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hi,
my mate and i play terran on gm level in archon mode.
we currently struggle hard against protosses who secure a fast third base with phoenixes and then go for mass adepts.
we just dont know how to counter this.
replay
http://sc2replaystats.com/replay/3014716
protoss goes for 1 gate expo into stargate with a fast third base.
the only units are an adept, the mothershipcore and from then on only phoenixes while the third base warps in
we are always behind in economy, we even go for a hidden fast third base in this game (we have played many different ways and nothing seems to work) and we are still behind in army and workers
please do not focus so much on what we did because it was our 20th+ game against this playstyle and we are desperate.
what are you supposed to do against:
- Quick nexus with mothershipcore defense
cheese doesnt work because of the overcharge and the adept, it is also a 4player map
- early phoenix only play
mass marine never kill a phoenix, even with stim. vikings and cylones just get killed because phoenixes are too fast, thor takes too long to build.
the problem here is also that we cant just go over to the other side of the map to counter because of the mothership core. protoss just builds some pylons at each base and is safe. dropping is also no option because the phoenixes stay close to the terran army (see replay)
- 3 base adept armys which are too sturdy against any of terrans compositions
what can be a composition that works against that. only hellions do extra damage vs light, but they cant hit the phoenixes and when protoss scouts them just goes into anti mech mode
After you watched the replay, please tell us or just discuss what would be the optimal way to open up, to hold the phoenixes and the first or best way to counter (pressure a protoss expansion) against this playstyle.
+ Show Spoiler +The opponent players even name themselves "Adept" and are in the clan "Adept" with an adept clan logo. ![[image loading]](http://orig11.deviantart.net/d6ba/f/2012/193/1/6/loki_facepalm_by_foxedpeople-d56xo5a.gif)
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United Kingdom20285 Posts
I'l take a look at the replay some time soon for strategy specific stuff (have experience on the other side, PvT phoenix @ archon GM)
Archon GM has a massive range of skill and you can match across the full range of that skill plus more because of the low population. If you're getting beat by these players specifically, keep in mind that they might just be way better than you in a way that's unusual to see in the sc2 matchmaking system
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In general against phoenix/adept you want to play very defensive. Adepts can't fight you bio ball once it gets bigger and you start getting more marauders and medivacs. Liberators are a nice addition to the bio. Widow mines can be good but you need to be on top of your control not to splash your own units. Try to hit a timing when protoss is trying to transition into tempest.
The alternative (especially in archon) is go for multipronged harass as adepts alone can't kill drops they can only scare them away and phoenix alone can't fight multiple medivacs with marines.
The biggest mistake is to go for a frontal push before being close to maxed out.
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Haha i know one of those guys, he mains terran, so, perhaps you should ask him personally :D
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Well being GM in Archon isn't much to boast about. The population is quite small, and people can't keep their bonus pool down to stay in GM so there are dozens upon dozens of spots available. Its entirely possible that your opponents are significantly better than you.
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On June 14 2016 21:08 Sweetness.751 wrote:
Well being GM in Archon isn't much to boast about. The population is quite small, and people can't keep their bonus pool down to stay in GM so there are dozens upon dozens of spots available. Its entirely possible that your opponents are significantly better than you.
So true. Gm in archon is open to almost any team that can spend their bonus pool. Currently we have 72 out of 800 spots filled (eu, na kr and china.)
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Italy12246 Posts
General reminder for everone in this thread: in a [H] thread people are asking for help on a specific replay. Only post and give advice if you watched the replay and you have something to say about it, NOT generic advice, even if it's good advice. For example, "don't take big fights vs adept styles before you are maxed" is good generic advice, but it doesn't help the OP because that never happened in the reply he linked. That kind of post is welcome in the help me threads for example, but [H] threads require more specific feedback.
That said, here's my personal feedback on the game. Keep in mind that i don't play archon and i haven't been back to playing SC2 for very long, so my game knowledge isn't what it used to be.
1) i'm not sure what your opening accomplishes. You are going 1rax CC (which is fine), then hide a third CC (also fine if risky), but then you tech really quickly to stim. You won't have a huge amount of bio early on because of your hidden 3rd CC, so why get quicky stim instead of a reactor, with a later stim for a bigger push when you get medivacs? Your lack of marines also means you can't move out and poke his front to scout, which with this kind of opening i think is really important. Having less marines also makes it harder to defend the phoenixes because you have less marines than you could have. I also don't know what the bunker at the front does. Protoss very rarely try to bust the front these days.
2) You don't need more than one turret per mineral line against phoenix openings, if you have enough marines (which a better build should have). Just make sure to keep your marines next to the turrets. You will never catch properly microed phoenixes as they fly in your base, but with proper positioning you can keep them from killing any scvs. The extra two turrets you guys make further reduce your marine count which is a really really big deal.
3) You move out around 5:30 with no medivacs done. You are doing a greedy 3CC upgrade heavy build, there is no reason to be on the map at this time; if anything, you should be paranoid about protoss gateway units murdering you. A small unsupported army like that is nothing but fodder for protoss because it's too small and too late, and you use one stim when you had no hope of catching any unit, without medivacs to heal you back up.
4) By the time you cross the map it's 7 minutes into the game, you still don't have any medivac support or combat shields (but you have concussive shells for the one marauder in the army, which is not a good investment at this point) and you have no idea of what the protoss are doing (you didn't scan their base once), and you stim again for no reason....and then you decide to leave the game instead of trying to defend an adept attack that may or may not have hit, while your upgrades kick in. I'm confused.
I think that was still a winnable position for you, but your decision making and strategy was rather questionable so you ended up in a mediocre spot. I hope that helps.
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On June 14 2016 21:08 Sweetness.751 wrote:
Well being GM in Archon isn't much to boast about.
Its entirely possible that your opponents are significantly better than you.
Noone is boasting, I just wrote it to tell the readers about the skill level we are talking about. Helping a platin or gold league player is different from helping a gm archon.
Of course they can be better. I want to know what beats the playstyle, not these players in particular.
On June 15 2016 01:22 Teoita wrote:
General reminder for everone in this thread: in a [H] thread people are asking for help on a specific replay. Only post and give advice if you watched the replay and you have something to say about it, NOT generic advice, even if it's good advice. For example, "don't take big fights vs adept styles before you are maxed" is good generic advice, but it doesn't help the OP because that never happened in the reply he linked. That kind of post is welcome in the help me threads for example, but [H] threads require more specific feedback.
thank you for this clarification, no post before yours was legit.
On June 15 2016 01:22 Teoita wrote:
1) i'm not sure what your opening accomplishes. You are going 1rax CC (which is fine), then hide a third CC (also fine if risky), but then you tech really quickly to stim. You won't have a huge amount of bio early on because of your hidden 3rd CC, so why get quicky stim instead of a reactor, with a later stim for a bigger push when you get medivacs? Your lack of marines also means you can't move out and poke his front to scout, which with this kind of opening i think is really important. Having less marines also makes it harder to defend the phoenixes because you have less marines than you could have. I also don't know what the bunker at the front does. Protoss very rarely try to bust the front these days.
1rax cc to open up in a safe way that doesnt lose to msc stalker rushes right away.
third cc is hidden because we tried something this game. as i said, please do not focus so much on what we did and more on what they did because we want to adjust to that
we dont feel the stim is quick, we just get it early because it takes so long. we can put the first gas into reactors to get more marines, thats one thing we can try.
i think the bunker was just to be somewhat safe because of the hidden third, but we can also cancel that in the future.
On June 15 2016 01:22 Teoita wrote:
2) You don't need more than one turret per mineral line against phoenix openings, if you have enough marines (which a better build should have). Just make sure to keep your marines next to the turrets. You will never catch properly microed phoenixes as they fly in your base, but with proper positioning you can keep them from killing any scvs. The extra two turrets you guys make further reduce your marine count which is a really really big deal.
noted, thanks.
On June 15 2016 01:22 Teoita wrote:
3) You move out around 5:30 with no medivacs done. You are doing a greedy 3CC upgrade heavy build, there is no reason to be on the map at this time; if anything, you should be paranoid about protoss gateway units murdering you. A small unsupported army like that is nothing but fodder for protoss because it's too small and too late, and you use one stim when you had no hope of catching any unit, without medivacs to heal you back up.
the stim was my fail, i wanted to jsut stim some marines to rescue the marauder that was lifted. anyway, as i said in OP and in 1): please do not focus so much on what we did. what is the best way to counter what they do?
we move out because we dont want to have the phoenixes in our base, scouting everything and killing building scvs.
as you can also see in the replay, they dont have many more units and if there werent 3 pylons at his third, we could have killed it
On June 15 2016 01:22 Teoita wrote:
4) By the time you cross the map it's 7 minutes into the game, you still don't have any medivac support or combat shields (but you have concussive shells for the one marauder in the army, which is not a good investment at this point) and you have no idea of what the protoss are doing (you didn't scan their base once), and you stim again for no reason....and then you decide to leave the game instead of trying to defend an adept attack that may or may not have hit, while your upgrades kick in. I'm confused.I think that was still a winnable position for you, but your decision making and strategy was rather questionable so you ended up in a mediocre spot. I hope that helps.
yes, the position may still be winnable, but we were desperate what to do and that we are behind in army and eco although we went for a fast third.
i also move out on the map as soon as i think i can because time is ticking against us: storm, colossi and disruptors can evaporate a whole bio army, the only timing window we have is early stim + medivac pushes and drops (which are shut down by the phoenixes, that is why i run over the map with marines)
If you want to help: I still need a clear gameplan what to do against this type of protoss playstyle. How can I counter it? When and where is a timing window I can abuse to punish their fast expansions, the lack of ground units early on, anything?
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Italy12246 Posts
I don't agree too much with some of your thought process:
1rax cc to open up in a safe way that doesnt lose to msc stalker rushes right away.
third cc is hidden because we tried something this game. as i said, please do not focus so much on what we did and more on what they did because we want to adjust to that
we dont feel the stim is quick, we just get it early because it takes so long. we can put the first gas into reactors to get more marines, thats one thing we can try.
i think the bunker was just to be somewhat safe because of the hidden third, but we can also cancel that in the future.
Sure, 1rax CC into third is fine. I just dislike the stim because your army ends up being pretty mediocre when it completes (as this game shows), so you might as well delay it. You can delay many upgrades if you aren't going to use them in some way around when it completes.
You say you are trying to be safe, but you don't scout, nor do you say what you're trying to defend against exactly (i don't think that bunker is useful against a pylon rush for instance). Playing safe is fine but in general it's more effective to invest in scouting with scv's and/or a late reaper (i dont know if terrans still do this, my guess is it might be meh with lotv timings but who knows), and knowing how to react, than making blind defenses against some attack that may or may not exist or be likely in a given game. If you had suspected, for example, that there was a proxied robo somewhere on the map it's a different story, but you had no reason to in this game. Then again i'm usually on the other side of the matchup, so maybe it feels a bit different for Terrans.
we move out because we dont want to have the phoenixes in our base, scouting everything and killing building scvs.
as you can also see in the replay, they dont have many more units and if there werent 3 pylons at his third, we could have killed it
You always have to factor in pylons when attacking into protoss. Also adept/phoenix straight up destroys your army. If you had taken that fight you would have gotten murdered, you NEED at least medivac support and combat shield to engage into that imo.
i also move out on the map as soon as i think i can because time is ticking against us: storm, colossi and disruptors can evaporate a whole bio army, the only timing window we have is early stim + medivac pushes and drops (which are shut down by the phoenixes, that is why i run over the map with marines)
7 minutes into the game is too early for any of that tech, and you do have tools against those (ghosts, mines, liberators). Imo the only thing that really fucks up terrans horribly is a proper Tempest transition, but that requires at least 4 mining bases so you still had a lot of room and time to make plays. Also, if you do move on the map with the goal to attack you need to do with a proper army; a bunch of overly stimmed, badly upgraded bio with only two medivacs is almost always going to die to any reasonable group of protoss units in that phase of the game.
Phoenixes punish a couple of medivacs yoloing in, sure, but you can stll poke the front, draw his army and drop somehwere else but only if you know where the phoenixes are.
In general, phoenix/adept is very much a midgame composition, and it has a harder time transitioning to any late game units like templar, disruptors or tempests do than twilight council openings, because a) mass adept doesn't scale as well with supply as a more balanced gateway army of stalkers/immortals/adepts/chargelots and b) in big fights blink stalkers are better than phoenxes vs liberators. This means that a phoenix/adept player is likely going to try to hit a very aggressive timing in the midgame; your main goal should be to hold this timing, get a strong, high supply army and then push and get ahead or win while he tries to transition. In the words of Iaguz, "just build liberators. That's pretty much it.".
I don't think you have many early timing windows to abuse stargates with your exact build, but with more aggressive things like 2rax quick medivacs you should try to hit his third with your first medivacs. You have a good shot at trading well and even cancelling it, especially if he doesn't do damage with the phoenixes and he's skipping early production for his third. If he goes stargate > third > 2gates (you can scout for this by checking his third timing and/or scanning the tech, some stargate builds are less greedy and go robo>2gates before third) his obs count will be very low so widow mines and drops can be strong in some situations. Oracles are cute but they aren't as good as observers to defend mine drops. Of course you should only do this if you can know or control where his phoenixes are, for example by poking the front with your bio.
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HI diamond Terran here so the advice I may give may not be as per your skill level...
I don't understand the build order nor the multiple tech labs going for mostly marines.
Marinelord did a strat vs lilbow, and TY does this too.. They delay their stim when playing greedy. Go 1/1/1 with reactored rax, get 1:0 also the economy to go 3 rax stim and combat sheild at the same time. I can't help but agree with Teoita that you should be hell panicked on what can kill you. I spend all my tvps that way early on also.
My advice vs adept/phoenix is as follows:
1. More Bio (reactored marines + scvs always hold on initially)
2. Only one turret per mineral line (the more you invest in static D = less army always)
3. Factory variation (you gotta slow him down.. mine drops... seige tanks kick adepts out of relevancy, and with marines guarding them, the phoenix will suicide to lift em up)
4. An early medivac always helps agaist adepts or they'll chew your bio bit by bit especially in warp prisms.
hope the above helps
oooh: i loooovvvveeedddd the spoiler
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-Turrets push
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Marinelord said in an interview on OGTV that "no terran really knows what to do against protoss, even maru is starting to loose, so we all try to go yolo mod". Hope that answers your question xD
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United Kingdom20285 Posts
Teo covered most of it, you should improve the opening and macro (stuff like dropping mules, any missed SCV's) - with this stuff you were in a position to have more economy than the P, even in this game you had more income when you wanted to fight.
You delayed medivacs and then left them entirely in your base. If you're doing so then you're accepting that medivacs will never be able to safely join the units out on the map, but you're not in a position to kill the protoss with a frontal engagement so there's nothing to accomplish here. I think that you generally have less units at the front (as well as no medivacs) when compared to the scary terrans that we have faced but i'd have to check some replays for exact numbers. You should work on the stims, stimming 3 times like that would have been bad with medivacs and combat shield but you had neither and stimmed from 45 to 15hp before taking a fight which is just suicide.
A cyclone or 2 can be good vs these styles, especially since the cost was buffed and there was just a bug fix today to lock-on (the cooldown was taking twice as long as intentional) - Cyclones cannot be left unguarded against phoenixes because a graviton beam and instant cancel will break the lock-on, but a cyclone or 2 with a small squad of marines can push phoenixes away and even damage or kill them. When you inevitably turn this into a push, they'll stop phoenixes poking at your stuff as you cross the map and then they can kill pylons without overcharge being in range to shoot back, which can often give you a better engagement.
I think that blaming adepts is a huge mistake here as half a dozen different styles could hold that push with an advantage
General reminder for everone in this thread: in a [H] thread people are asking for help on a specific replay. Only post and give advice if you watched the replay and you have something to say about it, NOT generic advice, even if it's good advice.
My bad here, didn't realize it was the strategy forum (again..)
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I think the important thing when playing phoenix players is to identify when they are trying to switch into some kind of aoe unit and hit them while they are investing gas elsewhere thier comes a point where your bio army should be stronger than thier adept army without aoe so you want to land an attack then. Also just because your opponents have phoenixes does not mean you can't drop. Drops are important sources of information so loosing a medivac here or thier to put pressure on and keep tabs on what your opponent is doing can be worth. If you can't get info with drops don't be afraid to drop some scans it's very important to check the toss before they get a lot of storms/ disrupters
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PF+turrets+tanks into mass thors?
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Italy12246 Posts
Seriously i even posted a reminder on Strategy guidelines...
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Reading this [H] thread and then watching the replay reminds me of when one of my low league Zerg friends (only master-league) was whining on skype about a broken overpowered turtle Sky-Protoss build he encountered on Dusk. After he had whined for a long time, I agreed to watch the replay with him. Thanks to taking gas too early and not adjusting properly to the scouting information at hand and his bad mechanics in general, he had only 110 supply when he literally could have been maxed out and a-moved the Protoss to oblivion.
As far as your Phoenix Adapt woes go, I'll be more than happy to get into specific advice for specific scenarios on specific maps when you guys have fixed your horrible mechanics and fixed your dumb nonsense build.
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Don't even get me started on how the Protoss players instantly would have known you went for a hidden Command Center when their first Phoenixes scouted your base if they had had any understanding of in-game timings at all whatsoever.
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If you want to help: I still need a clear gameplan what to do against this type of protoss playstyle. How can I counter it? When and where is a timing window I can abuse to punish their fast expansions, the lack of ground units early on, anything?
Instead of CC Rax 2nd Supply Depot hidden CC Refinery, open in a way that does not insult logic such as CC Rax Rax CC Rax 2 × Refinery, CC Rax Rax Rax CC 2 × Refinery or even CC Rax CC Rax Rax 2 × Refinery assuming you insist on opening CC first.
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Ahh how far the the strategy forum has fallen... Anyway, I'm not going to do my usual analysis where I cite specific times in the replay and talk about them, because there isn't that much to be learned there that Teoita didn't cover and the problem is in your head.
You made it seem like you fall so far behind and there was nothing you could do, when that wasn't the case, at all. That combined with the fact you straight up left the game when it was 105 to 119 supply makes me think the problem is in your head.
You don't think you can do anything to beat this style, so you take extreme risks and when you realize they have a third base, launch a panicked attack on what is literally an anti-timing without all of your forces and are forced to retreat with heavy losses.
So you beat yourself. The Protoss players didn't have to do anything (and they really didn't do anything) in the game to make you lose.
Let's take a look at the position you were relative to the Protoss at the end of the game and understand the Protoss opening. The Protoss players were playing a safe style, expanding while building an army of Adepts and Phoenixes which is a very safe way to play. But as Teoita mentioned this doesn't scale well into the late game. While well protected from aggression, the Protoss was sorely lacking tech.
So while they stayed even on economy and army as you, despite the hidden CC, but you were ahead in tech. This is evidence by the fact you were ahead in upgrades. By the end of the game the only upgrades they had were Warpgate and Resonating Glaives, while you had +1 attack, Stim and Concussive Shells, and you had more upgrades on the way then they did (you'd be 1-1 with Combat Shields before they were 1-1, and you had +2 attack already on the way).
Beyond upgrades, you had a Ghost Academy finishing by the end of the game and already had a Reactored Starport, while the Protoss didn't have a Robo Bay, Templar Archives or DT Shrine. And none of those were in construction. They had no AOE and were depending solely on Adepts that were going to be 2 upgrades behind your Bio.
In other words, you were not way behind, you were ahead, perhaps if only slightly, despite the extra turrets and odd build order (important to note that the Protoss was 200 resources behind in units lost you prior to end game attack). But you guys freaked out, and attacked when you didn't need to. At 7:08, right before your attack hit, was 20 seconds before Combat Shields and you had 2 Medivacs sitting over the Bunker at your base, and with 13 seconds until you'd have two more.
There was absolutely no reason to attack then. You can let the Protoss have a third, and still win the game. If you had given the game some time, you could probably find a timing with 4 Liberators and Bio with superior upgrades. Liberators are really powerful versus Adepts and Phoenixes. And if you can't find a timing for some reason, the Protoss won't be able to kill you and then the game is roughly even and continues onward. And that is the way SC2 should work, both races have an equal chance, neither can just destroy the other at any particular time if both sides are playing correctly.
So I think you're best focusing on the mental part of the game, because you beat yourself this game.
If you think you are beaten, you are;
If you think you dare not, you don't.
If you'd like to win, but you think you can't,
It is almost certain you won't.
If you think you'll lose, you've lost;
For out of the world you'll find
Success begins with a fellow's will
It's all in the state of mind.
Life's battles don't always go
To the stronger or faster man;
But sooner or later the man who wins
Is the man who thinks he can.
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EPT
