On February 22 2012 22:33 PureBalls wrote: Terrans just keep coming. 5 out of 6 advance in todays Code A matches, and the one that didnt, was eliminated in a TvT. Not even one protoss wins his PvT. And the one zerg also lost his ZvT.
QQ can now stop.
ggyo
according to artosis on sotg(I couldn't watch GSL today), the patch hasn't hit in Korea yet.
Also, I don't think anyone was claiming that this means terran can't win, just that terran will have a much harder time winning lategame TvZ.
The whining has been before the patch. And changes do not affect PvT, unless you use ghost to snipe zealots.
Man ignorance is bliss...
Yes the changes affect PvT, thats why people are complaining that a change that was meant to address an imbalance in TvZ is affecting other matchups.
How does ghost snipe affect TvP in common ways? What do your ghosts snipe in TvP? Possibly high templar, but that damage was buffed from 45 to 50 with the patch. What else do you snipe, that is now so low (25 from 45) that it's worthless?
In TvP, ghosts are almost exclusively used for EMP. Heck, you can EMP multiple high templar as well, so the only reason you'd snipe one over EMPing it is if there were spread high templars coming at you to try to soften your army before the actual engagement.
So what TvP complaints do you have with the ghost change? Hell, if you're going to call him ignorant, at least elaborate on why he's wrong.
Against heavy zealot/archon, one of the better terran responses is mass ghost(like, 15) to make sure you can blanket all the templar and archons with multiple emps, and then snipe zealots with the leftover energy, since ghosts also live through a single storm and deal reasonable autoattack damage to zealots. Take a look at Empire.Happy vs Creatorprime in TAC2, for example. Is it still a good counter now that snipe is essentially useless against zealots? I'm not sure. Also, it was a nice bit of extra utility in general.
By the way, the damage buff is almost totally meaningless against high templar, since ghosts went from 2-shotting them to 2-shotting them.
Thank you for posting an example (and keep in mind that ghosts also do +5, not -20, damage to archons as well now). I think that bio and medivacs should take care of chargelot archon incredibly easy once the blanket EMPs go down, and especially if the archons get sniped. Are we assuming storm or colossi are in the mix too? Because without those, Terran bio tears apart gateway units.
Well, storm is obviously in the mix if they're going zealot/archon. Colossus may or may not be. The problem is, marauders deal fairly poor damage to both zealots and archons, and marines melt really fast against any sort of AOE. Heavy ghost had the advantages of making absolutely sure you have enough EMPs, and having enough hp to live through a storm while still dealing reasonable damage, and you would usually have enough energy to get 5 or so zealots for free. Without going ghost-heavy, against zealot/archon you kind of have to go marine heavy, and if you miss a couple EMPs or the colossi lands a few good shots, it can be really bad for you.
Well I definitely agree with you that area of effect units for Protoss (HTs and colossi... archons barely count) are incredibly useful against Terran. In fact, I'd argue that they're actually necessary against a bio ball.
But I think the road we're going down is leading away towards the discussion of how snipe actually is relevant to TvP, and how this snipe nerf is going to hurt TvP. You say chargelot archon because of the zealots. That's a good point, but after the blanket EMPs (which is what ghosts are primarily used for, along with snipes on lone HTs), I say bio and medivacs can take care of the rest easily. Then you say there's storm and colossi too. Then I'll say vikings (and ghosts already took care of the HTs). Then you say why not blink stalkers and observers to counter my new proposed units, and the back and forth goes on.
And all of a sudden we have the standard "everything" 200/200 Terran and Protoss balls, and snipes didn't really mean anything at all. It would come down more to how you engage, how you micro, and how effective your entire unit composition is against your opponent's. And the snipe nerf plays an infinitesmal part in TvP as far as I can see.
I have almost never seen a protoss go zealot/archon without storm, so I don't think assuming storm, at least, is wrong(although I think you might be surprised about how well pure zealot archon does against pure marine/marauder, that's not particularly relevant). I wasn't trying to turn this into "hey what happens if both sides have every unit", but more to explain when snipe on zealots is actually relevant. It does become less important once colossi are out and I definitely should've been clearer on that, but sometimes protoss does go almost pure chargelot/archon/templar(which is a good unit composition, especially since it usually has very good upgrades), adding lots of ghosts to your composition is a good answer to it, and part of the reason is snipe on zealots. I'm not trying to claim the snipe nerf is huge in TvP, just that it is more relevant than people think it is.
On February 23 2012 02:18 SayTT wrote: btw to all people including incontrol, the range upgrade for pheonix is not for mutas, its in late game vs corrupters and broods, the range will help to kite corrupters and the range will help to not get fungled when trageting broods.
“Kiting” means hitting without the enemy unit being able to fire back (or not much), so since Corruptors are 6 range too, I don't see how Phoenixes could “kite” Corruptors. Not to mention that Infestors would hold them still with Fungal Growth (range 9 >> range 6), and Phoenixes do terrible damage against Corruptors, so your explanation makes very little sense.
On February 22 2012 22:33 PureBalls wrote: Terrans just keep coming. 5 out of 6 advance in todays Code A matches, and the one that didnt, was eliminated in a TvT. Not even one protoss wins his PvT. And the one zerg also lost his ZvT.
QQ can now stop.
ggyo
patch hasn't hit in korea bro. nice try tho
To be fair, the patch won't really be affecting TvP that much, as the phoenix change is essentially for PvZ and the ghost change primarily affects TvZ.
Today was definitely a day to be happy if you're Terran.
not really, because the protoss/zerg players threw away their games with huge blunders. There wasn't really anything to learn from that other than the fact, that you might win a game if your opponent totally messes up. And aditionally we didn't see that much lategame TvZ and TvP, so these games have really not much of a stand in this discussion here.
And terrans were playing perfectly, riiiiiiiiiiiiiight!
Give me a break. Terrans have 0 problems in both MUs.
On February 22 2012 22:33 PureBalls wrote: Terrans just keep coming. 5 out of 6 advance in todays Code A matches, and the one that didnt, was eliminated in a TvT. Not even one protoss wins his PvT. And the one zerg also lost his ZvT.
QQ can now stop.
ggyo
according to artosis on sotg(I couldn't watch GSL today), the patch hasn't hit in Korea yet.
Also, I don't think anyone was claiming that this means terran can't win, just that terran will have a much harder time winning lategame TvZ.
The whining has been before the patch. And changes do not affect PvT, unless you use ghost to snipe zealots.
Man ignorance is bliss...
Yes the changes affect PvT, thats why people are complaining that a change that was meant to address an imbalance in TvZ is affecting other matchups.
How does ghost snipe affect TvP in common ways? What do your ghosts snipe in TvP? Possibly high templar, but that damage was buffed from 45 to 50 with the patch. What else do you snipe, that is now so low (25 from 45) that it's worthless?
In TvP, ghosts are almost exclusively used for EMP. Heck, you can EMP multiple high templar as well, so the only reason you'd snipe one over EMPing it is if there were spread high templars coming at you to try to soften your army before the actual engagement.
So what TvP complaints do you have with the ghost change? Hell, if you're going to call him ignorant, at least elaborate on why he's wrong.
Against heavy zealot/archon, one of the better terran responses is mass ghost(like, 15) to make sure you can blanket all the templar and archons with multiple emps, and then snipe zealots with the leftover energy, since ghosts also live through a single storm and deal reasonable autoattack damage to zealots. Take a look at Empire.Happy vs Creatorprime in TAC2, for example. Is it still a good counter now that snipe is essentially useless against zealots? I'm not sure. Also, it was a nice bit of extra utility in general.
By the way, the damage buff is almost totally meaningless against high templar, since ghosts went from 2-shotting them to 2-shotting them.
Thank you for posting an example (and keep in mind that ghosts also do +5, not -20, damage to archons as well now). I think that bio and medivacs should take care of chargelot archon incredibly easy once the blanket EMPs go down, and especially if the archons get sniped. Are we assuming storm or colossi are in the mix too? Because without those, Terran bio tears apart gateway units.
Well, storm is obviously in the mix if they're going zealot/archon. Colossus may or may not be. The problem is, marauders deal fairly poor damage to both zealots and archons, and marines melt really fast against any sort of AOE. Heavy ghost had the advantages of making absolutely sure you have enough EMPs, and having enough hp to live through a storm while still dealing reasonable damage, and you would usually have enough energy to get 5 or so zealots for free. Without going ghost-heavy, against zealot/archon you kind of have to go marine heavy, and if you miss a couple EMPs or the colossi lands a few good shots, it can be really bad for you.
Well I definitely agree with you that area of effect units for Protoss (HTs and colossi... archons barely count) are incredibly useful against Terran. In fact, I'd argue that they're actually necessary against a bio ball.
But I think the road we're going down is leading away towards the discussion of how snipe actually is relevant to TvP, and how this snipe nerf is going to hurt TvP. You say chargelot archon because of the zealots. That's a good point, but after the blanket EMPs (which is what ghosts are primarily used for, along with snipes on lone HTs), I say bio and medivacs can take care of the rest easily. Then you say there's storm and colossi too. Then I'll say vikings (and ghosts already took care of the HTs). Then you say why not blink stalkers and observers to counter my new proposed units, and the back and forth goes on.
And all of a sudden we have the standard "everything" 200/200 Terran and Protoss balls, and snipes didn't really mean anything at all. It would come down more to how you engage, how you micro, and how effective your entire unit composition is against your opponent's. And the snipe nerf plays an infinitesmal part in TvP as far as I can see.
I have almost never seen a protoss go zealot/archon without storm, so I don't think assuming storm, at least, is wrong(although I think you might be surprised about how well pure zealot archon does against pure marine/marauder, that's not particularly relevant). I wasn't trying to turn this into "hey what happens if both sides have every unit", but more to explain when snipe on zealots is actually relevant. It does become less important once colossi are out and I definitely should've been clearer on that, but sometimes protoss does go almost pure chargelot/archon/templar(which is a good unit composition, especially since it usually has very good upgrades), adding lots of ghosts to your composition is a good answer to it, and part of the reason is snipe on zealots. I'm not trying to claim the snipe nerf is huge in TvP, just that it is more relevant than people think it is.
Okay, fair enough. So if we do see chargelot archon and the ghost's primary function of EMPing the army (especially HTs) has been completed, the secondary function for ghosts' energy, which is used for picking off weakened zealots, won't be as useful. Is that a fair assessment?
This thread has devolved into the pointless, baseless balance arguments that every other thread on these forums turns in to when the door is left open for it.
The only reasonable stance to have is something along these lines: I don't know if these changes will have the desired effect. You can THINK they will or will not, on some spectrum, but you don't know, you don't even close to know, because no one does. Theorycrafting that X change is worthless or Y change breaks Terran is pointless, because everyone has said the same goddamn things about every other change (psi storm nerf, fungal nerf, just for an example) and they were WRONG.
Sure, you could say Blizzard should have PTR'd such big changes, but guess what; NO ONE FUCKING PLAYS ON THE PTR. I imagine that is why they skip this step now. I use to play on the PTR every time Blizzard made any real change to the balance of the game. You would see the same few players for a week, then if you tried to queue up after about a week (sometimes less), you would wait for 5-10 minutes for a game, because no one actually bothers to try it. It is funny to see the pros bitch about no PTR, when they all admit at the same time none of them actually play on the PTR because it is pointless to practice on a game build that might not ever be released.
On February 22 2012 22:45 Elyvilon wrote: [quote] according to artosis on sotg(I couldn't watch GSL today), the patch hasn't hit in Korea yet.
Also, I don't think anyone was claiming that this means terran can't win, just that terran will have a much harder time winning lategame TvZ.
The whining has been before the patch. And changes do not affect PvT, unless you use ghost to snipe zealots.
Man ignorance is bliss...
Yes the changes affect PvT, thats why people are complaining that a change that was meant to address an imbalance in TvZ is affecting other matchups.
How does ghost snipe affect TvP in common ways? What do your ghosts snipe in TvP? Possibly high templar, but that damage was buffed from 45 to 50 with the patch. What else do you snipe, that is now so low (25 from 45) that it's worthless?
In TvP, ghosts are almost exclusively used for EMP. Heck, you can EMP multiple high templar as well, so the only reason you'd snipe one over EMPing it is if there were spread high templars coming at you to try to soften your army before the actual engagement.
So what TvP complaints do you have with the ghost change? Hell, if you're going to call him ignorant, at least elaborate on why he's wrong.
Against heavy zealot/archon, one of the better terran responses is mass ghost(like, 15) to make sure you can blanket all the templar and archons with multiple emps, and then snipe zealots with the leftover energy, since ghosts also live through a single storm and deal reasonable autoattack damage to zealots. Take a look at Empire.Happy vs Creatorprime in TAC2, for example. Is it still a good counter now that snipe is essentially useless against zealots? I'm not sure. Also, it was a nice bit of extra utility in general.
By the way, the damage buff is almost totally meaningless against high templar, since ghosts went from 2-shotting them to 2-shotting them.
Thank you for posting an example (and keep in mind that ghosts also do +5, not -20, damage to archons as well now). I think that bio and medivacs should take care of chargelot archon incredibly easy once the blanket EMPs go down, and especially if the archons get sniped. Are we assuming storm or colossi are in the mix too? Because without those, Terran bio tears apart gateway units.
Well, storm is obviously in the mix if they're going zealot/archon. Colossus may or may not be. The problem is, marauders deal fairly poor damage to both zealots and archons, and marines melt really fast against any sort of AOE. Heavy ghost had the advantages of making absolutely sure you have enough EMPs, and having enough hp to live through a storm while still dealing reasonable damage, and you would usually have enough energy to get 5 or so zealots for free. Without going ghost-heavy, against zealot/archon you kind of have to go marine heavy, and if you miss a couple EMPs or the colossi lands a few good shots, it can be really bad for you.
Well I definitely agree with you that area of effect units for Protoss (HTs and colossi... archons barely count) are incredibly useful against Terran. In fact, I'd argue that they're actually necessary against a bio ball.
But I think the road we're going down is leading away towards the discussion of how snipe actually is relevant to TvP, and how this snipe nerf is going to hurt TvP. You say chargelot archon because of the zealots. That's a good point, but after the blanket EMPs (which is what ghosts are primarily used for, along with snipes on lone HTs), I say bio and medivacs can take care of the rest easily. Then you say there's storm and colossi too. Then I'll say vikings (and ghosts already took care of the HTs). Then you say why not blink stalkers and observers to counter my new proposed units, and the back and forth goes on.
And all of a sudden we have the standard "everything" 200/200 Terran and Protoss balls, and snipes didn't really mean anything at all. It would come down more to how you engage, how you micro, and how effective your entire unit composition is against your opponent's. And the snipe nerf plays an infinitesmal part in TvP as far as I can see.
I have almost never seen a protoss go zealot/archon without storm, so I don't think assuming storm, at least, is wrong(although I think you might be surprised about how well pure zealot archon does against pure marine/marauder, that's not particularly relevant). I wasn't trying to turn this into "hey what happens if both sides have every unit", but more to explain when snipe on zealots is actually relevant. It does become less important once colossi are out and I definitely should've been clearer on that, but sometimes protoss does go almost pure chargelot/archon/templar(which is a good unit composition, especially since it usually has very good upgrades), adding lots of ghosts to your composition is a good answer to it, and part of the reason is snipe on zealots. I'm not trying to claim the snipe nerf is huge in TvP, just that it is more relevant than people think it is.
Okay, fair enough. So if we do see chargelot archon and the ghost's primary function of EMPing the army (especially HTs) has been completed, the secondary function for ghosts' energy, which is used for picking off weakened zealots, won't be as useful. Is that a fair assessment?
Well, picking off zealots is useful in general, but yeah it is more important against chargelot/archon.
Pureballs, the patch still wasn't out during Korea, and I don't think anyone was claiming that it would significantly lower terran winrates, just lower terran winrates in endgame TvZ(and, as a result, possibly force terran to play more aggressively/allinish in the MU). Stop talking about irrelevant matches.
On February 23 2012 02:18 SayTT wrote: btw to all people including incontrol, the range upgrade for pheonix is not for mutas, its in late game vs corrupters and broods, the range will help to kite corrupters and the range will help to not get fungled when trageting broods.
Definitely disagree with this, for a few reasons:
1. The phoenix air range upgrade modifies the range from 4 to 6. Corrutor range is already 6. In other words, Phoenix still can't kite corruptors (they can only go shot for shot).
3. Phoenix don't do bonus damage against armored, so there are many more effective ways to attack brood lords (especially since corruptors will be out), such as blink stalker focus-firing, void rays, and storm.
4. The current ZvP metagame (and the primary reason why Zergs are raping Protosses) is muta-ling before late game. And it has been doing well for a pretty long time. Therefore, it seems logical that this phoenix buff is made to help counter mutas, rather than help out in the late game (especially since Protoss has other options, e.g. archon toilet, to deal with late game Zerg).
Found this nice little sandbox demonstration video fhe Phoenix upgrade in action vs. Mutas.
Long story short: the difference in unmicroed upgraded phoenixes vs microed upgraded phoenixes is noticable but fairly small. But when you actually attempt to micro them both, the difference is huge--the normal Phoenixes still die quite quickly even with active micro, but the upgraded Phoenixes can kite continuously while taking next to no damage, and since they aren't taking losses they just mow through the muta ball at a really high rate (skip to 2:45 in the video to see what happens with even basic micro when you use upgrades phoenixes vs mutas).
Is there anyone who still doubts the impact this will have?
100% useless if you don't open double Stargate.
And if you do, then the Zerg makes two infestors and you lose all your phoenix to chain fungals x.x
Although it's nice to know that killing off mutas could hypothetically be that easy (regarding the upgraded phoenix micro video) if I wanted to be tech-trapped into using Protoss air only x.x
I'll probably be sticking to blink + storm to counter mutas.
While chain fungals do suck I've been trying something I saw from MVPGenius a while ago and which Artosis has done here and there on his stream.
Basically, you open with void ray 3 gate +1 zealot timing of an FFE. After the first void ray you make 2 pheonixes which allow you to scout the main and natural of the zerg for gas timings and lair timing. If you see that they are on 2 base you can control the map with the void ray and kill outlying overlords. You can make about 6 pheonixes and take a 3rd base while teching slowly to storm if you see a spire. The nice thing about this 6 pheonix base is that even without the air upgrade you can leave stalkers in the main and nat and your pheonixes at the third building base with zealots. If the opponent tries to harass with a small number of mutas you can quickly send the pheonixes to help the stalkers defend. If for whatever the zerg loses enough mutas that you have similar pheonix numbers you can chase the mutalisks until they get to a more well defended position damaging them quite a bit or killing a few since they will not have infestors with fungal fast enough to punish you. If you see the muta ball continue to grow you now have the option of getting the air upgrade and moving up to about 10 pheonixes while taking a fourth base since all their gas is in mutas and you can make zealots to kill the lings that would counter.
Genius then transitions into collossi just 2 or 3 with range to help kill the lings or hydras that the opponent could transition towards.
I think the air upgrade will be useful for people who open stargate in order to punish players for engaging poorly or massing mutalisks as their main damage output. With 8-10 ranged pheonix I think we will also see far fewer cases of ridiculous base trades between Zerg players and Protoss players.
I personally feel that this solution is still a lot better than getting a fleet beacon to get a tempest which is even more situational than the carrier is and removing the carrier in HotS.
Let us not also forget that as long as you are careful you can harass mineral lines with pheonixes. Should you take for example 10 and hit one base? No thats dumb. What if you take 5 of them and lift drones at the Z fourth while using a Warp prism in the main or DTs somewhere else? A lot of us have seen how useful the HerO style can be with prisms and DTs, but to mix this with a small group of pheonix after you send the melee units in could be extremely nice AND you can always keep about 4 or 5 pheonix around to discourage a late game muta switch or remax when the banks are huge after an army trade.
The upgrade could also be really useful against sky terran since the range difference between pheonix and vikings meant vikings got a first shot in at every engagement and if the phoenix try to escape the vikings also get an extra hit in. Against sky terran pheonix are useful and if you are getting +2 attack or armour you need the fleet beacon anyway. I feel that there are a lot of possibilities but people are really just focusing on the theres 40 mutas out on the field how does making pheonix now and investing in the range tech now help you later when infestors are out.
We don't need to focus on just PvZ and we don't need to keep 10 phoenix together at all times against a zerg who gets infestors. We are also ignoring the timings between when zerg has 20 mutas and when they have enough infestors with enough energy to chain fungal all your pheonix at once if they are clumped.
On February 22 2012 22:33 PureBalls wrote: Terrans just keep coming. 5 out of 6 advance in todays Code A matches, and the one that didnt, was eliminated in a TvT. Not even one protoss wins his PvT. And the one zerg also lost his ZvT.
QQ can now stop.
ggyo
patch hasn't hit in korea bro. nice try tho
To be fair, the patch won't really be affecting TvP that much, as the phoenix change is essentially for PvZ and the ghost change primarily affects TvZ.
Today was definitely a day to be happy if you're Terran.
not really, because the protoss/zerg players threw away their games with huge blunders. There wasn't really anything to learn from that other than the fact, that you might win a game if your opponent totally messes up. And aditionally we didn't see that much lategame TvZ and TvP, so these games have really not much of a stand in this discussion here.
And terrans were playing perfectly, riiiiiiiiiiiiiight!
Give me a break. Terrans have 0 problems in both MUs.
Until the game reaches the lategame stages. Terran is early probably favored some cheese withstanding . Then it gets more difficult for Terran , not unwinnable but harder since the Terran army doesn't really improve after the midgame. You get your Bio and or Mech and upgrades then you're basically done. So you gotta do something with it if you can't do that then you will probably lose .And i don't think this is how a game should work. Even if this results in 50-50 balance it's still a stupid ass game design.
Found this nice little sandbox demonstration video fhe Phoenix upgrade in action vs. Mutas.
Long story short: the difference in unmicroed upgraded phoenixes vs microed upgraded phoenixes is noticable but fairly small. But when you actually attempt to micro them both, the difference is huge--the normal Phoenixes still die quite quickly even with active micro, but the upgraded Phoenixes can kite continuously while taking next to no damage, and since they aren't taking losses they just mow through the muta ball at a really high rate (skip to 2:45 in the video to see what happens with even basic micro when you use upgrades phoenixes vs mutas).
Is there anyone who still doubts the impact this will have?
100% useless if you don't open double Stargate.
And if you do, then the Zerg makes two infestors and you lose all your phoenix to chain fungals x.x
Although it's nice to know that killing off mutas could hypothetically be that easy (regarding the upgraded phoenix micro video) if I wanted to be tech-trapped into using Protoss air only x.x
I'll probably be sticking to blink + storm to counter mutas.
While chain fungals do suck I've been trying something I saw from MVPGenius a while ago and which Artosis has done here and there on his stream.
Basically, you open with void ray 3 gate +1 zealot timing of an FFE. After the first void ray you make 2 pheonixes which allow you to scout the main and natural of the zerg for gas timings and lair timing. If you see that they are on 2 base you can control the map with the void ray and kill outlying overlords. You can make about 6 pheonixes and take a 3rd base while teching slowly to storm if you see a spire. The nice thing about this 6 pheonix base is that even without the air upgrade you can leave stalkers in the main and nat and your pheonixes at the third building base with zealots. If the opponent tries to harass with a small number of mutas you can quickly send the pheonixes to help the stalkers defend. If for whatever the zerg loses enough mutas that you have similar pheonix numbers you can chase the mutalisks until they get to a more well defended position damaging them quite a bit or killing a few since they will not have infestors with fungal fast enough to punish you. If you see the muta ball continue to grow you now have the option of getting the air upgrade and moving up to about 10 pheonixes while taking a fourth base since all their gas is in mutas and you can make zealots to kill the lings that would counter.
Genius then transitions into collossi just 2 or 3 with range to help kill the lings or hydras that the opponent could transition towards.
I think the air upgrade will be useful for people who open stargate in order to punish players for engaging poorly or massing mutalisks as their main damage output. With 8-10 ranged pheonix I think we will also see far fewer cases of ridiculous base trades between Zerg players and Protoss players.
I personally feel that this solution is still a lot better than getting a fleet beacon to get a tempest which is even more situational than the carrier is and removing the carrier in HotS.
Let us not also forget that as long as you are careful you can harass mineral lines with pheonixes. Should you take for example 10 and hit one base? No thats dumb. What if you take 5 of them and lift drones at the Z fourth while using a Warp prism in the main or DTs somewhere else? A lot of us have seen how useful the HerO style can be with prisms and DTs, but to mix this with a small group of pheonix after you send the melee units in could be extremely nice AND you can always keep about 4 or 5 pheonix around to discourage a late game muta switch or remax when the banks are huge after an army trade.
The upgrade could also be really useful against sky terran since the range difference between pheonix and vikings meant vikings got a first shot in at every engagement and if the phoenix try to escape the vikings also get an extra hit in. Against sky terran pheonix are useful and if you are getting +2 attack or armour you need the fleet beacon anyway. I feel that there are a lot of possibilities but people are really just focusing on the theres 40 mutas out on the field how does making pheonix now and investing in the range tech now help you later when infestors are out.
We don't need to focus on just PvZ and we don't need to keep 10 phoenix together at all times against a zerg who gets infestors. We are also ignoring the timings between when zerg has 20 mutas and when they have enough infestors with enough energy to chain fungal all your pheonix at once if they are clumped.
That PvZ build sounds really nice I'll have to fool around with something like that.
And I think that this phoenix upgrade may completely nullify the tempest lol. The tempest is desperately situational, as you said.
Say you have map control with your phoenix (certainly something you can accomplish early on), but the Zerg (predictably) spores and queens up so that you can't accomplish much harrass inside of his base. If you already have phoenix out, he probably won't transition to mutas. And if you don't have phoenix out yet, a mass muta transition may still ruin your day (unless you go blink or storm). So I'm still wondering if the range upgrade for phoenix will be worth it if Zerg spots your tech, as well as if you should pre-emptively make phoenix *just in case* he goes muta. You don't really want to waste resources or have dead supply.
Found this nice little sandbox demonstration video fhe Phoenix upgrade in action vs. Mutas.
Long story short: the difference in unmicroed upgraded phoenixes vs microed upgraded phoenixes is noticable but fairly small. But when you actually attempt to micro them both, the difference is huge--the normal Phoenixes still die quite quickly even with active micro, but the upgraded Phoenixes can kite continuously while taking next to no damage, and since they aren't taking losses they just mow through the muta ball at a really high rate (skip to 2:45 in the video to see what happens with even basic micro when you use upgrades phoenixes vs mutas).
Is there anyone who still doubts the impact this will have?
100% useless if you don't open double Stargate.
And if you do, then the Zerg makes two infestors and you lose all your phoenix to chain fungals x.x
Although it's nice to know that killing off mutas could hypothetically be that easy (regarding the upgraded phoenix micro video) if I wanted to be tech-trapped into using Protoss air only x.x
I'll probably be sticking to blink + storm to counter mutas.
While chain fungals do suck I've been trying something I saw from MVPGenius a while ago and which Artosis has done here and there on his stream.
Basically, you open with void ray 3 gate +1 zealot timing of an FFE. After the first void ray you make 2 pheonixes which allow you to scout the main and natural of the zerg for gas timings and lair timing. If you see that they are on 2 base you can control the map with the void ray and kill outlying overlords. You can make about 6 pheonixes and take a 3rd base while teching slowly to storm if you see a spire. The nice thing about this 6 pheonix base is that even without the air upgrade you can leave stalkers in the main and nat and your pheonixes at the third building base with zealots. If the opponent tries to harass with a small number of mutas you can quickly send the pheonixes to help the stalkers defend. If for whatever the zerg loses enough mutas that you have similar pheonix numbers you can chase the mutalisks until they get to a more well defended position damaging them quite a bit or killing a few since they will not have infestors with fungal fast enough to punish you. If you see the muta ball continue to grow you now have the option of getting the air upgrade and moving up to about 10 pheonixes while taking a fourth base since all their gas is in mutas and you can make zealots to kill the lings that would counter.
Genius then transitions into collossi just 2 or 3 with range to help kill the lings or hydras that the opponent could transition towards.
I think the air upgrade will be useful for people who open stargate in order to punish players for engaging poorly or massing mutalisks as their main damage output. With 8-10 ranged pheonix I think we will also see far fewer cases of ridiculous base trades between Zerg players and Protoss players.
I personally feel that this solution is still a lot better than getting a fleet beacon to get a tempest which is even more situational than the carrier is and removing the carrier in HotS.
Let us not also forget that as long as you are careful you can harass mineral lines with pheonixes. Should you take for example 10 and hit one base? No thats dumb. What if you take 5 of them and lift drones at the Z fourth while using a Warp prism in the main or DTs somewhere else? A lot of us have seen how useful the HerO style can be with prisms and DTs, but to mix this with a small group of pheonix after you send the melee units in could be extremely nice AND you can always keep about 4 or 5 pheonix around to discourage a late game muta switch or remax when the banks are huge after an army trade.
The upgrade could also be really useful against sky terran since the range difference between pheonix and vikings meant vikings got a first shot in at every engagement and if the phoenix try to escape the vikings also get an extra hit in. Against sky terran pheonix are useful and if you are getting +2 attack or armour you need the fleet beacon anyway. I feel that there are a lot of possibilities but people are really just focusing on the theres 40 mutas out on the field how does making pheonix now and investing in the range tech now help you later when infestors are out.
We don't need to focus on just PvZ and we don't need to keep 10 phoenix together at all times against a zerg who gets infestors. We are also ignoring the timings between when zerg has 20 mutas and when they have enough infestors with enough energy to chain fungal all your pheonix at once if they are clumped.
That PvZ build sounds really nice I'll have to fool around with something like that.
And I think that this phoenix upgrade may completely nullify the tempest lol. The tempest is desperately situational, as you said.
Say you have map control with your phoenix (certainly something you can accomplish early on), but the Zerg (predictably) spores and queens up so that you can't accomplish much harrass inside of his base. If you already have phoenix out, he probably won't transition to mutas. And if you don't have phoenix out yet, a mass muta transition may still ruin your day (unless you go blink or storm). So I'm still wondering if the range upgrade for phoenix will be worth it if Zerg spots your tech, as well as if you should pre-emptively make phoenix *just in case* he goes muta. You don't really want to waste resources or have dead supply.
If the mass muta transition happens at anytime close to the lategame you should already have some harass with zealots, dts, or warp prisms to let you know. Its also really unlikely a roach based mid game will transition to mutas as opposed to broodlords at for a really late switch you should have a mothership out and a lot of stalker archon so its not so hard to defend with a huge army and build up to 3 stargate then make a 90 second upgrade in the fleet beacon you already have to get mothership to deal with broodlords.
On February 23 2012 03:05 anotherone wrote: Endless Terran nerfing continiues..
Maybe lets create a contest where poeple will be guessing another Terran nerfs in new patch?
Either:
Most cost-efficient unit in the game now costs 20% more to make (60 minerals total).
or
Repairing your Planetrary Fortress adds Guilty Conscience penalty for Terran player (3 GCs and you must gg from the game).
But in all seriousness, if Terran keeps winning, what do you expect? It would be nice to somehow balance the early, mid, and late games evenly for all races, but I don't know if Blizzard knows how to do that (sadly). All they seem to be doing instead is looking at the end results... and Terran consistently beats the other two races, according to the data (not by too too much, as we're pretty close to balance by now) and the GSLs speak for themselves.
On February 23 2012 03:05 anotherone wrote: Endless Terran nerfing continiues..
Maybe lets create a contest where poeple will be guessing another Terran nerfs in new patch?
Either:
Most cost-efficient unit in the game now costs 20% more to make (60 minerals total).
or
Repairing your Planetrary Fortress adds Guilty Conscience penalty for Terran player (3 GCs and you must gg from the game).
But in all seriousness, if Terran keeps winning, what do you expect? It would be nice to somehow balance the early, mid, and late games evenly for all races, but I don't know if Blizzard knows how to do that (sadly). All they seem to be doing instead is looking at the end results... and Terran consistently beats the other two races, according to the data (not by too too much, as we're pretty close to balance by now) and the GSLs speak for themselves.
At least release a statement that they are aware of the design flaws and try to fix them with the expansion(s) . I'd be happy with this tbh. Right now i have zero confidence in the balancing team make the neccessary radical changes.
EPT
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/6HdmP.jpg)
I'll have to fool around with something like that. 
