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Summarized below is a detailed description of the Protoss vs Protoss metagame along with the optimal way to abuse it. The build and theory may not seem apparently obvious, especially in the volatility of a new game and the crazy meta that ensues, but with significant changes to the voidray, coupled with detection from the stargate, this is the case.
In order to make a point I will be making certain generalizations, and am fully aware that this game is not a game of rock/paper/scissors game, but a game where scissors can defeat rock through good fundamentals. For consistency I will also be making the assumption of equivalent skill/level of play when addressing build order.
PvP: Wings of Liberty Theory
+ Show Spoiler +PvP as we kno it from wings of liberty (WoL), exclusively centred around the use of colossus with a slight emphasis on Archon/Immortal with Zealots as buffer. As such the match-up looked as, follows:
Phoenix openings > Robo openings> Twilight openings > phoenix openings, where > indicates a slight advantage moving into the midgame.
Simply put these advantages were built on the number of options, or lack thereof, that one opening has vs another which ultimately leads to a stronger/faster endgame composition that all three openings would eventually funnel into, Colossus.
PvP: Heart of the Swarm Theory
+ Show Spoiler +The biggest change moving from WoL to HotS, is the redesign of the Voidray. As such the end game hierarchy of compositions now looks like:
(Loosely speaking) VoidRay>> Colossus>> Gateway, where >> indicates a significant advantage when in direct engagement.
The VoidRay is now king, with everything else under it. However, unlike its predecessor the colossus, the counter to VoidRay’s aren't more VoidRays, but mass phoenix or mass stalker with storm, with the latter not trading very well given a correct split and an equivalent army value from the Void Ray player.
The main difference between the VoidRay and Colossus composition from WoL, is that the counter to Colossus was more Colossus, a ground unit and therefore easily manipulated through positional play and a variation of unit interaction. In contrast, the counter to VoidRay is the phoenix, a unit that can only be countered through more phoenix. (I understand stalkers can kill phoenix but it is irrelevant as I will show later.)
The Build
+ Show Spoiler +The build supply will vary with probe stacking etc. Try to build it as smoothly as possible with probes being the priority on 1 base. Note I have decided to omit the mothershipcore from the build until 2 base. Although the mothershipcore has versatility and a place in gateway openings, it does not serve an actual purpose within stargate openings and actually leave you vulnerable to certain openings such as 3 gate pressure or 4 gate dt. 9 Pylon Chrono probes 3 times in a row 13 Gateway, scout with probe. 15 gas 16 Pylon 18ish Cybernetics core (place it when you can afford it) 19 Gas 20ish zealot 21/22/23 Pylon#3 before Cybercore finishes @Cybercore 100% complete: start and Chrono warptech @100 gas: queue up Sentry and chronoboost gateway. @150 gas: build Stargate @ next 100 gas 2nd sentry *Constant probe production until 20 on minerals and 3 on each gas* *Add gates 2 and 3 as you can afford them without cutting probes after stargate* *When sg is done chrono out 4 phoenix in a row* *If no aggression is done scout with a halu phoenix/if there is aggression scout with real phoenix for dts and tech (if dts make oracle and 3 phoenix and out-produce him in army and take an expo with a robo)* *When expanding the key is to watch his gas timings, gas deposit in units and tech choices. If you do not see any tech stay on phoenix gateway with msc. If you see tech go into immortal 1 forge gateway composition with 8-10 phoenix. Go into colo production as soon as you know you're not being 2 base pushed. The exception is if you scout a colossus bay/2 stargate transition, in which case go up to 2 stargate voidray/phoenix with a splash of immortals* *Good practice is to leave 2 zealots on hold position at your ramp in case you miss a dt shrine* This build allows for the ability to attain a significant number of phoenixes relatively quickly along with the safety-net of being able to allocate chrono differently depending on what you scout. The above build is optimal if playing vs mirror Stargate openings, dt openings,robo openings and non aggressive twilight openings (not 3 gate pressure before teching twilight) Variations of this opening due to scouting Against 3 Gate Pressure/dBling Style Currently it’s popular for your opponent to go 3 gate pressure/3 stalker pressure with mothership core into some sort of tech. Bling likes to go 3 gate 3 stalker rush with MSC into about 6-9 stalker pressure depending on what he scouts. If you scout this or feel unsafe, you can modify the build above by making the second sentry before stargate and 2x chrono your cyber core, even adding the gates before stargate. Just forcefield the units out followed by your first warp-ins and you will be fine. It’s the same concept of holding 3 gate pressure in WoL with the exception you have to stand further back from the edge due to msc. Don't worry about the risk of losing the sentries to the msc, because with 2 chrono on the cybercore, warpgate will be finishing up, and he cannot risk over extending too far in with a slow unit like the msc(if he does snipe it with your first warp-in). The biggest thing when facing pressure is to ![[image loading]](http://highchartpatterns.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/keep-calm-and-carry-on-11.png) Against 3 Gate Contain Expo Three gate contain into expo is probably the best option your opponent can do vs this build. Against the majority of 3 gate tech variations you will have more than enough army value to just pick up his units and fight your way out into your natural with 3 gate phoenix. However there will be times where it is necessary to hold your ramp leading to a contain expo by him. In this spot the best play is to counter his main with phoenix. It usually forces a nexus cannon and a warp-in of 3 stalkers. At this point he has the choice of coming back home with his contain or sitting in front of your ramp. If he chooses the latter, simply sit your 5-6 phoenix at his natural and deny the benefits of his expansion as long as possible. Due to a significant portion of his army being at your natural, he can't effectively deal with your phoenixes without you moving around his army and into the main sniping probes. Your play vs a contain should be to get out colossus to break the contain and take an expo. Do not worry about the time difference between expanding, as your tech is superiorly progressed, and the amount of resources gained by your opponent by the expo lead does not offset the tech lead you have. Against Blink OpeningsJust open the standard way. Blink research time has been increased such that it will frequently be the follow up of 3 gate or 3 stalker rush openings, regardless the response is the same. Go up to 4 phoenix and have constant unit production out of 3 gates. It will be an easy hold. Against Phoenix Mirror/Greedy Openings If you can identify early on that your opponent is playing a non aggressive style you can be more liberal in your risk taking. There are some builds that are 1 gate 1 stargate expo if they feel a potential phoenix mirror. I am not going to post a recommendation as it is very game by game dependant. In general try reach saturation faster and save more chrono for phoenix production.
Why this Build is King
+ Show Spoiler +Due to the VoidRay being the most potent unit in a final army composition, all that matters is the potential to create them, instead of actually producing them. The most optimal way to make this happen is to mass the counter to VoidRays(phoenix), thus monopolizing the ability to produce them. In other words if you control the rights to make Voidrays you alone have the ability to produce colossus, thus forcing your opponent into an inferior tech choice.
In WoL Blink players could still take solace in the fact that they had more invested resources in an endgame tech path, coupled with minimal damage from phoenix due to blink openings, thus leading to a powerful mid/late game and a strong transition into colossus. However in HotS it is important to note that due to the progression of Protoss tech, it is not how much damage the phoenixes can do but merely the fact that one player has them. The implication is that MSC and blink provide good defensive capabilities but the resulting influx of resources cannot be allocated in an effective manner.
To exemplify this point let’s say player A opens SG and Player B opens non SG. If B goes Colossus, A can go mass VR, If B goes mass gateway, A can go colossus with phoenix, leading to the problems B had with colossus from wings of liberty. If both A and B go stargate it turns into a very fragile game where neither player has an incentive to move away from Phoenix production, and as such will turn into a mass phoenix vs phoenix with lots of ground units, where one single engagement determines that game.
Conclusion
+ Show Spoiler +Let me start by saying that although it is very favoured for the player opening phoenix, games will still be won with other openings and other tech choices, since Starcraft is not always about advantages. For those of you who are wondering why I have not mentioned the oracle, it is because it is always better to allocate the gas to phoenix. The times when oracles come in handy are when you need detection or want to do a counter swing vs a very aggressive 1 base protoss.
Replays
http://www.2shared.com/file/Yp0RWwTR/vs_blink_expand.html
I will add more replays later when I get the chance.
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Germany25657 Posts
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I think you are thinking too hard in regards to one player reacting to the other. The game is much more dynamic than "A opens SG and Player B opens non SG. If B goes Colossus, A can go mass VR, If B goes mass gateway, A can go colossus with phoenix, leading to the problems B had with colossus from wings of liberty"
there was already an issue in wings of liberty where if one player opened robo and the other player didnt open robo, then the robo player has a tech advantage going into the late game. However it was up to the non-robo player to make use of his early-mid game tech to make something happen and gain the upper hand by out playing his opp. which would allow him to either win the game out right or gain an advantage large enough that it allows him to tech switch into robo and catchup/out produce his opp. who had already dedicated himself to that tech.
Just like in wings of liberty, different maps will favor different tech paths (on cloud kingdom a player who opens robo into colossus or an expand was at a disadvantage to someone who goes for a blink observer build. but on daybreak, the robo expand had an advantage over blink obs once the robo player had sufficient units to tackle blink head on.)
i could go into detail regarding certain situations but i wont. the TLDR is basically that while yes void rays are powerful, they are not the best unit in pvp. Mass void rays can be countered, and as for your statement regarding the stargate player has an automatic advantage, I feel this is only true if both players sit on their hands and do nothing. PvP has become a little more dynamic than, Ok neither of us are going all-in so lets just sit and max on colossus with mothership. We should be seeing alot more mid game engagements
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I collected many a freewin from this kind of Stargate play using 3Gate MsC pressure with fast Twilight.
This "King BO" imo is not capable of holding the early pressure without dooming you to die a little later.
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So you are basically saying "Now in HotS, instead of countering one unit with that exact unit and the larger number wins (like WoL) to counter one unit, you have to use DIFFERENT units and multiple different combinations can actually work against it"..
uhh.. Doesnt that mean HotS FIXED PvP??
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On February 09 2013 06:04 rEalGuapo wrote:
I collected many a freewin from this kind of Stargate play using 3Gate MsC pressure with fast Twilight.
This "King BO" imo is not capable of holding the early pressure without dooming you to die a little later.
ya....I pretty much got mangled by 3 gate msc pressure with fast twilight when using some similar to the "King BO"
I dont think its even close to developed yet to establish a decent analysis of the matchup
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I agree that HotS PvP is radically different because of the stargate. I've been doing a 3 stalker opening, and when the opponent goes stargate their builds are absurdly greedy, they are building their SG before building a sentry, and I simply walk into their base killing their zealot/stalker, forcing them to pull probes while I expand behind it. In WoL, the game would virtually be over. But repeatedly the Protoss comes back because unless I too go stargate behind it their army always seems to beat mine, even if I go immediately into blink stalkers. I don't think this is bad but it just shows the matchup is so far from being figured out and it's way too early to post things as dramatic as the title of this thread.
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I've been using a 2 gate expand that I haven't had anyone break yet. I really need to work on developing a followup though.
A 4 gate would kill it though I'm pretty sure.
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What league are you in? This is certainly not a win-all build order.
"However there will be times where it is necessary to hold your ramp leading to a contain expo by him. ... Your play vs a contain should be to get out colossus to break the contain and take an expo. Do not worry about the time difference between expanding, as your tech is superiorly progressed, and the amount of resources gained by your opponent by the expo lead does not offset the tech lead you have."
Um... yes it does. If he's able to get a 3gate pressure contain, expand to his natural, and hold it until you have colossus, then you have to all-in. Expanding in that situation is just stupid. You need to go kill him. With a Stargate opening, you need to be very aggressive early. If you wait for a bunch of phoenix, either you'll lose to DTs or he'll expand well before you, photon overcharge one base and put 4 Stalkers at the other and you'll fall behind on probes.
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On February 09 2013 06:03 AGIANTSMURF wrote:
i could go into detail regarding certain situations but i wont. the TLDR is basically that while yes void rays are powerful, they are not the best unit in pvp. Mass void rays can be countered, and as for your statement regarding the stargate player has an automatic advantage, I feel this is only true if both players sit on their hands and do nothing
I never said mass voidrays can’t be countered. What I said was having the ability to go voidray means the other person can’t go robo, and with you already going phoenix, he is forced to play a gateway heavy game. It should be obvious the stargate player has a major tech advantage. I agree on certain maps, that phoenix is less potent then other openings
On February 09 2013 06:05 Kaden wrote:
So you are basically saying "Now in HotS, instead of countering one unit with that exact unit and the larger number wins (like WoL) to counter one unit, you have to use DIFFERENT units and multiple different combinations can actually work against it"..
uhh.. Doesnt that mean HotS FIXED PvP?? .
No. try actually reading what I posted. What I said was the counter is phoenix vs phoenix which is a lot worse then colo vs colo was, with everyother “different” unit interaction being at a disadvantage.
On February 09 2013 06:19 HeavenResign wrote:
I agree that HotS PvP is radically different because of the stargate. I've been doing a 3 stalker opening, and when the opponent goes stargate their builds are absurdly greedy, they are building their SG before building a sentry, and I simply walk into their base killing their zealot/stalker, forcing them to pull probes while I expand behind it. In WoL, the game would virtually be over. But repeatedly the Protoss comes back because unless I too go stargate behind it their army always seems to beat mine, even if I go immediately into blink stalkers. I don't think this is bad but it just shows the matchup is so far from being figured out and it's way too early to post things as dramatic as the title of this thread.
And @ superyo / guapo.
If you had actually read what I posted you would realize you can’t walk up my ramp…
Just because you play greedy openings on ladder doesn’t mean all stargate openings are the same.
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good post.
From the pvp I played I definetely agree that in most cases the phoenix player has the advantage.
Voidray gate composition beats gateway and phoenix beats voidray. To beat colo you have to go 2SG though I think or go voidray colo gateway.
Anyways seems like a good BO and with 2 sentries the only danger to you are blink+msc and DT's.
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I don't think this is worse than WoL though, WoL pvp was really SO BAD.
I prefer the phoenix to the colossus 
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On February 09 2013 07:26 aYtDuSteR wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2013 06:05 Kaden wrote:
So you are basically saying "Now in HotS, instead of countering one unit with that exact unit and the larger number wins (like WoL) to counter one unit, you have to use DIFFERENT units and multiple different combinations can actually work against it"..
uhh.. Doesnt that mean HotS FIXED PvP?? . No. try actually reading what I posted. What I said was the counter is phoenix vs phoenix which is a lot worse then colo vs colo was, with everyother “different” unit interaction being at a disadvantage.
That is very wrong, as you forget that a feedback transition is able to counter the masses of phoenix. I agree that the phoenix is the very strong, but the fact that it has a direct counter (HT and archons) means it can't be the best thing to do.
Basically you say stalkers with storm is irrelevant versus void rays, I disagree here since even with good split you will still be able to hit a decent amount of void rays (you can't oversplit them or it won't be effective), and also you can use attack and blink back, to force the cooldown. Void rays which are not charged will lose to stalkers with some storm support. And even if you do lose the battle versus the void rays, you will be able to reinforce much faster due to the warpgate mechanic. Overall I think that gateway > air >> robo >> gateway.
Lastly there is one composition which is near impossible if not truly impossible to beat, and that is the mass carriers. This is because per supply the carrier is the most efficient (the void ray which is the counter in WoL has 4 supply now, which makes it cost efficient, but not supply efficient), and that the carriers are so big they don't care one bit for storms. The only counter to the carrier is the tempest, which dies to almost anything else. This is OK since the carrier takes 2 minutes to build, so if you allowed someone to get maxed on carriers you deserve to lose.
As you see HotS does not break PvP but fixes it, there is not one path which is the best and everything has a counter. While the phoenix is a great option for the early game, robo blink openings are still good and immortal expand is possible with smart use of the msc. I think that it will take a very long time till this matchup gets figured out, especially since it got near figured out in the end of WoL (with positioning, usage of immortals and drops, I think it got really interesting and even the colossus wars have their spark since its not true anymore that the one with more colossi wins, its the one with the better composition and concave).
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You actually can gain a lot of advantage from microing phoenix vs phoenix though. It's weird too because this is not the case in muta vs muta. But in Phoenix vs phoenix there's generally only up to around 5 or 7 phoenix firing at the same time, which is microable. Furthermore, you only ever have around that 5-7 firing because the battle happens while moving. You're never gonna have phoneix sitting in one place firing at other phoenix sitting in one place because there is no disadvantage to moving. Where you move the phoenixes and how you move them is very important. It's WAY more fun than colossi vs colossi.
In other news, this thread writes about phoenix vs phoenix but a quick ctrl + f of "range", "upgrade", "anion" and "pulse" all turn up ZERO results. (well, except now that I've mentioned them).
That upgrade is KEY in stargate vs stargate in HoTS. It's the ZvZ zergling speed of stargate vs stargate. If you get that upgrade significantly before your opponent in a phoenix vs phoenix situation you will gain a TREMENDOUS advantage and likely win the game or make a decent comeback in it. Plus, then you can transition into carriers, which as the above poster writes, will often win games.
Just some food for thought.
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Im convinced that stargate is the only way to open, and the composition you build is dependent on scouting where all openings are inferior to SG besides SG itself. I thinks its honestly worse then Wol was with 4gate only.
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Just by looking at the match historys of the top 10 protoss players on the HotS ladder you can see that the most popular opening, as well as the one that leads to the win, is stargate by a large margin.
With oracle having detection right out of the stargate it has 60 second of detection, so dt openings are quite god awful and will die to a 3 gate + VR all in/contain.
blink all ins are awful as well since the mothership core photon overcharge will buy enough time to get out a few void rays and stalkers of your own, so you will be able to push that back no problem and you're already ahead in the void ray count.
Robo openings are obviously just bad vs SG openings so....
So I'm guessing until theres a void change that all pro games will just be phoenix vs. phoenix for a very long time. Imo, the Voids should require an upgrade to make charge an activation ability, the duration/cooldown should also be changed so that it requires more skill to use as well as allows for opponents to bait charges.
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It straight up loses to a greedier SG build though, and those are infuriating; additionally, MsC pokes are pretty difficult to hold and 1 Gate Blink is super tough to hold considering you have no MsC for a very long time [IIRC, you won't have enough until Phoenix 2/3 are in production, maybe even later].
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On February 09 2013 09:23 moskonia wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2013 07:26 aYtDuSteR wrote:On February 09 2013 06:05 Kaden wrote:
So you are basically saying "Now in HotS, instead of countering one unit with that exact unit and the larger number wins (like WoL) to counter one unit, you have to use DIFFERENT units and multiple different combinations can actually work against it"..
uhh.. Doesnt that mean HotS FIXED PvP?? . No. try actually reading what I posted. What I said was the counter is phoenix vs phoenix which is a lot worse then colo vs colo was, with everyother “different” unit interaction being at a disadvantage. That is very wrong, as you forget that a feedback transition is able to counter the masses of phoenix. I agree that the phoenix is the very strong, but the fact that it has a direct counter (HT and archons) means it can't be the best thing to do. Basically you say stalkers with storm is irrelevant versus void rays, I disagree here since even with good split you will still be able to hit a decent amount of void rays (you can't oversplit them or it won't be effective), and also you can use attack and blink back, to force the cooldown. Void rays which are not charged will lose to stalkers with some storm support. And even if you do lose the battle versus the void rays, you will be able to reinforce much faster due to the warpgate mechanic. Overall I think that gateway > air >> robo >> gateway. Lastly there is one composition which is near impossible if not truly impossible to beat, and that is the mass carriers. This is because per supply the carrier is the most efficient (the void ray which is the counter in WoL has 4 supply now, which makes it cost efficient, but not supply efficient), and that the carriers are so big they don't care one bit for storms. The only counter to the carrier is the tempest, which dies to almost anything else. This is OK since the carrier takes 2 minutes to build, so if you allowed someone to get maxed on carriers you deserve to lose. As you see HotS does not break PvP but fixes it, there is not one path which is the best and everything has a counter. While the phoenix is a great option for the early game, robo blink openings are still good and immortal expand is possible with smart use of the msc. I think that it will take a very long time till this matchup gets figured out, especially since it got near figured out in the end of WoL (with positioning, usage of immortals and drops, I think it got really interesting and even the colossus wars have their spark since its not true anymore that the one with more colossi wins, its the one with the better composition and concave).
you have absolutely no idea what I'm trying to say. Against gateway comp you go colossus and it plays out exactly like wol.
To they guy who said greedy blink opening will be hard to stop. You have more army value opening phoenix then he does going blink.
Greedier stargate builds require changing the build slightly as mentioned in the op. Hence why you scout. You can make this build as greedy as you want.
I did not go into depth on phoenix vs phoenix because I thought the natural tech progression was implied.The point is that stargate vs stargate is a lot more volatile then wol was. If you're down phoenix you have no map presence and run the risk of losing the game due to 1 missmicro on the field.
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On February 09 2013 10:55 jcroisdale wrote:
Im convinced that stargate is the only way to open, and the composition you build is dependent on scouting where all openings are inferior to SG besides SG itself. I thinks its honestly worse then Wol was with 4gate only.
Bingo. I hate HOTS PvP more than anything. Flying units don't have to deal with terrain and have limited micro potential compared to ground units. They are just A-move.
Anyway, I fully agree with the OP in theory. However, Colossus/VoidRay/Phoenix could be countered by Tempest/Stalker/Archon/HT I suppose (assuming the Tempest still does extra damage vs Colossus, which I am not sure, it is considered a massive air unit to Corrupters, is the Colossus a massive air unit to Tempests?), and most of those are Gateway units. In practice I haven't played enough PvP macro games to know if that would work.
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On February 09 2013 07:26 aYtDuSteR wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2013 06:03 AGIANTSMURF wrote:
i could go into detail regarding certain situations but i wont. the TLDR is basically that while yes void rays are powerful, they are not the best unit in pvp. Mass void rays can be countered, and as for your statement regarding the stargate player has an automatic advantage, I feel this is only true if both players sit on their hands and do nothing I never said mass voidrays can’t be countered. What I said was having the ability to go voidray means the other person can’t go robo, and with you already going phoenix, he is forced to play a gateway heavy game. It should be obvious the stargate player has a major tech advantage. I agree on certain maps, that phoenix is less potent then other openings
But unless you're opponent is committing to mass air you can still go robo. I usually will go heavy blink stalker with 2-3 colossus if they go for an air-ground comp. my point is you have to keep scouting your opponent and tailor your composition accordingly.
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it does not work vs 4 gate blink stalker allin . y u have voidrays but you are not mobile he can just take base and blink in your main and in your expo on and on , and do tone of damage , tried 20 games of PvP where i open stargate vs blink allin and is impossible . not even with transition into : stargate into robo ( immortals) stargate into blink and stargate into charge . the blink stalker pretty popular nowadays so i dont see this build working at all .
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I hate PvP in hots too
Cant do robo anymore which was my preffered build in WoL.
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And I thought 2-1-1 was the King build. Voidrays work in Wings against the Colossus, but the timing to get them out is really thin, so the Meta never got there with only few PvPs at best. People just settled on Colossus Archon Immortal with a bit of Phoenix play thrown in. Both composition are owned by Voidrays and the supply cost of the Voidray is pretty overpowered in Wings in PvP. Wings Voidrays are not beatable by another toss if charged. (Well Storm works a bit)
Now the weaker but easier to use Swarm Voidrays have a few weaknesses when fighting Toss. First of all their supply isn't that overpowered anymore. Of course they are strong at the start, but the new Phoenix can fight them pretty well now and are better at picking of the guardian shield. And with the lowered damage output against Massive Archons also pose a nice defense against them. Also can't forget the improved Carrier that in Wings just did badly because of the supply efficiency of the Voidray and the interceptors having problems when changing targets.
So Voidrays have their conter in the lategame now compared to Wings. And in the early/midgame Stalkers can fight them, especially since they can easily avoid the charge without taking to much losses.
Personally I hope Voidrays will see some use now that a baby can handle them right. But they aren't the overpowered beasts from Wings anymore that no one could handle, because the micro involved in them would mean you get overrun by a-move units.
So there are enough unit >> Voidray in PvP in Swarm
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Phoenix, tempest, archon and stalker composition crushes void rays.
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I agree. I off race as toss every now and agian. I have i think high 60 or 70% winrates in the other matchups. PvP, i like to go more macro, and everygame is just void allin or DTs or some BS allin. And the Mamma core makes stuff like 3 gate pressure vs Terran with Expo very hard to deal with. It is bad. I dont win vs toss any more. (some of that is just storm)
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On February 09 2013 11:47 aYtDuSteR wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2013 09:23 moskonia wrote:On February 09 2013 07:26 aYtDuSteR wrote:On February 09 2013 06:05 Kaden wrote:
So you are basically saying "Now in HotS, instead of countering one unit with that exact unit and the larger number wins (like WoL) to counter one unit, you have to use DIFFERENT units and multiple different combinations can actually work against it"..
uhh.. Doesnt that mean HotS FIXED PvP?? . No. try actually reading what I posted. What I said was the counter is phoenix vs phoenix which is a lot worse then colo vs colo was, with everyother “different” unit interaction being at a disadvantage. That is very wrong, as you forget that a feedback transition is able to counter the masses of phoenix. I agree that the phoenix is the very strong, but the fact that it has a direct counter (HT and archons) means it can't be the best thing to do. Basically you say stalkers with storm is irrelevant versus void rays, I disagree here since even with good split you will still be able to hit a decent amount of void rays (you can't oversplit them or it won't be effective), and also you can use attack and blink back, to force the cooldown. Void rays which are not charged will lose to stalkers with some storm support. And even if you do lose the battle versus the void rays, you will be able to reinforce much faster due to the warpgate mechanic. Overall I think that gateway > air >> robo >> gateway. Lastly there is one composition which is near impossible if not truly impossible to beat, and that is the mass carriers. This is because per supply the carrier is the most efficient (the void ray which is the counter in WoL has 4 supply now, which makes it cost efficient, but not supply efficient), and that the carriers are so big they don't care one bit for storms. The only counter to the carrier is the tempest, which dies to almost anything else. This is OK since the carrier takes 2 minutes to build, so if you allowed someone to get maxed on carriers you deserve to lose. As you see HotS does not break PvP but fixes it, there is not one path which is the best and everything has a counter. While the phoenix is a great option for the early game, robo blink openings are still good and immortal expand is possible with smart use of the msc. I think that it will take a very long time till this matchup gets figured out, especially since it got near figured out in the end of WoL (with positioning, usage of immortals and drops, I think it got really interesting and even the colossus wars have their spark since its not true anymore that the one with more colossi wins, its the one with the better composition and concave). you have absolutely no idea what I'm trying to say. Against gateway comp you go colossus and it plays out exactly like wol. To they guy who said greedy blink opening will be hard to stop. You have more army value opening phoenix then he does going blink. Greedier stargate builds require changing the build slightly as mentioned in the op. Hence why you scout. You can make this build as greedy as you want. I did not go into depth on phoenix vs phoenix because I thought the natural tech progression was implied.The point is that stargate vs stargate is a lot more volatile then wol was. If you're down phoenix you have no map presence and run the risk of losing the game due to 1 missmicro on the field.
..if YOU go for robo, how is your robo tech any farther ahead than theirs? And if you go robo at the same time, stargate + robo is going to lose to robo + a larger ground army. And if your argument is "he can't go robo because I have so much air," you can't invest into robo AND stargate efficiently. So if you take the time to go robo, then shouldn't your opponent have time to regain the air advantage? Going gateway only would be suicide unless you're doing a timing. Your opponent has access to as much gas as you unless you do some inane amounts of damage, so if you're going robo + stargate, he could go 2 stargate, or if you go robo, he has stargate, or if you go stargate, he can do anything else. Blah blah blah.
Although for what it's worth, I went 1 stargate and gateways vs a couple guys who went like 3 stargate for tons of phoenixes. Like a few people have said, twilight council pressure (in this case, a bunch of chargelots) can straight up kill them sometimes.
TL;DR I'm a masters protoss and I disagree with you  Stargate is really powerful, but PvP in HotS is WAY better than it was.
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I've been having great success with taking the earliest possible gases without cutting probes in order to go both an early DT Shrine and Stargate for Oracle after opening a 3 Stalker rush, basically your Oracle can scout to see if its safe to send the DTs in and it also serves to deter any sort of DT openings from your opponent. The beauty of it is vs Stargate openings he's forced to make Oracles to get detection thus allowing you to utilize Oracle harass because the lack of phoenix which in return forces him to spend precious gas on stalkers (Making Voidrays an ideal choice), being able to make Archons on the fly is also very powerful from the get go. Although I haven't been able to refine this to much it feels like a neat thing to toy around with at the very least.
(Note stopping 3 Gate/4 Gate pressure requires pretty much perfect execution of defense as your trying to squeeze out your tech at early timings thus leaving you more susceptible to early aggression/all ins, however you can stall long enough for DT's in most cases.)
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On February 24 2013 14:40 Mongolbonjwa wrote:
Phoenix, tempest, archon and stalker composition crushes void rays.
Until people learn to scout and start going Carriers as soon as they see this :D
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You miss a very important fact in your analysis about which unit counters which unit.
Firstly, you are correct that phoenix beat voidrays (in cost and supply like they used to do in WOL even though voids do 20% more dps vs phoenix compared to WOL, they still lose to phoenix beofre range upgrade slightly, after that they get outranged). But here the interesting dynamic starts: While phoenix beat voidrays (especially in supply now and with 7 range after the +2 range upgrade) massing up phoenix in the later stages of the game is plainly terrible. They are incredible early on and going into the midgame for a number of reasons, but once you get past this stage the opponent will get archons and once he has a certain number in his army your phoenix get trashed hard if you try to use them in the big battle. Secondly, he can keep a few hts in the middle of his army (protected by archons) and feedback them before they even do anything. The normal disadvantages still apply (air units take longer to remake and usually have lower upgrades than ground until super lategame) but this means voidrays are superiors in those battles.
Now carriers actually slightly win vs voidrays (yes even with charge, due to them shooting earlier and charge wearing of after 20sec) in equal supply, but they take so much longer to get out and can get countered easily by tempests which do awsome vs them. Voids do much better now than before (+20% vs archons compared to WOL) but they still get countered by chargelot-archon timings, they are still slightly too strong though (too easy to hold blink pushes now). In the endgame tempests actually beat everything due to having the exact same supply as voids. So a ton of voids with support to not dying into mass tempests is the ultimate HOTS pvp army. That's kinda boring. But if it wasn't for mass tempests in super lategame it would be actually way better than mass colossus in WOL. In midgame it's way more dynamic now.
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the problem with PvP imo is just that the units there are are not interesting to use..
A mirror matchup virtually always resolves to just a few tactics being viable and mirror compositions being used agianst eachother. Be that colossi or phoenix+gateway armies it doesn't matter that much.. It should be interesting by there being many transition points and the compositions itself being interesting to use which is just not the case in PvP..
Stargate play somewhat matching twilight tech and robo tech a bit more plus DT getting better is good. The opening scenario's are even more wide now but the matchup just feels boring.. I miss something like reavers or siege tanks that are really interesting in it's usage and positioning itself.. Also I feel that certain techs vs techs just lead to a lock-in and boring arms race too much.
For example take stargate vs stargate which is quite common now. Obviously this just results in phoenix vs phoenix wars with both players having a big incentive to stay in this war. If you stop the phoenix massing for example and the opponent just makes a few more his phoenix will demolish yours, 10 phoenix vs 7 phoenix for example will tend to leave one player with 5ish and the other with zero so dropping out of the race sucks immensely. Seeing as phoenix take up the entire gas production of 1 base a stargate vs stargate matchup tends to be the most boring ever.. It's just 1-a zealot-phoenix armies into eachother with little to no tactics whatsoever... P should have gotten an AoE AA unit, ground or air based. In that case there would be a tipping point where you could react by adding this unit in eventually stopping the air fight etc..
Ideally you would have vastly different compositions being roughly equal so you would get actual differences in styles and less 'real' mirrors more often. Perhaps with a little nudging colo + stalker vs gateway + air can actually be just so tight that you see this more often and both use different styles.
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A protoss ground support unit that has anti air splash vs light could indeed be nice (should be massive to prevent pickup). This would also help vs mass muta. Yes a ton of phoenix counter mutas but it's all about getting this number up, either you succeed in time and you rape mutas or you get raped in HOTS which is too much of a hardcounter in my eyes.
Back to pvp the only reason you don't see straight up only mass air battles is dts being available so quickly now. Robo is next to useless in my eyes now (until later to get observers ofc). The whole matchup is more dynamic but in the early game it's a bit of a blindcounter thing going on here. If you open stargate and don't get an oracle straight that stays in your base until you know for sure no dts are coming you die to dts which are common now, if you open like this and your opponent went stargate straight into phoenix (taking the dt gamble) he is way ahead, same if you went for robo. And blink is not really that good anymore. I have no trouble ever holding one base blink pushes with voids + mothership core. You don't need to transition at the right time or hold the ramp till a certain point or whatsoever. You just make your buildings around your nexus and then wait for him to get into range for the canon ability while producing voids + 3 gateways worth of units.
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Hey duster I agree very much with your post..
That right now blink and robotics play is left quite behind. in WOL, i played random and my best matchups were always the mirrors. i liked to open 3g, but like balls fast WG and go pressure into blinks + obs, but it simply doesn't work anymore becuase of the MSC and as they hold your attack with this they counter your economy with 4 or 5 phoenix and the game is over. or oracles, should they send the first phoenix in and see no stargate. i feel like my wins in this mirror matchup are now coming down to whether or not i build a sentry before my SG, or he if does...
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Definitely not the king build, it loses to really fast 3gates (4stalker 1zealot) and would be pretty disadvantaged to blink builds played right.
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I definitely think the Stargate opener is favoured except maybe to DT's.
However once you get into the game, the game is a lot more dynamic in unit composition.
Voidray actually having a counter. Also Voids are slow and I'm sure a lot of baserace opportunities are there, either from Oracle/DT/BlinkStalker.
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aYtDuSteR my good man, you have given me a lot to think about.
Thanks for sharing this, my PvP is really bad and this was indeed something to ponder about and work on.
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Since when phoenix is the only counter to phoenix?
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****PERFECT COUNTER****
Double probe scout, right when you have enough for your warpgate you steal both gasses. Then he's forced to make zealots marching across the map while you make zealots and have gas to make a mother ship core.
What do you guys think?
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On February 28 2013 03:38 Jukez wrote:
****PERFECT COUNTER****
Double probe scout, right when you have enough for your warpgate you steal both gasses. Then he's forced to make zealots marching across the map while you make zealots and have gas to make a mother ship core.
What do you guys think?
GSL winning strat for sure.
And on the slight chance you were being serious...
that's not going to happen if someone just pays attention to the game and puts a probe next to their gas geyser. Even if you managed to do it, they can just chrono out 2 zealots and kill the assims.
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On February 28 2013 04:01 Erik.TheRed wrote:Show nested quote +On February 28 2013 03:38 Jukez wrote:
****PERFECT COUNTER****
Double probe scout, right when you have enough for your warpgate you steal both gasses. Then he's forced to make zealots marching across the map while you make zealots and have gas to make a mother ship core.
What do you guys think? GSL winning strat for sure. And on the slight chance you were being serious... that's not going to happen if someone just pays attention to the game and puts a probe next to their gas geyser. Even if you managed to do it, they can just chrono out 2 zealots and kill the assims.
Actually it could work. If you send two probes, they wouldn't scout it if they were doing a 13 gate late scout. they will be behind on gas and stalkers so a quick oracle could finish the job.
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I want to share my PvP experiences for anyone that is interested. While I disagree with quite a lot written in this thread, I won't join the argument but instead try to provide information from my perspective.
I can only speak for high master / low GM PvP but I almost never lose vs an air player, even when I mess up in the early game and start with a disadvantage. Yes, I'm a good old boring robo player. =P
+ Show Spoiler [My Playstyle] +Most of the time I go for 1 gate / 1gate1robo FEs with really fast MSCs depending on whether I scout pressure.
When the other P goes for 2gate without probe scout I rush to DTs,
when he moves out with more than 1 stalker, I chrono an Immortal asap,
vs DT openers it's basically freewin,
when I see a stargate unit and I have confirmed that it isn't a hallucination, I stop Immortal production, go for 4 gates and as soon as I know that my opponent expands I add a Twilight Council as well, chronoing blink and adding 1 or 2 more gates going into pressure... sometimes I win right there except my opponent goes for charge, delays my pressure or my Blink is just too late and he has too many units already (at least 3 VRs with enough Zealot and Sentry support)
Then I just throw down a 3rd, 2 Forges and Templar Archives and basically try to overwhelm my opponent which is quite easy on almost any map
My most losses are from when I just make severe gameplay mistakes: not scouting proxy gates in my main, doing a micro mistake in the early game especially vs the tough to defend 3gate, not scouting and dealing with colossi tech in time, messing up an engagement and the likes ;-D
From what I've observed is that 3gate pressure with MSC into Stargate and 1 Oracle is probably one of the strongest builds: it punishes greedy play, allows contain expands forcing an allin and the Oracle makes it DT proof and has the potential to kill a lot of workers and could even allow you to break into the main.
But in the end PvP is still the most fragile MU (was already shown a few times with statistics but also for a decent amount of Ps PvP is the MU closest to 50% winrate) with countless different openers that all have slight to severe advantages and disadvantages to each other and each map favors different builds (for example on Cloud Kingdom you can go 1gate FE into 2gate pressure Robo, crazy strong opener stolen from my game vs MVPTails but you can only defend certain stuff on that single map)
TL;DR: airtoss is not as strong as many claim and HotS PvP has not been figured out, being even more fragile than in WoL, and control + decision making are the main thing that prevent it from being a complete coinflip due to the crazy amount of openers that counter each other
EDIT: + Show Spoiler [@Jukez:] +to even have the chance of stealing both gasses you have to send the 2 probes right after Pylon (since you usually build first Assimilator @14 supply), losing 20% of your mining and therefore setting your macro severely behind, causing you to lose right away to any proxy shenanigans + FFEs and you won't be able to defend pressure / punish a FE if you go for a fast Oracle followup
there are reasons why almost noone goes for gas stealing
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Ugh, I think I actually prefer WoL PvP. There was alot of positioning and micro that went into battles despite them being over quickly usually. Now it's just a bunch of air units shooting each other, and since they're flying they don't have to deal nearly as much with having good positioning or formation.
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I do think with enough tweaking PvP will be all about air builds.
Blink is weakened too much too be a counter to it, MSC makes it easy to stop blink harassment while a (part of) the airforce goes to kill their probes. DTs are solid agianst air but with sentry and oracle I think you can compete against it fairly well, for example I think you can put two zealots on blocking the ramp and then FF when the DT comes letting you lose only 1 zealot and buying you quite some time as you can easily FF twice by the time a DT comes and even make a new sentry if needed.
Problem is they really should have added something to make stargate wars more interesting, for example I would love it if the old overload ability on phoenixes was restored doing some aoe damage against light air with it.
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On February 28 2013 04:01 Erik.TheRed wrote:Show nested quote +On February 28 2013 03:38 Jukez wrote:
****PERFECT COUNTER****
Double probe scout, right when you have enough for your warpgate you steal both gasses. Then he's forced to make zealots marching across the map while you make zealots and have gas to make a mother ship core.
What do you guys think? GSL winning strat for sure. And on the slight chance you were being serious... that's not going to happen if someone just pays attention to the game and puts a probe next to their gas geyser. Even if you managed to do it, they can just chrono out 2 zealots and kill the assims.
While it may be fixed in HOTS, (I have no idea) WoL has a not-so-well-known bug where ordering your probe to build an assimilator on a geyser you don't have vision of will cause it to ignore blocking units and build the assimilator anyway even if there's a probe next to it. This makes for a very effective PvP cheese on maps where the geysers are adjacent, you can send a 9 scout and steal both gas and there's very little they can do about it.
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On February 28 2013 10:35 Xequecal wrote:Show nested quote +On February 28 2013 04:01 Erik.TheRed wrote:On February 28 2013 03:38 Jukez wrote:
****PERFECT COUNTER****
Double probe scout, right when you have enough for your warpgate you steal both gasses. Then he's forced to make zealots marching across the map while you make zealots and have gas to make a mother ship core.
What do you guys think? GSL winning strat for sure. And on the slight chance you were being serious... that's not going to happen if someone just pays attention to the game and puts a probe next to their gas geyser. Even if you managed to do it, they can just chrono out 2 zealots and kill the assims. While it may be fixed in HOTS, (I have no idea) WoL has a not-so-well-known bug where ordering your probe to build an assimilator on a geyser you don't have vision of will cause it to ignore blocking units and build the assimilator anyway even if there's a probe next to it. This makes for a very effective PvP cheese on maps where the geysers are adjacent, you can send a 9 scout and steal both gas and there's very little they can do about it.
If they steal one gas, you just take the other and 4-gate them (building a pylon in their main is usually possible if they build three assimilators).
Also, this bug was listed as fixed in a patch a while ago, no idea if it actually is or not though.
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If anything, Hots spiced pvp up alot... And we haven't figured out stuff yet obviously. I'm just really glad 4 gate is extremely easy to hard counter, that alone makes pvp 5 times better! Dt became more viable, Wol build viable, phoenix opening viable, oracle/vr/blink/immo push etc etc, alot of options which all depends on how you play, how your opponent plays and what he builds. I think PvP is gonna be the most interesting matchup to see for awhile, betting it'll take over a year before it's fairly settled what's viable and not!
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On February 28 2013 04:01 Erik.TheRed wrote:Show nested quote +On February 28 2013 03:38 Jukez wrote:
****PERFECT COUNTER****
Double probe scout, right when you have enough for your warpgate you steal both gasses. Then he's forced to make zealots marching across the map while you make zealots and have gas to make a mother ship core.
What do you guys think? GSL winning strat for sure. And on the slight chance you were being serious... that's not going to happen if someone just pays attention to the game and puts a probe next to their gas geyser. Even if you managed to do it, they can just chrono out 2 zealots and kill the assims.
If they steal both your gasses before you get them with 1 probe scout on a map like cloud you lose.
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On February 28 2013 04:16 Jukez wrote:Show nested quote +On February 28 2013 04:01 Erik.TheRed wrote:On February 28 2013 03:38 Jukez wrote:
****PERFECT COUNTER****
Double probe scout, right when you have enough for your warpgate you steal both gasses. Then he's forced to make zealots marching across the map while you make zealots and have gas to make a mother ship core.
What do you guys think? GSL winning strat for sure. And on the slight chance you were being serious... that's not going to happen if someone just pays attention to the game and puts a probe next to their gas geyser. Even if you managed to do it, they can just chrono out 2 zealots and kill the assims. Actually it could work. If you send two probes, they wouldn't scout it if they were doing a 13 gate late scout. they will be behind on gas and stalkers so a quick oracle could finish the job.
If they aren't doing an early scout, it just means they are more likely to be looking at their mineral line when 2 probes randomly appear and the first thing a decent player would do is either expect a cannon rush or a double gas steal (so they can just protect the geyser with a probe on hold position). Even if I just sat there and let you take 2 assimilators you'd be spending 150 minerals + the mining time of 2 probes which is actually a lot. Like I said before, a couple of chronoboosted zealots would kill one of the gasses fast enough to get stalkers out in time for any proxy oracle bullshit.
If you really want to keep arguing for that tactic, then please show me a legitimate replay at least.
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Tested the OP's build out, loses to a blink-stalker + MSC allin.
@Luzian - Gate/Robo FE feels to be at a huge disadvantage once there's a critical mass of voidrays out (8+) even with blink. How do you deal with that play? Would you mind posting some replays?
Re: double gas steal - One of the easiest things to do in this scenario is to proxy 2gate with your scouting probe - you're ahead in economy => just kill him.
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Not to get into the debate about openings, but I will say that late game voidray armies vs. stalker/high templar armies are very strange. Take a look at Abomb's game. He admitted after the match that he probably should have done more baiting on the charged up voidrays, but the long and short of it is that it took about 6 bases of stalker high templar to beat 3.5 bases of voidrays.
You can start watching from about the 1:13:00 or later mark.
http://www.twitch.tv/abombtv/b/371277929
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On February 28 2013 10:58 althaz wrote:
If they steal one gas, you just take the other and 4-gate them (building a pylon in their main is usually possible if they build three assimilators).
Also, this bug was listed as fixed in a patch a while ago, no idea if it actually is or not though.
That's why I suggested it on maps where the geysers are adjacent. You have less than one second to react between the first and second gases being stolen, good luck.
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EPT
