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Hey guys,
As we know, a technique a lot of protoss players(including myself) use when pushing out to attack is to bring a probe and make a proxy pylon outside of the opponents base. This pylon provides psi field for proxy warping units to engage the fight at a shorter distance.
However, this pylon is usually destroyed as soon as the enemy pushes out after your forces either get destroyed or retreated. This means a waste of 100 minerals plus a possibility of supply blocking.
So i was thinking, wouldn't it be a good habbit to make a warp prism when pushing out? It is only 100 minerals more but it has much more benefits than a proxy pylon. Also, since most protoss players build a robo anyway, theres no inconvenience involved in making a an extra building just for warp prism.
Here are some advantages of warp prisms as mobile psi fields:
1. instead of waiting for a probe to warp in a pylon, the prism can instantly open up a psi field
2. No waste of resources, if retreating, can move the prism back as well.
3. If there are more than 1 base to attack (say you can attack either his main or a 3rd expansion on the other side of the map), the warp prism can move around with your main forces to any point you'd like to attack. instead of making multiple proxy pylons across the map.
4. This mobile psi field can warp in units on opponents high grounds (think cliff on kulas) for harassment.
5. You can always warp in a couple of units inside the enermy base to do exceptional damage, when your main forces are engaging the battle with the opponent's main forces.
6. Can turn in to warp mode on a cliff (like how zergs position their overlords). This way the enemy may not see your prism but the prism still have a sizable field to warp in units to the ground
7. in PvT, or PvZ, warp prism can serve as a protector of certain units.
for example, against a Terran ball of marauders (and maybe a few marines) or against mass zerglings and roaches, its often an awkward situation when there's that 1 or 2 singled out immortal retreating (all other units either died or retreated fast).Because immortals are so slow, a prism can just pick them up, and abuse the lack of anti air of the opponent. This is kind of like the shuttle and reaver in sc1.
Also, usually the terrans focus down the immortals first during a battle, if the prism can micro the immortal by picking them up and re-drop, it would create a lot of difficulties for your opponent to focus fire the immortals.
Another difficulty protoss have been experiencing during PvT is the EMP. But with HTs and Immortals inside the Prism, they cannot be EMPed. This can at least save 2 immortals and 4 HTs from gettin emped immediately after battle starts. (provided that you may need to have other Immortals or HTs on the ground at the beginning of the fight to lure the EMP)
These are some of the advantages i can think of right now. I argue that in some match ups and cases (vs ground heavy armies), the prism can also play a role in the protoss main arsenal rather than just having second line roles such as stealing an island expansion, immortal/coli drop and warping DTs into enemy mineral line.
Possibly objections and replies to my point.
1. Warp prisms(140 hp) have less HP than pylons (400 hp) and will get destroyed easily
Reply: This is true, but first of all the warp prism does not have to be in the middle of the battle. It can be say half a screen or a screen length behind your main forces.( just like many proxy pylons are). Also because the prism is a flying unit, many ground units cannot attack it. For example in PvT, only the small number of ghost and marines can attack it, but it would be hard to reach it since it should be used behind the main battle, or it could warp on a cliff.
2. Enemy air such as vikings and mutas will hunt it down.
Reply This is true, but the main point here is to use it against marauder ball or ground heavy armies. Even though in PvT vikings are produced to fight off colossus anyways, the enemy would not make many vikings only for the sole purpose of destroying your prism. If he does, that would be your gain.
In conclusion , I do not argue that warp prisms should always be used against any kind of match ups. I'm simply trying to establish more viable roles for the warp prism in certain situations against opponents with major ground armies. I think this is possible and could be explored more to enhance game play. I have not tested many of these myself so this may be theoretical. However, i do have sc2 beta and currently is a platinum player.
Discussions welcomed, and it would be much appreciated if some of you can try this option and provide some feed backs. Thank you and sorry for this long and unorganized read.
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it is also a drop ship and it provides air-level vision for stalkers to blink onto cliffs
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The main reason I don't use them early-midgame is that it takes up time in the robo bay and I want to be spending 100% of the time producing obs/immortal/colossus. Unless I'm going for an early drop harass build.
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I feel like more players use the simple probe and plyon method because it leaves up multip (semi-redundant) rally points for warping in troops on the battlefield. Even in a situation where I can make a warp prism instead of a pylon (ie. not buiding from the robotics) i'm almost always going to build a pylon half way to my destination, and then one at the desired location to re-enforce my attack. That way, even if i loose the pylon up front and stage a retreat, i'll be able to place units at the half-way point and push back a potential counter-attack that might otherwise slaughter my out-numbered force.
There is also the fact the prism takes up, rather than gives me more psi, but that's a lesser issue. I think the primary factor here is that unless you're also going to utilize an offensive warp into their base, or drop of some kind, you're just better off taking advantage of a cheap pylon proxy.
That isn't to say I never, or someone shouldn't, use prisms at all. I drop immortals a fair bit in PvT, and I warp in zeals/dt at some point in a few PvZ matches, but i find the pylon proxy to be my method of choice most of the time.
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It is 200 instead of 100 and takes up robo build time so unless theres that much difference there's no reason not to have a forward pylon instead.
I think their real use will come in the mid - late game when people start trying to make storm drops viable and sneak dts in etc.
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Problems I notice:
Warp in circle is quite small, and using to warp in MANY units at once might be impossible. Especially when warping in when hiding on a cliff (your 6th point) or something high ground. I'm not sure if this is viable due to this reason.
I'm assuming if you're early/mid game, you need all the units you can get, so I'd rather have made an extra immortal instead of a prism. If it's late game, the prism psi radius is much to small to accompany all my warp gates.
Generally, and I might not be accurate with this, but if you're dropping a proxy pylon, its not just in the middle of the battlefield, I generally hide it as best I can, while still having it nearby.
Finally, I think harassing with it (via drops or warp in) is incredibly annoying, but effective. I want all my base to belong to only me  But seriously, I think the warp prism isn't abused nearly as much as it could be. Just my 2 cents
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i think the problem is that most of the time you need the robo to build immortals + sometimes obs for your first push and a pylon can be build withour blocking buildingtime for immortals + is cheaper than the prism + gives you supply that you will need anyway.
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I've seen a game where toss used the prism to transport two immortals then the rest of his army up to zerg's main on lost temple to bypass the spine crawlers at zerg's nat for the mid game push. He then used the warp prism to continually warp in gateway units and zerg lost because he couldn't keep up in production. I think it was a game in the pgr21 2nd qualifier rep pack.
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On April 22 2010 00:55 Sherbople wrote:Problems I notice: Warp in circle is quite small, and using to warp in MANY units at once might be impossible. Especially when warping in when hiding on a cliff (your 6th point) or something high ground. I'm not sure if this is viable due to this reason. I'm assuming if you're early/mid game, you need all the units you can get, so I'd rather have made an extra immortal instead of a prism. If it's late game, the prism psi radius is much to small to accompany all my warp gates. Generally, and I might not be accurate with this, but if you're dropping a proxy pylon, its not just in the middle of the battlefield, I generally hide it as best I can, while still having it nearby. Finally, I think harassing with it (via drops or warp in) is incredibly annoying, but effective. I want all my base to belong to only me But seriously, I think the warp prism isn't abused nearly as much as it could be. Just my 2 cents
you have a point for early/mid game that it takes up the robo build space. But it also has the benefit of instantly open up psi field instead of waiting for a pylon to be warped in, this way, it makes ur gate way units get to the fight a lil bit faster. But for late game, i would say there could be more than 1 warp prism.
A proxy pylon usually is made mid way or 1-2 screens away from the attacking destination. It isnt used to really hide something but just for the psi field to transport units faster.
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I think its a wonderful unit and the warp prism coupled with the warp gates really, really make Protoss an effective and dangerous race. No more waiting for reinforcements to run from the regular gateways to the frontlines anymore. Now they can simply be warped directly onto the battlefield, pretty much, via proxy'd pylon or the warp prism.
I've been trying to utilize shuttle'ing a probe around in the prism, as well as making use of its pylon field. Having a probe along for the ride means u can not only expand anywhere, like islands or such, but u can also make some immediate defense by warping in units under the prisms pylon field or by making cannons around its pylon field too. It may not have as much HP as a pylon, but the fact that u can fit at least 6 cannons in its pylon field make it a pretty useful tool for setting up preliminary defense. Of course, once u warp in the cannons w/ the probe, u can simply make a pylon too, to power them in the future, once u need to prism to leave elsewhere.
I think its really useful in terms of expo-sniping. Almost like a recall, its a good way to transport units from 1 side of the map to the other. Rather than risking those units running across the map, u can sneak the prism around it and then set up its pylon field and warp in like 8-10 zeals or similar sized units, prolly away from the attention of the opponent.
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you have a point for early/mid game that it takes up the robo build space. But it also has the benefit of instantly open up psi field instead of waiting for a pylon to be warped in, this way, it makes ur gate way units get to the fight a lil bit faster. But for late game, i would say there could be more than 1 warp prism.
I'd think warp prisms are a bit too pricey to get too many of them, but it would definitely be interesting to have some sort of a test. Obviously the mobility is the main advantage, and would be helpful at times. I know for tvp, as you said t likes to get vikings to kill off colossus, and killing your prisms would suck majorly.
You also said its strong mostly vs maurader balls, but with any build with any AA would smash that squishy prism . And vs mauraders, you'd want as many immortals as possible
A proxy pylon usually is made mid way or 1-2 screens away from the attacking destination. It isn't used to really hide something but just for the psi field to transport units faster.
I'm not really intending to use the pylon to hide my forces, i guess I hide it to reduce the chance of them finding it if they do push me back.
Anyways, its an interesting point to bring up, maybe i'm completely off with my points, but I'd still probably lean towards the pylon for any proxy-warpin.
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The primary reason I prefer Proxy Pylon (PP) over Warp Prism (WP) is that the Psi field emitted from the WP is so damn small. You can fit like, what, 5 Stalkers inside that field? When you have a lot of Warp Gates (WG) it becomes too difficult to precicely place the units inside that field to warp them all in at the same time. PP allows more spammy WG usage.
I also agree with most arguments for the PP over the WP, but that doesnt mean that there is no place for the WP. I think the WP wins over the PP for superoffensive WG pushes where it simply wins over the PP in the time it takes to set up.
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One invaluable thing about Proxy Pylons is if your attack fails, and your pylon was somewhere near the standard path, you can tell when he's moving out for a counter-attack. They just take a lot less effort and micro to use, but it can be really cool to use them to spawn units directly on top of the hill in the middle of a fight at the choke on Metalopolis or Lost Temple.
Any other time I use them to spawn units in their mineral line while I'm baiting or fighting them at the front door. Takes little APM from you, and a ton from him to fend it off.
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the only thing i like more about a pylon over a warp prism is that whenever i use a prism, i always find myself confined in terms of space. Pylon gives a bigger psi field for more warpins at once.
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One way i've been considering using warp prisms in the midgame push is vs Zerg. With blink researched and a stalker heavy army the goal is to push to his xelnaga watch tower load up your army that can't blink (esp the sentries & immortals) i'm thinking 2-3 warp prisms here and only maybe 2 immortals 2 or 3 sentries and some zealots in the actual drop.
The actual attack is to first push with my stalkers into this natural to force his army to come down and defend mean while i queue up a drop right by the top of his ramp. Pull back my stalkers using shift commands to walk them back around the edge of his main and blink up (if any of you have seen the technique for blinking a load of stalkers without bunching up) so his army gets very little of my stlalker army and turn around to defend his main only to realize that i'm keeping his ramp blocked indefinitely with sentries i dropped and keep warping in like 3-1 ratio of zealots & sentries.
Haven't tested it yet though.
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EPT
