EPTI get more than 3 phoenixes, though, so that may change depending on how many you get
[G] PvP HerO's Safe Stargate Opener - Page 4
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
I get more than 3 phoenixes, though, so that may change depending on how many you get | ||
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mortales
174 Posts
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SlackerSC
Australia41 Posts
 I've been doing the grubby style stargate build from day9 #403 for a while, but this seems like it might be a stronger style opening. Can't wait to try it out tonight :3 | ||
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trbot
Canada142 Posts
On July 08 2012 01:46 Xujhan wrote: Just a minor comment about your vs Stargate section: 1gate Stargate isn't a risky build; it still gets enough FFs to hold a 4gate. Moreover, if your opponent scouts you opening double gas and zealot-sentry, there's no risk at all. Also, in a phoenix mirror, I really don't think you want to be cutting phoenixes. Even just three phoenixes represent 450 gas - enough for nine stalkers - and if you let your opponent get a higher phoenix count, they're almost entirely useless. Phoenixes are only 100 gas each. Thus, each phoenix is two stalkers, not three. | ||
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Mstring
Australia510 Posts
On July 26 2012 10:30 trbot wrote: Phoenixes are only 100 gas each. Thus, each phoenix is two stalkers, not three. Stargate costs 150 gas, gateways zero | ||
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trbot
Canada142 Posts
Right. Of course. On a side-note, I'd think to beat phoenix mirror you'd just need to beat him on upgrades, or grab one or two high templar for feedback. (Oh, yeah, and add a cannon beside your stargate if he tries to camp.) If he commits heavily to air, I wonder if it might be possible to grab a fleet beacon (which you'll want for mothership anyway) and chrono out a carrier instead of 2-3 phoenixes (80s w/4 chrono). With a +1 armor lead, a carrier takes a whopping 90 phoenix shots to kill, and I can see interceptors messing with phoenixes' targeting AI. | ||
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DarkblueRH
United States144 Posts
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Nyrr
Netherlands36 Posts
However, I do have some minor issues (besides my macro slipping up at times) while doing the build and following it up. - In the early game when I get scouted, is there a reliable way to kill the scouting probe or should I just micro my Zealot/Sentry really well? I've played a couple of games where I couldn't stop them from seeing me go Stargate, and this really bothers me. - Earlier in this thread there was a mention of expanding early behind two gateways (along with a robo, perhaps). I've also seen more greedy openings while I tried doing this build (e.g. 1gate gasless expo or even nexus first). Is there, perhaps, a specific number of gateways/robos or amount of tech which tips me that I can try for a 1base bust (with a positive result)? Or that should I just expand behind and try to make up for it with Phoenixes in nearly every situation? Or is this something I should just learn as I start experimenting more with the build? I usually just raise my shoulders and try to harass and macro my way back up, as I feel that that teaches me the most at the level I am at, but doing a 1base bust might not be so bad to practise every once in a while. Thanks in advance. | ||
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SidewinderSC2
United States236 Posts
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Alejandrisha
United States6565 Posts
1. Don't completely understand the triple cb on nexus AND the gas timing. Cutting one CB there and putting it on your WG research always kept me much safer against any kind of early pokes, as well. 2. The greatest weaknesses of this build are not from 1 base aggression, be it 3-4 gate pressure or DT/archon stuff, but rather transitioning against a player who has expanded before you. Players have been opening phoenix a lot more on the ladder recently, and a very easy way to put them away is to just go kill them after blink is about done with ~6 gates worth of WG units. Holding this off is extremely difficult because your robo tech is very far behind. What I used to do was go up to 3 or 4 immortals before thinking about colossus tech, sometimes even going up to 2 robos to pump immortals out to hold the 2 base timing. Here are some replays for reference http://drop.sc/229109 http://drop.sc/229110 Even if you have energy for lifts during the engagement, that is 450 gas sunk which is a lot sure--but more importantly it was sunk very early and your follow-up tech tree is always undeveloped relative to your opponent. While the phoenix + 3 gates 1 base all-in is very effective against expanding players, I am not sure how potent phoenix are in PvP anymore, which is sad because I used to think it was going to be THE opener for PvP someday. Check out this GSL game of killer vs parting. Albeit parting is on another level, killer gets the definition of a build order win and the phoenixes come up short. It's game 1 so it's free to watch for all! http://www.gomtv.net/2012gsls3/vod/67612 | ||
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DarkblueRH
United States144 Posts
First off, the gas timings with 2 probes on gas and filling once the zealot starts gives you quite literally the perfect amount of gas for exactly what this build aims to do. The 3rd Chrono Boost is something I've been dabbling with a lot myself. Using it on probes vs having it on Warpgate vs on your gateway to squeeze out a 5th unit before Warpgate completes all seem to be viable options. Not entirely sure what's best as it's almost entirely dependent on what your opponent is doing and that's not always clear. Having it on probes (a bit delayed after the second chrono boost) has been my go-to option thus far as I haven't personally had any problems with early pressure all too much because of the scout at my opponent's ramp at 5:00. Planting a random pylon at a ridiculous location with that scout probe is also a good way to see if your opponent is being aggressive. If he searches for it and tries to kill it... He can't be 4gating you at the same time. If he doesn't kill it... FF your ramp and send a zealot or two to his base for a clean victory. As for your second point, PvP post-expansion is likely the least explored scenario in SC2 to date. This is exemplified in all three replays which you've posted as your counter-argument to phoenix. Hindsight is 20/20 and I'm by no means stating that I'm better than you or your opponents, but, from the replays of you going for a 5gate blink off 2 base vs your opponent, you blatantly give off the fact that you're simply massing stalkers. I feel that this decision is extremely weak given that your opponent "should" know exactly what your possible options for victory are because of the fact that he has phoenix. If you're on 2 base with 5 gates with only 2 gas, a twilight, a robo not building anything, and no swirling effect on the top of either of your Nexi... The only possibility for your victory is a 2base timing. Your opponents in both games continue to make probes, greedily get colossus, stay on 2 gateways, and just fall over easily because of their inability to comprehend the information they're seeing with their phoenix, not because of their build-order. The lack of a 3rd and 4th gas should be an immediate tell of either a crazy greedy 3rd, or a 2base timing. Both of which going for a greedy colossus off of 2 gates isn't the best course of action. As for the Killer game... He just played that like shit... All he has to do is keep the ramp FF, use the zealots to kill the only pylon on the low-ground, use the phoenix to kill the 2 stalkers on the low-ground, snag the free nexus using only the 5 zealots he made, and walk away. | ||
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ellsworth
United States30 Posts
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ellsworth
United States30 Posts
On July 31 2012 00:46 ellsworth wrote: in reply to the dude who thinks 2 base blink kills it is wrong. even if you spread thin on 2 gates and colossus tech before colossus pops out the pheonix obs keeps u safe from blink ups into main and since u can see it comong making 3 to 4 immortals out of 1 robo and extra stalkers alongside your 2 full energy sentries you should be able to hold ur ramp easy. if they are hitting a critical timing make a double forcefeild wall so blink on immortals is not possible if u that scared User was warned for this post | ||
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KaiserJohan
Sweden1808 Posts
Pretty much by the time ur pheonix scouts it their nexus is complete. Also, you can't scout earlier since you only got zealot and sentries.. and from that point behind economically. Trying to all-in against someone who got immortals, cannons (since he didnt scout expo from you) and sentries just dosn't work very well. | ||
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DarkblueRH
United States144 Posts
The only games that I lost the all-in vs the 1gate expansion were due to my own micro mistakes because he can't really defend with FF because at that time he can't both have enough stalkers to threaten your phoenix AND have enough sentries to threaten your zealots. He also can't have blink so FF + Zealots should reign supreme with good micro. In the case where you don't see the expansion until the first 2 phoenix are at his base... I don't have a lot of experience with. I assume that you can just do the same sort of all-in... Cancel the robo and gogo. If he expands with cannons... Just keep building phoenix because he can't have a lot of gateways and have cannons with an expansion. Force cannons in both of his mineral lines and expand yourself. In this case it's alright to expand behind him because you'll have a huge tech advantage while not truly being that far behind on economy due to the phoenix harass that he can't deal with without building cannons in his main and natural. | ||
ZeromuS
Canada13405 Posts
On July 27 2012 11:49 Alejandrisha wrote: I used SG in PvP to a lot of success in the past two seasons of ladder so I think I can provide a little bit of insight. 1. Don't completely understand the triple cb on nexus AND the gas timing. Cutting one CB there and putting it on your WG research always kept me much safer against any kind of early pokes, as well. 2. The greatest weaknesses of this build are not from 1 base aggression, be it 3-4 gate pressure or DT/archon stuff, but rather transitioning against a player who has expanded before you. Players have been opening phoenix a lot more on the ladder recently, and a very easy way to put them away is to just go kill them after blink is about done with ~6 gates worth of WG units. Holding this off is extremely difficult because your robo tech is very far behind. What I used to do was go up to 3 or 4 immortals before thinking about colossus tech, sometimes even going up to 2 robos to pump immortals out to hold the 2 base timing. Here are some replays for reference http://drop.sc/229109 http://drop.sc/229110 Even if you have energy for lifts during the engagement, that is 450 gas sunk which is a lot sure--but more importantly it was sunk very early and your follow-up tech tree is always undeveloped relative to your opponent. While the phoenix + 3 gates 1 base all-in is very effective against expanding players, I am not sure how potent phoenix are in PvP anymore, which is sad because I used to think it was going to be THE opener for PvP someday. Check out this GSL game of killer vs parting. Albeit parting is on another level, killer gets the definition of a build order win and the phoenixes come up short. It's game 1 so it's free to watch for all! http://www.gomtv.net/2012gsls3/vod/67612 I do the 6:30ish robo expand build. Against Pheonix I cancel my support bay, build a wall at my nat to choke zealots and go for fast blink. Granted I am only mid master but personally, I have found this to be much more reliable than to try and one base defend phoenix. So if I open robo as I normally do and see pheonix I just expand as normal, wall off, get fast blink and slowly with about 6 gates of production (3 at my wall) and 2 immortals tend to hold pheonix all ins. The logic being that they can lift my sentries, thats fine my fighting force will then include 2 immortals and stalkers with zealots blocking the hole. If they lift the immortals, that 2 less pheonix to deal with. And once blink is fully chronoed through I have a ton of stuff to defend and attack with. If the opponent decides to attack with immortals to try and break the wall I can engage with FFs to trap some units at my wall and take the opponent apart by piecemeal. Like you said, if they try to expo I will have 6 gate blink up and I can usually just walk all over them since their robo is late and I have blink obs off 2 base with better econ. If they try to take down my wall with stalkers only, well my blink will finish eventually and I can make some extra gates thats ok with me. If the pheonix dont lift my sentries and the stalkers try to kill the wall as pointed out before the FFs will trap them then I can just shoot them with my own army since I leave a gap to exit my nat. This works especially well on maps ramps to the nat | ||
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Ahelvin
France1866 Posts
On July 31 2012 04:16 ZeromuS wrote: I do the 6:30ish robo expand build. Against Pheonix I cancel my support bay, build a wall at my nat to choke zealots and go for fast blink. Granted I am only mid master but personally, I have found this to be much more reliable than to try and one base defend phoenix. So if I open robo as I normally do and see pheonix I just expand as normal, wall off, get fast blink and slowly with about 6 gates of production (3 at my wall) and 2 immortals tend to hold pheonix all ins. The logic being that they can lift my sentries, thats fine my fighting force will then include 2 immortals and stalkers with zealots blocking the hole. If they lift the immortals, that 2 less pheonix to deal with. And once blink is fully chronoed through I have a ton of stuff to defend and attack with. If the opponent decides to attack with immortals to try and break the wall I can engage with FFs to trap some units at my wall and take the opponent apart by piecemeal. Like you said, if they try to expo I will have 6 gate blink up and I can usually just walk all over them since their robo is late and I have blink obs off 2 base with better econ. If they try to take down my wall with stalkers only, well my blink will finish eventually and I can make some extra gates thats ok with me. If the pheonix dont lift my sentries and the stalkers try to kill the wall as pointed out before the FFs will trap them then I can just shoot them with my own army since I leave a gap to exit my nat. This works especially well on maps ramps to the nat Do you have any replay of you doing this? That sounds very interesting . | ||
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cresse
United States59 Posts
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Alejandrisha
United States6565 Posts
On July 31 2012 04:34 Ahelvin wrote: Do you have any replay of you doing this? That sounds very interesting .here are a few vs phoenix 1-base all-in if you have time to get an immortal out, definitely do so: http://drop.sc/231759 if you don't, you need to have 4 gateways worth of production: http://drop.sc/231758 edit: and this one is with a later expansion (gate robo gate instead of 1g expand) http://drop.sc/231794 | ||
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DarkblueRH
United States144 Posts
On July 31 2012 04:41 cresse wrote: Just wanted to chime in and say thanks to OP for writing up this build, it's very helpful as a zerg who loves mutalisks and switched to random. The mobility is amazing. The fact that you're pretty safe while doing it is even better! Naturally, however, every build will start to be figured out - in the interim, however, I will enjoy the overall viability of this build. I love you <3 @ZeromuS - This actually seems to be the best way to expand vs a Phoenix player. Sets you ahead for the encroaching macro-game and gives you an absolute defense given that zealots are your only fear. Walling off is genius, going for the attack with 6gate blink at a nice timing is also genius. However, I don't believe going for the mass blink stalker push should be thought of as a "free win" as Alej had stated and a back-up plan should be thought of because if you don't outright win the game with the blink stalkers you'll lose the colossus war. Assuming worst case scenario, your opponent just masses immortals off two robotics facilities with sentries and zealots AND you were forced to blink forward on top of his immortals... You should just immediately lose the game to a counter attack or to a 3rd base because of the exponential decay in the strength of blink stalkers as numbers diminish and time goes on. | ||
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