It seems more and more often that I see these mass pheonix builds and it's driving me up a wall. I just can't figure out what to do against them. For instance.. Was playing a game ZZ v TP and I was one of the Z's. I went mass hydras while the other Z went mass mutas and lings. We were fine till there were like 20 pheonix's out on the field. We really never found a counter for it, my partner just teched up to ultras because they can't be lifted and I was pretty much a distraction the whole game to slow them down.
I'm seeing this strategy as well in my games, but I'm not losing to it. Hydras are the counter for them. See, Phoenixes are annoying, but only so much. I mean it's not like they can actually win the game by themselves - they can't hit buildings - they can only harass. Just keep your overlords in a cloud right above a gang of hydras, and they should be safe. drop a few spore colonies at your expos, and they should be safe. Then, since the pheonixes can't really do much against a massive ground army, bring one and shove it right down your opponents throat. I'm obviously over simplifying this a bit, since no harassment is ever "easy" to deal with in the heat of the moment, but realize that's all the pheonixes are really good for. If you can shut that down, a solid ground army will win.
Never really thought about it that way. xD The thing was a lot of pheonix can really screw over a lot of hydras. Didn't save the rep but I wish I had. Guy ran through quite a few hydras, was surprised I didn't do much more damage than I actually did.
i dont know but i recently played a FFA where a weird liar was going mass phoenix and i was going mass ultras and guess what happend? XP oh yeah he attacked me first and i got pissed so i counterattacked his cannonwall and ran straight into his base and ownd it i think i also got some sporecrawlers for his phoenixes so thats how i did it ^^ but then after that i got ownd by some wierd guy :C
Start with hydras/your queen(s). Make sure to spread your creep for the hydras. Get burrow and have the hydras lie in wait where you think the phoenixes will pass by. When they go OL scouting they will get a nasty surprise. If the idiot insists on going mass phoenixes at this point get some infestors for FG.\ On a side note, if you went mutas and they have scouts you need to do reverse hit and runs on the scouts. Obviously scouts can kite mutas forever, but they aren't so good at changing directions. So if you run away and then run back forward when you anticipate them coming back in to kill stuff you can do alright. Run away/rinse/repeat when they withdraw (which you can also typically anticipate).
You shoulda seen what happened to me in the game I was talking about. I actually DID have all my hydra burrowed and laying in wait and then suddenly they freaking scanned right over top of them and they all got lifted outa the ground and killed. -_- Fawk dat. No way they should be able to pull you out of burrow, that's complete crap.
I would like to see that because it sounds unlikely, and perhaps you were extremely unlucky in this situation (maybe a map vision/ higher ground issue or something). First of all the only way the pheonixes can even touch a hyrdra is if it lifts it, and then the pheonix doing the lifting can't even attack. This implies that he needs way more pheonixes than you have hydras (which should be tough since pheonixes cost more). He had to micro way WAY better (the pheonix does 0 damage to ground if it's not being microed, which in this case would involve hitting gravity beam and clicking on the units over and over again). Add on top of that I don't even think a single pheonix does as much DPS as a single hydra (this is somewhat balanced by the fact that pheonix has more HP + armor). The best uses I've seen for pheonix is when they are used as support for a gound force, lifting up annoying hard to reach units (like sieged tanks). There's really no reason a group of only pheonixes should ever beat an equally costed group of ground ranged units (that can attack air - hydras, marines, etc).
Now that I look at the replay it seems that there really wern't that many hydras vs the pheonix's. The part I'm refering to is near the end of the game, their last push at our base...well first/last. Whichever. xD But here is the replay for those who wanna see it.
if you're zerg, then you need 2-4 spores around your main and expo coupled with hydras. my guess is that you did not build enough hydras. also, although mutas are countered (pretty hard) by phoenix, if you sense that your opponent has poor control, you may still want to build mutas anyways. he will kite you, yes, but you can anticipate his movement and pick off his phoenix. but, hydras are a better route. 1/2 the gas of a muta and ground unit.
