Hello TeamLiquid, I´m JayPower and this is my 5th guide I bring you with another video guide. This time it is a PvZ playstyle I´ve developed over the past couple of months. It´s a style where you go for a phoenix heavy force to keep the infestor count of the zerg low (or keep their energy low), have complete mapcontrol and are able to harass the zerg all game long. With this vivid playstyle you will put your multitasking and mechanics to the test to outplay the zerg. Some of you might be familiar with a phoenix compliation video I posted a while ago where I show what cool things you can use phoenix for.
Build overview
There are 2 openers that I use with this playstyle. One is an opener I did a guide on quite a while ago, Naniwa’s PvZ gateway expand into phoenix build. The other one is a variation of that build with a 3gate pressure you can do after expanding. Both builds are very similar, one just a bit more aggressive than the other.
Once you have your natural up and running you want to go for a fast +1 attack upgrade while making phoenix’. Since you get the stargate really fast with both openers, I prefer hunting on overlords with my first phoenix. This prevents you from getting scouted early and opens up the possibility to go for various tech routes unnoticed. Once your +1 is about 70% done, you want to start your twilight council so you can get +2 attack right away. If your zealots don’t 2-shot speedling, it will be very hard to get a 3rd base later. Please note that you keep making phoenix out of your stargate at all times.
When you reach a count of 4 phoenix, you want to be around your opponents base pretty much all the time. This is why I prefer clearing overlords before you go to your opponent’s base. You don´t have the element of surprise, but you do get (usually 2) overlord kills a lot faster and you don’t have to go back later to kill them. This will also prevent the zerg from scouting you.
You will use your phoenix’ mostly for scouting and harassing, a while later once infestors are out (and you have the ranged upgrade) you want to have them spend energy or even kill them if the zerg allows you. Please note that you continuously make phoenix’ the whole time. At the same time you’re getting a 3rd base around 10-11 minutes if this is possible. Against a roach heavy responds of the zerg you will make a robo instead of a fleatbeacon to get your 3rd up safely. The zerg going for a lot aggression means he will have his infestors out a lot later (or in smaller numbers), you can punish that by having a voidray to defend against the roach aggression and at the same time deny/delay a potential 4th base.
From here on it is your job to use you multitasking to get ahead/win the game. Don’t forget to get up proxy pylons or make warp prisms for zealot harassment and don’t be afraid to get a voidray.
Build order
I have 2 openers that I use when I’m going for this style.
You can of course skip the zealot if don’t like to get one. This will get you a slightly faster nexus (23/28 instead of 27/34), so before your 3rd pylon. You can even go nexus before stalker, this will delay your stalker by quite some time though.
23 Stalker
Right now you can pressure your opponent with your zealot (which should be on his way to your opponent´s base already) and the stalker. Make sure to remember when your opponents zergling speed will finish (assuming he got his gas), timings for that will be in this guide as well.
24 Pylon (at natural) 27 Nexus / 2nd gas 28 forge (at natural) / stargate (in main) 31 pylon 32 cannon / 2nd gate to wall off natural
You can make the forge / stargate / 2nd gate in almost any order you want, depending on how greedy you want to play. I recommend forge first though, it is always good to get that quick cannon up after that the stargate and then the 2nd gateway.
My other opening that I have been using more often recently, involves a 3gate pressure that you can do after your expand to pressure the zergs 3rd base.
9 pylon / 13 gateway / 14 gas 16 2nd pylon / 17 cybercore 21 stalker 23 nexus 23 pylon on the lowground 23 double gateway on the lowground 24 stargate / 2nd gas
~26 forge to completely wall-off your natural (unless you play on a map where you can completely wall your natural with the 2 gateways). Please note that the forge timing depends on what your opponent is doing. For example if the zerg went for fast 3 hatch with a late gas, you will delay the forge to get out more zealots to pressure that 3rd. We’ll go more in-depth on reacting to what you scout later.
Phoenix
Now many of you might be wondering why the phoenix? Why not just stop at 4-5 and forget about the range like everyone else does? Well I think you can get a lot more out of your phoenix than just killing some overlords, a queen or 2 and a couple of drones. I think if you use phoenix in higher numbers, you can pick off a lot more units (drones mostly) while being hit by a spore crawler. Having 2 extra range on your phoenix also gives you more survivability against infestors. Of course fungal out-ranges your ability to lift, this is why you spread out your phoenix. This will allow you to use the phoenix’ that aren’t hit by fungal to lift infestors with energy and make the chain-fungal a lot less useful. Since infested terrans are 5 range and phoenix are 4 without the upgrade (6 range with), you can actually fight the infested terrans. Phoenix´ with air upgrades are pretty good in combat too. This is what allows you to get up your 3rd base. Your +1 zealots and rip through zerglings while your phoenix’ can take care of a lot of the roaches. If your opponent goes for an extremely roach heavy play, you get a robo instead of a fleatbeacon and delay your 3rd. Generally the zerg will go for a defensive play with infestors and use speedlings for map control, so this works out great.
Phoenix’ in the mid/late-game can only work in combat if you keep up the upgrades for them. Since you get your cybercore that much faster than the zerg would even think about getting a spire, this is possible. Phoenix’ need +2 air attack to be able to kill corruptors 1on1, you will need +3 air attack if they use corruption (you would be surprised how many zergs forget to use it). So make sure you keep your air upgrades going. When you’re done with +3 attack you can get armor too, maybe get a 2nd forge for shield upgrades when you’re on 3 or 4 bases. Don’t forget that you can micro you phoenix a lot more easily than the zerg can micro his corruptors, so make sure to pull back the hurt ones.
Priority when you get your first couple of phoenix out: 1. Overlords around your base. (you don’t want to have your robo/fleatbeacon scouted) 2. Queens (unless he has more queens than hatchery, then don’t bother you won’t cripple his production) 3. Drones. 4. Overlords around his base (usually the zerg has overlords around his bases (most likely his 3rd) to spot for proxy pylons, he might have forget to pull those back). You warp prism harassment will become a lot stronger if the zerg has no map vision.
Responding to what you scout
I honestly don’t want to go in-depth on early-game scouting again. In my other guide you can find a lot of information on early-game scouting when going gateway expand. In this guide I will go over mid-game and late-game scouting and responding though. Please note that not everything that I’ll be covering is final or conclusive, I’m just writing what I recommend based off my experience with this style.
Mid-game
With mid-game I mean any time in the game from when your stargate is finished until you have your 3rd base up and running. I recommend going up to 5 gateways before expanding so you can get enough units out to be safe. Make sure you use your phoenix’ for the things I point out before and scout actively. The big thing you’re looking for with your first few phoenix’ is what kind of defensive or offensive play your opponent is going for.
You can tell your opponent is going to defend by a couple of things; the roach warren is big indicator. Normally the zerg will get roaches to deal with gateway allins/attacks after an expand, but when that’s not the case the zerg won’t always use the roach warren. The zerg would like to dump that 100 gas in his defensive against phoenix rather than to prepare for a ground attack which is not coming. So make sure you look if roach speed is upgrading or not.
A quick 4th base going up in combination with 6 gas geyser will most definitely be defensive play. You can pressure this with zealot harassment, especially when the zerg relies on speedlings as core units.
The next thing is the number of gas geysers that are mining. When the zerg sees your phoenix opening and decides to defend and tech he will have all his 6 gas geysers, or get them really fast. Make sure you account for other unusual strategies like queen heavy defence or hydralisk defence which will cost a lot less gas than the common infestor defence. Even though hydralisks are fast on creep and have great dps, you have to make sure you have your phoenix´ around your opponent´s base at all times. You never know whether a zerg would actually attack with slow hydras. So if the zerg is staying on 4 gasses for a long time or even has no more than 2 gasses, make sure to prepare for an attack. Your phoenix´ are essential for knowing whether the zerg is going to attack or not, you have to be around your opponent´s bases to spot his army movement.
Now the responses to these different types of openings are quite simple. When you think your opponent is going to commit to an attack without roaches (so either mass speedling or a big speedling/infestor attack), you have to make sure you use a couple of warpins before you take a 3rd, you can even tech to charge to make your zealots more efficient. The quick +1 should be enough to deal with speedlings and you are most likey save to tech to fleatbeacon. Keep in mind that even though +1 (or +2 vs +1 armor) zealots are very good against speedlings, they will only last for so long. You will eventually need archons to hold off big speedlings/infestor attacks. Make sure you punish this playstyle by going lots of harassment with your zealots. Use your mapcontrol to get proxy-pylons up or use warp prims. You want to have the zerg spend gas on other things than just infestors.
When you think your opponent is going to commit to an attack with roaches. It is essential that you get a robo instead of the fleatbeacon. Depending on how early your opponent stopped droning to make units, you will have to delay your 3rd to get immortals out. This is hard to estimate and requires experience. Gas is very valuable in this situation, you need to make immortals, phoenix’ and keep up in both ground and air upgrades. This is why I prefer staying on a low sentry count (3 max), get charge and rely on a zealot heavy ground force. This will also allow you to get the fleatbeacon faster once you help the roach aggression.
Late-game
With the late-game I mean any time in the game from when the zerg has a lot of corruptors with his infestors or just more infestors to make the ultimate zerg anti-air (aka anti-everything). This is a very difficult situation to play in, especially when you aren´t able to kill infestors or have them spend energy in the early/mid-game. Here is where your air upgrades kick in. If you spread you phoenix well enough, pick off infestors with high energy and pull back the phoenix that are low on health you should be able to manage. Once zerg starts adding corruptors to his infestors, you absolutely have to get 2 additional stargates.
Your ground army is the most important during this stage of the game, any damage from stalkers/archons/storm on the broodlords will help your phoenix significantly. You want to have a very similar army to what protosses have regularly. The only problem is that you don’t have as much gas to your expense because of the investment you make in the air. The low sentry count in the early-game is a good compensation for that, but isn’t enough. I prefer going for a high zealot archon army, then add stalkers and high templar with storm in later. This will work great to clear infested terran from the infestors and keep you phoenix alive longer. Please note that I do not have a definite army composition for the late-game, I’m still trying out lots of different things. If you have ideas/suggestions, please post them.
Tips & other useful things to know
- A +2 phoenix can take on a corruptor 1on1 - If you scout after pylon, you can cancel your gateway and go for an in-base forge (into FFE) if you see the zerg opening with gas first. - If a queen injects, the hold position on it is lost and you can lure it out of spore crawler range again. - Make sure to target the queen once you lift it up with the phoenix if there are overlords nearby. You don’t want to waste any phoenix shots on the overlords causing you to use 2 lifts to kill 1 queen. - It takes 6 fungals to kill a full health/shield phoenix. - If you plan to expand, you can fully wall-off your natural on some maps to feel more save. (ohana + entombed valley). - On some maps you can put you zealot in a very nice position to hold the watchtower. It makes it a lot harder for the zerg to pick it off. Use your stalker and sentry to wall your natural. - Phoenix can lift your own units too. You can use this to pick up stalkers/immortals that are surrounded by speedlings for example. - Use phoenix to prevent units from retreating. - Don’t hesitate to get a voidray out if you see your opponent makes a lot of roaches to pressure you expansion. You might not have enough immortals out. You can use this voidray to harass even more in combination with the phoenix’. - Be aware of nydus play even though you cleared overlords. - VS ling infestors defense, have zerg spend gas on other things. - Don’t forget about the mothership. I don’t have this unit anywhere in the guide because I’m not sure when to get it. I’d say just make it when you can afford it, this is usually when you have your 3rd up and running. - You can wall at your ramp like shown in the image below. This well help a lot against ling runbys. The gap is big enough for an archon to fit in.
Video Guide
The video guide I made offers more in-depth analysis and visualization of situations mentioned above.
After a failed 3gate pressure I get behind in this game but with good phoenix micro I’m able to fight my way back into the game. Make sure to check out the PFVOD for this game with commentary.
In this game my opponent went for a very normal speedling/infestor defense with a little bit of pressure. In the late-game I lost a big clump of my phoenix but with my triple stargate I was able to remake them
In this game you can see what happens if you take advantage of zerg trying to cut corners in their defense. With phoenix/zealot pressure I was able to win that game.
If you’re looking for a more in-depth analysis of my game where I go over what I’m thinking at what point in the game, I recommend watching the VOD on my YouTube channel. I’ll explain what my thought process is from what I’m scouting and present you different things you can do to react to what you scout. I make an analysis video for every replay.
FAQ
What do you do against 40 infestors?
You lose. The point of this playstyle is that you have a lot of potential to keep the infestor count low. You do this by keeping the zergs economy low with pressure/harassment and have the infestors spend energy to defend against your phoenix.
Will this work on a professional level?
I don’t know. I think I’ve proven that it works on my level (mid master protoss with high master zerg knowledge) though. I think the playstyle has some holes, this is why I’m still developing it. If it won’t work on a professional level, I’ll still be left with a very fun to play strategy that I can use in master league.
What if the zerg meta-games this style?
Even though I think this style is good all-round, there’s big advantages for the zerg to get if he’s certain you’re going for this very early into the game. This is why you need to do different styles that look similar in a boX series. Please note that the build orders for these other styles are less refined.
Normal stargate play is a very common follow-up. This is basically stopping at 4-5 phoenix and going for another tech route (most of the time robo). This is quite common and not something I want to go in-deputy about.
+2 blink all-in is very strong against both roach/ling as ling infestor play. You cut phoenix production at 4-5 and get you twilight council after your first phoenix.
DT rush is a bit of a cheesy strategy to try to catch your opponent off guard. You get a twilight council instead of a stargate and get a dark shrine asap. You can follow this up with a robo or just a blink attack.
Voidray/zealot heavy attack is another cheesy strategy to catch your opponent off guard. You start with a voidray first, followed by only 1 phoenix. Your opponent might think that you’re going for a standard voidray first into 4-5 phoenix’. But instead you will chronoboost out more voidray and go for a zealot heavy 7gate all-in with 4-5 voidrays.
I'm JayPower. 19 years old and from the Netherlands. I play all races in sc2 at a master league, right now I'm playing protoss the most. I like to use unexplored/fun strategies to play since I gave up on competitive gaming a while ago. I make FPVODs of my games on my YouTube channel often and share my analysis.
Please give me feedback on the guide / video guide. I really do appreciate any feedback, so please give me suggestions on how I can improve. Any questions about the guide are welcome too, I will try to answer them as soon as possible.
Remember once upon a time someone posted a thread introducing sentry drops vs z and everyone thought it was absurd. Now its a pretty common tactic. This idea reminds of that, it sounds so ridiculous that it might just work.
I played this style vs a guy who goes 2 hatch hydra into very delayed third base into roach hydra corrupter- i think going for collossus was a bad choice, can you defend the hydra pushes with just charge zealots and phoenix? i suppose you can :D seems like colossus is a big nono becuase then corrupters kill everything you have
I personally don't play this style but wayyy back when people didn't know how to play this game I did a lot of Zealot into Phoenix stuff. Hydras suck. Your phoenixes are constantly around. Hydras die almost as fast as a Drone to Phoenixes. You can easily kill off 10 or so Hydras before he really drives your Phoenixes away, by this time you should have 3 Bases Chargelot Archon and kill him.
On December 13 2012 21:18 iKill wrote: What do you do against hydras? I expect you do a colossus transition, but how do you work it into the build?
also, hi Zelkia
On December 13 2012 21:21 zelkia wrote: I played this style vs a guy who goes 2 hatch hydra into very delayed third base into roach hydra corrupter- i think going for collossus was a bad choice, can you defend the hydra pushes with just charge zealots and phoenix? i suppose you can :D seems like colossus is a big nono becuase then corrupters kill everything you have
You can definitly hold roach/hydra or ling/hydra pushed with charge zealots. The key here is to save some energy on your phoenix if you suspect an attack coming, even if you have the potential to kill a lot of drones. With the fast twillight council I think fast templar would be the better choice because it's very easy for the zerg to kill your colossus. Your phoenix aren't very well upgraded that early in the game so the corruptors will destroy them. The difficult part would be to figure out in what ratio the zerg is getting roaches and hydras so you can adjust your HT and immortas numbers to it.
On December 13 2012 21:58 Clbull wrote: Why not (especially in HotS) do a Bisu Build-style transition out of this?
Get large numbers of phoenixes to keep infestor count/energy low, harass etc, and get dark templar along with a quick third.
I think your 3rd will be a lot later if you have to wait for DTs to get out, right now I use the +1 for the zealots to get the edge over speedlings and force my opponent to commit heavy to roaches if he wants to pressure my 3rd. I don't think the DTs will do a lot of damage when the zerg is already forced to make spore crawlers. I don't play HoTS so I don't know how it would work out in there.
Edit:Thx to RandomRice to compare the suggested strategy in BW with SC2. I didn't play BW so I can't really comment on that.
I've been thinking about doing this style for a while, it's pretty much the Protoss equivalent of lings/mutas.
One thing that I think has been quite unexplored with air builds in PvZ is denying Z's fourth base. If you just add a single early voidray to the build, there's no reason you couldn't deny his fourth until he has a decent amount of hydras, corruptors or infestors. And even then, since you're comitting so much into phoenixes with this style, maybe you can still attempt to deny his fourth even if he goes heavy anti-air.
I also play a LOT of phoenix openers at the moment, mainly because I have big problems with muta play. With early phoenix you can counter muta play and they are also great infestor snipers. I usually follow the phoenix pressure with a 3 base colossus timing and try to lift most of the infestors.
But your variation sounds pretty interesting. Will try that on ladder soon.
This isn't so much a comment on the builds listed here but more on use of ranged phoenix in general and gateway expands (which you mention in your OP)
I've been doing Nony 2gate expands lately and I find going straight into stargate afterwards works so well, especially doing mass ranged phoenixes like this. The reaction of almost every zerg I have played is either a fast spire, which I will completely crush with ranged phoenixes(which you can get the range upgrade quickly. I throw down a fleet beacon as soon as I scout spire, and sometimes I seal off my wall in case they try to run mass lings in), or roach/ling all-in, which is easily held with a single voidray and decent micro. Zergs who take their third blindly without scouting (which happens too much at my level) will outright lose that third 90% of the time or at the least you can force a ton of zerglings. There's also the factor of not many zergs knowing how to handle these builds because they are so used to forge expands. If the zerg goes hatch first I immediately chronoboost out and send a zealot and force them to make zerglings. It's crazy how good that one zealot is, even against higher master players I've got 5-6 drone kills or if they aren't microing enough, sometimes even the queen. Following up with phoenixes against an already messed-up zerg is usually icing on the cake since the zerg will already be down on drones since they had to make zerglings and now they have to invest larva in overlords since you can pick those off so fast.
I would say Gateway builds into stargate is the future of WOL but there's only 3 months in the game left so there isn't exactly a future. Stargate will be the future in HOTS though.
On December 14 2012 00:26 TejasEagle wrote: What's your opinion on doing this with 3g + SG after a FFE?
I think if you want to play this playstyle you always have to go robo before fleatbeacon to get your safely. I have never done it though so I wouldn't know for sure.
Also for everyone else, I updated the OP with 2 more VODs of Naniwa and 2 more replays of me.
how did i miss this? looks very fun and epic! hope it continues to work well, though even if WoL stales out, HotS is around the corner
Question:
you say you're not sure if it works in the professional level, so i'm assuming you haven't seen this in any games
I've seen PvZ use phoenixes early (like Parting vs Life GSL Finals game 1) to take map control and harass as was described in this thread
So do you mean that no pro has kept these phoenixes going later in the game, but you have kept making phoenixes (or at least keep up a certain number) and found success?
Not necessarily the EXACT build, but idea behind phoenix play in PvZ.
A few points - the game was not designed to be NR 20 - the current state of PvZ. Zerg was not designed to be able to take no gas 3 base without being punished. People are too obsessed with the idea that infestors "hard counter" air play (when it in fact takes 6 fungals to kill an unupgraded phoenix). Then there are corruptors - well I wonder how upgraded void rays do against them - and this guide clearly indicates how mass upgraded phoenix will destroy a small amount of corruptors.
One final point addresses the question - what if they go mass roach? We have a stargate...and if they do go roaches, they will not have the economy to do a 11 minute max out attack, especially if we gate expand.
TL;DR - This idea deserves more attention - upgraded air play has potential in the current metagame.
I love this guide, thank you for writing it. I'd love to see more of this from pro players.
On December 31 2012 14:35 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: how did i miss this? looks very fun and epic! hope it continues to work well, though even if WoL stales out, HotS is around the corner
Question:
you say you're not sure if it works in the professional level, so i'm assuming you haven't seen this in any games
I've seen PvZ use phoenixes early (like Parting vs Life GSL Finals game 1) to take map control and harass as was described in this thread
So do you mean that no pro has kept these phoenixes going later in the game, but you have kept making phoenixes (or at least keep up a certain number) and found success?
I've seen some pros keep their 4-6 phoenix alive until very long into the game and not lose them to the first couple of infestors. But I've never seen pro's go over 6 phoenix and actually get range or air attacks for them. Let alone trying to counter infestors with phoenix.
I could be wrong though, I haven't seen every pro-game of course. If you do find a vod/replay of pros going for this I would love to see it.
I have been using Gateway expo-->Phoenixes in over 80% of my PvZs in the last few months. From trying to make it work, I have come to a conclusion: high level players don't go Phoenix throughout a game because it's almost impossible to execute decent protoss macro while controlling your Phoenixes. In the early game, it's not hard because you are just building probes, phoenixes, and then you can have a gateway explosion and maybe an upgrade or two. But if you're on a 3-base economy and you're still getting to that 70ish probe count, you have to do all of the following:
-build probes from 3 Nexi -build production -decide a tech path -check upgrades -position your army -keep an eye out for runbys -keep an eye on your opponent's tech and unit composition -micro your phoenixes -choose which units you're building -warp in units regularly -queue units from startgate -keep expanding -make a decision about how you much/how little defense you want at each base -set up the right wall-offs where they are needed -keep an eye on your opponent's expansions -chronoboost
This isn't a list of things you do one at a time; this is a shitload of tasks you have to constantly check, over and over and over again. It's unbelievably difficult to handle that. So, I've been trying to simplify it by just doing Zealot/Immortal/Phoenix so I could just queue from robo and startgate and then just build 3-4 gates per base and warp in almost all zealots. That made it like a modified protoss Muta/Ling, as primarily phoenix/chargelot. I though that would help things--and it did, but my money still skyrocketed so much.
So my next plan was to try to take "macro breaks" every 15 seconds or so. I would only worry about controlling my phoenixes, and building units that could be queued (probes, stargate, robo) without looking. After ~15 seconds of harassment, I would back the phoenixes off somewhere and build structures, warp-in zealots, etc. It was a a good plan, but ultimately it wasn't enough. My brain would want to take a break, too, so after about 10-15 minutes of playing, my mind would just shut down and I would just throw the game away in one form or another.
I have been pondering the reason for my failure. What makes Chargelots and Phoenixes so much harder to play than Speedlings and Mutalisks? Why is it such a reasonable, fluid midgame for zerg and such a daunting task for me, as protoss? Clearly, it's not the units' fault--chargelots and phoenixes are both amazing DPS machines that are great for harassment and strong against a lot of zerg midgame compositions. Here's what I realized:
1. Phoenixes take more work to use than Mutalisks. They may fly faster and auto-attack, but having to G-click-click-click is focus-based micro. Actually, it shouldn't even be the G key, for a number of reasons--but I don't have time to go into those details. Besides having to press buttons and click precisely on the right target(s), there's also the fact that you have to use your decision making about what units to pick up, how many to pick up at a time, and when you need to leave. Mutas also require good control and an understanding of where and when to fight/to flee, but using Phoenixes for a similar job...it taxes my decision-making. This isn't anything to say that Mutas are a better unit or there is an imbalance, but it's something to consider when you choose to use Phoenixes for a long period of time. The unit takes a lot of babysitting. It's a hybrid air harass unit AND spellcaster.
2. Zerg macro is mostly about building one tech structure, the occasional hatchery, regularly hitting injects, and building units without looking at your larva. Protoss macro involves queuing workers, queuing stargate and/or robo units, warping in unit in the right location, adding on production buildings chronoboost, and probably one or two other major things. I guess that the chrono and injects are about the same, and upgrades are basically the same...it's just that the warp-ins take more actual mechanics to use than building stuff from just hotkeyed buildings. For zerg and terran both, they can do that--for a toss, you have to actually look at where you're putting them, and wait for a cooldown.
I almost want to just turn my warpgates back into gateways and queue my units, just so there's one less thing I have to look at when I macro. I think it would seem a lot less stupid to use regular gateways if the cooldowns for a WG weren't just so much better than building from a gateway. It's seriously like 10 seconds more per zealot/stalker from a gateway than from a WG...I kinda wish that the WG tech upgrade reduced the build times to the cooldown length of a gateway. But it doesn't, so I guess that's a moot point.
I mean, there's also something to be said for just overmaking gates and then having big warp-ins at intervals longer than the cooldown for zealots, but then you have the common problem from the gateway explosion in PvZ: you have a billion production facilities from powering, but your supply is just shat on because you have only built gates and you don't have actual units. My goal is to improve my ability to macro while using Phoenixes, so my supply can be close to the zergs due to a combination of harassment and of building those cheaper cost-per-supply zealots.
Like I've said before, I'm totally not complaining about zerg having better macro mechanics than protoss--all I'm saying is that muta/ling is a logical progression for zerg because most of their macro is done without looking at the zerg player's base. That's not really true of protoss. So if we could solve this problem, that would make it way easier to keep an eye on the delicate units while still keeping up with macro. Maybe there are some techniques we can figure out, or something. I mean, it's possible to keep building the same things constantly while controlling phoenixes and an army, but usually that's about as far as my brain can handle...if I try to transition or to otherwise tech, or to think about some kind of big-picture reality of the game, I'm screwed.
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OK, so that's an explanation of the issues with phoenixes in the midgame. But what about the lategame? I think it gets a lot easier, at that point. Because there are already 70-75 probes on the map, that means I don't have to keep checking my Nexi and saturation--I just make sure that I take another base as one of them begins to dry up. So that's one less thing to worry about--and a big thing, at that. So in the late game, because there's no worrying about my economy (aside from it getting attacked), I find it a lot easier to do multipronged harassment, and also overall easier to focus on tactics and positioning. Having more time to think about that stuff directly correlates to being able to do it.
So, to me, it's clearly possible to use Phoenixes in the early game and to use Phoenixes in the late game, in PvZ; as far as being able to control them and an army while functionally macroing. The question is how to bridge that gap in the mid game. I know that I like to just send them home shortly after the infestation pit finishes, but there's a timing window before then when I want to do as much damage as possible, and that's right when I'm:
-Taking a third -Setting up a proper wall for my third and natural because I'm really worried about runbys at that time -Establishing another tech path properly--not overteching or underteching -Building more production--the right kind, and the right amounts of each -Taking my next set of gases at the proper timing
That's a lot of decisions to make, and even the things I can memorize (building placement for walls on each map, gas timing, etc) are usually thought-intensive and require careful deliberation. But, simultaneously, ain't nobody got time for that--so what to do?
I think that there has to be a way to make it work, but there's a fundamental technique that I'm missing. I keep thinking back to the early days of the game, when 2raxes and 4gates would walk up a ramp all the time, even though there were 2-3 sentries waiting--the protoss would just miss one forcefield and lose the game. But then, someone figured out that you can press F, aim your mouse, and wait for the units to time the forcefield just right...that's the kind of fundamental technique I feel like I'm missing, here. Something that simple; a way to slide some macro in between harassment. I just haven't found it, yet...and I feel like a lot of pros haven't, either.
Going Phoenixes throughout the midgame isn't tough because the unit is bad; it's tough because it's a lot of work. I think that it's feasible, but for the pros who are trying to win games and already have enough preparation/practice work on their plates, why bother? It's way easier to use a simpler strategy if it can still win. Now, eventually, I think it would become worthwhile to use midgame phoenixes en masse and continue making them through the lategame...but we have to learn how to do that without shooting ourselves in the foo, macro-wise.
I'll write more on this, later. Still thinking about making this into a full-blown blog.
On January 01 2013 04:38 ineversmile wrote: I have been using Gateway expo-->Phoenixes in over 80% of my PvZs in the last few months. From trying to make it work, I have come to a conclusion: high level players don't go Phoenix throughout a game because it's almost impossible to execute decent protoss macro while controlling your Phoenixes. In the early game, it's not hard because you are just building probes, phoenixes, and then you can have a gateway explosion and maybe an upgrade or two. But if you're on a 3-base economy and you're still getting to that 70ish probe count, you have to do all of the following:
-build probes from 3 Nexi -build production -decide a tech path -check upgrades -position your army -keep an eye out for runbys -keep an eye on your opponent's tech and unit composition -micro your phoenixes -choose which units you're building -warp in units regularly -queue units from startgate -keep expanding -make a decision about how you much/how little defense you want at each base -set up the right wall-offs where they are needed -keep an eye on your opponent's expansions -chronoboost
This isn't a list of things you do one at a time; this is a shitload of tasks you have to constantly check, over and over and over again. It's unbelievably difficult to handle that. So, I've been trying to simplify it by just doing Zealot/Immortal/Phoenix so I could just queue from robo and startgate and then just build 3-4 gates per base and warp in almost all zealots. That made it like a modified protoss Muta/Ling, as primarily phoenix/chargelot. I though that would help things--and it did, but my money still skyrocketed so much.
So my next plan was to try to take "macro breaks" every 15 seconds or so. I would only worry about controlling my phoenixes, and building units that could be queued (probes, stargate, robo) without looking. After ~15 seconds of harassment, I would back the phoenixes off somewhere and build structures, warp-in zealots, etc. It was a a good plan, but ultimately it wasn't enough. My brain would want to take a break, too, so after about 10-15 minutes of playing, my mind would just shut down and I would just throw the game away in one form or another.
I have been pondering the reason for my failure. What makes Chargelots and Phoenixes so much harder to play than Speedlings and Mutalisks? Why is it such a reasonable, fluid midgame for zerg and such a daunting task for me, as protoss? Clearly, it's not the units' fault--chargelots and phoenixes are both amazing DPS machines that are great for harassment and strong against a lot of zerg midgame compositions. Here's what I realized:
1. Phoenixes take more work to use than Mutalisks. They may fly faster and auto-attack, but having to G-click-click-click is focus-based micro. Actually, it shouldn't even be the G key, for a number of reasons--but I don't have time to go into those details. Besides having to press buttons and click precisely on the right target(s), there's also the fact that you have to use your decision making about what units to pick up, how many to pick up at a time, and when you need to leave. Mutas also require good control and an understanding of where and when to fight/to flee, but using Phoenixes for a similar job...it taxes my decision-making. This isn't anything to say that Mutas are a better unit or there is an imbalance, but it's something to consider when you choose to use Phoenixes for a long period of time. The unit takes a lot of babysitting. It's a hybrid air harass unit AND spellcaster.
2. Zerg macro is mostly about building one tech structure, the occasional hatchery, regularly hitting injects, and building units without looking at your larva. Protoss macro involves queuing workers, queuing stargate and/or robo units, warping in unit in the right location, adding on production buildings chronoboost, and probably one or two other major things. I guess that the chrono and injects are about the same, and upgrades are basically the same...it's just that the warp-ins take more actual mechanics to use than building stuff from just hotkeyed buildings. For zerg and terran both, they can do that--for a toss, you have to actually look at where you're putting them, and wait for a cooldown.
I almost want to just turn my warpgates back into gateways and queue my units, just so there's one less thing I have to look at when I macro. I think it would seem a lot less stupid to use regular gateways if the cooldowns for a WG weren't just so much better than building from a gateway. It's seriously like 10 seconds more per zealot/stalker from a gateway than from a WG...I kinda wish that the WG tech upgrade reduced the build times to the cooldown length of a gateway. But it doesn't, so I guess that's a moot point.
I mean, there's also something to be said for just overmaking gates and then having big warp-ins at intervals longer than the cooldown for zealots, but then you have the common problem from the gateway explosion in PvZ: you have a billion production facilities from powering, but your supply is just shat on because you have only built gates and you don't have actual units. My goal is to improve my ability to macro while using Phoenixes, so my supply can be close to the zergs due to a combination of harassment and of building those cheaper cost-per-supply zealots.
Like I've said before, I'm totally not complaining about zerg having better macro mechanics than protoss--all I'm saying is that muta/ling is a logical progression for zerg because most of their macro is done without looking at the zerg player's base. That's not really true of protoss. So if we could solve this problem, that would make it way easier to keep an eye on the delicate units while still keeping up with macro. Maybe there are some techniques we can figure out, or something. I mean, it's possible to keep building the same things constantly while controlling phoenixes and an army, but usually that's about as far as my brain can handle...if I try to transition or to otherwise tech, or to think about some kind of big-picture reality of the game, I'm screwed.
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OK, so that's an explanation of the issues with phoenixes in the midgame. But what about the lategame? I think it gets a lot easier, at that point. Because there are already 70-75 probes on the map, that means I don't have to keep checking my Nexi and saturation--I just make sure that I take another base as one of them begins to dry up. So that's one less thing to worry about--and a big thing, at that. So in the late game, because there's no worrying about my economy (aside from it getting attacked), I find it a lot easier to do multipronged harassment, and also overall easier to focus on tactics and positioning. Having more time to think about that stuff directly correlates to being able to do it.
So, to me, it's clearly possible to use Phoenixes in the early game and to use Phoenixes in the late game, in PvZ; as far as being able to control them and an army while functionally macroing. The question is how to bridge that gap in the mid game. I know that I like to just send them home shortly after the infestation pit finishes, but there's a timing window before then when I want to do as much damage as possible, and that's right when I'm:
-Taking a third -Setting up a proper wall for my third and natural because I'm really worried about runbys at that time -Establishing another tech path properly--not overteching or underteching -Building more production--the right kind, and the right amounts of each -Taking my next set of gases at the proper timing
That's a lot of decisions to make, and even the things I can memorize (building placement for walls on each map, gas timing, etc) are usually thought-intensive and require careful deliberation. But, simultaneously, ain't nobody got time for that--so what to do?
I think that there has to be a way to make it work, but there's a fundamental technique that I'm missing. I keep thinking back to the early days of the game.
I'll write more on this, later. Still thinking about making this into a full-blown blog.
Thanks a lot for the detailed post, I´m looking forward to the follow-up post. I think it's fair to say that this strategy requires a lot more multitasking, but I feel like you cut out a little bit on what you get back from it. Starting from the zerg always losing 2 overlord at around 6:30 into the game preventing him from ever scouting your base to zerg not having a real way to defend phoenix harrasment apart from well placed infestors. But I agree with pretty much everything in your post and I would like to see replays of you going for that zealot/immortal ground force cause I never got it to work vs ling/infestor. After 12/13 minutes they seem to have enough lings to overwhelm my zealots.
I think roach-hydra with a good hydra ratio and corruptor support would completely crush this style. You've only mentioned hydra as a response to the pheonix opener, which would be uncommon, but when zeg discovers you are investing so much into air, an hydra transition is to be expected.
Would you stop pheonix production if you see constant hydra from zerg? Because at this point you've really committed to this no?
On January 02 2013 01:16 crbox wrote: I think roach-hydra with a good hydra ratio and corruptor support would completely crush this style. You've only mentioned hydra as a response to the pheonix opener, which would be uncommon, but when zeg discovers you are investing so much into air, an hydra transition is to be expected.
Would you stop pheonix production if you see constant hydra from zerg? Because at this point you've really committed to this no?
Phoenixes and chargelots counter hydras, if you're double-forgeing. Immortals counter roaches. Therefore, Phoenixes into chargelot/immortal with warp prism for warping in a flank of zealots in a fight.
EDIT: Let me clarify, a bit, since I have some time (and I read this response and realized it was not very enlightening at all):
Hydra/Roach is a ranged, ball army. It want you to fight it in a choke point where the roaches can tank in the front for the hydras in the back. If you fight that army with stalker/sentry, you're going to just get absolutely reamed because stalkers don't do the DPS to match the Hydras. In fact, we're all pretty accustomed to needing some kind of AOE against Hydras because Protoss isn't really known for its DPS units. But really, Zealots do crazy DPS and scale so well with boosted upgrades, that they can take on Hydras just fine when you get charge. The key is to fight Hydras in a place where melee units have the advantage against ranged units: out in the open, where you can get a lot of surface area. Ideally, you want to surround the Hydra army and bring a sentry from each side, purely for guardian shield to boost the chargelots' armor.
Where things get tricky is when Roaches are there to tank for the Hydras. However, how often are Roaches surrounding the Hydras? Basically never. It's usually Roaches in front, Hydras in the back. So your goal is to flank the rear of that army and attack the hydras with chargelots, which takes the DPS punch out of the army. From the front side, you want to still have chargelots dive into the fray, but you also want a bunch of Immortals behind them to take potshots on the roaches. See, instead of thinking about Chargelots fighting Roaches, you should think of it as Chargelots holding Roaches in place like forcefields, while Immortals kill the Roaches. Zealots don't really do well at fighting Roaches head-on, but they're decent at just soaking up some damage and keeping them from quickly moving up and sniping your Immortals. The main difference between Chargelots and forcefields, in this case, is that chargelots are made out of minerals and forcefields are made out of gas. So because you're spending minerals on the wall to contain the Roaches, you have more gas available. That gas means that you can afford another forge and you can afford to go up to 2 Robos (or even 3, when you get on a third base), so you can double boost immortals and then get that sweet count of 8ish immortals just reaming the hell out of the roaches.
Where the Phoenixes come in is this: They may not do much against a Hydra/Roach army when it's big, but they force a lot of hydras to stick together before they move out. If your opponent makes like 6 Hydras and 20 Roaches and decides to hit your third, you can kill all those Hydras with about 8 Phoenixes and still have about 4 Phoenixes left over. Then, it's just Roaches moving across the map, and there's like 4-5 Phoenixes there to pick up 4-5 Roaches and make it so that the army is now only 15-16 roaches, instead of 20 Roaches and 6 Hydras. The concept is exactly the same as in PvT when you put a Stalker at the watchtower and kite marines/SCVs across the map to reduce his push slightly and make it easier to hold. Instead of thinking, "How the Hell do I hold these 25-30 ranged units?" think, "How can I knock down 5-10 of those units along the way, so I can hold with my defender's advantage?"
So let's say the zerg sees you're going phoenixes and robo, and he decides that he wants to do the whole roach/hydra/corruptor thing, and wait to move out until he has a 200 max or a near-max. It's a reasonable concept, since the standard transition from phoenixes is to go colossus (for fear of hydras). Corruptors also give him a way to shut down the Phoenixes from the air. Sure, usually people go right for infestors--but let's just talk about what happens if they don't, since that was the question. He gets a dozen corruptors, let's say. Corruptors are fine against Phoenixes, but if you have already killed enough stuff to pay for your Phoenixes, you can just fly them off into a corner and focus on winning the war on the ground. Sure, he has corruption...that's only good on the immortals if his units actually kill enough zealots to shoot at the immortals. The goal should be to play it like Colossus wars in the late game PvP--you set up a big concave, so if he walks into it you surround his army and destroy it. And if he doesn't walk into the concave, you see where he's going and set up another concave trap for him.
Eventually, if the zerg doesn't screw up, you do need AoE to take on that army because you can't walk into choke points without it. Storm is the way to go here, since it doesn't care about corruptors and further punishes the zerg for auto-assuming colossi with his spire. A good trick is to take your Phoenixes, bait out the corruptors, then use a warp prism (or two) to storm drop his army from behind as you charge in from the front.
On January 02 2013 01:16 crbox wrote: I think roach-hydra with a good hydra ratio and corruptor support would completely crush this style. You've only mentioned hydra as a response to the pheonix opener, which would be uncommon, but when zeg discovers you are investing so much into air, an hydra transition is to be expected.
Would you stop pheonix production if you see constant hydra from zerg? Because at this point you've really committed to this no?
Not necessarily, first, even if he goes Hydra, he can't move out immediately, Phoenix do double damage to light units, so small numbers of hydras get absolutely crushed by Phoenix. If he waits til a significant enough number of hydras are out, we should hopefully have storm out, as you see, Jay gets the Templar archives every game, and although he doesn't research storm early normally, if we scout a mass Hydra transition, er can just get storm. And seeing as hydras are slow ass units with little health storm crushes hydralisks.
About a month ago I wasn't playing much and if I did, I was really bad. I really wanted to try this though. Now I'm feeling pretty good about my level of play, considering I can only get in so many games due to work. I'll be giving this a try soon, feedback should follow I think.
You know, I actually tried this for the first time today, and I gotta say it's such a fun style. I played 2 games back to back in peepmode with this style, and won both games. The first game I had a guy who went for corruptors immediately after he saw the amount of phoenix I was making, but he just got crushed when he tried to push my base, my chargelot archon army absolutely crushed roach ling on the ground, and while he brought down my phoenix count substantially, he lost the battle in the air as well. The second game I played, the zerg tried to do a 3 base roach hydra push, but I just delayed his push a ton by being annoying in the earlier stages, (he built only one spore at each base, so I was able to pick off a bunch of overlords, queens, and a dozen or so drones) and I already had a mothership out, phoenix snipe the overseers, archon toilet ,GG.
It wasn't very smooth play, as I was getting used to this style, I was able to keep my money low up until 3 bases, but after the 3rd base went up I just could not keep my money down while microing my phoenix around the map. It really takes a lot of multi-tasking and focus to play this phoenix heavy style.
On January 03 2013 14:14 ProfessionalNoob wrote: You know, I actually tried this for the first time today, and I gotta say it's such a fun style. I played 2 games back to back in peepmode with this style, and won both games. The first game I had a guy who went for corruptors immediately after he saw the amount of phoenix I was making, but he just got crushed when he tried to push my base, my chargelot archon army absolutely crushed roach ling on the ground, and while he brought down my phoenix count substantially, he lost the battle in the air as well. The second game I played, the zerg tried to do a 3 base roach hydra push, but I just delayed his push a ton by being annoying in the earlier stages, (he built only one spore at each base, so I was able to pick off a bunch of overlords, queens, and a dozen or so drones) and I already had a mothership out, phoenix snipe the overseers, archon toilet ,GG.
It wasn't very smooth play, as I was getting used to this style, I was able to keep my money low up until 3 bases, but after the 3rd base went up I just could not keep my money down while microing my phoenix around the map. It really takes a lot of multi-tasking and focus to play this phoenix heavy style.
Yeah, I'm starting to think that this is the right flow of events:
1. You open 2base stargate. 2. You get a third and tech charge/get double forge going, add on gates, etc 3. You stop phoenix production and keep about 8 of them on the map, then go up to double robo and mass chargelot/immortal with a warp prism or 2 for flank warp-ins (and obviously 1-3 sentries purely for guardian shield) 4. After the max-out and the full ~75 probe count has been reached, boost air weapons, get a beacon, and go up to 3 SGs and a third robo. Keep boosting air weapons and get range. 5. Trade your army, queue+boost phoenixes and immortals 3 at a time, and do a couple big zealot warp-ins back-to-back.
This way, I don't have to keep queueing Phoenixes; in the midgame when infestors come out, I send them home and just focus on maxing out and macroing. I feel like I lose my macro about that timing when infestors pop, so I might as well send them home for both reasons. However, I do really like using them to pick up infestors before their energy gets out of hand....it's good to do that if they move out.
Either way, I know basically what I like to do in the lategame post-max: I want 3+ stargates and air weapons upgrades, so I can rebuild supply with a big group of phoenixes. There's a serious amount of power to getting 15+ phoenixes in the late game, when things get scrappy. It denies brood lords, it lets you trade infestor energy so your main army can go do the damage in real fights, and if the zerg ignores your phoenixes you can just go kill ALL of his overlords. Good luck remaxing a zerg army with 0 overlords. And even if he's sitting on a ton of spines. I can just fly over with phoenixes and ignore them...which is way more efficient than suiciding big warp-ins of zealots or stalkers.
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I keep trying to get some replays going, but I have been experimenting with a lot more gateway pressure in PvZ because people keep doing greedy things, and I'm inclined to warpgate rush people who take a fast third against gate/core FE. It's kind of stupid not to punish greedy play with aggression, so I don't always go stargate--or, at least, I delay it. Between that and all the early pools and weird zerg cheese I keep facing, I rarely get good games on ladder. And good practice partners are hard to find, even though I'm online on BNet all the time.
Perhaps some way to work in an extra core (which is useful anyway due to the chance of your wall core being sniped) for double upgrades, and a focus on shields instead of armor from the forge?
I find that the armor upgrades aren't as big a deal for dealing with corruptors; it's more about infested terrans, queens, and hydras. Corruptors against Phoenix is a lot like Roaches against Zealots...the armor isn't that big a deal because the zerg unit isn't a DPS machine. And for mutas, you should own them hard with range anyways, so armor is irrelevant. I would rather just build another stargate, zealot, and pylon for the 300/150 required for second core and earlier air armor.
EDIT: I played some games tonight. Here's one of me being very tired, and losing my grip on macro when I hit 3 bases. But it shows what I've been doing, when I actually go for the whole "Phoenix all game" plan.
I got a lot of pressure in and canceled his third a couple times, giving me an earlier third, a constant worker lead, and a tech advantage. I even had a faster fourth, and a few timings to move in for the kill. My macro totally fell apart, but even then--I was even 170-170 supply just before the 20 minute mark when the greater spire was done.
I think there were a couple of key points in which I could have done crippling damage, or set up checkmate situations.
The first was when I went home with my ground army after a hatch cancel and I was taking my third, and while I did that I went into his natural and main to kill queens. I was busy macroing hard, so I kinda just let phoenixes do their thing and I lost 1-2 to the spore in the main. I panicked and pulled back, but if I had stayed I would have killed 4 overlords minimum, denying infestors for an extra minute. I knew infestors were coming, so trading phoenixes for overlords through a spore or two is perfectly reasonable, and it's simple micro: I could just shiftclick attack them, then shift-right-click home. But I got tunnel vision with macro, and didn't look at the opportunity at hand for my attack.
The second was when I had 4 immortals. One of the obs pointed this out after the game: if I hit then, I could have won. I also could have won right before broods morphed, since the infestors were all just below 75 energy. That's the thing about the phoenixes against infestors: even if the phoenixes all get killed by infestor energy, infestors without energy are basically worth 1 infestor egg each. So you can create timings by trading phoenixes for energy, then going in for the kill when they can't chain-fungal everything and they can't afford to make an army out of energy they don't have.
And lastly, I could have set up the mass stargate play more efficiently, but that was water under the bridge because the pre-brood timing should have ended the game, whichever I chose. I should have scouted in and figured things out.
On January 04 2013 11:31 ineversmile wrote: I find that the armor upgrades aren't as big a deal for dealing with corruptors; it's more about infested terrans, queens, and hydras. Corruptors against Phoenix is a lot like Roaches against Zealots...the armor isn't that big a deal because the zerg unit isn't a DPS machine. And for mutas, you should own them hard with range anyways, so armor is irrelevant. I would rather just build another stargate, zealot, and pylon for the 300/150 required for second core and earlier air armor.
EDIT: I played some games tonight. Here's one of me being very tired, and losing my grip on macro when I hit 3 bases. But it shows what I've been doing, when I actually go for the whole "Phoenix all game" plan.
I got a lot of pressure in and canceled his third a couple times, giving me an earlier third, a constant worker lead, and a tech advantage. I even had a faster fourth, and a few timings to move in for the kill. My macro totally fell apart, but even then--I was even 170-170 supply just before the 20 minute mark when the greater spire was done.
I think there were a couple of key points in which I could have done crippling damage, or set up checkmate situations.
The first was when I went home with my ground army after a hatch cancel and I was taking my third, and while I did that I went into his natural and main to kill queens. I was busy macroing hard, so I kinda just let phoenixes do their thing and I lost 1-2 to the spore in the main. I panicked and pulled back, but if I had stayed I would have killed 4 overlords minimum, denying infestors for an extra minute. I knew infestors were coming, so trading phoenixes for overlords through a spore or two is perfectly reasonable, and it's simple micro: I could just shiftclick attack them, then shift-right-click home. But I got tunnel vision with macro, and didn't look at the opportunity at hand for my attack.
The second was when I had 4 immortals. One of the obs pointed this out after the game: if I hit then, I could have won. I also could have won right before broods morphed, since the infestors were all just below 75 energy. That's the thing about the phoenixes against infestors: even if the phoenixes all get killed by infestor energy, infestors without energy are basically worth 1 infestor egg each. So you can create timings by trading phoenixes for energy, then going in for the kill when they can't chain-fungal everything and they can't afford to make an army out of energy they don't have.
And lastly, I could have set up the mass stargate play more efficiently, but that was water under the bridge because the pre-brood timing should have ended the game, whichever I chose. I should have scouted in and figured things out.
I think you did pretty well in that game. You are a lot more agressive with your ground army than I am most of the time which I like. You got up to 6+ immortals in a crazy amount of time with the double robo. It's good that you are at least seeing holes in your play which you can improve upon.
On January 05 2013 01:25 JayPower wrote: Thankss to Surili I added a better wall-in to the OP which I highly recommend.
It helps a lot against slowlings trying to runby in the early-game and the gap is big enough for an archon to fit through.
That's a really sweet wall. I like to put that kind of wall up with my second gate or forge, as a response to scouting a blind gas/pool opening from the zerg, if I'm on a map where I don't think I can wall my natural in time. I'm not sure I like walling off with the second pylon and core before scouting on a long rush distance, though--if he early pools you and you don't see the lings in time, it could be bad. It's probably fine, but it's worth double checking. I'll probably double check the timing during my next practice session against zerg. Regardless, that's a really good wall to know--even as jut a back-up barricade for emergencies.
Also I'm going to play this style a lot more so expect more updates in the future.
Here's the first update with a FPVOD on the new ladder map Akilon Flats.
Good video. I always like how clean your play is. I have a couple of minor thoughts:
At about the 12 minute mark (in the youtube video, so about 17:45 in the game), when you had a major engagement vs hydra/roach/infestor at your third, you had a big opportunity to kill most of that army if you had warped in a bunch of zealots at the reinforce pylon in the 12:00 area of the map, timed them to show up behind that army, and hit it from 2 sides. You seemed to have vision of it going across the map, so you probably could have even moved/warped in one of those sentries with that group of zealots, with enough time for it to charge to 75 energy and get guardian shield. Then, instead of forcefields in the middle of the army to deny the kiting, you just don't use any forcefields at all, guardian shield up, and hit it from both sides. Since the infestors and hydras are in the back, a warp-in round of zealots could do so much damage, and you had the zealots available up top (and a small warp-in leftover, too). Then you send your phoenixes in and pick up as many units as possible, and that crushes the army without storm. You still did really well in holding this attack without losing much besides zealots, but it could have been even better.
Something you should consider is putting your second obs into your phoenix control group. Even though it's way slower, it's worthwhile when infestors are burrowing and trying to run+hide and you can grav lift them from under the ground.
On January 04 2013 11:31 ineversmile wrote: I find that the armor upgrades aren't as big a deal for dealing with corruptors; it's more about infested terrans, queens, and hydras. Corruptors against Phoenix is a lot like Roaches against Zealots...the armor isn't that big a deal because the zerg unit isn't a DPS machine. And for mutas, you should own them hard with range anyways, so armor is irrelevant. I would rather just build another stargate, zealot, and pylon for the 300/150 required for second core and earlier air armor.
EDIT: I played some games tonight. Here's one of me being very tired, and losing my grip on macro when I hit 3 bases. But it shows what I've been doing, when I actually go for the whole "Phoenix all game" plan.
I got a lot of pressure in and canceled his third a couple times, giving me an earlier third, a constant worker lead, and a tech advantage. I even had a faster fourth, and a few timings to move in for the kill. My macro totally fell apart, but even then--I was even 170-170 supply just before the 20 minute mark when the greater spire was done.
I think there were a couple of key points in which I could have done crippling damage, or set up checkmate situations.
The first was when I went home with my ground army after a hatch cancel and I was taking my third, and while I did that I went into his natural and main to kill queens. I was busy macroing hard, so I kinda just let phoenixes do their thing and I lost 1-2 to the spore in the main. I panicked and pulled back, but if I had stayed I would have killed 4 overlords minimum, denying infestors for an extra minute. I knew infestors were coming, so trading phoenixes for overlords through a spore or two is perfectly reasonable, and it's simple micro: I could just shiftclick attack them, then shift-right-click home. But I got tunnel vision with macro, and didn't look at the opportunity at hand for my attack.
The second was when I had 4 immortals. One of the obs pointed this out after the game: if I hit then, I could have won. I also could have won right before broods morphed, since the infestors were all just below 75 energy. That's the thing about the phoenixes against infestors: even if the phoenixes all get killed by infestor energy, infestors without energy are basically worth 1 infestor egg each. So you can create timings by trading phoenixes for energy, then going in for the kill when they can't chain-fungal everything and they can't afford to make an army out of energy they don't have.
And lastly, I could have set up the mass stargate play more efficiently, but that was water under the bridge because the pre-brood timing should have ended the game, whichever I chose. I should have scouted in and figured things out.
I think you did pretty well in that game. You are a lot more agressive with your ground army than I am most of the time which I like. You got up to 6+ immortals in a crazy amount of time with the double robo. It's good that you are at least seeing holes in your play which you can improve upon.
I definitely agree; before I was really just feeling down about my macro, but playing a metric ton of Starcraft seems to have worked most of those problems out. Now I finally have very specific points of improvement, upon which I can work.
Can anyone give me some tips on controlling phoenixes? Like when I try and hit a worker line I'll have some of them float too far away, or I'll pick up too many workers at once, or have them blocking view of what I want to grab. What's the typical keystroke/click methods that you use while harassing?
Also, since they don't really need to attack-move, should I be right-clicking them everywhere?
On January 05 2013 04:32 BadassHamster wrote: Can anyone give me some tips on controlling phoenixes? Like when I try and hit a worker line I'll have some of them float too far away, or I'll pick up too many workers at once, or have them blocking view of what I want to grab. What's the typical keystroke/click methods that you use while harassing?
Also, since they don't really need to attack-move, should I be right-clicking them everywhere?
Just wondering if people had any tips - thanks!
Good questions.
First of all, I want to recommend that you hunt queens at a higher priority than hunting drones, if you have the ability to pick them off. Attacking the zerg's larva injects and creep spread completely shapes the way the midgame will be set. For fighting queens, the consensus is that you want 3-4 phoenixes for the job. 3 means you have to use 2 lifts, but that's fine because hitting the queen before your 4th phoenix can often mean making him miss a crucial inject at that slightly earlier timing. 4 phoenixes, on the other hand, only need 1 grav lift if you are careful and make sure you target fire the queen (and don't auto-attack overlords nearby, which does happen). So get used to pressing your grav button, then a-click or right-click the queen; phoenix AI might rob you of a couple shots if an ovie is around.
For fighting multiple queens, you want to have 3 phoenixes shooting at one queen at a time, if you plan to lift all the nearby queens to avoid their DPS. So 5 phoenixes vs 2 queens, 6 vs 3 queens, etc. However, if the queens have an armor upgrade, your phoenixes do WAY less DPS because it's -2 damage per shot per armor upgrade. So there's a timing window when you should just not fight multiple queens, and either go for drones/overlords, or take a break from harassing and send them somewhere safe on the map (a corner over airspace or a base of yours, etc) so you can focus on macro.
You basically want to pick up drones in such a manner that you have 2-3 phoenixes shooting per phoenix lifting drones. You only want to pick up more when they're running away from the harassment/a fight/a base under attack.
Generally speaking, you want to pick up units with 1/4 to 1/3 your total phoenix count, and let the rest do their damage. Otherwise, you should just pick up as many units as you possibly can, if you're using them to catch retreating units or if you're trying to cut down the size of an opposing army (usually applies to roaches/hydras/infestors) so your ground force has a better chance in the battle.
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As far as specific mechanics go:
#1 take grav lift off the G-key, if you use standard keys. I like it to be closer, but I haven't quite decided whether I like it on e or some other key. Something where it's not next to my hold position button, but also out of my main index finger spot. It also shouldn't be the same hotkey as guardian shield, if you move that too--because you don't want to press hotkey for your ground army by mistake and then try to grav lift something and lose all your FF energy.
I recommend right-clicking, most of the time. If you are actively microing a group of phoenixes and you want to shoot down something in the air, you should be right-clicking past it and not on it. That way, you attack it while flying around it. This applies most to ovies, but also for broodlords or if you have a lot of phoenixes and you're picking up tons of units. If you right-click onto the broods, your phoenixes will slow down and spread out and do less damage in the same period of time if you were to right click on ground to move them closer to the target(s). Then, after you get them close to their targets, you should start focus-firing units. In a fight with corruptors, you should pull back phoenixes when they have tanked their shields and send them away from fighting, so they can recharge. A phoenix saved is a phoenix earned.
However, you should be A-moving when you're overlord hunting. Also, phoenix AI is really shitty about targetting units within their sight range...they could see an overlord within vision and be on A-move command, but still just fly by and ignore it. So you should shift-A-click carefully where overlords should be, when you go hunting--and don't be afraid to zig-zag so the phoenix has a higher chance of catching an ovie.
When you fight an air-to-air battle, if you know there are no infestors then you should spam right-clicks to ball your phoenixes up, so they're stacked and you can fight 1-2 corruptors with all of your phoenixes at once, which is possible due to your units' higher maneuverabilty and moving-while-firing aspect. But, if there are fungals around, you should spread your phoenixes out. Spreading your phoenixes is a lot like the marine-split challenge in the air.
In the late game, if you decide to make 15+ phoenixes to fight an air-to-air battle head on and your opponent has a few infestors around, you should set up a concave in the air and send in phoenixes from all angles. It takes manual preparation, but if you do it right then the fungals are really inefficient and you can do a ton of DPS (and therefore trade well) with your Phoenixes. Remember, unlike stalkers, Phoenixes are light units. Light units only take 30 DPS from fungal growth, as opposed to armored units, which take 40 DPS. That's why phoenixes take 6 (perfectly-timed) fungals to be killed, and stalkers take only 4 (perfectly timed) without additional DPS from the zerg. And infested terrans take 5 seconds to spawn before they can actually do damage, so you can do a ton of damage with good positioning and simultaneously drain the hell out of the infestor energy (for a follow-up timing with your next wave or two of production). If your next wave can come in and clean up the rest of the infestors and some straggling air units, that's usually going to end the game.
On January 05 2013 02:34 ineversmile wrote: Good video. I always like how clean your play is. I have a couple of minor thoughts:
At about the 12 minute mark (in the youtube video, so about 17:45 in the game), when you had a major engagement vs hydra/roach/infestor at your third, you had a big opportunity to kill most of that army if you had warped in a bunch of zealots at the reinforce pylon in the 12:00 area of the map, timed them to show up behind that army, and hit it from 2 sides. You seemed to have vision of it going across the map, so you probably could have even moved/warped in one of those sentries with that group of zealots, with enough time for it to charge to 75 energy and get guardian shield. Then, instead of forcefields in the middle of the army to deny the kiting, you just don't use any forcefields at all, guardian shield up, and hit it from both sides. Since the infestors and hydras are in the back, a warp-in round of zealots could do so much damage, and you had the zealots available up top (and a small warp-in leftover, too). Then you send your phoenixes in and pick up as many units as possible, and that crushes the army without storm. You still did really well in holding this attack without losing much besides zealots, but it could have been even better.
Something you should consider is putting your second obs into your phoenix control group. Even though it's way slower, it's worthwhile when infestors are burrowing and trying to run+hide and you can grav lift them from under the ground.
Thanks and I completely agree with what you said, especially the flanking with zealots part. Nice observations. Good one with the observer too, I didn't realisee until later I had so many observers doing nothing.
On January 05 2013 04:32 BadassHamster wrote: Can anyone give me some tips on controlling phoenixes? Like when I try and hit a worker line I'll have some of them float too far away, or I'll pick up too many workers at once, or have them blocking view of what I want to grab. What's the typical keystroke/click methods that you use while harassing?
Also, since they don't really need to attack-move, should I be right-clicking them everywhere?
Just wondering if people had any tips - thanks!
Hmm good question.
When you plan to harass a mineral line make sure you set your attack move command (or move command since phoenix away shoot) to somewhere around the mineral line where they will still be in range of drones you want to attack but outside of the range of the spore crawler, if there is one (In the image above this would be in the blue circle if the phoenix come flying in like the arrow points out). Once they are near there you start G + clicking on drones/queens. Make sure you don't lift too many, you want to leave asap if you see hydras/infestors incoming and not leave a bunch of stuff on low health rather than kill it. I don't really have exact number for the amount you should lift, you really have to feel it out.
As far as blocking the view I'm not sure what tips I can give. Since you can't lift overlords or other phoenix', nothing would happen if you G + click on them. So I guess I would recommend spam around it if it's blocking your view.
You can just right click them everywhere, that's what I do at least. Even if you want to target specific things, you can right-click on individual targets. I hope this helped.
One other advantage to what ineversmile has said about clicking move command past the units rather than on top of them is that your phoenix spread out much more naturally, so it fungals are less likely to hit a clump or like 10 phoenix. And it also becomes harder to hit phoenix with fungals (especially if you're playing HotS beta) if they are moving around all the time.
For those of you in beta, I'd highly suggest trying this out, because the only unit that really poses a huge threat to us before he has good upgrades for his corruptors are infestors, and fungal as a projectile = a lot harder to actually hit phoenix if you micro them around a lot (which you have to do anyways). This actually gives us a huge window where a zerg will have a really really hard time dealing with the phoenix, allowing us to seize map control, take expansions easily, and build a chargelot/archon deathball with a mothership to go kill him before he seizes air dominance over us. Also helps that phoenix have a default +1 range in HotS.
One thing that can be annoying though is ultralisks, as obviously phoenix can't kill them, but if you get a mothership, and he does not go for corruptors, he basically cannot ever engage you directly because you will insta-snipe all his overseers, and then he can't do anything.
On January 05 2013 15:08 ProfessionalNoob wrote:One thing that can be annoying though is ultralisks, as obviously phoenix can't kill them, but if you get a mothership, and he does not go for corruptors, he basically cannot ever engage you directly because you will insta-snipe all his overseers, and then he can't do anything.
I agree with you about ultralisks being dangerous. That tech is brutally fast, and often surprising. The existence of ultralisks is one of the reasons why I (try to) get double robo as part of taking my third. Double immortal production is good against basically any tech path:
-If zerg goes roaches or roach/hydra, you want immortals for the roaches. -If zerg goes hive and gets fast ultras, you need a lot of immortals to kill them off. -If the zerg does a standard hive tech to BL/infestor/corruptor, he needs to sit behind spines and spores in order to do it. Also, immortals 2-shot infestors, which is always relevant.
Basically, the only other tech paths are ones which lose to chargelots and phoenixes, so 2xRobo immortals are always a good 3base followup. I think it's more reliable to get 2 robos, at that stage of the game, than to get the fleet beacon that fast. I think fleet beacon should come with the 4th base; +1 air weapons should be started just as the third is nearing full saturation to time +2 with the fleet beacon. The exception, of course, is when you're facing mutas...then obviously you go ranged phoenixes very quickly and you can basically end the game with chargelot/phoenix alone.
Diamond here. Every time I attempt this build, my opponent goes for a huge ling push at around 6:00. They completely take out my expansion and leave me very far behind. What do I do to counter this?
On January 07 2013 16:59 Davron wrote: Diamond here. Every time I attempt this build, my opponent goes for a huge ling push at around 6:00. They completely take out my expansion and leave me very far behind. What do I do to counter this?
Post a replay, or nobody will know what the hell you're talking about. You have told us a specific timing for lings to hit and cancel your expansion, but what good does that do us? Are they slow lings, or fast? Did you open FFE or 13gate? Did you scout the gas and react, or not? Are they speedlings, or slow lings? You're diamond, so your macro is probably decent--but maybe your wall-off is suspect. There are a lot of factors at play here, but without posting a replay, what kind of help can you reasonably expect?
6 minutes is about the timing for ling speed to finish on a 14/14 gas/pool opening. That's the opening that a FFE hard counters, and a gateway expand can beat with practice. Also, it's a planned cheese--reactively building a gas means the speed timing will finish around 7:15-8:00 upon overlord scouting the lack of FFE. So if your opponents are sending out a ton of lings by 6;00 and they have speed, you should be able to tell this is coming when you scout such an earl gas in the zerg's main.
Any slow ling timings can be scouted by probes (FFE) and reacted with a sim-city, or scouted by stalkers (13gate 15 gas) and kited across the map until the WG timing and barricades handle the ling rush. In the case of a FFE, you should be able to wall off your front door and tell slow lings to piss off. In the case of a gateway expansion, you should be able to kill some slow lings out on the map with stalkers, then either send them home to help defend your wall, or send them out on the map so the slow lings all go on a wild goose chase and buy you time to set up more of a solid defense for your natural.
Played a practice game today where I managed to apply pressure, kept macroing fine through having 3 bases, and kept my initial phoenixes alive. http://drop.sc/293976
There were a handful of timings in which I could have just gone over and killed the zerg, but my brain basically shut down 20 minutes into the game and I was on autopilot. I'm OK with this because now that marker is 20 minutes, as opposed to 15...which is when my brain would be fried about a week and a half ago. And also, when I do get better and I can handle myself later into a game with this complicated style, I know that there are timings to exploit. Not just one or two timings, but multiple timings where I could be aggressive in a number of different places.
I think, in this game specifically, what I should have done when I was nearing max-out was to start pumping carriers off the 3 SGs and then go up to 6 SGs. Instead, I got a third robo and a bay, got prism speed, but then I didn't even really use it. I had total air dominance and +2 air weapons pretty quickly; I should have committed even more to air and not built a bunch of shitty stalkers. I think going into Carriers just seems like the correct move, about that point in the game when I'm nearing max. The +3 air weapons timing is so brutal.
On January 12 2013 03:57 ineversmile wrote: Played a practice game today where I managed to apply pressure, kept macroing fine through having 3 bases, and kept my initial phoenixes alive. http://drop.sc/293976
There were a handful of timings in which I could have just gone over and killed the zerg, but my brain basically shut down 20 minutes into the game and I was on autopilot. I'm OK with this because now that marker is 20 minutes, as opposed to 15...which is when my brain would be fried about a week and a half ago. And also, when I do get better and I can handle myself later into a game with this complicated style, I know that there are timings to exploit. Not just one or two timings, but multiple timings where I could be aggressive in a number of different places.
I think, in this game specifically, what I should have done when I was nearing max-out was to start pumping carriers off the 3 SGs and then go up to 6 SGs. Instead, I got a third robo and a bay, got prism speed, but then I didn't even really use it. I had total air dominance and +2 air weapons pretty quickly; I should have committed even more to air and not built a bunch of shitty stalkers. I think going into Carriers just seems like the correct move, about that point in the game when I'm nearing max. The +3 air weapons timing is so brutal.
Hi, sorry for the late repply. I looked at the replay just now and noted a couple of things. First off, you should really get your 5th and 6th gas geyser earlier. As soon as your 3rd base is done you should be mining from it. As you can see from the sc2gears graph below your opponent spent over 3 times more gas than you in that game.
Other than your phoenix harass I think you lack pressure. I felt like the zerg could stay on speedlings for quite long and tech comfortably to infestors. Also he was able to get up to 90+ drones and build his spine wall off 20 lings without having infestors on the way. This is why I prefer going for a faster forge to guarantee that you have +1 attack before his +1 armor so that you can pressure and force roaches with very few zealots while taking a 3rd.
So with the gas deficit and the zerg mining with ~90 drones off 4 bases, I don't think it was a good idea to keep trading with him. Even though you could've killed him at some points I think that your attacks are lacking quite a bit. At 16:40 you did your first ground push.
Here is where you didn't have +2 attack to deal with the +2 armor lings. It didn't matter that much because most of your zealots were out of position. I think this is one of the bigger reasons you lost that fight. You really need something to keep the immortals safe. I also think that you need at least 1 sentry in your army for guardian shield. I would prefer even 2 so that if you have full energy you can throw down a forcefield wall for only 4 supply in army.
I think the attack at ~20min wasn't very good at all. You charged into a spine wall with a small part of your army. 8 zealots and 2 immortals attacked at first while 12 zealot were late to the party and 8 other zealots and 2 immortals didn't join the party at all. At this point in the game your opponent had infestors + corruptors and killed quite a pack of phoenix. Right now I would've teched to more AOE since it would be very unlikely for your opponent to continue to mass roaches. He would probably want more infestors and broodlords. So I really think you should tech to storm or use your robo's to produce colossus. I know you made colossus later, but 2 colossus and 3 archons isn't enough AOE.
So at 24:00 is where he walks his army down your ramp quite easily and kills your 4th.
I think if you had some good AOE you could try to fight his army. I really recommend storm since it's a lot better against infested terrans now.
at 26:40 you attack his 4th but get your phoenix in a pretty bad situation. They were too far away from your main army, it was impossible to clear the infested terran under them or pose a treat to the infestors basically underneat them most of the time.
So in conclusion I would say more gas and more AOE while you're heading towards the late-game. I'm not sure what I can say about carrier transitions since I've never tried that. But I can imagine it to be very good in combination with storm.
I definitely didn't play perfectly in that game. What I've been happy about is that this build is incredibly multitask-oriented, and I'm finally able to macro behind a long time of pressure, from the stalkers to the phoenix, and then save my phoenixes for later when the infestors pop. Thanks for helping me by pointing out a lot of big mistakes, though--that's the next step.
I've been playing some more games, with what you've said in mind. This is what I've been thinking about:
-I think that 6 gases is too much, if I take them right away with my 3rd base. I really need to start powering up gates at that point, and my transition is into lots of zealots, so I don't really want to get the gas that early. However, maybe taking a 5th gas (but not the 6th yet) could work to power out those immortals and upgrades simultaneously, and then I get the 6th gas later. For a different variation of the midgame, going into Archons or faster storm or something else that gas-heavy, 6 geysers makes a lot of sense. But for what I'm doing, 4-5 is mathematically better.
-I agree that I would like to get some pressure in after the phoenix play starts to wear down. I seem to be coming to 2 different variations of my midgame play: double robo first, or charge first. I like the Robos more vs Roach play, and the forges better vs ling play. So my goal should be to scout his composition and transition with phoenixes, then go with whichever tech suits the situation better. Either that, or I need to just narrow it down to one and stick with that...which would probably be charge and earlier ups, since that composition can beat anything up out on the map with a good surround and some grav lifts.
I think that the double robo first should lend itself to drop play as a follow-up to phoenix work. Basically, this makes the most sense because the phoenixes clear all the overlords away, and then I go drop the main and FF the ramp and then kill a bunch of stuff. Or I multiprong him, now that his vision is cut down on the airspace, and hit his main and third at the same time--terran style.
I think that earlier charge lends itself more to going up to 10-12 gates and just brute-forcing a timing with chargelots and a couple of sentries. Not necessarily an all-in, but definitely semi-all-in pressure.
-I've been testing out a followup to the 3 stargate +2 air weapons phoenix range transition into the late game, and I think going up to 4-5 stargate carrier is the correct follow-up. Then when the 4th is done and the gases are saturated there, I drop the Temp Archives and get archons, followed by storm (when I have the money). The +3 carrier timing is probably the most brutal thing I have ever seen, now that infested terrans don't scale with upgrades.
-I might never build a Colossus in PvZ ever again. Seems unnecessary now.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/OoZMl.png)
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