Unfair strategy

Hey I need some advice.

I've been playing as the Protoss for about a week, and doing pretty decent. After getting destroyed the first few matches, I did some research and developed some new strategies that have generally been working. Here is the problem:

In the early game, I get Zealots as fast as possible, and tech up quickly to get first immortal about 6:30 into the game. I've found that having just one immortal is extremely useful against enemy stalkers/marauders/roaches. I beef up a little more, attack, either win right then or have to fall back, and then keep building up my forces, going for multiple warp gates and more immortals. I also usually try a strategy which involves using the warp prism to get dark templars behind the enemy probes. Sometimes this works, sometimes not. Anyway, once the game gets past the early and middle stages I rarely win, for one simple reason: I cant find any way to effectively defeat mass Voids or mass BCs. I've done the mass Voids strat before, and usually win, but I dont want to have to use the same strategy in every game. Yet whenever I dont mass Voids, I either have to win very fast, or I lose. Is there no way to counter mass Voids or mass BCs besides getting mass Voids myself??

Please help, I feel like Im getting beaten by inferior players who simply rely on a broken strategy....

 

Phoenix, and later phoenix mixed with void rays. you can even get a few stalkers with blink and sentries for guardian shield....
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digital vaporizer

 

Is the guardian shield actually effective? Hasn't seemed to be from experience so far. And when I get phoenixes they get destroyed by the rays.

 

If he really blobs them close together, and you manage to fend them off for a while: get high templar with psionic storm. You'll melt right through them. I've also found that quickly picking one off with Stalkers, then blinking away before their beams can charge works really well. And after you blink away, pop a storm right after. Most opponents follow you right away if you run, so use that to your advantage.

 

Void's are prolly one of the trickier unit to counter. Phoenix's are the best counter, but you have to micro like a mofo. Basically, move whatever is getting attacked to the back so the void can't charge. Phoenixes are a lot faster than Voids, so if one gets fully charged, retreat a few metres with your full forces for 3 seconds. The void's damage resets after that, and repeat.

With BCs, that doesn't matter as much, just hit them with everything you've got. Phoenixes and Voids work extremely well together.

The Phoenix is listed as an air superiority fighter, and it is. Mass them, use good micro, and you'll own the air, as almost nothing can stand against a good upgraded group of them for long.

Guardian shield is more useful for protecting your ground forces against low tier units. Hella good against mass Marines early game since it cuts damage by 2 (a third of vanilla marine damage) and marginally useful against Hydras and Stalkers(Hydra is 12 vanilla and Stalker is 10 - Ok, possibly a battle winner, but that's a hella close battle). Immortals, Tanks...Very meh in my experience. It's useful against Hellions before they get their upgrade, since you'll mostly be using it to protect Light class units, 2 off of 20 is meh.

 

Phoenix are effective. But you DO have to micro them, VRs are only imba because people don't abuse their weaknesses Pull away the phoenix that's getting hit... he's faster than them... and focus fire... make them change targets, make them chase... pick them off. and then go raid his probes on gas, while getting some VR of your own.... he'll likely have a hard time making decent AA if you hurt his economy =] Usually when I play PvP and I see VR, I have 5-8 phoenix and he has 2-3 VR ... it's an easy win
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Honda X11 history

 

I did that about an hour ago and laughed my butt off. ^^
Seriously, it's so easy and not hard to perform. Only thing I can't stand, is that Terrans can just attack move their bc's and do a bunch of other stuff, while I have to micro like a maniac to get those units down. >_<

 

I found mothership GREAT for heavy air combat... keep your VR/phoenix will ahead of her - trying to keep her out of range, while letting your air FF him, htis gives you a 5-10 second headstart on the battle which if you make good use of, decides the battle. (VRs can charge, you can take down a few BCs before he can even attack)
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starcraft replays

 

To deal with Mass Battlecruisers: Void Rays/Stalker(with blink Micro) Focus Fire. Utterly destroys them unless they have substantial Viking/Ground Force support. Mass Stalkers should be able to take down any BC force under 8-10 Battlecruisers by themselves by focus fire and a little bit of Blink Micro. Voidrays utterly rape Battlecruisers if you have a 1:3 ratio against them.

 

I test phoenix vs void rays yesterday. 9 P vs 6 V, 4 P survived. Trick was to FF voids and I didn't even need to retreat with phoenixes that were under attack.

So I would say have 50% more Phoenix then he has Voids and FF and you will destroy him, and after that I am sure he will not build any more Voids

 

Does anyone else find it odd that a unit labeled as "Air Superiority Fighter" must outnumber the opponents Air Unit by 50% to have an advantage?

If 9 Air Superiority Fighters go against 6 Air Fighters... It's not like VR's are high tier air units.... I can see BC's causing a problem... but a VR? Seems imba to me.

 

They don't have to. You could probably have 30% more phoenixes than void rays, and with good micro keep the rays uncharged while you focus them down.

But yes you do have to have more phoenixes than rays, which isn't hard seeing as how phoenixes cost almost half that of a ray.

 

What does FF mean, I feel it's super obvious but I'm brainfarting right now.

 

Focus fire. All your units shoot down the opponents one at a time, thus minimizing their damage output as their numbers steadily drop.

 

Wow. Ok I get it now micro stalkers/ phoenixes away from the rays so they cant charge. But what if the rays get in my base? Then they keep their lasers charged on my buildings, and the micro away thing is useless...
Also, how does micro away from BCs work? Cuz they dont have to charge up.

 

Does anyone else feel that the movement while shooting animation looks retarded?

 

I dont even use void rays against void rays, I save them for once I kill my opponent's. I usually just use a mix of stalkers and Pheonix's just because they are so much easier to micro yourself to victory. Stalkers have blink and Pheonixs are faster than VR's unless they have the speed boost, makes it a bit more tough but still manageable.

I feel VR vs VR doesn't work as well.

Where are your Photon Cannons?

 

Not at all, since you're comparing two levels of ships. Unit for unit, the Phoenix beats anything in its class. You could shred any number of Mutas with only, say, 2/3's the amount of Phoenixes.

If you have a Lightweight Division boxing champ and send him up against a Welterweight, don't expect him to survive long.

 

I am a bit perplexed by the whole void rays thing. Every time I've tried to mass them it felt pretty useless, and every time I've fought them they seemed pretty useless. I just mass stalker with blink. What can they do? You're going to out number them. Blink right underneath them and destroy them. If they run away or run around the map that's fine...expand and keep their expansions down. Keep tabs on the map keep your forces moving on foot.

Void rays are great in some early game scenarios, and great as a supplement to your army against some unit compositions. However just mass void rays seems a bit silly to me. Marines, hydras, or stalkers...and it's over.

 

The best way to deal with Voids? Have more of your own >. That's my theory, anyway, when playing another 'toss.

If you're going 1 v 1, immortals aren't the best to max out, since that leaves you totally bum-f'd from air. If you have a Terran teammate going Air with mass viks, it makes more sense to do collusus and imortals. I generally go right for voids, and then once those are healthy get a few immortals for an uber-base-pwn team.

Voids are also, funnily enough, totally weak against mass marines. I'm not kidding, upgraded marines with stimpacks can totally whipe out an entire fleet. This is because the nature of the Void's attacks are that they get stronger over time. So, weaker units with only like 40hp, don't let the voids capitalize. Theres a video on youtube showing it off nicely i think.

Also; Voids become 2x more deadly if you build a fleet becon and upgrade them. It allows them to move faster, and their beam to get stronger.