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On September 02 2010 06:44 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2010 06:27 SirNeshorn wrote: But like some before me mentioned, the tech up to your fresh and rather interesting unit composition require a lot of gas. I think there's a certain window of opportunity for Z to strike before you reach all that. When you first push out, how are you supposed to defend against a baneling comp? You will most likely have enough gas for 2 or 3 DT, let alone now we're excluding charge and the initial phoenix. Very little will be left for sentries and stalkers which you REALLY need if Z goes baneling, or else you just gotta turtle, controlling very little of the map and eventually lose the macro game.
Or am I just wrong here? Great idea, btw...I really like the T3 stage of this build. I don't see banelings as being too problematic for this specific build. If you're worried about a traditional, early game baneling bust, this build is no more susceptible to it than any other protoss build. If you're worried about some kind of midgame baneling ambush that occurs as you leave your base with your army, you should be able to scout it with your first phoenix before you have invested any serious amount of gas into anything other than a stargate, a phoenix, and a twilight council. This is a very small expenditure considering that you'll be on two bases at this point. From here, you can easily adapt on the fly to whatever you think is appropriate to defeat the banelings, such as sentry/stalker.
The main flaw I see in your reasoning is that you won't really be able to scout it, if you see a Nest that doesn't necessarily mean he has actually morphed into Banelings yet and typically they morph them only right before an engagement. And since he can switch to a counter much faster than you can, he has a bit of an advantage here.
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On September 02 2010 07:11 whateversclever wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2010 06:44 xDaunt wrote:On September 02 2010 06:27 SirNeshorn wrote: But like some before me mentioned, the tech up to your fresh and rather interesting unit composition require a lot of gas. I think there's a certain window of opportunity for Z to strike before you reach all that. When you first push out, how are you supposed to defend against a baneling comp? You will most likely have enough gas for 2 or 3 DT, let alone now we're excluding charge and the initial phoenix. Very little will be left for sentries and stalkers which you REALLY need if Z goes baneling, or else you just gotta turtle, controlling very little of the map and eventually lose the macro game.
Or am I just wrong here? Great idea, btw...I really like the T3 stage of this build. I don't see banelings as being too problematic for this specific build. If you're worried about a traditional, early game baneling bust, this build is no more susceptible to it than any other protoss build. If you're worried about some kind of midgame baneling ambush that occurs as you leave your base with your army, you should be able to scout it with your first phoenix before you have invested any serious amount of gas into anything other than a stargate, a phoenix, and a twilight council. This is a very small expenditure considering that you'll be on two bases at this point. From here, you can easily adapt on the fly to whatever you think is appropriate to defeat the banelings, such as sentry/stalker. The main flaw I see in your reasoning is that you won't really be able to scout it, if you see a Nest that doesn't necessarily mean he has actually morphed into Banelings yet and typically they morph them only right before an engagement. And since he can switch to a counter much faster than you can, he has a bit of an advantage here.
Fair enough. However, I think that most protoss players would know that SOMETHING is up if they see a baneling nest at the zerg base and they can't locate where the zerg army is with the phoenixes. I haven't seen a zerg try any of these shenanigans yet. Maybe an earlier robo is necessary. We'll see.
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On September 02 2010 03:04 xDaunt wrote: Here's one thing that I want to point out to those thinking that the zerg can hard counter this build by going roaches, banelings, corruptors, or any mixture of the three. What you're doing is not a hard counter to the build. At best, you're putting yourself on even footing with the protoss player by unlocking techs that can allow you to counter whatever force composition that the protoss eventually assembles. What makes this build so strong is its flexibility. When the initial phoenix flies over the zerg base, the protoss won't have committed heavily to any tech path or unit composition at that point. If the protoss sees roaches and banelings, he could very easily skip charge and get blink stalker/sentry instead.
More and more the response I'm favoring towards early Stargate builds is Spire, spawn 3-5 Corruptors to retake air control (after seeing the first few corruptors the Protoss normally stops pumping Phoenixes), then pump mutaling. Have you ever encountered that sort of Zerg response? And if yes, what is your contingency for dealing with that? In my personal experience, as long as the zerg keeps pace/catches up with ground upgrades and dumps excess minerals into lings, the Protoss will not have enough gas off two bases to deal with Mutaling with Corruptors mixed in depending on how heavy the Protoss goes Phoenixes. And if you dropped the minerals and gas into a Stargate and several Phoenix, that normally leaves a window for the Corruptor-Muta to poke into your base and take out probes while you are still transitioning into more Warpgates and High Templar tech, and put the Zerg into the lead going into late game.
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It seems like the Overseer's detection range is actually greater than it's sight range. How do you handle a zerg army who keeps his overseers near the back of a group of hydras so that they're hard to reach, but can still detect DTs on the front line?
It's not too difficult to deplete overseer energy since changelings can be dropped so easily.
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On September 02 2010 07:16 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2010 07:11 whateversclever wrote:On September 02 2010 06:44 xDaunt wrote:On September 02 2010 06:27 SirNeshorn wrote: But like some before me mentioned, the tech up to your fresh and rather interesting unit composition require a lot of gas. I think there's a certain window of opportunity for Z to strike before you reach all that. When you first push out, how are you supposed to defend against a baneling comp? You will most likely have enough gas for 2 or 3 DT, let alone now we're excluding charge and the initial phoenix. Very little will be left for sentries and stalkers which you REALLY need if Z goes baneling, or else you just gotta turtle, controlling very little of the map and eventually lose the macro game.
Or am I just wrong here? Great idea, btw...I really like the T3 stage of this build. I don't see banelings as being too problematic for this specific build. If you're worried about a traditional, early game baneling bust, this build is no more susceptible to it than any other protoss build. If you're worried about some kind of midgame baneling ambush that occurs as you leave your base with your army, you should be able to scout it with your first phoenix before you have invested any serious amount of gas into anything other than a stargate, a phoenix, and a twilight council. This is a very small expenditure considering that you'll be on two bases at this point. From here, you can easily adapt on the fly to whatever you think is appropriate to defeat the banelings, such as sentry/stalker. The main flaw I see in your reasoning is that you won't really be able to scout it, if you see a Nest that doesn't necessarily mean he has actually morphed into Banelings yet and typically they morph them only right before an engagement. And since he can switch to a counter much faster than you can, he has a bit of an advantage here. Fair enough. However, I think that most protoss players would know that SOMETHING is up if they see a baneling nest at the zerg base and they can't locate where the zerg army is with the phoenixes. I haven't seen a zerg try any of these shenanigans yet. Maybe an earlier robo is necessary. We'll see.
Yeah, I don't think it's a super huge issue, just something to be aware of. Banelings are by nature very high risk/reward, even moreso in this case because you're hoping for some lucky splash action onto those Dark Templar. At worst you just play a little bit more defensively then you would before, but your Phoenix still have free reign over the air.
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On September 02 2010 07:22 Jopz wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2010 03:04 xDaunt wrote: Here's one thing that I want to point out to those thinking that the zerg can hard counter this build by going roaches, banelings, corruptors, or any mixture of the three. What you're doing is not a hard counter to the build. At best, you're putting yourself on even footing with the protoss player by unlocking techs that can allow you to counter whatever force composition that the protoss eventually assembles. What makes this build so strong is its flexibility. When the initial phoenix flies over the zerg base, the protoss won't have committed heavily to any tech path or unit composition at that point. If the protoss sees roaches and banelings, he could very easily skip charge and get blink stalker/sentry instead. More and more the response I'm favoring towards early Stargate builds is Spire, spawn 3-5 Corruptors to retake air control (after seeing the first few corruptors the Protoss normally stops pumping Phoenixes), then pump mutaling. Have you ever encountered that sort of Zerg response? And if yes, what is your contingency for dealing with that? In my personal experience, as long as the zerg keeps pace/catches up with ground upgrades and dumps excess minerals into lings, the Protoss will not have enough gas off two bases to deal with Mutaling with Corruptors mixed in depending on how heavy the Protoss goes Phoenixes. And if you dropped the minerals and gas into a Stargate and several Phoenix, that normally leaves a window for the Corruptor-Muta to poke into your base and take out probes while you are still transitioning into more Warpgates and High Templar tech, and put the Zerg into the lead going into late game.
I have seen zergs get corruptors a few times in response to the early phoenixes. My typical response is to increase my stalker count and attack the zerg rather than let him whittle away at my phoenix force and harass me. To get the corruptors out, the zerg has to cut either his muta count or his zergling/roach/hydra count. The usual result of my attack is that the zerg is left with nothing to defend other than his remaining corruptors while my gateway army overruns him. Since I'm already going to be zealot heavy, zerglings, by themselves, aren't an issue.
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On September 02 2010 07:26 TSL-Lore wrote: It seems like the Overseer's detection range is actually greater than it's sight range. How do you handle a zerg army who keeps his overseers near the back of a group of hydras so that they're hard to reach, but can still detect DTs on the front line?
It's not too difficult to deplete overseer energy since changelings can be dropped so easily. I haven't seen that kind of micro from a zerg yet. However, if he splits up his hydra force to protect his overseer, I think he runs a risk of getting a chunk of his army cutoff by forcefields (depending upon the terrain). We'll see.
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This is my second time exacuting this strategy in a 600diamond level play. This being my second time i made many less fumble's and was able to completely dominate the entire game. the zerg had no idea what to do. didnt even gg at the end just quit.
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On September 02 2010 07:26 TSL-Lore wrote: It seems like the Overseer's detection range is actually greater than it's sight range. How do you handle a zerg army who keeps his overseers near the back of a group of hydras so that they're hard to reach, but can still detect DTs on the front line?
It's not too difficult to deplete overseer energy since changelings can be dropped so easily.
Hydras are slow. So just don't. You would only want to go face-to-face against Lings and Mutas, if they go Hydras you want to split them up and hit his various expansions. They need Spore + Hydras everywhere, if the don't have one or the other then Dark Templar will just crush it. Depending upon how many Phoenix you have, you can also take out small packs of Hydralisks easily.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but, if you 2 gate in base and realize that your opponent is doing the 5 roach rush build what would your response be?
The 5 roach rush build has room for a fast lair after the initial 5 roaches and lings, including an expo going down to deal with your fast phoenixes or voids on one base since after the lair pops a hydra den can be built fairly quickly. And I think the initial roach/ling push that is designed to harass protoss in the early game is enough to stop you from expanding (Btw, I do realize that some maps can actually block chokes off and prevent any sort of harass on an expo, so I can see how this strategy can be a very great threat).
From what I can see, if I were playing this game, I could 5 roach rush (this is accompanied with lings) to destroy a fairly good amount of zealots before I overextend myself (stalkers will probably come out) with maybe 1 roach loss or so due to kiting. Then at that point I would have to scout your main with my intial overlord to see if you put down a core, have taken 2 gases, getting twilight council first instead of stargate etc. Which would then just become a macro/turtle game for me (defending with hydras and static spines), because I'm almost certain that I could stall your expansion far enough to the point where I'd be just about to take my third as your nat is going up. Then I ~think~ I could do a timing push with hydra/ling (and have a macro'd defense force as I leave because phoenixes will probably snipe all my queens or something if I don't, or drones, either or, or i guess maybe even void ray harass?). This is possible because of your stargate transition and emphasis on gateway units (aka no early robo). And if the game gets any further as to where your DTs are out and support quite nicely, I think I would need to get used to getting rid of my overseer energy right away due to your feedbacks from the HTs (if I can't do that, I guess I'll probably lose).
The only thing I am completely iffy on, is the usage of DTs. I really hate those little fuckers. I am honestly not too sure as to what the critical amount is for them to just snipe my buildings before my hydra on creep can defend (unless I leave some there as a buffer). Though, I think it is critical for you to have your expo before you get dts just because of the massive gas usage which I'm confident in being able to stall for awhile since you'd have to build more gateway units before putting down the expo becuse of my 4-5 roach and 20-30 ling army. But in any case, I've lost many games where a protoss would dedicate a DT attack (8-9 DTs) and just snipe all of my tech buildings, and sometimes kill my lair/hive because I'm not expecting it.
I think this build would definitely screw over any zerg that doesn't have any idea what in the hell you are doing, but I definitely think it's easily adaptable once you get used to losing to it after a few games. For the last month or so of playing, I've not seen many dt usage against zerg, but now it seems to be running rampant.
Anyway, if you're up for a game, I'd love that.
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On September 02 2010 08:21 afiddy wrote: Correct me if I'm wrong, but, if you 2 gate in base and realize that your opponent is doing the 5 roach rush build what would your response be?
The 5 roach rush build has room for a fast lair after the initial 5 roaches and lings, including an expo going down to deal with your fast phoenixes or voids on one base since after the lair pops a hydra den can be built fairly quickly. And I think the initial roach/ling push that is designed to harass protoss in the early game is enough to stop you from expanding (Btw, I do realize that some maps can actually block chokes off and prevent any sort of harass on an expo, so I can see how this strategy can be a very great threat).
From what I can see, if I were playing this game, I could 5 roach rush (this is accompanied with lings) to destroy a fairly good amount of zealots before I overextend myself (stalkers will probably come out) with maybe 1 roach loss or so due to kiting. Then at that point I would have to scout your main with my intial overlord to see if you put down a core, have taken 2 gases, getting twilight council first instead of stargate etc. Which would then just become a macro/turtle game for me (defending with hydras and static spines), because I'm almost certain that I could stall your expansion far enough to the point where I'd be just about to take my third as your nat is going up. Then I ~think~ I could do a timing push with hydra/ling (and have a macro'd defense force as I leave because phoenixes will probably snipe all my queens or something if I don't, or drones, either or, or i guess maybe even void ray harass?). This is possible because of your stargate transition and emphasis on gateway units (aka no early robo). And if the game gets any further as to where your DTs are out and support quite nicely, I think I would need to get used to getting rid of my overseer energy right away due to your feedbacks from the HTs (if I can't do that, I guess I'll probably lose).
The only thing I am completely iffy on, is the usage of DTs. I really hate those little fuckers. I am honestly not too sure as to what the critical amount is for them to just snipe my buildings before my hydra on creep can defend (unless I leave some there as a buffer). Though, I think it is critical for you to have your expo before you get dts just because of the massive gas usage which I'm confident in being able to stall for awhile since you'd have to build more gateway units before putting down the expo becuse of my 4-5 roach and 20-30 ling army. But in any case, I've lost many games where a protoss would dedicate a DT attack (8-9 DTs) and just snipe all of my tech buildings, and sometimes kill my lair/hive because I'm not expecting it.
I think this build would definitely screw over any zerg that doesn't have any idea what in the hell you are doing, but I definitely think it's easily adaptable once you get used to losing to it after a few games. For the last month or so of playing, I've not seen many dt usage against zerg, but now it seems to be running rampant.
Anyway, if you're up for a game, I'd love that.
I belive my first game went like 2gate rush stopped by zerglings into attacking with 5 roaches.
My initial rush failed but i was able to hold off the roach rush due to warpgate finishing and having 2 cannons up.
(this build is 2gate in forge into pheniox into expanding while pheniox harass, then teching dt+charge attacking, then if attack fails teching into HT as well for ground support or massing more pheniox+stalker is more air support is needed)
The basis of the build is how flexible it is.
How ever this is all theory-crafting. but i havnt lost a single game since deploying this strategy, and PvZ was by far my hardest matchup
************EDIT*****************
FYI!!! This strategy is severly lacking a cool name.
**(Theniox)***? Templar+Pheniox? ^^^ god that sounds corny.
Oooo i just scouted a Theniox build.... doesnt sound to devistating. lol.
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On September 02 2010 08:21 afiddy wrote: Correct me if I'm wrong, but, if you 2 gate in base and realize that your opponent is doing the 5 roach rush build what would your response be?
The 5 roach rush build has room for a fast lair after the initial 5 roaches and lings, including an expo going down to deal with your fast phoenixes or voids on one base since after the lair pops a hydra den can be built fairly quickly. And I think the initial roach/ling push that is designed to harass protoss in the early game is enough to stop you from expanding (Btw, I do realize that some maps can actually block chokes off and prevent any sort of harass on an expo, so I can see how this strategy can be a very great threat).
From what I can see, if I were playing this game, I could 5 roach rush (this is accompanied with lings) to destroy a fairly good amount of zealots before I overextend myself (stalkers will probably come out) with maybe 1 roach loss or so due to kiting. Then at that point I would have to scout your main with my intial overlord to see if you put down a core, have taken 2 gases, getting twilight council first instead of stargate etc. Which would then just become a macro/turtle game for me (defending with hydras and static spines), because I'm almost certain that I could stall your expansion far enough to the point where I'd be just about to take my third as your nat is going up. Then I ~think~ I could do a timing push with hydra/ling (and have a macro'd defense force as I leave because phoenixes will probably snipe all my queens or something if I don't, or drones, either or, or i guess maybe even void ray harass?). This is possible because of your stargate transition and emphasis on gateway units (aka no early robo). And if the game gets any further as to where your DTs are out and support quite nicely, I think I would need to get used to getting rid of my overseer energy right away due to your feedbacks from the HTs (if I can't do that, I guess I'll probably lose).
The only thing I am completely iffy on, is the usage of DTs. I really hate those little fuckers. I am honestly not too sure as to what the critical amount is for them to just snipe my buildings before my hydra on creep can defend (unless I leave some there as a buffer). Though, I think it is critical for you to have your expo before you get dts just because of the massive gas usage which I'm confident in being able to stall for awhile since you'd have to build more gateway units before putting down the expo becuse of my 4-5 roach and 20-30 ling army. But in any case, I've lost many games where a protoss would dedicate a DT attack (8-9 DTs) and just snipe all of my tech buildings, and sometimes kill my lair/hive because I'm not expecting it.
I think this build would definitely screw over any zerg that doesn't have any idea what in the hell you are doing, but I definitely think it's easily adaptable once you get used to losing to it after a few games. For the last month or so of playing, I've not seen many dt usage against zerg, but now it seems to be running rampant.
Anyway, if you're up for a game, I'd love that.
The effectiveness of the 5 roach rush depends upon how the protoss 2-gates. If the protoss employs my version of 2-gating as described above in which he gets 2 stalkers out after building 6 zealots, then your initial 5 roaches won't accomplish anything. I checked the timings, and your roaches will pop by about the time that my first 5 zealots reach your base. Assuming you chase my zealots back to my base, I'll have 2 stalkers out by the time you reach my base, in addition to 5-6 zealots. You won't be able to deny my expansion unless you commit significantly more resources into your army at this stage.
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There is a time window, at 31 supply to 40 supply (for the zerg) where he just rallies zerglings while his own expo is going down (and roaches chasing your zealots, I suppose), and I believe ling speed finishes maybe about 10-15 seconds after my roaches get to your base, but regardless, I think I would just like to play you, I really hate posting theory. I'll PM you when I get back from work.
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I read the OP, got all ready to say something smart about how corruptors give phoenix openings trouble, and then read the rest of the thread and found that others had already done so
That said, just as you say there's nothing to stop you from cutting back on phoenix production once corruptors come out, there's nothing stopping the zerg from cutting corruptors in a similar way. They are really cost-effective vs phoenix and cost no more gas than a muta, and at the end of the day both players end up with air units that have minimal effect on a ground fight (with phoenixes costing significantly more gas than corruptors to be even in a fight). Once the zerg player regains air control and you stop producing phoenixes due to the corruptors, they could start massing mutas and if you're not 100% on top of your scouting you could be screwed because if you can't start catching up to the muta production fast enough the protoss player straight up loses, in my experience. You can't really say that once there are 2-3 corruptors in the air that the zerg player has a definite disadvantage on the ground that you could exploit with a timing attack before the mutas start to come out en masse...they really aren't that expensive (the corruptors). IMO it seems like no matter what, with the strategies we've seen so far, protoss has to be worried about mass mutas coming out. You can't simply discourage mutas for all of the midgame by producing 4-6 phoenixes early game due to the ease of switching between corruptors and mutas.
You say yourself that the largest timing is between phoenixes and DT/HT tech...it seems like stargate builds are strong in that they give you more aggression after the 2gate but maybe a good zerg could see through the phoenix aggression and just take a quick third with a couple of corruptors to defend the phoenix scouting. With so much gas put into tech (TC, stargate + phoenixes, charge, dt shrine), zerg might be able to power ahead in economy and be in an ok position late game. That's just one option....the other option being massing mutaling off 2base after regaining air control as I and Jopz stated earlier.
All in all, it has its strengths and weaknesses. The transitions are nice and smooth and DTS are badass, it almost makes me want to off-race just to try it.
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Im a zerg and ive played versus this about 5 times with my friend. This build is EXTREMELY strong. I lost 4 times, with different strategies. The only time i beat this was with a good hydra timing push on steppes, the time where the first phoenix scouts you. He wont have DT's yet and his nat should have kicked in so his extra warpgates are just building.
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On September 02 2010 09:28 sooch wrote:I read the OP, got all ready to say something smart about how corruptors give phoenix openings trouble, and then read the rest of the thread and found that others had already done so That said, just as you say there's nothing to stop you from cutting back on phoenix production once corruptors come out, there's nothing stopping the zerg from cutting corruptors in a similar way. They are really cost-effective vs phoenix and cost no more gas than a muta, and at the end of the day both players end up with air units that have minimal effect on a ground fight (with phoenixes costing significantly more gas than corruptors to be even in a fight). Once the zerg player regains air control and you stop producing phoenixes due to the corruptors, they could start massing mutas and if you're not 100% on top of your scouting you could be screwed because if you can't start catching up to the muta production fast enough the protoss player straight up loses, in my experience. You can't really say that once there are 2-3 corruptors in the air that the zerg player has a definite disadvantage on the ground that you could exploit with a timing attack before the mutas start to come out en masse...they really aren't that expensive (the corruptors). IMO it seems like no matter what, with the strategies we've seen so far, protoss has to be worried about mass mutas coming out. You can't simply discourage mutas for all of the midgame by producing 4-6 phoenixes early game due to the ease of switching between corruptors and mutas. You say yourself that the largest timing is between phoenixes and DT/HT tech...it seems like stargate builds are strong in that they give you more aggression after the 2gate but maybe a good zerg could see through the phoenix aggression and just take a quick third with a couple of corruptors to defend the phoenix scouting. With so much gas put into tech (TC, stargate + phoenixes, charge, dt shrine), zerg might be able to power ahead in economy and be in an ok position late game. That's just one option....the other option being massing mutaling off 2base after regaining air control as I and Jopz stated earlier. All in all, it has its strengths and weaknesses. The transitions are nice and smooth and DTS are badass, it almost makes me want to off-race just to try it.
From what i've read the phoenixes are supposed to deal with the overseers at the start of the battles and since they have much better movement speed than corruptors the protoss player could just snipe those overseers and send the phoniexies away from those corruptors. You said it yourself, phoenixes don't play a big role on the ground battle (after those overseers are gone) so do corruptors, and you would be investing into corruptors thus having a smaller army. I'd like to see what would happend if the z player decided to mass mutas at some point of the game like you said, but imo if the zerg goes mass mutas the protoss could go for a base trade and win easily, right? this thread is really amusing, so congrats to xDaunt. I'm looking forward to keep reading it and see how it goes, i'll go watch the replays now
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I've tried this strat yesterday and get a loss but I think that it sound very promising and I will try to refine my game style according to it. I was slightly behind my enemy in population during the last fight and I was raped by Ultras+hydras and some mutas... the main problem was that he had like 4 overseer and my phoenixes couldn't kill them fast enough to let the DT survive long enough to deal with the Ultras... maybe I should have switched to immortals when I saw that he invested so many recources into detection? I'm around 500 points diamond for reference.
Thanks and sorry for my horrible english
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On September 02 2010 18:13 Parrr-Agh wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2010 09:28 sooch wrote:I read the OP, got all ready to say something smart about how corruptors give phoenix openings trouble, and then read the rest of the thread and found that others had already done so That said, just as you say there's nothing to stop you from cutting back on phoenix production once corruptors come out, there's nothing stopping the zerg from cutting corruptors in a similar way. They are really cost-effective vs phoenix and cost no more gas than a muta, and at the end of the day both players end up with air units that have minimal effect on a ground fight (with phoenixes costing significantly more gas than corruptors to be even in a fight). Once the zerg player regains air control and you stop producing phoenixes due to the corruptors, they could start massing mutas and if you're not 100% on top of your scouting you could be screwed because if you can't start catching up to the muta production fast enough the protoss player straight up loses, in my experience. You can't really say that once there are 2-3 corruptors in the air that the zerg player has a definite disadvantage on the ground that you could exploit with a timing attack before the mutas start to come out en masse...they really aren't that expensive (the corruptors). IMO it seems like no matter what, with the strategies we've seen so far, protoss has to be worried about mass mutas coming out. You can't simply discourage mutas for all of the midgame by producing 4-6 phoenixes early game due to the ease of switching between corruptors and mutas. You say yourself that the largest timing is between phoenixes and DT/HT tech...it seems like stargate builds are strong in that they give you more aggression after the 2gate but maybe a good zerg could see through the phoenix aggression and just take a quick third with a couple of corruptors to defend the phoenix scouting. With so much gas put into tech (TC, stargate + phoenixes, charge, dt shrine), zerg might be able to power ahead in economy and be in an ok position late game. That's just one option....the other option being massing mutaling off 2base after regaining air control as I and Jopz stated earlier. All in all, it has its strengths and weaknesses. The transitions are nice and smooth and DTS are badass, it almost makes me want to off-race just to try it. From what i've read the phoenixes are supposed to deal with the overseers at the start of the battles and since they have much better movement speed than corruptors the protoss player could just snipe those overseers and send the phoniexies away from those corruptors. You said it yourself, phoenixes don't play a big role on the ground battle (after those overseers are gone) so do corruptors, and you would be investing into corruptors thus having a smaller army. I'd like to see what would happend if the z player decided to mass mutas at some point of the game like you said, but imo if the zerg goes mass mutas the protoss could go for a base trade and win easily, right? this thread is really amusing, so congrats to xDaunt. I'm looking forward to keep reading it and see how it goes, i'll go watch the replays now
No, the HTs are supposed to deal with the seers...phoenixes actually blow against armored units such as the overseer.
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I'm seeing a weakness where you're talking about going 2-gate, late gas, cybercore, stargate, forge, and having cannons and 2 void rays by the time Z tries a baneling bust. That's just not gonna happen.
Also, as with any 2-gate opening, you need to do damage to justify your delayed tech and slight economic loss. I've played against openings where upon scouting 2-gate, Z opens with ~2 lings into a spine crawler and ~3 roaches followed by an expansion and a couple more spine crawlers. The 2-gate will do essentially no damage and the zerg player will have been droning hard through the entire aggression. When 2-gating against this minimal but effective defense, I've found myself with literally half the income in the midgame.
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Yes I think that the key is keep scouting the Z to react in the better way. If you see that he is going to turtle then I assume you can stop to pump out zealots and start a expansion while you take the two gas in your main...
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