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Most people get ghosts against Protoss for EMP. Few people bother with nukes, and those that I have seen use it use it the wrong way in my opinion.
You shouldn't use it against the army, because it is hard to time and the army has detection most of the time anyway.
You also shouldn't use it against the nexus or mineral line. Every decent player just pulls the probes, and the nuke just scratches the shieled of both nexus and assimilators. By the time you get to drop the next it is recharged and you again do no damage. Also, mineral lines are usually protected with cannons, so cloak is useless.
So where to use it then? Very simple: against the basic production and tech. It is almost always completely unprotected by cannons and army. Also it is almost always the last place they think of checking. If you can sneak the ghost there, by drop or on foot, you can almost always get it to drop.
One nuke kills pylons. Although pylons are usually spread out, so you don't kill so many, you often can unpower critical buildings. And if someone planted a pylon field, you can drop his supply limit by 32 and more with one strike.
But the real deal of nuke usage against Protoss is the double nuke. The only Protoss buildings not killed by a double nuke are the Nexus, the Starport and the Cybernetics Core. Here a little sample of how effective this is:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/womnw.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/3aGth.jpg)
This is more or less guaranteed damage. Only the most turtly Protoss have cannon coverage in those places. Most don't have more than one observer, and that is with the army or in your base.
With this kind of damage, the late game mass warp gates of Protoss can be effectively countered. The least thing you will do if you use this strategy is to force your Protoss opponent to drastically expand the cannon coverage of his bases or to build a lot more observers.
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Buildings seem to be a pretty reasonable target. But in the heat of a battle, if you can land a nuke on the mineral line, it's so much more rewarding.
I think that buildings are the "safe" option and the probes are the "gamble", it's all about the situation and where his focus is.
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I agree with this wholeheartedly. I always get so excited when watching casts of people using nukes, only to see them target the mineral line or the army and exactly as stated, it gets pulled away with little to no damage.
(although the mineral line nuke is awesome if they dont see it in time).
Good idea, especially targeting pylons, as I don't think a nuke one shots any other toss buildings. maybe nuke-assimilator harass and gas starve the toss 
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On May 18 2011 05:02 galtdunn wrote:e nuke-assimilator harass and gas starve the toss
That is insane. That is the deep end of insane. You'd never reach any kind of cost efficiency even if you chain nuked every assimilator until the end of the game. But thats moot, after one nuke detection usually arrives.
Production structures are where its at.
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My friend had a 50-kill Ghost from ONE nuke in a team game... we countered into the enemy's base at the same time we launched a defensive nuke.
Nukes are best launched in the heat of battle... or while harassing elsewhere. Searching for that red dot can be extremely time-consuming, and it usually panics people enough to make a mistake elsewhere.
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Here's a bo thread that uses this fact to make a nuke rush to kill all of a toss's gates 
It was made all the way back in October 2010.
FE Double Nuke
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one thing I did in BW was to emp buildings prior to nuking them with the sci vessle.. as far as i remember, i could drop anything with an emp+nuke. Have you experimented with this at all?
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use it to move your tanks forward, then cancel the nuke at the last second (or pull back and let it land if toss tries to attack)
no need to slowly leapfrog tanks, use the cover of a nuke - noone attacks into a nuke.
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On May 18 2011 05:17 TheSambassador wrote:
Nukes are best launched in the heat of battle... or while harassing elsewhere. Searching for that red dot can be extremely time-consuming, and it usually panics people enough to make a mistake elsewhere.
True. This particular double nuke was planted while I was chasing him back across the map. I sent the medivac there while he was attacking my front in the hopes of doing some serious damage while he is occupied with breaking me. But I repelled him easier than expected because EMP+Tank is good.
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On May 18 2011 05:22 bri9and wrote:
one thing I did in BW was to emp buildings prior to nuking them with the sci vessle.. as far as i remember, i could drop anything with an emp+nuke. Have you experimented with this at all?
EMP only does 100 shiled damage in SC2. Good enough for most units, but not for buildings. EMP + double double nuke would kill a Cyber Core though. Probably not worth it.
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You can also do something similar in TvT. Most terran players are a little OCD about supply depot placement, and will put all of their depots in a neat arranged section of their base. 1-Nuke on that area and they are going to be terribly, terribly supply blocked.
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On May 18 2011 05:26 Klystron wrote:
You can also do something similar in TvT. Most terran players are a little OCD about supply depot placement, and will put all of their depots in a neat arranged section of their base. 1-Nuke on that area and they are going to be terribly, terribly supply blocked.
Terrans usually have better turret coverage though, and also they usually have a little force at the rally point near the production. Protoss doesn't usually have any detection there, and their army is warped in out in the field. Against terran I use nukes mainly to break siege lines or against isolated planetaries.
Against Zerg I use them to kill larva and eggs. Very strong in combination with overlord hunting. You should see the players rage when they have 2000+ resources but can't build any army while you push.
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i recently played a 40min game or so on shakuras vs a T. the guy went for nuke harass too and all the time i outplayed him and dodged/kill all the nukes, killed his army multiple times but often couldnt get the final blow, then i missed one nuke, bam on my army, almost everything gone and i lost 
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I wouldnt go so far to say nukes are useless on mineral lines. I think you're better off nuking the mineral line unless you can kill at least 2 pylons and 1 production facility per nuke. Fully saturated bases pull in about 16 minerals/gamesec, and 4 gas/gamesec. 20 gamesec of delayed harvesting = 320 minerals, 80 gas. Not bad considering the nuke is 100/100, distracts the opponent, and is guarenteed to kill the two probes stuck in the gysers when the opponent pulls probes. You dont need to kill a bajillion probes and pylons for it to be cost effective.
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nukes can be very good against protoss in 3v3 and 4v4. especially when there is no terran to scan.
nuke greatly add to chaos when there is a wide area to cover with multiple expansions.
I have had a lot of success using nukes when there are 2 or more protoss in masters league team games.
I typically Target mineral lines but if I see a big clump of gateways I will definitely go for it next time.
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On May 18 2011 07:34 kNightLite wrote:
I wouldnt go so far to say nukes are useless on mineral lines. I think you're better off nuking the mineral line unless you can kill at least 2 pylons and 1 production facility per nuke. Fully saturated bases pull in about 16 minerals/gamesec, and 4 gas/gamesec. 20 gamesec of delayed harvesting = 320 minerals, 80 gas. Not bad considering the nuke is 100/100, distracts the opponent, and is guarenteed to kill the two probes stuck in the gysers when the opponent pulls probes. You dont need to kill a bajillion probes and pylons for it to be cost effective.
I think 20sec is quite optimistic, especially with better players. 10sec sounds more like it ... and that is borderline from the cost perspective.
The thing is, when you target buildings, you know your target and what it kills. You see the kill radius in the pictures ... and there the buildings were pretty spread out. Getting 4 buildings and a few pylons is pretty much guaranteed, more is quite possible, you just need to find the spots. And if you get a robo or forge or any of the other buildings that have queues, you also very likely will kill whatever is producing.
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On May 18 2011 07:57 imbecile wrote:Show nested quote +On May 18 2011 07:34 kNightLite wrote:
I wouldnt go so far to say nukes are useless on mineral lines. I think you're better off nuking the mineral line unless you can kill at least 2 pylons and 1 production facility per nuke. Fully saturated bases pull in about 16 minerals/gamesec, and 4 gas/gamesec. 20 gamesec of delayed harvesting = 320 minerals, 80 gas. Not bad considering the nuke is 100/100, distracts the opponent, and is guarenteed to kill the two probes stuck in the gysers when the opponent pulls probes. You dont need to kill a bajillion probes and pylons for it to be cost effective. I think 20sec is quite optimistic, especially with better players. 10sec sounds more like it ... and that is borderline from the cost perspective, even when assuming full saturation. The thing is, when you target buildings, you know your target and what it kills. You see the kill radius in the pictures ... and there the buildings were pretty spread out. Getting 4 buildings and a few pylons is pretty much guaranteed, more is quite possible, you just need to find the spots. And if you get a robo or forge or any of the other buildings that have queues, you also very likely will kill whatever is producing.
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You know what's funny?
I've played nearly 2000 1v1 ladder matches as Protoss on a fairly highish level and I have never, not once, seen a nuke aside from a team game.
If I was a Terran player I'd definitely start nuking more in the mid-late game.
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im gonna start makin double robo against terran from now on just so i can constantly be making observers out of one of them
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I'm protoss, and honestly this has always terrified me. But I have NEVER been nuked in a league match! The only thing i can think of is that the cost of the ghosts, cloaking, 2 ghost buildings, and 2 nukes would weaken the terran main army so much that it could cost him the game. But if the terran is playing a turtley mech build, or just has a lot of tanks? Could definitely work.
Do people realize how impossible it is for protoss to stop this? It's true, nobody cannons those areas. If they do, approach from another angle. The only other detection is observers, which need to be in position to be useful, and can be killed so easily. Scan or EMP to reveal the observers, bring a spare ghost, and kill any obs that approach. 40 HP, light unit. These nukes, done well, are nearly impossible to stop, even when I know they're coming.
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EPT
