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For those who don't know, here is a copy of the buff Blizzard has set up for the Phoenix in 1.4.3
Phoenix now has a range upgrade at the Fleet Beacon In the past, we’ve discussed whether protoss needed a more immediate change to give them additional ways of dealing with mutalisks in PvZ, or whether it was more appropriate to make changes to that matchup in Heart of the Swarm. After investigating, testing, and reviewing both community and pro feedback, we’ve decided to include a change in this patch.
The phoenix will now have 6 attack range after purchasing an upgrade, which should allow them to more easily deal with a large number of mutalisks. In the previous patch, when protoss players attempted to move their armies out across the map, their bases became extremely vulnerable. Existing options to cope with massed mutalisks were costly and not always effective. This range upgrade should help even the odds by giving protoss players the option to reactively build phoenixes in smaller numbers, and with some micro, allow them to more efficiently defend against mutalisk swarms. Upgraded phoenixes should also offer protoss players the potential for better map control in the PvZ match up.
Still, we also wanted to make sure that producing mutalisks in PvZ remains a viable strategy, and believe that it is. While it might not be a good idea to brute force a protoss opponent with a ton of mutalisks, pairing them with units such as infestors and/or corruptors will help counter the advantage the new range upgrade provides.
So... lets break it down.
Protoss can't effectively deal with Mutalisks.
The phoenix get a +2 range buff at the fleet beacon which lets them effectively kill infinity Mutas with minimal investment due to their superior speed, health, and damage output.
Still, they think that Mutas will be viable when there's a unit flying around that is faster, and better than they are.
So... problem #1 is that I highly doubt Mutalisks will remain viable after said upgrade takes hold.
Phoenix already cost-effectively beat the crap out of Mutalisks in the current game. The only problem with them is that Protoss doesn't like massing them. They make for great harass and are hard to kill. The only real counter Zerg has is fungal growth, which typically involves sacrificing an infestor to land it.
Phoenix in their current iteration are fine, if not a bit limited in use. They do however accomplish everything that they were designed to, and when high-level Protoss use them in PvZ, Mutalisks become a non-issue.
Now, after the change, it's going to be the case where any Protoss can make 3 phoenix and an infinite number of mutas become a non issue. To put it in resource terms, Protoss can invest in fleet beacon (300/200) the upgrade, (lets just assume it's 200/200), and 3 phoenix (450/300) for a grand total of 950/700 and 40 mutalisks (4000/4000) will not be able to leave their base without immediately starting to get picked off without any hope of retaliating against these 3 phoenix.
Now, let's talk about their justification for why mutas will still be viable.
"While it might not be a good idea to brute force a protoss opponent with a ton of mutalisks, pairing them with units such as infestors and/or corruptors will help counter the advantage the new range upgrade provides."
Let's apply the same logic to blink stalkers:
"While it might not be a good idea to brute force a zerg opponent with a ton of stalkers, pairing them with units such as sentries and/or colossi will help counter the advantage the new range upgrade provides."
That sounds good and all, but it's not true when you apply the same logic to the stalker. The stalker the core of the entire Protoss army due to its mobility, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness vs pretty much every Zerg unit. But somehow, when Zerg gets a unit that mirrors the effectiveness of the Stalker, we need to provide Protoss with a buff that completely shuts the unit down unless you include other tech to counter balance the wild advantage?
I see the argument coming OMG FUNGAL!, but how often do you see protoss players lose entire stalker armies to pure fungal? fungal is the counter/balance that I have to apply in order to hold stalkers off along with my massive army off Zerglings and Roaches, it is not a 1-stop shop like the phoenix is set to become.
In all, I think this nerf is stupid and horribly thought out. There is nothing wrong with the mutalisks in PvZ, I don't see it destroying the competitive scene, I see noobs on the ladder getting annoyed when they have no idea what to do. Well, Blizzard, the Zerg noobs have no idea how to handle blink stalkers either, I guess we should give roaches a +2 range upgrade as well.
GG
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Please just delete this blog because this is the worst discussion about Phoenix range buff that i've ever seen. Totally biased and not even open to discussion.
0/5 rating
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On February 20 2012 03:54 Jermstuddog wrote: OMG FUNGAL!
use this same logic you applied to stalkers to any protoss player who attempts to mass phoenix and you -will- see them lose their entire army.
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I'm pretty excited for this change. They might make some tweaks to it first or even discard but I think it'll make for some really exciting air battles. Phoenix are a dynamic unit that along with the warpprism has made PvZ extremely exciting recently and I want to incentivize players to use them. And I think it's a bad thing both competitively and from a spectator point of view when massing a single unit is ever the best strategy. Forcing zergs to be creative with mixed air compositions could create something like the airbattles we see in TvT with BC/Viking/Banshee/Raven fleets.
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On February 20 2012 04:05 Suichoy wrote: I'm pretty excited for this change. They might make some tweaks to it first or even discard but I think it'll make for some really exciting air battles. Phoenix are a dynamic unit that along with the warpprism has made PvZ extremely exciting recently and I want to incentivize players to use them. And I think it's a bad thing both competitively and from a spectator point of view when massing a single unit is ever the best strategy. Forcing zergs to be creative with mixed air compositions could create something like the airbattles we see in TvT with BC/Viking/Banshee/Raven fleets.
Sorry, but I don't see these "exciting air battles" in the future. I see mutas never being made in numbers > 12. They're just not worth it when the Phoenix shuts them down with infinite cost-effectiveness.
So, in the end, the upgrade will almost never be used because mutas will almost never be used. Gratz Blizzard, you have effectively killed a strategy (and the viability of an entire unit) by introducing another upgrade that will in turn also be worthless.
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While I do think think this change is quite hamfisted and done in such a non-elegant manner this has to be the worst analysis of it I've read.
Do you honestly think that 3 Phoenix are going to somehow stop a ball of mutas harassing your base? god no , the mutas will merely ignore them.
On the contrary though it is sorta a stupid change cos it just straight up buffs the range of phoenix by 2 , this is so inelegant and just requires minimal control to deal with mutas.
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On February 20 2012 04:04 shogeki wrote:use this same logic you applied to stalkers to any protoss player who attempts to mass phoenix and you -will- see them lose their entire army.
This is irrelevant, as massing most any single unit leaves you open to being completely crushed by another single unit.
Massing anything that can't shoot up opens one up to Air rushes, Massing extremely low tech opens one up to being countered by higher tech splash units.
Massing a single unit in a viable manner is a very rare occurrence, it does not need to be applied to the Phoenix. But it does work for both the Stalker and the Mutalisks in the same MU.
The thing I don't get is how Blizzard sees a problem with one of these and not the other. By the very same logic, these 6 and 7 gate stalker timings should not be viable in PvZ, and yet we see them working at the pro level and all over the ladder.
If Blizzard is willing to fix one, why not apply the same logic to all?
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On February 20 2012 04:09 Elsid wrote: While I do think think this change is quite hamfisted and done in such a non-elegant manner this has to be the worst analysis of it I've read.
Do you honestly think that 3 Phoenix are going to somehow stop a ball of mutas harassing your base? god no , the mutas will merely ignore them.
On the contrary though it is sorta a stupid change cos it just straight up buffs the range of phoenix by 2 , this is so inelegant and just requires minimal control to deal with mutas.
I never said it would stop the mutas from harassing your base, but do you know how many phoenix shots it takes to kill a mutalisk?
If you don't I'll help you out, throwing upgrades out, 7 shots is guaranteed to kill a muta.
For comparison, it takes ~20 shots for mutas to kill a phoenix.
In my given scenario of 40 mutas vs 3 phoenix, the mutas can fly pretty much wherever they like, but 1 mutalisk will be dying roughly every 3 seconds and there is no way to stop it without intervention from some other unit.
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Despite how you guys might feel about mutas, what jermstuddog says is true. Range 6 phoenixes against mutas will like... slow roaches off creep versus "stim" thors. when one unit is faster and has greater range, AND doesn't even have to stop to shoot, said unit can kite forever.
phoenixes are already cost effective against mutas. For the cost and supply, phoenixes are way better at fighting in the air. The issue is that it's hard to gauge how many phoenixes to make. What if the zerg makes 10 mutas, having 8 phoenixes is an overcommitment. If the zerg makes 32 mutas, then 8 phoenixes get owned. And it's hard to tell how many mutas they're making until they pop out of the eggs.
You guys should see how badly Genius shut down nestea's mutas by using upgraded phoenixes. I think there is still much to explore. This upgrade, if viable, makes mutas a huge liability in the late game.
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Shoulda just buffed cannon AA*2 vs light and a bit more range on cannons vs AA. Actually I don't like this buff. An upgrade and fleet beacon is nowhere near what an immediate response to mutas would have to be. Ah well.
Pvz mutas is one of the reasons I dread playing this game.
I've gone into unit testers to try to determine what cost effectively beats mutalisk. I recall only pure phoenix and cannons doing it satisfactorily.
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I thought it was 5 range, but 6? T_T Mutas won't be viable anymore as a mainstay of the army, only for harass. I don't know how Blizz thinks that it'll still be viable. Mutas have never been meant to fight straight up against a protoss army (at least with both armies maxed) unless there are a ton of spines in the battle. They're meant to force the protoss army to split up, and weaken it, snipe buildings, probes, nexus. I dunno. They're really good as of now, against toss, but I feel like it's because protoss players have a hard time dealing with them (because yeah, it's very difficult).
Something needs to be done, but a +2 range buff? That kills any chance of me making more than 12 mutas against toss again.
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Terrible blog post. Your whole argument is based around any scrub being able to infinitely kite mutas. That's going to get easier, but it won't become easy unless your name is kim taek yong.
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Everytime I see this guy talk about mutas, it turns out to be an extremely biased post. You can counter Mutas with reactive Phoenixes? High level Protoss not having trouble with Mutas?
I do agree though that Phoenix buff will make massing mutas impossible now though and that's kind of not the way it should be. I'd like there to be more of a micro battle instead of "hard counters" but I guess that's Blizzard's trend lately.
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rofl. You have a blog against every buff ever to any non zerg-unit dude. And you also complain about rocks, that everybody has to deal with.
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On February 20 2012 04:39 m3rciless wrote: Terrible blog post. Your whole argument is based around any scrub being able to infinitely kite mutas. That's going to get easier, but it won't become easy unless your name is kim taek yong. No, you described the actual situation, but with the upgrade 5/6 phoenix will kill any number of mutas with little skill required since they are faster/+3 range/auto attack. That's an inelegant fix to say the least.
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On February 20 2012 04:43 Active.815 wrote: rofl. You have a blog against every buff ever to any non zerg-unit dude. And you also complain about rocks, that everybody has to deal with.
Actually, I mostly complained about the OPness of Terran, and specifically the Marine, which Blizzard has acknowledged is OP but chosen to nerf everything BUT the marine for god knows why. Regardless, Blizzard has agreed with me for the past year.
As far as rocks, I have argued against rocks on the 3rd base, which most intelligent people agree is bad map design. I have no problem with them blocking off pathways or narrowing ramps. Low-and-behold, this is the first season that I can actually veto all of Blizzards old, terrible maps and my rating sky rockets. GM here I come...
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idk why no one has mentioned the corruptor yet those guys demolish pheonix. just by mixing a few corruptors (which are range 6 by the way) you can maintain a muta army, just not by massing mutas alone (which shouldn't really be a possible strategy in any strategy game)
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On February 20 2012 04:53 JonnyClark wrote: idk why no one has mentioned the corruptor yet those guys demolish pheonix. just by mixing a few corruptors (which are range 6 by the way) you can maintain a muta army, just not by massing mutas alone (which shouldn't really be a possible strategy in any strategy game)
Corruptors demolish Phoenix like Cannons demolish Mutas. As in: only if you're dumb enough to keep them in the area.
Actually, I'd go so far as to say they're much less effective than cannons due to the difference in DPS.
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On February 20 2012 04:55 Jermstuddog wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2012 04:53 JonnyClark wrote: idk why no one has mentioned the corruptor yet those guys demolish pheonix. just by mixing a few corruptors (which are range 6 by the way) you can maintain a muta army, just not by massing mutas alone (which shouldn't really be a possible strategy in any strategy game) Corruptors demolish Phoenix like Cannons demolish Mutas. As in: only if you're dumb enough to keep them in the area. Actually, I'd go so far as to say they're much less effective than cannons due to the difference in DPS.
Protip: Corruptors can move and have an ability that increases damage dealt.
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