds that actually transitioned and were handled correctly.
The idea with Blink is being able to target down Phoenix instead of letting them constantly harass you, and then obviously the blink will really help out in bigger engagements.
The point of Phoenix is to typically force a lot of Stalkers, to which they respond with a ton of Immortals. If you catch them going down this route and they handle their Immortals poorly or whatever, then I guess you could win. Still kinda seems like a coinflip and that you're not actually deciding the game - your opponent screwing up or not is the deciding factor.
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On November 17 2011 04:55 Sceptre wrote:Show nested quote +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. On November 16 2011 23:08 Geiko wrote:On November 16 2011 22:34 SeriouR wrote:What i'm seeing a lot right now is DT builds into archon/zealot play. I haven't tried phoenixes agains it yet but it seems it can be really difficult to play agians if they get the darkshrine somehwere you can't scout or simply because archons should do well agains phoenixs. Probably what will end up hapening is that both players will expand and then go for colossi or whatever tech of their choise. Still, hpeonxis are great ebucsset ehya allow you to scout though 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. 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.
I'm very surprised that you couldn't just kill his army if it were down the ramp. Something must have been off in that scenario, especially if your forced a lot of FF with the first DT. Perhaps there was a micro, or macro issue against Dhal?
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On November 18 2011 06:33 CecilSunkure wrote:Show nested quote +On November 17 2011 04:55 Sceptre wrote: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. On November 16 2011 23:08 Geiko wrote:On November 16 2011 22:34 SeriouR wrote:What i'm seeing a lot right now is DT builds into archon/zealot play. I haven't tried phoenixes agains it yet but it seems it can be really difficult to play agians if they get the darkshrine somehwere you can't scout or simply because archons should do well agains phoenixs. Probably what will end up hapening is that both players will expand and then go for colossi or whatever tech of their choise. Still, hpeonxis are great ebucsset ehya allow you to scout though 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. 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. I'm very surprised that you couldn't just kill his army if it were down the ramp. Something must have been off in that scenario, especially if your forced a lot of FF with the first DT. Perhaps there was a micro, or macro issue against Dhal?
I think you're underestimating how good phoenixes are in battles. In the situation you guys are describing one player sunk money into a Stargate and a Robo, and the other into a Council and a Dark Shrine. All else being equal, the armies should be about equal cost, with the primary difference being made by whatever the Phoenixes were able to snipe beforehand in workers and zealots. The problem with using Archons as AA instead of Stalkers is that the short range means that phoenixes can consistently nibble at the corners of your army. That's been my experience, anyway, as a Phoenix player.
Out of curiosity, in the aforementioned scenario, when would you push out against the phoenix player, and what does your army count look like at the time?
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Go check Axslav's stream and tell me phoenixes are not good =)
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On November 18 2011 07:30 Xujhan wrote:Show nested quote +On November 18 2011 06:33 CecilSunkure wrote:On November 17 2011 04:55 Sceptre wrote: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. On November 16 2011 23:08 Geiko wrote:On November 16 2011 22:34 SeriouR wrote:What i'm seeing a lot right now is DT builds into archon/zealot play. I haven't tried phoenixes agains it yet but it seems it can be really difficult to play agians if they get the darkshrine somehwere you can't scout or simply because archons should do well agains phoenixs. Probably what will end up hapening is that both players will expand and then go for colossi or whatever tech of their choise. Still, hpeonxis are great ebucsset ehya allow you to scout though 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. 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. I'm very surprised that you couldn't just kill his army if it were down the ramp. Something must have been off in that scenario, especially if your forced a lot of FF with the first DT. Perhaps there was a micro, or macro issue against Dhal? I think you're underestimating how good phoenixes are in battles. In the situation you guys are describing one player sunk money into a Stargate and a Robo, and the other into a Council and a Dark Shrine. All else being equal, the armies should be about equal cost, with the primary difference being made by whatever the Phoenixes were able to snipe beforehand in workers and zealots. The problem with using Archons as AA instead of Stalkers is that the short range means that phoenixes can consistently nibble at the corners of your army. That's been my experience, anyway, as a Phoenix player. Out of curiosity, in the aforementioned scenario, when would you push out against the phoenix player, and what does your army count look like at the time?
I don't really think Pheonixes are going to be any good whatsoever when all they can lift is Chargelots. You just simply ignore the Phoenix as the DT player and kill the ground army.
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On November 18 2011 07:45 CecilSunkure wrote:Show nested quote +On November 18 2011 07:30 Xujhan wrote:On November 18 2011 06:33 CecilSunkure wrote:On November 17 2011 04:55 Sceptre wrote: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. On November 16 2011 23:08 Geiko wrote:On November 16 2011 22:34 SeriouR wrote:What i'm seeing a lot right now is DT builds into archon/zealot play. I haven't tried phoenixes agains it yet but it seems it can be really difficult to play agians if they get the darkshrine somehwere you can't scout or simply because archons should do well agains phoenixs. Probably what will end up hapening is that both players will expand and then go for colossi or whatever tech of their choise. Still, hpeonxis are great ebucsset ehya allow you to scout though 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. 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. I'm very surprised that you couldn't just kill his army if it were down the ramp. Something must have been off in that scenario, especially if your forced a lot of FF with the first DT. Perhaps there was a micro, or macro issue against Dhal? I think you're underestimating how good phoenixes are in battles. In the situation you guys are describing one player sunk money into a Stargate and a Robo, and the other into a Council and a Dark Shrine. All else being equal, the armies should be about equal cost, with the primary difference being made by whatever the Phoenixes were able to snipe beforehand in workers and zealots. The problem with using Archons as AA instead of Stalkers is that the short range means that phoenixes can consistently nibble at the corners of your army. That's been my experience, anyway, as a Phoenix player. Out of curiosity, in the aforementioned scenario, when would you push out against the phoenix player, and what does your army count look like at the time? I don't really think Pheonixes are going to be any good whatsoever when all they can lift is Chargelots. You just simply ignore the Phoenix as the DT player and kill the ground army.
From my experience, just by picking off the GS sentry and zealots and lifting immortals, the battle goes overwhelmingly into your favor. Phoenix kill zealots almost 3x faster than a stalker, not to mention the lifted zealot is doing squat for dps in addition to getting instagibbed by phoenix. Zealot advantage is pretty important in PvP battles that don't involve splash. This is assuming though that you only spent a few lifts beforehand, enough to get a lead, not enough that a counter will kill because of deadweight phoenix.
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On November 18 2011 07:58 Amui wrote:Show nested quote +On November 18 2011 07:45 CecilSunkure wrote:On November 18 2011 07:30 Xujhan wrote:On November 18 2011 06:33 CecilSunkure wrote:On November 17 2011 04:55 Sceptre wrote: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. On November 16 2011 23:08 Geiko wrote:On November 16 2011 22:34 SeriouR wrote:What i'm seeing a lot right now is DT builds into archon/zealot play. I haven't tried phoenixes agains it yet but it seems it can be really difficult to play agians if they get the darkshrine somehwere you can't scout or simply because archons should do well agains phoenixs. Probably what will end up hapening is that both players will expand and then go for colossi or whatever tech of their choise. Still, hpeonxis are great ebucsset ehya allow you to scout though 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. 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. I'm very surprised that you couldn't just kill his army if it were down the ramp. Something must have been off in that scenario, especially if your forced a lot of FF with the first DT. Perhaps there was a micro, or macro issue against Dhal? I think you're underestimating how good phoenixes are in battles. In the situation you guys are describing one player sunk money into a Stargate and a Robo, and the other into a Council and a Dark Shrine. All else being equal, the armies should be about equal cost, with the primary difference being made by whatever the Phoenixes were able to snipe beforehand in workers and zealots. The problem with using Archons as AA instead of Stalkers is that the short range means that phoenixes can consistently nibble at the corners of your army. That's been my experience, anyway, as a Phoenix player. Out of curiosity, in the aforementioned scenario, when would you push out against the phoenix player, and what does your army count look like at the time? I don't really think Pheonixes are going to be any good whatsoever when all they can lift is Chargelots. You just simply ignore the Phoenix as the DT player and kill the ground army. From my experience, just by picking off the GS sentry and zealots and lifting immortals, the battle goes overwhelmingly into your favor. Phoenix kill zealots almost 3x faster than a stalker, not to mention the lifted zealot is doing squat for dps in addition to getting instagibbed by phoenix. Zealot advantage is pretty important in PvP battles that don't involve splash. This is assuming though that you only spent a few lifts beforehand, enough to get a lead, not enough that a counter will kill because of deadweight phoenix.
We were referring to really specific scenario without Sentries or Immortals to lift however, O_o
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phenix play is very good in pvp, since they work fine against everything. They crush robo builds, can scout dts, are not terrible against blink stalkers and are good against fe(you either kill a enough probes to get ahead and expand yourself or if he pulls his army to defend mineral line you ff the ramp and kill his expo. Its a win-win for you)
The only weakness of phoenix play is a 4 gate but it can be held of with some adjustments in your bo.
Btw. What to do if both players opened with phoenix?
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On November 18 2011 07:45 CecilSunkure wrote:Show nested quote +On November 18 2011 07:30 Xujhan wrote:On November 18 2011 06:33 CecilSunkure wrote:On November 17 2011 04:55 Sceptre wrote: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. On November 16 2011 23:08 Geiko wrote:On November 16 2011 22:34 SeriouR wrote:What i'm seeing a lot right now is DT builds into archon/zealot play. I haven't tried phoenixes agains it yet but it seems it can be really difficult to play agians if they get the darkshrine somehwere you can't scout or simply because archons should do well agains phoenixs. Probably what will end up hapening is that both players will expand and then go for colossi or whatever tech of their choise. Still, hpeonxis are great ebucsset ehya allow you to scout though 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. 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. I'm very surprised that you couldn't just kill his army if it were down the ramp. Something must have been off in that scenario, especially if your forced a lot of FF with the first DT. Perhaps there was a micro, or macro issue against Dhal? I think you're underestimating how good phoenixes are in battles. In the situation you guys are describing one player sunk money into a Stargate and a Robo, and the other into a Council and a Dark Shrine. All else being equal, the armies should be about equal cost, with the primary difference being made by whatever the Phoenixes were able to snipe beforehand in workers and zealots. The problem with using Archons as AA instead of Stalkers is that the short range means that phoenixes can consistently nibble at the corners of your army. That's been my experience, anyway, as a Phoenix player. Out of curiosity, in the aforementioned scenario, when would you push out against the phoenix player, and what does your army count look like at the time? I don't really think Pheonixes are going to be any good whatsoever when all they can lift is Chargelots. You just simply ignore the Phoenix as the DT player and kill the ground army.
That didn't actually answer my question. =/ I'd like to know what time you move out so that I can test whether or not a standard phoenix build can hold it. My experience is that it can, but without anything to test that's all the argument either of us can really give.
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I use phoenix a lot. I always do some probe harassment, but I try to not fully commit. I see some of you are saying that you do 0 probe harassment.
Do you think this is the correct thing to do, or is their some line where probe harassment goes over the top. How much probe harassment can one do, while still being able to counter the "last chance, all in" attack by your opponent.
I understand the idea about not going overboard, but by doing just a little phoenix probe harassment, you could force your opponent to play more defensively with his army or make cannons, or he could just try and kill you (which I don't think is a bad thing to force him to go all in.) Not to mention you also will get an econ advantage. But is harassing sentries and zealots, better than harassing probes? Or how much probes should I harass if any?
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On November 18 2011 06:33 CecilSunkure wrote:Show nested quote +On November 17 2011 04:55 Sceptre wrote: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. On November 16 2011 23:08 Geiko wrote:On November 16 2011 22:34 SeriouR wrote:What i'm seeing a lot right now is DT builds into archon/zealot play. I haven't tried phoenixes agains it yet but it seems it can be really difficult to play agians if they get the darkshrine somehwere you can't scout or simply because archons should do well agains phoenixs. Probably what will end up hapening is that both players will expand and then go for colossi or whatever tech of their choise. Still, hpeonxis are great ebucsset ehya allow you to scout though 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. 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. I'm very surprised that you couldn't just kill his army if it were down the ramp. Something must have been off in that scenario, especially if your forced a lot of FF with the first DT. Perhaps there was a micro, or macro issue against Dhal?
I can't speak for small micro issues, as we were only exploring the matchup, and I saw no glaring macro issues from either of us, but for me I found that with how many chargelots I was able to lift and kill, my zealot count was hugely higher which despite lacking charge overwhelmed his remaining stalkers and pair of archons.
I can post the replays in a few hours when I'm home from work - will PM them to you if interested.
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On November 18 2011 10:03 Xujhan wrote:Show nested quote +On November 18 2011 07:45 CecilSunkure wrote:On November 18 2011 07:30 Xujhan wrote:On November 18 2011 06:33 CecilSunkure wrote:On November 17 2011 04:55 Sceptre wrote: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. On November 16 2011 23:08 Geiko wrote:On November 16 2011 22:34 SeriouR wrote:What i'm seeing a lot right now is DT builds into archon/zealot play. I haven't tried phoenixes agains it yet but it seems it can be really difficult to play agians if they get the darkshrine somehwere you can't scout or simply because archons should do well agains phoenixs. Probably what will end up hapening is that both players will expand and then go for colossi or whatever tech of their choise. Still, hpeonxis are great ebucsset ehya allow you to scout though 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. 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. I'm very surprised that you couldn't just kill his army if it were down the ramp. Something must have been off in that scenario, especially if your forced a lot of FF with the first DT. Perhaps there was a micro, or macro issue against Dhal? I think you're underestimating how good phoenixes are in battles. In the situation you guys are describing one player sunk money into a Stargate and a Robo, and the other into a Council and a Dark Shrine. All else being equal, the armies should be about equal cost, with the primary difference being made by whatever the Phoenixes were able to snipe beforehand in workers and zealots. The problem with using Archons as AA instead of Stalkers is that the short range means that phoenixes can consistently nibble at the corners of your army. That's been my experience, anyway, as a Phoenix player. Out of curiosity, in the aforementioned scenario, when would you push out against the phoenix player, and what does your army count look like at the time? I don't really think Pheonixes are going to be any good whatsoever when all they can lift is Chargelots. You just simply ignore the Phoenix as the DT player and kill the ground army. That didn't actually answer my question. =/ I'd like to know what time you move out so that I can test whether or not a standard phoenix build can hold it. My experience is that it can, but without anything to test that's all the argument either of us can really give.
Oh sorry, I didn't see your question. I honestly don't know, but if you click the link to the DT thread in my profile you can check out any of my replays.
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On November 16 2011 23:08 Geiko wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2011 22:34 SeriouR wrote:What i'm seeing a lot right now is DT builds into archon/zealot play. I haven't tried phoenixes agains it yet but it seems it can be really difficult to play agians if they get the darkshrine somehwere you can't scout or simply because archons should do well agains phoenixs. Probably what will end up hapening is that both players will expand and then go for colossi or whatever tech of their choise. Still, hpeonxis are great ebucsset ehya allow you to scout though Scouting an early Darkshrine is easy. You don't need to see the building, just the units that your opponent has.
this as someone who often dt rushes to counter 4 gate in pvp even as the lower league player i am i can spot a dt rush a mile off without seeing twilight council or any buildings like that
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Just wanted to chime in here. Other people in this thread are saying void rays don't work, but lately on the ladder I've seen some interesting stargate play in pvp with voids. Some people have been doing a 1-1-1 style that all-ins at about 10 minutes like a terran would. They get void rays, immortals, and spend extra minerals on zealots. It's actually quite powerful because if you go blink stalker he has like 6 or 7 immortals and they tear you up. I think correct response is chargelot archon but I haven't figured out how to hold that push yet. (Masters toss)
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Italy12246 Posts
On November 20 2011 19:39 Maxsparrow wrote:
Just wanted to chime in here. Other people in this thread are saying void rays don't work, but lately on the ladder I've seen some interesting stargate play in pvp with voids. Some people have been doing a 1-1-1 style that all-ins at about 10 minutes like a terran would. They get void rays, immortals, and spend extra minerals on zealots. It's actually quite powerful because if you go blink stalker he has like 6 or 7 immortals and they tear you up. I think correct response is chargelot archon but I haven't figured out how to hold that push yet. (Masters toss)
Can't you just basetrade if his attack hits that late? Treat it like 1base colossus, expo far away and blink into his main when he moves out. If he isn't making phoenixes there's no point having your stalkers in your main.
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On November 20 2011 19:39 Maxsparrow wrote:
Just wanted to chime in here. Other people in this thread are saying void rays don't work, but lately on the ladder I've seen some interesting stargate play in pvp with voids. Some people have been doing a 1-1-1 style that all-ins at about 10 minutes like a terran would. They get void rays, immortals, and spend extra minerals on zealots. It's actually quite powerful because if you go blink stalker he has like 6 or 7 immortals and they tear you up. I think correct response is chargelot archon but I haven't figured out how to hold that push yet. (Masters toss)
I've seen it with phoenix instead of voidrays and it is indeed an interesting style. Barring a zealot/archon combination it seems to do quite well against anything and stargate into a later robo if needed is quite a flexible opening.
When i play robo against stargate I often find it heading towards this style, I add twilight council which leads them to add robo (to be safe from dt) and then I tend to go zealot/archon/stalker. Phoenixes lifting your zealots can really make your stalkers vulnerable against those immortals though.
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Me and a master friend played around for a few hours with phoenix play. Its really cool. Basically we found that a person who goes phoenix can keep their opponent contained for a while until they can deal with the phoenix's. The phoenix player is free to double expand, and has absolute scouting. A person with good apm can avoid cannons until there are 4 or 5 which is alot of minerals. The only counter to mass phoenix is archons and stalkers (barely). So you can assume to tech to zealot immortal, as you secure air control. I just think it gives you a very big economic advantage over robo play. If they go dt's you need to scout it though. which you should be able to FF the ramp if anything. But the key here is to double expand, otherwise you'll be screwed.
EDIT: Basically I used them like mutalisk harass. You NEED to be scouting though.
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United States8476 Posts
On November 21 2011 16:24 GoSuBlood wrote:
Me and a master friend played around for a few hours with phoenix play. Its really cool. Basically we found that a person who goes phoenix can keep their opponent contained for a while until they can deal with the phoenix's. The phoenix player is free to double expand, and has absolute scouting. A person with good apm can avoid cannons until there are 4 or 5 which is alot of minerals. The only counter to mass phoenix is archons and stalkers (barely). So you can assume to tech to zealot immortal, as you secure air control. I just think it gives you a very big economic advantage over robo play. If they go dt's you need to scout it though. which you should be able to FF the ramp if anything. But the key here is to double expand, otherwise you'll be screwed.
EDIT: Basically I used them like mutalisk harass. You NEED to be scouting though.
You can't double expand with phoenix.
High templar are also good vs phoenix.
Sure you can go zealot immortal as a followup, but not pure zealot immortals.
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So how early do you guys get phoenixes?? 1 gate Stargate? Have you guys had success transitining into an expo with phoenixes?
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On November 21 2011 20:27 SaladTosser wrote:
So how early do you guys get phoenixes?? 1 gate Stargate? Have you guys had success transitining into an expo with phoenixes?
2 gate stargate seems to be the best currently. If you have a good BO, it's even safe against most "fake tech build into 4 gate".
You don't really need to rush to phoenix imo. I get the stargate at 5:30, and 2 phoenix in my opponent's base by 7:20 - 7:30 which gives me just enough time to not die to DTs.
You can definitely expo after a phoenix build as long as your opponent isn't doing a blink all in or a fast DT build. Against one base colossus, you should all in and kill him and not expo.
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I feel like phoenix builds are the safest in PvP. You get complete map control, can snipe probes and sentries/zealots and get free scouting info. Plus phoenix play basically hardcounters any 1 base robo openers which still seem to be common in plat/diamond at least. I always chuckle when I stroll into my enemy's base and see him with a couple immortals. As long as you make the right transitions you should be able to win most games.
I usually open 1 gate stargate, and get a sentry out to be safe against 4 gates. Then add 2 more gates and move out with 3 phoenix and begin harassing probes and sniping sentries/zealots. I usually go up to 6-7 phoenix and then stop, if I see my opponent going blink I immediately stop phoenix production and build immortals. You would think blink counters phoenix but it really doesn't in small numbers. Its kind of like stalkers vs mutas where the air unit can just fly in and out and snipe stuff cuz they are so fast until there is a large ball of blink stalkers. From there just control the map, expand and transition into colossus. I will say that blink builds are the hardest to beat after opening stargate. You just need to build immortals in time to shut down their blink into main harass. Use phoenixes to check for there ninja expos.
If your opponent is trying some 1 base robo all in you can basically just walk over and kill them. If they try to expand you can kill them. If they decide to sit on their 1 base you are free to expand as you keep them stuck in their base with the phoenix harass. You can then mass voids and lol at the robo player.
In phoenix vs phoenix, I transition into blink and robo. Have to be careful about expanding here as you can just get rolled over if you expand too quick. I usually go for ninja expos and just transition into blink/obs play and eventually to colossus.
A DT rush could kill you if you don't but usually you get to their base with your first 3 phoenix in time to scout it and prepare for it. A delayed 4 gate could also kill a stargate opener as you cant FF the ramp indefinitely and phoenixes suck straight up vs stalkers but I have never had someone do this to me yet opening stargate.
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On November 21 2011 21:13 flipstorm wrote:
I feel like phoenix builds are the safest in PvP. You get complete map control, can snipe probes and sentries/zealots and get free scouting info. Plus phoenix play basically hardcounters any 1 base robo openers which still seem to be common in plat/diamond at least. I always chuckle when I stroll into my enemy's base and see him with a couple immortals. As long as you make the right transitions you should be able to win most games.
I usually open 1 gate stargate, and get a sentry out to be safe against 4 gates. Then add 2 more gates and move out with 3 phoenix and begin harassing probes and sniping sentries/zealots. I usually go up to 6-7 phoenix and then stop, if I see my opponent going blink I immediately stop phoenix production and build immortals. You would think blink counters phoenix but it really doesn't in small numbers. Its kind of like stalkers vs mutas where the air unit can just fly in and out and snipe stuff cuz they are so fast until there is a large ball of blink stalkers. From there just control the map, expand and transition into colossus. I will say that blink builds are the hardest to beat after opening stargate. You just need to build immortals in time to shut down their blink into main harass. Use phoenixes to check for there ninja expos.
If your opponent is trying some 1 base robo all in you can basically just walk over and kill them. If they try to expand you can kill them. If they decide to sit on their 1 base you are free to expand as you keep them stuck in their base with the phoenix harass. You can then mass voids and lol at the robo player.
In phoenix vs phoenix, I transition into blink and robo. Have to be careful about expanding here as you can just get rolled over if you expand too quick. I usually go for ninja expos and just transition into blink/obs play and eventually to colossus.
A DT rush could kill you if you don't but usually you get to their base with your first 3 phoenix in time to scout it and prepare for it. A delayed 4 gate could also kill a stargate opener as you cant FF the ramp indefinitely and phoenixes suck straight up vs stalkers but I have never had someone do this to me yet opening stargate.
There's no way you can be safe against 4 gate with only one gate. If you're going to be greedy, you might as well not get sentry at all and save up gas for your transition.
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Well, after the 6 minute mark, I make a robo if i see dt's or I double expand. It works the same way mutas work, you cant stop him without losing your base. Going from robo/ 4 gate tech to high templars with storm takes SUCH a long time. Idk what game you're playing but toss cant switch tech without time. I usually open 2-3 gate and 1 stargate depending what i scout. I go double stargate and then i harass. I never really stop until i have around 10. Because A. They pick off sentrys, and zealot meat shields. B. 10 is enough energy to kill an entire probe line. But they need to be separated and scouting your opponent to make sure nothing is happening. As most would say, blink doesnt stop it, if anything you force them to blink to their main and then you kill their nat. If you scout an all in, your micro should be good enough to stop them, and pick up the zealots. And have around 3 sentrys by the time K-4 gate is done (5:30) so I'm fairly safe against 4 g. But its really about your micro, and transition.
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United States8476 Posts
On November 22 2011 01:41 GoSuBlood wrote:
Well, after the 6 minute mark, I make a robo if i see dt's or I double expand. It works the same way mutas work, you cant stop him without losing your base. Going from robo/ 4 gate tech to high templars with storm takes SUCH a long time. Idk what game you're playing but toss cant switch tech without time. I usually open 2-3 gate and 1 stargate depending what i scout. I go double stargate and then i harass. I never really stop until i have around 10. Because A. They pick off sentrys, and zealot meat shields. B. 10 is enough energy to kill an entire probe line. But they need to be separated and scouting your opponent to make sure nothing is happening. As most would say, blink doesnt stop it, if anything you force them to blink to their main and then you kill their nat. If you scout an all in, your micro should be good enough to stop them, and pick up the zealots. And have around 3 sentrys by the time K-4 gate is done (5:30) so I'm fairly safe against 4 g. But its really about your micro, and transition.
You can't spot dts at the 6 minute mark. You can't double expand at the 6 minute mark. Templar are for feedback, not storm. Why are you worried about korean 4 gate and getting sentries? Sentries suck versus korean 4 gate. You mean regular 4 gate. You need to play against better protoss players.
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On November 21 2011 20:17 NrGmonk wrote:Show nested quote +On November 21 2011 16:24 GoSuBlood wrote:
Me and a master friend played around for a few hours with phoenix play. Its really cool. Basically we found that a person who goes phoenix can keep their opponent contained for a while until they can deal with the phoenix's. The phoenix player is free to double expand, and has absolute scouting. A person with good apm can avoid cannons until there are 4 or 5 which is alot of minerals. The only counter to mass phoenix is archons and stalkers (barely). So you can assume to tech to zealot immortal, as you secure air control. I just think it gives you a very big economic advantage over robo play. If they go dt's you need to scout it though. which you should be able to FF the ramp if anything. But the key here is to double expand, otherwise you'll be screwed.
EDIT: Basically I used them like mutalisk harass. You NEED to be scouting though. You can't double expand with phoenix. High templar are also good vs phoenix. Sure you can go zealot immortal as a followup, but not pure zealot immortals.
So what can a toss who commits to an 4 gate or goes robo tech do against me if I have can kill his min line? Are you assuming I cant scout and call "he's essentially dead"
High templars? Yes, because all toss players RUSH for HT. It takes time. If you know how to get amulet back, please tell me so i know not to use phoenix anymore. Or did they become cybernetics core tech? Please, tell me. I would love to know.
Zealot immortal is fine because you have one more base. What counters zealot immortal phoneix? Colossi < phoniex, Stalkers< immortals / zealots, zealots < +1 more base worth of zealots.
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On November 22 2011 01:45 NrGmonk wrote:Show nested quote +On November 22 2011 01:41 GoSuBlood wrote:
Well, after the 6 minute mark, I make a robo if i see dt's or I double expand. It works the same way mutas work, you cant stop him without losing your base. Going from robo/ 4 gate tech to high templars with storm takes SUCH a long time. Idk what game you're playing but toss cant switch tech without time. I usually open 2-3 gate and 1 stargate depending what i scout. I go double stargate and then i harass. I never really stop until i have around 10. Because A. They pick off sentrys, and zealot meat shields. B. 10 is enough energy to kill an entire probe line. But they need to be separated and scouting your opponent to make sure nothing is happening. As most would say, blink doesnt stop it, if anything you force them to blink to their main and then you kill their nat. If you scout an all in, your micro should be good enough to stop them, and pick up the zealots. And have around 3 sentrys by the time K-4 gate is done (5:30) so I'm fairly safe against 4 g. But its really about your micro, and transition. You can't spot dts at the 6 minute mark. You can't double expand at the 6 minute mark. Templar are for feedback, not storm. Why are you worried about korean 4 gate and getting sentries? Sentries suck versus korean 4 gate. You mean regular 4 gate. You need to play against better protoss players.
You don't know how to scout Dt's? Thats sad.... I never said 6 minute mark did I? When did I say expand at 6 minutes? No, what the hell kind of reading skills do you have? You just assume double expand means 6 minutes? ALSO, IM GUESSING THAT FEEDBACK IS STILL CYB CORE? 10 gate, 1 chrono on nexus, isnt standard 4 gate. It warps in at 5:30. doesnt finish at 5:30. Standard 4 gate warps in at 5:45.
User was warned for this post
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On November 22 2011 01:48 GoSuBlood wrote:Show nested quote +On November 21 2011 20:17 NrGmonk wrote:On November 21 2011 16:24 GoSuBlood wrote:
Me and a master friend played around for a few hours with phoenix play. Its really cool. Basically we found that a person who goes phoenix can keep their opponent contained for a while until they can deal with the phoenix's. The phoenix player is free to double expand, and has absolute scouting. A person with good apm can avoid cannons until there are 4 or 5 which is alot of minerals. The only counter to mass phoenix is archons and stalkers (barely). So you can assume to tech to zealot immortal, as you secure air control. I just think it gives you a very big economic advantage over robo play. If they go dt's you need to scout it though. which you should be able to FF the ramp if anything. But the key here is to double expand, otherwise you'll be screwed.
EDIT: Basically I used them like mutalisk harass. You NEED to be scouting though. You can't double expand with phoenix. High templar are also good vs phoenix. Sure you can go zealot immortal as a followup, but not pure zealot immortals. So what can a toss who commits to an 4 gate or goes robo tech do against me if I have can kill his min line? Are you assuming I cant scout and call "he's essentially dead" High templars? Yes, because all toss players RUSH for HT. It takes time. If you know how to get amulet back, please tell me so i know not to use phoenix anymore. Or did they become cybernetics core tech? Please, tell me. I would love to know. Zealot immortal is fine because you have one more base. What counters zealot immortal phoneix? Colossi < phoniex, Stalkers< immortals / zealots, zealots < +1 more base worth of zealots.
You would die vs a decent player. I dunno what order you're using, but I'm sure there are like 3 things that would prompt me to just run up your ramp with 1z 1s and plant 2 pylons there to warpin at 5:42 or so. Skipping a zeal, etc. You need to get a stalker unless you want my to scout your stargate and watch it warpin, and you also need warpgate. Anyone who opens hard 4 gate and waits to commit or transition will see what you are doing and commit to the kill.
Also, you have a valuable avenue for insight here in NrGMonk, don't waste the opportunity with sarcasm and disbelief.
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On November 22 2011 01:58 GoSuBlood wrote:Show nested quote +On November 22 2011 01:45 NrGmonk wrote:On November 22 2011 01:41 GoSuBlood wrote:
Well, after the 6 minute mark, I make a robo if i see dt's or I double expand. It works the same way mutas work, you cant stop him without losing your base. Going from robo/ 4 gate tech to high templars with storm takes SUCH a long time. Idk what game you're playing but toss cant switch tech without time. I usually open 2-3 gate and 1 stargate depending what i scout. I go double stargate and then i harass. I never really stop until i have around 10. Because A. They pick off sentrys, and zealot meat shields. B. 10 is enough energy to kill an entire probe line. But they need to be separated and scouting your opponent to make sure nothing is happening. As most would say, blink doesnt stop it, if anything you force them to blink to their main and then you kill their nat. If you scout an all in, your micro should be good enough to stop them, and pick up the zealots. And have around 3 sentrys by the time K-4 gate is done (5:30) so I'm fairly safe against 4 g. But its really about your micro, and transition. You can't spot dts at the 6 minute mark. You can't double expand at the 6 minute mark. Templar are for feedback, not storm. Why are you worried about korean 4 gate and getting sentries? Sentries suck versus korean 4 gate. You mean regular 4 gate. You need to play against better protoss players. You don't know how to scout Dt's? Thats sad.... I never said 6 minute mark did I? When did I say expand at 6 minutes? No, what the hell kind of reading skills do you have? You just assume double expand means 6 minutes? ALSO, IM GUESSING THAT FEEDBACK IS STILL CYB CORE? 10 gate, 1 chrono on nexus, isnt standard 4 gate. It warps in at 5:30. doesnt finish at 5:30. Standard 4 gate warps in at 5:45.
Describe your build order or post a replay, the burden of proof is on you now
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GoSuBlood ganna be GoSuGone in a moment. Cmon dude we provide free help on forums. Don't be such a downer.
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United States8476 Posts
On November 22 2011 01:58 GoSuBlood wrote:Show nested quote +On November 22 2011 01:45 NrGmonk wrote:On November 22 2011 01:41 GoSuBlood wrote:
Well, after the 6 minute mark, I make a robo if i see dt's or I double expand. It works the same way mutas work, you cant stop him without losing your base. Going from robo/ 4 gate tech to high templars with storm takes SUCH a long time. Idk what game you're playing but toss cant switch tech without time. I usually open 2-3 gate and 1 stargate depending what i scout. I go double stargate and then i harass. I never really stop until i have around 10. Because A. They pick off sentrys, and zealot meat shields. B. 10 is enough energy to kill an entire probe line. But they need to be separated and scouting your opponent to make sure nothing is happening. As most would say, blink doesnt stop it, if anything you force them to blink to their main and then you kill their nat. If you scout an all in, your micro should be good enough to stop them, and pick up the zealots. And have around 3 sentrys by the time K-4 gate is done (5:30) so I'm fairly safe against 4 g. But its really about your micro, and transition. You can't spot dts at the 6 minute mark. You can't double expand at the 6 minute mark. Templar are for feedback, not storm. Why are you worried about korean 4 gate and getting sentries? Sentries suck versus korean 4 gate. You mean regular 4 gate. You need to play against better protoss players. You don't know how to scout Dt's? Thats sad.... I never said 6 minute mark did I? When did I say expand at 6 minutes? No, what the hell kind of reading skills do you have? You just assume double expand means 6 minutes? ALSO, IM GUESSING THAT FEEDBACK IS STILL CYB CORE? 10 gate, 1 chrono on nexus, isnt standard 4 gate. It warps in at 5:30. doesnt finish at 5:30. Standard 4 gate warps in at 5:45.
"Well, after the 6 minute mark, I make a robo if i see dt's or I double expand. "
Most people would interpret that as "As the 6 minute mark passes, I make a robo if I see dts or else I double expand".
Sentries are not the way to counter korean 4 gate; they don't have the dps to kill the pylons in your base.
My templar comment only referred to the late game. I was only suggesting a third unit that can deter phoenix harass.
You can't make wild claims like you're making on this forum without proof.
Keep being rude like that and you'll be out of this forum in no time.
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Here's my idea for phoenix play, critique it:
9 pylon 12 gate 14 gas 16 pylon 16 core 17z(19) 22 stalker(24), cb warpgate only, drive out scout, drop assimilator and 2 more gates (3 total)... drop stargate when 150 gas, make 4 more probes (3 in each geyser, 18 mining) cb out 1st phoenix and send to opponent, prepare for expand... If money getting high, drop 4th gate... If you are safe to expand, drop nexus then 4th gate.
If opponent is doing anything retarded you can do 4gate within time, otherwise opponent should prepare with sentries and/or a fast immortal depending on build, which should put your gas income on par with his right? -100 or -200 for sentries, your gas is later than his, should equal out the 30 to 60 second difference in assimilator timing
Problems?
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I feel that phoenix play is risky mostly beacuse if your opponent scouts it in time and put down double stargate phoenix you have basicly lost.
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United States8476 Posts
On November 22 2011 02:28 OminouS wrote:
I feel that phoenix play is risky mostly beacuse if your opponent scouts it in time and put down double stargate phoenix you have basicly lost.
Not really realistic <.<
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On November 22 2011 02:29 NrGmonk wrote:Show nested quote +On November 22 2011 02:28 OminouS wrote:
I feel that phoenix play is risky mostly beacuse if your opponent scouts it in time and put down double stargate phoenix you have basicly lost. Not really realistic <.<
I've done it a few times, works wonders. Of course if you can't get a scout in before let's say an observer it is usually to late.
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On November 22 2011 02:08 NrGmonk wrote:Show nested quote +On November 22 2011 01:58 GoSuBlood wrote:On November 22 2011 01:45 NrGmonk wrote:On November 22 2011 01:41 GoSuBlood wrote:
Well, after the 6 minute mark, I make a robo if i see dt's or I double expand. It works the same way mutas work, you cant stop him without losing your base. Going from robo/ 4 gate tech to high templars with storm takes SUCH a long time. Idk what game you're playing but toss cant switch tech without time. I usually open 2-3 gate and 1 stargate depending what i scout. I go double stargate and then i harass. I never really stop until i have around 10. Because A. They pick off sentrys, and zealot meat shields. B. 10 is enough energy to kill an entire probe line. But they need to be separated and scouting your opponent to make sure nothing is happening. As most would say, blink doesnt stop it, if anything you force them to blink to their main and then you kill their nat. If you scout an all in, your micro should be good enough to stop them, and pick up the zealots. And have around 3 sentrys by the time K-4 gate is done (5:30) so I'm fairly safe against 4 g. But its really about your micro, and transition. You can't spot dts at the 6 minute mark. You can't double expand at the 6 minute mark. Templar are for feedback, not storm. Why are you worried about korean 4 gate and getting sentries? Sentries suck versus korean 4 gate. You mean regular 4 gate. You need to play against better protoss players. You don't know how to scout Dt's? Thats sad.... I never said 6 minute mark did I? When did I say expand at 6 minutes? No, what the hell kind of reading skills do you have? You just assume double expand means 6 minutes? ALSO, IM GUESSING THAT FEEDBACK IS STILL CYB CORE? 10 gate, 1 chrono on nexus, isnt standard 4 gate. It warps in at 5:30. doesnt finish at 5:30. Standard 4 gate warps in at 5:45. "Well, after the 6 minute mark, I make a robo if i see dt's or I double expand. " Most people would interpret that as "As the 6 minute mark passes, I make a robo if I see dts or else I double expand". Sentries are not the way to counter korean 4 gate; they don't have the dps to kill the pylons in your base. My templar comment only referred to the late game. I was only suggesting a third unit that can deter phoenix harass. You can't make wild claims like you're making on this forum without proof. Keep being rude like that and you'll be out of this forum in no time.
Sorry if i worded this improperly.
Sir, if i may suggest in the english language the word "after" is not the same as "at." Because of my choice of words, I understand this can be confusing. I didn't mean it as a specific timing, but i meant it as "what do I transition to, based on what i scout." That's what i thought all builds were based off of, sorry i didn't state that. I don't have the replays saved, but after I go home I'll play a few games and save a couple. Basically I would either make units, or expand if he expands. I stop phoenix production at around 10 (not sure if i said it.) It usually makes them lean away from colossus tech.
I regret you threatening me because I noticed you have a high number of posts, and may call someone to ban me. Seeing as the 4 gate era is fading, it's nice to suggest some other playstyles, instead of referring to the last year in PVP. The way I position my sentrys is so they're hold position, so a pylon cant be made. I have 2 sentrys and a zealot out at 5:30. Therefore, unless due to my own scrubbishness if i lose, its my fault, not the build.
I based it off an old TL thread from patch 1.2, when 4 gate was less nerfed. I do stop phoenix production, but am careful not to lose them. I'm sorry if the player i was against wasn't up to par with what you expect. He was a rank 20-25 master last season, but has been less active this season. He had 1100ish points. So he might suck by your standards. I'm not sure. I apologize if I caused you any problems. (The build I was referring to was http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=193103)
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United States8476 Posts
On November 22 2011 02:24 tehemperorer wrote:
Here's my idea for phoenix play, critique it:
9 pylon 12 gate 14 gas 16 pylon 16 core 17z(19) 22 stalker(24), cb warpgate only, drive out scout, drop assimilator and 2 more gates (3 total)... drop stargate when 150 gas, make 4 more probes (3 in each geyser, 18 mining) cb out 1st phoenix and send to opponent, prepare for expand... If money getting high, drop 4th gate... If you are safe to expand, drop nexus then 4th gate.
If opponent is doing anything retarded you can do 4gate within time, otherwise opponent should prepare with sentries and/or a fast immortal depending on build, which should put your gas income on par with his right? -100 or -200 for sentries, your gas is later than his, should equal out the 30 to 60 second difference in assimilator timing
Problems?
The way you're describing it, I'm not sure if you can hold 4 gate. What units are you getting after your first stalker?
Also, 3 gate phoenix is much worse than 1 or 2 gate phoenix. By the time your phoenix get to your opponent's base, he'll have a decent amount of units to defend against phoenix harass.
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On November 22 2011 02:28 OminouS wrote:
I feel that phoenix play is risky mostly beacuse if your opponent scouts it in time and put down double stargate phoenix you have basicly lost.
Lol no.
1 base gives you exactly enough income to sustain chronoboosted phoenix off of 1 stargate. Getting 2 stargates on 1 base is a pure waste of money.
Also on a completely different topic, regarding that other poster who was talking about k4g. Do people really still do that ??? With the warpgate nerf I was under the impression that what we referred to as k4g was the 8 pylon 8 gate variant that hits at 5:00-5:100.
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On November 22 2011 02:31 OminouS wrote:Show nested quote +On November 22 2011 02:29 NrGmonk wrote:On November 22 2011 02:28 OminouS wrote:
I feel that phoenix play is risky mostly beacuse if your opponent scouts it in time and put down double stargate phoenix you have basicly lost. Not really realistic <.< I've done it a few times, works wonders. Of course if you can't get a scout in before let's say an observer it is usually to late.
Besides it not being realistic, its also not even really viable off 1 base. All of your money will be in phoenix. So how do you plan on killing his buildings? (Which is how you win the game) The best way to expand vs phoenix, and in general to be safe, is to make cannons at your front. This will be even more true if you go double stargate on 1 base.
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On November 22 2011 02:36 NrGmonk wrote:Show nested quote +On November 22 2011 02:24 tehemperorer wrote:
Here's my idea for phoenix play, critique it:
9 pylon 12 gate 14 gas 16 pylon 16 core 17z(19) 22 stalker(24), cb warpgate only, drive out scout, drop assimilator and 2 more gates (3 total)... drop stargate when 150 gas, make 4 more probes (3 in each geyser, 18 mining) cb out 1st phoenix and send to opponent, prepare for expand... If money getting high, drop 4th gate... If you are safe to expand, drop nexus then 4th gate.
If opponent is doing anything retarded you can do 4gate within time, otherwise opponent should prepare with sentries and/or a fast immortal depending on build, which should put your gas income on par with his right? -100 or -200 for sentries, your gas is later than his, should equal out the 30 to 60 second difference in assimilator timing
Problems? The way you're describing it, I'm not sure if you can hold 4 gate. What units are you getting after your first stalker? Also, 3 gate phoenix is much worse than 1 or 2 gate phoenix. By the time your phoenix get to your opponent's base, he'll have a decent amount of units to defend against phoenix harass.
It is meant to be (read: it is a hard 4gate) a hard 4gate unless you scout that your opponent is doing something other than the same 4gate. Instead of dropping 3 more gates once scout is gone, you do gas gate gate then a stargate after 150 gas. Get 1 sentry and be ready to cb the first phoenix.
That being said, your comment made me realize it is pretty inefficient and can be bo countered, so I'm done with the theory part. Scrap it.
How you usually do phoenix?
Also, isn't a good response to pheonix a nexus and 2 cannons (main n nat)?
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On November 22 2011 02:39 Geiko wrote:Show nested quote +On November 22 2011 02:28 OminouS wrote:
I feel that phoenix play is risky mostly beacuse if your opponent scouts it in time and put down double stargate phoenix you have basicly lost. Lol no. 1 base gives you exactly enough income to sustain chronoboosted phoenix off of 1 stargate. Getting 2 stargates on 1 base is a pure waste of money. Also on a completely different topic, regarding that other poster who was talking about k4g. Do people really still do that ??? With the warpgate nerf I was under the impression that what we referred to as k4g was the 8 pylon 8 gate variant that hits at 5:00-5:100.
O_o I wasnt talking about that one.. I was talking about this one (http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Korean_4_Warpgate_All_In_%28vs._Protoss%29) which is listed as 10 pylon 10 gate. I didnt even know there was a 8/8 varient. Seems stupid IMO
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On November 22 2011 02:44 GoSuBlood wrote:Show nested quote +On November 22 2011 02:39 Geiko wrote:On November 22 2011 02:28 OminouS wrote:
I feel that phoenix play is risky mostly beacuse if your opponent scouts it in time and put down double stargate phoenix you have basicly lost. Lol no. 1 base gives you exactly enough income to sustain chronoboosted phoenix off of 1 stargate. Getting 2 stargates on 1 base is a pure waste of money. Also on a completely different topic, regarding that other poster who was talking about k4g. Do people really still do that ??? With the warpgate nerf I was under the impression that what we referred to as k4g was the 8 pylon 8 gate variant that hits at 5:00-5:100. O_o I wasnt talking about that one.. I was talking about this one (http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Korean_4_Warpgate_All_In_%28vs._Protoss%29) which is listed as 10 pylon 10 gate. I didnt even know there was a 8/8 varient. Seems stupid IMO
That build is soooo out of date ^^ I am pretty sure no one does this anymore. Don't believe everything liquipedia tells you.
The 8/8 one is the only one even slightly viable nowadays.
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On November 22 2011 02:47 Geiko wrote:Show nested quote +On November 22 2011 02:44 GoSuBlood wrote:On November 22 2011 02:39 Geiko wrote:On November 22 2011 02:28 OminouS wrote:
I feel that phoenix play is risky mostly beacuse if your opponent scouts it in time and put down double stargate phoenix you have basicly lost. Lol no. 1 base gives you exactly enough income to sustain chronoboosted phoenix off of 1 stargate. Getting 2 stargates on 1 base is a pure waste of money. Also on a completely different topic, regarding that other poster who was talking about k4g. Do people really still do that ??? With the warpgate nerf I was under the impression that what we referred to as k4g was the 8 pylon 8 gate variant that hits at 5:00-5:100. O_o I wasnt talking about that one.. I was talking about this one (http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Korean_4_Warpgate_All_In_%28vs._Protoss%29) which is listed as 10 pylon 10 gate. I didnt even know there was a 8/8 varient. Seems stupid IMO That build is soooo out of date ^^ Don't believe everything liquipedia tells you ^^ The 8/8 one is the only one even slightly viable nowadays.
Lol >.> people do it in diamond. Idk. Anywayssssssss
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On November 22 2011 02:48 GoSuBlood wrote:Show nested quote +On November 22 2011 02:47 Geiko wrote:On November 22 2011 02:44 GoSuBlood wrote:On November 22 2011 02:39 Geiko wrote:On November 22 2011 02:28 OminouS wrote:
I feel that phoenix play is risky mostly beacuse if your opponent scouts it in time and put down double stargate phoenix you have basicly lost. Lol no. 1 base gives you exactly enough income to sustain chronoboosted phoenix off of 1 stargate. Getting 2 stargates on 1 base is a pure waste of money. Also on a completely different topic, regarding that other poster who was talking about k4g. Do people really still do that ??? With the warpgate nerf I was under the impression that what we referred to as k4g was the 8 pylon 8 gate variant that hits at 5:00-5:100. O_o I wasnt talking about that one.. I was talking about this one (http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Korean_4_Warpgate_All_In_%28vs._Protoss%29) which is listed as 10 pylon 10 gate. I didnt even know there was a 8/8 varient. Seems stupid IMO That build is soooo out of date ^^ Don't believe everything liquipedia tells you ^^ The 8/8 one is the only one even slightly viable nowadays. Lol >.> people do it in diamond. Idk. Anywayssssssss
I don't mean to be elitist or whatever, but where you really flaming NrGMonk that hard when you yourself are only diamond ?
On another topic, how do you prevent a probe from building pylons in your base 1 zealot and 2 sentry ? Seems like a weak 4 gate defense to me.
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If you want to go phoenix and scout a 1 gate robo DO NOT GO PHEONIX! There is a timing where they can push with one immortal and you will just die.
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On November 22 2011 02:55 Lore-Fighting wrote:
If you want to go phoenix and scout a 1 gate robo DO NOT GO PHEONIX! There is a timing where they can push with one immortal and you will just die.
What ? :D
Are immortals massive units that can break forcefields now ?
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On November 22 2011 02:53 Geiko wrote:Show nested quote +On November 22 2011 02:48 GoSuBlood wrote:On November 22 2011 02:47 Geiko wrote:On November 22 2011 02:44 GoSuBlood wrote:On November 22 2011 02:39 Geiko wrote:On November 22 2011 02:28 OminouS wrote:
I feel that phoenix play is risky mostly beacuse if your opponent scouts it in time and put down double stargate phoenix you have basicly lost. Lol no. 1 base gives you exactly enough income to sustain chronoboosted phoenix off of 1 stargate. Getting 2 stargates on 1 base is a pure waste of money. Also on a completely different topic, regarding that other poster who was talking about k4g. Do people really still do that ??? With the warpgate nerf I was under the impression that what we referred to as k4g was the 8 pylon 8 gate variant that hits at 5:00-5:100. O_o I wasnt talking about that one.. I was talking about this one (http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Korean_4_Warpgate_All_In_%28vs._Protoss%29) which is listed as 10 pylon 10 gate. I didnt even know there was a 8/8 varient. Seems stupid IMO That build is soooo out of date ^^ Don't believe everything liquipedia tells you ^^ The 8/8 one is the only one even slightly viable nowadays. Lol >.> people do it in diamond. Idk. Anywayssssssss I don't mean to be elitist or whatever, but where you really flaming NrGMonk that hard when you yourself are only diamond ? On another topic, how do you prevent a probe from building pylons in your base 1 zealot and 2 sentry ? Seems like a weak 4 gate defense to me.
Uhh, he's a rank 80's master with a high win rate. So I assume he was just promoted? Either way, I wasn't flaming him. He immediately shut me down, which pissed me off slightly. Basically saying that the games I played were against bronze, and not an 1100 point masters player.
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On November 22 2011 02:48 GoSuBlood wrote:Show nested quote +On November 22 2011 02:47 Geiko wrote:On November 22 2011 02:44 GoSuBlood wrote:On November 22 2011 02:39 Geiko wrote:On November 22 2011 02:28 OminouS wrote:
I feel that phoenix play is risky mostly beacuse if your opponent scouts it in time and put down double stargate phoenix you have basicly lost. Lol no. 1 base gives you exactly enough income to sustain chronoboosted phoenix off of 1 stargate. Getting 2 stargates on 1 base is a pure waste of money. Also on a completely different topic, regarding that other poster who was talking about k4g. Do people really still do that ??? With the warpgate nerf I was under the impression that what we referred to as k4g was the 8 pylon 8 gate variant that hits at 5:00-5:100. O_o I wasnt talking about that one.. I was talking about this one (http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Korean_4_Warpgate_All_In_%28vs._Protoss%29) which is listed as 10 pylon 10 gate. I didnt even know there was a 8/8 varient. Seems stupid IMO That build is soooo out of date ^^ Don't believe everything liquipedia tells you ^^ The 8/8 one is the only one even slightly viable nowadays. Lol >.> people do it in diamond. Idk. Anywayssssssss
I can offrace as Z and beat people with Ultra/Queen only in Diamond...
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With the build I use, your first phoenix comes out @ 6:30, so you can usually scout his whole base @ 7:00. In general, if you see a twilight, you will want to cut at least one phoenix to get a robo out ASAP. This should let you be safe from DT's provided you chain FF your ramp + it lets you get immortals in case your opponent goes for a blink all-in.
The big problem when you scout with your first phoenix is that it removes that "aha!" moment where you roll in with 4-5 phoenix and completely crush his mineral line. Instead, it's more of a commitment to saying "Hey, this is safe/standard enough that even if you know I am getting phoenix, I can still make it work". Especially in the early game (pre-5 phoenix) it's almost impossible to stop a phoenix player from running in and sniping 1-2 probes at a time, as the damage output from the stalker/sentries isn't enough to kill your phoenix unless you over commit.
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On November 22 2011 02:57 Geiko wrote:Show nested quote +On November 22 2011 02:55 Lore-Fighting wrote:
If you want to go phoenix and scout a 1 gate robo DO NOT GO PHEONIX! There is a timing where they can push with one immortal and you will just die. What ? :D Are immortals massive units that can break forcefields now ?
It doesn't matter. You can forcefield a couple of times but the obs will give vision on the high ground so it really doesn't matter. You will run out of FF energy. I can show you a replay if you want.
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I would love to see that replay.
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On November 22 2011 03:01 CecilSunkure wrote:Show nested quote +On November 22 2011 02:48 GoSuBlood wrote:On November 22 2011 02:47 Geiko wrote:On November 22 2011 02:44 GoSuBlood wrote:On November 22 2011 02:39 Geiko wrote:On November 22 2011 02:28 OminouS wrote:
I feel that phoenix play is risky mostly beacuse if your opponent scouts it in time and put down double stargate phoenix you have basicly lost. Lol no. 1 base gives you exactly enough income to sustain chronoboosted phoenix off of 1 stargate. Getting 2 stargates on 1 base is a pure waste of money. Also on a completely different topic, regarding that other poster who was talking about k4g. Do people really still do that ??? With the warpgate nerf I was under the impression that what we referred to as k4g was the 8 pylon 8 gate variant that hits at 5:00-5:100. O_o I wasnt talking about that one.. I was talking about this one (http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Korean_4_Warpgate_All_In_%28vs._Protoss%29) which is listed as 10 pylon 10 gate. I didnt even know there was a 8/8 varient. Seems stupid IMO That build is soooo out of date ^^ Don't believe everything liquipedia tells you ^^ The 8/8 one is the only one even slightly viable nowadays. Lol >.> people do it in diamond. Idk. Anywayssssssss I can offrace as Z and beat people with Ultra/Queen only in Diamond...
That's cause Ultra-Queen is BALLA!! lol.
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On November 22 2011 02:39 Geiko wrote:Show nested quote +On November 22 2011 02:28 OminouS wrote:
I feel that phoenix play is risky mostly beacuse if your opponent scouts it in time and put down double stargate phoenix you have basicly lost. Lol no. 1 base gives you exactly enough income to sustain chronoboosted phoenix off of 1 stargate. Getting 2 stargates on 1 base is a pure waste of money. Also on a completely different topic, regarding that other poster who was talking about k4g. Do people really still do that ??? With the warpgate nerf I was under the impression that what we referred to as k4g was the 8 pylon 8 gate variant that hits at 5:00-5:100.
Point is that while you make the stargates you save both gas and chrono, and you can make 4 while he has 3 (for example). As soon as his phoneix are in range of yours you will have killed them with superior numbers and he can never catch up.
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On November 22 2011 04:29 Lore-Fighting wrote:Show nested quote +On November 22 2011 02:57 Geiko wrote:On November 22 2011 02:55 Lore-Fighting wrote:
If you want to go phoenix and scout a 1 gate robo DO NOT GO PHEONIX! There is a timing where they can push with one immortal and you will just die. What ? :D Are immortals massive units that can break forcefields now ? It doesn't matter. You can forcefield a couple of times but the obs will give vision on the high ground so it really doesn't matter. You will run out of FF energy. I can show you a replay if you want.
When I see robo immortals, I just want to attack him because my army is much stronger than his.
If he attacks me, my army will be even stronger up a ramp.
If by any chance, he has a ressource hack and has a better army than me, I can get 4 sentries and infinite FF my ramp while my phoenix kill his probes and intercept any Colossus he could be making.
Keeping the sentries in the back, it's impossible for him to go up the ramp.
I still don't get it and would love a replay
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On November 22 2011 04:32 OminouS wrote:Show nested quote +On November 22 2011 02:39 Geiko wrote:On November 22 2011 02:28 OminouS wrote:
I feel that phoenix play is risky mostly beacuse if your opponent scouts it in time and put down double stargate phoenix you have basicly lost. Lol no. 1 base gives you exactly enough income to sustain chronoboosted phoenix off of 1 stargate. Getting 2 stargates on 1 base is a pure waste of money. Also on a completely different topic, regarding that other poster who was talking about k4g. Do people really still do that ??? With the warpgate nerf I was under the impression that what we referred to as k4g was the 8 pylon 8 gate variant that hits at 5:00-5:100. Point is that while you make the stargates you save both gas and chrono, and you can make 4 while he has 3 (for example). As soon as his phoneix are in range of yours you will have killed them with superior numbers and he can never catch up.
he can run back to his base and get his phoenix protected by his stalkers. In the end, even if you manage to kill 1-2 phoenix, that's how much gas you spent to get the second stargate. If he is careful, and doesn't lose his phoenixes, then you'll just be down by 1.5 phoenix for the rest of the game.
Then only time double stargate is a good answer to simple stargate is in a 2vs2 game when your terran buddy is feeding you gas.
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Phoenix builds in PvP are great. I personally like 3 gate with a 4 gate style CB on WG tech to pressure and force a lot of sentries. Follow this up with 1 more gate and phoenixes to lift his sentries and then really just 4 gate.
And chalk me up as someone else who doesn't understand/has never seen 1 gate robo 1 immortal timing attack beat a phoenix opening. It doesn't even make sense in theory.
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i cant understand how its safe against 4 gate. I tried this strategy once and whooped a player doing one gate robo but what are you going to do versus 4 gate. yes you can get sentries out in time to forcefield your ramp...but what's that going to do, delay your inevitable death by 30 seconds or so? with a robo build you can forcefield your ramp until immortals come out, stargate...
one thing overlooked is this strategy seems more fun to play than any other in PvP so if anyone has replays of holding off a well executed 4 gate please post them
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On November 22 2011 07:26 ThePianoDentist wrote:i cant understand how its safe against 4 gate. I tried this strategy once and whooped a player doing one gate robo but what are you going to do versus 4 gate. yes you can get sentries out in time to forcefield your ramp...but what's that going to do, delay your inevitable death by 30 seconds or so? with a robo build you can forcefield your ramp until immortals come out, stargate... one thing overlooked is this strategy seems more fun to play than any other in PvP so if anyone has replays of holding off a well executed 4 gate please post them
Pretty much anything is safe against 4 gate these days as long as you're not ultra greedy. I've been doing my defensive 3 gate build with one less gate (defensive 2 gate ?) and it holds fine even against GM level 4 gates.
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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.
I don't know how you'd hold a 4gate doing that. Assuming you took 2gas and skipped zealot, and weren't doing 3stalker rush, I can absolutely 4gate you. You wouldn't be able to stop me from putting down pylons below and potentially above the ramp. A single cannon doesn't stop a 4gate, if I micro I can kill a cannon losing nothing. From my experience you need something like 3 cannons on a ramp just to stop a 4gate, let alone on open ground where micro is simple.
I do agree though that stalkers are pretty bad against phoenix though, it's just you need to get there safely.
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On November 22 2011 07:41 Geiko wrote:Show nested quote +On November 22 2011 07:26 ThePianoDentist wrote:i cant understand how its safe against 4 gate. I tried this strategy once and whooped a player doing one gate robo but what are you going to do versus 4 gate. yes you can get sentries out in time to forcefield your ramp...but what's that going to do, delay your inevitable death by 30 seconds or so? with a robo build you can forcefield your ramp until immortals come out, stargate... one thing overlooked is this strategy seems more fun to play than any other in PvP so if anyone has replays of holding off a well executed 4 gate please post them Pretty much anything is safe against 4 gate these days as long as you're not ultra greedy. I've been doing my defensive 3 gate build with one less gate (defensive 2 gate ?) and it holds fine even against GM level 4 gates.
does it rely on forcefielding his army in half if he tries to break the ramp? maybe i just need to do better forcefields
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On November 22 2011 08:07 ThePianoDentist wrote:Show nested quote +On November 22 2011 07:41 Geiko wrote:On November 22 2011 07:26 ThePianoDentist wrote:i cant understand how its safe against 4 gate. I tried this strategy once and whooped a player doing one gate robo but what are you going to do versus 4 gate. yes you can get sentries out in time to forcefield your ramp...but what's that going to do, delay your inevitable death by 30 seconds or so? with a robo build you can forcefield your ramp until immortals come out, stargate... one thing overlooked is this strategy seems more fun to play than any other in PvP so if anyone has replays of holding off a well executed 4 gate please post them Pretty much anything is safe against 4 gate these days as long as you're not ultra greedy. I've been doing my defensive 3 gate build with one less gate (defensive 2 gate ?) and it holds fine even against GM level 4 gates. does it rely on forcefielding his army in half if he tries to break the ramp? maybe i just need to do better forcefields
No not in half, Ideally just 2 stalkers or something like that.
If he's still under your ramp while he's warping in his first round, you've already won. The tricky part is not letting him get up the ramp to plant pylons when he starts pressuring you with his first units.
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I think the best part of phoenix play is not the potential harassment but the ability to lift sentries out of the equation.
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I don't know how you'd hold a 4gate doing that. Assuming you took 2gas and skipped zealot, and weren't doing 3stalker rush, I can absolutely 4gate you. You wouldn't be able to stop me from putting down pylons below and potentially above the ramp. A single cannon doesn't stop a 4gate, if I micro I can kill a cannon losing nothing. From my experience you need something like 3 cannons on a ramp just to stop a 4gate, let alone on open ground where micro is simple.
I do agree though that stalkers are pretty bad against phoenix though, it's just you need to get there safely.[/QUOTE]
yeah am i right in thinking you can take out 1 cannon with just two stalkers if you micro the one being targeted out of range when taking hull damage...or is 3 the minimum required? anyway the point is it's very littl
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On November 22 2011 08:27 ThePianoDentist wrote:
I don't know how you'd hold a 4gate doing that. Assuming you took 2gas and skipped zealot, and weren't doing 3stalker rush, I can absolutely 4gate you. You wouldn't be able to stop me from putting down pylons below and potentially above the ramp. A single cannon doesn't stop a 4gate, if I micro I can kill a cannon losing nothing. From my experience you need something like 3 cannons on a ramp just to stop a 4gate, let alone on open ground where micro is simple.
I do agree though that stalkers are pretty bad against phoenix though, it's just you need to get there safely.
yeah am i right in thinking you can take out 1 cannon with just two stalkers if you micro the one being targeted out of range when taking hull damage...or is 3 the minimum required? anyway the point is it's very littl
I'm confused... Is this an answer to my post or someone else's ? :S
Lol ok nevermind you just messsed up the quotes ^^
The answer is 3 if your opponent is focus firing with his cannons.
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I have a question. If you go for phoenix pvp, and your opponent rush to colossi, what is the best response? Keep making phoenix, getting void rays, maybe even carriers, or get your own robo?
Thx!
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On November 23 2011 05:45 ZeGeR wrote:
I have a question. If you go for phoenix pvp, and your opponent rush to colossi, what is the best response? Keep making phoenix, getting void rays, maybe even carriers, or get your own robo?
Thx!
Add gates to reach 4 gates, and go kill him. Phoenix first to lift off the sentry then walk up the ramp with your army . Should be an easy win.
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On November 23 2011 06:09 Geiko wrote:Show nested quote +On November 23 2011 05:45 ZeGeR wrote:
I have a question. If you go for phoenix pvp, and your opponent rush to colossi, what is the best response? Keep making phoenix, getting void rays, maybe even carriers, or get your own robo?
Thx! Add gates to reach 4 gates, and go kill him. Phoenix first to lift off the sentry then walk up the ramp with your army . Should be an easy win.
This will work, but it's rather unnecessary. Assuming you went Phoenix -> Robo, there's no combination of units the Colossus player can make that will ever kill you. Keep harassing, expand, and his eventual push will fail miserably. If you went pure Phoenix though, I can see why you'd prefer the 'go fucking kill him' option.
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unmicroed a zealot beats a stalker 1v1, by going phoenix u force ur opponent to get stalkers and u can easily snipe obs. zealot immortal wrecks stalkers in a straight on fight.
Also, by going phoenix you gain map control so you can expand before your opponent and get an economic lead while scouting everything they're doing and getting some probe kills. For your opponent to expand, they need to be able to have enough stalkers to defend both bases from phoenix. If they don't, u can easily force field them in their base while u kill the expansion and back off. Also cannons in the mineral line are a bad reaction as the opponent can just counter expand. Both players will have same economy but the player with the phoenix will have a much better mobile army.
Phoenix are also very useful in fights, better than stalkers as range dps. In a fight, u want to kill their zealots before they kill yours and phoenix add much more dps per cost than a stalker does to a zealot. In fights, you want your phoenix to focus on their phoenix first, then sentries, then zealots and then on collosus and immortals. Phoenix also don't take up physical land space so u have more of ur army shooting which is always nice.
To hold off 4 gate, get 1 zealot, then 1 stalker, then 1 sentry, and be making a sentry by the time a 4 gate would hit. You should have atleast 2 gates done by now and once u know ur safe from 4 gate put down a stargate.
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On November 16 2011 21:24 JonnyLaw wrote:
Use the phoenix to lift zealots/sentries. They both die very quickly. After those units go down, immortals and lastly the stalkers. Microing everything properly takes crisp execution. It is a very strong attack.
Ok this, this is not correct, zealots are probably the last thing you should be lifting, unless they have charge nearly all zealot dps can be avoided with good micro or at the very least reduced. It goes sentry, (eliminate their FF and GS) then immortals (eliminate the majority of their dps and stalker tank) and then from there it shouldn't matter because if you've invested enough into phoenixes on one base and still have enough lifts you've already lost.
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On November 22 2011 02:28 OminouS wrote:
I feel that phoenix play is risky mostly beacuse if your opponent scouts it in time and put down double stargate phoenix you have basicly lost.
How do you expect to have air dominance against a player who got their SG before you and will have air control? Phoenixes have such a fast build time that they will at least have 3 or 4 phoenixes by the time you START your stargates. They WILL scout your stargates because he will have air control because he went SG before you. Thus, he will be able to get his own stargate in response and continue to have more phoenixes than you and win. Not the best response at all.
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On November 22 2011 04:29 Lore-Fighting wrote:Show nested quote +On November 22 2011 02:57 Geiko wrote:On November 22 2011 02:55 Lore-Fighting wrote:
If you want to go phoenix and scout a 1 gate robo DO NOT GO PHEONIX! There is a timing where they can push with one immortal and you will just die. What ? :D Are immortals massive units that can break forcefields now ? It doesn't matter. You can forcefield a couple of times but the obs will give vision on the high ground so it really doesn't matter. You will run out of FF energy. I can show you a replay if you want.
Why does it matter if they get vision of high ground if they can't attack anything on it because of the fucking force field?
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On November 23 2011 11:57 PlacidPanda wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2011 21:24 JonnyLaw wrote:
Use the phoenix to lift zealots/sentries. They both die very quickly. After those units go down, immortals and lastly the stalkers. Microing everything properly takes crisp execution. It is a very strong attack. Ok this, this is not correct, zealots are probably the last thing you should be lifting, unless they have charge nearly all zealot dps can be avoided with good micro or at the very least reduced. It goes sentry, (eliminate their FF and GS) then immortals (eliminate the majority of their dps and stalker tank) and then from there it shouldn't matter because if you've invested enough into phoenixes on one base and still have enough lifts you've already lost.
Sorry, but this is kinda right, but pretty wrong. Though I am only a diamond league player so my own opinion means shit I was fortunate enough to have a coaching session with EgAxslav in which I pretty much interviewed him for an hour about his phoenix build (I seriously had about 30 or so questions lined up in a word document) When I asked about lift is what Axslav said...
Axslav's Lift Priority
1. Sentries: they are light, and have low hp and no armor can FF etc. These are of course high priority
2. Immortals/zlots depending on army composition: they cost more than your phoenixes and in stalker heavy comps are worth lifting to CC only (but why would you be going a stalker heavy comp anyways while going phoenixes??). If you lift an immortal you still shouldn't try to kill it because it wouldn't maximize dps. Graviton beam should be used as a CC in this situation and you should focus fire down zealots that you would lift.
Though also most players will go zealot heavy when going phoenixes (as you should get a robo in addition to your SG UNLESS they got an expansion) because of gas constraints. Immortals do less dps to zealots than Phoenixes do. Phoenixes also do more than twice the dps to zealots than immortals (8 compared to 18). Immortals also do about as much dps as zealots to other zealots yet you do so much more damage to other zealots.(13.1 dps for immortals and 11.66 dps for zlots when factoring in armor for both).
Thus when going a zealot heavy comp it is better to lift the opponents zealots than their immortals as it gives the highest difference in dps output between your army and theirs.
3. Stalkers I guess, Axslav says really never to lift them unless they are the only thing left. At that point you have already probably won the engagement though. The exception to this is if they are going a blink-stalker play.
I plan on publishing a guide soon on phoenix PVP that will be proof read by Axslav, with replays of him demonstrating the build and with the coaching VoD from Axslav on the build himself.
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On November 23 2011 19:57 Easytouch1500 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 23 2011 11:57 PlacidPanda wrote:On November 16 2011 21:24 JonnyLaw wrote:
Use the phoenix to lift zealots/sentries. They both die very quickly. After those units go down, immortals and lastly the stalkers. Microing everything properly takes crisp execution. It is a very strong attack. Ok this, this is not correct, zealots are probably the last thing you should be lifting, unless they have charge nearly all zealot dps can be avoided with good micro or at the very least reduced. It goes sentry, (eliminate their FF and GS) then immortals (eliminate the majority of their dps and stalker tank) and then from there it shouldn't matter because if you've invested enough into phoenixes on one base and still have enough lifts you've already lost. Sorry, but this is kinda right, but pretty wrong. Though I am only a diamond league player so my own opinion means shit I was fortunate enough to have a coaching session with EgAxslav in which I pretty much interviewed him for an hour about his phoenix build (I seriously had about 30 or so questions lined up in a word document) When I asked about lift is what Axslav said... Axslav's Lift Priority 1. Sentries: they are light, and have low hp and no armor can FF etc. These are of course high priority 2. Immortals/zlots depending on army composition: they cost more than your phoenixes and in stalker heavy comps are worth lifting to CC only (but why would you be going a stalker heavy comp anyways while going phoenixes??). If you lift an immortal you still shouldn't try to kill it because it wouldn't maximize dps. Graviton beam should be used as a CC in this situation and you should focus fire down zealots that you would lift. Though also most players will go zealot heavy when going phoenixes (as you should get a robo in addition to your SG UNLESS they got an expansion) because of gas constraints. Immortals do less dps to zealots than Phoenixes do. Phoenixes also do more than twice the dps to zealots than immortals (8 compared to 18). Immortals also do about as much dps as zealots to other zealots yet you do so much more damage to other zealots.(13.1 dps for immortals and 11.66 dps for zlots when factoring in armor for both). Thus when going a zealot heavy comp it is better to lift the opponents zealots than their immortals as it gives the highest difference in dps output between your army and theirs. 3. Stalkers I guess, Axslav says really never to lift them unless they are the only thing left. At that point you have already probably won the engagement though. The exception to this is if they are going a blink-stalker play. I plan on publishing a guide soon on phoenix PVP that will be proof read by Axslav, with replays of him demonstrating the build and with the coaching VoD from Axslav on the build himself.
This is pretty much accurate.
Kill sentries first
Lift immortals
Kill zealots fast
Never lift stalkers
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On November 23 2011 19:57 Easytouch1500 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 23 2011 11:57 PlacidPanda wrote:On November 16 2011 21:24 JonnyLaw wrote:
Use the phoenix to lift zealots/sentries. They both die very quickly. After those units go down, immortals and lastly the stalkers. Microing everything properly takes crisp execution. It is a very strong attack. Ok this, this is not correct, zealots are probably the last thing you should be lifting, unless they have charge nearly all zealot dps can be avoided with good micro or at the very least reduced. It goes sentry, (eliminate their FF and GS) then immortals (eliminate the majority of their dps and stalker tank) and then from there it shouldn't matter because if you've invested enough into phoenixes on one base and still have enough lifts you've already lost. Sorry, but this is kinda right, but pretty wrong. Though I am only a diamond league player so my own opinion means shit I was fortunate enough to have a coaching session with EgAxslav in which I pretty much interviewed him for an hour about his phoenix build (I seriously had about 30 or so questions lined up in a word document) When I asked about lift is what Axslav said... Axslav's Lift Priority 1. Sentries: they are light, and have low hp and no armor can FF etc. These are of course high priority 2. Immortals/zlots depending on army composition: they cost more than your phoenixes and in stalker heavy comps are worth lifting to CC only (but why would you be going a stalker heavy comp anyways while going phoenixes??). If you lift an immortal you still shouldn't try to kill it because it wouldn't maximize dps. Graviton beam should be used as a CC in this situation and you should focus fire down zealots that you would lift. Though also most players will go zealot heavy when going phoenixes (as you should get a robo in addition to your SG UNLESS they got an expansion) because of gas constraints. Immortals do less dps to zealots than Phoenixes do. Phoenixes also do more than twice the dps to zealots than immortals (8 compared to 18). Immortals also do about as much dps as zealots to other zealots yet you do so much more damage to other zealots.(13.1 dps for immortals and 11.66 dps for zlots when factoring in armor for both). Thus when going a zealot heavy comp it is better to lift the opponents zealots than their immortals as it gives the highest difference in dps output between your army and theirs. 3. Stalkers I guess, Axslav says really never to lift them unless they are the only thing left. At that point you have already probably won the engagement though. The exception to this is if they are going a blink-stalker play. I plan on publishing a guide soon on phoenix PVP that will be proof read by Axslav, with replays of him demonstrating the build and with the coaching VoD from Axslav on the build himself.
Sorry, what does CC mean?
From the context, I gather that you lift immortals to simply take them out of battle rather than to actually kill them? Thus you would lift all of his immortals even if that reduces your army dps, as opposed to lifting one immortal at a time?
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I think in PvP phoenix builds can be great if you use it correctly and no go off course trying something new at a high lvl..
but the phoenix immortal push is pretty brutal if they pick up your sentries before you can forcefield his army off T.T
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On November 24 2011 00:28 eugalp wrote:
Sorry, what does CC mean?
From the context, I gather that you lift immortals to simply take them out of battle rather than to actually kill them? Thus you would lift all of his immortals even if that reduces your army dps, as opposed to lifting one immortal at a time?
crowd control
depending on your composition as immortals hit stalkers harder than zealots. if you're zealot heavy, you should aim to lift their zealots. if you're stalker heavy, you want to take less damage from immortals so you lift those instead as they deal bonus damage to armored units
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This build is so strong it hard counters every other pvp strat if you survive past 4 gate
and with all the scouting you can easily stop and/or counter your opponents strat
Axslav has amazing pvp even though his other 2 matchups are lacking, and on his stream he commentates many games where he does the phoenix build - if you really want a solid understanding behind it i would recommend his stream
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ive have been opening with a 3gate robo, then getting a fast stargate, pushing with 4-5 phoenix and 3-4 immortals with stalkers/zealot. If you can hold the initial attack and he pulls back instead of keeping a contain, this is a fantastic build
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I usually play zealot/immortal expand (nexus at 6 minutes if opponent is not 4-gating) and I've been crushing aggressive phoenix plays pretty hard by reactively cannoning when my obs sees phoenixes. The cannons DPS phoenixes down pretty quickly, so my immortal(s) mostly stay on the ground, and because I don't get a second gas or over-produce probes, I have about the same sized gateway army as the phoenix player. When phoenix openings have gone ahead with the attack, it's been lopsided enough that they've gged after the attack each time.
I do have more trouble with macro phoenix plays tho because I don't have enough mobile AA to leave my base early enough to prevent my opponent from responding with his own expansion, so this turns into a macro battle where I have my expansion up earlier, but he has phoenixes to harass with.
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This is what I meant earlier. When I go phoenix and survive any cheeses I usually win, except when the opponent goes colossi. I don't see how I can beat über fast colossi play with phoenix. Those of you who does phoenix openings, please look at the replay and tell me how I should have responded. Feels like the opponent can just stomp you with half the APM and laugh at your pathetic flyers.
I cut workers because for some reason I always loose if I expand before my opponent in PvP.
http://sc2rep.com/replays/(P)ZeGeR_vs_(P)Undead/16014
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On November 24 2011 08:28 ZeGeR wrote:This is what I meant earlier. When I go phoenix and survive any cheeses I usually win, except when the opponent goes colossi. I don't see how I can beat über fast colossi play with phoenix. Those of you who does phoenix openings, please look at the replay and tell me how I should have responded. Feels like the opponent can just stomp you with half the APM and laugh at your pathetic flyers. I cut workers because for some reason I always loose if I expand before my opponent in PvP. http://sc2rep.com/replays/(P)ZeGeR_vs_(P)Undead/16014
I know this won't help but this loss had nothing to do with phoenix vs colossi because 1 base colossi is the build that phoenixes hard counter the most.
Here's what I gathered from the replay
-Bad macro : Stargate producing half of the time mainly. Otherwise you were spending your money decently.
-Bad BO : Pylon blocked for a full minute at 26 food ?
-You attack with half of your army available. You bring your probe to make an offensive pylon, but you attack before warping in anything. You even had a phoenix and some units who were coming but you still attacked without them. When you attack someone, you want to make sure that you push right after your warpin rounds when you have the biggest advantage.
-Bad phoenix usage. From your poor phoenix macro, you only had 3 while attacking and you decided to lift 2 sentries. It takes a while for 1 phoenix to kill 2 sentries (1.5 phoenixes in fact) and during that time your opponent's stalker were DPSing your phoenix. You need more phoenixes to bust a ramp (read 5 or 6), and you should never lift more then you can kill. (unless you're lifting immortals). Once your phoenixes have targetted the sentries, pull them back over your army and get to work on the zealots. And when you run out of energy you can go focus down the colossus.
TL;DR; Work on build order. Always produce out of Stargate. Attack with ALL your stuff at the same time.
Hope this helps
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On November 24 2011 01:24 kcdc wrote:I usually play zealot/immortal expand (nexus at 6 minutes if opponent is not 4-gating) and I've been crushing aggressive phoenix plays pretty hard by reactively cannoning when my obs sees phoenixes. The cannons DPS phoenixes down pretty quickly, so my immortal(s) mostly stay on the ground, and because I don't get a second gas or over-produce probes, I have about the same sized gateway army as the phoenix player. When phoenix openings have gone ahead with the attack, it's been lopsided enough that they've gged after the attack each time. I do have more trouble with macro phoenix plays tho because I don't have enough mobile AA to leave my base early enough to prevent my opponent from responding with his own expansion, so this turns into a macro battle where I have my expansion up earlier, but he has phoenixes to harass with.
Personally, I don't see why some people like aggressive phoenix so much. It's fine in some situations, but never really significantly better than macro phoenixes. I don't think I've lost a macro game yet with phoenixes that I would have won had I gone allin on one base. Until recently I played a lot with a 1gas zealot/immortal expand similar to yours, and I agree completely with your assessment. I'd prefer to be the one with the phoenixes in that situation for stylistic reasons, but it's very close either way.
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So I have not been able to get really fast phoenix play to work. To hold a 4 gate with a fast phoenix build you need to do a build that is not at all economic. Since the earliest you can write off a likely 4 gate is around 3:30 you end up with a bad build vs anyone who just goes straight into blink play. And since my build was obviously not going to be a 4 gate the opponent does not even need to make sentries, so they get a lot of stalkers very quickly with a 3 gate blink build.
On the other hand, if you do a standard build and then drop a stargate after 3 gateways, the stargate comes up really late and you wont have your first phoenix out until almost 7 minutes. Again, I find a single stargate at 7 minutes loses to a basic blink build, as you dont have enough phoenix to really help in a fight against mass stalker.
TLDR: I have temporarily given up on phoenix and am toying with some other pvp builds instead. I am sure it is just me doing it wrong ofcourse.
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United States8476 Posts
On November 24 2011 10:26 hzflank wrote:
So I have not been able to get really fast phoenix play to work. To hold a 4 gate with a fast phoenix build you need to do a build that is not at all economic. Since the earliest you can write off a likely 4 gate is around 3:30 you end up with a bad build vs anyone who just goes straight into blink play. And since my build was obviously not going to be a 4 gate the opponent does not even need to make sentries, so they get a lot of stalkers very quickly with a 3 gate blink build.
On the other hand, if you do a standard build and then drop a stargate after 3 gateways, the stargate comes up really late and you wont have your first phoenix out until almost 7 minutes. Again, I find a single stargate at 7 minutes loses to a basic blink build, as you dont have enough phoenix to really help in a fight against mass stalker.
TLDR: I have temporarily given up on phoenix and am toying with some other pvp builds instead. I am sure it is just me doing it wrong ofcourse.
I have a build that gets relatively fast phoenix with 2 gates and it holds off a 4 gate. However, if you're not comfortable with such getting phoenix so early, then only get them when you can for sure rule out 4 gate. The only 2 builds my phoenix build has trouble with is 1-3 gate expand into cannons for defense and dedicated blink allins.
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On November 24 2011 10:26 hzflank wrote:
So I have not been able to get really fast phoenix play to work. To hold a 4 gate with a fast phoenix build you need to do a build that is not at all economic. Since the earliest you can write off a likely 4 gate is around 3:30 you end up with a bad build vs anyone who just goes straight into blink play. And since my build was obviously not going to be a 4 gate the opponent does not even need to make sentries, so they get a lot of stalkers very quickly with a 3 gate blink build.
On the other hand, if you do a standard build and then drop a stargate after 3 gateways, the stargate comes up really late and you wont have your first phoenix out until almost 7 minutes. Again, I find a single stargate at 7 minutes loses to a basic blink build, as you dont have enough phoenix to really help in a fight against mass stalker.
TLDR: I have temporarily given up on phoenix and am toying with some other pvp builds instead. I am sure it is just me doing it wrong ofcourse.
Check out my defensive 3 gate guide. Now instead of getting a third gate, you get more probes and you drop a stargte at 5:30. You'rr all set to go for good 4 gate-safe phoenix play.
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I recently started trying axslav's stargate opening. So far I am just going into Phoenix immortal off 1 base for an all in that seems really strong. I have a couple questions though. What should influence my decision to expand or all-in, and when should I be planning to expo? When should I get my robo (what timing) based on what I scout? I've been sending my first Phoenix to scout his base; should I wait to show my phoenixes until later?
I've defeated blink openings doing this build with a fast enough robo, but I've had other games where the robo isn't fast enough and blink kills me. So I'd love to get a better idea of timings and responses.
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On November 25 2011 03:18 GomJabbar wrote:
I recently started trying axslav's stargate opening. So far I am just going into Phoenix immortal off 1 base for an all in that seems really strong. I have a couple questions though. What should influence my decision to expand or all-in, and when should I be planning to expo? When should I get my robo (what timing) based on what I scout? I've been sending my first Phoenix to scout his base; should I wait to show my phoenixes until later?
I've defeated blink openings doing this build with a fast enough robo, but I've had other games where the robo isn't fast enough and blink kills me. So I'd love to get a better idea of timings and responses.
You should never place robo blindly in my opinion. You place robo or not based on what you scout so the robo timing is always when you scout with your first phoenixes. I like to go with 2 phoenix because if you wait for 3 you can die to DTs, and with 2 you can kill 2 probes if your opponent isn't being aggressive.
-Against robo expands you can expand and harass with phoenix.
-Against pure blink you'll want to save energy to defend and wait for immortals to expand.
-Against DT expand you expand as soon as you have an obs and harass with phoenix in the mean while
-Against 1 base colossus you add 2 gates and go all in
-Against Robo Twilight I like to all in with 4 gates as well as you'll have an army advantage but you can also get a robo and immortal expand. It's tricky though because he can expand much sooner so you always have to keep track of his army or be active with your phoenixes to know exactly when he is getting his expand. Get your expand as soon as he expands, or as soon as you have an immortal out.
-Against 1-3 gate expo ... Well good luck coming back. If he is smart he'll get gateway unit heavy and you'll be basically screwed. If he's not and he's rushing to robo tech with immortals, then you can harass like crazy and expand. If he is getting stalkers, I just try to all in and hope he overprobed or i get a good engagement.
-Against Fast Blink FE, you have a significant army advantage but you still need very good phoenix control to bust down your ramp and get your expo as fast as you can. Or you can all-in but it's not autowin, depends on his expo timing.
That's what I'm doing right now at least from my ladder experience. Would love some comments on this.
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On November 25 2011 03:46 Geiko wrote:Show nested quote +On November 25 2011 03:18 GomJabbar wrote:
I recently started trying axslav's stargate opening. So far I am just going into Phoenix immortal off 1 base for an all in that seems really strong. I have a couple questions though. What should influence my decision to expand or all-in, and when should I be planning to expo? When should I get my robo (what timing) based on what I scout? I've been sending my first Phoenix to scout his base; should I wait to show my phoenixes until later?
I've defeated blink openings doing this build with a fast enough robo, but I've had other games where the robo isn't fast enough and blink kills me. So I'd love to get a better idea of timings and responses. You should never place robo blindly in my opinion. You place robo or not based on what you scout so the robo timing is always when you scout with your first phoenixes. I like to go with 2 phoenix because if you wait for 3 you can die to DTs, and with 2 you can kill 2 probes if your opponent isn't being aggressive. -Against robo expands you can expand and harass with phoenix. -Against pure blink you'll want to save energy to defend and wait for immortals to expand. -Against DT expand you expand as soon as you have an obs and harass with phoenix in the mean while -Against 1 base colossus you add 2 gates and go all in -Against Robo Twilight I like to all in with 4 gates as well as you'll have an army advantage but you can also get a robo and immortal expand. It's tricky though because he can expand much sooner so you always have to keep track of his army or be active with your phoenixes to know exactly when he is getting his expand. Get your expand as soon as he expands, or as soon as you have an immortal out. -Against 1-3 gate expo ... Well good luck coming back. If he is smart he'll get gateway unit heavy and you'll be basically screwed. If he's not and he's rushing to robo tech with immortals, then you can harass like crazy and expand. If he is getting stalkers, I just try to all in and hope he overprobed or i get a good engagement. -Against Fast Blink FE, you have a significant army advantage but you still need very good phoenix control to bust down your ramp and get your expo as fast as you can. Or you can all-in but it's not autowin, depends on his expo timing. That's what I'm doing right now at least from my ladder experience. Would love some comments on this.
Do you have any replay were you go against a 1 base colossus? I really want to see the way you engage that! =)
Also, I'm wondering, is it okey to open up with a 3 stalker rush into phoenix play? I was thinking that if he goes for a 1-3 gate expo, you could punish it that way and maybe just 4 gate him instead or something. What do you think?
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On November 25 2011 05:24 ZeGeR wrote:Show nested quote +On November 25 2011 03:46 Geiko wrote:On November 25 2011 03:18 GomJabbar wrote:
I recently started trying axslav's stargate opening. So far I am just going into Phoenix immortal off 1 base for an all in that seems really strong. I have a couple questions though. What should influence my decision to expand or all-in, and when should I be planning to expo? When should I get my robo (what timing) based on what I scout? I've been sending my first Phoenix to scout his base; should I wait to show my phoenixes until later?
I've defeated blink openings doing this build with a fast enough robo, but I've had other games where the robo isn't fast enough and blink kills me. So I'd love to get a better idea of timings and responses. You should never place robo blindly in my opinion. You place robo or not based on what you scout so the robo timing is always when you scout with your first phoenixes. I like to go with 2 phoenix because if you wait for 3 you can die to DTs, and with 2 you can kill 2 probes if your opponent isn't being aggressive. -Against robo expands you can expand and harass with phoenix. -Against pure blink you'll want to save energy to defend and wait for immortals to expand. -Against DT expand you expand as soon as you have an obs and harass with phoenix in the mean while -Against 1 base colossus you add 2 gates and go all in -Against Robo Twilight I like to all in with 4 gates as well as you'll have an army advantage but you can also get a robo and immortal expand. It's tricky though because he can expand much sooner so you always have to keep track of his army or be active with your phoenixes to know exactly when he is getting his expand. Get your expand as soon as he expands, or as soon as you have an immortal out. -Against 1-3 gate expo ... Well good luck coming back. If he is smart he'll get gateway unit heavy and you'll be basically screwed. If he's not and he's rushing to robo tech with immortals, then you can harass like crazy and expand. If he is getting stalkers, I just try to all in and hope he overprobed or i get a good engagement. -Against Fast Blink FE, you have a significant army advantage but you still need very good phoenix control to bust down your ramp and get your expo as fast as you can. Or you can all-in but it's not autowin, depends on his expo timing. That's what I'm doing right now at least from my ladder experience. Would love some comments on this. Do you have any replay were you go against a 1 base colossus? I really want to see the way you engage that! =) Also, I'm wondering, is it okey to open up with a 3 stalker rush into phoenix play? I was thinking that if he goes for a 1-3 gate expo, you could punish it that way and maybe just 4 gate him instead or something. What do you think?
Lol I looked for one but I actually don't. No one in their right mind makes colossi when they see phoenix.
Actually I have this funny replay of a guy going robo -> robo bay -> nexus -> twilight -> blink -> forge -> 2 x cannon in mineral line -> 1 colossus . But I don't think that this replays proves anything :D (actually it proves that people still don't know how to deal with phoenix, even decent master players. (rank 500 according to SC2rank) ).
I don't think I've ever done a 3 stalker rush in my life because I don't like this kind of opening. So I have no clue if there are safe 2 gate builds out there that start with 3 stalkers.
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On November 25 2011 05:43 Geiko wrote:Show nested quote +On November 25 2011 05:24 ZeGeR wrote:On November 25 2011 03:46 Geiko wrote:On November 25 2011 03:18 GomJabbar wrote:
I recently started trying axslav's stargate opening. So far I am just going into Phoenix immortal off 1 base for an all in that seems really strong. I have a couple questions though. What should influence my decision to expand or all-in, and when should I be planning to expo? When should I get my robo (what timing) based on what I scout? I've been sending my first Phoenix to scout his base; should I wait to show my phoenixes until later?
I've defeated blink openings doing this build with a fast enough robo, but I've had other games where the robo isn't fast enough and blink kills me. So I'd love to get a better idea of timings and responses. You should never place robo blindly in my opinion. You place robo or not based on what you scout so the robo timing is always when you scout with your first phoenixes. I like to go with 2 phoenix because if you wait for 3 you can die to DTs, and with 2 you can kill 2 probes if your opponent isn't being aggressive. -Against robo expands you can expand and harass with phoenix. -Against pure blink you'll want to save energy to defend and wait for immortals to expand. -Against DT expand you expand as soon as you have an obs and harass with phoenix in the mean while -Against 1 base colossus you add 2 gates and go all in -Against Robo Twilight I like to all in with 4 gates as well as you'll have an army advantage but you can also get a robo and immortal expand. It's tricky though because he can expand much sooner so you always have to keep track of his army or be active with your phoenixes to know exactly when he is getting his expand. Get your expand as soon as he expands, or as soon as you have an immortal out. -Against 1-3 gate expo ... Well good luck coming back. If he is smart he'll get gateway unit heavy and you'll be basically screwed. If he's not and he's rushing to robo tech with immortals, then you can harass like crazy and expand. If he is getting stalkers, I just try to all in and hope he overprobed or i get a good engagement. -Against Fast Blink FE, you have a significant army advantage but you still need very good phoenix control to bust down your ramp and get your expo as fast as you can. Or you can all-in but it's not autowin, depends on his expo timing. That's what I'm doing right now at least from my ladder experience. Would love some comments on this. Do you have any replay were you go against a 1 base colossus? I really want to see the way you engage that! =) Also, I'm wondering, is it okey to open up with a 3 stalker rush into phoenix play? I was thinking that if he goes for a 1-3 gate expo, you could punish it that way and maybe just 4 gate him instead or something. What do you think? Lol I looked for one but I actually don't. No one in their right mind makes colossi when they see phoenix. Actually I have this funny replay of a guy going robo -> robo bay -> nexus -> twilight -> blink -> forge -> 2 x cannon in mineral line -> 1 colossus . But I don't think that this replays proves anything :D (actually it proves that people still don't know how to deal with phoenix, even decent master players. (rank 500 according to SC2rank) ). I don't think I've ever done a 3 stalker rush in my life because I don't like this kind of opening. So I have no clue if there are safe 2 gate builds out there that start with 3 stalkers.
I played another game recently where I went for phoenix against a fast colossi. This time, I took your advice to heart and made sure I had proper phoenix macro. This way, I could actually get twice the amount of phoenix, and then I supported it with mostly zealots. I lost horribly once again, but maybe that's becuase I don't know how to micro the engagement. Do you focus down the colossi with the phoenixes, or do you pick up zealot/sentries? Becuase now I just attacked the colossus with my phoenixes, and it went completely horrible. Some people here discussed the priorities for phoenix to attack, but noone included colossus. I really want to learn how to fight this, becuase I love playing with phoenix against all other builds. I like having that map control.
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After using pheonix builds i find them to be the strongest by far ( mid master EU), you can dictitate the match-up, ultimate scouting and harrasment and are good in engagements and differ away from the standard colossus , I remember a quote from Incontroll on STOG " pheonix are the future of P v P". The only weakness is there not strong anti 4 gate, anti blinker stalker opening build order that doesent get pheonix out really late, currently working on a 2 gate stargate BO but its got weakness.
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Considering how common it is in ladder for people to go Robo expand, this is a strong strategy. I am a Mid-High masters and whenever i see the robo fast expand build, its almost a guarantee win.
I do agree its hard to stop a good 4-gate with phoenix, but every build has weakness and counters.
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Basically, player skills being equal, it goes stargate>robo>twilight>stargate in pvp double gas, all of which should beat 4gate if you play safely... for phoenix i play 3gate stargate, with stargate asap once their scouting probe is dead...sometimes this means gate sg gate gate, or sometimes traditional 3gate stargate
I find that pretty dumb but it's kind of how the matchup is now...
phx hard counters collosi, just micro a bit and focus down the col(it dies quick enough) although if you can pick off a gs sentry that's nice too...
but yeah, axslav's list is dead on, and for that reason I generally swing by the choke upon revealing my phx (reveal at 3) as players tend to pull only stalkers in response to seeing the phx..
oh, and while lifting stalkers in general is bad, it is nice to pick them off here and there in groups of 1-2 when you can, as they're so expensive to your opponent to produce, and obviously the mobile aa...
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Fast blink can bypass the ramp and just kill you for having fewer units, one or some of which being (at that point) worthless sentries. The pheonix energy will be low and they cost more than stalkers, so the longer an early engagement goes on vs blink, the more the fight should favor the blink build because you'll have blink stalkers vs gateway units with no upgrades or utility of any kind and pheonix which just kinda, at best, absorb damage.
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On November 28 2011 14:00 chipman wrote:
Fast blink can bypass the ramp and just kill you for having fewer units, one or some of which being (at that point) worthless sentries. The pheonix energy will be low and they cost more than stalkers, so the longer an early engagement goes on vs blink, the more the fight should favor the blink build because you'll have blink stalkers vs gateway units with no upgrades or utility of any kind and pheonix which just kinda, at best, absorb damage.
What are you refering to?
In general I would say you are right, if the phoenix player gets only phoenix stocks minerals and uses all his energy to lift probes. Guess what you should avoid then...
Phoenix I think is the best opening out there, but you shouldn't get a million, more like 4-5 (replace lost ones) and get a robo after your first phoenix unless you see robo play, then you can expand.
DTs - ... please, I scout your base with a phoenix and see twilight so I'll get a robo
Blink Stalker - Fast Robo, gonna have my second immortal and a few zealots+Stalkers, wanna blink into my Zealots?
Immortals - G_G I lift your 3 Immortals and have one or two myself + superior production due to my expansion I can get safely since I keep you in your base.
Colossi - This is a bit tricky, Immortals + WP and an expansion can help though
You expand? - I expand and harras!
In a gateway+immortals vs gateway+ immortals + phoenix fight you want to focus your ground on his stalkers and kill the zealots asap with your phoenix (If he goes immortals you can have 6 or 7 at a time imo) lifted Zeals don't get targeted by Immortals
I haven't played too too much with this style but I am planning on doing so. I do a lot of thinking and observing though and I am 100% sure that Phoenix is the way to go since I have seen it beat every strategy on high level and I could justify every single win with the safety of this build. It requires a lot of multitasking and crisp macro + prefect game sense to figure out when exactly to expand.
So Phoenix can be pretty hard but I think is always worth it.
GL
P.S.
Does anyone have a replay of masters or GM phoenix vs phoenix? I would love to see what happens then. So far I Pros seem to have a treaty that allows only one player to go for phoenx :D
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I'd really love to see a replay where someone beats quick colossus with phoenix. I have no idea how to pull it off.
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The pheonix build is the best by far. YOu can scout with the first pheonix and make sure they aren't going twlight. And than you can react to everythign. I like to get at least 5 pheonix while expanding. Get up to 8 if i can but at least above 5. One thing i use Pheonix for is to lift up retreating units if i win a battle. Also, lifting up sentries or immorts are really helpful in the early mid game. ONce they get blink or cannons up, i back off and start working to clossus tech for three base.
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I have to take issue w/ the people who say that blink stalkers are somehow more cost efficient than phoenix are in a straight fight. That is simply not true once you factor in dps. Look on liquidpedia for stalker dps vs. Phoenix dps. A phoenix does something like 40% more damage vs. Stalkers than vice versa, and your looking at double that dps vs. Zealots.
Phoenix immortal zealot straight crushes any blink stalker/blink robo compositions (in a straight fight). I think its only bad vs. zealot archon in the open field if you over produce on immortals.
Per 2 supply, phoenix does 18 dps vs. light, I believe something like 21 with plus one air upgrades.
Compare that to the almighty hydra, which does roughly 15 damage per 2 supply and has less than half the health.
Phoenix is one of the most damaging units in the game. They are so freaking goood. you can't go wrong with them. It is one of the only buidls thats literally strong against everything if you know when to add the robo.
I honestly think that all three matchups for Protoss will be phoenix dominated very soon. In PvT, look out for the 1gate expand --> 3 gate stargate --> double forge builds that I am sure are coming soon.
Wrap ur head around this fun fact --> phoenix vs. STIMMED marines actually ends up with both units doing almost equal dps to each other. This mostly holds true as both units get upgraded with attack/armor and does not factor in the guardian shield that might be protecting the phoenix.
I'm not even kidding, look up the numbers.
As MC would say - "phoenix imba"
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Fast twilight blink builds should counter pheonix play. You're not going to scout a roboless blink build with a phoenix, throw down a robo, cboost out an immortal before they're attacking at the base of your ramp. You're going to have invested money into a then worthless sentry, some stalkers of your own which can't blink, a round of zealots, and have 2-3 pheonix with enough energy for a handfull of lifts at best, even if they don't waste energy lifting probes. If you get a robo vs the faster blink build, it's wasted minerals that could have potentially been cboosted zealots/stalkers.
The only reason you guys think it's so good is because right now the other popular meta safe build is twilight robo observer blink, which comes considerably later and lets you counter it when scouted, and also comes with fewer units due to the price of safety/utility in the form of robo+obs. There is also like double the pheonix energy by then as well as time to get out an immortal and more zealots to tank for your army/immortal.
If it gets to a point where every other guy I face is going pheonix opening, I might open with ultra fast blink build every game and weigh from reads whether or not to bother with a robo+obs and just win.
Also, you don't blink ontop of an immortal-less army with fast blink and allow maximal zealot dps, you get one on the ramp, blink it immediately onto the cliff to the side with the most open space, and blink the rest of your stalkers in and immediately start kiting, focusing stalkers if you can, otherwise zealots as the pheonix become dead weight quickly and serve their purpose if they get attacked when energyless. So you'll quickly have 3 gate blink stalker vs normal zealots, effectively. If the pheonix player gets a robo, their army just dies, the immortal comes out, it dies with minimal support, even worse result.
Don't tell me you guys don't die to this, 4 gate, and hidden council/Dshrine when they're performed right. If that were the case I'd see the build on the ladder much more often and lose to it more often as well.
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On November 29 2011 05:48 chipman wrote:
Fast twilight blink builds should counter pheonix play. You're not going to scout a roboless blink build with a phoenix, throw down a robo, cboost out an immortal before they're attacking at the base of your ramp. You're going to have invested money into a then worthless sentry, some stalkers of your own which can't blink, a round of zealots, and have 2-3 pheonix with enough energy for a handfull of lifts at best, even if they don't waste energy lifting probes. If you get a robo vs the faster blink build, it's wasted minerals that could have potentially been cboosted zealots/stalkers.
The only reason you guys think it's so good is because right now the other popular meta safe build is twilight robo observer blink, which comes considerably later and lets you counter it when scouted, and also comes with fewer units due to the price of safety/utility in the form of robo+obs. There is also like double the pheonix energy by then as well as time to get out an immortal and more zealots to tank for your army/immortal.
If it gets to a point where every other guy I face is going pheonix opening, I might open with ultra fast blink build every game and weigh from reads whether or not to bother with a robo+obs and just win.
Also, you don't blink ontop of an immortal-less army with fast blink and allow maximal zealot dps, you get one on the ramp, blink it immediately onto the cliff to the side with the most open space, and blink the rest of your stalkers in and immediately start kiting, focusing stalkers if you can, otherwise zealots as the pheonix become dead weight quickly and serve their purpose if they get attacked when energyless. So you'll quickly have 3 gate blink stalker vs normal zealots, effectively. If the pheonix player gets a robo, their army just dies, the immortal comes out, it dies with minimal support, even worse result.
Don't tell me you guys don't die to this, 4 gate, and hidden council/Dshrine when they're performed right. If that were the case I'd see the build on the ladder much more often and lose to it more often as well.
#1.) If you guess that someone goes stargate and rush for blink hard off 1 gate, you are gambling because a pressure style 3/4gate stargate can actually kill you because you rushed to blink before getting out a critical stalker count. This is simply because your additional gates come up later than the stargate player and your sentry will be gravitoned to prevent any FFs on the ramp. If you warp in additional sentries, you've just lost your timing due to gas cost.
#2 - if a stargate player senses a blink all in, he's not going to just let you walk your stalkers up his ramp, he's going to use his sentry or sentries to FF the bottom of your ramp before you get vision, and he's going to buy time for his immortals to pop. This is the main reason for stargate dominance after 1.4, because you can't get the vision necessary to blink/warp units up.
#3.) A lot of players blindly go 2 gate --> stargate --> robo. It is pretty solid against just about any build and in such a case your all in will also fail, and so will DTs.
#4.) Hidden dts are nice, except a smart player is going to ask "where's the gas?" if they remembered your fast 2nd gas before your first stalker popped and see none of it showing in your unit count or tech. He will immediately check for a hidden expo or hidden tech, and build a robo just to be safe.
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Can't anyone anwser my question? If you open phoenix vs a guy who opens colossus, how should you engage? Focus colossus or lift zealot/sentries?
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On November 30 2011 00:06 ZeGeR wrote:
Can't anyone anwser my question? If you open phoenix vs a guy who opens colossus, how should you engage? Focus colossus or lift zealot/sentries?
You should engage in an open area and kill sentries with guardian shield and zealots IMO. the DPS vs light is just too amazing to let it go to waste, also once you lift a Unit you take out 100% of the DPS instantly.
I think you should harras a lot and have a huge advantage, either forcing a push with only one Colossus that won't bother you too much on an open area or outproduce your opponent hard since he has so few stalkers to defend against your Harras. have 5 Phoenix and focus the Colossus with your Stalkers. (5 Phoenix lift and 2 shot a Zealot)
Try to kill zealots or sentries while harassing rather than probes.
Priorities: Keep Phoenix alive > Kill Sentry > Kill Zealot > Kill Gas Probe > Kill stray Probe > Kill Mineral Probe > Damage Colossus > Kill Stalker (killing a Stalker most of the time kills a Phoenix and no Stalker)
I really think what you do before the fight is more important than what you do in the fight.
great Harass and good Positioning are key. If you have a Robo you can snipe his observer and maybe flank him unsuspectedly?
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I think theese Phoenix builds sounds really cool! However, i have had some troubles finding a specific buildorder that can both defend a 4gate and gets phoenixes out reasonably early. Is there any ? If so, could you link me one
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On November 30 2011 00:21 rEalGuapo wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2011 00:06 ZeGeR wrote:
Can't anyone anwser my question? If you open phoenix vs a guy who opens colossus, how should you engage? Focus colossus or lift zealot/sentries? You should engage in an open area and kill sentries with guardian shield and zealots IMO. the DPS vs light is just too amazing to let it go to waste, also once you lift a Unit you take out 100% of the DPS instantly. I think you should harras a lot and have a huge advantage, either forcing a push with only one Colossus that won't bother you too much on an open area or outproduce your opponent hard since he has so few stalkers to defend against your Harras. have 5 Phoenix and focus the Colossus with your Stalkers. (5 Phoenix lift and 2 shot a Zealot) Try to kill zealots or sentries while harassing rather than probes. Priorities: Keep Phoenix alive > Kill Sentry > Kill Zealot > Kill Gas Probe > Kill stray Probe > Kill Mineral Probe > Damage Colossus > Kill Stalker (killing a Stalker most of the time kills a Phoenix and no Stalker) I really think what you do before the fight is more important than what you do in the fight. great Harass and good Positioning are key. If you have a Robo you can snipe his observer and maybe flank him unsuspectedly?
Thanks a lot. That was a great anwser. Just wondering, do you have a replay that I could look at perhaps? Would be a great addition. But I think I understand better how to go about it. Now that I think of it, it usually takes a lot of gas early on to get robo bay/thermal lance and colossus, so that should mean less stalkers and more zealots to pick of for free. =)
I'll try it out!
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What if he just turtles (makes forge/cannons in min line and then expands)? Are there any good transitions into late game after a phoenix opening?
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Still working this out myself, but good transitions so far look like immortal/colossi, get some sentries if they go charglot. If they make a lot of stalkers, get 2 robo bays and pump both immortals and colossi.
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On November 30 2011 03:55 matrius wrote:
Still working this out myself, but good transitions so far look like immortal/colossi, get some sentries if they go charglot. If they make a lot of stalkers, get 2 robo bays and pump both immortals and colossi.
Not bad, but I think they will have archons (which are already good against phoenix). Especially if they go for chargelots.
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On November 30 2011 01:58 eugalp wrote:
What if he just turtles (makes forge/cannons in min line and then expands)? Are there any good transitions into late game after a phoenix opening?
Absolutely. You should be expanding early with a phoenix opening anyway (unless you're playing an allin variant, in which case it's a moot point) since your phoenixes give you complete map control and excellent scouting. Typically you'll want to transition into Zealot/Archon, with or without Immortals as appropriate for your opponent's unit composition. One added bonus of this transition is that it gives you DTs, which are terrifying when paired with Phoenixes (since their observers will die very, very quickly).
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I believe pheonix are one of the best units in the early and mid game. While the OP's comments are somewhat true, i still believe phoenix are the strongest opening in pvp and my favorite pvt.
I tend to think of pvp tech routes as somewhat of a rock-paper-scissors relationship. Robo beats Twilight beats Stargate beats Robo. Immortals beat stalkers (blink), collosus beat zealots (charge) and obs reveal dts. Blink is basically the defensive counter to the air mobility of phoenix. Phoenix can lift immortals out of the battle and they tear through collosus (if they have collosus they won't have much gas for anything else)
This is a really basic view, but its a good starting view point. In the early and mid game, when engagements generally are to get a lead rather than win, mobility is the best thing to have; this is why the observer blink build was so successful. The power of the phoenix is that they are the ultimate poking unit. They can lift any straggler units and kill them quickly (usually). This is usually probes in PvP. Usually a good counter to heavy harassment style units is to just walk to the front door and knock it down. The phoenix come in handy here allowing you to lift the most powerful units while your 3 gate army takes care of the rest.
Basically you can hold any push as long as you play it right or harass effectively to get a lead. I think the real counter to phoenix is to take an earlier expansion without tech.
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Awhile back i was watching (Grubby?)'s stream, cant really remember... but he used heavy phoenixes in pvp for a couple days straight.
Because of Grubby's sick micro he got from WC3 he always came out on top when it came to small engagements...and i think he won a good percentage of those pvp's with a phoenix build. Not to mention it looked like it was a lot more fun and interesting than the usual 4gate vs. 4gate play.
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On November 29 2011 05:48 chipman wrote:
Fast twilight blink builds should counter pheonix play. You're not going to scout a roboless blink build with a phoenix, throw down a robo, cboost out an immortal before they're attacking at the base of your ramp. You're going to have invested money into a then worthless sentry, some stalkers of your own which can't blink, a round of zealots, and have 2-3 pheonix with enough energy for a handfull of lifts at best, even if they don't waste energy lifting probes. If you get a robo vs the faster blink build, it's wasted minerals that could have potentially been cboosted zealots/stalkers.
The only reason you guys think it's so good is because right now the other popular meta safe build is twilight robo observer blink, which comes considerably later and lets you counter it when scouted, and also comes with fewer units due to the price of safety/utility in the form of robo+obs. There is also like double the pheonix energy by then as well as time to get out an immortal and more zealots to tank for your army/immortal.
If it gets to a point where every other guy I face is going pheonix opening, I might open with ultra fast blink build every game and weigh from reads whether or not to bother with a robo+obs and just win.
Also, you don't blink ontop of an immortal-less army with fast blink and allow maximal zealot dps, you get one on the ramp, blink it immediately onto the cliff to the side with the most open space, and blink the rest of your stalkers in and immediately start kiting, focusing stalkers if you can, otherwise zealots as the pheonix become dead weight quickly and serve their purpose if they get attacked when energyless. So you'll quickly have 3 gate blink stalker vs normal zealots, effectively. If the pheonix player gets a robo, their army just dies, the immortal comes out, it dies with minimal support, even worse result.
Don't tell me you guys don't die to this, 4 gate, and hidden council/Dshrine when they're performed right. If that were the case I'd see the build on the ladder much more often and lose to it more often as well.
Some days I understand why IdrA is willing to get banned for flaming forum posts.
In my experience, as a mid-Masters 'toss (so those better than me can take this for what it's worth) everything you've just said is wrong. Simply put, if you go for aggressive fast blink with no robo, a competent Phoenix player will beat you 100% of the time. That "worthless sentry" stops your attack cold, since you can't force vision past a correctly-placed forcefield and a Phoenix build will have more than enough gas available to keep that forcefield up indefinitely. So, in actuality, you'll quickly have 3gate blink stalker vs the bottom of a ramp with absolutely nothing to shoot at, while your probes are learning how to fly.
And I hate to tell you this, but I've never lost to a fast blink timing, or a 4gate, or a DT rush playing Axslav's phoenix build (as a clarification; I've been playing it for 3 weeks, about 40 PvPs or so). Phoenix builds aren't unbeatable by any means, but the only reliable way to beat them is in real macro games, not with gimmicky allins.
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On November 30 2011 15:58 Xujhan wrote:Show nested quote +On November 29 2011 05:48 chipman wrote:
Fast twilight blink builds should counter pheonix play. You're not going to scout a roboless blink build with a phoenix, throw down a robo, cboost out an immortal before they're attacking at the base of your ramp. You're going to have invested money into a then worthless sentry, some stalkers of your own which can't blink, a round of zealots, and have 2-3 pheonix with enough energy for a handfull of lifts at best, even if they don't waste energy lifting probes. If you get a robo vs the faster blink build, it's wasted minerals that could have potentially been cboosted zealots/stalkers.
The only reason you guys think it's so good is because right now the other popular meta safe build is twilight robo observer blink, which comes considerably later and lets you counter it when scouted, and also comes with fewer units due to the price of safety/utility in the form of robo+obs. There is also like double the pheonix energy by then as well as time to get out an immortal and more zealots to tank for your army/immortal.
If it gets to a point where every other guy I face is going pheonix opening, I might open with ultra fast blink build every game and weigh from reads whether or not to bother with a robo+obs and just win.
Also, you don't blink ontop of an immortal-less army with fast blink and allow maximal zealot dps, you get one on the ramp, blink it immediately onto the cliff to the side with the most open space, and blink the rest of your stalkers in and immediately start kiting, focusing stalkers if you can, otherwise zealots as the pheonix become dead weight quickly and serve their purpose if they get attacked when energyless. So you'll quickly have 3 gate blink stalker vs normal zealots, effectively. If the pheonix player gets a robo, their army just dies, the immortal comes out, it dies with minimal support, even worse result.
Don't tell me you guys don't die to this, 4 gate, and hidden council/Dshrine when they're performed right. If that were the case I'd see the build on the ladder much more often and lose to it more often as well. Some days I understand why IdrA is willing to get banned for flaming forum posts. In my experience, as a mid-Masters 'toss (so those better than me can take this for what it's worth) everything you've just said is wrong. Simply put, if you go for aggressive fast blink with no robo, a competent Phoenix player will beat you 100% of the time. That "worthless sentry" stops your attack cold, since you can't force vision past a correctly-placed forcefield and a Phoenix build will have more than enough gas available to keep that forcefield up indefinitely. So, in actuality, you'll quickly have 3gate blink stalker vs the bottom of a ramp with absolutely nothing to shoot at, while your probes are learning how to fly. And I hate to tell you this, but I've never lost to a fast blink timing, or a 4gate, or a DT rush playing Axslav's phoenix build (as a clarification; I've been playing it for 3 weeks, about 40 PvPs or so). Phoenix builds aren't unbeatable by any means, but the only reliable way to beat them is in real macro games, not with gimmicky allins.
hey, what's axslav's phoenix build? ive been looking for a fun PvP style recently and this sounds like it might be it
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On November 30 2011 17:13 unit wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2011 15:58 Xujhan wrote:On November 29 2011 05:48 chipman wrote:
Fast twilight blink builds should counter pheonix play. You're not going to scout a roboless blink build with a phoenix, throw down a robo, cboost out an immortal before they're attacking at the base of your ramp. You're going to have invested money into a then worthless sentry, some stalkers of your own which can't blink, a round of zealots, and have 2-3 pheonix with enough energy for a handfull of lifts at best, even if they don't waste energy lifting probes. If you get a robo vs the faster blink build, it's wasted minerals that could have potentially been cboosted zealots/stalkers.
The only reason you guys think it's so good is because right now the other popular meta safe build is twilight robo observer blink, which comes considerably later and lets you counter it when scouted, and also comes with fewer units due to the price of safety/utility in the form of robo+obs. There is also like double the pheonix energy by then as well as time to get out an immortal and more zealots to tank for your army/immortal.
If it gets to a point where every other guy I face is going pheonix opening, I might open with ultra fast blink build every game and weigh from reads whether or not to bother with a robo+obs and just win.
Also, you don't blink ontop of an immortal-less army with fast blink and allow maximal zealot dps, you get one on the ramp, blink it immediately onto the cliff to the side with the most open space, and blink the rest of your stalkers in and immediately start kiting, focusing stalkers if you can, otherwise zealots as the pheonix become dead weight quickly and serve their purpose if they get attacked when energyless. So you'll quickly have 3 gate blink stalker vs normal zealots, effectively. If the pheonix player gets a robo, their army just dies, the immortal comes out, it dies with minimal support, even worse result.
Don't tell me you guys don't die to this, 4 gate, and hidden council/Dshrine when they're performed right. If that were the case I'd see the build on the ladder much more often and lose to it more often as well. Some days I understand why IdrA is willing to get banned for flaming forum posts. In my experience, as a mid-Masters 'toss (so those better than me can take this for what it's worth) everything you've just said is wrong. Simply put, if you go for aggressive fast blink with no robo, a competent Phoenix player will beat you 100% of the time. That "worthless sentry" stops your attack cold, since you can't force vision past a correctly-placed forcefield and a Phoenix build will have more than enough gas available to keep that forcefield up indefinitely. So, in actuality, you'll quickly have 3gate blink stalker vs the bottom of a ramp with absolutely nothing to shoot at, while your probes are learning how to fly. And I hate to tell you this, but I've never lost to a fast blink timing, or a 4gate, or a DT rush playing Axslav's phoenix build (as a clarification; I've been playing it for 3 weeks, about 40 PvPs or so). Phoenix builds aren't unbeatable by any means, but the only reliable way to beat them is in real macro games, not with gimmicky allins. hey, what's axslav's phoenix build? ive been looking for a fun PvP style recently and this sounds like it might be it
I'm actually planning to write a proper guide if I have the time in the next week or two, but the general look is to open Gate - Gas - Core - Gas - Stargate - Gate - Robo. You want to chrono Zealot, Stalker, Stalker, Sentry, Sentry from your first gateway to hold early aggression, and start your robo when your second or third phoenix is building (or skip it entirely, if your opponent opened fast expand or stargate). That sets you up safely against basically all builds. Don't allin; use your map control to expand and upgrade aggressively, and aim for a strong non-Colossus composition. A mix of zealots, archons, DTs and immortals is really potent, especially in conjunction with phoenixes. Once you have the advantage (usually through harassing and out-expanding your opponent) a Mothership makes for a good killing blow.
I really can't reccommend the build enough. It's solid, it gives you huge numbers to opportunities to outplay your opponent, and it's just friggin' fun. Within a dozen games of picking it up I jumped from having ~50% in PvP (with a 1-gas robo expand) and not liking the matchup to having ~80% and loving it. I'd say that the only real downside is that the phoenix mirror is incredibly volatile, but fortunately it's also still very rare. In 40 mid-master games or so I've only seen it twice.
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But does your build hold an agressive 4-gate ? When his probe is going to run up your ramp, you'll only have a zealot and 2 stalkers, how do you prevent the pylons at the bottom and in your main from going up with such low dps, especially considering you also need to fight his zealot and stalker ?
Or is it just a matter of scouting ? You suspect an agressive 4-gate and you go for another build ?
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I can't agree that phoenixes tears through colossi. I've lost all games vs colossi with this build. In general, I always lose vs colossi no matter what build I go for. I don't wanna do colossus vs colossus games, because that's so boring, but often it seems like it's pretty much the only way. I also never know when to expand in pvp. Usually I wait for the opponent to expand and attack right then as he'll be having 400 minerals less in army. It's a shame, because I really like phoenix play, but I can't beat colossi with it. How do you know when to expand if you play with phoenix?
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as the game goes on they become less and less powerful. the best advice i can give you is do a timing attack around pheonix play or make enough of them that moving out on 1 base will lose his econ and thus the game.
whats great about a pheonix timing attack is that if you do NOT reveal the pheonix till the last moment and 1hit the sentrys u can bust his ramp. also if he went robo (this is the only build its good vs) then he can have his immortals lifted negating the effect of those immortals while soaking damage from stalkers which take a good amount of hits to kill since they are light
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On November 30 2011 19:30 Nyast wrote:
But does your build hold an agressive 4-gate ? When his probe is going to run up your ramp, you'll only have a zealot and 2 stalkers, how do you prevent the pylons at the bottom and in your main from going up with such low dps, especially considering you also need to fight his zealot and stalker ?
Or is it just a matter of scouting ? You suspect an agressive 4-gate and you go for another build ?
Yes. I actually just go stalker stalker sentry sentry. If you think they are going for a hardcore 4 gate, I will also add a second gateway before stargate to make sure I have a good sentry count. With 5-6 sentries you can force field the ramp indefinitely. While force fielding the ramp your units will have range to shoot down any pylons that could warp up units. If he builds a pylon beyond that range, you can just go kill it once he is forced to back away. You do need to be careful about a probe walking up your ramp and building pylons or sneaking in an hiding one.
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On November 29 2011 04:57 willyallthewei wrote:
Wrap ur head around this fun fact --> phoenix vs. STIMMED marines actually ends up with both units doing almost equal dps to each other. This mostly holds true as both units get upgraded with attack/armor and does not factor in the guardian shield that might be protecting the phoenix.
I'm not even kidding, look up the numbers.
Pure number theory crafting, doesn't work in real game.
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I find phoenix to be pretty good since they can pick up immortals but if you fail to be active with them or micro them then the whole strat just because completely useless and you lack sufficient ground forces but if you can pull it off then yeah it is pretty nice. I feel like warp prisms are the future
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On November 30 2011 19:30 Nyast wrote:
But does your build hold an agressive 4-gate ? When his probe is going to run up your ramp, you'll only have a zealot and 2 stalkers, how do you prevent the pylons at the bottom and in your main from going up with such low dps, especially considering you also need to fight his zealot and stalker ?
Or is it just a matter of scouting ? You suspect an agressive 4-gate and you go for another build ?
The zealot-stalker-stalker-sentry-sentry build: I have never tried this, but I guess its a good way to spend minerals early on while spending less gas on ranged units. However, as axslav's phoenix build guide said, you don't go for something like this if you scout 4 gate or even suspect one. Proxy in your main is just death if you don't deny the probe or scout it on time.
What you would do is, chrono a zealot out, then stat chonoing out the 1st and 2nd sentry while getting the 2nd gate. Getting up to 4 sentries with proper FF: blocks 4 gate attempt for infinite time, or at least for a long time before you can react correctly. Though remember: You do have to warp in more units after this, but if you're still willing to go phoenix you need to warp in more zealots because of gas. Phoenix builds are really heavy on gas.
On November 30 2011 19:41 ZeGeR wrote:
I can't agree that phoenixes tears through colossi. I've lost all games vs colossi with this build. In general, I always lose vs colossi no matter what build I go for. I don't wanna do colossus vs colossus games, because that's so boring, but often it seems like it's pretty much the only way. I also never know when to expand in pvp. Usually I wait for the opponent to expand and attack right then as he'll be having 400 minerals less in army. It's a shame, because I really like phoenix play, but I can't beat colossi with it. How do you know when to expand if you play with phoenix?
Once you scout colossi, you would want to make void rays instead of more phoenixes. Void rays do more damage (especially when charged) and colossi does nothing against the void rays. Make sure that phoenixes and void rays target colossi if your opponent pushes out though; colossi = can change the game in PvP.
Also, that's how I usually play PvP: attack when opponent expands. However, if I know that I have enough units to hold off his counter (if he scouts my nexus) then I expand. Phoenixes should still move around the map scouting for unit positions and other stuff, but you really should start saving up energy on the phoenixes. If you harass too much, you won't have energy to lift off enough units when your opponent pushes out after seeing the Nexus.
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phoenix builds out right defeat any 1 base Robo build. And harassing a toss's gas even slightly in the early game can give you a huge advantage. Its easy to transition into a robo and an expand because you know exactly where your opponent's army is and what unit comp they have at all times.
The only problem is once they gain popularity so to will fast dt builds and then the whole match up will be hugely coin flippy.
Honestly though in my experience phoenix is the strongest rout in p v p right now.
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On December 01 2011 02:21 mattdevils wrote:
phoenix builds out right defeat any 1 base Robo build. And harassing a toss's gas even slightly in the early game can give you a huge advantage. Its easy to transition into a robo and an expand because you know exactly where your opponent's army is and what unit comp they have at all times.
The only problem is once they gain popularity so to will fast dt builds and then the whole match up will be hugely coin flippy.
Honestly though in my experience phoenix is the strongest rout in p v p right now.
Scout with first phoenix and dt's aren't a problem (I need to check the timing on DTs and the phoenix times, with 2 gate stargate and with 1 gate stargate). This does bring up a problem: you can't harass as much because all of his stalkers will be staying in the mineral line, but just peeking in and acting like you're going to get a probe itself pressures the protoss army. If there's a gap, take one probe and then pull back. Phoenixes are needed if the protoss army does not put down the forge and decides to push out with mass units. Also to never overuse the energy if you see the push coming, as you REALLY need to lift off enemy units in order to compensate for the eco that you put into phoenix play. Else they're just paper plane flying in the air, waiting to be shot down by stalkers.
Honestly though, going phoenix is good and all, but players need to realize that harassment is just extra thing that they get if the protoss's army is out of position. Though harassing and delaying protoss's push is important, you need to scout with the phoenix while you're harassing. What happens if your opponent's army pushes out while you're harassing? Your phoenixes are out of position to support your army, in which case your opponent can just win the battle (unless your opponent was too busy piling up units and not making obs for higher ground or something) because of the army difference. You need to constantly check where your opponent's units are, what his unit composition is, and when he's moving out/expanding. Because losing 25 probes is better than losing your whole army and losing the game.
(Whoops was only going to respond to DT thing, but I guess I went too far ^^*. Overlaps with some things that you already stated)
Then again when was PvP never a coinflip?
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so whats the best advice against a pheniex build.??Zealot archon.?What do you fear the most with a pheneix opening exept a 4 gate.I watch a lot of pro replays on sc2casts and very rarly see any pheneix builds with pvp..
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On December 01 2011 20:37 trips wrote:
so whats the best advice against a pheniex build.??Zealot archon.?What do you fear the most with a pheneix opening exept a 4 gate.I watch a lot of pro replays on sc2casts and very rarly see any pheneix builds with pvp..
Tyler mentioned that if you go robo, you should time your immortal such that you can still cancel it if you scout a stargate with obs.
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I think part of what makes Phoenixes so strong is the (quite frankly) INSANE dps vs light and still respectable dps vs armored. I think the hardest part of going phoenix is fighting the twilight council tech path. Blink stalkers make phoenix play harder, archons cannot be lifted, and of course the boogeyman of PvP (dt rushes).
All of that aside, the free scouting, map control, and harass is kinda nice too lol
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On December 02 2011 07:50 Treyus wrote:
I think part of what makes Phoenixes so strong is the (quite frankly) INSANE dps vs light and still respectable dps vs armored. I think the hardest part of going phoenix is fighting the twilight council tech path. Blink stalkers make phoenix play harder, archons cannot be lifted, and of course the boogeyman of PvP (dt rushes).
All of that aside, the free scouting, map control, and harass is kinda nice too lol
all of this is solved by going stargate/robo ;3 if he goes tc stop at 4/6 phoenix and go either immortal or colossus (if colo preferably after an expand) if he goes blink then keel phoenix cut, if he starts switching into chargelot archon get more phoenix (cuz they wreck zealots)
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Btw has anyone mentioned phoenixes are great because by just lifting one unit off the ground you're making your phoenix auto focus fire on it? Great in engagements because you're effectively removing units faster than the other person unless he's like some micro king ._."
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On November 30 2011 23:01 Ada wrote:Show nested quote +On November 29 2011 04:57 willyallthewei wrote:
Wrap ur head around this fun fact --> phoenix vs. STIMMED marines actually ends up with both units doing almost equal dps to each other. This mostly holds true as both units get upgraded with attack/armor and does not factor in the guardian shield that might be protecting the phoenix.
I'm not even kidding, look up the numbers.
Pure number theory crafting, doesn't work in real game.
I'm not recommending you fly your 150/100 phoenix into a ball of 50 mineral stimmed marines, the point is to show the DPS potential of the unit.
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Favourite pvp style currently ^^
Lets you react to what hes doing if he expos first you can crawl back in while keeping him scared. he is forced into a certain build which you can counter.
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On December 01 2011 20:37 trips wrote:
so whats the best advice against a pheniex build.??Zealot archon.?What do you fear the most with a pheneix opening exept a 4 gate.I watch a lot of pro replays on sc2casts and very rarly see any pheneix builds with pvp..
The best answer is mass blink stalkers and hit them before their colossus come in.Also expand yourself if you see the phoenixes are about 4+ cuz that mean they want to macro.
Just be cool, DON"T ever freak out and get a bunch of cannons and all-in. I've seen many dudes were stupid enough to get robo, forge, 3 cannon on 1 base and then all-in fail => proceed to call me trash T.T
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On December 06 2011 16:16 tuho12345 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 20:37 trips wrote:
so whats the best advice against a pheniex build.??Zealot archon.?What do you fear the most with a pheneix opening exept a 4 gate.I watch a lot of pro replays on sc2casts and very rarly see any pheneix builds with pvp.. The best answer is mass blink stalkers and hit them before their colossus come in.Also expand yourself if you see the phoenixes are about 4+ cuz that mean they want to macro. Just be cool, DON"T ever freak out and get a bunch of cannons and all-in. I've seen many dudes were stupid enough to get robo, forge, 3 cannon on 1 base and then all-in fail => proceed to call me trash T.T
Its such a bitch to deal with because if you do go for quite a few blink stalkers he can just go immortals early into collosus and you cant go collosus for a little while at least.
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On November 30 2011 01:58 eugalp wrote:
What if he just turtles (makes forge/cannons in min line and then expands)? Are there any good transitions into late game after a phoenix opening?
forge/cannon to defend is always a wrong idea. Idk why ppl keep doing it. You don't have to harass and lose all your phoenixes, they're fast enough to kill 3-4 probes and leaves. Then just keep scouting and get map control. You know exactly when he moves out so feel free to tech up.
I had a game vs this good macro turtles dude. So I took 3 bases, keep him inside his base cuz he want 200 vs 200 and I killed all of his obs really fast. So he had no idea and had to turtles. Finally at 200 what I had were zealots heavy/archons/immortals/ and a few VRs. Use phoenixes to lift off his immortals or sentries. VRs shift-click on his colossi cuz they do extra-damage vs massive. The rest were just basically A-move and position them well.
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On December 06 2011 16:21 sofakng wrote:Show nested quote +On December 06 2011 16:16 tuho12345 wrote:On December 01 2011 20:37 trips wrote:
so whats the best advice against a pheniex build.??Zealot archon.?What do you fear the most with a pheneix opening exept a 4 gate.I watch a lot of pro replays on sc2casts and very rarly see any pheneix builds with pvp.. The best answer is mass blink stalkers and hit them before their colossus come in.Also expand yourself if you see the phoenixes are about 4+ cuz that mean they want to macro. Just be cool, DON"T ever freak out and get a bunch of cannons and all-in. I've seen many dudes were stupid enough to get robo, forge, 3 cannon on 1 base and then all-in fail => proceed to call me trash T.T Its such a bitch to deal with because if you do go for quite a few blink stalkers he can just go immortals early into collosus and you cant go collosus for a little while at least.
If you scout phoenixes just cancel immortal and get blink + expo right away, then add more gates and hit him. Don't wait for too long, he must have more zealots and less stalkers/sentries cuz immortals sink gases as well.
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Bumped to discuss implications of latest patch:
Will the +2 Phoenix range available at Fleet Beacon have any potential for PvP Phoenix play? From the top of my head I can think that it might let you engage Colossi a little easier even if escorted by Stalkers, or could be a response to a mirror Phoenix build. One player getting more range on their Phoenix could give you a serious advantage in the mirror build.
I'd like the input of better players than I on those ideas.
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Well, if we're just theorycrafting... there was a strat floating around a while back that used mothership + obs/phoenix to snipe enemy obs and do a cloak push. If you've got the fleet beacon anyway, why not get the range upgrade and kill those pesky detectors easier?
In all honesty, though, fleet beacon is so late in the game, most PvP never get to 3 base, much less tier 3 air.
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EPT
