EPT[G]NaNiwa's PvZ gateway expand into phoenix build - Page 5
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Sated
England4983 Posts
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Lazermonkey
Sweden2176 Posts
On October 02 2012 09:30 Sated wrote: People who are dying to early all-ins doesn't got a clue because they think this is a bad build because it isn't safe when it actually is. It doesn't take a nuclear scientist to figure that one stalker cannot kill 7 roaches + a bunch of lings no matter how good your micro is, however, if you ever get into a situation like that it's your own fault. It's impicit that you don't go for this build when scouting something like that. Blaming the build is just like blaming a 1 gate - 3 nexus build in PvT because you lost to a 11/11 with it. So what you're saying is that you need to change to a safer build if you scout early gas/no expansion because you won't be able to defend against an all-in... whilst also saying that those who say this build struggles against such all-ins "don't have a clue". Did you even read what you wrote before you posted..? I hate the concept of being safe. If you go 3-gate sentry expo with 5 cannons at your nat your are obviously not going to die in some early agression. However you are extremly unsafe in the midgame as you have invested so much in crap and took a late nexus. | ||
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Sated
England4983 Posts
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ineversmile
United States583 Posts
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ineversmile
United States583 Posts
I made serious errors in this game because it's the first I played today and I needed a warm-up. I missed probes regularly and didn't even put them into my natural gases until the mineral patches ran out at that base. Still, this is a pretty good example of how much you can do with this opening if you play it greedy and expand after just a stalker. With better mechanics, I would have had an even worker count for longer, and with more active Phoenix harass I could have gotten Queens earlier. Still, the main thing is that I knew what was going on at each point in the game. What I want to point out from this game is just how strong Phoenixes are in the lategame against that Zerg deathball. Granted, he should have had at least one armor upgrade, but if you're actively trying to destroy the greater spire with prism harass then you can realistically pull off +3 weapons vs +1 armor for a large enough timing window that you can make 20+ Phoenixes and tear him apart. If he overmakes Corruptors and undermakes Broods, you can use Chargelots to push back the Infestors and give Phoenixes that breathing room they need to be able to kite the Corruptors without worry of being fungaled. If he undermakes Corruptors, your Phoenixes will kill his entire air army through the chain fungal because Brood are too slow to escape from Ranged Phoenixes (especially if you spread the Phoenixes out before engaging). Anyways, this is how I play out lategame PvZ. I don't screw around with Mothership because I think that unit is more of a liability than an asset when it's in battles. EDIT: I don't want to double post, so I'm going to edit in another replay. This is a game where I'm fully warmed up and my macro is much more watchable: http://drop.sc/263871 This is how you handle a roach rush. My scout dies, but I know that the earliest he can start his gas is 4 minutes in, which is when he starts it. That means the earliest ling speed could happen is 7:15, and busts tend to happen within a minute of that timing. I am fortunate with him sacking an ovie to check my main because it significantly supply blocks him, but it shouldn't have been that rough if he had paid attention and rebuilt that ovie. Still, that ovie kill happens all the time, which is why I check towers to see if Ovies are taking the normal route or some other route, so I can hunt them down. In any case, I don't build a Zealot, I delay my second Stalker for a 24 Nexus, then I take a greedy wall-off, and I even have 2 Stalkers way out of position at his natural doing some harassment. Still, because I have Stargate and he went Roaches instead of Ling Speed, I trade a Nexus and a minimal number of units for his aggression and he can't take a third while I have total map control. This attack looks way more deadly with ling speed and Roaches, but he can't have both of them AND not take an earlier gas, so if I had seen an early gas I would have obviously made a more conservative/complete wall-off and kept the stalkers at home after poking around the watchtowers. Either way, this is how you handle the attack if it's more reactive and comes from a gas after your scout leaves. If you remain calm, sac your nexus, save your probes, and micro your stalkers, you will come away with both a worker lead and tech lead. | ||
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JayPower
Netherlands171 Posts
On October 12 2012 08:32 ineversmile wrote: Playing some ladder: http://drop.sc/263796 I made serious errors in this game because it's the first I played today and I needed a warm-up. I missed probes regularly and didn't even put them into my natural gases until the mineral patches ran out at that base. Still, this is a pretty good example of how much you can do with this opening if you play it greedy and expand after just a stalker. With better mechanics, I would have had an even worker count for longer, and with more active Phoenix harass I could have gotten Queens earlier. Still, the main thing is that I knew what was going on at each point in the game. What I want to point out from this game is just how strong Phoenixes are in the lategame against that Zerg deathball. Granted, he should have had at least one armor upgrade, but if you're actively trying to destroy the greater spire with prism harass then you can realistically pull off +3 weapons vs +1 armor for a large enough timing window that you can make 20+ Phoenixes and tear him apart. If he overmakes Corruptors and undermakes Broods, you can use Chargelots to push back the Infestors and give Phoenixes that breathing room they need to be able to kite the Corruptors without worry of being fungaled. If he undermakes Corruptors, your Phoenixes will kill his entire air army through the chain fungal because Brood are too slow to escape from Ranged Phoenixes (especially if you spread the Phoenixes out before engaging). Anyways, this is how I play out lategame PvZ. I don't screw around with Mothership because I think that unit is more of a liability than an asset when it's in battles. EDIT: I don't want to double post, so I'm going to edit in another replay. This is a game where I'm fully warmed up and my macro is much more watchable: http://drop.sc/263871 This is how you handle a roach rush. My scout dies, but I know that the earliest he can start his gas is 4 minutes in, which is when he starts it. That means the earliest ling speed could happen is 7:15, and busts tend to happen within a minute of that timing. I am fortunate with him sacking an ovie to check my main because it significantly supply blocks him, but it shouldn't have been that rough if he had paid attention and rebuilt that ovie. Still, that ovie kill happens all the time, which is why I check towers to see if Ovies are taking the normal route or some other route, so I can hunt them down. In any case, I don't build a Zealot, I delay my second Stalker for a 24 Nexus, then I take a greedy wall-off, and I even have 2 Stalkers way out of position at his natural doing some harassment. Still, because I have Stargate and he went Roaches instead of Ling Speed, I trade a Nexus and a minimal number of units for his aggression and he can't take a third while I have total map control. This attack looks way more deadly with ling speed and Roaches, but he can't have both of them AND not take an earlier gas, so if I had seen an early gas I would have obviously made a more conservative/complete wall-off and kept the stalkers at home after poking around the watchtowers. Either way, this is how you handle the attack if it's more reactive and comes from a gas after your scout leaves. If you remain calm, sac your nexus, save your probes, and micro your stalkers, you will come away with both a worker lead and tech lead. Thanks for the replays, I enjoyed watching them. The game on Cloud Kingdom is how I always wanted pvz to be like from the protoss perspective. Lots of agression/harrasment rather than one or two timings attacks you rely on. I liked the heavy phoenix usage since he couldn't really afford a lot of hydras. I was constantly amazed how you won so many engagements, especially the ones at 19:40 and 24:10. I guess the upgrades helped a lot, you were quite a bit ahead in that. I think however that some storms wouldve turned the tieds even more in those fights though, especially since he had a lot of hydras. Extremely well played though nonetheless. The game on daybreak was amazing. The fast 3rd was really smart, I will be trying that out in my games for sure. My goodness that lategame. It's amazing how good phoenix' are in high numbers and upgraded. I've always tried going storm heavy with zealots and immortals to prevent that whole gimmicky mothership/vortex play, but phoenix heavy seems so much stronger and harrasment oriented. http://drop.sc/264190 Here's a replay on me trying that style I described. It is still kind of relieing on winning big engagements and its not nearly as good with harrasment as a phoenix heavy style. However I think there's still a lot of micro involved that can give you the edge, which I like. If you have more replays I would love to see them, especially phoenix heavy play. | ||
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ineversmile
United States583 Posts
On October 13 2012 22:46 JayPower wrote:Thanks for the replays, I enjoyed watching them. The game on Cloud Kingdom is how I always wanted pvz to be like from the protoss perspective. Lots of agression/harrasment rather than one or two timings attacks you rely on. I liked the heavy phoenix usage since he couldn't really afford a lot of hydras. I was constantly amazed how you won so many engagements, especially the ones at 19:40 and 24:10. I guess the upgrades helped a lot, you were quite a bit ahead in that. I think however that some storms wouldve turned the tieds even more in those fights though, especially since he had a lot of hydras. Extremely well played though nonetheless. Thanks. A big problem I have with this strategy is that it's very difficult to keep up with certain aspects of macro while controlling Phoenixes and a number of armies simultaneously. Building probes, stargate units, and robo units and hitting warp-ins isn't that difficult, but it's a real challenge to make sure that I'm also keeping optimal saturation, that I have the right number of gateways, etc. Usually when I take another base I try to just sim-city it with ~3 gates, which solves that problem--but sometimes I don't have the opportunity to do that or I just mess it up. It's hard. Fortunately, the flipside of this is that I see so many places to improve my play, even though I'm winning games. To me, that means that this strategy is (a) constantly helping me to get better and (b) strong enough to win games at the mid-master level when I'm bungling all kinds of attacks and having far from perfect macro. The game on daybreak was amazing. The fast 3rd was really smart, I will be trying that out in my games for sure. My goodness that lategame. It's amazing how good phoenix' are in high numbers and upgraded. I've always tried going storm heavy with zealots and immortals to prevent that whole gimmicky mothership/vortex play, but phoenix heavy seems so much stronger and harrasment oriented. When you think about it, the Phoenix is the ultimate late-game unit. They cost the same as Corruptors, they have the same range, and while they lose in a straight-up fight against Corruptors they are also way faster, so you dictate where and when the fights happen. And they way in which they interact with Infestors is much like the way that Ghosts and Templar interact; they both can trap and kill each other or trade themselves for a ton of energy off of the opposing caster. If you need to go harass a base, Phoenixes will kill all of the drones at a base, even if there are 5 spores around it--that late in the game, +armor and +shields will let them tank so much damage you can trade a couple Phoenixes for 20 drones easily and then get out with the rest. I feel like we Protosses need to be doing what Terran does against the Zerg Deathball in the late game: Get a bunch of Stargates and mass basic air-to-air fighters, taking back the sky. With superior upgrades from chronoboost, this is totally possible, especially if you go snipe the Spire(s). If you have more replays I would love to see them, especially phoenix heavy play. I go Stargate in almost every single PvZ, but I try not to post bad games. A lot of games just come down to the zerg seeing a gateway opener and then doing something stupid because they have no idea what to do against non-FFE openers. And then there's the decent number of games that I botch because this is a really technical playstyle and I should probably play a warmup game each session (and I should stop playing when I'm tired!). I'll try to put up some more replays soon, though, since you're interested. http://drop.sc/264190 Here's a replay on me trying that style I described. It is still kind of relieing on winning big engagements and its not nearly as good with harrasment as a phoenix heavy style. However I think there's still a lot of micro involved that can give you the edge, which I like. EDIT: I just watched the replay. That was some pretty clean play on your part! I liked how smooth your transitions were. I agree you could have done more with your Phoenixes, but you were focusing more on establishing a third and macroing properly, and it's not like your Phoenixes didn't pay for themselves and change. It was cool to see this opening played out into a more standard midgame style with blink and a Robo, which I haven't seen in a while (because basically nobody opens this way and games are sparse). I do think that blocking the first hatchery with a pylon is incorrect, though. It delays the Core too much. I'm cool with blocking the third base sometimes, but honestly I think you should just let them have the hatchery and take your expo fast as well. Since you can outright get away with an expo after one stalker, I think it hurts you more than it hurts them. At least, that's my take on the matter. Maybe you have some thoughts about this, too. Seems worth discussion. EDIT #2: Oh yeah, and one other thing I noticed in your game: You banked a lot of chrono early. I think you could boost probes way more than you did. | ||
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oOOoOphidian
United States1402 Posts
On August 22 2012 05:27 ittron wrote: A high-level protoss told me: Going mass ling off your 2 bases upon realizing that protoss is not getting a core after gate (going gateway nexus) will win the game right off the bat. Zealot block doesn't matter, protoss simply can't have enough units to deal with it. The protoss might kill 20 lings and expand the wall-off but the result is inevitable. He is baffeled that zergs have not realized this. Thoughts on that? This appears to be true in my experience. If you don't get cannons after nexus or core right after gateway, and the zerg scouts you, they can easily start massing lings with whatever they opened and you'll lose your wall even if you try to reinforce it. That's why I would never recommend going Gate Nexus on any 2 player map. Even on a 4 player map, it's a risk if the zerg drone scouts you or their overlord sees you first. | ||
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ineversmile
United States583 Posts
On October 14 2012 06:47 oOOoOphidian wrote: This appears to be true in my experience. If you don't get cannons after nexus or core right after gateway, and the zerg scouts you, they can easily start massing lings with whatever they opened and you'll lose your wall even if you try to reinforce it. That's why I would never recommend going Gate Nexus on any 2 player map. Even on a 4 player map, it's a risk if the zerg drone scouts you or their overlord sees you first. Is there a reason why you're quoting a post from a month and a half ago? Also, this build is not a YufFE; it gets a Core and at least one stalker before expanding. You in the right thread, dude? | ||
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oOOoOphidian
United States1402 Posts
On October 14 2012 10:17 ineversmile wrote: Is there a reason why you're quoting a post from a month and a half ago? Also, this build is not a YufFE; it gets a Core and at least one stalker before expanding. You in the right thread, dude? Yes, I suppose it's off topic. I just think it's important to justify going gate core nexus instead of gate nexus, because many people try greedy gate nexus builds without realizing how easily punished it is. | ||
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ineversmile
United States583 Posts
I completely agree; I think that if you're going to open Gateway you shouldn't half-ass it. The core lets you do so much more, and it really speeds up the tech. You get a plenty good enough economy with a Core-->Nexus build if you just constantly make probes and boost 3-4 times. | ||
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wOod LeaGue
Australia15 Posts
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ineversmile
United States583 Posts
http://drop.sc/266044 This should be a pretty good example of how to contain the Infestors repeatedly with Phoenixes+Obs in a macro game. I even botch it at ~22:30 and throw away 15 Phoenixes, but I kill a couple of them and keep their energy pool low. I shouldn't be this far ahead throughout the game, but because he goes Mutas, that puts him down over 1k/1k (because they basically get roflstomped) and his ground army was much more manageable. I don't feel like this composition/style really wants to invest supply in Colossi, but I might start adding a Robo Bay in as I take the 4th to get Obs and Prism speed. This isn't the first time I've done Robo-->2xStargate, but I still haven't refined the timings and gas spending. This is kind of backwards for me; I'm accustomed to going Stargate-->double Forge-->Charge-->Robo-->1-2 extra Stargates. EDIT: Here's another game against standard 15pool/16hatch into a reactive gas after scouting the Gateway opening. He doesn't try to pull any Muta crap, though, and instead techs to Hive. This is how I try to handle that situation: http://drop.sc/266059 Because I'm essentially playing Muta/Ling as Protoss, I can just out-maneuver Broodlord/Infestor/Corruptor all day long. No, I don't always get to do as much damage to my opponent's tech, but they can't be guarding their tech and their new expos. This is what happens when they set up shop at their fourth and the main+natural are exposed. | ||
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JayPower
Netherlands171 Posts
The game on ohana was quite inspirational. Lots of things going, lost of unit compositions that seem effiecient. For example the addition of the voidrays with your harrasment is really smart since he doesn't really have anything to do about the voidray with the huge amount of phoenix around it (and the observer ofc, very important). I also need to get in the habbit of using warpprisms with my phoenix. I often time have that the zergs are turtling with just infestors and zerglings, some +1 zealots would do wonders for my harrasment. I have some innovating replays as well of a phoenix heavy style but I do it quite different. I stay on 1 stargate for a long time but get the fleat beacon very early. I really feel the extra range increases my harrasment potential. http://drop.sc/266143 Here is a game that is quite straighforward about the style im using right now. I think however that I should either add more stalkers or immortals since I lost some ground armies due to my opponent's roach heavy composition. http://drop.sc/265017 This game is a good example of what happens when a zerg tries to keep his infestor count similair to your phoenix count; He won't have any gas to make anything else but zergling for the most part and will still not stand a chance against phoenix that are spread out. | ||
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ineversmile
United States583 Posts
On October 20 2012 05:39 JayPower wrote: Thanks again for the replays. I almost couldn't believe you won the game on cloud kingdom after your phoenix/warp prism harrasment started relatively late. But very well done overall. I really thought that this style was only possible if you were able to do at least some harrasment in the early-game with the phoenix. I think harassment is really just there to keep your opponent from doing outrageous things. Most people who get Phoenixes in PvZ think of them as purely harassment tools, with the potential to counter Mutas. They get a Void or two and a handful of Phoenix, but then they never use the stargate for more than a stepping stool towards making a Mothership. But if protoss plays the way that you and I play, where Phoenixes are a central unit to the army, then that completely changes the equation. You don't actually have to do damage with them; you only need to do that if your opponent is cutting corners. Otherwise, they're dangerous because of their potential; the threat of picking up all the infestors or picking up half the roaches in an engagement. And later, they can't actually go for a Hive-tech Broodlord army without seriously respecting the Phoenixes. It's like terrans getting ghosts in TvP; they're mainly a counter to HTs and Archons, but they're still good enough against everything else that terran always wants to get them, eventually. The game on ohana was quite inspirational. Lots of things going, lost of unit compositions that seem effiecient. For example the addition of the voidrays with your harrasment is really smart since he doesn't really have anything to do about the voidray with the huge amount of phoenix around it (and the observer ofc, very important). I also need to get in the habbit of using warpprisms with my phoenix. I often time have that the zergs are turtling with just infestors and zerglings, some +1 zealots would do wonders for my harrasment. I think you should consider getting more +weapons upgrades for your ground army. Shields are awesome, too, but if your army is predominantly chargelots, boosting DPS gives a massive positive effect to your ground army. This is part of why I go double forge, although I end up getting armor first, usually because it's cheaper and I'm always spending a lot of gas. But that doesn't mean it's correct. Ideally, I want to go +1 weapons, +1 shields, and then get a twilight and second forge in time to start +2/0/+2. Nevertheless, I think +weapons is probably the most important upgrade for ground units because the army is basically chargelot/immortal, and i think hydras and infested terrans are the main motivation to prioritize armor/shields because they're the only ranged dps machines zerg has. I have some innovating replays as well of a phoenix heavy style but I do it quite different. I stay on 1 stargate for a long time but get the fleat beacon very early. I really feel the extra range increases my harrasment potential. http://drop.sc/266143 Here is a game that is quite straighforward about the style im using right now. I think however that I should either add more stalkers or immortals since I lost some ground armies due to my opponent's roach heavy composition. Good lord, so that's what it's like to kill almost all of your opponent's overlords. I keep meaning to try that, but its so awesome to see it in action. I think the only thing you could have done to dominate this game even more is to have a little bit better vision of incoming attacks on your 4th and to cannon it a bit. It's not like you even needed to do that, though. This was disgusting; you beat this guy into oblivion. I know I've had some really awesome wins with this style, but I haven't been able to kill all of the infestors and then a majority of the overlords before a remax. That's like a combo finish! Nice overlord hunting with the watchtower in the beginning, by the way. http://drop.sc/265017 This game is a good example of what happens when a zerg tries to keep his infestor count similair to your phoenix count; He won't have any gas to make anything else but zergling for the most part and will still not stand a chance against phoenix that are spread out. Really nice spread on the Phoenixes, this game. I think you were a bit fortunate that your opponent didn't build infestors as fast as he could have--he waited until pathogen glands finished. Even then, though...you did so much damage, and he made so many lings (and that roach warren) in the beginning, he was just so far behind all game. Which is to your credit, and also to the credit of this opening. There were times in this game where you were fighting with 1/0/3 zealots against 1/2 zerglings. It wasn't bad, by any means, but this is what made me notice that you don't get +2 weapons for your ground. | ||
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