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okay so so im kinda sad atm since i didnt win a contest for a beta key [just found out a few minutes ago ] but after seeing the winner i realized two things
1) the winners entry blew everyone elses out of the water [ i really liked the unit ideas and hope blizzard reads them] so i basically had no chance from the start, its here http://vilegaming.com/forums/topics/23164/savant_pestilisk_condor [im quite embarrassed of my entry tbh, haha]
2) TOSS AIR UNITS SUCK
[ for anyone wondering ,the contest and the winners entry along with other good entries is here http://vilegaming.com/page/510 we were supposed to come up with new unit ideas for sc2 ]
note; im playing off a friends key and can only play a few hours day since hes always on and i play zerg
ive come to realize that the vast majority of protoss players dont rely on their air units much at all. the key cheap and staple air units for protoss are obviously the void ray and phoenix, but i still dont see them used much except for void ray rushes. i rarely see toss players send an ground/air combination attack with void rays [ http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Void_Ray ] and phoenixes [ http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Phoenix ].
the void rays attack is very powerful within a few seconds sure, but in decent sized war between 2 armies theyre kinda useless [from what ive seen]. yes i know their attacks power continues on from each unit to the next, but there is still a quick delay between switching targets and that will happen a lot as units in large wars die quickly. and since they die quickly that means it takes longer for void rays to power up, even if slightly. good players will use them to target the enemies key units but more often than not they get targeted right back and raped.
now we have phoenixes. their AA attack is rather weak in general [ about 10 base dmg]. ive seen good players use their graviton beam quite well, but from what i see its energy cost is too high for it to be used more often [picking out the enemies key units]
for comparison purposes, the zerg has the mutalisk which attacks both ground and air and harasses really well AND its one unit so its versatile. i know weve all seen just how destructive a muta mass can be. terran has the banshee and reaper which attack only ground OR air respectively, and do great deals of damage each.
so basically i think protoss needs another air unit. blizzard can go 3 ways with this....
a) a caster support unit. apparently they had one but was scrapped http://www.sc2armory.com/game/protoss/units/stasis-orb
whats cool about that unit is its ability though
b) or a pure air to ground damage unit to keep up with the other races.
c) give us back the scout or corsair [with its dweb ability]
Poll: what should change?
(Vote): caster unit
(Vote): pure ATG unit
(Vote): bring scout or corsair
i dont know, im kinda babbling now, haha. i just really dont see toss air used much out of the games ive played and tons of streams ive watched. i have seen a lot of people complaining about toss' lack of anti air though 
what do you guys think protoss needs for air support, if anything?
[ btw thought this unit was also really interesting http://www.sc2armory.com/game/protoss/units/escort ]
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i want my disruption webs back! :D this may just be me, but i actually see void rays used 50% of the time. o_o
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If Protoss gained an air to ground unit, it would either have to be really creative and different, or it would be just like the Banshee.
Protoss and Terran are looking pretty similar in SC2 as it is.
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explain yourself. i dont really see any glaring similarities at all.
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can we get the old carrier back too while we're at it?
Protoss air units just suck in general, it's insulting
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Give the Phoenix splash damage like the corsair, and most of Toss's AA problems will be solved.
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Colossus is barely not an air unit anyway.
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protoss have the only unit that every thing can attack, the weekest air, by golly, if they let the collossus attack air with its sweep i whould be happy (we all know colossus needs imporvement. also, protoss has the least selection of air in my mind. by golly, it's like blizzard wants protoss to be week and vonarable. aren't they soposed to be the most advanced race. the zerg seem to be wiser then the protoss and protoss can teleport!!!
for that mater, if protoss could worp in air units like they can ground troops, that whould help alot!
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We have GtA units in abundance...
Stalker, sentry, high templar are nice vs. those with energy and swarms of mutas (takes some micro to be effective at storming them) although HT have probably been nerfed to the point there more-so useful for feedback.
Compare that to terran marines, thors, and ghosts or zerg hydras and queens. We have the GtA options, at least as many as other races do. The problem is our Air units are very niche role oriented.
Both of our pre-fleet beacon air units are better at base and ground unit harassment than true fleet-battle scenarios. This MIGHT be understandable if the carrier in small numbers, or the mothership by itself, was a suitable source of air superiority, but right now a terran or zerg can achieve air control over a toss without sacrificing enough ground control that their base is in eminent danger. That is the reason viking/banshee is very effective in TvP (we'd probably see a lot more of that if marauders were not so amazing against all P ground units). It is also the reason that zerg air can completely contain the protoss on several maps and if allowed to reach t3 (brood lords and lots of corrupters with mutas) there is just no stopping them.
I don't so-much consider zerg air a problem anymore with the buff to stalker base damage (although if more PvZ's went into t3, this could come up more often), but the issue with PvT air is very problematic right now, as our inability to go AtG leaves us wide-open to marauder massing in game after game.
Honestly, I think the solution is rather simple (make the ray a true AtG UNIT KILLER and not some weird building-buster), but i'd also like to see carriers and the mothership get another look. They're pretty embarassing units for the tip-end of t3 themselves, espcially the mothership, compared to brood lords, BC's, Ravens, etc.
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Where is the option for "Nothing should be changed"?
Protoss have plenty of air power. Just because it isn't being used doesn't mean it isn't good. Dick around with the protoss air and see what you come up with.
Also, note that the phoenix is 10 x 2 base damage, not just 10. It's not bad at all and with it's gravity-lift ability lets it snipe key units during battles (Or raids. Queen sniping while overlord hunting really hurts the zerg macro)
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Buff Carriers, IMO. I mean, after all, Mass Carriers should equal instant win, right (lol...)? But it does seem like Protoss air is lacking. I hardly ever use Druid of the TalonsPhoenixs, and only use Void Rays to cheese people.
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Carriers kinda need a buff right now. Carriers need to be a late game last resort like how PvT was in sc1. Everything just seems to tear through carriers in sc2. Maybe in PvP carriers might be viable.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
Bring back the Tempest!!
Nah Protoss air is alright at the moment imo. Phoenix are a ridiculously cool unit, Void Rays have their place and Carriers are Carriers. Only issue with Protoss air atm is with the Mothership - i'd like to see a air caster given to Protoss other than that I'm pretty happy.
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Toss air is fine, like..seriously, your void rays are useful, pheonixes are very useful, carriers are good in some situations and the mothership is just lol.
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Protoss air is really strong, it does not need any buffs
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I think Colossus already kind of fills the ATG role in SC2. It does great ground damage and can scale cliffs, giving it nearly the mobility of an air unit.
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Protoss air is fine, people just don't know how to use Phoenix. I barely ever encounter them, but when I've played against toss who use Phoenix and anti-grav well, they are very very annoying. An air superiority fighter that is faster than mutas... tell me what's wrong with that?
I don't think Void Ray or Carrier really needs any comment... their roles are pretty easy to see and they are both used quite often to great effect.
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mhmm... I feel like Protoss lacks a Air-Unit that does good DMG to a variety of targets (not like Voidray which can sometimes deal huge amounts of DMG and against certain Units just totally suck). Because as of now, you could go for Stargates but just for either counter other air-units or to go for some kind of cheese.
It's really hard to go for a starport and have a longterm-build planned that keeps using the stargate.
Lets say Protoss fights against Zerg and compare it to Air-Units from the starport of the Terrans when fighting against Zerg.
Vikings and Phoenix could both be used to harrass Overlords, to scout and harrass drones etc. - so far, so good. Now what can Protoss build after that? Carriers aren't really an option and they get out way too late compared to Medivacs, which Terran can use in every matchup and Ravens, which are a good lategame-unit against Zerg. Voidrays are also just good if you surprise your opponent, so not a good choice for a standard-build that incorporates a Stargate.
It's also very hard to win with a stargate just for a few phoenix harrassing overlords and scouting around, when facing against a mass-roach-push or a Zerg just massing drones and Units like crazy. You really can't affort funny stuff like the Phoenix or Voidray, if you don't plan to win with some sort of cheese allin-move.
Protoss therefore needs a Stargate-Unit that is either a viable support-Unit or that does a good amaount of DMG. Sth like an Arbiter from SC1, Ravens or a banshee or maybe change sth about the phoenix or the stargate itself so you could afford it and not loose to some sort of mass-roaches. Starport is just not an option right now, even if many builds could use a Phoenix scouting around and killing overlords, you just loose against Mass-Ground-Units. Protoss is also the only Race that has no Air-Unit that is good at countering big Units like the collossus or heavy air-Units like Battlecruisers or Carriers (Z has Corruptors and T has Vikings).
But it's definitely true that there is sth wrong with Protoss-Air-Units and Blizz should change sth there. I really miss sth like an Arbiter (okay, Warpprism is kinda the new Aribter if you want sth like a recall. ^^') or Corsairs, that always worked against Z. You could even build a stargate just for a handfull of corsairs for scouting and killing a few overlords without the opponent going for Mutas. In SC2, you won't get away with that and get run over by Zerg just massing up roaches, zerglings or Hydras...
It's just sth very strange about SC2 I can't really put my finger on that makes it all about massing Units... Maybe it's just the Metagame or the rock-paper-scissor-gameplay, the non-existing highground-advantage, too weak static defense and too strong Tier1-Units...? ^^'
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On April 05 2010 16:03 Plexa wrote:
Bring back the Tempest!!
Nah Protoss air is alright at the moment imo. Phoenix are a ridiculously cool unit, Void Rays have their place and Carriers are Carriers. Only issue with Protoss air atm is with the Mothership - i'd like to see a air caster given to Protoss other than that I'm pretty happy.
I was actually going to suggest that as a serious idea!
Bring back the tempest! Have it function as a light-carrier that can only attack ground units. That whole extra-armor-vs-ground-attacks idea was cool as well.
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On April 05 2010 15:33 ComradeDover wrote:
Where is the option for "Nothing should be changed"?
Protoss have plenty of air power. Just because it isn't being used doesn't mean it isn't good. Dick around with the protoss air and see what you come up with.
Also, note that the phoenix is 10 x 2 base damage, not just 10. It's not bad at all and with it's gravity-lift ability lets it snipe key units during battles (Or raids. Queen sniping while overlord hunting really hurts the zerg macro)
It's actually 5 x 2 (+5 vs Light) but no air unit is a "light" type, except maybe mutalisks. That bonus only comes in handy when you're lifting workers or if you're actually lifting zealots/lings/rines.
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On April 05 2010 23:21 Haemonculus wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 16:03 Plexa wrote:
Bring back the Tempest!!
Nah Protoss air is alright at the moment imo. Phoenix are a ridiculously cool unit, Void Rays have their place and Carriers are Carriers. Only issue with Protoss air atm is with the Mothership - i'd like to see a air caster given to Protoss other than that I'm pretty happy. I was actually going to suggest that as a serious idea! Bring back the tempest! Have it function as a light-carrier that can only attack ground units. That whole extra-armor-vs-ground-attacks idea was cool as well.
What is tempest?
I have seen it before but it looked just like carrier but with melee attack.
Would be seriously cool to see a smaller version of carrier before the real comes..
Like with 3 interceptors and AtG..
Protoss needs something more..
Stuff it has is just too specific in use..
Im not even sure how good are carriers right now for their price with so many good counters..
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On April 05 2010 23:29 Amber[LighT] wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 15:33 ComradeDover wrote:
Where is the option for "Nothing should be changed"?
Protoss have plenty of air power. Just because it isn't being used doesn't mean it isn't good. Dick around with the protoss air and see what you come up with.
Also, note that the phoenix is 10 x 2 base damage, not just 10. It's not bad at all and with it's gravity-lift ability lets it snipe key units during battles (Or raids. Queen sniping while overlord hunting really hurts the zerg macro) It's actually 5 x 2 (+5 vs Light) but no air unit is a "light" type, except maybe mutalisks. That bonus only comes in handy when you're lifting workers or if you're actually lifting zealots/lings/rines.
And again: Try utilizing Phoenix against sm1 not going for a lot of Mutas and you won't stand a chance. You can't build a Unit that late in the game just to harrass a bit. That maybe works very early on with stuff like Reapers, but to build a stargate and phoenix just to kill some overlords and do some scouting and harrass a little bit here and there won't work.
Phoenix are at best a counter-unit to maybe Mutas or Voidrays, but you can't really go for a stargate and integrate that into a standard and solid build, it just doesn't work atm. There is no Unit in the Stargate that can be used as a staple against another race like Arbiters/Carriers in TvP or Corsairs in TvZ back in the (g)olden SC1-days and that just hurts the versatility of SC2 a bit.
Terran has Medivacs which can always be used and Ravens and Vikings which are pretty good as well and Banshees which deal a lot of DMG and can get cloaked, Zerg has Mutas which are decent in most MU's and Corruptors which work well as a counterunit to Collossi for example and of course the Broodlords, so it's also viable to go for a Spire in almost all of the MU's, but P just has no solid Units you can build a non-cheesey strategy around in their Stargate...
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The Stargate is pretty much useless at the moment. Compare the three basic air units of Protoss vs Terran and you see how lackluster they are.
In one corner, Phoenix, Void ray and Warp Prism
Compared to Viking, Banshee and Medivac.
(if you want to make it really sad compare Raven to Mothership)
Two gimmick units and one decent one compared to 3 extremely useful units. There is simply nothing to argue about, the 3 basic Terran air units are far superior to the Protoss ones in every possible way.
If you read the in-game tooltip for Phoenix it even says its "Strong against: Viking". Unfortunately it's not strong against the viking at all, cost for cost they are pretty much even and the Viking can attack ground and is nearly equal to a stalker in efficiency in that role. Same with the Muta, Pheonix and Mutas are almost equal cost for cost, except the Muta can also attack ground. What should be done in my opinion is to make the Phoenix a viable unit (buff it) and make the void ray less gimmick. The only thing its good for currently is to cheese and take out an early nexus or Hatchery.
The Mothership I'm not even going to comment on, it's not even a gimmick, I've never seen it used in any game what-so-ever since its nerf.
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Carriers would use a bit of a boost, but I wouldn't go as far as saying their air sucks. After all, they do have void rays, and a perfect versatile natural anti-air (Stalkers)
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On April 05 2010 23:48 Paladia wrote:
The Stargate is pretty much useless at the moment. Compare the three basic air units of Protoss vs Terran and you see how lackluster they are.
In one corner, Phoenix, Void ray and Warp Prism
Compared to Viking, Banshee and Medivac.
Two gimmick units and one decent one compared to 3 extremely useful units. There is simply nothing to argue about, the 3 basic Terran air units are far superior to the Protoss ones in every possible way.
If you read the in-game tooltip for Phoenix it even says its "Strong against: Viking". Unfortunately it's not strong against the viking at all, cost for cost they are pretty much even and the Viking can attack ground and is nearly equal to a stalker in efficiency in that role. What should be done in my opinion is to make the Phoenix a viable unit (buff it) and make the void ray less gimmick. The only thing its good for currently is to cheese and take out an early nexus or Hatchery.
The Mothership I'm not even going to comment on, it's not even a gimmick, I've never seen it used in any game what-so-ever since its nerf.
Warp-Prism is quite okay IMHO, but it's not a Stargate-Unit, it's built in the Robo. ^^'
The Robo is really great IMHO, you have solid Units like Immo and Collo which are heavily used, than u have more "supporty" Stuff like Observers and of course the Warp-Prism, which is an awesome and heavily underused Unit.
Just to plug a bit for the Warp-Prism:
- Collossi-Drops are awesome and work similar to reaver-drops against Terran, but it also works well against Z and P, cuz Collos 1shot Drones and Probes.
- There are a lot of Island-Expansion that can be taken with an early Warpprism and later on defended easily with Cannons and warp-in's
- Immortal-Drops against Terran are also very good to pick off workers, Building-Addons and Depots.
- In the Lategame, just fly in a Prism, make it into the pylon and warp-in stuff from 6-10 Warpgates: Works just like a recall into the enemys base in SC1 - awesome stuff!
- instead of investing into an offensive pylon for 150 Mins, just build a Prism for 200/0 and use that instead!
In TvP, I almost always go for a prism in the Lategame or even very early on for Immo/Collossi-Drops and Island-Expansions, but it's a bit hard to get one out early on, because you really often need the 200 mins for attacking-Units... :S
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I've been rolled by protoss air before. Once they get so many void rays and phoenixes, it becomes fairly hard to deal with, but not impossible. I could see void rays getting a bit of a boost, but too much and it becomes a problem.
I think the carrier needs a bit of a buff, but the problem with that is that while carrier masses are strong, carrier mothership masses are practically unbeatable due to cloaking. If they upgraded the carrier too much, that's exactly what we'd see.
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On April 05 2010 23:57 onmach wrote:
I've been rolled by protoss air before. Once they get so many void rays and phoenixes, it becomes fairly hard to deal with, but not impossible. I could see void rays getting a bit of a boost, but too much and it becomes a problem.
Yeah - but that's just a cheesey allin and NO - VRays don't need a buff in a hundred years! ^^'
And Carriers wouldn't really work even with a buff, because there are so many extremely strong counters. In SC1, they worked against Terran when you were able to abuse the Mapstructure to keep the Goliaths running around the Map while you are above a cliff and they couldn't attack you etc. Now with stuff like Corrputors and Vikings, they don't stand a chance. Besides, Stimmed Marines demolish Interceptors like crazy.
Carriers can be still used to surprise the opponent in the very lategame, but thats not really a solid build to aim for that makes stargate early on or in the Midgame a solid option.
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On April 06 2010 00:00 kickinhead wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 23:57 onmach wrote:
I've been rolled by protoss air before. Once they get so many void rays and phoenixes, it becomes fairly hard to deal with, but not impossible. I could see void rays getting a bit of a boost, but too much and it becomes a problem. Yeah - but that's just a cheesey allin and NO - VRays don't need a buff in a hundred years! ^^' And Carriers wouldn't really work even with a buff, because there are so many extremely strong counters. In SC1, they worked against Terran when you were able to abuse the Mapstructure to keep the Goliaths running around the Map while you are above a cliff and they couldn't attack you etc. Now with stuff like Corrputors and Vikings, they don't stand a chance. Besides, Stimmed Marines demolish Interceptors like crazy. Carriers can be still used to surprise the opponent in the very lategame, but thats not really a solid build to aim for that makes stargate early on or in the Midgame a solid option.
I think battlecruisers will be more common than carriers..
They have more hp, armor and yamato which 1 shots corruptors, vikings and they have the highest dps to ground in the game.
And if you make carriers against zerg you can expect broodlords as soon as corruptors deal with them... Not that anyone would be crazy enough to make battlecruisers or carriers against zerg and versatile hydras anyway..but whats the point of capital ships and investing so much money if they have easy counters for every race..
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On April 06 2010 00:00 kickinhead wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 23:57 onmach wrote:
I've been rolled by protoss air before. Once they get so many void rays and phoenixes, it becomes fairly hard to deal with, but not impossible. I could see void rays getting a bit of a boost, but too much and it becomes a problem. Yeah - but that's just a cheesey allin and NO - VRays don't need a buff in a hundred years! ^^' And Carriers wouldn't really work even with a buff, because there are so many extremely strong counters. In SC1, they worked against Terran when you were able to abuse the Mapstructure to keep the Goliaths running around the Map while you are above a cliff and they couldn't attack you etc. Now with stuff like Corrputors and Vikings, they don't stand a chance. Besides, Stimmed Marines demolish Interceptors like crazy. Carriers can be still used to surprise the opponent in the very lategame, but thats not really a solid build to aim for that makes stargate early on or in the Midgame a solid option.
I think that interceptors overall die to easily. Maybe because everything seems to attack faster or something, but god, they evaporate so fast.
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Let this sentance be an expression of my exasperation:
REVAMP PROTOSS AIR OMFGZZ!111
What I think should happen is:
Remove the Mothership/Void Rays
Tweak the Phoenix and Carrier
Add a Caster (Stargate-built) unit with cloak and some new abilities
Add an AtG AoE unit.
This is my opinion. Don't flame just 'cause u disagree. It's vital that Blizz does something, so let's get noticed.
I also made this post in the arbiter thread before I noticed this one. Sorry.
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On April 06 2010 00:21 exeprime wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2010 00:00 kickinhead wrote:On April 05 2010 23:57 onmach wrote:
I've been rolled by protoss air before. Once they get so many void rays and phoenixes, it becomes fairly hard to deal with, but not impossible. I could see void rays getting a bit of a boost, but too much and it becomes a problem. Yeah - but that's just a cheesey allin and NO - VRays don't need a buff in a hundred years! ^^' And Carriers wouldn't really work even with a buff, because there are so many extremely strong counters. In SC1, they worked against Terran when you were able to abuse the Mapstructure to keep the Goliaths running around the Map while you are above a cliff and they couldn't attack you etc. Now with stuff like Corrputors and Vikings, they don't stand a chance. Besides, Stimmed Marines demolish Interceptors like crazy. Carriers can be still used to surprise the opponent in the very lategame, but thats not really a solid build to aim for that makes stargate early on or in the Midgame a solid option. I think that interceptors overall die to easily. Maybe because everything seems to attack faster or something, but god, they evaporate so fast.
carriers
vs Z: hydras, corruptors.. Make as many as you want in a short time..
vs T: reactor vikings, marines, thor.. Im guessing new splash thor would just melt all interceptors in few seconds
vs P:stalkers, void rays
So is there a place for carriers now?
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I really dont think p needs much an air buff but I personally think that if phoenix had splash, even a little area, would be great. It just seems so hard to kill mutas so I think we need either mael or some splash damage
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Colossus: chop the stupid spindly spider legs off it that would crumple like tin when a nearby zergling farts.
Make it fly: a testiment to true Protoss ingenuity.
Make it hella expensive like colosus but with 6 (upgradable to 8) range and a decent move speed (maybe slow, upped to less slow) Give it an AoE attack, like collosus, but maybe under some energy cost or, more naustalgically, 15 min scarabs. Give it some ability where it's attack has some glaring disadvantage (kind of like scarabs retardation only not) but is very strong when microed properly. Unlike colossus.
Immortal takes colossus slot at robo. Bam. Now toss needs all 3 buildings to have a balanced force AND a scary airforce which is mandatory for the most powerful alien race in the cosmos.
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The only thing wrong with Protoss air is Phoenixes. It makes me laugh when people say they are useful. THEY'RE WORTHLESS, COME ON. None of you have ever played a PvZ where the Z goes mass Muta. It's unbeatable. You can't go Phoenix because Mutas will eat them up as soon as there are more than 10 of them, you can't go Void Rays because their attack is too slow, you can't go Carrier because you will have lost by the time you even get one and you can't properly defend your base and your expand from the harass with Stalkers because Mutas are too damn fast, even if you get Blink.
Phoenixes need some AoE to counter Mutalisks. I've lost to so many Zergs that just do Mutalisks in massive amounts and don't do anything else. Cannons don't counter the harass either, and they can get out of a Storm very easily too thanks to their speed. Protoss need something to deal with them.
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what? you're gonna make toss air better by nerfing toss ground?
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Buff the mothership... problem solved?
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Protoss air is kind of weaksauce in the early-midgame, but Void Rays become much, much stronger with every attack upgrade. +50% damage vs. light units for every attack upgrade (only +20% damage against armored targets because the base damage is much higher), makes upgrades like the Hellion's Infernal Pre-Igniter seem like a joke.
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On April 05 2010 23:29 Amber[LighT] wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 15:33 ComradeDover wrote:
Where is the option for "Nothing should be changed"?
Protoss have plenty of air power. Just because it isn't being used doesn't mean it isn't good. Dick around with the protoss air and see what you come up with.
Also, note that the phoenix is 10 x 2 base damage, not just 10. It's not bad at all and with it's gravity-lift ability lets it snipe key units during battles (Or raids. Queen sniping while overlord hunting really hurts the zerg macro) It's actually 5 x 2 (+5 vs Light) but no air unit is a "light" type, except maybe mutalisks. That bonus only comes in handy when you're lifting workers or if you're actually lifting zealots/lings/rines.
Phoenix are Light, Banshees are Light, Mutas are Light.
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I have seen a few examples recently of a few Void Rays outside of your main force causing havoc for both Zerg and Terran opponents. They seem to be a pretty devastating harassment tool in the right circumstances.
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On April 06 2010 00:54 Spaylz wrote:
The only thing wrong with Protoss air is Phoenixes. It makes me laugh when people say they are useful. THEY'RE WORTHLESS, COME ON. None of you have ever played a PvZ where the Z goes mass Muta. It's unbeatable. You can't go Phoenix because Mutas will eat them up as soon as there are more than 10 of them, you can't go Void Rays because their attack is too slow, you can't go Carrier because you will have lost by the time you even get one and you can't properly defend your base and your expand from the harass with Stalkers because Mutas are too damn fast, even if you get Blink.
Phoenixes need some AoE to counter Mutalisks. I've lost to so many Zergs that just do Mutalisks in massive amounts and don't do anything else. Cannons don't counter the harass either, and they can get out of a Storm very easily too thanks to their speed. Protoss need something to deal with them.
You're probably some copper league scrub if you think Mutas are unbeatable and Phoenix are worthless.
With the stalker buff, stalkers+sentries and maybe 1 or 2 cannons at your mineral lines are all the anti-muta you will ever need. Phoenix absolutely rape muta in 2:3 ratios with good micro/focus firing. Obviously if you only build like 4-5 Phoenix for early harass and expect it to kill 10 mutas you're dreaming. They're different from BW sairs in that you only need like 6 sairs to deal with practically any amount of mutas zerg throws at you. Not so in SC2. Get that in your mind. Learn it. Phoenix don't have splash so you need to produce a larger amount of them.
Also, Phoenix AG skill is ridiculous in terms of base harassment and they're also quite useful in battles. It basically takes X units out of the battle where X is the number of Phoenix you have.
The only issue I have with mutas is when they use them in combination with mass zerglings or hydras. It's kinda ridiculous imo how many mutas and zerglings they can produce off just 2 bases.
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On April 06 2010 01:40 Ryuu314 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2010 00:54 Spaylz wrote:
The only thing wrong with Protoss air is Phoenixes. It makes me laugh when people say they are useful. THEY'RE WORTHLESS, COME ON. None of you have ever played a PvZ where the Z goes mass Muta. It's unbeatable. You can't go Phoenix because Mutas will eat them up as soon as there are more than 10 of them, you can't go Void Rays because their attack is too slow, you can't go Carrier because you will have lost by the time you even get one and you can't properly defend your base and your expand from the harass with Stalkers because Mutas are too damn fast, even if you get Blink.
Phoenixes need some AoE to counter Mutalisks. I've lost to so many Zergs that just do Mutalisks in massive amounts and don't do anything else. Cannons don't counter the harass either, and they can get out of a Storm very easily too thanks to their speed. Protoss need something to deal with them. You're probably some copper league scrub if you think Mutas are unbeatable and Phoenix are worthless. With the stalker buff, stalkers+sentries and maybe 1 or 2 cannons at your mineral lines are all the anti-muta you will ever need. Phoenix absolutely rape muta in 2:3 ratios with good micro/focus firing. Obviously if you only build like 4-5 Phoenix for early harass and expect it to kill 10 mutas you're dreaming. They're different from BW sairs in that you only need like 6 sairs to deal with practically any amount of mutas zerg throws at you. Not so in SC2. Get that in your mind. Learn it. Phoenix don't have splash so you need to produce a larger amount of them. Also, Phoenix AG skill is ridiculous in terms of base harassment and they're also quite useful in battles. It basically takes X units out of the battle where X is the number of Phoenix you have. The only issue I have with mutas is when they use them in combination with mass zerglings or hydras. It's kinda ridiculous imo how many mutas and zerglings they can produce off just 2 bases.
Ok man. I never said I expected 5 Phoenixes to kill 10 Mutas. 10 Phoenixes will indeed rape 10 Mutalisks, but any fight involving a higher and equal amount of both those units will result in Mutalisks raping Phoenixes because of the bounce. You CAN'T counter the harass with 2 cannons and a few Stalkers man, get fucking real. A Zerg will come with like 12 Mutalisks and will kill 20 probes before you kill like 5 Mutalisks. Even if you manage to hang in there while he's harassing, the Zerg can still do whatever he wants meanwhile.
Not to mention, as it was pointed out before, Phoenix cost 150/100 while Mutalisks cost 100/100 except they can attack ground and a Stargate is not necesseraly part of any real build (yet). And don't tell me Phoenixes can do that also with the gravity spell, because it's just not comparable with Mutalisks.
"The only issue I have with mutas is when they use them in combination with mass zerglings or hydras. It's kinda ridiculous imo how many mutas and zerglings they can produce off just 2 bases."
That was kind of implied, since I said that while he's harassing you and you're struggling to counter said harass, the Zerg can expand all he wants or can produce an insane amount of unit by pumping on his two bases. A production you will never match by replacing the probes you lost to the harass and going back and forth with your Stalkers to defend both your mineral lines. Because once again NO, 2 cannons and 5 Stalkers will never fend off 10 Mutalisks before they get a chance to destroy a butload of probes.
So please, next time you try to argue with me, don't call me a scrub and don't throw your annoying frustration my way.
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Something I'm not getting. How is the pheonix any different from the Corsair, if not more powerful? The low damage or something?
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On April 06 2010 01:55 Fruscainte wrote:
Something I'm not getting. How is the pheonix any different from the Corsair, if not more powerful? The low damage or something?
Corsairs had AoE. Phoenixes don't.
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On April 06 2010 01:40 Ryuu314 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2010 00:54 Spaylz wrote:
The only thing wrong with Protoss air is Phoenixes. It makes me laugh when people say they are useful. THEY'RE WORTHLESS, COME ON. None of you have ever played a PvZ where the Z goes mass Muta. It's unbeatable. You can't go Phoenix because Mutas will eat them up as soon as there are more than 10 of them, you can't go Void Rays because their attack is too slow, you can't go Carrier because you will have lost by the time you even get one and you can't properly defend your base and your expand from the harass with Stalkers because Mutas are too damn fast, even if you get Blink.
Phoenixes need some AoE to counter Mutalisks. I've lost to so many Zergs that just do Mutalisks in massive amounts and don't do anything else. Cannons don't counter the harass either, and they can get out of a Storm very easily too thanks to their speed. Protoss need something to deal with them. Phoenix absolutely rape muta in 2:3 ratios with good micro/focus firing. Actually it's a pretty even fight and the Phoenix costs much more, take longer to produce, requires at least two Stargates AND it suppose to specifically counter Mutas (there is no other air fighter it does above 50% damage to with the exception of Banshee). While the Muta does full damage to everything, including ground.
Phoenix is just a really poor unit overall, the idea is good but it's too specific and even the thing it is specifically for, it is not even cost effective against.
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mutalisks are faster than phoenixes so with good micro a equal number muta/phoenix the muta will win.
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On April 06 2010 01:54 Spaylz wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2010 01:40 Ryuu314 wrote:On April 06 2010 00:54 Spaylz wrote:
The only thing wrong with Protoss air is Phoenixes. It makes me laugh when people say they are useful. THEY'RE WORTHLESS, COME ON. None of you have ever played a PvZ where the Z goes mass Muta. It's unbeatable. You can't go Phoenix because Mutas will eat them up as soon as there are more than 10 of them, you can't go Void Rays because their attack is too slow, you can't go Carrier because you will have lost by the time you even get one and you can't properly defend your base and your expand from the harass with Stalkers because Mutas are too damn fast, even if you get Blink.
Phoenixes need some AoE to counter Mutalisks. I've lost to so many Zergs that just do Mutalisks in massive amounts and don't do anything else. Cannons don't counter the harass either, and they can get out of a Storm very easily too thanks to their speed. Protoss need something to deal with them. You're probably some copper league scrub if you think Mutas are unbeatable and Phoenix are worthless. With the stalker buff, stalkers+sentries and maybe 1 or 2 cannons at your mineral lines are all the anti-muta you will ever need. Phoenix absolutely rape muta in 2:3 ratios with good micro/focus firing. Obviously if you only build like 4-5 Phoenix for early harass and expect it to kill 10 mutas you're dreaming. They're different from BW sairs in that you only need like 6 sairs to deal with practically any amount of mutas zerg throws at you. Not so in SC2. Get that in your mind. Learn it. Phoenix don't have splash so you need to produce a larger amount of them. Also, Phoenix AG skill is ridiculous in terms of base harassment and they're also quite useful in battles. It basically takes X units out of the battle where X is the number of Phoenix you have. The only issue I have with mutas is when they use them in combination with mass zerglings or hydras. It's kinda ridiculous imo how many mutas and zerglings they can produce off just 2 bases. Ok man. I never said I expected 5 Phoenixes to kill 10 Mutas. 10 Phoenixes will indeed rape 10 Mutalisks, but any fight involving a higher and equal amount of both those units will result in Mutalisks raping Phoenixes because of the bounce. You CAN'T counter the harass with 2 cannons and a few Stalkers man, get fucking real. A Zerg will come with like 12 Mutalisks and will kill 20 probes before you kill like 5 Mutalisks. Even if you manage to hang in there while he's harassing, the Zerg can still do whatever he wants meanwhile. Not to mention, as it was pointed out before, Phoenix cost 150/100 while Mutalisks cost 100/100 except they can attack ground and a Stargate is not necesseraly part of any real build (yet). And don't tell me Phoenixes can do that also with the gravity spell, because it's just not comparable with Mutalisks. "The only issue I have with mutas is when they use them in combination with mass zerglings or hydras. It's kinda ridiculous imo how many mutas and zerglings they can produce off just 2 bases." That was kind of implied, since I said that while he's harassing you and you're struggling to counter said harass, the Zerg can expand all he wants or can produce an insane amount of unit by pumping on his two bases. A production you will never match by replacing the probes you lost to the harass and going back and forth with your Stalkers to defend both your mineral lines. Because once again NO, 2 cannons and 5 Stalkers will never fend off 10 Mutalisks before they get a chance to destroy a butload of probes. So please, next time you try to argue with me, don't call me a scrub and don't throw your annoying frustration my way.
First off, what do you mean by higher and equal? You said 10 phoenix will rape 10 mutas so...what? Go youtube the 100 phoenix v. 100 muta video. Phoenix win by a long shot. As long as you maintain a decent ratio of phoenix to muta, phoenix will always come out on top with micro.
And yes, I agree with you that Phoenix cost more and build slower than Mutas. Which is why I never said you had to counter mutas with only phoenix. And don't say AG is a useless spell or that it's not comparable with mutas or w/e. Watch orb's streams. He uses phoenix AG to a rather great success. Now, I'm not saying that making Phoenix will win you the game every time. In fact, massing phoenix will probably get you steamrolled. What I am saying though, is that Phoenix are not worthless as you say they are. They just need to be used properly in moderation.
Also, you're not supposed to hold off 10 mutas with 2 cannons and 5 stalkers. Just look at resource cost. 10 mutas (1000 min and 1000 gas) cost way more than 2 cannons and 5 stalkers (925 minerals 125 gas). Of course the 2 cannons and 5 stalkers are going to lose. Are you kidding me? You're supposed to get more than just 5 stalkers if you see zerg investing heavily in muta. You need something like 2 stalkers for every 3 mutas they bring. Also, you conveniently ignored the fact that I said cannons, stalkers and sentries. Sentries guardian shield basically nullifies muta bounce attack. They are pretty dam good versus muta.
How do I know this? Because I've done it, and other players much better than I have done it. It's very possible and easy to hold off muta harass with cannons stalkers and sentries. Actually try it before saying it's impossible. And when I say try it I don't mean trying to kill 10 mutas with 5 stalkers; that's ridiculous.
@Grim Reaper: I'm pretty darn sure it's the other way around. Phoenix are faster than muta...
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Bring back the scout and make it not suck vs ground :O
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they should turn motherships into arbitor, scrap carriers, buff warp rays to be the new protoss "capital" ship (maybe by giving them more health and splash damage?) replacing carriers and then I think their air is fine (and MAYBE buff pheonix's attack a little bit or something).
They already have 4 air unit's enough (really I think 3 is fine lol).
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On April 06 2010 01:40 Ryuu314 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2010 00:54 Spaylz wrote:
The only thing wrong with Protoss air is Phoenixes. It makes me laugh when people say they are useful. THEY'RE WORTHLESS, COME ON. None of you have ever played a PvZ where the Z goes mass Muta. It's unbeatable. You can't go Phoenix because Mutas will eat them up as soon as there are more than 10 of them, you can't go Void Rays because their attack is too slow, you can't go Carrier because you will have lost by the time you even get one and you can't properly defend your base and your expand from the harass with Stalkers because Mutas are too damn fast, even if you get Blink.
Phoenixes need some AoE to counter Mutalisks. I've lost to so many Zergs that just do Mutalisks in massive amounts and don't do anything else. Cannons don't counter the harass either, and they can get out of a Storm very easily too thanks to their speed. Protoss need something to deal with them. You're probably some copper league scrub if you think Mutas are unbeatable and Phoenix are worthless. With the stalker buff, stalkers+sentries and maybe 1 or 2 cannons at your mineral lines are all the anti-muta you will ever need. Phoenix absolutely rape muta in 2:3 ratios with good micro/focus firing. Obviously if you only build like 4-5 Phoenix for early harass and expect it to kill 10 mutas you're dreaming. They're different from BW sairs in that you only need like 6 sairs to deal with practically any amount of mutas zerg throws at you. Not so in SC2. Get that in your mind. Learn it. Phoenix don't have splash so you need to produce a larger amount of them. Also, Phoenix AG skill is ridiculous in terms of base harassment and they're also quite useful in battles. It basically takes X units out of the battle where X is the number of Phoenix you have. The only issue I have with mutas is when they use them in combination with mass zerglings or hydras. It's kinda ridiculous imo how many mutas and zerglings they can produce off just 2 bases.
Only problem I have with Mutas is that, yes, you can prevent them form raping your Probes with Cannons, Sentries, Stalkers, and Phoenixes, but only a sizeable Phoenix army will actually give you true safety and let you regain map control. So now that you got your 2 Stargates and your 7 Phoenixes, he rolls you with his Hydra/Roach/Ling army. Zerg's production is just too versatile. Even if you knew he'd go Muta, he could still outproduce you before you get a big enough Phoenix army.
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Just remove the Mothership and give us the arbiter back that is all I want.
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I agree - with the proper dose of phoenixes u fend off mutas. BUT making as many phoenixes as zerg has mutas is difficult (expensive, also requires those otherwise-useless Star Gates), whereas it's riddiculously easy for the zerg (just a spire, easy to transit to other units). Cannons/stalkers/sentries are fine as well, but mutas can outmicro sentries/cannons and stalkers alone aren't very well suited for the task (they're quite mobile with blink, but still not quite as mobile as mutas). If u go phoenixes (moderate ammounts), u should be safe in anti-air terms. That's not the situation. Right now to counter mutas u need a big anti-air oriented force (sentries+stalkers+cannons or tons of phoenixes). Phonixes need a buff!
On a side note a general air revamp is necesarry (for the Protoss).
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On April 06 2010 05:05 Ryuu314 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2010 01:54 Spaylz wrote:On April 06 2010 01:40 Ryuu314 wrote:On April 06 2010 00:54 Spaylz wrote:
The only thing wrong with Protoss air is Phoenixes. It makes me laugh when people say they are useful. THEY'RE WORTHLESS, COME ON. None of you have ever played a PvZ where the Z goes mass Muta. It's unbeatable. You can't go Phoenix because Mutas will eat them up as soon as there are more than 10 of them, you can't go Void Rays because their attack is too slow, you can't go Carrier because you will have lost by the time you even get one and you can't properly defend your base and your expand from the harass with Stalkers because Mutas are too damn fast, even if you get Blink.
Phoenixes need some AoE to counter Mutalisks. I've lost to so many Zergs that just do Mutalisks in massive amounts and don't do anything else. Cannons don't counter the harass either, and they can get out of a Storm very easily too thanks to their speed. Protoss need something to deal with them. You're probably some copper league scrub if you think Mutas are unbeatable and Phoenix are worthless. With the stalker buff, stalkers+sentries and maybe 1 or 2 cannons at your mineral lines are all the anti-muta you will ever need. Phoenix absolutely rape muta in 2:3 ratios with good micro/focus firing. Obviously if you only build like 4-5 Phoenix for early harass and expect it to kill 10 mutas you're dreaming. They're different from BW sairs in that you only need like 6 sairs to deal with practically any amount of mutas zerg throws at you. Not so in SC2. Get that in your mind. Learn it. Phoenix don't have splash so you need to produce a larger amount of them. Also, Phoenix AG skill is ridiculous in terms of base harassment and they're also quite useful in battles. It basically takes X units out of the battle where X is the number of Phoenix you have. The only issue I have with mutas is when they use them in combination with mass zerglings or hydras. It's kinda ridiculous imo how many mutas and zerglings they can produce off just 2 bases. Ok man. I never said I expected 5 Phoenixes to kill 10 Mutas. 10 Phoenixes will indeed rape 10 Mutalisks, but any fight involving a higher and equal amount of both those units will result in Mutalisks raping Phoenixes because of the bounce. You CAN'T counter the harass with 2 cannons and a few Stalkers man, get fucking real. A Zerg will come with like 12 Mutalisks and will kill 20 probes before you kill like 5 Mutalisks. Even if you manage to hang in there while he's harassing, the Zerg can still do whatever he wants meanwhile. Not to mention, as it was pointed out before, Phoenix cost 150/100 while Mutalisks cost 100/100 except they can attack ground and a Stargate is not necesseraly part of any real build (yet). And don't tell me Phoenixes can do that also with the gravity spell, because it's just not comparable with Mutalisks. "The only issue I have with mutas is when they use them in combination with mass zerglings or hydras. It's kinda ridiculous imo how many mutas and zerglings they can produce off just 2 bases." That was kind of implied, since I said that while he's harassing you and you're struggling to counter said harass, the Zerg can expand all he wants or can produce an insane amount of unit by pumping on his two bases. A production you will never match by replacing the probes you lost to the harass and going back and forth with your Stalkers to defend both your mineral lines. Because once again NO, 2 cannons and 5 Stalkers will never fend off 10 Mutalisks before they get a chance to destroy a butload of probes. So please, next time you try to argue with me, don't call me a scrub and don't throw your annoying frustration my way. First off, what do you mean by higher and equal? You said 10 phoenix will rape 10 mutas so...what? Go youtube the 100 phoenix v. 100 muta video. Phoenix win by a long shot. As long as you maintain a decent ratio of phoenix to muta, phoenix will always come out on top with micro. And yes, I agree with you that Phoenix cost more and build slower than Mutas. Which is why I never said you had to counter mutas with only phoenix. And don't say AG is a useless spell or that it's not comparable with mutas or w/e. Watch orb's streams. He uses phoenix AG to a rather great success. Now, I'm not saying that making Phoenix will win you the game every time. In fact, massing phoenix will probably get you steamrolled. What I am saying though, is that Phoenix are not worthless as you say they are. They just need to be used properly in moderation. Also, you're not supposed to hold off 10 mutas with 2 cannons and 5 stalkers. Just look at resource cost. 10 mutas (1000 min and 1000 gas) cost way more than 2 cannons and 5 stalkers (925 minerals 125 gas). Of course the 2 cannons and 5 stalkers are going to lose. Are you kidding me? You're supposed to get more than just 5 stalkers if you see zerg investing heavily in muta. You need something like 2 stalkers for every 3 mutas they bring. Also, you conveniently ignored the fact that I said cannons, stalkers and sentries. Sentries guardian shield basically nullifies muta bounce attack. They are pretty dam good versus muta. How do I know this? Because I've done it, and other players much better than I have done it. It's very possible and easy to hold off muta harass with cannons stalkers and sentries. Actually try it before saying it's impossible. And when I say try it I don't mean trying to kill 10 mutas with 5 stalkers; that's ridiculous. @Grim Reaper: I'm pretty darn sure it's the other way around. Phoenix are faster than muta...
....... I can't get enough of people that bring up that ridiculous video in an argument like this. You really believe this is relevant ? How does it help to know that 100 Phoenixes will kill 100 Mutas ? Will you ever be able to reproduce that pattern in a normal game ? No. There are dozens of other factors happening in a game that makes this video completely irrelevant. Oh ! I also saw a video of an Ultralisk killing 800 Zerglings. You seen an Ultralisk in a high level game lately ? So please...
By higher and equal, I mean 12+ of each unit, that's about the amount where the bounce becomes too harsh for the Phoenixes to handle. Also, I watch orb's stream everyday and I haven't seen him use a Phoenix even once. You can't match the Zerg's amount of Mutalisks with your Phoenixes, because the build time is relatively the same, except once his Spire is up he will be producing them on 4 or even 8 larvas while you're stuck on your one or maybe two Stargates. And due to the Phoenix's cost, your Stalker production is set back aswell.
"Just look at resource cost. 10 mutas (1000 min and 1000 gas) cost way more than 2 cannons and 5 stalkers (925 minerals 125 gas)"
Great math skills there. Stalker is 50 gas, not 25. Doesn't change much tho, I give you that. Eventhough, I find it ridiculous that in order to counter one unit, you have to mass up two (or even three if you add Phoenixes to the Stalkers and Sentries) yourself + add cannons. That's the Marauder issue all over again... But I digress. I would appreciate if you stopped giving me attitude too. I say it's very tough to counter Muta harass because I played against it myself, and I failed. Maybe it's a level matter, I ain't saying I'm pro, but I'm not the only one having this issue. And while HasuObs and co seem to have no problem countering it, I myself can't and I'd like to know how they do it (and I don't believe they counter it like you do) You can't secure a second base while Mutalisks are harassing, because you will never be able to mass up an army big enough to handle both bases.
I've played a few games against Zerg players that harassed me like this, and I don't think I've won even one of them. It's quite a simple pattern, the Zerg expands, you can either timepush (which I hear is very deadly, haven't got a chance to try it out yet, maybe that's the counter) or you can b2 yourself. If you choose to b2 and the Zerg chooses to harass Muta, you're pretty much forced to stay within your base and dance between your b1 and b2 only to still lose a significant amount of probes while the Zerg keeps producing or expanding. Because no, you can't possibly have enough units to efficiently counter the harass on both bases by splitting your army. And I also doubt you'd have enough money to make more than 2 or 3 cannons on both also.
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maybe if the graviton thingy worked both ways...
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Personally I really love the idea of the Phoenix, but the unit has several major drawbacks:
- Without micro the units do zero damage to ground units,
- their hit points are really much too low, i.e. Stalker, Hydra and Marine shoot them down in no time and
- their damage really sucks due to the "vs. light" part.
With a few more hit points and changing them to do a flat 10 damage instead of 5+5 vs light they would become really awesome against pure Marauder / Roach armies. If you have to micro them during a ground battle they should have more survivability than they have now. IMO it is an awesome unit with great potential, but the drawbacks in mechanics are not acknowledged by the designers.
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On April 06 2010 20:20 Spaylz wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2010 05:05 Ryuu314 wrote:On April 06 2010 01:54 Spaylz wrote:On April 06 2010 01:40 Ryuu314 wrote:On April 06 2010 00:54 Spaylz wrote:
The only thing wrong with Protoss air is Phoenixes. It makes me laugh when people say they are useful. THEY'RE WORTHLESS, COME ON. None of you have ever played a PvZ where the Z goes mass Muta. It's unbeatable. You can't go Phoenix because Mutas will eat them up as soon as there are more than 10 of them, you can't go Void Rays because their attack is too slow, you can't go Carrier because you will have lost by the time you even get one and you can't properly defend your base and your expand from the harass with Stalkers because Mutas are too damn fast, even if you get Blink.
Phoenixes need some AoE to counter Mutalisks. I've lost to so many Zergs that just do Mutalisks in massive amounts and don't do anything else. Cannons don't counter the harass either, and they can get out of a Storm very easily too thanks to their speed. Protoss need something to deal with them. You're probably some copper league scrub if you think Mutas are unbeatable and Phoenix are worthless. With the stalker buff, stalkers+sentries and maybe 1 or 2 cannons at your mineral lines are all the anti-muta you will ever need. Phoenix absolutely rape muta in 2:3 ratios with good micro/focus firing. Obviously if you only build like 4-5 Phoenix for early harass and expect it to kill 10 mutas you're dreaming. They're different from BW sairs in that you only need like 6 sairs to deal with practically any amount of mutas zerg throws at you. Not so in SC2. Get that in your mind. Learn it. Phoenix don't have splash so you need to produce a larger amount of them. Also, Phoenix AG skill is ridiculous in terms of base harassment and they're also quite useful in battles. It basically takes X units out of the battle where X is the number of Phoenix you have. The only issue I have with mutas is when they use them in combination with mass zerglings or hydras. It's kinda ridiculous imo how many mutas and zerglings they can produce off just 2 bases. Ok man. I never said I expected 5 Phoenixes to kill 10 Mutas. 10 Phoenixes will indeed rape 10 Mutalisks, but any fight involving a higher and equal amount of both those units will result in Mutalisks raping Phoenixes because of the bounce. You CAN'T counter the harass with 2 cannons and a few Stalkers man, get fucking real. A Zerg will come with like 12 Mutalisks and will kill 20 probes before you kill like 5 Mutalisks. Even if you manage to hang in there while he's harassing, the Zerg can still do whatever he wants meanwhile. Not to mention, as it was pointed out before, Phoenix cost 150/100 while Mutalisks cost 100/100 except they can attack ground and a Stargate is not necesseraly part of any real build (yet). And don't tell me Phoenixes can do that also with the gravity spell, because it's just not comparable with Mutalisks. "The only issue I have with mutas is when they use them in combination with mass zerglings or hydras. It's kinda ridiculous imo how many mutas and zerglings they can produce off just 2 bases." That was kind of implied, since I said that while he's harassing you and you're struggling to counter said harass, the Zerg can expand all he wants or can produce an insane amount of unit by pumping on his two bases. A production you will never match by replacing the probes you lost to the harass and going back and forth with your Stalkers to defend both your mineral lines. Because once again NO, 2 cannons and 5 Stalkers will never fend off 10 Mutalisks before they get a chance to destroy a butload of probes. So please, next time you try to argue with me, don't call me a scrub and don't throw your annoying frustration my way. First off, what do you mean by higher and equal? You said 10 phoenix will rape 10 mutas so...what? Go youtube the 100 phoenix v. 100 muta video. Phoenix win by a long shot. As long as you maintain a decent ratio of phoenix to muta, phoenix will always come out on top with micro. And yes, I agree with you that Phoenix cost more and build slower than Mutas. Which is why I never said you had to counter mutas with only phoenix. And don't say AG is a useless spell or that it's not comparable with mutas or w/e. Watch orb's streams. He uses phoenix AG to a rather great success. Now, I'm not saying that making Phoenix will win you the game every time. In fact, massing phoenix will probably get you steamrolled. What I am saying though, is that Phoenix are not worthless as you say they are. They just need to be used properly in moderation. Also, you're not supposed to hold off 10 mutas with 2 cannons and 5 stalkers. Just look at resource cost. 10 mutas (1000 min and 1000 gas) cost way more than 2 cannons and 5 stalkers (925 minerals 125 gas). Of course the 2 cannons and 5 stalkers are going to lose. Are you kidding me? You're supposed to get more than just 5 stalkers if you see zerg investing heavily in muta. You need something like 2 stalkers for every 3 mutas they bring. Also, you conveniently ignored the fact that I said cannons, stalkers and sentries. Sentries guardian shield basically nullifies muta bounce attack. They are pretty dam good versus muta. How do I know this? Because I've done it, and other players much better than I have done it. It's very possible and easy to hold off muta harass with cannons stalkers and sentries. Actually try it before saying it's impossible. And when I say try it I don't mean trying to kill 10 mutas with 5 stalkers; that's ridiculous. @Grim Reaper: I'm pretty darn sure it's the other way around. Phoenix are faster than muta... ....... I can't get enough of people that bring up that ridiculous video in an argument like this. You really believe this is relevant ? How does it help to know that 100 Phoenixes will kill 100 Mutas ? Will you ever be able to reproduce that pattern in a normal game ? No. There are dozens of other factors happening in a game that makes this video completely irrelevant. Oh ! I also saw a video of an Ultralisk killing 800 Zerglings. You seen an Ultralisk in a high level game lately ? So please... By higher and equal, I mean 12+ of each unit, that's about the amount where the bounce becomes too harsh for the Phoenixes to handle. Also, I watch orb's stream everyday and I haven't seen him use a Phoenix even once. You can't match the Zerg's amount of Mutalisks with your Phoenixes, because the build time is relatively the same, except once his Spire is up he will be producing them on 4 or even 8 larvas while you're stuck on your one or maybe two Stargates. And due to the Phoenix's cost, your Stalker production is set back aswell. "Just look at resource cost. 10 mutas (1000 min and 1000 gas) cost way more than 2 cannons and 5 stalkers (925 minerals 125 gas)" Great math skills there. Stalker is 50 gas, not 25. Doesn't change much tho, I give you that. Eventhough, I find it ridiculous that in order to counter one unit, you have to mass up two (or even three if you add Phoenixes to the Stalkers and Sentries) yourself + add cannons. That's the Marauder issue all over again... But I digress. I would appreciate if you stopped giving me attitude too. I say it's very tough to counter Muta harass because I played against it myself, and I failed. Maybe it's a level matter, I ain't saying I'm pro, but I'm not the only one having this issue. And while HasuObs and co seem to have no problem countering it, I myself can't and I'd like to know how they do it (and I don't believe they counter it like you do) You can't secure a second base while Mutalisks are harassing, because you will never be able to mass up an army big enough to handle both bases. I've played a few games against Zerg players that harassed me like this, and I don't think I've won even one of them. It's quite a simple pattern, the Zerg expands, you can either timepush (which I hear is very deadly, haven't got a chance to try it out yet, maybe that's the counter) or you can b2 yourself. If you choose to b2 and the Zerg chooses to harass Muta, you're pretty much forced to stay within your base and dance between your b1 and b2 only to still lose a significant amount of probes while the Zerg keeps producing or expanding. Because no, you can't possibly have enough units to efficiently counter the harass on both bases by splitting your army. And I also doubt you'd have enough money to make more than 2 or 3 cannons on both also.
I only brought up that video, which i know is a very pointless vid, because you talked about "higher and equal." If 100 v. 100 is not higher and equal I dont' know what is. And that's without micro, too. Just try a custom game of 12 mutas v. 12 phoenix. If the numbers are equal, phoenix will always win, especially with micro.
But like you said, it's near impossible (or very stupid if you actually do) to get equal numbers of phoenix as zerg does muta. I completely and totally agree. Which is why you absolutely need sentries. Their shield ability nullifies muta bounce almost completely, making the fight extremely favored towards phoenix. And you're right. Orb hasn't been using phoenix much lately, I believe he's focusing more on sentries, but he has used them to some success in the past.
And while you say it may be unfair how Protoss has to mass 2-3, even 4 units to just counter a mass of 1 units, some people on TL would argue that that's how it's supposed to be played. Is it unfair? Yes, I agree with you and think so too. But that's just the way it is (esp. in BW too I believe) and people have found ways to deal with it.
Personally, whenever I see Zerg putting up a spire I either do an Immortal timing push if the distance isn't too far or I cannon up. You will always have a timing window to do something. Be it reinforcing your base or attacking or expanding. I personally feel that expanding is the worst option unless they have expanded as well. But even then I feel that it's more risky as those 400 minerals can be used for 2 cannons and an extra pylon, which is really all u need at the mineral line. Those 2 cannons will not hold off 10 mutas or even 6-7. But what it will do is buy you time. 2 cannons will pretty easily hold off the initial 3-4 mutas and you can just maynard your probes away to save them. At the very least, it'll force the Zerg to wait until they mass up more mutas before harassing you. That time can be used to mass up some sentries and stalkers so when Zerg does come knocking you can defend decently well. I don't know what kind of build or tech you generally use so perhaps that's why you dont' have enough minerals for cannons and a decent sized AA army. Perhaps you're overinvesting in zealots? Maybe you're right and cannons aren't even necessary. But they've worked okay for me and I have roughly a 50-50 win rate against zergs who go muta. So yea, it's not ideal, it's not perfect, but it's better than losing every game against zerg air. :\ Also, I'm pretty sure HasuObs, WhiteRa and all the other top protoss use a mix of stalkers+sentries to counter mutas. The reason why I build cannons is because my micro and sense of timing (as in where my stalkers+sentries need to be and when) isn't nearly as good as theirs. The cannons buy me some time to get my forces in place.
More on OP's topic: is protoss air lacking and relatively weak? yes, I rather think it is, especially when compared to the air of other races. does it suck and is it "worthless"? absolutely not.
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If Phoenixes need ground support to keep up the pace, then it is physically impossible for Protoss to gain air dominance in any reasonable manner. That air will always be tethered to those slow ass Sentries. I'm not entirely sure if the bubble even helps air units. AtA should have a steady advantage over Mutas especially when they cost more. If Protoss wants to go air, then it should be able to go air. We can all agree that we need to see more Stargate play.
Much like with Terran Mech, the units are too costly to be effective. Ideally, you want the possibilities of:
Mass Warp Gate units, backed up by Robo/Stargate/Both.
Mass Robo units, backed up by etc.
Mass Stargate, backed up by etc.
Same with the Barracks, Factory, Starport and Zerg's tech.
That would achieve maximum possible diversity of unit compositions. Phoenix backed up by Sentries seems like it fits into this schematic, but you're dedicating another unit to get an AtA to do its damn job.
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On April 06 2010 03:48 Grim(Reaper) wrote:
mutalisks are faster than phoenixes so with good micro a equal number muta/phoenix the muta will win.
Phoenixes are faster than mutalisks.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=t5GkNmF7rIQbeeh2Cichmvg&output=html
Not my chart, someone here made this by pulling the data from the MPQ. I'd give credit if I remembered his name. Same guy who made the dps thread iirc.
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On April 07 2010 04:55 Cloak wrote:
If Phoenixes need ground support to keep up the pace, then it is physically impossible for Protoss to gain air dominance in any reasonable manner. That air will always be tethered to those slow ass Sentries. I'm not entirely sure if the bubble even helps air units. AtA should have a steady advantage over Mutas especially when they cost more. If Protoss wants to go air, then it should be able to go air. We can all agree that we need to see more Stargate play.
Much like with Terran Mech, the units are too costly to be effective. Ideally, you want the possibilities of:
Mass Warp Gate units, backed up by Robo/Stargate/Both.
Mass Robo units, backed up by etc.
Mass Stargate, backed up by etc.
Same with the Barracks, Factory, Starport and Zerg's tech.
That would achieve maximum possible diversity of unit compositions. Phoenix backed up by Sentries seems like it fits into this schematic, but you're dedicating another unit to get an AtA to do its damn job.
I have to agree with this for the most part. I don't really feel air is an option for supporting standard gateway units in the way robotics and templar can due to their cost not being offset by effective use.
Don't get me wrong, void rays can make a critical harassment unit, and a highly effective open on greedy zerg or terran who neglect scouting/aa, but I feel the scout, voidray, and carrier are all very inferior to their counterparts when tasked with killing other units in a larger battle.
Honestly, the mothership is bad right now, but if toss air on the whole were improved it could be more useful as support.
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I think the answer is really simple. Bring back the ability Phoenix had in Alpha to AOE units around it (Overload? I forget the exact name). To balance it versus Mutalisks, give it a cap of 6 targets per Phoenix. Targets cannot overlap among multiple Phoenix.
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I want the arbitor back, mother ship sucks now that it has been nerfed into the ground, just remove it and bring back the arbitor
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Looking at the guy's units, I think SC2 is turning too much into a spell-caster battle like WC3. Imo, they should add more bread and butter attack units, (SC1 --> goons, hydras, marines) into SC2. This makes the game much less like WC3 and promote big, macro-based slugfests which are so characteristic of the Korean progaming scene.
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On April 07 2010 06:02 SichuanPanda wrote:
I think the answer is really simple. Bring back the ability Phoenix had in Alpha to AOE units around it (Overload? I forget the exact name). To balance it versus Mutalisks, give it a cap of 6 targets per Phoenix. Targets cannot overlap among multiple Phoenix.
I don't think that would make Stargate a viable option in a standard-game, because especially against Z using Mutas, Phoenix are a good choice anyways. Protoss needs a midgame Flying Unit that is either a good supporter or does good ground-dmg or sth so that the Stargate can be used not only to counter other Air-Units or to rush for voidrays and win in the cheesiest way possible. ^^'
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I think phoenix would be far more interesting to use if they had an instant attack speed weapon that dealt twice the damage but had twice the cooldown of their current attack.
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On April 07 2010 03:27 Ryuu314 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2010 20:20 Spaylz wrote:On April 06 2010 05:05 Ryuu314 wrote:On April 06 2010 01:54 Spaylz wrote:On April 06 2010 01:40 Ryuu314 wrote:On April 06 2010 00:54 Spaylz wrote:
The only thing wrong with Protoss air is Phoenixes. It makes me laugh when people say they are useful. THEY'RE WORTHLESS, COME ON. None of you have ever played a PvZ where the Z goes mass Muta. It's unbeatable. You can't go Phoenix because Mutas will eat them up as soon as there are more than 10 of them, you can't go Void Rays because their attack is too slow, you can't go Carrier because you will have lost by the time you even get one and you can't properly defend your base and your expand from the harass with Stalkers because Mutas are too damn fast, even if you get Blink.
Phoenixes need some AoE to counter Mutalisks. I've lost to so many Zergs that just do Mutalisks in massive amounts and don't do anything else. Cannons don't counter the harass either, and they can get out of a Storm very easily too thanks to their speed. Protoss need something to deal with them. You're probably some copper league scrub if you think Mutas are unbeatable and Phoenix are worthless. With the stalker buff, stalkers+sentries and maybe 1 or 2 cannons at your mineral lines are all the anti-muta you will ever need. Phoenix absolutely rape muta in 2:3 ratios with good micro/focus firing. Obviously if you only build like 4-5 Phoenix for early harass and expect it to kill 10 mutas you're dreaming. They're different from BW sairs in that you only need like 6 sairs to deal with practically any amount of mutas zerg throws at you. Not so in SC2. Get that in your mind. Learn it. Phoenix don't have splash so you need to produce a larger amount of them. Also, Phoenix AG skill is ridiculous in terms of base harassment and they're also quite useful in battles. It basically takes X units out of the battle where X is the number of Phoenix you have. The only issue I have with mutas is when they use them in combination with mass zerglings or hydras. It's kinda ridiculous imo how many mutas and zerglings they can produce off just 2 bases. Ok man. I never said I expected 5 Phoenixes to kill 10 Mutas. 10 Phoenixes will indeed rape 10 Mutalisks, but any fight involving a higher and equal amount of both those units will result in Mutalisks raping Phoenixes because of the bounce. You CAN'T counter the harass with 2 cannons and a few Stalkers man, get fucking real. A Zerg will come with like 12 Mutalisks and will kill 20 probes before you kill like 5 Mutalisks. Even if you manage to hang in there while he's harassing, the Zerg can still do whatever he wants meanwhile. Not to mention, as it was pointed out before, Phoenix cost 150/100 while Mutalisks cost 100/100 except they can attack ground and a Stargate is not necesseraly part of any real build (yet). And don't tell me Phoenixes can do that also with the gravity spell, because it's just not comparable with Mutalisks. "The only issue I have with mutas is when they use them in combination with mass zerglings or hydras. It's kinda ridiculous imo how many mutas and zerglings they can produce off just 2 bases." That was kind of implied, since I said that while he's harassing you and you're struggling to counter said harass, the Zerg can expand all he wants or can produce an insane amount of unit by pumping on his two bases. A production you will never match by replacing the probes you lost to the harass and going back and forth with your Stalkers to defend both your mineral lines. Because once again NO, 2 cannons and 5 Stalkers will never fend off 10 Mutalisks before they get a chance to destroy a butload of probes. So please, next time you try to argue with me, don't call me a scrub and don't throw your annoying frustration my way. First off, what do you mean by higher and equal? You said 10 phoenix will rape 10 mutas so...what? Go youtube the 100 phoenix v. 100 muta video. Phoenix win by a long shot. As long as you maintain a decent ratio of phoenix to muta, phoenix will always come out on top with micro. And yes, I agree with you that Phoenix cost more and build slower than Mutas. Which is why I never said you had to counter mutas with only phoenix. And don't say AG is a useless spell or that it's not comparable with mutas or w/e. Watch orb's streams. He uses phoenix AG to a rather great success. Now, I'm not saying that making Phoenix will win you the game every time. In fact, massing phoenix will probably get you steamrolled. What I am saying though, is that Phoenix are not worthless as you say they are. They just need to be used properly in moderation. Also, you're not supposed to hold off 10 mutas with 2 cannons and 5 stalkers. Just look at resource cost. 10 mutas (1000 min and 1000 gas) cost way more than 2 cannons and 5 stalkers (925 minerals 125 gas). Of course the 2 cannons and 5 stalkers are going to lose. Are you kidding me? You're supposed to get more than just 5 stalkers if you see zerg investing heavily in muta. You need something like 2 stalkers for every 3 mutas they bring. Also, you conveniently ignored the fact that I said cannons, stalkers and sentries. Sentries guardian shield basically nullifies muta bounce attack. They are pretty dam good versus muta. How do I know this? Because I've done it, and other players much better than I have done it. It's very possible and easy to hold off muta harass with cannons stalkers and sentries. Actually try it before saying it's impossible. And when I say try it I don't mean trying to kill 10 mutas with 5 stalkers; that's ridiculous. @Grim Reaper: I'm pretty darn sure it's the other way around. Phoenix are faster than muta... ....... I can't get enough of people that bring up that ridiculous video in an argument like this. You really believe this is relevant ? How does it help to know that 100 Phoenixes will kill 100 Mutas ? Will you ever be able to reproduce that pattern in a normal game ? No. There are dozens of other factors happening in a game that makes this video completely irrelevant. Oh ! I also saw a video of an Ultralisk killing 800 Zerglings. You seen an Ultralisk in a high level game lately ? So please... By higher and equal, I mean 12+ of each unit, that's about the amount where the bounce becomes too harsh for the Phoenixes to handle. Also, I watch orb's stream everyday and I haven't seen him use a Phoenix even once. You can't match the Zerg's amount of Mutalisks with your Phoenixes, because the build time is relatively the same, except once his Spire is up he will be producing them on 4 or even 8 larvas while you're stuck on your one or maybe two Stargates. And due to the Phoenix's cost, your Stalker production is set back aswell. "Just look at resource cost. 10 mutas (1000 min and 1000 gas) cost way more than 2 cannons and 5 stalkers (925 minerals 125 gas)" Great math skills there. Stalker is 50 gas, not 25. Doesn't change much tho, I give you that. Eventhough, I find it ridiculous that in order to counter one unit, you have to mass up two (or even three if you add Phoenixes to the Stalkers and Sentries) yourself + add cannons. That's the Marauder issue all over again... But I digress. I would appreciate if you stopped giving me attitude too. I say it's very tough to counter Muta harass because I played against it myself, and I failed. Maybe it's a level matter, I ain't saying I'm pro, but I'm not the only one having this issue. And while HasuObs and co seem to have no problem countering it, I myself can't and I'd like to know how they do it (and I don't believe they counter it like you do) You can't secure a second base while Mutalisks are harassing, because you will never be able to mass up an army big enough to handle both bases. I've played a few games against Zerg players that harassed me like this, and I don't think I've won even one of them. It's quite a simple pattern, the Zerg expands, you can either timepush (which I hear is very deadly, haven't got a chance to try it out yet, maybe that's the counter) or you can b2 yourself. If you choose to b2 and the Zerg chooses to harass Muta, you're pretty much forced to stay within your base and dance between your b1 and b2 only to still lose a significant amount of probes while the Zerg keeps producing or expanding. Because no, you can't possibly have enough units to efficiently counter the harass on both bases by splitting your army. And I also doubt you'd have enough money to make more than 2 or 3 cannons on both also. I only brought up that video, which i know is a very pointless vid, because you talked about "higher and equal." If 100 v. 100 is not higher and equal I dont' know what is. And that's without micro, too. Just try a custom game of 12 mutas v. 12 phoenix. If the numbers are equal, phoenix will always win, especially with micro. But like you said, it's near impossible (or very stupid if you actually do) to get equal numbers of phoenix as zerg does muta. I completely and totally agree. Which is why you absolutely need sentries. Their shield ability nullifies muta bounce almost completely, making the fight extremely favored towards phoenix. And you're right. Orb hasn't been using phoenix much lately, I believe he's focusing more on sentries, but he has used them to some success in the past. And while you say it may be unfair how Protoss has to mass 2-3, even 4 units to just counter a mass of 1 units, some people on TL would argue that that's how it's supposed to be played. Is it unfair? Yes, I agree with you and think so too. But that's just the way it is (esp. in BW too I believe) and people have found ways to deal with it. Personally, whenever I see Zerg putting up a spire I either do an Immortal timing push if the distance isn't too far or I cannon up. You will always have a timing window to do something. Be it reinforcing your base or attacking or expanding. I personally feel that expanding is the worst option unless they have expanded as well. But even then I feel that it's more risky as those 400 minerals can be used for 2 cannons and an extra pylon, which is really all u need at the mineral line. Those 2 cannons will not hold off 10 mutas or even 6-7. But what it will do is buy you time. 2 cannons will pretty easily hold off the initial 3-4 mutas and you can just maynard your probes away to save them. At the very least, it'll force the Zerg to wait until they mass up more mutas before harassing you. That time can be used to mass up some sentries and stalkers so when Zerg does come knocking you can defend decently well. I don't know what kind of build or tech you generally use so perhaps that's why you dont' have enough minerals for cannons and a decent sized AA army. Perhaps you're overinvesting in zealots? Maybe you're right and cannons aren't even necessary. But they've worked okay for me and I have roughly a 50-50 win rate against zergs who go muta. So yea, it's not ideal, it's not perfect, but it's better than losing every game against zerg air. :\ Also, I'm pretty sure HasuObs, WhiteRa and all the other top protoss use a mix of stalkers+sentries to counter mutas. The reason why I build cannons is because my micro and sense of timing (as in where my stalkers+sentries need to be and when) isn't nearly as good as theirs. The cannons buy me some time to get my forces in place. More on OP's topic: is protoss air lacking and relatively weak? yes, I rather think it is, especially when compared to the air of other races. does it suck and is it "worthless"? absolutely not.
My problem with Mutalisks is not the countering part itself per say, it's the fact that they are so so much faster than Stalkers and especially Sentries that it makes it impossible to defend two bases. I personally can't handle it. And I think it would be much more viable (and it would actually makes more sense...) if Phoenix were able to handle them. The only time you'll ever use Phoenixes anyway is against Mutalisks or maybe against Banshees. It's supposed to be an anti-air unit, let it be that.
I haven't tried to FE against Zerg yet, maybe this is the answer since you'd be able to make enough Phoenixes to actually counter the Mutas, but still. Timing push might also be the answer, but it drives me kind of crazy that if you don't do that or the other, you will be doomed to stay inside your base and take the harass while the Zerg does what he wants. And I don't have a solution for that. If the Zerg expands, you have to expand aswell unless you're ready to push and he doesn't have enough units to counter you. And if you expand, you'll need units and cannons to counter the harass, and it's just gonna be a bitch either way.
I myself lost to a guy that did some weird strategy where he went mass speedlings and switch to Muta on only one base (he expanded shortly after getting his first 5-6 muta or so). When I lost, I watched the replay because I was certain there was a time where I could crush him with an Immortal push, right before he had the Mutalisks. As it turned out, I wouldn't have won even if I had attacked, he had over 20 speedlings when I had like 1 Immortal 4 zeal 1 stalker and 2 sentries. Add to that the Queen, the creep and his possiblity to pop up more lings to fend me off and I couldn't win right there. My macro and my timing certainly aren't perfect, but I don't see a winning exit for me in that kind of games.
So please, if you got replays or whatever, upload them and put them here, cause I'm dying for help since that in every high level replay I download, I don't see Zerg going mass Mutalisks.
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PvZ is very map dependent atm I think. Some maps just favor zerg mobility so much, especially mutas.
Trying to defend two bases on desert oasis or kulas ravine as protoss against zerg can be a total joke. You micro your army to your second base on the cliff to chase off the mutas only to have speedlings run into your base. Unfortunately your sentries are at your expo to fend off the mutas, so your reward is more dead probes.
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Eh, Protoss air isn't that bad. They do need a more versatile unit against ground though.
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On April 07 2010 07:14 Spaylz wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 03:27 Ryuu314 wrote:On April 06 2010 20:20 Spaylz wrote:On April 06 2010 05:05 Ryuu314 wrote:On April 06 2010 01:54 Spaylz wrote:On April 06 2010 01:40 Ryuu314 wrote:On April 06 2010 00:54 Spaylz wrote:
The only thing wrong with Protoss air is Phoenixes. It makes me laugh when people say they are useful. THEY'RE WORTHLESS, COME ON. None of you have ever played a PvZ where the Z goes mass Muta. It's unbeatable. You can't go Phoenix because Mutas will eat them up as soon as there are more than 10 of them, you can't go Void Rays because their attack is too slow, you can't go Carrier because you will have lost by the time you even get one and you can't properly defend your base and your expand from the harass with Stalkers because Mutas are too damn fast, even if you get Blink.
Phoenixes need some AoE to counter Mutalisks. I've lost to so many Zergs that just do Mutalisks in massive amounts and don't do anything else. Cannons don't counter the harass either, and they can get out of a Storm very easily too thanks to their speed. Protoss need something to deal with them. You're probably some copper league scrub if you think Mutas are unbeatable and Phoenix are worthless. With the stalker buff, stalkers+sentries and maybe 1 or 2 cannons at your mineral lines are all the anti-muta you will ever need. Phoenix absolutely rape muta in 2:3 ratios with good micro/focus firing. Obviously if you only build like 4-5 Phoenix for early harass and expect it to kill 10 mutas you're dreaming. They're different from BW sairs in that you only need like 6 sairs to deal with practically any amount of mutas zerg throws at you. Not so in SC2. Get that in your mind. Learn it. Phoenix don't have splash so you need to produce a larger amount of them. Also, Phoenix AG skill is ridiculous in terms of base harassment and they're also quite useful in battles. It basically takes X units out of the battle where X is the number of Phoenix you have. The only issue I have with mutas is when they use them in combination with mass zerglings or hydras. It's kinda ridiculous imo how many mutas and zerglings they can produce off just 2 bases. Ok man. I never said I expected 5 Phoenixes to kill 10 Mutas. 10 Phoenixes will indeed rape 10 Mutalisks, but any fight involving a higher and equal amount of both those units will result in Mutalisks raping Phoenixes because of the bounce. You CAN'T counter the harass with 2 cannons and a few Stalkers man, get fucking real. A Zerg will come with like 12 Mutalisks and will kill 20 probes before you kill like 5 Mutalisks. Even if you manage to hang in there while he's harassing, the Zerg can still do whatever he wants meanwhile. Not to mention, as it was pointed out before, Phoenix cost 150/100 while Mutalisks cost 100/100 except they can attack ground and a Stargate is not necesseraly part of any real build (yet). And don't tell me Phoenixes can do that also with the gravity spell, because it's just not comparable with Mutalisks. "The only issue I have with mutas is when they use them in combination with mass zerglings or hydras. It's kinda ridiculous imo how many mutas and zerglings they can produce off just 2 bases." That was kind of implied, since I said that while he's harassing you and you're struggling to counter said harass, the Zerg can expand all he wants or can produce an insane amount of unit by pumping on his two bases. A production you will never match by replacing the probes you lost to the harass and going back and forth with your Stalkers to defend both your mineral lines. Because once again NO, 2 cannons and 5 Stalkers will never fend off 10 Mutalisks before they get a chance to destroy a butload of probes. So please, next time you try to argue with me, don't call me a scrub and don't throw your annoying frustration my way. First off, what do you mean by higher and equal? You said 10 phoenix will rape 10 mutas so...what? Go youtube the 100 phoenix v. 100 muta video. Phoenix win by a long shot. As long as you maintain a decent ratio of phoenix to muta, phoenix will always come out on top with micro. And yes, I agree with you that Phoenix cost more and build slower than Mutas. Which is why I never said you had to counter mutas with only phoenix. And don't say AG is a useless spell or that it's not comparable with mutas or w/e. Watch orb's streams. He uses phoenix AG to a rather great success. Now, I'm not saying that making Phoenix will win you the game every time. In fact, massing phoenix will probably get you steamrolled. What I am saying though, is that Phoenix are not worthless as you say they are. They just need to be used properly in moderation. Also, you're not supposed to hold off 10 mutas with 2 cannons and 5 stalkers. Just look at resource cost. 10 mutas (1000 min and 1000 gas) cost way more than 2 cannons and 5 stalkers (925 minerals 125 gas). Of course the 2 cannons and 5 stalkers are going to lose. Are you kidding me? You're supposed to get more than just 5 stalkers if you see zerg investing heavily in muta. You need something like 2 stalkers for every 3 mutas they bring. Also, you conveniently ignored the fact that I said cannons, stalkers and sentries. Sentries guardian shield basically nullifies muta bounce attack. They are pretty dam good versus muta. How do I know this? Because I've done it, and other players much better than I have done it. It's very possible and easy to hold off muta harass with cannons stalkers and sentries. Actually try it before saying it's impossible. And when I say try it I don't mean trying to kill 10 mutas with 5 stalkers; that's ridiculous. @Grim Reaper: I'm pretty darn sure it's the other way around. Phoenix are faster than muta... ....... I can't get enough of people that bring up that ridiculous video in an argument like this. You really believe this is relevant ? How does it help to know that 100 Phoenixes will kill 100 Mutas ? Will you ever be able to reproduce that pattern in a normal game ? No. There are dozens of other factors happening in a game that makes this video completely irrelevant. Oh ! I also saw a video of an Ultralisk killing 800 Zerglings. You seen an Ultralisk in a high level game lately ? So please... By higher and equal, I mean 12+ of each unit, that's about the amount where the bounce becomes too harsh for the Phoenixes to handle. Also, I watch orb's stream everyday and I haven't seen him use a Phoenix even once. You can't match the Zerg's amount of Mutalisks with your Phoenixes, because the build time is relatively the same, except once his Spire is up he will be producing them on 4 or even 8 larvas while you're stuck on your one or maybe two Stargates. And due to the Phoenix's cost, your Stalker production is set back aswell. "Just look at resource cost. 10 mutas (1000 min and 1000 gas) cost way more than 2 cannons and 5 stalkers (925 minerals 125 gas)" Great math skills there. Stalker is 50 gas, not 25. Doesn't change much tho, I give you that. Eventhough, I find it ridiculous that in order to counter one unit, you have to mass up two (or even three if you add Phoenixes to the Stalkers and Sentries) yourself + add cannons. That's the Marauder issue all over again... But I digress. I would appreciate if you stopped giving me attitude too. I say it's very tough to counter Muta harass because I played against it myself, and I failed. Maybe it's a level matter, I ain't saying I'm pro, but I'm not the only one having this issue. And while HasuObs and co seem to have no problem countering it, I myself can't and I'd like to know how they do it (and I don't believe they counter it like you do) You can't secure a second base while Mutalisks are harassing, because you will never be able to mass up an army big enough to handle both bases. I've played a few games against Zerg players that harassed me like this, and I don't think I've won even one of them. It's quite a simple pattern, the Zerg expands, you can either timepush (which I hear is very deadly, haven't got a chance to try it out yet, maybe that's the counter) or you can b2 yourself. If you choose to b2 and the Zerg chooses to harass Muta, you're pretty much forced to stay within your base and dance between your b1 and b2 only to still lose a significant amount of probes while the Zerg keeps producing or expanding. Because no, you can't possibly have enough units to efficiently counter the harass on both bases by splitting your army. And I also doubt you'd have enough money to make more than 2 or 3 cannons on both also. I only brought up that video, which i know is a very pointless vid, because you talked about "higher and equal." If 100 v. 100 is not higher and equal I dont' know what is. And that's without micro, too. Just try a custom game of 12 mutas v. 12 phoenix. If the numbers are equal, phoenix will always win, especially with micro. But like you said, it's near impossible (or very stupid if you actually do) to get equal numbers of phoenix as zerg does muta. I completely and totally agree. Which is why you absolutely need sentries. Their shield ability nullifies muta bounce almost completely, making the fight extremely favored towards phoenix. And you're right. Orb hasn't been using phoenix much lately, I believe he's focusing more on sentries, but he has used them to some success in the past. And while you say it may be unfair how Protoss has to mass 2-3, even 4 units to just counter a mass of 1 units, some people on TL would argue that that's how it's supposed to be played. Is it unfair? Yes, I agree with you and think so too. But that's just the way it is (esp. in BW too I believe) and people have found ways to deal with it. Personally, whenever I see Zerg putting up a spire I either do an Immortal timing push if the distance isn't too far or I cannon up. You will always have a timing window to do something. Be it reinforcing your base or attacking or expanding. I personally feel that expanding is the worst option unless they have expanded as well. But even then I feel that it's more risky as those 400 minerals can be used for 2 cannons and an extra pylon, which is really all u need at the mineral line. Those 2 cannons will not hold off 10 mutas or even 6-7. But what it will do is buy you time. 2 cannons will pretty easily hold off the initial 3-4 mutas and you can just maynard your probes away to save them. At the very least, it'll force the Zerg to wait until they mass up more mutas before harassing you. That time can be used to mass up some sentries and stalkers so when Zerg does come knocking you can defend decently well. I don't know what kind of build or tech you generally use so perhaps that's why you dont' have enough minerals for cannons and a decent sized AA army. Perhaps you're overinvesting in zealots? Maybe you're right and cannons aren't even necessary. But they've worked okay for me and I have roughly a 50-50 win rate against zergs who go muta. So yea, it's not ideal, it's not perfect, but it's better than losing every game against zerg air. :\ Also, I'm pretty sure HasuObs, WhiteRa and all the other top protoss use a mix of stalkers+sentries to counter mutas. The reason why I build cannons is because my micro and sense of timing (as in where my stalkers+sentries need to be and when) isn't nearly as good as theirs. The cannons buy me some time to get my forces in place. More on OP's topic: is protoss air lacking and relatively weak? yes, I rather think it is, especially when compared to the air of other races. does it suck and is it "worthless"? absolutely not. My problem with Mutalisks is not the countering part itself per say, it's the fact that they are so so much faster than Stalkers and especially Sentries that it makes it impossible to defend two bases. I personally can't handle it. And I think it would be much more viable (and it would actually makes more sense...) if Phoenix were able to handle them. The only time you'll ever use Phoenixes anyway is against Mutalisks or maybe against Banshees. It's supposed to be an anti-air unit, let it be that. I haven't tried to FE against Zerg yet, maybe this is the answer since you'd be able to make enough Phoenixes to actually counter the Mutas, but still. Timing push might also be the answer, but it drives me kind of crazy that if you don't do that or the other, you will be doomed to stay inside your base and take the harass while the Zerg does what he wants. And I don't have a solution for that. If the Zerg expands, you have to expand aswell unless you're ready to push and he doesn't have enough units to counter you. And if you expand, you'll need units and cannons to counter the harass, and it's just gonna be a bitch either way. I myself lost to a guy that did some weird strategy where he went mass speedlings and switch to Muta on only one base (he expanded shortly after getting his first 5-6 muta or so). When I lost, I watched the replay because I was certain there was a time where I could crush him with an Immortal push, right before he had the Mutalisks. As it turned out, I wouldn't have won even if I had attacked, he had over 20 speedlings when I had like 1 Immortal 4 zeal 1 stalker and 2 sentries. Add to that the Queen, the creep and his possiblity to pop up more lings to fend me off and I couldn't win right there. My macro and my timing certainly aren't perfect, but I don't see a winning exit for me in that kind of games. So please, if you got replays or whatever, upload them and put them here, cause I'm dying for help since that in every high level replay I download, I don't see Zerg going mass Mutalisks.
Regarding your timing when you could've pushed but didn't due to mass zerglings, the solution would be to get more sentries, as force field can allow you to funnel zerglings such that it's much more manageable to deal with due to lack of surround.
I'd love to discuss more with you about the PvZ muta imba but we're derailing this thread.
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On April 07 2010 06:28 L wrote:
I think phoenix would be far more interesting to use if they had an instant attack speed weapon that dealt twice the damage but had twice the cooldown of their current attack.
Hit and run overlord popping might be OP - you'd need 11 to oneshot, but 6 would still be very very scary for zerg.
I'd love to see the pheonixes graviton beam work in reverse too - push an air unit (non-massive) to the ground and incapacitate it. This would give it a much stronger synergy with ground support, as it can stop flying units fleeing the ground army. It would make pheonixes counter muta harass *hard*, while still losing to viking. It would make pheonixes hard-counter voidrays by breaking their beams, and make the fight against vikings kinda interesting.
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On April 07 2010 09:56 Spartan wrote:
Eh, Protoss air isn't that bad. They do need a more versatile unit against ground though.
what? void rays suck in combat, phoenix get shit on by everything that can attack it, minus mutas, and thats only in equalish #'s. carriers get raped by vikings and corrupters AND you cant micro then anymore, and mothership is a gimmick.
phoenix GB is pretty pimp if used right tho, too bad it sucks at doing what its supposed to do
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Gotta get back the Archon and its splash damage that what i think would really help out a ton i know you have to tech to it but still mid to late game it would really be a life saver
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ok after playing a few more games trying to use air I think I've come to this conclusion. Air units in PvT are about where they were in BW, although mothership sucks a lot more than arbitors (but is offset by arbitors probably not being as good since terran doesnt mech and is much more mobile vs recalls).
What I think sucks in PvZ is how Hydras are just fucking ridiculously good vs air. Basically I think that pheonixs are ONLY good to have in PvZ when the zerg makes mutalisks. However if he does not make mutalisks then pheonixs are completely useless. Sure you can kill some drones, but hydras are pretty fast (especially on creep), have a good range, and have ridiculous DPS. Hydras are so much better vs air now that it doesnt even matter that zerg dont have scourge any more. Couple this with the fact that overlord speed researches fast and only costs 50/50 for god knows what reason and suddenly pheonix harass is nearly non-existent vs a competent zerg.
I've played SO many games where i try to incorporate pheonixs into my build but as soon as I get a stargate the zerg is allowed to get so much further ahead of me as the phoenix just simply isnt worth it's cost unless the zerg makes enough mutalisks for them to kill (assuming you actually keep up with his muta count). Maybe I just need to improve my control/strategy a lot more but I don't think that it's too big a deal, it's just so fucking easy for zerg to negate pheonix/void ray harass with just a few hydras.
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With smart cast and graviton beam, there's no way that Phoenixes will be useless.
We just need koreans that are able to do all the multitask.
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This poll is so stupid. What about other? What about none?
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why koreans, americans are the best multi taskers in the world. just look at american highways with people driving, texting, haveing a phone conversation and putting on makeup at the same time! what do the koreans do to beat that?
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On April 07 2010 11:52 peckham33 wrote:
why koreans, americans are the best multi taskers in the world. just look at american highways with people driving, texting, haveing a phone conversation and putting on makeup at the same time! what do the koreans do to beat that?
Koreans drive, have a phone conversation, put on makeup, and play starcraft on their phones at the same time.
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void rays suck??? I think not sir.
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Hyrule19003 Posts
Why does everyone forget the Mothership? It's a beastly air caster.
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On April 07 2010 10:57 Chen wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 09:56 Spartan wrote:
Eh, Protoss air isn't that bad. They do need a more versatile unit against ground though. what? void rays suck in combat, phoenix get shit on by everything that can attack it, minus mutas, and thats only in equalish #'s. carriers get raped by vikings and corrupters AND you cant micro then anymore, and mothership is a gimmick. phoenix GB is pretty pimp if used right tho, too bad it sucks at doing what its supposed to do
you can still kinda micro carriers...ish...
the issue with protoss air, i think, is very varied. for one, phoenix are good units with one glaring weakness. Their inability to attack ground. This allows Zerg to easily tech switch once they've made you invest in a large Phoenix fleet and completely own you with mass hydras or even zerglings and laugh as you can't deal with it due to a too-small ground army. This wasn't as noticeable in BW because of corsair splash. Corsair splash basically meant you didn't need to match Zerg muta count practically 1 for 1. This meant that you can rival Zerg in air superiority and still have resources to keep yourself from getting completely overrun on the ground. Lack of splash pretty much means that you have to keep a pretty even ratio (around 2:3) of phoenix to muta otherwise you get raped in the air. Even if you buff phoenix damage or armor or w/e that issue would still stand.
Void rays are pretty good units, but they're very specific in terms of uses and are too easily taken out by masses of smaller, less costly, units. But out of all Protoss air, it is void rays that I have the least problem with. The reason is because they were designed with a very specialized niche of being anti-building and anti-armored/massive and they fulfill that niche perfectly (in my opinion).
Carriers are actually stronger than in SCBW. The problem is that they're just too expensive to fit into the current metagame and map pool. What made them viable in SC:BW was the fact that you had a decent window of opportunity where you could switch to carriers and not die. This was enabled through larger maps and more large scale macro-oriented defensive play unlike in SC2 beta where maps are generally smaller and games are more about rushing and defensive play is so much less viable. If you play an FFA game and a Protoss is in the mix, chances are if they are able to get a critical mass of carriers, they will win. This, in my opinion, shows how carriers still have great destructive power. FFA and 1v1 differs of course, but mostly in that FFA is pretty much a turtle-fest, while 1v1 is more dynamic. In other words, if turtling (aka defensive play) becomes more viable, carriers will become more viable as well.
Mothership sucks. Period.
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they have way over nerfed the mothership. itt used to be decent, but now it is mostly used to hide a huge attack like alot of voidrays or other things like that. if blizz gave a few decent abilities back to the mothership, mby it whould be good. according to the storyline, it was soposed to be desined as a major space scout ship. by golly, the only way this this version whould be usefull as that whould be if you had alot of them.
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On April 07 2010 12:18 Ryuu314 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 10:57 Chen wrote:On April 07 2010 09:56 Spartan wrote:
Eh, Protoss air isn't that bad. They do need a more versatile unit against ground though. what? void rays suck in combat, phoenix get shit on by everything that can attack it, minus mutas, and thats only in equalish #'s. carriers get raped by vikings and corrupters AND you cant micro then anymore, and mothership is a gimmick. phoenix GB is pretty pimp if used right tho, too bad it sucks at doing what its supposed to do you can still kinda micro carriers...ish... Carriers are actually stronger than in SCBW. The problem is that they're just too expensive to fit into the current metagame and map pool. What made them viable in SC:BW was the fact that you had a decent window of opportunity where you could switch to carriers and not die. Mothership sucks. Period.
idk man, i'd say relatively, its significantly weaker. both terran and zerg now have an aerial AA unit that does massive damage to carriers AND can chase them down, so your mobility advantage is gone, as is your ability to dictate when/where you fight. (mass wraiths/devs didnt work exceedingly well in BW, as opposed to vikings/corrupters hard-countering them here). plus now hydras annihilate your interceptors worse than 3/3 gols did in BW, their only niche atm seems to be vs pvp, just cause we get back to the point that toss Air sucks.
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Is this a joke thread? Carriers are just as strong as they've always been, and void rays are strong as fuck too.
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On April 07 2010 12:28 Chen wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 12:18 Ryuu314 wrote:On April 07 2010 10:57 Chen wrote:On April 07 2010 09:56 Spartan wrote:
Eh, Protoss air isn't that bad. They do need a more versatile unit against ground though. what? void rays suck in combat, phoenix get shit on by everything that can attack it, minus mutas, and thats only in equalish #'s. carriers get raped by vikings and corrupters AND you cant micro then anymore, and mothership is a gimmick. phoenix GB is pretty pimp if used right tho, too bad it sucks at doing what its supposed to do you can still kinda micro carriers...ish... Carriers are actually stronger than in SCBW. The problem is that they're just too expensive to fit into the current metagame and map pool. What made them viable in SC:BW was the fact that you had a decent window of opportunity where you could switch to carriers and not die. Mothership sucks. Period. idk man, i'd say relatively, its significantly weaker. both terran and zerg now have an aerial AA unit that does massive damage to carriers AND can chase them down, so your mobility advantage is gone, as is your ability to dictate when/where you fight. (mass wraiths/devs didnt work exceedingly well in BW, as opposed to vikings/corrupters hard-countering them here). plus now hydras annihilate your interceptors worse than 3/3 gols did in BW, their only niche atm seems to be vs pvp, just cause we get back to the point that toss Air sucks.
by stronger I mean that dps is higher. terran and zerg could chase down carriers in BW too. The only difference is that terran AA tended to be ground based and map design allowed for carriers to do hit-run tatics and same for zerg ground AA. AA based in air for Terran was too out-of-reach to counter carriers effectively, while zerg air-based AA was high tech. In SC2, map design doesn't allow for hit-run to be as viable (hence my bit on the map pool). And you're right in that vikings/corrupters do pose a significant threat to carriers, but ideally the mothership or phoenix would provide decent support for the carriers to keep them from insta-dying (vortex, defensive recall) only problem with that is that motherships suck and phoenix are pretty much only good as harassers and anti-light air.
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On April 07 2010 12:35 avilo wrote:
Is this a joke thread? Carriers are just as strong as they've always been, and void rays are strong as fuck too.
pertty sure the op was talking about staple/support units that are easier to get (tier 2/2.5).
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On April 07 2010 12:35 avilo wrote:
Is this a joke thread? Carriers are just as strong as they've always been, and void rays are strong as fuck too.
Is this a joke-post because Carriers are clearly not as strong as in SC1 and VoidRays are just a cheesey Unit that can easily be countered by scouting properly and knowing the Matchups...
It's all about that Stargate is overall more a gimmick than a solid Building, because you can't integrade a Stargate into a solid build in any MU.
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On April 07 2010 17:17 kickinhead wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 12:35 avilo wrote:
Is this a joke thread? Carriers are just as strong as they've always been, and void rays are strong as fuck too. Is this a joke-post because Carriers are clearly not as strong as in SC1 and VoidRays are just a cheesey Unit that can easily be countered by scouting properly and knowing the Matchups... It's all about that Stargate is overall more a gimmick than a solid Building, because you can't integrade a Stargate into a solid build in any MU.
Precisely.
The problem with our air is that, with exception of the silly mothership, none of our air units are particuarly effective with standing armies of ground troops. Void-rays loose increidble amounts of damage if they have to continually target switch. The phoenix has tiny range, and has to remain locked in place to grav a unit: ie. becomes a "kill me" sign above the battle for all anti-air to see. The carrier, besides being very late-game, is incredibly inferior in smaller numbers to other late-game air units.
I'd say: replace carrier with tempest, give the phoenix more range so that it can grav units without putting itself above the enemy line, and leave the void-ray as our gimmick air unit. As for the mothership. I think a slight price reduction and build-time reduction could make it more apprealing, without buffing it much.
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On April 07 2010 17:56 WorkersOfTheWorld wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 17:17 kickinhead wrote:On April 07 2010 12:35 avilo wrote:
Is this a joke thread? Carriers are just as strong as they've always been, and void rays are strong as fuck too. Is this a joke-post because Carriers are clearly not as strong as in SC1 and VoidRays are just a cheesey Unit that can easily be countered by scouting properly and knowing the Matchups... It's all about that Stargate is overall more a gimmick than a solid Building, because you can't integrade a Stargate into a solid build in any MU. Precisely. The problem with our air is that, with exception of the silly mothership, none of our air units are particuarly effective with standing armies of ground troops. Void-rays loose increidble amounts of damage if they have to continually target switch. The phoenix has tiny range, and has to remain locked in place to grav a unit: ie. becomes a "kill me" sign above the battle for all anti-air to see. The carrier, besides being very late-game, is incredibly inferior in smaller numbers to other late-game air units. I'd say: replace carrier with tempest, give the phoenix more range so that it can grav units without putting itself above the enemy line, and leave the void-ray as our gimmick air unit. As for the mothership. I think a slight price reduction and build-time reduction could make it more apprealing, without buffing it much.
I find the main problem with the mothership is that it can't get away from anything. So if they were going to buff it in some way, I'd mainly just want improved speed.
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just make a new unit thats like the evolution of the corsair, still has splash damage and give it the antigravity thing and replace that with the pheonix. lore being corsairs got updated. I also believe corsairs belonged to the dark templar side of toss right? so make the new corsair the same color as void ray perhaps...
Just a thought from a sleepy forum lurker
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
Void Rays are amazing. They are not a cheesy unit and they will become the most important unit in the Protoss arsenal years down the track. They are the new corsair imo, since they play a similar role to them (harass but moreso, scouting) and are valid in every matchup. Truly a wonder unit.
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On April 07 2010 18:10 Plexa wrote:
Void Rays are amazing. They are not a cheesy unit and they will become the most important unit in the Protoss arsenal years down the track. They are the new corsair imo, since they play a similar role to them (harass but moreso, scouting) and are valid in every matchup. Truly a wonder unit.
i can see where you're going with this, but comparing them to sairs is a bad analogy imo. a pretty big part of why sairs were used was to help ward off mutas/gain air superiority to use shuttles. void rays on the other hand... well if you're under attack by mutas it'd be a better investment to spend that money on +1 shields for you buildings
I havent seen anything that the void ray does apart from killing buildings that the phoenix doesnt do better for less. phoenix is faster, cheaper, and in addition to scout/ovie harass phoenix can worker harass with graviton beam. care to enlighten me on what exactly it is that the void ray is great at apart from the obvious building destruction?
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On April 07 2010 18:21 Chen wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 18:10 Plexa wrote:
Void Rays are amazing. They are not a cheesy unit and they will become the most important unit in the Protoss arsenal years down the track. They are the new corsair imo, since they play a similar role to them (harass but moreso, scouting) and are valid in every matchup. Truly a wonder unit. i can see where you're going with this, but comparing them to sairs is a bad analogy imo. a pretty big part of why sairs were used was to help ward off mutas/gain air superiority to use shuttles. void rays on the other hand... well if you're under attack by mutas it'd be a better investment to spend that money on +1 shields for you buildings I havent seen anything that the void ray does apart from killing buildings that the phoenix doesnt do better for less. phoenix is faster, cheaper, and in addition to scout/ovie harass phoenix can worker harass with graviton beam. care to enlighten me on what exactly it is that the void ray is great at apart from the obvious building destruction?
Void Rays = vision
Void Rays = seeing Muta tech before it's finished
Void Rays = preexisting stargate
Preexisting Stargate = Phoenix to counter muta without significant investment.
The best thing about the Void Ray is that it locks your opponent up into investing in things he doesn't want to. To move out he either needs to keep hydras at home or invest in spores - either way you keep him in giving you enough time to get an expansion up. The key is not losing the Void Rays as the pressure they apply is far more useful than the damage they are likely to cause. Furthermore, Voids will nearly always come before Muta do so it's not like in BW when Corsairs/Muta could pop around the same time.
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Void rays need to switch some +armored damage to their base damage as they are terrible against non armored.. They do something like 2 +4..
They are already bad vs many small units by their design, no need to make them even worse with that..
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On April 07 2010 17:56 WorkersOfTheWorld wrote:
Void-rays loose increidble amounts of damage if they have to continually target switch.
Next time please try to use the unit at least once before you talk...
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On April 07 2010 18:22 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 18:21 Chen wrote:On April 07 2010 18:10 Plexa wrote:
Void Rays are amazing. They are not a cheesy unit and they will become the most important unit in the Protoss arsenal years down the track. They are the new corsair imo, since they play a similar role to them (harass but moreso, scouting) and are valid in every matchup. Truly a wonder unit. i can see where you're going with this, but comparing them to sairs is a bad analogy imo. a pretty big part of why sairs were used was to help ward off mutas/gain air superiority to use shuttles. void rays on the other hand... well if you're under attack by mutas it'd be a better investment to spend that money on +1 shields for you buildings I havent seen anything that the void ray does apart from killing buildings that the phoenix doesnt do better for less. phoenix is faster, cheaper, and in addition to scout/ovie harass phoenix can worker harass with graviton beam. care to enlighten me on what exactly it is that the void ray is great at apart from the obvious building destruction? Void Rays = vision Void Rays = seeing Muta tech before it's finished Void Rays = preexisting stargate Preexisting Stargate = Phoenix to counter muta without significant investment. The best thing about the Void Ray is that it locks your opponent up into investing in things he doesn't want to. To move out he either needs to keep hydras at home or invest in spores - either way you keep him in giving you enough time to get an expansion up. The key is not losing the Void Rays as the pressure they apply is far more useful than the damage they are likely to cause. Furthermore, Voids will nearly always come before Muta do so it's not like in BW when Corsairs/Muta could pop around the same time.
Vs zergs who are experienced vs void ray, you are quite vulnerable to a roach hydra counter after void ray before you get your collosus tech up (delayed even more by having to get a natural, which they can deny with speedlings until you get a sizable # of cannons) If they open with 2 queens, keep ovies in a circle around their main, and as often is the case have opened hydra, you don't do any significant damage with the first void ray. They need only a queen and 3 hydras per expo to be safe from any further void ray attack. From there, you can expand, but have to pay for nexus, forge, cannons, robo, robo support, 2ish collosus, and several sentries before you are safe from a roach hydra bust. The time it takes to get 2 collosus after you have spent getting 1-2 void rays and an expansion is too large and good zergs punish you for it (also using an overseer they can get a pretty good picture of when you're skipping on defence / what state your robo tech is at). Most of the time I open 1 gate stargate I prefer showing a single phoenix to preempt them from massing muta, stop them from getting information about my expansion or robo tech early, and prioritize my robo tech over saturating my natural with probes.
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Void Rays are cool. They're pretty much designed to kill buildings in a heartbeat, but they loose all their usefulness in an actual fight. For one, they are really, really slow. So slow that it makes it pretty easy for your opponent to micro the unit you're focusing out of the fight. They also don't deal that much damage against units per say, especially Zerg ones, since they generally don't have enough hp to allow Void Rays to attack to their full potential. Not to mention their full potential only exists against Armored units.
I myself use the Void Ray cheese a lot in PvZ on big maps, but that's pretty much the only time I use it. Of course, once you get like 4 or 5, they become deadly all together, but it's a really expensive unit and any other air unit, aside from maybe vikings, can outrun and hit n run them very easily.
Regarding Phoenixes, the idea of Gravitation Beam forcing air units to the ground is not a bad idea, much like the net ability the Raiders have in Warcraft III. It would actually make the Muta harass a lot easier to handle and it wouldn't completely ruin the match-up by making Phoenixes overpowered since the Phoenix using Gravitation Beam would be quite vulnerable while channeling and could so be taken down easily by a couple of Mutas. Although I think that if they implemented that, they should definitely increase the energy cost to like 65 or 75.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
But trap, I'm not in it to do significant damage. Besides, after the early Zealot pressure most Zerg do get the Roach warren to be safe (whether they build roaches or not is a different issue) which slows things down just that little bit more. Even moreso if they are expanding. Perhaps I'm just not playing Zergs who are experienced against Voids, but the picture you paint isn't quite as grim as you are making out.
Cannons are enough to stall off any early attack, while committing 6 hydras to defense can take the sting out of a roach/hydra break. Furthermore, if they are putting lords around their base - that's excellent, since I will try and snipe them off and keep the zerg occupied. You don't necessarily need robo tech immediately anyway, it's legitimate to follow up with DTs if they are going to bust you (which you should be able to see from drone saturation and whatnot) else getting blink or charge and applying some micro can suffice to ward off slower breaks.
I think it's perfectly legitimate, as again, you're in it for the pressure as opposed to the damage (any damage is really a bonus the way I see it). If Voids weren't legitimate do you think you would see good players like Dreiven and Hasuobs still opening with them?
Regarding Phoenixes, the idea of Gravitation Beam forcing air units to the ground is not a bad idea, much like the net ability the Raiders have in Warcraft III. It would actually make the Muta harass a lot easier to handle and it wouldn't completely ruin the match-up by making Phoenixes overpowered since the Phoenix using Gravitation Beam would be quite vulnerable while channeling and could so be taken down easily by a couple of Mutas. Although I think that if they implement that, they should definitely increase the energy cost to like 65 or 75. That would make perfect sense haha. Although, I don't know what practical use it would have since Phoenix are much better just attacking mutalisks and with the recent buff, Stalkers are decent against them as well (with sentry obviously). Although, perhaps it would be useful against Corruptors mid game vs Colossus?
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On April 07 2010 18:35 Klockan3 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 17:56 WorkersOfTheWorld wrote:
Void-rays loose increidble amounts of damage if they have to continually target switch. Next time please try to use the unit at least once before you talk... Perhaps you should try it out. The Void ray is extremely weak against for example marines. It retains a charge that has gone to a higher level, but if it doesn't have enough time to increase to a higher level, it will have to attempt to recharge completely on the next target.
Not only that, but it has a huge delay in switching targets. It's extremely crappy against anything thats small, such as Marines or Hydralisks.
On April 07 2010 18:10 Plexa wrote:
Void Rays are amazing. They are not a cheesy unit and they will become the most important unit in the Protoss arsenal years down the track. They are the new corsair imo, since they play a similar role to them (harass but moreso, scouting) and are valid in every matchup. Truly a wonder unit.
I've watched hundreds of top level games and I've never seen it be anything but a gimmick. Claiming that "it's the new corsair its just that you nor anyone else cant see it but I can" really feels like the emperors new clothes.
Corsair is used in masses pretty much every game (pvz), I've not seen one single game where void rays have been used in mass. If you are going to do such a bold claim, I'd expect it to come with an abundance of evidence, instead, you provide none. Show us some top tournament level games where it is used as much as corsair is in any random SC1 PvZ game.
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On April 07 2010 19:12 Plexa wrote:But trap, I'm not in it to do significant damage. Besides, after the early Zealot pressure most Zerg do get the Roach warren to be safe (whether they build roaches or not is a different issue) which slows things down just that little bit more. Even moreso if they are expanding. Perhaps I'm just not playing Zergs who are experienced against Voids, but the picture you paint isn't quite as grim as you are making out. Cannons are enough to stall off any early attack, while committing 6 hydras to defense can take the sting out of a roach/hydra break. Furthermore, if they are putting lords around their base - that's excellent, since I will try and snipe them off and keep the zerg occupied. You don't necessarily need robo tech immediately anyway, it's legitimate to follow up with DTs if they are going to bust you (which you should be able to see from drone saturation and whatnot) else getting blink or charge and applying some micro can suffice to ward off slower breaks. I think it's perfectly legitimate, as again, you're in it for the pressure as opposed to the damage (any damage is really a bonus the way I see it). If Voids weren't legitimate do you think you would see good players like Dreiven and Hasuobs still opening with them? Show nested quote +Regarding Phoenixes, the idea of Gravitation Beam forcing air units to the ground is not a bad idea, much like the net ability the Raiders have in Warcraft III. It would actually make the Muta harass a lot easier to handle and it wouldn't completely ruin the match-up by making Phoenixes overpowered since the Phoenix using Gravitation Beam would be quite vulnerable while channeling and could so be taken down easily by a couple of Mutas. Although I think that if they implement that, they should definitely increase the energy cost to like 65 or 75. That would make perfect sense haha. Although, I don't know what practical use it would have since Phoenix are much better just attacking mutalisks and with the recent buff, Stalkers are decent against them as well (with sentry obviously). Although, perhaps it would be useful against Corruptors mid game vs Colossus?
Nah, it would give a whole new purpose to Phoenixes. I think everyone on this thread agreed that a Protoss can never match a Zerg when it comes to producing Phoenixes and Mutalisks. But since Phoenixes are supposed to be the counter to Mutalisks, implementing that feature would actually make it ok for the Protoss to have less Phoenixes, because it would basically bring the ground army into most fights and would render the Mutalisk harass a LOT less effective, while still remaining possibly deadly if the Zerg uses his brain a little. Cuz I'm sorry but right now, in order to perform an efficient harass, all the Zerg has to do is go to the mineral line, attack some random probes, fly back whenever a threat shows up, and then switch to the expand if there is one, and then repeat, all that while completely outrunning the Protoss' army and crushing any Phoenix coming their way because of the outnumbering.
Gravitation Beam working both ways would create a new way for Protoss to deal with air, by also impletenting the already quite diversified ground army to air fights. I'd see this as the perfect replacement for Overload or the AoE ability the Corsairs had. I mean, this would greatly justify a Stargate build, for me at least.
Bottomline, Gravitation Beam has the potential to make Phoenixes a great replacement to Corsairs, and would in my opinion bring some fresh to the Starcraft gameplay by creating new situations. Someone suggest this on Blizzard forums please ! xD
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I'm aware you arn't making void rays to do significant damage Plexa. But you don't have an answer to mass roach hydra after making 2 void rays; it delays the rest of the tech you need to survive too much. Most zergs morph an overseer and constantly attempt to changeling into your base right after lair. Cannons are not sufficient to stop mass hydra roach because zerg can always know how many cannons you have, whereas it is extremely difficult to figure out how many hydra-roach your opponent has even with obs. In the meantime they have covered the path to your base with creep, and a DT followup right after stargate is suicide because what you need is collosus. I'm not saying void ray is "illegitimate" it's just a very risky build banking on the zerg opening spire, 1 queen, heavy roaches, and from my experience vs the top EU players (orly, mardow, etc) it's not as successful as the 1 gate forge FE or any variant of a lair timing push.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On April 07 2010 19:20 Paladia wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 18:10 Plexa wrote:
Void Rays are amazing. They are not a cheesy unit and they will become the most important unit in the Protoss arsenal years down the track. They are the new corsair imo, since they play a similar role to them (harass but moreso, scouting) and are valid in every matchup. Truly a wonder unit. I've watched hundreds of top level games and I've never seen it be anything but a gimmick. Claiming that "it's the new corsair its just that you nor anyone else cant see it but I can" really feels like the emperors new clothes. Corsair is used in masses pretty much every game (pvz), I've not seen one single game where void rays have been used in mass. If you are going to do such a bold claim, I'd expect it to come with an abundance of evidence, instead, you provide none. Show us some top tournament level games where it is used as much as corsair is in any random SC1 PvZ game.
You don't understand why Corsair are useful in PvZ  it's not their splash vs Air and whatnot, it's the fact they give you vision of the Zerg!
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=60959
Read that FE on neo-gen PvZ (not quite neo gen anymore, but it's points are what matters!) and you will instantly be able to see the similarities between Voids in their current form and the Corsair in PvZ
However, you are quite right in saying that Void Rays are not effective en masse whereas the Corsair is. That's just the way things turned out - but individually early on in small numbers is where the real threat of the Void ray lies. Phoenix can be massed if necessary from 2 stargate as an equivalent to Corsairs (corsair suck vs devourers, and phoenix suck vs corruptors though).
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On April 07 2010 19:30 Trap wrote:
I'm aware you arn't making void rays to do significant damage Plexa. But you don't have an answer to mass roach hydra after making 2 void rays; it delays the rest of the tech you need to survive too much. Most zergs morph an overseer and constantly attempt to changeling into your base right after lair. Cannons are not sufficient to stop mass hydra roach because zerg can always know how many cannons you have, whereas it is extremely difficult to figure out how many hydra-roach your opponent has even with obs. In the meantime they have covered the path to your base with creep, and a DT followup right after stargate is suicide because what you need is collosus. I'm not saying void ray is "illegitimate" it's just a very risky build banking on the zerg opening spire, 1 queen, heavy roaches, and from my experience vs the top EU players (orly, mardow, etc) it's not as successful as the 1 gate forge FE or any variant of a lair timing push.
Fair enough. I still think you are slightly over exaggerating the extent to which you are behind. Although you do have a point. After the 1gate harass if the Zerg hasn't committed extra defenses or extra lings I would tend not to make the Void since the Zerg will be more than prepared for it and have a booming economy while you've pointlessly delayed yours. However, if you are able to get some damage off then I'm 100% for making Voids.
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On April 07 2010 19:32 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 19:20 Paladia wrote:On April 07 2010 18:10 Plexa wrote:
Void Rays are amazing. They are not a cheesy unit and they will become the most important unit in the Protoss arsenal years down the track. They are the new corsair imo, since they play a similar role to them (harass but moreso, scouting) and are valid in every matchup. Truly a wonder unit. I've watched hundreds of top level games and I've never seen it be anything but a gimmick. Claiming that "it's the new corsair its just that you nor anyone else cant see it but I can" really feels like the emperors new clothes. Corsair is used in masses pretty much every game (pvz), I've not seen one single game where void rays have been used in mass. If you are going to do such a bold claim, I'd expect it to come with an abundance of evidence, instead, you provide none. Show us some top tournament level games where it is used as much as corsair is in any random SC1 PvZ game. You don't understand why Corsair are useful in PvZ it's not their splash vs Air and whatnot, it's the fact they give you vision of the Zerg! http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=60959Read that FE on neo-gen PvZ (not quite neo gen anymore, but it's points are what matters!) and you will instantly be able to see the similarities between Voids in their current form and the Corsair in PvZ However, you are quite right in saying that Void Rays are not effective en masse whereas the Corsair is. That's just the way things turned out - but individually early on in small numbers is where the real threat of the Void ray lies. Phoenix can be massed if necessary from 2 stargate as an equivalent to Corsairs (corsair suck vs devourers, and phoenix suck vs corruptors though). Well, if it wasn't for their damage Corsairs were used, why would you ever make more than one of them? And why wouldn't you make an observer if you wanted vision, instead of investing hundreds of minerals and gas into a void ray?
Right now, making a void ray isn't a bad idea per se, since if you are lucky the Zerg could be unprepared and you can do enough damage to win the game right there, however, that's hardly a reliable thing to go for. None the less, if the Protoss air was more attractive (such as Vikings and Banshees are), it would be more plausable to go for the Stargate anyway.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On April 07 2010 20:26 Paladia wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2010 19:32 Plexa wrote:On April 07 2010 19:20 Paladia wrote:On April 07 2010 18:10 Plexa wrote:
Void Rays are amazing. They are not a cheesy unit and they will become the most important unit in the Protoss arsenal years down the track. They are the new corsair imo, since they play a similar role to them (harass but moreso, scouting) and are valid in every matchup. Truly a wonder unit. I've watched hundreds of top level games and I've never seen it be anything but a gimmick. Claiming that "it's the new corsair its just that you nor anyone else cant see it but I can" really feels like the emperors new clothes. Corsair is used in masses pretty much every game (pvz), I've not seen one single game where void rays have been used in mass. If you are going to do such a bold claim, I'd expect it to come with an abundance of evidence, instead, you provide none. Show us some top tournament level games where it is used as much as corsair is in any random SC1 PvZ game. You don't understand why Corsair are useful in PvZ it's not their splash vs Air and whatnot, it's the fact they give you vision of the Zerg! http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=60959Read that FE on neo-gen PvZ (not quite neo gen anymore, but it's points are what matters!) and you will instantly be able to see the similarities between Voids in their current form and the Corsair in PvZ However, you are quite right in saying that Void Rays are not effective en masse whereas the Corsair is. That's just the way things turned out - but individually early on in small numbers is where the real threat of the Void ray lies. Phoenix can be massed if necessary from 2 stargate as an equivalent to Corsairs (corsair suck vs devourers, and phoenix suck vs corruptors though). Well, if it wasn't for their damage Corsairs were used, why would you ever make more than one of them? And why wouldn't you make an observer if you wanted vision, instead of investing hundreds of minerals and gas into a void ray? Right now, making a void ray isn't a bad idea per se, since if you are lucky the Zerg could be unprepared and you can do enough damage to win the game right there, however, that's hardly a reliable thing to go for. None the less, if the Protoss air was more attractive (such as Vikings and Banshees are), it would be more plausable to go for the Stargate anyway. Void Rays do damage differently to Corsairs. 2 or 3 Voids are capable of taking down greedy expansions and are just as good at assassinating overlords as corsairs are (arguably better). Furthermore, they're just generally good at being annoying.
Incidentally, this is a good example of what I mean when using Void Rays vs Zerg from Leg vs Glade.
http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Plexa/sc2_reps/GLaDe_Leg_G5.sc2replay
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Hopefully, if this patch 8 is true, void rays are more viable now as supporting units for attacks.
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On April 08 2010 03:31 Spartan wrote:
Hopefully, if this patch 8 is true, void rays are more viable now as supporting units for attacks.
But it's also not as good as taking out buildings/massive-armored units. God...blizzard has this fetish for nerfing Protoss.
EDIT: after looking more at the patch, I realized that void rays were actually buffed for the most part. They were really only nerfed in mineral cost (which isn't too bad) and the reduction of armor.
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Puzzled by the void-ray changes, but i'll play around with them before i say anything else.
Still feel that protoss air isn't up to par compared to terran and zerg, but i'm not too bothered by carriers and mothership being a POS, given their location at the end of our least used tech tree.
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The Void Ray change doesn't affect the Mutalisk harass. They're WAY too expensive and WAY too slow to be massed, etc etc etc etc..... Same problem. Mass Muta will still be insanely effective. Bah.
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If Phoenix got a build time reduction, it might be able to keep up if you scout the Muta harass. You could transition into Patch 8 Void Ray rather easily to at least provide decent ground support, should he decide to tech switch.
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On April 08 2010 04:36 Spaylz wrote:
The Void Ray change doesn't affect the Mutalisk harass. They're WAY too expensive and WAY too slow to be massed, etc etc etc etc..... Same problem. Mass Muta will still be insanely effective. Bah.
The VR-change could IMHo greatly affect the strength of fast Muta-Techswitches in PvZ, because:
- VR can now be used on a more solid/standard build and not only as basically an all-in rush that has to kill off hatches to be cost-effective and if not, you'll loose in the long run.
- VR's can be used to better hold off early roach/ling-attacks.
---> Therefore it's more viable to go for a stargate because you don't invest into sth that will cost you the game if the opponent scouts it and reacts properly.
---> This gives the Protoss the chance to implement a Stargate into a solid PvZ-build and help him to effectively use Phoenix when you are facing a fast techswitch to Mutas,
Mutas only were as good as they are because Protoss had to suddenly switch to another army-composition and robo for example, couldn't provide any anti-air. If you now go for a Stargate to harrass with Pheonix and Vr's, you'll have another building that can help out when the Z is switching to Mutas.
It also makes Fe'ing with Protoss a better option, because it was a real problem for P not being able to harrass/scout properly when going for a Fast-Expansion. You can't just sit in your base not knowing what the Z is up to, but if you went for Phoenix/Vr's, you could've easily lost against a roach/ling-timing-attack and against that, the new VR seems to be much better than the old one.
I just love this small change and it could affect PvZ to a great deal and it could allow much more versatility in builds.
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Whoa... You really believe that ? I mean, you do realize Void Rays are slow as shit and they take forever to even start attacking, and they take even longer to deal real damage ?
I don't think this will change much. But seeing is believing, we'll see in due time.
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On April 08 2010 03:32 Ryuu314 wrote:
EDIT: after looking more at the patch, I realized that void rays were actually buffed for the most part. They were really only nerfed in mineral cost (which isn't too bad) and the reduction of armor.
Looking at the numbers, void rays mostly just got rebalanced to be less extreme before they're charged.
The two big changes are:
1) that they do more than double their old damage against non-armoured units with no charge (i.e. 1/3 beams)
2) They do less than half their old damage against armour with 1 charge (i.e. 2/3 beams), and 1/6th less damage with no charge.
Fully charged, they do more damage period - they'll still burn your base down very fast, and it looks like the rewards for microing them are higher.
While charging, they do more damage to light, and less to armored. Cutting out the middle level will also make them much easier to micro.
As a wtf: It's just struck me that they don't have any armour now but still have the "armored" unit type
I'm going to be really interested to see how this actually plays. It seems like harassing bases will be toned down, as the enemy will take a lot less damage if they can drive the VRs off, but if you catch the opponent without AA, they'll still lose their base very fast.
If anyone gets a chance, I'd love to know whether 2 queens can still kill two void rays.
Also, assuming it still takes 14 ticks to get a charge, that's only 70 damage now against an armoured target, so a hallucinated colossus should charge 2 voidrays - food for thought.
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For me it is ok as it is. People should learn to use the phoenix properly, and realize that the ray can be used instead of the inmortal, like you go inmortal>collossi or ray>mothership as a viable tier 3 progression. They are mainly support units, you will still need zealot legs and ht later.
I am more concerned on how much the dt suck.
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I finally got to experiment some with phoenixes today and I enjoyed it. I think that Protoss air is not lacking really, now that I have gotten a chance to play around with them a bit, but rather they are situational. They only work in certain cases and in other cases they get decimated. I think once people get decent with the phoenixes they may be used some more with their gravity what-cha-ma-call-it. As a Protoss player, I can respect the lack of air and appreciate the situations I get to use them in.
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The point is that, even if you scout your competent opponent and know they're going Mutas, you must cede map control. That's not right.
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On April 08 2010 13:23 coltrane wrote:
For me it is ok as it is. People should learn to use the phoenix properly, and realize that the ray can be used instead of the inmortal, like you go inmortal>collossi or ray>mothership as a viable tier 3 progression.
Feel free to link a replay of this because i have no idea how you can compre the immortal and colossus to those two god-awful air units. Let's forget for a moment that we want the robo anyhow for observers. Let's also forget that the price of the mothership is absurd and the build time is nearly 3 mins. JUST consider the damage potential vs. cost. Unless your opponent is massing air, there's frankly almost no situation where those air units are worth more.
Even when air units are the name of the game, you'd get much better damage per resource spent making a bunch of blink stalkers and sentries to go along with your phoenix. Our air units are not a viable alternateive to robo in standard play. Hell, I find myself using dark templar MUCH more often than the mothership or void rays just because they're neay map-control units for late-game.
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I wish we could just abandon Broodwar based thoughts all together. I hate seeing people ask for Corsairs and Vultures to come back. Lets move beyond them and accept that this is a new game.
If we embraced that kind of thinking we'd have never got units like the Sentry.
If one wants Broodwar one should go play Broodwar.
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so we should remoev marines zealots and zergligns too?
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The Antigrav AtG nonmassive sounds like a great idea to test. I say give it a go.
On the other hand, the toss in me really wants to see a powerful but expensive ship (maybe like scout with upgradable splash) and a neat ability to keep it useful.
The air units in this game don't seem all that well thought out IMO. Hope everything gets sorted out cause they all have lots of potential.
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With patch 8 and the increased void ray cost Protoss air only got weaker, in my opinion.
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Agree, the stargate tech will be even more underused
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Canada11315 Posts
An Idea...
I wonder if the main issue is not so much that Protoss air is terrible so much as there is no reason to tech to it? For the Terran, the medivac is so crucial to their bio army and so they build it- and while they're at it, it's worth building some vikings or some other air. Thus the starport doesn't go to waste.
For Protoss, maybe, there is just too much good stuff in the Robo Bay- I have to force myself to tech to templar because most games can be won with a combo of warp gates and Robo Bays. In the SCBW, there was the shuttle, observer, and reaver- you could harrass and sometimes do a reaver push. But it wasn't usually the core of a Toss army- but you usually needed it for the observers. But even then, storms and dragoon micro could temporarily delay observer tech.
I like the Robo units, but I wonder if they moved the observer to the Stargate- would that not make it a necessity to make a stargate? People would still get the Robo Bay because the warp prism, immortal, collossus options are still really good. But once you are forced to get a stargate to get observers, people would be more likely to put the stargates to use- rather than leaving them empty for the entire game.
It's a flying unit, so it can easily come out of either places- screw SCBW tradition if it promotes better game variety I say.
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On April 10 2010 04:18 Falling wrote:
An Idea...
...once you are forced to get a stargate to get observers, people would be more likely to put the stargates to use- rather than leaving them empty for the entire game.
Great idea! While you're at it, how about making the Marauder producible only at the Factory such that you're forced to build more factories!
As above posters have mentioned the Phoenix needs to be more worthwhile to commit to it's production. Both the Zerg and Terran have massable air that doesn't become obsolete when the opponent tech switches. My suggestion is either significantly reduce the build time AND cost of the Phoenix or enhance it's ability (i.e. make Anti-Grav ground air units also OR be able to fire while using AG).
Just to re-cap some stats to show Phoenix is most expensive and situational basic air unit:
Mutalisk
Cost:100/100 HP:120 BT:33 (Simultaneous build from multiple larva) Movement:Fast
AtA & AtG: 9,3,1 Range:3 Rate:Normal
Viking
Cost:150/75 HP:125 BT:42 (effectively 21 w/ Reactor) Movement:Normal
AtA: (10 + 4 vArmor)x2 Range:NINE! Rate:Normal
GtG:14 Range:6 Rate:Fast (same range and greater DPS than Stalker for 25M/25G more)
Phoenix
Cost:150/100 HP/SP:120/60 BT:45 (35 w/ Chrono Boost w/ available energy) Movement:Fast
AtA: (5 + 5 vLight)x2 Range:4 Rate:Fast
Anti-Grav:Lift non-massive ground unit while incapacitating Phoenix for 10s and 50 energy Range:4
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I wouldn't mind if phoenix was given web instead of gravity bullshit
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Yeah, this is definietly not an issue of "everything is just so good that I want to build a starport unit, but cannot." I win 90% of my games at the robo fac or robo bay for colossai around the 10-15min mark. If I start up Twilight Council or Stargate instead, i'm unable to deal with: banshees (cloak), marauders, immortals, all-in roach, mech push, or really any common strategy.
Following either tree to it's end (templar or stargate) is extremely detrimental to the protoss player. While the zerg can generate detectors w/o a building other than the lair, and a terran can scan, emp, or build ravens from the starport: protoss are still absolutely bound to the robo fac for this crucial unit. Similarly, our best anti-ground-mass unit, the colossus, is also from the robo line. While HT used to be a competing stand-in, these days it isn't able to compete at all. Not only is the HT more vulnerable to EMP than the colossus, but it is also much slower and harder to manage in battle.
So then, what of the stargate units? Well, these units are defficient, even by comparison to the post-nerf templar.
Not only is the phoenix a terrible harasser, compared to it's counterparts, due to it's tiny range and utter vulnerability to any small GtA units or static defense, it is also an attrociously expensive air-superiority fighter that can only compete with the mutalisk (and only to the point when splash overcomes them). Their immense speed is more often a detriment than an asset, sending them head-long into enemy units before the supporting ground troops have arrived, or their slower fleet escort. Their tiny range causes them to be descimated by static defense. Their minute damage (split into two shots, which is even better) and bonus to light make them hands-down the worst AA fighter by far.
The Void Ray is very unique. It's a fun harassment unit, and if you know how to micro the VR it can be quite powerful. That being said, it's still awful against most other air units, which shouldn't be a problem given the proposed role of the phoenix, but.. we've discussed that.
The Carrier, icon of capitol ships, and probably still the weakest one. It cannot compete with the battlecruiser head to head. It falls easily to the corrupter, and doesn't have the devestating anti-ground effect of the brood lord. Frankly, the Tempest was a far better unit for the job. I don't understand why anyone would build a carrier 1v1, unless he wanted to embarass his opponent. The Carrier simply is not a proper capitol ship anymore.
The Mothership. Frist off, it shouldn't be some kind of 400/400 megalithic game-ending super-unit. The limitation of having 1 at a time is enough. The mothership is far too expensive, and as we all WELL know, it's a heaping waste of resources in the present build(s). Honestly, I think it's price could be cut down significantly, and it's speed buffed. With just those minimal changes, the mothership might have tactical use without adding in some re-hashed version of an OP ability it once had.
So Overall Units of the Stargate:
Phoenix: Not Effective
Void Ray: Effective
Carrier: Not Effective
Mothership: Not Effective
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my opinion:
void ray: is fine. it can kill buildings and big targets like colossus very well. just a bit underused in other strats then cheese. indeed its problem is that its so slow in battles. but players have to overcome this by could position play.
carrier: fine. its strong if it catches the opponend of guard. i think that was never different.
mothership: its fine as it is but i would like a smaller unit more.
phoenix: cool unit and really cool ability. but its not strong enough against anti air. its impossible to gain air dominance. its only use currently is killing queens (which is great) hunting overlords (great) breaking wallins with tanks (yeah) and killing banshees BUT as soon as the enemy has his superior anti air fighters like a thousand mutalisks or a few vikings, the phoenix is useless. you cant counter banshees or mutalisks anymore.
biggest problem against mutalisks is indeed that the zerg can produce way more than a toss can build phoenixes and even if the toss can overcome the zerg, all phoenixes get useless as soon as the zerg decides to drop mutalisks.
what to do:
buff phoenix. more damage against everything. like 7+5*2 or something. (probably have to calculate it precisely) this way, the lift ability gets stronger too.
remove mothership and add a caster unit.
i would love something like an arbiter. flying, AtG, cloaking and recall. one additional ability would be nice. like anti-air AoE stun or something (as long as the archon does not get better at this).
of course you would have to build a new tech building.
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The removal of the overload ability severely detriments air micro imo :/.
http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/File:Phoenix_SC2_Game2.jpg
Make the range smaller then that picture.
I feel like I would give the Vikings range 10 attack to the corrupter, and bringing back the overload which now effects ground units and stuns for ~2-3 seconds. The corrupter would receive static damage. The viking would receive an attack speed buff.
This would give the zerg a strong counter versus the new pheonix, while terran would receive a more versatile and less specialized air unit.
Micro would be improved over all, as the scourge micro dynamic would make a return in the form of pheonix overload, while the zerg would need to be very careful in order to snipe pheonixes.
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Based on what I've gathered from watching streams and reps is that the Phoenix is quite capable against most enemy air, except armored but that isn't so hard to understand, if you just get enough of them(6 or7 seems to be some sort of sweet spot although 5 can wreak havoc on a mineral line and snipe a queen or two or help shift the balance in a fight with the lift abilty). What the Phoenix lacks in punch(dmg vs air that isnt light and range against air that is light) it makes up for in speed, kiting in and out of enemy units range and harassing bases. But how do you get adequate numbers of a unit that takes 45 seconds to build without going for two or more stargates. If you're going for air dominance then fine it's doable off of two(with dedicated chrono boosting) or three stargates(youre gonna be using chrono boost still). But when going for a ground army with air support, which is most often the case, then you're probably not gonna be using chrono boost that much on your (often) one stargate. Even if you've noticed your opponent going for alot of air protoss is just gonna counter it with more stalkers and a few extra sentries(build a few more stalkers/sentries instead of repleneshing the dead zealots) and try to micro(blink) to the best of his/her ability.
imho simply put what makes the Phoenix strong is it's movement speed coupled with the dmg it does and the lift ability and what makes it not being built is the time it takes(maybe the cost as well but from looking at the stats provided by Fwiffo I'd say it's justified). I say the time it takes because when you scout zerg going air you put down a stargate as a reaction(or just increase your stalker and sentry count, but I think this will change) and the two buildings will finish more or less at the same point(from the point of spire starting to build to the point where protoss scouts and puts down a stargate/stargates is what makes the difference). But when the spire finishes the zerg then goes on to build 5-6 mutas off the bat, and then somewhat fast adds on another 3 or 4(total). And for the toss to react to this quickly enough it just isn't possible with one stargate, heck not even two as the toss needs to put it's phoenixes into use pretty much straight away. So my proposal is to decrease the build time of the phoenix to 41 seconds and give it a somewhat longer acceleration time on movement. This would make it build at a ratio to mutas that works for the Phoenix, given you use chrono boost of course(basically scouting is the limiting factor that keeps you from having enough phoenixes to deal with the mutas). If you don't use chrono boost then don't expect to come out ahead or break even since you won't have enough phoenixes at one given point to deal with the mutas(unless you hide your phoenixes while waiting for the others to finish and at which point you simply have to accept mutas wreaking havoc in your base due to your lack of air, and your ground will be busy elsewhere or dead). To break even you would need another stargate with generous amounts of chrono boost.
Any sort of damage buff(added base dmg or the overload ability) would offset the balance in dps of the two units the way it is now(which is fine).
OR, and this is a big one, maybe protoss needs to work on using stargates and phoenixes more and try to figure out how to incorporate it into a bo that works against zerg going mutas. But this is really a big OR since it might not be viable due to the games current state. Of course they do exist in which the phoenix takes on a role of harasser and then deals with enemy air but Z seldom goes for mutas when protoss already has phoenixes in the air(just build hydras instead, faster and cheaper).
And last but not least: get it out of your head that units have to play somewhat similar just beacause they are air or ground or armored etc. SC2 is much more diverse in that units seem to, and therefore according to alot of people are supposed to, handle and play the same way between the races. But the way the game is designed they really arent. A Phoenix does quite ok vs air but where it really shines is as a harassing unit and shifting the battles in the protoss favor with the lift ability. Whereas a Viking is beast against air but is decent as a harassing unit BUT it dies real fast as soon as it touches ground and the only way for it to do somewhat good in a ground battle is if it's left alone more or less(although they do good vs marine/ling/zealots with some micro).
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I don't see where you're getting phoenix harass > viking harass and that somehow justifies the severely diminished AA capacity that it has vs. anything but mutalisks. Grav beam harass is flat-out never as effective as landing an equal number of vikings to harass, unless you are harassing a lot of targets who could kill ground units, but have no way to hit air. This simply isn't a realistic scenario you'll run into for more than a minute of the game (40 second hydra den, the build time of a few marines and a turret).
I really do agree that the relationship between the phoenix and muta isn't far off base, but that isn't the whole picture here. The phoenix is not a good answer to banshees, vikings, BC, Carrier, Brood Lord, or Corrupters. Void Rays don't cover this role either because the phoenix should be able to cover their slow build-up damage with fast AA support (to protect the rays from being gibbed by mutas, corrupters, vikings, etc.), but it just doesn't happen. The two pre-carrier toss air units do not work well together like their terran and zerg counterparts. This is a problem.
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the 5 second delay for vikings to transform between modes is a big enough drawback tocounter any argument saying they're overpowered. anyhow, workersoftheworld is right about protoss' two base air units being extremely shoddy compared to the other races
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EPT
