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A few days ago MC executed a micro strategy vs Byun which I haven't noticed before, Tastosis didn't say anything, and I don't see anything on the forum although I bet someone has thought about or used this before. What he did occurs most noticably 10 minutes into game 2.
First he makes a lot of sentry then he forms a giant eclipse around the terran bio using forcefields to push them together into a ball and then puts a force field in the middle of it which splits about 15 units into 2 tiny clumps the size of the Collosus aoe. At first I wasn't completely sure if he clumped them into 2 holes on purpose but he does it again later in the game and when I rewatched it and then watched the first game where he does the same thing except he changes the size of the hole to the size of storm so I'm positive he's pushing bio into a ball for aoe.
I've seen this type of mass forcefield play recently from Huk where you don't just use forcefields to trap an enemy in or keep an enemy choked off but to actually completely surround and immobilize an enemy. However, pushing units together and using Collosus and Templar really take it to a whole new level since aoe completely destroys units that have been stuck on top of each other. I think this sort of Doughnut Hole micro will catch on more in the months to come.
Photo
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg229/evil3penguin/MCDoughnutHole.jpg
A link to the match.
http://www.gomtv.net/2011gslsponsors2/vod/62031
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Nice observation. Sentries are so so powerful in the hands of a competant player.
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Would you please take a picture for us who are dirt poor and can't afford a season pass? 
Many thanks
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sounds like a epic ownage, as the game goes on youll see even more tricks and stuff, like demuslums marine/medivac juggling.
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I noticed this also. I have been saying for a while that once people get really good with force fields protoss will be unstoppable.
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Well, MC has said Toss live and die by FF placement. I remember seeing that too but I didn't realize he was doing it on purpose until you pointed it out.
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I agree with MC that Toss lives and dies by FF placement - I quit protoss because I am so bad with FFs
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That is a lot of force fields <_>, probably better against Zerg, because EMP will screw with you pretty bad
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I was a little surprised he didn't combine that with storm. Lock a group into the circle, toss in a storm or two, and everything dies fast.
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On March 05 2011 02:46 Wren wrote:
I was a little surprised he didn't combine that with storm. Lock a group into the circle, toss in a storm or two, and everything dies fast.
Doubt he would have sentries alive by the time Storms come out, unless you are banking on making late game sentries with Storm, then Ghosts will throw a spanner in your works pretty badly
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Byun attacked with ~16 marauders ~25 marines
10 units were in that first hole, and about 7-8 were in the second. Those 10 units were killed at the same time by one colossus. (and couldn't attack anything while getting hit)
This is really powerful. I believe terrans might need to incorporate more ghosts in the midgame now.
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Ya really impressive use of FF by Mc. I saw that in the game. This is why, MC is the one with the best Force Field in the world.
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United States7483 Posts
On March 05 2011 02:52 W2 wrote:
Byun attacked with ~16 marauders ~25 marines
10 units were in that first hole, and about 7-8 were in the second. Those 10 units were killed at the same time by one colossus. (and couldn't attack anything while getting hit)
This is really powerful. I believe terrans might need to incorporate more ghosts in the midgame now.
They always should have against a protoss making a lot of sentries. Their only purpose is to forcefield, their damage is pathetic and they get killed very easily, but FF is very powerful. One well played EMP at the right time and protoss gets rolled right then and there. Cloak a ghost, send it in, and EMP your heart out whenever you get a chance to reset sentry energy, it'll make a huge difference.
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Yes, I play protoss, and as MC said, FF's make or break the game. We would be totally screwed without FF's early-mid game. You have to keep in mind though, that mid-late game the sentry count dwindles. Protoss is a VERY gas heavy race, and when we start teching, especially to templar, we have to stop making sentries. So, yeah, it's all well and good to speak about this at the mid-game push with colossus when you still have sentries alive, but once you lose your initial batch of sentries, you're pretty much not making anymore because you need all your gas for templar and research.
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On March 05 2011 02:46 Wren wrote:
I was a little surprised he didn't combine that with storm. Lock a group into the circle, toss in a storm or two, and everything dies fast.
He did that in the previous round, didn't he? I think he even mentioned it in an interview.
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United States7483 Posts
On March 05 2011 02:59 Acridice wrote:
Yes, I play protoss, and as MC said, FF's make or break the game. We would be totally screwed without FF's early-mid game. You have to keep in mind though, that mid-late game the sentry count dwindles. Protoss is a VERY gas heavy race, and when we start teching, especially to templar, we have to stop making sentries. So, yeah, it's all well and good to speak about this at the mid-game push with colossus when you still have sentries alive, but once you lose your initial batch of sentries, you're pretty much not making anymore because you need all your gas for templar and research.
Exactly. Get a ghost, shut down sentry play in the early to mid game, and kill off sentries whenever you can. Protoss either gets tech units like colossus or remakes their sentries. Either way, it's a win-win for terran.
Ghosts are NEVER bad against protoss.
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This looked absolutely devastating. Terran have ghosts, but I'm not sure what Zerg's response to this is
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This looks like a really powerful micro strategy but what if terrans unit were making a concave? you would only make a hole with like 2 or 3 units in it.
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possibly getting tunneling claws and burrow. if hydras get caught by storm or colossi they take heaps of damage with or without forcefields.
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I was wondering that too. I thought MC did it just to make battle look cooler, but now I realize point^^
Really helpful trick I guess, have to start using too =P
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Zerg's can try and bait forcefields early on to waste energy. Another would be to use burrow and pray that the toss forgot to bring an observer.
Or play on a map big enough so that you can attack where the army isn't, and never go head-on until broodlords and/or ultra's are out.
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On March 05 2011 03:10 PD wrote:
possibly getting tunneling claws and burrow. if hydras get caught by storm or colossi they take heaps of damage with or without forcefields.
Yeah I mean that makes sense. But in the few seconds it takes you to slowly move underground he's just raining hell on your units.
Guess I'll just keep looking more unit muta strats
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On March 05 2011 03:32 morimacil wrote:
Its the Mc Donut™!
YES
And wow, I have no idea why this hasn't been used more recently but I'm going to have some fun vs Zerg 
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This is honestly nothing that new. The only thing is, that you're used to seeing FF's which divide the armies in half, so that you're not getting hit by all the units at once. However, in this case, MC felt he could wipe out his army outright, so instead of cutting in half he made sure they did not escape and also focused them.
So yeah, I don't think much discussion necessary. Good use of FF's. Period.
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I've always felt that FF is one of the strategically deepest spells in SC2 right now. There is so much a player can do with it in addition to blocking ramps and splitting armies. I've seen players reduce the attackable/repairable surface area of buildings with FF. Trapping armies for storms and Colossi also can yield devastating results.
It's cool to see MC push the boundaries with FF usage. His anti-Terran, sentry-heavy, anti-bunker push against Terran shows some genius use of FF against defending Terran bunkers, and it's cool seeing him maximize the use of FF in conjunction with Colossi.
I, for one, look forward to seeing what else these creative players can do with the FF on the canvas that is SC2.
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Insane use of Force Fields, but we'll probably see even better ones in the future.
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u got a pretty good eye though.. i think it will be used much more in the next couple months.
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It looks amazing, but isn't it really difficult to get your sentries close enough to make forcefields in the doughnut shape?
If they get too close, they get sniped, and if you have units to tank, you might end up throwing away too much of your army.
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Mc has great use of sentries.
I'm always a bit weary of using that amounts of sentries though, against some strategies sentries are near useless and they can simply cause an autoloss imo.
For example if your opponent goes mech then having such a high amount of sentries is simply terrible, against some raven/banshee pushes it can also be pretty bad.
One of the better ways to deal with this style is also simply mixing in some blue flame hellions with the MMM, sentry heavy armies are also zealot heavy by default (or light on tech) in which blueflame hellions will always do well.
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On March 05 2011 04:41 Markwerf wrote:
Mc has great use of sentries.
I'm always a bit weary of using that amounts of sentries though, against some strategies sentries are near useless and they can simply cause an autoloss imo.
For example if your opponent goes mech then having such a high amount of sentries is simply terrible, against some raven/banshee pushes it can also be pretty bad.
One of the better ways to deal with this style is also simply mixing in some blue flame hellions with the MMM, sentry heavy armies are also zealot heavy by default (or light on tech) in which blueflame hellions will always do well.
Well god, obviously you don't use sentries against mech. You don't just blindly make a bunch of sentries. And if you open a 3 gate sentry heavy army, you're still going to be able to transition out of sentries when you scout he's going mech.
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Could someone post a screenie, pretty please with sugar on top?
:3
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Could someone post a screenie, pretty please with sugar on top?
Dude, there is one posted.............................................
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On March 05 2011 02:10 thebigdonkey wrote:
Nice observation. Sentries are so so powerful in the hands of a competent GODLY player.
mc is, you know it.
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I could have sworn I saw something in the new patch notes regarding something like this...
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I main Zerg but whenenever I off raced toss against my low-mid diamond friends Ive been doing this as bm for awhile, I thought it was just too FF heavy to be used all game long as toss don't generally replenish their sentry count. Very strong for mcs 6 gate timing push with 10~ sentries though
Toss in like 3+ months will find their hidden ass power once they start adding sentries into their late game for heavy FF play
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Artosis asked him during the 3rd GSL what was the best thing to do against marauders and he just said "make a cage on them". That's what he does here to stake them and kill them all.
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On March 05 2011 03:03 1Eris1 wrote:
This looked absolutely devastating. Terran have ghosts, but I'm not sure what Zerg's response to this is
zerg have much faster units, that should help them to avoid letting the protoss draw this elaborate donut hole w/ forcefields around them
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On March 05 2011 02:34 Pyrrhuloxia wrote:I agree with MC that Toss lives and dies by FF placement - I quit protoss because I am so bad with FFs
Wise choice lol. If you can't forcefield, don't play toss.
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On March 05 2011 05:56 Zeetee wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2011 03:03 1Eris1 wrote:
This looked absolutely devastating. Terran have ghosts, but I'm not sure what Zerg's response to this is zerg have much faster units, that should help them to avoid letting the protoss draw this elaborate donut hole w/ forcefields around them
MC used this doughnut thing on July in the group stages on Xel'Naga. Literally put FFs around July's entire army and then blunk into the doughnut on top of them. It was pretty filthy.
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I remember seeing a game where someone tried to do a similar thing with FF after a vortex instead of an archon toilet (they didn't have templar tech). It sort of worked out there too but the FF has to be placed pretty damn fast and precisely around the army or else it becomes a mess and you can lose FFs in the vortex. It's good that you point out MC doing that though, I have done it in a few games to a lesser extent just my being overzealous with FFing since I'm not good at it, but when you trap those units and kill them instantly it feels pretty good even if you don't quite mean it  .
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Hey, this is a great observation. It's very MC though, because of how many more forcefields you use. Still, it's pretty neat to see!
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i also like that MC's force fields (especially against byun) are perfectly placed with no overlap, and they drop down so damn fast. i wonder if he has them slightly out of range before he shift-queues so they drop faster than he's actually clicking? usually some of my sentries are lagging behind and a key part of my wall comes up too late
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This is a cute Tactic, but does it really does it really belong in the Strategy board?
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On March 05 2011 16:59 Alphaes wrote:
This is a cute Tactic, but does it really does it really belong in the Strategy board?
I thought it was generally understood that the "Strategy" forum included discussions on both strategy and tactics. Where else would you post it?
EDIT:
Another cool thing about MC's forcefields, which is not evident in these screenshots, is that they rarely overlap. Lots of really really good protoss (squirtle, huk) overlap forcefields and use a lot more than necessary in the early game. The only P's Ive seen that consistently cast their forcefields end to end are Tester MC, and Nony. I think this is why these guys can seemingly forcefield forever no matter how many sentries they have.
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On March 05 2011 16:59 Alphaes wrote:
This is a cute Tactic, but does it really does it really belong in the Strategy board?
Last I checked, this was a place to share strategies and tactics, and there is no Tactic's board as you cutely suggest.
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On March 07 2011 09:41 ch33psh33p wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2011 16:59 Alphaes wrote:
This is a cute Tactic, but does it really does it really belong in the Strategy board? Last I checked, this was a place to share strategies and tactics, and there is no Tactic's board as you cutely suggest.
He was just being annoying..
I'm still trying to get this tactic down. Quite hard xD.
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On March 05 2011 03:01 Turgid wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2011 02:46 Wren wrote:
I was a little surprised he didn't combine that with storm. Lock a group into the circle, toss in a storm or two, and everything dies fast. He did that in the previous round, didn't he? I think he even mentioned it in an interview.
He does it in Game1 of that round, I wouldn't have noticed but I went and re-watched the VOD's after I saw this thread and it is definitely done on purpose.
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On March 05 2011 16:42 dar0za wrote:i also like that MC's force fields (especially against byun) are perfectly placed with no overlap, and they drop down so damn fast. i wonder if he has them slightly out of range before he shift-queues so they drop faster than he's actually clicking? usually some of my sentries are lagging behind and a key part of my wall comes up too late
hold f and click it's not hard.
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Seems MUCH cooler now that it has a name like "Doughnut Hole" lol but yeah i didn't realize that until you pointed it out just now :|
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You can also watch it here (storm game 1) and here (colossi game2).
hf
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Hmm, what MC seems to be doing here is similar to what used to be the FF Vortex. The trick was you would vortex units, forcefield around the vortex, and when the units returned they would be trapped. This required less FFs, but it needed a mothership.
With MC's sentry-heavy play, using pure forcefields to trap the units is viable. Only problem is if you mess up a few of those FFs, some of the units may escape.
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Nice find, KillerPenguin! Definitely insanely useful to blast bio balls from afar with colossi or storm.
Sometimes I'll do this to trap intimidating amounts of melee units and hit them with stalkers or sentries, which is another (similar) use
Divide and conquer ftw!
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Ghost will break that shit once it will be popular, with the stim nerf, protoss will rape Terran in early game since they have no chance to win without the amulet at the late game.
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On March 07 2011 23:23 SaJa wrote:
Ghost will break that shit once it will be popular, with the stim nerf, protoss will rape Terran in early game since they have no chance to win without the amulet at the late game.
Unless you micro. It's easier to get sentries than it is to get ghosts.
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On March 05 2011 03:45 Acridice wrote:
This is honestly nothing that new. The only thing is, that you're used to seeing FF's which divide the armies in half, so that you're not getting hit by all the units at once. However, in this case, MC felt he could wipe out his army outright, so instead of cutting in half he made sure they did not escape and also focused them.
So yeah, I don't think much discussion necessary. Good use of FF's. Period.
This isn't really about reducing dps of Terran (cutting army in half or making sure that bioball cant stutter step) its about maximizing your own dps. More units closer together=more damage from colossus/storm AOE on less shots
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I don't know how a toss has that many sentries when he has that many colossus out O_O Usually good terrans will keep your sentry count low and it's hard to resupply sentries once you are pumping out gas heavy units. This is the situation all toss want, but it rarely actually happens this way
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Well the biggest problem with earlier and earlier Ghost timings is that it more significantly gimps the Terran army. Terrans needs an initial hump of gas investment to get an upgraded army going, and that sort of disruption delays some other aspect of the army. While it's easy to say oh just go Ghosts, GG. There'll be less Vikings or Medivacs, or the Stim won't be there in time, etc. Not to say Ghosts aren't a worthy addition to an army, but I'd say non-Ghost alternatives would be the first priority to countering it. Perhaps timing pushes to reduce the Sentry numbers and force Forcefields. Perhaps better battle setting choices and army positioning.
Sentries are in a wonderful niche right now. They're great defensive units, save minerals for expansion, then grow better with time to provide invaluable tactical advantage. This means they're going to get nerfed.
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This dosnt seem overly impressive or creative to me he is just doing what toss do with forcefeilds, man handle your army. I dont really think there is much to discuss. I also dont really think Ghosts are all that great a unit or needed vs toss at all. Im not so sure we will be seeing them more, maybe hellions to pick off sentrys with them always lagging behind armys and being light units. That's what I would like to see atleast.
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EPT
