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I saw this on catz stream last night so if anyone was watching maybe you saw the game, I can't remember who he was playing against but it was on lost temple. Basically the protoss cannon'ed up and open with normal phoenix harass only he kept massing more and more of them until he had 15-20, catz went hydras and threw down a few spore crawlers to try and shut down the harass and then tried to go offensive but the crazy thing was while hydras normally melt phoenix he had so many of them he was able to lift the majority of hydras and then melt the rest with a single colossus. The protoss kept expanding up to I think 4 bases all defending with tons of canons and I am pretty sure he never made anything other than these three units (maybe some defensive sentries in the early game, can't remember).
By the time catz had corruptors out he wan't able to get enough to deal with the phoenix numbers + void rays while the protoss was using the superior mobility (death ball that is basically pure air with the cliff walk ability) to shut down expansions.
So I'm curious if people are seeing this on the ladder and what the possible ways to deal with it are. The unit comp seems unapproachable in the late game, so it seems like a case of "don't let him get there", I could be wrong and perhaps the right mix of mutas to deal with the void rays and corruptors to deal with the phoenix would work though it feels like this would require a superior economy which would not be possible with the phoenix harass. So, what about ways to shut it down early?
1. Roach rush to punish the FE, viable on some maps but not really on LT, still pretty risky on other maps.
2. Well timed nydus attack, probably needs to hit before colossus are out, and would require enough hydras to deal with graviton beam, perhaps a hydra/infestor nydus attack though I have a hard time imagining how to get all that before colossus.
3. Hydra/infestor timing attack, before colossus. Seems like it would be more doable to hit with the before colossus. With good micro fungal + hydra can completely shut down the phoenix life, but I don't believe it is viable to try and fungal once colossus with range upgrade are in the mix.
Thoughts or experience with this build?
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Sounds sick.
Although I've never done this kind of strat, I would assume nydus would be the way to go, multiple nyduses at once, split up his army, end up owning one of his mineral lines eventually. And I would ASSUME hydra/infestor timing would work even after collo. Just come in from the back, neural parasite voids and collo, fungal phoenix, etc etc. Manually attack the collo with your hydras even when they're neural parasited. My solution sounds funky, but thats the only thing i can actually imagine beating this unit composition in a straight up fight besides like 80 corruptors lol.
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The player CatZ was facing is named PiQLiQ. The game seemed very one-sided. Perhaps CatZ should've switched to mass Corruptors earlier?
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Sounds like a variation of the build GuineaPig did in the GSL. Cannon turtle -> mass air with a few collosus. Very stoppable with straight corrupter play.
E: Might want to change your thread title to PvZ.
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Yeah sorry I fucked up the thread title, hopefully a mod will change it soon.
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Yea I think the answer is more corrupters, with air upgrades, and only if you let him get all that tech out.
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On February 15 2011 00:38 Rakanishu2 wrote:
Yea I think the answer is more corrupters, with air upgrades, and only if you let him get all that tech out.
It sounds like you haven't actually tried it? Just theorizing here, but how are you going to deal with the phoenix harass early on? I don't think you will have corruptors in time, you would have to go heavier on spore crawler and/or queens, which will further reduce your corruptor count later on, though maybe not by as much as if you go hydra first.
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I do not think that spore crawlers or queens should further reduce your corruptor count. Usually you are limited by gas in that case, not by minerals. (Assuming that you do not need that much of an army besides those corruptors, considering you face Phoenix+Colossus+Voidray)
Getting some more queens early on should really help you against phoenix harass. For a mere 150, their anti-air attack is really useful.
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On February 15 2011 00:55 Treemonkeys wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2011 00:38 Rakanishu2 wrote:
Yea I think the answer is more corrupters, with air upgrades, and only if you let him get all that tech out. It sounds like you haven't actually tried it? Just theorizing here, but how are you going to deal with the phoenix harass early on? I don't think you will have corruptors in time, you would have to go heavier on spore crawler and/or queens, which will further reduce your corruptor count later on, though maybe not by as much as if you go hydra first.
More spores/queens wouldn't limit your corrupter count at all. Just mineral units. If you were doing something like ling/muta, it shouldn't be difficult at all to make queen/corrupter instead. If you skipped out on a spire completely vs protoss, then that's why you lost anyway.
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Most protoss just make a small amount of phoenix; hydra/spore can deal with that.
But if you go hydra/spore and you see he keeps making phoenix, then you need to add infestors. hydras outrange graviton beam, so one good FG and all of his phoenix are dead.
But you need corruptors for a large air army, so I would say hydra/spore to get 3rd up, then add in 1-3 infestors -> go for corruptors.
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I think the most appropriate response from the Zerg player would be to steadily pump queens and roaches while going straight to spire, defending, and just expanding everywhere.
Playing vs Phoenix builds is just like playing vs pure voidray colo... You have to really overkill it with the corruptors, and then rely on your next wave of units to do the rest.
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I do it all the time, people that say hydras "counter" phoenices are out of their mind. Hydras are okay against phoenices and the reverse. It depends on your graviton beam micro of course but hydras still count as light. If they get a lot of hydras, I just get more phoenices, especially when they come to attack you with their roach/hydra army and the hydras don't aggro on the phoenices.
Also, because of the lifting mechanic, phoenices automatically focus-fire all their firepower on the units lifted so you can swiftly take them down one at at time instead of spreading your fire and not reducing your dps.
The answer to phoenices is still fungal growth or corruptor/muta in my opinion. Just getting hydralisks is what the protoss want as he's making colossi and as long as you don't have a lot more hydras than he has phoenices he can easily pick them off.
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On February 15 2011 01:29 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote:
I do it all the time, people that say hydras "counter" phoenices are out of their mind. Hydras are okay against phoenices and the reverse. It depends on your graviton beam micro of course but hydras still count as light. If they get a lot of hydras, I just get more phoenices, especially when they come to attack you with their roach/hydra army and the hydras don't aggro on the phoenices.
This is true but only in relatively equal numbers. The problem with phoenixes in most cases is that the zerg player can straight up out mass you most of the time. Against a phoenix/collo build, hyrdas are a bad idea. Corrupters fill the same role and are far more tanky (and only have to worry about voids).
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Zenith just did this strategy on the stream, but he went for more voidray first when the Zerg saw that he scouted quickly his first VR + phoenix.
The zerg won by having enough queen + spores to withstand the phoenixes + VRs, teched to spire, got a tons of corruptors (15+), and rolled the VRs Phoenix Colossi.
Right now, scouting and seeing it coming by adding queens + spores in order to not be overwhelmed by the air, while getting spire and still having map control with zerglings, seems the way to go.
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I actually played against someone who used a similar build yesterday. Granted they weren't as good as PiQLiQ and I'm not CatZ but I used Hydra/Queen/Spore to defend my expansions early. Later in the game I scouted their tech and when I realized all I needed was anti air I maxed out the rest of the way on Corruptors. I was on 4 base by then and I lost my first army after dealing a good amount of damage and rallied out another round of Corruptors to finish off his army and the rest of my stockpiled larvae became Speedlings to take out the expos. That's the closest thing I've run into and how I handled it.
Edit: And it seems that as I was posting this Maggeus beat me to the punch with his similar response lol. At least I know I was on the right track ;-)
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On February 15 2011 01:29 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote:
I do it all the time, people that say hydras "counter" phoenices are out of their mind. Hydras are okay against phoenices and the reverse. It depends on your graviton beam micro of course but hydras still count as light. If they get a lot of hydras, I just get more phoenices, especially when they come to attack you with their roach/hydra army and the hydras don't aggro on the phoenices.
Also, because of the lifting mechanic, phoenices automatically focus-fire all their firepower on the units lifted so you can swiftly take them down one at at time instead of spreading your fire and not reducing your dps.
The answer to phoenices is still fungal growth or corruptor/muta in my opinion. Just getting hydralisks is what the protoss want as he's making colossi and as long as you don't have a lot more hydras than he has phoenices he can easily pick them off.
out in the open they are more or less equal, but on-creep with spore + queen nearby hydra > phoenix for sure, just a few hydras near each hatch is more than enough to deter phoenix harass long enough to get corruptors out.
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THe answer is just hydra into corruptor focussing on corruptors mostly. Hydra's are a shitty unit mostly and shouldn't be massed too much, corruptors are actually fine against any protoss air as unlike most who never checked it say corruptors actually fare 'ok' against voids.
Just mass a shitload of corruptors and get an armor upgrade on them and they will demolish the composition. If he is really loading up on the phoenix you are better off simply stopping with hydra at all as they will only provide a juicy target for the phoenix, corruptors take hardly any damage from phoenix and neither do roaches.
Hydra's are only good to stop the initial harass and to threaten or do a quick counterpush (nestea style). Massing them for a long time in PvZ simply sucks. Imo it is the most made mistake in sc2, zergs make way too many hydra's agianst P. Pure roach is simply better 9 out of 10 times.
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Fungal growth + queens or hydras punishes phoenix horribly, due to the limited range of phoenix. Problem is, once a Protoss gets a decent death ball of VRs + Collossi, its very difficult to beat in a head to head fight. Once the protoss reaches this stage, abuse the fact that splitting this army is NOT an option for them, and attack multiple locations. Nydus worms are ideal as they can successfully retreat your army. Punish his production and economy, then start grinding down the death ball.
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Whenever I encounter heavy Phoenix play(2 star off 2 base, or 1 star off 1 base), I just make 3 spores(1 at both mineral lines and 1 at rally) and make 3-4 Queens to deal with the early Phoenixes, then I mass Hydras and drones. While fighting off the harrass, I build up my Queen and Hydra numbers and after I have some, I research Overlord speed. Then I make a creep highway to their natural with overlords and attack with all the 20-30 Hydras and like 3-6 Queens. Queens are great vs the single colo that they're going to have at most, and if they have none they just die. He can try to kill the ovs but I don't think he can since he needs to defend.
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EPT
